Jewish Questions and the Global South: Between Sovereignty and Human Rights

Jewish Questions and the Global South: Between Sovereignty and Human Rights

Organisatoren
the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
PLZ
9103401
Ort
Jerusalem
Land
Israel
Fand statt
In Präsenz
Vom - Bis
16.05.2022 - 18.05.2022
Von
Taili Hardiman, History, The Hebrew University in Jerusalem

„Jewish Questions and the Global South: Between Sovereignty and Human Rights” marked the inaugural conference of the Jacob Robinson Institute for the History of Individual and Collective Rights at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. With its focus on interwar debates on minority rights and postwar struggles for independence, the conference proved a particularly suitable venue for discussions of Jewish political engagement in post-imperial African, South American, and Asian contexts, as well as the tension between competing quests for national sovereignty and universal visions of global governance.

The first panel focused on Jewish voices and networks in French and British imperial contexts. AMOS LIM WEI WANG (Haifa) showed how political shifts such as the Farhud of Iraq drastically affected Baghdadi Jews living in the port cities of British colonies in Asia. As „middlemen” between colonial administrations and the local population, Baghdadi Jews continually fashioned their identities vis-à-vis the benefits and risks of assimilation against the backdrop of decolonization. Identity and assimilation were also prominent themes in the two papers given by JAKOB ZOLLMANN (Berlin) and YAEL ATTIA (Potsdam), who both discussed the works and ideas of the French-Tunisian intellectual Albert Memmi. Through Memmi’s autofictional writing, Zollman showed how urban Tunisian Jews confronted local power hierarchies. The struggle for independence was different for the Jewish minority than for the Muslim majority of French Tunisia. Attia suggested to embrace Memmi’s claim that he „belonged to no one” and understand this liminality as „a challenge to the paradigmatic experience of both colonial subjects and Jews.” The liminality Memmi experienced, Attia argued, indicates connections between modern Jewish thought and post-colonial studies.

The second panel reflected on the motivations behind, and the memory of, the exodus of Jews from French colonies. In his paper, YUVAL TAL (Jerusalem) argued that inter-ethnic hostility between Jews and Muslims on material and class grounds led to a pessimistic appraisal of the Jews’ future in colonial Algeria. It was these tensions, and not (only) Jews’ attachment to France, that underpinned their departure from Algeria. On the other side of the coin, YOUNES YASSNI (Tétouan) presented two documentary films: Younes Laghrari’s „Moroccan Jews: Destinies Undone”, and Kamal Hachkar’s „Tinghir–Jerusalem: Echoes from the Mellah,” and through them examined the politics of memory surrounding the Jewish exodus from post-independence Morocco. Yassni suggested that the resurgence of Jewish memory in Morocco points to the dualities that inhere in Jewish-Moroccan and Moroccan identity.

The second day of the conference opened with a panel discussing how stories of Holocaust survivors were entangled with the ideologies of an emerging post-war order. SARA HALPERN (Northfield, MN) examined the impact of decolonized Shanghai on the Jewish refugees in the city. Halpern showed how these refugees suffered from being caught between the pressures of Chinese anti-imperialism and the global governance imagined by international refugee organizations. Similar tensions between local and international refugee systems were reflected in the paper given by CHIARA RENZO (Florence). Renzo demonstrated how the United Nations refugee organization rejected applications submitted by Libyan Jewish refugees in Italy (1948-49). She argued that a Eurocentric vision inhering in the post-World War II international refugee regime deprived the Jews fleeing Libya of international protection. Last, DARIA MICCOLI (Venice) presented a little-known chapter in Jewish history, telling the story of Jewish migrants from the Aegean Island of Rhodes to Belgian Congo. Miccoli examined the Rhodesli diaspora’s socio-legal identities — Ottoman, Greek, and Italian — and how this compound identity complicates our understanding of citizenship and statelessness in the twentieth century.

Statelessness was a recurrent theme in papers of the next panel as well. In the words of MIRIAM RÜRUP (Potsdam), the panel discussed the ways „Jewish statelessness was tied up with other forms of statelessness.” Rürup, in her paper, examined the postwar conventions of 1954 and 1961, which specified the legal implications of statelessness, showing how a universalist approach to statelessness entailed more challenges than solutions. Next, JULIA SCHULTE-WERNING (Vienna) and JACOB EDER (Berlin) provided case studies of Jewish organizations engaged in humanitarian relief within colonial contexts. On the basis of photo albums depicting the work of the Jewish health organization Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE), Schulte-Werning showed how the Moroccan division of the internationally operating organization provided the local Jewish population with preventive health care and hygienic education. The OSE’s motivations were entangled with Morocco’s process of decolonization, as well as with the migration of Morrocan Jews to Israel. In his paper, Eder traced the efforts of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in the 1970s to aid non-Jewish refugees in Southeast Asia. Eder pointed out how the plight of Asian refugees resonated with Holocaust survivors and thus mobilized and motivated the AJC’s efforts and how the idea of helping non-Jewish refugees led to unprecedented discussions on the concept of Jewish humanitarian relief.

In the third panel of the day, LUDWIG DECKE (Madison) and LEONEL CARACIKI (Be’er Sheva) continued discussing the AJC’s responses to questions around humanitarian aid. Decke argued that the AJC accepted the imperialist order of the interwar period and made strategic decisions to align Jewish interests with those of the Western powers. Caraciki argued that, in the face of the Third-World politics of the 1970s, the AJC’s articulation of American Jewish liberalism was a juggling act between Zionism and a demand for a more profound commitment to a liberal-universalist perspective on international politics. Last, JACLYN GRANICK (Cardiff) showed that, throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Jewish women were steadfastly committed to human rights and minority rights and employed their international NGO and feminist networks to promote these rights.

In the last panel of the day, LAURA ALMAGOR (Sheffield) portrayed the Jewish Territorialist movement, first established in 1905 in the wake of the Zionist Uganda controversy. Almagor charted the Territorialist movement’s intellectual trajectory from its origins as an explicitly colonial project to its moral self-identification as part of the post-1945 decolonizing world order. THOMAS R. PRENDERGAST (Jerusalem) and RONI MIKEL-ARIELI (Jerusalem) then described how Jewish social scientists perceived this transition from colonialism to post-colonialism. Prendergast showed how, in the postwar period, influenced by their experiences in nationalist Europe, Jewish social anthropologists argued for a more thorough devolution of power and adopted „indirect rule” as the model for a new global order based on sub- and transnational sovereignty. In a similar vein, Mikel-Arieli discussed Jewish South African sociologist Leo Kuper and showed how his anti-apartheid activism informed his establishment of a discipline that employed a comparative approach in the study of the Holocaust and genocide.

The last day of the conference opened with a panel dedicated to Jewish political engagement in Cold-War South America. MICHAEL ROM (Cape Town) described the involvement of Brazilian Jewish students in the struggle against the country’s military dictatorship (1964-85). Rom argued that these students' activism reflected their desire for belonging in academic institutions, clandestine political organizations, and the revolutionary ethos of the 1960s generation, which took its ideological cues from insurgent movements in Algeria, Cuba, and Vietnam. Similarly, MARTINA L. WEISZ (Jerusalem) showed how anti-imperialist movements across the globe had a profound influence on Argentinian Jewish youth. Unlike their non-Jewish fellows, Argentinean Jews found themselves torn between the socialist and Zionist traditions on the one hand and, on the other, a universalist, prophetic call for redemptive justice. GUSTAVO GUZMÁN (Potsdam/Tel Aviv) outlined the triangular relationship that emerged between the Pinochet regime, Israel, and the Jews of Chile. Guzmán demonstrated how Pinochet created friendly ties with Chilean Jewish communities, viewing them as potential contributors to the Chilean economy and bridges to American politics and Israel. The paper pointed to the challenging question of how to engage with the role of Jews in dictatorial regimes after World War II.

The next panel discussed the implications of Israel’s transition from outpost of the British Empire to independent nation-state. REPHAEL STERN (Harvard) reflected on the memory of the British Mandatory legal past among Israeli judges, lawyers, and litigants. Stern showed how they developed two ways of looking at the past: one that presumed legal continuity and one that understood 1948 as a chance for a new legal system. While the latter approach demanded a radical break, the former allowed for building on the past. Where Stern reflected on the colonial legacy of the Israeli legal system, JOHANNES BECKE (Heidelberg) and AVI SHILON (New York) looked at how the circumstances of Mandatory Palestine created specific cultural meeting points. They used the prism of „creolization” to understand the contingent process of transculturation between European Jews, Middle Eastern Jews, and Palestinian Arabs in the mid-twentieth century. They posited that, after the long period of „creolization” between Ashkenazi settler-immigrants and native Palestinian Arabs under Ottoman and British rule, Israel’s state-founding elites aimed at top-down Europeanization and „decreolization.” Cultural meeting points beyond the borders of Israel appeared in AMIT LEVY’s (Jerusalem) paper on the Hebrew University’s School of Oriental Studies. Levy showed that the production of academic knowledge on Asian and African countries was embedded in the Israeli government’s attempts to construct cultural ties with those countries and to promote Israeli interests in those regions.

The day’s third panel constellated around „apartheid,” both as a political reality in South Africa and as a charge against Israel and Zionism. ANNE HERZBERG (Jerusalem) traced the history of this charge, showing how it was invoked in different UN legal frameworks in the attempt to characterize Zionism as a threat to the international legal order. ROTEM GILADI (London) showed that Israel articulated a stance towards South African apartheid already upon its entry into the UN in 1949. Its stance was equivocal, Giladi argued, and this equivocation – the simultaneous resistance to and silence on apartheid – was rooted in the elusiveness of Jewish identity and its iterations in South Africa.

This duality within Zionism with regard to political developments in the global south was a major theme also in the conference’s last panel. ARIE DUBNOV (Washington D.C.) outlined how the Zionist encounter with decolonizing Asia was imbued with, and further fostered, an intra-Zionist discord, whereby Zionist thought (and practice) swung between perceptions of the Jewish national project as a „Western” one and conceptions that emphasized the Jews' semitic „Easternness.” Presenting a particular Jewish encounter with decolonizing Asia, LUTZ FIEDLER (Potsdam) gave a portrait of three Israeli activists who supported the Algerian Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). These activists hoped that their support would provide a new, non-Zionist foundation for Israel’s existence, one that would gain recognition within the Arab world. Last, ZARIN ASCHRAFI (Leipzig) discussed how young Jews in Western Europe’s New Left accommodated the emerging anti-Zionism in their ranks. One way, Aschrafi posited, was the reincorporation of Borochov’s theoretical work as an answer to the Israel-Palestine conflict. This rearticulation of Labor Zionism was informed by these young Jews’ attempts to connect universal political ideas with the particular Jewish experience of living and existing in post-war Western Europe.

The concluding discussion was comprised of suggestions for further thought at the institute and beyond. For example, participants noted the prevalence of the concept of class and gender in the histories of Jews in colonial contexts which should be further considered to fully understand how Jewish politics reacted to decolonization processes. Another important point brought up by multiple conference participants was the need for further study not only of Jewish self-perceptions but also of how Jews were regarded by others and how Jews perceived themselves through this external conception. It was remarked that the concepts global history, microhistory, and global microhistory can contribute to these conversations. Global microhistory in particular was deemed a suitable approach to do justice to the simultaneities shaping networks across colonial contexts as a way to recognize the various individuals behind larger political decisions, along with their backgrounds and particular agendas.

Conference overview:

Greetings and Opening Remarks

Iris Nachum (Jerusalem) / Nissim Otmazgin (Jerusalem) / Aya Elyada (Jerusalem) / Rebekka Grossmann (Jerusalem)

Part I: Imperial Rule and Postcolonial Nationalism

Session 1: Colonial Framings: Algiers, Tunis, and Baghdad
Chair: Rebekka Grossmann (Jerusalem)

Amos Lim Wei Wang (Haifa): Baghdadi Middlemen in Asia – The Post-Imperial Experience

Jakob Zollmann (Berlin): The Maghrebian Experience – Albert Memmi and the Highdays of Colonialism

Yael Attia (Potsdam): Jewish Thought from the Global South – Encounter with Albert Memmi

Session 2: Reflecting the Colonial
Chair: David Guedj (Jerusalem)

Younes Yassni (Tétouan): Lieu de Mémoire and Travail de Mémoire – Jewish Screenings in Post-Independence Morocco

Yuval Tal (Jerusalem): The1962 Jewish Exodus from Algeria – Social and Political Origins

Session 3: Refuge and Mobility
Chair: Manuela Consonni (Jerusalem)

Chiara Renzo (Florence): Care and Relief – Libyan Jews and the International Refugee Regime

Dario Miccoli (Venice): „Congo, Tierra Prometida?’ – Jews of Rhodes between Holocaust and Decolonization

Sara Halpern (Northfield, MN): On Chinese Goodwill – Jews in Post-Treaty Port Shanghai

Part II: Jewish Politics and the Global South

Session 1: Humanitarianism in Colonial Contexts
Chair: Moshe Sluhovsky (Jerusalem)

Miriam Rürup (Potsdam): Jewish Questions at the UN – the Postwar-Conventions on Statelessness (1954 and 1961)

Julia Schulte-Werning (Vienna): A Panorama of Care – Jewish Medical Humanitarianism in North Africa

Jacob Eder (Berlin): “Boat People” – Jewish Refugee Aid in Southeast Asia

Session 2: Jewish Internationalism and the „Third World’
Chair: Eli Lederhendler (Jerusalem)

Jaclyn Granick (Cardiff): Jewish Women and Human Rights – The UN-System Reconsidered

Ludwig Decke (Madison): Prolonging Empire – American Jews, Colonialism and the Post-Holocaust Global Order

Leonel Caraciki (Be’er Sheva): “Faith Worth Acting On” – The American Jewish Committee and “Third World” Politics

Session 3: A Jewish Nation in the New World Order
Chair: Rotem Geva (Jerusalem)

Thomas R. Prendergast (Jerusalem): Indirect Rule and Imperial Reform – On Jewish Social Anthropologists

Laura Almagor (Sheffield): Reinvention at Bandung – Jewish Territorialism’s Colonial Metamorphosis

Roni Mikel-Arieli (Jerusalem): Apartheid, Holocaust and Genocide – On Leo Kuper’s Legacy

Session 4: The Other South – Cold War, New Left, and Jews
Chair: Jonathan Dekel-Chen (Jerusalem)

Michael Rom (Cape Town): Our Generation – Jewish Students and the Brazilian Armed Struggle

Martina L. Weisz (Jerusalem): Zionism, Revolution, and Social Mobility – The Argentinian Experience

Gustavo Guzmán (Potsdam/Tel Aviv): Pinochet and the Jews – Telling a Cold-War Story

Part III: Between Empire and Nation-State

Session 1: (Anti-) Colonial Spaces
Chair: Amos Goldberg (Jerusalem)

Rephael Stern (Harvard): Israeli Law, the British Mandatory Past, and the Search for Post-Colonial Legal Sovereignty

Johannes Becke (Heidelberg)/ Avi Shilon (New York): Caribbean Zion – Jewish-Israeli Creolized Cultures

Amit Levy (Jerusalem): The Diplomacy of Israeli Oriental Studies – The Early Years

Session 2: Israel in Africa
Chair: Louise Bethlehem (Jerusalem)

Rotem Giladi (London): Between Jewish Sovereignty and Indian Minority – Israel and the Question of Apartheid at the UN, 1949-1952

Anne Herzberg (Jerusalem): The Apartheid Charge – Historical Evolution and the Quest of International Law

Session 3: From Israel to Algeria and Back
Chair: Ofer Ashkenazi (Jerusalem)

Arie Dubnov (Washington D.C.): (A)part from Asia – Zionist Perceptions of the East, 1947-1956

Lutz Fiedler (Potsdam): Algerian Echoes – Israeli Debates on Legitimacy in Times of Crisis

Zarin Aschrafi (Leipzig): From the Jewish to the National Question: On Ber Borochov’s Late Revival

Concluding Discussion

Redaktion
Veröffentlicht am
Beiträger
Klassifikation
Weitere Informationen
Land Veranstaltung
Sprache(n) der Konferenz
Deutsch
Sprache des Berichts