Jews and Diaspora Nationalism: Writings on Jewish Peoplehood in Europe and the United States [Paperback]

The question of how to preserve, construct or transform Jewish peoplehood consumed Jewish intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Despite a rich array of writing from Jewish nationalists, liberals, and socialists about the vitality of Jewish existence in the diaspora, the key works have never been collected in a single volume, and few reliable English translations exist. This anthology brings together a variety of thinkers who offered competing visions of peoplehood within the established and developing Jewish diaspora centers of Europe and America. Writing in Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, and English, these Jewish intellectuals sought to recast Jewish existence, whether within multiethnic empires, liberal democracies, or socialist forms of government, in national terms. Volume editor Simon Rabinovitch provides an introductory essay, as well as short introductions and annotations to each document that contextualize and make accessible this wealth of primary sources for scholars and students.

SIMON RABINOVITCH is Peter T. Paul Assistant Professor, Department of History, Boston University.

Foreword Preface and Acknowledgments ?Diaspora, Nation, and Messiah: An Introductory Essay, Simon Rabinovitch ?Part I. From Haskala to National Renaissance The Eternal People, Perets Smolenskin Jews as a Spiritual (Cultural-Historical) Nation among Political Nations, Simon Dubnov The Jewish Renaissance Movement and Jewish Autonomy, Nathan Birnbaum ?Paths That Lead Away from Yidishkayt, I. L. Peretz Part II. Socialism and the Question of Jewish Peoplehood A Jew to Jews and Why Only Yiddish? Chaim Zhitlowsky The Worldwide Jewish Nation, Vladimir Davidovich Medem ?Jewish Autonomy Yesterday and Today, Jacob Lestschinsky ?The Founding Tasks of the Kultur-Lige and The Kultur-Lige, The Kultur-Lige Part III. Preservation and Reconstruction in the Republics ?Democracy Versus the Meltin