Twentieth Century Jews

Prof. Monty Noam Penkower has once again presented readers with a fascinating volume that focuses on a pivotal period in the modern Jewish experience. With chapters ranging from the Kishinev Pogrom of 1903, through an exploration of figures of secular and religious Jewish stature in the United States such as Justice Felix Frankfurter and Rabbi Abraham Selmanowitz, and up to a discussion of controversial political activists in Palestine such as Haim Arlosoroff and Shlomo Ben-Yosef, Penkower keeps readers spellbound with the depth and breadth of his knowledge. Drawing on archival material found on three continents, he has created a multidimensional picture of Jewish life in Europe, the United States and Israel during the first decades of the twentieth century, and captured the essence of the social, political, religious and economic dilemmas which world Jewry faced during those fateful years. He introduces us to the protagonists of his story in an extremely readable fashion, and skillfully guides us through their deliberations and decisions, giving us a sense of being privy to the behind-the-scenes activities in all cases. Reading this book is a must for anyone interested in understanding some of the complexities of the Jewish twentieth century experience. --Judy Baumel-Schwartz, Chair of the Graduate Program in Contemporary Jewry, Department of Jewish History, Bar-Ilan University|Twentieth Century Jews portrays critical movements and leading personages in the era's two fastest growing centers of Jewish life. It illuminates both the issues that shaped Jews in America and Israel, and the great questions that continue to divide them.--Jonathan D. Sarna, Joseph H. & Belle R. Braun Professor of American Jewish History, Brandeis University|This is a wide-ranging, deeply researched, carefully constructed series of studies dealing with significant subjects and personalities that adds considerably to our understanding of the major issues that confronted the Jewish people in the twentieth century. Its twin foci are American Jewry and developments in the Land of Israel. With regard to both, Penkower is a wise and erudite analyst, and a suggestive scholarly interpreter. --Steven T. Katz, Director, Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, Alvin J. and Shirley Slater Chair in Jewish and Holocaust Studies, Boston University|"'Twentieth Century Jews' takes the long way around the identity journey--and it's well worth the trip"--Jerome Chanes, The Forward|Monty Noam Penkower, Twentieth Century Jews: Forging Identity in the Land of Promise and in the Promised Land (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010), 420 pp.In Twentieth Century Jews, Monty Penkower has published a series of essays centered around a central theme: Jews in the first half of the twentieth century carved out their Jewish identities and understood what it means to be Jewish in Book Reviews ways that were very different from each other. By exploring both biographical studies of individuals and how groups of Jews responded to particular historical events, Penkower shows how these different perspectives of Jewishness often led to tensions that erupted among Jews. While most of the essays focus on Jews in America and in British Mandatory Palestine, the first essay discusses how Jews responded to the Kishinev Pogrom in 1903. The Kishinev Pogrom is presented as a defining moment of the twentieth century because of the varied responses Jews had to it. Not only did it spark a massive emigration of Jews from Russia and spur American Jews to act on behalf of their Russian brethren, but it also had a profound affect on Zionists, many of whom became more militant.When Penkower turns to America, he offers studies of three very different individuals. A biographical study of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Selmanovitz portrays him as representative of the large number of Orthodox Jews who immigrated to America from eastern Europe during the early twentieth century. After living in Manhattan, Selmanovitz eventually moved his family to Williamsburg, where he emerged as the leading Orthodox rabbi in the area. But Penkower seems most interested in the rabbi’s children, some of whom followed a traditional Orthodox lifestyle while others assimilated as they embraced American culture. The story of the assimilated American Jew is examined further in studies of Justice Felix Frankfurter and Arthur Hays Sulzberger. Penkower argues that Frankfurter struggled to balance his American and Jewish identities. In public, Frankfurter sought to present himself as an American. Penkower suggests, though, that “his ambivalence about” his Jewish identity “crept into” some of his Supreme Court opinions (106). Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times from 1935–1961, also had an ambivalent sense of his Jewish identity, according to Penkower. In addition to these biographical studies, Penkower also examines the origins of the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, especially its founder, Morris Lazaron. Penkower argues that members of this organization were anxious about the effects Zionism would have on their efforts to assimilate into American culture.In discussing the Jewish experience in British Mandatory Palestine, Penkower looks for meaning in the difficult and sometimes tragic events involving particular famous individuals. Why did Hayim Bialik, the most well-known Hebrew poet of his day, become so bitter during his years in Palestine? What we discover is that as he saw a new generation of Zionists—especially Revisionists—emerge in the 1920s and 1930s, he became increasingly worried that Zionism had become devoid of Judaism. This essay illuminates the diversity within the Zionist movement. Perhaps more than any other essay in his book, the examination of the murder of Haim Arlosoroff reveals the bitter divisions among Zionists. Penkower not only highlights the intense conflict between Labor and Revisionist Zionists during the 1930s but also how the controversies 78 • American Jewish Archives Journal surrounding the murder of Arlosoroff affected the ongoing battles between Labor and Likud into the 1990s. The conflict between Labor and Revisionists is further illustrated in an essay on Shlomo Ben-Yosef, a young Revisionist Zionist executed by the British for being part of a failed attack on an Arab bus in 1938. Penkower demonstrates in meticulous detail not only why Labor Zionists and Revisionist Zionists responded so differently, but how the Herut party and later the Likud party invoked the execution of Ben-Yosef for their own political purposes. The conflicts that emerged among Zionists are also examined in Penkower’s study of two Orthodox Zionist organizations during the 1920s and 1930s, the Mizrachi religious Zionist organization and Agudas Israel. Penkower’s research is thorough. His overall argument, that American Jews have struggled historically to balance their American and Jewish identities, and that the opposing understandings of Zionism among Zionists have led Jews in Israel to intensely bitter conflicts, is convincing partly because his evidence in support is so exhaustive.In many of the essays, however, the writing is too detailed. In his essay on Rabbi Selmanovitz, for example, Penkower spends five pages summarizing the life stories of each of Selmanovitz’s eight children, leaving the reader wondering why we need to know all of these details. Penkower’s essays are also focused on men exclusively, creating the impression that the construction of Jewish identity in the twentieth century, and the conflicts among Jews that they ignited, revolved solely around men. Women played extremely significant roles in the history of Jews in the twentieth century, and that they are absent in this book is a glaring omission.That said, Twentieth Century Jews, in exploring the variety of Jewish identities that emerged during the last century, provides an interesting lens through which we can try to understand the Jewish experience in the twenty-first century.Daniel Kotzin is an associate professor at Medaille College in Buffalo. His publications include Judah L. Magnes: An American Jewish Nonconformist.