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Tuesday, August 10, 2021

In the USA the " Jewish soul " as divided as it was at the height of the immigration experience in 1905

Apart from now obscure chapters on the Yiddish press I have carefully read most of Irving Howe's " World of Our Fathers ". For now just this one thought on the Jewish immigration experience -very instructive for ALL immigrant groups here - in the USA . Way back at the turn of the century ( 1880 -1905 )there were internal ideological conflicts among Jews over Western influence, Orthodox and Reform Judaism , Yiddish culture , Zionism vs. Socialism, the hostility of " superior " German Jews in dealing with Eastern European and Russian Jews , militant atheism replacing religious fervor in the younger generation of immigrant Jews . But how many readers of " World of Our Fathers " will clearly see how passionate Jews constituted the backbone of radical socialist movements in the United States and in Europe ? And their radicalism exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917 ! But alas INTERNATIONAL SOCIALISM proved incompatible with very nationalist Zionism . ] World of Our Fathers (Published 2003)

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