East European Jews in Switzerland 3110300699, 9783110300697

Table of contents :
Introduction
Part I Migration, Politics, and Networks
Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich
Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia: Mapping the World in a Different Way
The Jewish Labor Bund in Switzerland
Some Russian Jewish Writers in Switzerland and the Valorization of Jewish Argument Style
Student Migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the Universities of Berne and Zurich, 1865-1914
Part II Individual Experiences, Switzerland, and the Literary Imagination
Kalman Marmor in Switzerland: Reconstructing a Sojourner’s Biography
East European Jewish Migration to Switzerland and the Formation of “New Women”
Ben-Ami’s Swiss Experience: Narrative and the Zionist Dream
“For the Pleasure of Life in Switzerland, I Had to Start Spitting Blood” Sholem Aleichem’s Scriptwriting Debut against the Background of the Beilis Case
Kabbalah, Dada, Communism: Meir Wiener’s Lehrjahre in Switzerland during World War I
Appendix I
Herzl and the First Congress
Appendix II
Fragments of an Unfinished Yiddish Novel
References
List of Contributors
List of Illustrations
Index

Citation preview

East European Jews in Switzerland

New Perspectives on Modern Jewish History

Edited by Cornelia Wilhelm

Volume 5

East European Jews in Switzerland

Edited by Tamar Lewinsky and Sandrine Mayoraz

Publication of this book is made possible in part by support from the Stiftung Dialogik, the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities.

ISBN 978-3-11-030069-7 e-ISBN 978-3-11-030071-0 ISSN 2192-9645 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2013 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Typesetting: Michael Peschke, Berlin Printing: Hubert & Co. GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen ♾ Printed on acid free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

East European Jewish Immigrants Between Two Worlds. A Preface* Joseph Roth turns time and again in his work to the subject of East European Jewish identity. “Eastern Jews have no home anywhere, but their graves may be found in every cemetery,” he writes in connection with the emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe.1 The first emigrations from the East European settlements began with the massacres of Jews during the Cossack and peasant uprising in Ukraine in 1648. They intensified after a number of famines and epidemics in the Russian Empire towards the end of the 1860s, reaching their peak in the “great migration” following anti-Jewish riots in the 1870s and after the mass pogroms that followed the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. The reinstatement of discriminatory legislation destroyed any hope of equality before the law in the foreseeable future, and the increasing impoverishment of ever larger sections of the Jewish population throughout Eastern Europe led to despair. Millions of Jews moved west, mostly to the USA. A small number of them also came to Switzerland. Most were just “passing through” (Passanten) – transit travelers who sometimes, however, stayed longer, and occasionally even settled permanently. Yet in addition to these, there were Jews who were living in Switzerland only temporarily, with no intention of immigrating on a permanent basis. Jewish students chose to study in Switzerland because conditions were better here than in their home countries. From the second half of the nineteenth century until the 1917 Russian Revolution there were also a number of Jewish politicians in Switzerland; these were generally members of revolutionary socialist organizations and parties that were forbidden in the countries of Eastern Europe. They hoped that neutral Switzerland would provide an environment in which they could consolidate their ranks and use their networks to influence events in Eastern Europe. It was a similar situation with writers and artists, who moved to Switzerland to escape censorship and a lack of job opportunities. Many of these people planned to return to their respective countries as soon as circumstances allowed. They had no intention of abandoning their homes in Eastern Europe; on the contrary, they wanted to help to improve conditions there. In particular, the General Jewish Labor Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, or the Bund for short, whose activities in Switzerland were very important, espoused the concept of doikayt – the right to belong to a community in the territory where the Jews had been born and raised.

* Translated by Joy Titheridge 1 Roth, Joseph. The Wandering Jews, trans. Michael Hofmann. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001, 11.

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 East European Jewish Immigrants Between Two Worlds. A Preface

Most of the immigrants came with an almost mythical image of Switzerland as a traditional haven for refugees characterized by freedom and the rule of law, peace, and the beauty of the landscape. In many respects conditions were indeed favorable. However, they did not always receive a friendly welcome. As in many Central and Western European countries, the legal equality granted Jews in Switzerland in 1866/1874 had not lessened enmity towards them, but in fact actually heightened it because of the fear of competition. Rapid economic and social change further increased the sense of threat. Many Swiss supported efforts to have the rights of the Jews scaled back again. These efforts culminated in the disputes surrounding a ban on shechita that was included in the Swiss Federal Constitution following the referendum on August 20, 1893. While hostility was sometimes very vocal and open, there was also a quieter “drawing-room anti-Semitism” that was expressed in little snide and disparaging comments and reflected an entrenched attitude that was part of the “cultural code.” In this perception the Jews were “strangers” who did not “belong.” Then came the Ostjuden. Although they were few in number – in 1910, for instance, there were around 650 Jews from the Russian Empire and Galicia living in Basel – their external appearance and religious practice often attracted attention, and warnings were sounded that Switzerland was being “overrun by foreigners.” It soon became clear that this essentially referred to all Jews. Many native Swiss Jews saw this danger. Some of them therefore responded negatively to the Jews from Eastern Europe, fearing that they would undermine the level of – highly unstable – integration that was gradually being achieved. It was only later that they realized that the objective of the opposition to Jews was not rejection of the East European Jews, but of Jews per se. In addition to anti-Jewish campaigns and discrimination, anti-Semitism fueled by the fear of “foreign infiltration” ultimately led to a Swiss refugee policy that was to cost the lives of thousands of Jews who were expelled or refused entry at the border during the “Third Reich.” A specifically Swiss anti-Semitism emerged that claimed it was seeking to prevent anti-Semitism by not allowing Jews into the country in the first place.2 In this context, the Ostjude proved to be a stereotyped image of the other, a target that could ultimately be used to attack all Jews. At the same time, however, many of the immigrants also defined themselves as Ostjuden. They generally 2 Cf. Haumann, Heiko. Wir waren alle ein klein wenig antisemitisch. Ein Versuch über historische Massstäbe zur Beurteilung von Judengegnerschaft an den Beispielen Karl von Rotteck und Jacob Burckhardt. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte 55 (2005): 196-214 (reprinted in Haumann, Heiko. Schicksale. Menschen in der Geschichte. Ein Lesebuch, 343-364. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2012). On the situation in Basel, see Kury, Patrick. Jüdische Lebenswelten in einer Zeit raschen Wandels. Ostjuden, Zionistenkongresse, Überfremdungsängste um 1900. In Acht Jahrhunderte Juden in Basel. Zweihundert Jahre Israelitische Gemeinde Basel, Heiko Haumann (ed.), 140-160. Basel: Schwabe, 2005.



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 vii

described themselves as Polish, Lithuanian, or Galician Jews, depending on the region they came from, and in larger immigrant cities like New York they formed landsmanshaftn (hometown associations) accordingly. Nevertheless, the umbrella term Ostjude had emerged over the course of the nineteenth century. They asser­ tively underscored the difference between themselves and the insipid, assimilated West European Jews, staked their claim to a homeland and the use of the Yiddish language in its respective regional form, and proudly pointed to their rich culture, their unique humor, their tradition of self-government.3 There are of course distinctions to be made here. It was possible to have given up Yiddish yet still identify as East European Jewish. And even those who had broken away from the Jewish community, perhaps becoming socialist revolutionaries, often remained conditioned by their former East European Jewish milieu, for instance with regard to a certain form of argumentation. The distinction applies equally to the “Ostjüdin.” Jewish women in Eastern Europe were traditionally confined to strict gender roles. The radical social transformation that took place in the nineteenth century meant that these roles began to shift, and more and more women broke with tradition.4 Among the migrant women in Switzerland were devout Jews who retained their traditional role, as well as women – more frequently in the public eye – who had departed from the traditional path to become students and revolutionaries. Many of the Jews from Eastern Europe who lived either temporarily or permanently in Switzerland were caught between two worlds: the one from which they came and which shaped them in many ways, and the one in which they now lived. The various influences that came together in this “in-between world” had to be processed.5 This ultimately also played an important role in the transfer of culture and knowledge from East to West and vice versa. All of these brief remarks indicate that an exploration of the lives of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in Switzerland requires approaches that are intercultural and hence also interdisciplin-

3 A history of the term Ostjude – and all its ambivalence – has yet to be written. A useful model could be: Berg, Nicolas. Luftmenschen. Zur Geschichte einer Metapher. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008. 4 Cf. Haumann, Heiko (ed.). Luftmenschen und rebellische Töchter. Zum Wandel ostjüdischer Lebens­ welten im 19. Jahrhundert. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2003. 5 Cf. Werberger, Annette. Grenzgänge, Zwischenwelten, Dritte – Der jüdische Schriftsteller und Ethnograph S. Anskij. Transversal 5/1 (2004): 62-79; Richers, Julia. Zeiten des Umbruchs und der Liminalität. Lebenswelten Budapester Juden im Vormärz. In Konzeptionen des Jüdischen: Kollek­ tive Entwürfe im Wandel, Petra Ernst, Gerald Lamprecht (eds.), 106-131. Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2009; on the “marginal man:” Haber, Peter. Zwischen jüdischer Tradition und Wissenschaft. Der ungarische Orientalist Ignác Goldziher (1850-1921), 230-235. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2006; on the concept of “contact zones:” Binnenkade, Alexandra. KontaktZonen. Jüdisch-christli­ cher Alltag in Lengnau. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2009, 23-26.

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 East European Jewish Immigrants Between Two Worlds. A Preface

ary. This is what prompted Tamar Lewinsky and Sandrine Mayoraz to organize an international research workshop on “East European Jews in Switzerland.” It was held in Basel from March 28-30, 2012. Powerful presentations and lively discussions made it evident that the chosen approach was eminently appropriate. It became clear that research in the field has provided rich findings since the first pioneering studies in the 1990s, which broke new ground with regard to both content and methodology.6 A much clearer picture emerged of the heterogeneity of the immigrant Jews in terms of their background, attitudes and behavior, and their “world of life” (Lebenswelten). Questions were also raised for future research. Many migrants in Switzerland reflected on their past in Eastern Europe, in the shtetl or elsewhere, while at the same time becoming acquainted with a new way of life here. How did this impact on their lives and activities? How did it make itself felt when they returned to Eastern Europe? How did the image that Jews had of Switzerland change? And also: How did the image that Swiss people had of “the Jews” compare, say, to their image of “the Russians,” and how did these images change? How did the different migrant groups communicate with each other – not only the Jewish groups among themselves, but also with the other East European groups? Did national conflicts, for instance between Poles and Russians, affect the East European Jews in Switzerland? How did peoples’ sense of identity, as East European Jews or otherwise, change? Can the immigrant groups be broken down into further categories? Can we map a cultural topography of East European Jewish migration in Switzerland?7 What distinguished the Swiss places of residence from those in other countries?8 Can further sources be identified? The presentations generally concentrated on the second half of the nineteenth century and the years leading up to the First World War. How did migration processes change after this time? By highlighting numerous individual aspects, the conference cast a fascinating light on the diverse world of East European Jews in Switzerland. The majority of the talks are now presented here to the public in an elaborated form. Tamar Lewinsky and Sandrine Mayoraz are also to be congratulated for this initiative. This important book represents a milestone in research on the migration of Eastern European Jews. Heiko Haumann

6 Cf. the literature review in the introduction by the two editors. 7 Cf. Richers, Julia. Jüdisches Budapest. Kulturelle Topographien einer Stadtgemeinde im 19. Jahrhundert. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2009. 8 Cf. the recent study by Saß, Anne-Christin. Berliner Luftmenschen. Osteuropäisch-jüdische Mi­ granten in der Weimarer Republik. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2012.

Contents Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz Introduction   1

Part I Migration, Politics, and Networks Stefanie Mahrer Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich   13 Vladimir Levin Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia: Mapping the World in a Different Way   35 Sandrine Mayoraz The Jewish Labor Bund in Switzerland 

 54

Gabriella Safran Some Russian Jewish Writers in Switzerland and the Valorization of Jewish Argument Style   77 Aline Masé Student Migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the Universities of Berne and Zurich, 1865-1914   100

Part II Individual Experiences, Switzerland, and the Literary Imagination Tamar Lewinsky Kalman Marmor in Switzerland: Reconstructing a Sojourner’s Biography   125 May B. Broda East European Jewish Migration to Switzerland and the Formation of “New Women”   149

Laura Salmon Ben-Ami’s Swiss Experience: Narrative and the Zionist Dream 

 178

Ber Kotlerman “For the Pleasure of Life in Switzerland, I Had to Start Spitting Blood” Sholem Aleichem’s Scriptwriting Debut against the Background of the Beilis Case   199 Mikhail Krutikov Kabbalah, Dada, Communism: Meir Wiener’s Lehrjahre in Switzerland during World War I   214 Appendix I Ben-Ami Herzl and the First Congress 

 233

Appendix II Meir Wiener Fragments of an Unfinished Yiddish Novel  References   250 List of Contributors  List of Illustrations  Index   272

 267  270

 246

Note on Transliterations The transliteration of Russian words is based on the Library of Congress rules without diacritical marks. For the transliteration of Hebrew, we have used a simplified system without diacritics. Yiddish is transliterated according to YIVO standards. Personal names appear in their most commonly used English or German form, except in the bibliographical references.

Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz

Introduction

In 1949, Jewish demographer Liebmann Hersch delivered a speech in Yiddish on the history of the Jewish community in Switzerland. In it, he ascribed to Swiss Jewry a rather marginal importance for the experience of European Jewry in modern times: “The small Jewish community in Switzerland never excelled in intellectual life: It yielded neither great rabbis nor erudite scholars, writers, artists, politicians, leaders, or the like, and it did not play any noticeable role in the general life of the Jewish people until the Second World War …” However, Hersch points out that “thanks to foreign Jews, Switzerland left deep traces in the Jewish history of the first half of the twentieth century.”1 While Liebmann Hersch – himself an immigrant from Eastern Europe and an active Bundist who had a successful career at the University of Geneva – might be partly unfair to the history and the achievements of Swiss Jewry, he highlighted an important fact: the emergence of Switzerland on the map of Jewish migration from Eastern Europe2 in the decades preceding the First World War. Due to its location at the periphery of the main trajectories of Jewish mass migration, the number of Jews from Eastern Europe passing through or temporarily settling in Switzerland was certainly minor in comparison with the massive migration flows to other destinations in Western Europe and overseas since the 1880s. However, the composition of the body of migrants who reached Switzerland in the following decades is remarkable. Switzerland was not only a transit point or final destination for Jews in search of better living conditions; the Swiss democracy with its mountainous landscape also attracted a large number of members of the Jewish intelligentsia. The relatively liberal immigration policies and the accessibility of higher education for students of both genders drew hundreds of young people who were denied university studies in their homelands. Moreover, for activists in the emerging political movements in Tsarist Russia who lived in constant danger of imprisonment, Switzerland epitomized refuge and shelter.

1 Pesach Liebmann Hersch, Yidn in der Shvayts biz der tsveyter velt-milkhome, 1949. YIVO, Lieb­ mann Hersch, RG 1461, Folder 67, 4. Emphasis in the original. 2 There is no single accurate definition of “Eastern Europe.” Geographical, political, socio-cultural and historical definitions are not congruent and even within these different domains, the definition of “Eastern Europe” is controversial. In the context of this book, Eastern Europe designates the European part of the Russian Empire at the end of the nineteenth century as well as all the territories of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that were divided between the Austrian and Russian Empires and Prussia at the end of the eighteenth century.

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 Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz

In the major university towns, Russian – in fact, mainly Russian-Jewish – “student colonies” came into existence. Berne, the Swiss capital, was home to the largest number of Jewish students in the years around the turn of the century and was the organizational center of Russian and Russian-Jewish student life in Switzerland. The vivacious and bustling activity in the colony contrasted with the more unhurried daily life of the local city dwellers. Eyed suspiciously by the Swiss, members of the young East European Jewish elite lived a life apart in which contact with their surroundings was often limited to political gatherings or random everyday encounters with landlords and fellow students. The colonies were hothouses for the negotiation and ripening of political, national, and cultural ideas. All major parties, both Jewish and non-Jewish, had their support groups organized among the students, with major exponents of modern Jewish politics and the revolutionary movements temporarily settling in Switzerland – among them Chaim Weizmann, Jacob Klatzkin, Chaim Zhitlowsky, and Vladimir Medem, to name just a few. The Bundist movement, founded in Vilna in 1897 – the same year as the First Zionist Congress in Basel – is a case in point: the Jewish socialist party established its foreign committee and publishing facilities in Geneva. Pamphlets and newspapers were smuggled illegally into the Russian Empire and impacted on the further development of the movement. In Switzerland, Liebmann Hersch argues, “the Jewish national ideas of the last generation before the First World War crystallized to a significant degree.”3 Switzerland was not only a place of refuge and exile; it was also a Sehnsuchts­ ort – a longed-for land – and a sanatorium for the fatigued combatants, as it were, of Jewish cultural and political renewal. Menahem Mendel Rosenbaum, active in smuggling pamphlets of the Socialist Revolutionaries to Russia, remembered that, when returning from one of his many missions, he found the atmosphere of the free republic to be very agreeable: “After the Russian frontier I had the feeling that the Swiss frontier was not a real frontier, but a geographical abstraction.”4 It is no surprise that the Jewish transmigrants’ physical exploration of this “island of peace” – as Yiddish poet Dovid Eynhorn described his temporary home in 19165 – reverberated in literary accounts and memoirs.6 3 Hersch, Yidn in der Shvayts. YIVO, RG 1461, Folder 67, 4. 4 Rosenbaum, Menahem Mendel. Erinerungen fun a sotsyalist-revolutsyoner [Memoirs of a Socialist Revolutionary], vol. 1. New York: Dr. Kh. Zhitlovski-farlag, 1921, 202. 5 Cf. Kuperman, Shifra. “Di Fraie Stime” – “La Voix Libre.” Einsamkeit und Sehnsucht auf der literarischen Insel: Die jiddische Exilzeitung “di fraye stime” 1916-1917 (unpublished paper presented at the workshop). 6 This phenomenon is well-documented for the general Russian migration to Switzerland (see e.g. Bankowski, Monika (ed.). Asyl und Aufenthalt: die Schweiz als Zuflucht und Wirkungsstätte von Slaven im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1994;

Introduction 

 3

Since the 1990s, scholars have been increasingly interested in the early immigration of East European Jews to Switzerland. Particular attention has been given to the subject in the context of Swiss policies on Jews qua foreigners and on the tensions between “liberalism and anti-Jewish traditions.”7 While liberal immigration laws attracted more foreigners than any previous time in the history of the federal state (restrictions on immigration with a distinctly anti-Semitic bias were implemented after the First World War), the opposition of the young Willens­ nation (a nation forged by the will of the people, referring to Switzerland) to the growth of the Jewish community became apparent in anti-Semitic discourses and culminated in the initiative to ban ritual slaughter, which successfully added the prohibition of shechita to the constitution in 1893.8 Several case studies provide us with detailed information on the structural, social, and everyday history of Jewish immigrants and transmigrants, as well as on the tensions between East European and Swiss Jews.9 While these studies mainly focus on economic migration, research on the pioneering role of female Russian students has shed light on elite migration also.10 However, these studies Bankowski, Monika, Peter Brang, Carsten Goehrke, Robin Kemball (eds.). Fakten und Fabeln: schweizerisch-slavische Reisebegegnung vom 18. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert. Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1991). 7 Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences, Nationalistic and Anti-Semitic Reflexes: Migration and Jewish Life Worlds in Switzerland in 1900. In Jewish Migration and Integration to the Metrop­ olises of Europe, 1848-1918, Haar, Ingo (ed.). New York: Berghahn Books, 2013 (forthcoming). 8 Kury, Patrick. Über Fremde reden. Überfremdung und Ausgrenzung in der Schweiz 1900-1945. Zurich: Chronos, 2003; Kamis-Müller, Aaron. Antisemitismus in der Schweiz 1900-1930. 2nd ed. Zurich: Chronos, 2000; Krauthammer, Pascal. Das Schächtverbot in der Schweiz 1854-2000. Die Schächtfrage zwischen Tierschutz, Politik und Fremdenfeindlichkeit. Zurich: Schulthess, 2000; Mattioli, Aram. Die Schweiz und die jüdische Emanzipation. In Antisemitismus in der Schweiz 1848-1960, Aram Mattioli (ed.), 61-82. Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1998; Mesmer, Beatrix. Das Schächtverbot von 1893. In Antisemitismus in der Schweiz 1848-1960, Aram Mattioli (ed.), 215-240. Zurich: Orell Füssli, 1998. 9 Especially Kury, Patrick. “Man akzeptierte uns nicht, man tolerierte uns!” Ostjudenmigration nach Basel 1890-1930. Basel: Helbing und Lichtenhahn, 1998, and Huser Bugmann, Karin. Schtetl an der Shil. Einwanderung, Leben und Alltag der Ostjuden in Zürich 1880-1939, Zurich: Chronos, 1998. For more information on the history of Jews in Switzerland see the annotated bibliography by Erik Petry in: Haber, Peter, Erik Petry, Daniel Wildmann (eds.). Jüdische Identität und Nation. Fallbeispiele aus Mitteleuropa. Cologne: Böhlau, 2006. 10 Neumann, Daniela. Studentinnen aus dem russischen Reich in der Schweiz (1867-1914). Zurich: Hans Rohr Verlag, 1987; Wecker, Regina. Basel und die Russinnen. Exkurs über eine nicht zustande gekommene Beziehung. In 100 Jahre Frauen an der Uni Basel: “d’Studäntin kunnt!”. Katalog zur Ausstellung von HistorikerInnen und StudentInnen der historischen Seminars der Uni­ versität Basel, 84-92. Basel: Historisches Seminar der Universität Basel, 1991; Rogger, Franziska, Monika Bankowski. Ganz Europa blickt auf uns! Das schweizerische Frauenstudium und seine russischen Pionierinnen. Baden: Hier+Jetzt, 2010.

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 Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz

do not pay specific attention to Jews among the student body. The same is true of studies on the international socialist organization, whose Jewish members did not necessarily identify as Jewish.11 Switzerland as a (transitory) place of sojourn has also been researched as part of biographical studies.12 The history and culture of East European Jews in Switzerland is thus increasingly being studied from a variety of different angles and, as the contributions in this volume show, integrated into the transnational framework of modern Jewish literature, modern Jewish politics, and migration history. The reconstruction of the transitory life of East European Jews is based on literary and biographical accounts as well as on a wealth of source material from organizations and individuals, scattered throughout various archives in Switzerland, the United States, Israel, and Russia. A main difficulty in coping with the wide range of source material consists in the sheer number of languages used in the documents. Memoirs, correspondences, the internal documents of political Jewish organizations and archival sources from East European countries, for instance, are mainly written in Yiddish, Russian, or Polish, while most published and unpublished memoirs as well as literary publications are written in Yiddish, Russian, or Hebrew. The examination of sources housed in Swiss archives – these include police reports, Fremdenpolizei (‘aliens’ police’) dossiers, and correspondence with institutes of higher education in Switzerland; the archives of the Jewish communities in Switzerland, which have yet to be fully examined; private letters; and the Jewish and non-Jewish Swiss press – requires a sound knowledge of German and French. It is therefore often impossible for researchers to take full advantage of all the documents that are available. The diversity of source material, the growing interest of young scholars in addressing new issues – building on the important research that has been produced over the last two decades – and new takes on Jewish transnational migration13 were the starting points for a workshop on East European Jews in Switzer11 Polexe, Laura. Netzwerke und Freundschaft: Sozialdemokraten in Rumänien, Russland und der Schweiz an der Schwelle zum 20. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: V & R unipress, 2011. 12 Krutikov, Mikhail. From Kabbalah to Class Struggle. Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010; Kuperman, Shifra. “David Einhorn: biographische Skizze.” Basel: [unpublished “Lizenziat” dissertation, University of Basel], 2000; Safran, Gabriella. Wandering Soul: the Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010; Salmon, Laura. Una voce dal deserto: Ben-Ami, uno scrittore dimenticato. Bologna: Pàtron, 1995; Zweig-Strauss, Hanna. David Farb­ stein (1868-1953): jüdischer Sozialist – sozialistischer Jude. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2002. 13 E.g. Brinkmann, Tobias. Travelling with Ballin: The Impact of American Immigration Policies on Jewish Transmigration within Central Europe, 1880-1914. International Review of Social History

Introduction 

 5

land that was held in March 2012. The aim of the conference was to bring together a group of young scholars and experienced researchers and to engage them in a cross-disciplinary dialogue on historical, literary, and cultural aspects of the entangled and diverse experiences of Jews from Eastern Europe in the Helvetic Confederation between the 1880s and the First World War. The discussions that took place during three highly productive days of interdisciplinary debate centered on a set of key questions. Switzerland’s position as a transitory refuge in the broader context of East European Jewish migration was one of the central themes. What role did it play on the map of a large-scale migration movement to Western Europe? In what sense was the migration movement to Switzerland unique and to what extent does it lend itself to a comparative approach? With regard to the emergence of political networks in the émigré communities – was Switzerland at the center or on the margins of these transnationally operating organizations? The methodological imperative of current migration research to view migration as a complex process became increasingly evident during the course of the discussions. It is essential to identify the political and social realities in the places of departure as well as the pull factors that made Switzerland an attractive destination. Moreover, research needs to be undertaken into both the local and global contexts of migration, e.g. the transfer of ideas and goods, and contact zones both within the multi-ethnic migrant communities and with the local population. Ultimately, as the comparative discussion of various biographies made clear, we need to understand Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe as a heterogeneous group that defies easy categorization. The chapters in this volume seek to illuminate various aspects of East European Jewish migration to Switzerland. They investigate the student communities as microcosms of the larger society and incubators for national and political ideas, and look at the spatial experience of life in Switzerland, gendered aspects of migration, and the formative and even transforming role Switzerland played in the life (whether personal, public or political) and work of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe. The book is organized in two parts. Part I deals with broader questions of East European Jewish migration to and through Switzerland and with transnational political organizations, networks, contact zones, and the transfer of ideas and knowledge. 53 (2008): 459-484; Dohrn, Verena (ed.). Transit und Transformation: Osteuropäisch-jüdische Mi­ granten in Berlin 1918-1939. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010; Michaels, Tony. A Fire in Their Hearts: Yiddish Socialists in New York. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005; Wolff, Frank. Eastern Europe Abroad: Exploring Actor-Networks in Transnational Movements and Migration History, the Case of the Bund. International Review of Social History 57 (2012): 229-255.

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 Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz

Part II brings together several case studies, offering an analysis of the manifold and gendered experiences of students, writers and “ordinary” immigrants. In the opening contribution of Part I, Stefanie Mahrer addresses important aspects of the economic migration of East European Jews to Switzerland. Taking as case studies the city of Zurich and the small town of La Chaux-de-Fonds, Mahrer analyzes the mostly negative perception of East European Jewish migrants by the bourgeois Swiss Jewish elites. By including the Jewish community of La Chauxde-Fonds, she broadens the scope of existing studies on intra-Jewish relations, which concentrate mainly on larger Jewish communities such as Basel or Zurich. Examining the Swiss Jewish press and the activities of Swiss Jewish philanthropic societies, she demonstrates that this negative attitude originates on the one hand in the religious, cultural, and class differences between these two groups of Jews, and, on the other, in the Swiss Jews’ fear of losing their tenuous social position in Swiss society. Vladimir Levin discusses the role of Switzerland in the broader context of Jewish political emigration from the Russian Empire. Presenting the positive and negative aspects of the different centers of political emigration where Jews from Eastern Europe converged, Levin shows why Switzerland was an important center for this political migration at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. The country had a number of advantages: safety for the political activists (guaranteed by the liberal Swiss constitution), the presence of many Russian (Jewish) revolutionaries since the 1870s, and the existence of the Russian student colonies as an important support base. However, in Switzerland there were no Jewish “masses” which could be agitated. With the Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, most of the Jewish political activists went back to the Russian Empire. After 1908 and until the First World War, Vienna emerged as the new center for Jewish political migrants from Eastern Europe, who again had to flee the reactionary Tsarist regime. While Levin locates Switzerland on the broader map of Jewish political migration networks, Sandrine Mayoraz examines the history of the Bund in Switzerland and its organizational structure. As she outlines in her essay, exiled party members built up an effective support network that operated on various local, regional, and transnational levels. Until 1917, the official representation of the Bund outside of Russia, the Foreign Committee, had its headquarters in Geneva. Arguably the most notable achievement of the Bund in Switzerland was the establishment of the Jewish printing office. Here, leaflets and information bulletins for dissemination in Russia and other countries were published for almost twenty years. Finally, Mayoraz analyzes the attitudes of the Swiss authorities towards the party’s activities and the interactions between Bundists and members of other – Russian and Swiss – Socialist parties. Although Switzerland did not have

Introduction 

 7

the potential to remain permanently on the map of modern Jewish politics, as Vladimir Levin argues, Mayoraz’s contribution shows that the Bundist organization in liberal Switzerland had an essential supporting function for the party and allowed exiled members to continue their mission. By looking at the densely knit political and intellectual life in the colonies and émigré circles, Gabriella Safran explores the valorization of Jewish speech and style of argumentation in fictional and autobiographical depictions by writers from the Russian Empire. She identifies in these texts a specific Jewish rhetoric that ultimately came to appeal to Russian Jews and non-Jews alike. Safran argues that the valorization of this speech style, initially negatively characterized in both Russia and Europe as chaotic, emotional, loud, and invariably accompanied by wild gestures, was closely linked to the experiences of the writers in Switzerland. In the Swiss university towns, they inhabited a specific linguistic and cultural contact zone and were exposed to new sensory experiences and in particular to oratory practice. Safran examines the attention given to the Jewish speech style by the intelligentsia in Switzerland and its valorization as a style of argumentation that was not only ethnic and distinctive, but also exciting and persuasive. The student colonies in Swiss university towns that are depicted in the preceding contributions as fertile soil for political and intellectual activities are at the center of Aline Masé’s paper. Swiss universities, especially those of Zurich and Berne in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, attracted hundreds of Russian-Jewish students who were denied access to higher education in the Tsarist Empire. Masé makes an important new contribution to the existing research by sketching the migration patterns and identifying the precise figures of Russian-Jewish students enrolled in the two universities of Zurich and Berne. She argues that the University of Berne was particularly attractive for Russian-Jewish students because of the two Jewish faculty members and probably also due to its lax admission policies. Drawing from various published memoirs of Russian-Jewish emigrants who spent time in Switzerland and shedding light on a range of cultural and political organizations, Masé provides insight into daily life in the student colonies and addresses the question of group cohesion among the Russian-Jewish students. Part II opens with a case study on one of these student migrants from the Pale of Settlement. In her paper, Tamar Lewinsky provides insight into the Swiss years of Kalman Marmor, who enrolled in the universities of Berne and Fribourg. Through an analysis of Marmor’s autobiographical writings and correspondence, she reconstructs the formative years Kalman Marmor spent in Switzerland, and highlights the various local and transnational contexts – cultural, political and personal – that impacted on his experience. Marmor studied in Switzerland between 1899 and 1902, and sojourned there again as a Zionist activist and jour-

8 

 Tamar Lewinsky / Sandrine Mayoraz

nalist in 1903. Unlike the majority of the Russian-Jewish students in the colonies, he showed enormous interest in the politics and culture of his temporary home, while also devoting a great deal of time to organizing the Jewish students in Berne. In November 1901 he co-founded a “Jewish club,” which marked the beginning of a specific Russian-Jewish colony. Ultimately, as the paper shows, economic, health, and emotional reasons led to Marmor’s decision to discontinue his university studies. Autobiographical accounts and unpublished papers, retrieved from public as well as private archives, also hold great potential for the reconstruction of the life of those migrants who were not necessarily political émigrés. May B. Broda demonstrates the pertinence of such sources in her article about Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, who emigrated from Kiev to Zurich with her husband and children in 1906. Her emigration to Zurich brought about great changes in her life: She founded a reform school and became the family’s main breadwinner after her husband, a wealthy engineer seventeen years her senior, lost his entire fortune in the First World War and the October Revolution of 1917 and proved incapable of adapting to a new life in Zurich. Broda shows how Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman achieved emancipation in both the private and the public domain as a result of the migration process. Switzerland figures in the biographies of many Jewish (Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian) writers, many of whom settled there temporarily or passed through the Alps. Although their stay in Switzerland was not necessarily voluntary, they often drew inspiration from the picturesque landscapes. In her analysis of Ben-Ami’s Swiss prose, Laura Salmon highlights the specific influence Switzerland had on the self-positioning of a Jewish writer from Russia. Ben-Ami, a promoter of spiritual Zionism, spent more than two decades in Geneva before eventually moving to Palestine with his family in 1924. His prose, which contains a great deal of autobiographical information, not only reflects his fondness for Switzerland – it also clarifies his stance in the debates between different Jewish ideologies. Moreover, Salmon argues, Ben-Ami’s writing from his Swiss period details his ideological and emotional cosmogony. Salmon’s close reading of two short stories and a memoir of the First Zionist Congress (given in English translation in Appendix I of this volume) reveals a dichotomous, paradoxical and melancholic worldview and Ben-Ami’s position between narrative nostalgia and the Zionist dream. The only concrete place of homecoming, the writer’s “spiritual Zion,” as it were, remained the unworldly world of Swiss nature. One of the writers Ben-Ami encountered in his Swiss exile was the classic Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, who spent extended periods with his family on the shores of Lake Geneva. Ber Kotlerman examines Sholem Aleichem’s life and work in the years immediately preceding World War I. Suffering from tuberculosis,

Introduction 

 9

Sholem Aleichem had been advised to spend part of the year in the Swiss mountain resorts. Although accompanied by his entire family, the writer repeatedly expressed his feeling that he had been forcibly estranged from his audience in Eastern Europe. Not only did Sholem Aleichem write large parts of his novel Der blutiker shpas (‘The Bloody Jest’) while living in Switzerland; it was also there that he discovered his life’s final passion – cinematography. He began adapting some of his works for the screen. Kotlerman offers an analysis of the style and contents of these adaptations as well as of the political message Sholem Aleichem hoped to transport through them. Thus, while recovering from his chronic illness in Switzerland, Sholem Aleichem explored the creative potential of an additional new medium. The years spent in Switzerland were also a formative period in the turbulent life of Meir Wiener. During the First World War, Wiener spent productive years as a student at the Universities of Basel and Zurich and as a prolific German journalist and writer. In Switzerland, he had connections with members of different circles: Jewish intellectuals, Russian revolutionaries, and artists who found a temporary refuge in neutral Switzerland. In his contribution, Mikhail Krutikov presents a detailed overview of Wiener’s Swiss years, drawing on letters to his younger sisters, Martin Buber – to whose Der Jude he contributed several articles during his stay in Switzerland, and Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook. Krutikov also analyzes the literary image of Zurich and Basel in an unfinished novel Wiener wrote in the 1930s, when he was living in the Soviet Union. Excerpts of Wiener’s manuscript are published in English translation in the Appendix of this volume. The interdisciplinary approaches and the broad variety of topics discussed in this volume demonstrate the potential of locating Switzerland on the map of Jewish migration and testify to the diversity of the experiences of East European Jews in an age of mass migration, political upheaval and dramatic modernization. Our gratitude goes first and foremost to all of the workshop participants, who contributed with their expertise, thought-provoking questions, and enriching comments to the development of new perspectives on “East European Jews in Switzerland.” Without the generous support of the Swiss National Foundation, the Stiftung Dialogik, the Freiwillige Akademische Gesellschaft, and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities, the organization of the workshop and the publication of this volume would not have been possible. Cornelia Wilhelm, the editor of this series, saw the potential of the theme well before the realization of the workshop. We owe thanks to the English editorial assistance of Amy Blau and Joy Titheridge. Finally, warm thanks to our colleagues from the Center of Jewish Studies and the Chair of East European History, especially Alfred Bodenheimer, Heiko Haumann, Erik Petry and Benjamin Schenk, for supporting this project that sees itself as a continuation of the traditional cooperation between the two fields at the University of Basel.

 Part I Migration, Politics, and Networks

Stefanie Mahrer

Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich A Discourse of Power and Fear

Introduction In this paper I will focus on the perception of East European Jews by the bourgeois Jewish elites in Zurich and La Chaux-de-Fonds. The cities of Zurich in the German-speaking part of Switzerland and La Chaux-de-Fonds in the French-speaking part have been chosen as examples for this survey for two reasons: On the one hand, the local Jewish communities in both cities consisted largely of reform-oriented, fairly wealthy and bourgeois members and can therefore lend themselves to comparison. On the other hand, the number of East European Jews migrating to the two cities differed greatly. While only ten Jewish families settled temporarily in La Chaux-de-Fonds,1 the number of Jewish migrants in Zurich was the highest anywhere in Switzerland. From 1876 to 1900, 112 migrants settled with their family members within the city limits, and between 1911 and 1917 another 7,997 East European Jews migrated to Zurich.2 From a sociocultural perspective, the cases of La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich are highly comparable, as in each case the local bourgeois Jewish community considered itself an integral part of its respective city. From a demographic point of view, the two cities differ considerably: Zurich was home to the largest East European Jewish immigrant community, whereas in La Chaux-de-Fonds the number of East European Jews was extremely small.

1 Archive of the Jewish Community La Chaux-de-Fonds (AjG ChdF). The archival material of the Jewish community is stored unsystematically in two wall cupboards in the local synagogue. However, there are plans for it to be systematized within the coming years and made publicly accessible in the city library. For my research on the history of Jewish watchmakers and entrepreneurs in La Chaux-de-Fonds, I had unrestricted access to the archives and worked through the entire body of material. As there were no call numbers, I categorized the sources myself; all call numbers are therefore my own. 2 All figures for Zurich are taken from: Huser Bugmann, Karin. Schtetl an der Sihl. Einwanderung, Leben und Alltag der Ostjuden in Zürich 1880-1939. Zurich: Chronos, 1998, 81-82. Huser’s data is based on: Statistisches Amt der Stadt Zürich: Statistik der Judenwanderung in Zürich 1911-1917 (printed).

14 

 Stefanie Mahrer

However, despite the difference in number – close to 10,000 East European Jews migrating through or to Zurich compared to just ten families in the case of La Chaux-de-Fonds – the local Jewish communities reacted to these immigrants in a similar – negative – manner. In this paper I will argue that the anti-East European Jewish discourse within the local Jewish bourgeois communities was mostly based on a strong class consciousness within the predominant group. Between 1880 and 1914 around 3.5 million Jews left Eastern Europe. 3 Five to seven thousand of them settled in Switzerland, and several tens of thousands more migrated through the country.4 The total number of Jews living in Switzerland rose from 7,000 in 18705 to 18,000 in 1930.6 Taking these numbers into account, even five thousand newly immigrated Jews from the East clearly had an impact on the local Jewish population. Most of the newcomers were poor in their countries of origin and even poorer by the time they reached Switzerland.7 However, we must not forget that the group of migrants was highly heterogeneous, as were the reasons for their emigration.

3 Demographic sources for the period before 1900 are not very reliable. The data presented in any survey are best guesses. The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe offers the following figures: Between 1820 and 1870 about 20,000 Galician Jews and about 10,000 Jews from the Russian Empire migrated to the United States. From 1871 to 1880 about 70,000 Jews from Eastern Europe left their homelands for the West. These numbers increased dramatically over the following decades: From 1881 to 1900 some 760,000 Jews left Eastern Europe and from 1901 to 1914 about 1.6 million Jews migrated westwards. In all, prior to World War I about 3.5 million Jews left Eastern Europe. Kupovetsky, Mark. Population and Migration before World War I. In The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, vol. 2, Gershon Hundert (ed.), 1423-1429. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008, 1427. The majority of the migrants who arrived in Switzerland in the years 1880-1917 came from the Russian Empire; after the First World War the majority came from the newly established Second Republic of Poland. Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 85. 4 Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences, Nationalistic and Anti-Semitic Reflexes: Migration and Jewish Life Worlds in Switzerland in 1900. In Jewish Migration and Integration to the Metro­ polises of Europe, 1848-1918, Haar, Ingo (ed.). New York: Berghahn Books, 2013 (forthcoming). 5 Statistisches Bureau des eidg. Department des Innern (ed.). Die Bevölkerung nach Geschlecht, Civilstand, Heimath, Aufenthalt, Religion, Gebrechen, Sprachverhältnissen, nebst Zahl der Haushaltungen, der Wohnhäuser und bewohnbaren Räumen. Eidgenössische Volkszählung vom 1. Dezember 1870, vol. 1. Berne: [publisher unknown], 1870, 213. 6 Eidgenössisches Statistisches Amt (ed.). Vorläufige Ergebnisse der eidgenössischen Volkszählung vom 1. Dezember 1930. Berne: [publisher unknown], 1930, 2. 7 See Kury, Patrick. “Man akzeptierte uns nicht, man tolerierte uns!” Ostjudenmigration nach Basel 1890-1930. Basel: Helbing und Lichtenhahn, 1998, 18 and 109-113; Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 53-64.



Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich 

 15

Table 1: Jewish population in Swiss cities in numbers and by percentage of the total population (1870-1920) 1870

1888

1900

1910

1920

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

n

%

8

Basel

504

1.14

1047

1.50

1892

1.73

2451

1.85

2513

1.85

Berne

303

0.85

346

0.75

655

1.02

1052

1.21

1039

0.98

Biel

167

2.10

213

1.51

336

1.53

413

1.74

439

1.26

La Chaux-deFonds

459

2.34

608

2.08

914

2.54

900

2.38

1005

2.67

St. Gallen

138

0.84

394

1.44

419

1.27

4769

2.03

1017

1.44

Genf9

574

1.30

541

1.04

729

1.23

1186

2.03

1310

2.31

Zurich10

477

0.85

1221

1.36

2713

1.80

4212

2.73

6662

3.21

Jewish students, male and female, formed one important group among the East European Jewish immigrants.11 Between 1870 and 1914, the universities of Zurich, Berne, Geneva, and to some extent Lausanne and Basel allowed young Jews from the Russian Empire and Eastern Europe to enroll. Many of these students were politically active and fears within local bourgeois communities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, were therefore projected onto them as a group.12 Students, however, came to Switzerland to study, not to stay. They lived in the country for a few semesters before returning home or migrating to another university city to continue their studies.

8 Urban district (Stadtbezirk) only (without Kleinhüningen until 1900, Bettingen and Riehen). 9 Urban district only. 10 Including the nine outer districts (Ausgemeinden). On January 1, 1893 the city of Zurich was enlarged to include the formerly independent municipalities Aussersihl, Enge, Fluntern, Hirslanden, Hottingen, Oberstrass, Riesbach, Unterstrass, Wiedikon, Wipkingen, and Wollishofen. 11 See the paper by Aline Masé in this volume. 12 Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences.

16 

 Stefanie Mahrer

East European Jews’ Encounters with Switzerland and Swiss Jewry It was a different story for the ten thousand East European Jews who migrated through Switzerland on their way to their chosen destinations. Until 1912, many emigrants favored the southern route via Genoa to Argentina, but when the fare for this journey more than doubled in price, the northern route via Bremen to the United States became very popular.13 Switzerland lay on the southern emigration route and above all St. Gallen on the northeastern and Basel on the northwestern border of Switzerland became important transit places for the migrants. The bourgeois Jewish community in Basel was quick to organize help for them. The Hilfscomité für jüdische Auswanderer, founded in 1906, provided emigrants “with the most reliable information possible about travel routes and opportunities and [represented] their interests to prevent them from being exploited.”14 On average, the emigrants stayed two to four days in cities such as Basel and St. Gallen before they continued their travels.15 However, not all of these East European Jews left Switzerland – some five to seven thousand remained. Socioeconomic and cultural differences between Swiss Jews and East European Jewish immigrants led to segregation and exclusion of the latter group. The anti-East European Jewish discourse is deeply rooted in the Swiss Jews’ history. At the federal level, Jews in Switzerland were considered foreigners and were denied the basic rights of permanent settlement or professional and religious freedom until 1866. Until then their right of residence was legally restricted to the two villages Endingen and Lengnau near Baden in the north of the country.16 Although there have always been exceptions to this restriction, the legal status of Jews in other parts of Switzerland was uncertain, irrespective of how many generations had lived there. Throughout the nineteenth century, Jews from Endingen and Lengnau fought for legal emancipation.17

13 Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences. 14 Auskunftbureau für jüdische Auswanderer 1905-1911, in: Staatsarchiv des Kantons Basel-Stadt. Quoted in: Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences. 15 Kury, Ostjudenmigration nach Basel, 45. 16 See among others: Weldler-Steinberg, Augusta, Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg. Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz vom 16. Jahrhundert bis nach der Emanzipation. Zurich: Aktiengesellschaft für Verlag und Druckerei, 1966; Guggenheim-Grünberg, Florence. Vom Scheiterhaufen zur Emanzipation. Die Juden in der Schweiz vom 6. bis 19. Jahrhundert. In Juden in der Schweiz. Glaube – Geschichte – Gegenwart, Willi Guggenheim (ed.), 10-53. Küsnacht, Zurich: Edition Kürz, 1982. 17 Guggenheim-Grünberg, Scheiterhaufen, 27-52.



Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich 

 17

It was not until 1862 that the Zurich authorities allowed Jews to settle permanently within the canton and city borders. That same year, Jews from Endingen and Lengnau founded the Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich (ICZ), the first Jewish community in Zurich.18 They considered their home villages to be the cradle of Swiss Jewry.19 Their origin as the “real” Swiss Jews and their fight for emancipation was a crucial part of their Jewish and Swiss identity. Once they were allowed to settle in Zurich, at the time a fast-growing city undergoing rapid economic development, they began a process of successful economic and cultural integration. By the turn of the century, a fair number of these Jews led a comfortable bourgeois life.20 Around the same time, Alsatian Jews began migrating to Basel21 and to the French-speaking parts of Switzerland, above all the Jura region.22 Their part in the fight for legal rights was not comparable to that in Endingen and Lengnau. Migration from the Alsace to the Jura hills began just after the French Revolution, when some Jews came to the region of La Chaux-de-Fonds as cattle dealers.23 In 1850, the Jewish community in La Chaux-de-Fonds already numbered 95 persons.24 By this time they were trading in watches and watch parts rather than cattle. Watchmaking was the main business in the region, and La Chauxde-Fonds was its uncontested center.25 When in 1857 Jews were granted legal 18 Mahrer, Stefanie. Kurze Vorgeschichte der ICZ. In “Nicht irgendein anonymer Verein... ” Eine Geschichte der Israelitischen Cultusgemeinde Zürich, Alfred Bodenheimer (ed.), 15-20. Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2012; Heinrichs, Ruth. Die Etablierung der jüdischen Gemeinschaft 1862-1890. In Geschichte der Juden im Kanton Zürich. Von den Anfängen bis in die heutige Zeit, Annette Brunschwig, Ruth Heinrichs, Karin Huser Bugmann (eds.), 215-234. Zurich: orell füssli, 2005. 19 This notion was adopted unquestioningly by historians in the twentieth century. Until the 1990s, historians in the field of Jewish history in Switzerland focused on two topics: anti-Semitism and the fight for legal emancipation. The Jews of Endingen and Lengnau played a disproportionately important role in this historiography. It is only in the last two decades that younger historians have begun to explore other topics and thereby shown that Jewish life in Switzerland was much more diverse than had previously been assumed. 20 Heinrichs, Aufbruch in die Moderne, 250-251. 21 See for instance Bennewitz, Susanne. Basler Juden – französische Bürger. Migration und All­ tag einer jüdischen Gemeinde im frühen 19. Jahrhundert. Basel: Schwabe Verlag, 2008. 22 Gerber Baumgartner, Chantal. La communauté israélite de Porrentruy aux XIXe et XXe siècles. Geneva: Slatkine, 2010; Mahrer, Stefanie. Handwerk der Moderne. Jüdische Uhrmacher und Uhre­ nunternehmer im Neuenburger Jura 1800-1914. Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2012. 23 Ibid., 67-81. 24 Eidgenössisches Departement des Innern (ed.). Uebersichten der Bevölkerung der Schweiz nach den Ergebnissen der letzten eidgenössischen Volkszählung vom 18. bis 23. März, vol. 1. Berne: [publisher unknown], 1851. 25 Landes, David Saul. Revolution in Time. Clocks and the Making of the Modern World. Cam-

18 

 Stefanie Mahrer

permission to live in the city, they no longer just traded in watches; they had become leading figures and entrepreneurs in the Swiss watchmaking industry. A major crisis in the sector in the 1870s catapulted the Jewish watchmakers to the forefront of the industry.26 As leading manufacturers, they now belonged to the city’s elite.27 These originally Alsatian Jews never fought politically for their rights; rather, they integrated themselves through their professional lives in their capacity as skillful and outstanding watchmakers and talented businessmen. Their work and achievements for the local industry gained them respect, and by the end of the century they had become an integral part of the leading class. They led a thoroughly bourgeois way of life, be it in their cultural tastes, choice of residential address, or leisure activities.28 In the second half of the century, the Jewish populations of Zurich and La Chaux-de-Fonds experienced a dramatic rise in social status. The Jews of Zurich were proud of their heritage and their achievements in the fight for emancipation. By the turn of the century, they considered themselves full members of the bourgeois urban population,29 equal to the Christians. This picture was clouded by the awareness that their emancipation dated back less than a generation. Furthermore, they were still subject to anti-Semitic discourse and actions. Nevertheless, Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds felt a strong affiliation to the watchmaking community into which they had integrated, and as part of this community they were fully-fledged members of the bourgeois elite. On their arrival in Switzerland, the East European Jewish migrants encountered well-established Jewish communities and were confronted with more or less bridge, MA, London: Belknap Harvard University Press, 2000, 350-351. 26 See Mahrer, Stefanie. Retter in der Krise. Die Rolle der jüdischen Uhrenpatrons im Überwinden der Uhrenkrise im Jura der 1870er Jahre. In Tachles. Jüdisches Wochenmagazin der Schweiz. Sonderbeilage (2011): 4-5; Donzé, Pierre-Yves. Les patrons horlogers de La Chaux-de-Fonds. Dy­ namique sociale d’une élite industrielle (1840-1920). Neuchâtel: Editions Alphil, 2007, 88-89. 27 Mahrer, Handwerk der Moderne, 185-229. By the turn of the century, the Jewish population in La Chaux-de-Fonds had risen to 914 persons, 2.54 percent of the total population. Statistisches Bureau des eidg. Department des Innern (ed.). Zahl der Häuser und der Haushaltungen, der Bev­ ölkerung, Unterscheidung der Wohnbevölkerung nach Heimat, Geburtsort, Geschlecht, Konfession und Muttersprache. Die Schweizerbürger nach Heimatkanton und Heimatgemeinde. Eidgenös­ sische Volkszählung vom 1. Dezember 1900, vol. 1. Berne: [publisher unknown], 1901. 28 Mahrer, Handwerk der Moderne, 149-153; Mahrer, Stefanie. Migration und Verbürgerlichung – Das Beispiel der jüdischen Uhrmacher in der Schweiz im 19. Jahrhundert. In Zwischenräume der Migration. Über die Entgrenzung von Kulturen und Identitäten, Gertraud Marinelli-König, Alexander Preisinger (eds.), 141-156. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2011, 151-154. 29 On the history of Swiss bourgeoisie, see Tanner, Albert. Arbeitsame Patrioten – wohlanstän­ dige Damen. Bürgertum und Bürgerlichkeit in der Schweiz 1830-1914. Zurich: Orell Füssli Verlag, 1995.



Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich 

 19

open rejection by them and their members. In many communities the East European Jews remained outsiders for more than one generation; in others they were refused membership.30 In addition to the anti-East European Jewish discourse within Swiss Jewry, the migrants were also confronted with open anti-Semitism from the Swiss population at large. Legal and social discrimination were the order of the day. Naturalization was more difficult for East European Jews than for any other group of foreigners.31 Swiss authorities were afraid of “foreign infiltration” and advised “particular caution in accepting such applications and block[ing] the path to Switzerland for such unwelcome elements [Polish Jews; S.M.].”32 East European Jews were considered foreign, unfit to assimilate, and a danger to the country.33 Cantonal laws restricted the freedom of “East European,” “Polish,” and “Russian” Jews34 to work in certain trades such as peddling and added fuel to the discourse of the “unproductive and profiteering Ostjude.”35 The setting in which the East European Jewish immigrants found themselves around 1900 can be summarized as follows: In both Zurich and La Chaux-deFonds there was an economically and culturally integrated Jewish population, most of whose members belonged to the bourgeois class of their respective city. They or their ancestors had fought for civil rights and worked hard for their place in society. With regard to religion, most of them were no longer observant in their daily lives and the congregations tended to be reform-oriented rather than Orthodox. Religion was restricted to the synagogue and was in accordance with bourgeois taste and lifestyle.

30 Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences. 31 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 95-126. 32 An die Schweizerische Gesandtschaft in Wien, September 19, 1919. Quoted in: Kury, Patrick. Socio-Cultural Differences. 33 See Kury, Patrick. Über Fremde reden. Überfremdungsdiskurs und Ausgrenzung in der Schweiz 1900-1945. Zurich: Chronos, 2003, 132-149. 34 The Swiss authorities failed to clearly define “East European,” “Polish,” and “Russian.” Even in legal matters the use of the adjectives remains vague and is subject to constant variation. 35 The labeling of (East European) Jews as “unproductive and profiteering” is a common anti-Semitic stereotype. See Kury, Ostjudenmigration nach Basel, 57-58.

20 

 Stefanie Mahrer

Motives in the Anti-East European Jewish Discourse Rejection by Swiss Jews, legal restrictions, and anti-Semitism36 all made life difficult for the East European Jews. The focus of this paper, however, is not the actual life of the transitory migrants and immigrants,37 but how the Swiss Jews perceived them. Two main sets of discourses will be highlighted: (1) East European Jews as objects of philanthropy in La Chaux-de-Fonds, and (2) the negative connotation of “typical” East European Jewish professions in Zurich. Although these are two completely different discourses, I will argue in the second part of this paper that they have one thing in common: Both the reducing of Eastern European Jews to objects of philanthropy and the labeling of the immigrants as representatives of disreputable professions stem from feelings of fear and of power. I focus mainly on the year 1905 due to the fact that it marks the first peak of Russian Jewish immigration to Zurich.38 The outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) and the Russian Revolution of 1905 triggered a wave of pogroms. The Tsar deliberately supported these anti-Semitic riots with measures including having The Protocols of the Elders of Zion read in all Moscow churches.39 In the course of these events, tens of thousands of Jews fled westwards. Zurich was heavily affected by the flow of refugees. By mid-1906, 219 “tolerated”40 Russian Jews lived in the city. When another 120 paperless immigrants arrived from Tsarist Russia, the authorities decided not to tolerate these “disagreeable people” any longer.41 The Jewish communities in Switzerland were confronted with the needs of the refugees from a different social and cultural background – a circumstance that resulted in misunderstandings, difficulties, and ultimately rejection. Source material on the question of how the East European Jews were perceived by the Swiss Jews is sparse, for La Chaux-de-Fonds even more so than for Zurich. For La Chaux-de-Fonds, the documents of the local Jewish philanthropic 36 East European Jews were victims of a distinctive form of anti-Semitism. See Ibid., 132-139. 37 These matters have been addressed by other historians. Patrick Kury has studied the situation in Basel, Karin Huser Bugmann that in Zurich. Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl; Kury, Ostjudenmigration nach Basel. 38 The largest immigration of East European Jews took place between 1905 and 1914. See Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 81. 39 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion were first published in 1905 by Sergei Nilus, a Russian occultist. Hagemeister, Michael. Der Mythos der “Protokolle der Weisen von Zion”. In Ver­ schwörungstheorien: Anthropologische Konstanten – historische Varianten, Ute Caumanns, Mathias Niendorf (eds.), 89-101. Osnabrück: fibre, 2001, 95. 40 “Tolerated” was the official term for foreigners with (temporary) resident permits. 41 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 91-93.



Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich 

 21

society are the main, and almost the only, sources.42 The migrants were without means and dependent on Jewish welfare. Members of the philanthropic societies recorded whatever they considered important in this context. As far as is known at this point in time, there are no extant sources originating with the East European Jewish immigrants themselves. The weekly newspaper Israelitisches Wochenblatt für die Schweiz (IW) proved a rich source of information on how East European Jews were perceived by Jews from Zurich.43 David Strauss and Rabbi Martin Littman founded the IW in 1901.44 The two men, both members of the ICZ, were the paper’s publishers until 1918 and left a strong imprint on its content and political orientation. In its first years of publication, the paper consisted of about ten pages and published news from the Jewish world in Switzerland and abroad as well as announcements of births and deaths. By 1930 it was a 40-page weekly with a German- speaking readership that reached far beyond Switzerland’s borders.45 Despite its more international orientation, the IW still functioned as the main forum for information concerning Swiss Jewish life with a strong focus on Zurich. As the present paper concentrates on a detailed description of perceptions of the East European Jewish immigrants, I have worked exclusively with the aforementioned sources.46 Information beyond the scope of this specific field of enquiry draws on secondary literature.

“Ostjuden” in La Chaux-de-Fonds – The East European Jewish Immigrants as Objects of Philanthropy Philanthropy has a strong tradition within Judaism. Helping the poor is more than just a good deed – it is a religious obligation.47 Hevrot, the traditional ben42 Caisse centrale de la Bienfaisante de la Chaux-de-Fonds (notebook), 1900-1910. AjG ChdF. 43 The author thanks Tamar Lewinsky for sharing her insights on this topic. 44 Litmann served as rabbi, Strauss as religious education teacher at the ICZ. The ICZ was the largest Jewish community in Zurich. It was founded in 1862 by Jews from Endingen and Lengnau. On the history of the community, see Bodenheimer, Alfred (ed.). “Nicht irgendein anonymer Verein ... ” Eine Geschichte der Israelitischen Cultusgemeinde Zürich. Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2012. 45 Marx, Erich. Zum 30. Jahrestag, IW, January 3, 1930, 3. 46 On related sources for Zurich, see Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 16-19. 47 See for instance: Lässig, Simone. Jüdische Wege ins Bürgertum. Kulturelles Kapital und sozial­ er Aufstieg im 19. Jahrhundert. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004, 319.

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eficial societies, played an important role in community organization.48 They took care of the sick and the poor, organized funerals, and so on. In La Chaux-deFonds, there were three philanthropic societies – two for men and one for women. For most women of the bourgeois class, philanthropic work was the only field of activity in which they engaged outside of the home.49 La société des dames was one of the oldest institutions of the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Founded in 1854, the organization primarily cared for orphans, the sick, and the elderly. In 1863, young bachelors founded La Bien­ faisante with the main purpose of supporting unmarried men and apprentices, but also to organize social gatherings. The third philanthropic society, La société philanthropique, was founded in 1867 by married men. The chief purpose of this last society was to support married men and their families in case of need. Before the beginning of the twentieth century, public welfare was not yet established and private charity played an important role. The three Jewish philanthropic societies protected all members of the Jewish community in case of need, and they also played an important role in the wider Jewish world. They provided direct financial support to Jewish families in the Alsace as well as in Palestine; furthermore, international societies like the Alliance Israélite Universelle could count on regular financial contributions from the three societies.50 When the East European Jews reached La Chaux-de-Fonds, they received support from La Bienfaisante and La société des dames. Almost all of our information about these families is from the records of these two societies. We find the first mention of an East European Jewish family in La Chaux-deFonds in January 1906. By May 1906, there were six families, and this number had risen to ten by the beginning of 1907.51 As a growing industrial city, La Chauxde-Fonds attracted thousands of migrants from other Swiss cantons as well as from Italy and France. Indeed, the success of the watchmaking industry would not have been possible without the immigrant labor force.52 However, it seems that Jews from the East were not attracted to this city, despite its constant need for workers and its reputation as the home of a relatively affluent Jewish commu48 Ibid., 520-523. 49 See Mahrer, Handwerk der Moderne, 213-216. 50 Caisse centrale de la Bienfaisante de la Chaux-de-Fonds (notebook), 1900-1910. AjG ChdF; Several cash ledgers of the Bienfaisante, 1868-1910. AjG ChdF; Correspondence of the Bienfais­ ante, 1864-1914. AjG ChdF. 51 Caisse centrale de la Bienfaisante de la Chaux-de-Fonds (notebook), 1900-1910. AjG ChdF. 52 For a general history of watchmaking in La Chaux-de-Fonds, see Donzé, Pierre-Yves. Histoire de l’industrie horlogère suisse. De Jacques David à Nicolas Hayek (1850-2000). Neuchâtel: Editions Alphil, 2009. For a history of the city: Cop, Raoul. Histoire de La Chaux-de-Fonds. Le Locle: Editions d’Encre, 2006.



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nity. We can only speculate about the reasons for the very limited number of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds. La Chaux-de-Fonds lies geographically at the periphery of the country, far away from any traditional migration routes. For those planning to migrate further westwards, La Chaux-de-Fonds would have been a detour, and for students the city was not even on the map since there was no university. For these or other unknown reasons, the number of East European Jewish immigrants in La Chaux-de-Fonds remained very small, even during the peak migration period from 1905 to 1914. In comparison with Zurich, and also with Basel, the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds was not confronted with large numbers of poor migrants requiring assistance. Nevertheless, despite the very small number of East European Jewish immigrants, the philanthropic societies of La Chaux-de-Fonds were not very generous in their support. The weekly assistance provided to East European Jews was primarily paid in kind. They could expect no more than bread and milk, in contrast to local Jewish families in need, meaning those either born in La Chaux-de-Fonds or having immigrated from the Alsace, who received higher amounts and were paid in cash. However, in cases when Jews from the East planned to leave La Chaux-de-Fonds and Switzerland for good, each family member received 200 Swiss francs and a third class one-way ticket to another European city. 200 Swiss francs was a considerable sum53 if one considers that the average monthly expenses for all of the ten families together amounted to 250 Swiss francs.54 The Jewish community did not force their East European brethren to leave the city, but it clearly discouraged them from staying. As long as East European Jews were living in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the main goal of the Société des dames was to educate them in hygiene and cleanliness. The women consistently complained about the shabbiness of East European Jews’ homes, about their lack of personal hygiene and their poor health.55 It is difficult to tell whether the living conditions of families from Eastern Europe were actually as bad as described in the files, or whether the Swiss Jews adopted a general stereotype in order to distance themselves from the immigrants. If one looks at the places of residence within the city, East European Jews lived amidst the local Jews and gentiles in the center of the town, not in the poor neighborhoods in the east of the city, where the Christian working classes had their homes.56 53 As a comparison, a bottle of Fendant (white wine) in a local restaurant cost 2 francs. In: Restaurant bill, January 25, 1912. IB Jüd Gemeinde St Imier / 20, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte der Universität Zürich (AfZ). 54 Caisse centrale de la Bienfaisante de la Chaux-de-Fonds (notebook), 1900-1910. AjG ChdF. 55 Ibid. 56 Mahrer, Handwerk der Moderne, 212.

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What becomes quite clear from the discourse about “Ostjuden” in the philanthropic circles of the local Jewish bourgeoisie is that philanthropy served as a means of distinction. The repeated reference to the “otherness” of the East European Jews set them apart from the established community. All of the terms used by the philanthropic societies to describe East European Jews carry explicitly negative connotations. They served both to degrade the immigrants and to consolidate the status of the Swiss Jews.

Beggars and Peddlers – The Image of East European Jews in Zurich’s Jewish Press Fifty percent of all East European Jews who migrated to Switzerland between 1880 and 1965 worked in commerce; almost twenty percent were academics, and eighteen percent craftsmen and businessmen.57 Since most of them were self-employed, it is difficult to determine how many of the merchants actually worked as peddlers. Peddlers generally had a very bad reputation. Most of them were extremely poor and tried to make a living out of nothing. Between 1900 and 1905, 4.6 to 7.3 percent of all peddlers in Zurich were of East European Jewish origin. Although this is not a particularly high percentage, the presence of the peddlers shaped the general image of East European Jews within Jewish and non-Jewish society. In 1905 the canton of Zurich enacted a ban on Russian peddlers. Most of those affected by the prohibition were Russian Jews.58 The Jewish communities had their own problems with beggars and peddlers. First of all, most families of peddlers depended on outside financial support. Jews who had only entered the country in order to continue further west, in particular, lived on begging, occasional peddling and charitable donations. In September 1906, the Jewish community in Basel established a contact point for East European Jewish immigrants. The Jewish community fed them, organized accommodation and paid train fares to the next destination.59 It took much longer for a comparable institution for East European Jews to be organized in Zurich, and it was only in 1920 that the Jüdisches Emigrations Comité was founded. Until then, the body in charge of relief for the poor (Armenpflege) and the welfare committee (Fürsorgekommission), both ICZ institutions founded in 1914, took care of the 57 Ibid., 137. 58 Ibid., 140. 59 Kury, Ostjudenmigration nach Basel, 42.



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stranded immigrants. The means of the two institutions, however, were insufficient to meet the needs of all of the immigrants, and many were forced to beg for money elsewhere.60 My analysis of the IW reveals that Swiss Jews made little distinction between peddlers and beggars.61 The IW even observed a lack of differentiation between immigrants who came and were allowed to stay in the country and those who were only passing through. Although the IW sought to be objective in its coverage of East European Jews, it was still the voice of the established Jewish community of Zurich, the community that had to finance the immigrants. A leading article from January 190562 – the year of the revolution that pushed thousands of Jews into emigration – provides a good illustration of general opinion on the Jewish refugees. The article begins with a reference to the increasing immigration of Russian Jews. The author suggests three principles in dealing with this “acute problem:”63 Firstly […] nothing must be done that could increase the immigration of illiterates to Zurich, a location that is already privileged in this respect. Especially under current conditions, any easing of restrictions on obtaining the right to residence 64 would soon become known to all concerned, and would be a new reason for Zurich to receive preference as an immigration destination. […] Secondly, payment of the deposit [Kautionsleistung] should be denied to all who are unworthy of it. […] Thirdly, the matter should be solved as far as possible by means of self-help rather than charity. Erstens […] darf nichts getan werden, was die Einwanderung Schriftenloser auf den in dieser Hinsicht sowieso schon privilegierten Platz Zürich noch vermehren könnte. Eine Erleichterung der Möglichkeit die Toleranzbewilligung zu erlangen wäre besonders bei den heutigen Verhältnissen unter den Beteiligten sicher bald genug bekannt und wäre ein neues Motiv Zürich als Einwanderungsort zu bevorzugen [sic]. […] Zweitens sollte die Kautionsleistung für alle diejenigen abgelehnt werden, die derselben unwürdig sind. […] Drittens sollte unsere Frage möglichst nicht auf dem Wege der Wohltätigkeit, sondern auf dem der Selbsthilfe gelöst werden […].65

60 Die jüdischen Durchwanderer in Zürich, IW, November 26, 1920, 1-2. 61 The IW published an article on the subject of peddlers and beggars: Brandenburger, Otto. Die Hilfe für den jüdischen Durchwanderer, IW, April 27, 1923, 2. 62 Dr. Mamelot. Zur Frage der Toleranzbewilligung, IW, January 25, 1905, 1. 63 Ibid. 64 In Zurich, foreigners without a valid passport had to pay a security guarantee in the amount of 1,500 Swiss Francs for an individual and 3,000 Swiss Francs for a family. Hardly anyone was capable of paying such an amount. The other option was what was known as the Personalkau­ tion: Two persons, both of whom resided in Zurich and regularly paid taxes, could act as guarantors for the money. See Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 95. 65 Mamelot, Zur Frage der Toleranzbewilligung, 1.

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This passage makes the general tendency quite clear: The stated goal was to make Zurich as unattractive as possible to the immigrants. Help should not be granted to the unworthy. The problem, however, is that the leading figures in philanthropic societies – in all likelihood representatives of the Jewish bourgeoisie – defined who was worthy and who was not. The author of the article, Dr. Mamelot, a lawyer from Zurich, names the undeserving refugees: In addition to common criminals, it was the deserters who were a thorn in his side. Someone who does not carry out his duty for his fatherland does not, in his view, deserve any help. In these cases, philanthropy became an instrument of power. Those providing the money had the power to define who would be helped and who was not worthy of support. By excluding specific groups from receiving assistance, they also sought to consolidate their own identity.

Les Russes – a Discourse of Power and Fear. Thoughts on the Exclusion of an Immigrant Group This final section examines some of the aforementioned images of the “other” in an attempt to explain why the Jews of Zurich and La-Chaux-de-Fonds were so explicit in their creation of a clear distinction between themselves and the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Mamelot offers a first example for this strategy of “othering” the immigrant: But I already hear the usual objection: Is it not mostly a question of Russia, and is Russia not a fatherland for the Jew, towards which he has certain obligations? In any case, this is what I believe, and we West European Jews, of all people, should avoid declaring the opposite – after all, we state so often with empathy that we want to fulfill our duties of citizenship at any cost, without regard to how we are treated. What is to be made of the honesty of this avowal if we suddenly make an about-face with respect to the Russian Jews? Ich höre aber schon den gewöhnlichen Einwand: Handelt es sich in den meisten Fällen nicht um Russland, und ist Russland für den Juden ein Vaterland, gegen das er Pflichten hat? Allerdings glaube ich das, und gerade wir westeuropäischen Juden sollten uns hüten das Gegenteil zu behaupten, betonen wir doch so oft mit Empathie, dass wir unsere Staats­ bürgerpflichten um jeden Preis erfüllen wollen, ohne Rücksicht darauf, wie man uns behandelt. Was ist von der Ehrlichkeit dieser Behauptung zu halten, wenn wir plötzlich bezüglich der russischen Juden ganze Wendung machen?66

66 Ibid.



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Hosting and helping Russian Jewish deserters put the credibility of the Swiss Jews’ loyalty to the state of Switzerland at risk. This risk was averted by an open and clear rejection of these refugees. Some thirty years after the successful legal emancipation of the Jews in Switzerland, the fear of being accused of double loyalty remained. A member of the ICZ described this fear as a “ghost” – the ghost of double loyalty that wandered around, frightening Swiss Jews.67 In 1905, Swiss Jews received regular visits from this ghost. Throughout Europe Jews continued to oppose the notion that they belonged to a different people and were therefore unfit to serve a non-Jewish ruler or state. The doors to emancipation only opened when Jews succeeded in convincing the decision-makers that Judaism was nothing more than a religion or denomination. Nevertheless, accusations of a uniquely Jewish double loyalty remained widespread. In this context the absolute rejection of Russian Jewish deserters becomes explicable. Zionism triggered similar reactions within Swiss Jewry. A fair number of the East European Jews were at least positively disposed towards Zionist ideas. Among the East European Jewish student body in particular, Zionism played an important role. Many students were active in local Zionist groups, and there were Zionist-oriented student unions.68 By contrast, Zionism was hardly ever discussed among the Jewish bourgeoisie of La Chaux-de-Fonds. The subject was raised only in the aftermath of the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. In his sermon for Rosh Hashana in 1897, Rabbi Jules Wolff of the Jewish community of La Chaux-de-Fonds recalled some of the many discussions he had had on the subject with community members. They believed that Zionism had developed within East European Jewry as a reaction to constant rejection, persecution, and anti-Semitism. West European Jews, on the other hand, lived in civilized countries and enjoyed the same rights as the Christian population. “Western Jews” therefore had absolutely no reason to long for another homeland. Rabbi Wolff felt sympathy for the suffering of the East European Jews, he said, but he was compelled to reject the ideas of Zionism. Jews, according to Wolff, had not been a nation for eighteen centuries and had no political ambitions whatsoever. In his view, utopian dreaming of this kind had no place in Judaism because the Jews of Western Europe already had a home of their own, a home that protected them and to which they were loyal.69 Reactions to Zionism within the ICZ included views comparable to those expressed by the Rabbi in La Chaux-de-Fonds, but whereas in La Chaux-de-Fonds 67 GV, July 6, 1953. IB SIG-Archiv – 2.6.3.26 Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich ICZ, AfZ, 8. 68 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 160-166. 69 Wolff, Jules. Sermon pour le Nouvel-An, September 1897. AjG ChdF.

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no known member of the Jewish community openly supported the Zionist movement, there were active Zionists in Zurich and within the ICZ itself. In the person of David Farbstein, a leading political Zionist of his time, a member of the ICZ, and an East European Jew himself, the community was directly confronted with this political movement. The bourgeois community made it clear that Zionism as an international movement contradicted the ICZ’s policy of full assimilation and Swiss patriotism.70 Generally speaking, Zionism did not have many supporters among Swiss Jewry. The idea of a Jewish nation state was inconsistent with the strong feeling of being a part of the state of Switzerland.71 Swiss Jews, like other emancipated Jewish communities in other Western European countries, felt no need to look for a new homeland. East European Jews, who lived in unprivileged conditions, without legal rights and equality, were set apart from this group. Only the poor and the persecuted, it was implied, needed to dream and speculate about a place where they would be safe. The rejection by Swiss Jews of the Zionists and of the Russian Jews who had deserted from the Tsarist army indicated a latent fear of being accused of double loyalty. Disassociating themselves from Russian Jews was not only a means of self-identification as a bourgeois group but also a strong sign to the outside, Christian world. The continuous protestations of loyalty stemmed from the latent fear that they were not quite equal, that they were still “the other.” By “othering” the Russian Jews, the Swiss Jews made themselves a little more Swiss. Distance between Swiss Jews and East European Jews was not only constructed politically, but also socially and culturally. In matters of professional life, peddlers were particularly exposed in a negative way, as the following quotation clearly illustrates. The complaint has often been made that we have too many Jewish peddlers from Russia and Galicia here who attract unwelcome attention through their occupation and customs. The reference is to Jewish craftsmen and workers from Russia, who could not be a burden on anyone, who want to earn their bread honestly and through hard work, and who certainly do not dishonor Swiss Judaism. Who will help us to create a Jewish work certificate within modest boundaries for these people? The relief for the poor would gladly include this in its activities.

70 Zweig-Strauss, Hanna. David Farbstein (1868-1953). Jüdischer Sozialist – sozialistischer Jude. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2002, 54-57. 71 Guth Biasini, Nadia. Basel und der Zionistenkongress. In Der Erste Zionistenkongress von 1897. Ursachen, Bedeutung, Aktualität. “... in Basel habe ich den Judenstaat gegründet,” 131-140. Basel: Karger, 1997, 140.



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Es ist oft darüber Klage geführt worden, dass wir zu viel [sic] jüdische Hausierer aus Russ­ land und Galizien hier haben, die durch ihr Gewerbe und durch ihre Sitten unangenehm auffallen. Hier handelt es sich jetzt um jüdische Handwerker und Arbeiter aus Russland, die keinem lästig sein könne, die ehrlich und fleissig ihr Brot verdienen wollen und dem schweizerischen Judentum gewiss nie zur Unehre gereichen. Wer hilft uns in bescheidenem Rahmen für diese Leute einen jüdischen Arbeitsnachweis zu schaffen? Die Armenpflege wird auch das gerne in den Bereich ihrer Tätigkeit nehmen.72

“Good immigrants” such as craftsmen and workers, who did not attract negative attention by peddling or begging, were supported. Again we see an expression of the fear that immigrants could cast a damning light on Swiss Jews. In 1905, Jewish poor relief organizations in Zurich refrained from supporting peddlers altogether: In its support work, too, the relief effort for the poor has had to institute cuts. It no longer supports anyone who wants to settle here without a definite occupation and without any means of their own, because experience shows that the profession of peddler – not well regarded in any case – is already overcrowded, that newly immigrated peddlers find no place to make an honest living, and it would be a sin to support anything other than an honest living. Auch für ihr Unterstützungswerk hat die Armenpflege bereits in mancher Beziehung Einschränkungsmassregeln treffen müssen, sie unterstützt niemand [sic] mehr, der ohne be­stimmtes Gewerbe und völlig mittellos sich hier niederlassen will, weil die Erfahrung zeigt, dass der ohnehin nicht gern gesehene Hausiererwerb bereits überhäuft ist, dass der neueinwandernde Hausierer keinen Raum mehr für ein ehrliches Schaffen findet, und anderes zu unterstützen wäre Sünde.73

In 1905, when the immigration of East European Jews began to increase, the Jewish community of Zurich was quick to differentiate between “good” and “bad” immigrants. The good ones, craftsmen and workers, could expect financial support and help settling in. Peddlers, who were often equated with Schnorrer (beggars), were considered dishonest and could therefore not expect any help. The Swiss were annoyed by the manners and what they saw as the laziness of the peddlers. Swiss Jews were very concerned that the allegedly negative behavior of Russian peddlers would reflect on them. Having attained a certain social standing, they feared losing what they had achieved thus far. Despite the highly critical tone adopted towards East European Jews in the Jewish press, the IW kept a close eye on general media coverage concerning Jews and Jewish subjects and did not tolerate open criticism from the outside world.

72 Littmann, Martin. Arbeitsnachweis, IW, February 17, 1905, 1. 73 Ibid.

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 Stefanie Mahrer

In an article entitled “Swiss journalism and the Jews,”74 the author expressed his disapproval of attacks on Jews in Switzerland. He noticed a growing anti-Jewish tendency in the press. Recently, the immigration of Russian Jews who, due to the tragic circumstances in their unfortunate home country, come to the free country of Switzerland, has met with a rather cool reception in the press. Here, as usual, the number of immigrants is exaggerated and the specter of inundation by the Russians is invoked. The situation cannot be so dire! The few hundred Jews certainly do not burden Switzerland; rather, they place obligations on their coreligionists […]. […] Many of the immigrants who have not learned a proper trade become peddlers. As long as only a few practiced this profession, the authorities turned a blind eye to the situation and granted permits. Now that more want permits to be peddlers, individual cantons are barring the gates and turning the petitioners away for reasons that are well known. […] Whoever earns his bread honestly, even by peddling, has the right to travel in the country. […] The Jews in Switzerland are good citizens; they try to bring honor to their names and to have good relations with the inhabitants. The increase in industrious, active, and sober Jews can only be useful to Switzerland, and their number is so small that they are submerged in the crowd of other inhabitants. In neuerer Zeit findet die Zuwanderung russischer Juden, die wegen der traurigen Zustände in ihrem unglücklichen Heimatlande nach der freien Schweiz kommen, eine gewisse kühle Aufnahme in den Journalen. Es wird hier wie gewöhnlich die Anzahl derselben übertrieben und bereits das Schreckgespenst der Überflutung durch die Russen an die Wand gemalt. So gefährlich kann die Sache nicht sein! Die wenigen hundert Juden fallen gewiss der Schweiz nicht zur Last, schon mehr verpflichten sie ihre Glaubensgenossen […]. […] Viele der Einwandernden, die keinen rechten Beruf erlernt haben, werden Hausierer. Solange es nur wenige waren, die diesen Beruf ausübten, drückten die Regierungen das Auge zu und gaben Patente aus. Jetzt, wo es schon mehr sind, die Hausierpatente verlangen, schieben die einzelnen Kantone die Riegel vor und weisen aus den bekannten Gründen die Gesuchsteller ab. […] Wer ehrlich und redlich sich im Land sein Brot verdient, ist auch als Hausierer im Rechte sich im Lande zu bewegen. […] Die Juden in der Schweiz sind gute Bürger des Landes, suchen ihrem Namen alle Ehre zu machen und wünschen mit den Einwohnern auf gutem Fusse zu stehen. Der Zuwachs von fleissigen, tätigen und nüchternen Juden kann der Schweiz nur von Nutzen sein und die Anzahl derselben ist so gering, dass sie in der Menge der übrigen Einwohner verschwinden.

In 1905, the Swiss Federal Council decided to cease granting peddlers’ permits. Despite their own reservations, leading Jewish figures in Zurich disapproved of these measures.75 The situation initially appears rather paradoxical: Jewish charity decided not to support Russian Jewish peddlers under any circumstances and declared them undesirable, but then condemned the same decision by the 74 Die schweizerische Journalistik und die Juden, IW, June 23, 1905, 1. 75 Littmann, Martin. Das Hausierverbot im Kanton Zürich, IW, September 15, 1905, 1; Die Hau­ siererfrage, IW, October 4, 1905, 2-4.



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Swiss authorities. The refusal to grant Russian Jews the authorization of a peddling license was understood as an attack on all Jews in Switzerland. Swiss Jews are good citizens, and therefore, according to the author of the article, any measures against Jews cast doubt on this fact. On closer scrutiny, the situation is not as paradoxical as may at first appear. Jewish welfare organizations were cautious about whom they supported in order to avoid criticism or attacks from cantonal or federal authorities, or, even worse, from non-Jewish public opinion. To forestall expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment or anti-Jewish agitation, they emphasized the loyalty and achievements of the Swiss Jews. The exclusion of East European Jews not only served the Swiss Jews as a means to distance themselves from the negative discourse the former could arouse in the non-Jewish sphere, but also as a cultural and social boundary. Jews in both Zurich and La Chaux-de-Fonds largely integrated into the bourgeois class. As established merchants, entrepreneurs, academics, physicians and lawyers, they belonged to the local bourgeoisie. This class, although it was highly heterogeneous, was in possession of a certain amount of wealth and shared a common set of tastes and values and a common cultural and educational background.76 The poor and culturally different East European Jews did not fit into this group. The only commonality was their Jewishness. But even being Jewish meant something different to the Jews of the ICZ and the Jewish community of La Chaux-deFonds than it did to those from Poland, Galicia, and Russia. Jules Wolff of the La Chaux-de-Fonds rabbinate praised the Russian Jews for their regular attendance of the synagogue. In contrast to the assimilated La Chaux-de-Fonds Jews, Rabbi Wolff wrote, they at least practiced Judaism in their everyday lives. He also noted their different, much more traditional understanding of Judaism.77 Despite the differences concerning the observance of halakhic law – the synagogue of La Chaux-de-Fonds had an organ and a mixed choir – the East European Jews did not establish their own synagogue.78 It can only be surmised that the number of East European Jews was too small to form a congregation of their own. In Zurich, matters were different. As early as 1895, the Orthodox members of the ICZ left the community to found their own, more traditional congregation. The Israelitsche Religionsgesellschaft (IRG) was a characteristic Austrittsgemeinde (secession community) in the tradition of the Israelitische Religionsgesellschaft in Frankfurt a. M. Many East European Jews initially joined the IRG because it was 76 Schäfer, Michael. Geschichte des Bürgertums. Eine Einführung. Stuttgart, Cologne: Böhlau, 2009, 39-40. 77 Wolff, Jules. L’instruction religieuse, La Chaux-de-Fonds, 1907, 5. AjG ChdF. 78 Mahrer, Handwerk der Moderne, 225.

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 Stefanie Mahrer

more in accordance with their understanding of Judaism than the aesthetics and the liberal services at the ICZ synagogue.79 However, while the IRG might have followed the minhag ashkenas, a strict rite according to the Frankfurt example, it was just not the kind of tradition that East European Jews were used to. In 1912 the East European Jews created their own shtibl and in 1924 they founded Agudas Achim, their own community with a synagogue of its own.80 Unlike in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the East European Jews of Zurich lived in a separate neighborhood where they soon established a Jewish infrastructure: places for prayer, kosher shops and butchers.81 These establishments made it possible to lead a Jewish life according to the halakhic law and the specific East European Jewish traditions. The cultural and religious differences between “Ostjuden” and “Westjuden” were not a very frequent topic in the IW, despite repeated references to the different morals and manners of East European Jews in the context of the peddling question. However, there were clear distinctions between the groups, as reflected in the power structure of the ICZ. All ICZ office-holders were Swiss Jews.82 Moreover, throughout the twentieth century, almost all ICZ presidents were related by birth or marriage.83 East European Jews were excluded not only from positions of power but also from social clubs. When the Augustin Keller Loge, the Zurich lodge of the B’nai B’rith, was founded in 1907, only wealthy men of the bourgeois elite were granted membership. Conditions of admission included material prosperity and a willingness to become involved in philanthropic work. The foundation of the lodge and its inscrutable policy of inviting potential members evoked angry reactions.84 The lawyer and social democratic politician David Farbstein attacked the Augus­ tin Keller Loge as an undemocratic center of power on the fringes of the ICZ.85 Power and authority within Jewish Zurich lay with the bourgeois elite. East European Jews, especially those of the first generation, hardly ever succeeded in gaining admittance to these social circles.

79 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 79. 80 Ibid., 80. 81 Ibid., 130. 82 Gerson, Daniel. 1862-1914: Bürgerliches Selbstbewusstsein, Etablierung, Akkulturation, erste Spaltungen und Anfeindungen. In “Nicht irgendein anonymer Verein...” Eine Geschichte der Isra­ elitischen Cultusgemeinde Zürich, Alfred Bodenheimer (ed.), 21-80. Zurich: Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2012, 73. 83 Ibid., 72. 84 Ibid., 76. 85 Gerson, Bürgerliches Selbstbewusstsein, 76.



Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich 

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Conclusion The exclusion of East European Jews can be understood as an act of power. Exclusion happened on different levels and served different goals. For the established Jews of Zurich and of La Chaux-de-Fonds (and the same is true of other Swiss cities, too) it served as a means of strengthening their own self-image. The discourse on the foreign appearance and lack of hygiene of East European Jews depicted them as inferior and less cultivated. One can clearly speak here of a class discourse. The acculturated, integrated urban Jewish bourgeoisie had nothing in common with the poor, traditional, and sometimes even politically active Jews from the East. Since the bourgeoisie was the leading group in the Jewish communities, its representatives were involved in the community’s organizations, such as the philanthropic societies. Press organs such as the IW were likewise in the hands of ICZ members. The Russian peddlers, as we have seen, were considered undesirable and therefore deprived of all chance of receiving financial support. The case of the Russian peddlers makes it clear that certain reactions were motivated by political considerations. Swiss Jews had to fight for a long time to gain equal rights and even longer to prove that they were as Swiss as the Christian citizens, that they followed respectable trades, that they were loyal citizens. Latent and legitimate fears that they could be put on the same level as East European Jews led them to exclude the recent immigrants. A consolidated view of all these factors indicates that both clearly class-related exclusion and the fear that the newly immigrated Jews from the East could jeopardize the social position of Swiss Jewry had a strong impact on the anti-East European Jewish discourse within the bourgeois Jewish communities of these years.

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 Stefanie Mahrer

Figure 1: Erwin Halpern, b. 1917 in Zurich. His mother, who immigrated with her family from Gombin in Tsarist Russia when she was still a child, lost her Swiss citizenship when she married Erwin’s father, a tailor from the Galician town of Zarszyn. After his mother’s premature death in 1918, the boy was raised by his maternal family.

Figure 2: Esther (Elsa) Fouks and Chaim (Heinrich) Gablinger from Poland. Esther was sent to work as a housemaid at her aunt’s house in Baden at the age of twelve. Chaim arrived in Zurich as a 15-year-old and became a peddler.

Vladimir Levin

Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia: Mapping the World in a Different Way We passed the Swiss border on Sunday. I had a feeling that I found myself in a peculiar, miraculous country, not similar to the states that I have seen before. In almost every major railway station we met trains with school-children […] who made excursions […] to get to know their beloved fatherland. No soldiers. No military or civil uniforms, such as dazzled the eyes in Russia and Austria. The spirit of liberty simply floated on the air. In a magic way, the caution, the fear of police and spies […] disappeared.1

In this manner one of the founders of the Jewish Labor Bund, John Mill (18701952), described his arrival in Switzerland in 1893. That year he had come to study at the University in Zurich, but in 1898 he fled an imminent arrest by Russian police and again arrived in Switzerland, this time as a political émigré. The feeling of unusual liberty expressed by Mill was a common feeling among the political emigrants from Russia who took refuge in Western countries. Emigration played a significant role in the biographies of almost all the prominent socialists and revolutionaries in the Russian Empire. The autocratic Russian state left no legal political sphere where opposition to the regime could be voiced, and relentlessly persecuted and punished all people involved in illegal political activities of any kind. Therefore, those who were sought by the political police had only one alternative to spending time in prison, hard labor, or Siberian exile: to cross the Russian border and settle in one of the countries where socialist ideas could be confessed openly, and from which extradition to Russia was improbable. Those who succeeded in escaping from internment in hard labor or exile also headed abroad. There was, however, the option of staying in Russia and continuing revolutionary activities with forged identification documents, but such activities usually could not persist for long, and thus brought the same result: arrest or emigration. In this way, the number of political emigrants from the Russian Empire increased from year to year. The first Russian Revolution of 1905-1907 almost ended Russian emigration. The amnesty of October 21, 1905 cancelled charges against political activists, which allowed the majority of them to return home and resume revolutionary

1 Mill, John. Pionern un boyer [Pioneers and Builders]. New York: Der veker, 1946, 1: 165-166.

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activities.2 However, the period of relative freedom did not last for long. The restoration of order in 1907 and resumption of repressions against left-wing political parties led hundreds of activists to emigrate. From 1907-1914 the authorities often substituted an administrative three-year exile in one of many “remote places” in European Russia for permission to leave abroad for the same period of time. Only after the collapse of the tsarist regime as a result of the February Revolution of 1917, did all émigrés have the possibility of returning to Russia. Jews began taking part in the revolutionary movements in the Russian Empire starting in the 1860s, and by the turn of the twentieth century their percentage in the revolutionary groups of various kinds was disproportionally high.3 Many of them saw no need for a special Jewish organization that would unite Jewish participants of the revolutionary movement and pursue specific Jewish aims.4 Yet, there were others who combined commitment to international socialism and to the revolution in Russia with Jewish nationalism in its different forms, and who were eager to organize “Jewish masses” or the “Jewish proletariat” in separate political bodies.5 These “Jewish” revolutionaries were subject to the same criminal laws of the empire, and emigrated in order to escape persecution, as did their “Russian” counterparts (be they ethnically Russians, Jews, Poles, or Georgians). While “Russian” and “Jewish” revolutionaries tended to mingle, and many people easily crossed the lines between “all-Russian” and “Jewish” movements, geographical analysis of their emigration activities has revealed differences between the two groups. This article, therefore, is devoted to the exploration of the geographical patterns of “Russian-Jewish” political emigration in comparison to its “Russian” counterpart and to the mapping of “Jewish” political emigration from imperial Russia in space and time. It is customary to consider Switzerland the main center of Russian revolutionary activities abroad, including Russian-Jewish socialist parties. However, as I argue below, this country played a less prominent role as the settlement place of Jewish émigrés than among “all-Russian” socialist émigrés. Switzerland was indeed a major center of “Jewish” political emigration from the Russian Empire at the turn of the twentieth century, but it lost its centrality after the first Russian 2 On the amnesty see Ascher, Abraham. The Revolution of 1905. Vol. 1: Russia in Disarray. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988, 247-248. 3 For a recent overview of Jewish participation in Russian revolutionary movement see Budnitskii, Oleg. The Jews and Revolution: Russian Perspectives, 1881-1918. East European Jewish Affairs 38 (2008): 321-334. 4 See, for example, Deutscher, Isaac. The Non-Jewish Jew. London: Oxford University Press, 1968. 5 For the best research of the combination of socialism and Jewish nationalism see the classical study Frankel, Jonathan. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.



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Revolution of 1905-1907, in favor of other countries, which were more attractive for Jewish political activists.

The Beginnings The first “Jewish” political emigrant, Aron Shmuel Liberman (1845-1880), escaped from Russia to London in 1875, where he joined the Russian Socialists who grouped around Petr Lavrov and his periodical Vpered! (‘Forward!’). Liberman not only worked on Vpered!, but also made an attempt to organize Jewish workers in London and to establish a Jewish Socialist Union there. However, in 1877, in order to publish a Hebrew socialist journal Ha-emet (‘The Truth’), that would address Jews in Russia, Liberman moved to Vienna. In his editorial and publishing activities there he was assisted by Leizer Tsukerman (1852-1887), who came from Geneva; the material support for the journal came from a group of Jewish students in Berlin. In 1878 Liberman was arrested in Austria, spent nine months in prison, and was deported to Prussia, where he was convicted and imprisoned for nine additional months. In January 1880 he returned to London, and together with Morris Vinchevsky (1856-1932) established there the Jewish Workingmen’s Benefit and Educational Society. In November 1880 Liberman committed suicide in Syracuse, New York, because of unreciprocated love.6 Lieberman’s endeavor to spread socialist ideas among Jews was followed in two places. In 1878 his disciple Morris Vinchevsky published a Hebrew Socialist journal Asefat Hakhamim (‘Assembly of the Wise’) in Königsberg, East Prussia, and in 1880 a group of Jewish revolutionaries in Geneva proclaimed the establishment of the Free Jewish Printing House for publishing revolutionary literature in Yiddish. Like Liberman, Vinchevsky was arrested in Germany and exiled to London, where he agitated among the Jewish workers. In 1894 he settled per-

6 On Liberman, see Krol, Tsvi. Toldot Aharon Shmuel Liberman [History of Aharon Shmuel Liberman]. In Ha-emet: ha-iton ha-sotsyalisti ha-rishon be-ivrit [Ha-emet: The First Socialist Newspaper in Hebrew], idem (ed.), 5-48. Tel Aviv: Arkhiyon u-muzeyon shel tnuat ha-ivrit, 1938; Sapir, Boris. Liberman et le socialisme russe. International Review of Social History 3 (1938): 1588; Idem. Jewish Socialists Around ‘Vpered.’ International Review of Social History 10 (1965): 365-384; Weinryb, Dov [Bernard]. Be-reshit ha-sotsyalizm ha-yehudi: A. Sh. Liberman, bnei doro u-zmano [In the Beginning of Jewish Socialism: A. Sh. Liberman, People of his Generation and Time]. Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1940. See an additional bibliography there. For basic information on Ha-emet see Gilboa, Menuha. Leksikon ha-itonut ha-ivrit ba-meah ha-shmoneh-esreh veha-tsha-esreh [Lexicon of the Hebrew Press in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries]. Jerusalem: Mosad Bialik, 1992, 267-270.

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manently in New York;7 the Geneva initiative for the Free Jewish Printing House ended with no results.8 The activity of Liberman and his followers demonstrates geographical patterns which would characterize Russian-Jewish emigration in the following years. Three main characteristics can be singled out in order to describe those patterns: the proximity to the Russian border, safety, and access to Jewish “masses.”

a) Proximity to the Russian Border When Liberman and Vinchevsky wanted to influence Jews living in Russia via Hebrew periodicals, they chose to remain close to the Russian border, in Vienna and in Königsberg. This modus operandi was borrowed from the existing Hebrew periodicals: in 1856 Eliezer Lipman Zilberman (1819-1882) had begun to publish the first Hebrew periodical for Russian Jews, Ha-magid (‘The Preacher’), in Lyck, East Prussia, from where it was legally distributed in Russia until 1893; in 18681885 Peretz Smolenskin (1842-1885) published his Ha-shahar (‘The Dawn’) in Vienna, also designated for Russian Jews, and sent it legally into Russia. The publishing of periodicals abroad allowed for the avoidance of preliminary censorship, while the proximity to the border allowed for easy communication with correspondents and readers, and for the possibility of reacting more rapidly to events taking place in Russia. Unlike Ha-emet and Asefat Hakhamim, the first Russian émigré publications appeared in London, where Alexander Herzen (1812-1870) established the Free Russian Press in 1853.9 It is possible to argue that besides the issue of safety, discussed below, the difference in the readership caused the disparity in geographical locations. While the absolute majority of Hebrew readers were concentrated 7 On Vinchevsky, see Kharlash, Yitshok. Vintshevski, Moris. In Leksikon fun der nayer yidish­ er literatur [Lexicon of Modern Yiddish Literature], vol. 3. New York: Alveltlikher yidisher kultur-kongres, 1960, 432-443, and his memoirs in Vinchevsky, Morris. Gezamlte verk [Collected Works]. New York: Frayhayt, 1927, vols. 9-10. For basic information on Asefat Hakhamim, see Gilboa, Leksikon ha-itonut ha-ivrit, 270-272. 8 Kursky, Franz. Di zhenever ‘grupe sotsialistn-yidn’ un ir oyfruf (1880) [The Geneva Group of Jews-Socialists and their Call (1880)]. In Gezamlte shriftn [Collected Writings], idem, 51-67. New York: Der veker, 1952. 9 For an overview of Russian émigré periodicals in the nineteenth century see Gromova, Liudmila. Stanovlenie sistemy russkoi politicheskoi pressy XIX veka v emigratsii [Development of the Emigré System of Russian Political Journalism of the Nineteenth Century]. In Zhurnalistika russk­ ogo zarubezh’ia [Journalism of Russian Emigration], G.V. Zhirkov (ed.). St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo S.-Peterburgskogo universiteta, 2003. Available at: evartist.narod.ru/text5/18.htm (accessed on June 19, 2012) or www.textfighter.org/text5/18.php (accessed on June 19, 2012).



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in the Pale of Settlement at the western edge of the Russian Empire, easily accessible from Vienna and Königsberg, Russian revolutionary publications aimed at the readers in Russian capitals and large cities, and could be conveniently smuggled through the major ports of St. Petersburg and Odessa. However, after a decade of successful publishing activity, even Herzen recognized that London was situated too far from Russia. The high cost of delivery and the long distance made the transportation and connections with authors and readers slow and difficult. In 1865, when the popularity of his famous Kolokol (‘Bell’) diminished, Herzen transferred his Free Russian Press to Geneva, hoping to improve the situation. Thus, Switzerland emerged as a center of Russian revolutionary publication activity in the mid-1860s.

b) Safety The establishment of the Russian émigré press in Great Britain and Switzerland and the development of émigré centers there were the direct result of the liberal governmental system in those countries. Revolutionaries felt safe there and were not afraid of persecution or extradition. Germany and Austria-Hungary, in contrast, were far from being entirely free countries. Their authorities carefully monitored the situation and were ready to persecute revolutionary activities. Consequently, Liberman was arrested in Vienna because of his involvement in the smuggling of socialist publications to Russia and brought to trial in Berlin, together with Grigorii Gurevich (1852-1929) and Moisei Aronzon, Jewish students from Russia who supported Ha-emet. They were charged with setting up an illegal and subversive organization. Vinchevsky was arrested and deported from Germany in accordance with Bismarck’s antisocialist legislation of 1878. Thus, the proximity to the Russian border was convenient for reaching Russian Jews, but it involved a high risk of police persecution.

c) Access to Jewish “Masses” While for the “Russian” revolutionaries London was solely a safe place in which to live, “Jewish” socialists found there not only safety from prosecution, but also real Jewish toiling “masses.” From the 1870s, Great Britain absorbed a growing wave of Jewish emigrants looking for better economic opportunities. Those emigrants were concentrated in London’s East End, where they could be addressed and influenced by Jewish émigré socialists. As mentioned above, Liberman participated in the establishment of the Jewish Socialist Union and the Jewish Work-

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 Vladimir Levin

ingmen’s Benefit and Educational Society; Vinchevsky took part in the latter, and in 1884 established the first socialist paper in Yiddish, Der poylisher yidl (‘The Polish Jew’).10 However, the largest stream of Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe headed to the USA, and by 1890 New York emerged as the main hub of the Jewish socialist movement, where every Jewish socialist could find an audience among Jewish workers in the Lower East Side and a platform (with a livelihood) in one of the Yiddish newspapers. Therefore, the role of London in the Jewish socialist movement diminished.11 The existence of Jewish “masses” abroad comprised the principal difference between “Russian” and “Jewish” socialists. The first had no target group abroad, so that their activity had to be directed to their homeland, or they would have to merge with a local socialist movement and abandon identification with Russia and with its people, whose fate they wanted to improve. “Jewish” socialists, faithful to their commitment to the Jewish workers, could easily substitute Jewish workers in the Russian Pale of Settlement for the same workers who had settled in Great Britain or especially in the USA. The combination of the socialist ideal with Jewish nationalism or at least with the recognition of Jews as a separate group in the international workers’ movement allowed for the combination of geographic mobility with unchanging commitment to the same socialist cause. As Jonathan Frankel formulated it, “[t]he involvement of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia in Jewish politics was never confined to the Russian Empire but, on the contrary, – from the time of Aron Liberman – was clearly international in scope. […] One political subculture came into being in Vilna, Minsk, Belostok, the East End of London and the Lower East Side of New York.”12

Before 1905 Liberman was the first political emigrant from Russia who combined commitment to socialism with attention to the “Jewish question” and Jewish “masses,” and a very small circle of Russian Jews living abroad who shared his ideas supported him. The large “Jewish” political emigration appeared only after the emer10 On Jewish socialist activity in London see Fishman, William J. East End Jewish Radicals, 18751914. London: Duckworth, 1975. 11 On the differences in socialist activities and sociopolitical factors in New York and London see Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 119 and 121. For an overview of Jewish socialist movement in the USA see Cherikover, Elyohu (ed.). Geshikhte fun der yidisher arbeter-bavegung in di fareynikte shtatn [The History of the Jewish Workers’ Movement in the United States]. New York: YIVO, 1944. 12 Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 3.



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gence of a Jewish socialist movement in the Russian Empire, involving hundreds of people, and the police persecution of this movement that pushed its leaders to flee abroad. Such movement developed in the late 1880s and the 1890s, and in 1897 it became a political party, the Jewish Labor Bund. In the following year, the Foreign Committee of the Bund was established in Zurich; it later moved to Geneva and opened a printing press there.13 Switzerland thus became the major center of “Jewish” political emigration. Switzerland was quite a logical place for the Russian-Jewish revolutionaries, since it combined three important advantages. The first one was the safety from police persecution. The second – a direct consequence of the first – was the concentration of Russian political emigrants in this country. This provided a suitable social milieu for Bundists, who saw themselves as an integral part of the Russian revolutionary movement. The third advantage was the existence of large “colonies” of students from Russia in Swiss university towns. Admission to the universities was easy, so that those who could not enroll in the Russian universities headed to the Swiss ones. Therefore, the majority of students from Russia consisted of Jews, whose access to the Russian universities was restricted by numerus clausus after 1887, and of women, who could not study in the universities at home.14 In this way, Berne, Zurich, Geneva, and Lausanne became ideal places for revolutionary fermentation, since there, students open to radical ideologies of various kinds and eager for political activity and the émigré political leaders who influenced them could – and did – meet.15 Indeed, the first move of the Foreign Committee of the Bund was to establish “groups of supporters” among the Russian-Jewish students in Switzerland and in Southern Germany.16 However, Switzerland was not a convenient place from which to maintain connections with Russia. The distance was too far, and in order to smuggle illegal literature produced in Geneva, someone had to be stationed near the Russian border. At the turn of the twentieth century, the smuggling route of the Bundist literature went through Germany, since the main organizations of the Bund were situated in Lithuania and Poland. Therefore, the actual head of the Bund’s

13 On the establishment of the Foreign Committee see Tobias, Henry J. The Jewish Bund in Rus­ sia: From its Origin to 1905. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972. 14 On the Russian students in the Swiss universities see Ivanov, A. E. Studenchestvo Rossii kont­ sa XIX – nachala XX veka: sotsial’no-istoricheskaia sud’ba [Studentship of Russia in the Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Century: Social-Historical Fate]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1999, 369-376, and the article of Aline Masé in this volume. 15 For the role the student colonies played in the development of the Bund’s ideology see Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 171-257. 16 Mill, Pionern un boyer, 2: 23-24.

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Foreign Committee, John Mill, had no choice but to spend a significant part of his time in Berlin.17 Although Berlin also had a large number of Jewish students from Russia similarly interested in political theories, Prussian police prevented this city from becoming a center of political emigration. The discussions in the student club – the Russian-Jewish Academic Society – were as vivid as those in Switzerland, but other political activity was minimal.18 According to Shmarya Levin (1867-1935), a student in Berlin in 1887-1892, [i]n the matter of freedom, France and Switzerland had the advantage over Germany in general and Prussia in particular. For this reason the student youth, which had strongly Socialist leanings, preferred the two former countries.19 […] For instance, it was dangerous to become a subscriber to the German Socialist daily, Vorwärts. It might mean a refusal, on the part of the police, to renew the residential permit of the foreigner. […] More than once it would occur that men were punished, of course through the regular administrative channels, for crimes that were not crimes according to German law.20

Indeed, the theoretician of Socialist Zionism Nachman Syrkin (1868-1924) was expelled from Berlin by the Prussian authorities in 1903 because of his socialist activities.21 Thus, although Germany had the advantage of a common border with the Russian Empire, it could not be used as a base for émigré politics. As Shmarya Levin put it, “Germany was merely distance between Switzerland and Russia. […] An invisible tunnel ran from Switzerland to Russia, a tunnel with many ramifications at both ends, particularly in Russia, where it opened into all the principal cities of the empire.”22 The most secure place for political emigrants remained Great Britain. For example, when “the father of the Bund,” Arkadii Kremer (1865-1935), was exiled from Switzerland after an anti-Russian demonstration in April 1901, he settled in Paris, but already at the end of the summer he moved to London, and with him the Bund’s Foreign Committee and its printing press.23 In London there were Jewish 17 Ibid., 30. 18 On the Russian-Jewish Academic Society see, for example, Levin, Shmarya. Youth in Revolt, trans. Maurice Samuel. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1939, 223-224 and 238-243. 19 Ibid., 279. 20 Ibid., 237. 21 Syrkin, Mary. Avi, Nachman Syrkin [My Father, Nachman Syrkin]. Jerusalem: Ha-sifriyah ha-tsionit, 1970, 68. 22 Levin, Youth in Revolt, 280. 23 Yevzerov, M. Bio-bibliografishe yedies [Bio-Bibliographical Information]. In Arkadi. Zaml­ bukh tsum ondenk fun grinder fun “bund” Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935) [Arkadi. Collection in the



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workers, but there was no Russian-Jewish student community, thus the leaders of the Bund – Kremer and Vladimir Kossovskii (1867-1941) – could find neither an intellectual atmosphere, nor intelligent supporters who could assist them in the production of illegal literature. And the distance from London, both to Russia and to the major university centers in Switzerland, was too great. Therefore, it is not surprising that already in 1903, after Kremer went to the United States to raise funds, the Foreign Committee of the Bund returned to Geneva and remained there until 1917.24 The French capital, Paris, was also an attractive place for Russian political emigrants. However, it did not become a center of “Jewish” political emigration before 1905. Among all émigré leaders of Jewish socialist movements, only the theoretician of Socialist Zionism, Nachman Syrkin, spent time – two years – in Paris, after his expulsion from Berlin in 1903 and until his return to Russia in 1905.25

After 1905 Like Syrkin, the majority of “Russian” and “Jewish” political emigrants returned to Russia during 1905 in order to take part in the first Russian Revolution. During the revolution the number of people directly involved in revolutionary activities grew significantly, as well as the number of people searched or persecuted by the authorities. Therefore, starting in mid-1906 political emigration from Russia to the West recommenced. Until the summer of 1907, however, it was not clear that the revolution was futile and many leaders managed to stay in Russia – sometimes hiding from the police – in order to continue their political activities. But after the coup d’état of June 3, 1907, everybody understood that the revolution had come to an end, and those who had reason to fear persecution left Russia.26 While before the 1905 revolution emigration was perceived of as temporary, the analysis of the situation changed in 1907. The establishment of the parliament

Memory of the Founder of the Bund Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935)]. New York: Unzer tsayt, 1942, 277-289, here 278; Medem, Vladimir. Vladimir Medem, The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist. Samuel A. Portnoy (ed.). New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1979, 274-275. 24 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 299-302. Upon his return from the USA in November 1904, Kremer could not settle in Switzerland and therefore moved to Berlin, where he spent half a year until his return to Russia in April 1905: Yevzerov, Bio-bibliografishe yedies, 279. 25 Syrkin, Avi, Nachman Syrkin, 69-70 and 80. 26 On the Jewish socialist parties after 1907 see Levin, Vladimir. The Jewish Socialist Parties in Russia in the Period of Reaction. In The Revolution of 1905 and Russia’s Jews, Stefani Hoffman, Ezra Mendelsohn (eds.), 111-127. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.

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(State Duma) and Petr Stolypin’s reforms allowed for the supposition that Russia had begun a slow evolutional development towards “bourgeois democracy.” This could have been good for the country, but it did not promise fast changes in the regime, thus dooming the political activists to stay abroad for a very long period of time. Already in October 1907, for example, Nachman Syrkin wrote from New York to his wife in Paris, “The reaction in Russia may force us to stay in America altogether. There is no other place for us in the world. We could stay in Paris, but I have nothing to do there.”27 Syrkin’s letter is very symptomatic of the mood in the revolutionary circles. Leaders of the Jewish socialist parties that had emerged during the revolution, along with their rank and file members, began to emigrate from Russia, and they looked for suitable places to settle, judging from the perspectives of and possibilities for both political activism and earning a livelihood. Syrkin was a theoretician of Socialist Zionism (Territorialism) and one of the leaders of the Socialist Zionist Workers’ Party (SSRP).28 From Syrkin’s point of view, while he could no longer disseminate his ideas in the Russian Empire, he could do so in the United States, where almost two million Jewish emigrants from Russia had settled in 1881-1914. The blossoming socialist press in Yiddish gave the Jewish socialist leaders in America a mouthpiece as well as a livelihood and allowed them to participate in the political life of American Jewry. No West European country provided such possibilities, not even Great Britain, with its tens of thousands of Jewish workers. Similar decisions were made in 1908 by a consultation of leaders of the Jewish Socialist Workers’ Party (SERP) – a party that combined Territorialism with Diaspora Autonomism.29 Stating that “we are not an all-Russian party and therefore ready to work everywhere,” the meeting accepted the proposal of Chaim Zhitlowsky (1865-1943) “to work” in America and to fit the party’s program to the conditions there.30 Subsequently Zhitlowsky, like Syrkin, settled in New York and both immersed themselves in American-Jewish political activities. When the 27 Letter of Nachman Syrkin to his wife Sonya, October 28, 1907. The Labor Archives (Tel Aviv), IV-104-94-75. 28 On the SSRP see Guterman, Alexander. Ha-miflagah ha-tsionit ha-sotsialistit be-rusiyah (ss) ba-shanim 1905-1906 [The Zionist-Socialist Party (S.S.) in Russia, 1905-1906]. Tel Aviv: I.L. Peretz Publishing House, 1985; Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 324-328. 29 On SERP see Greenbaum, Abraham. Tnuat “Ha-tehiyah” (“Vozrozhdenie”) u-mifleget ha-po­ alim ha-yehudit-sotsialistit [The Movement “Revival” (“Vozrozhdenie”) and the Jewish Socialist Workers’ Party], Jerusalem: The Dinur Center for Research in Jewish History, 1988; Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 282-283. 30 The Circular Letter No. 1 of the Foreign Committee of SERP, October 1908. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), col. 102, inv. 1908, file 55, fol. 21 (microfilm in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People (CAHJP), HMF 223).



Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia 

 45

Tsarist regime collapsed in February 1917, neither Zhitlowsky nor Syrkin returned to Russia – in striking contrast to their behavior in 1905, when after many years in Western Europe both theoreticians had come back in order to participate in the political and revolutionary struggle. Emigration to the USA before the First World War meant emigration forever: cutting off most (but not all) connections with Russia and engaging fully in local Jewish life and politics. This was the way of many rank and file members of all Jewish parties, notwithstanding their political Weltanschauung, and almost none of them returned to Russia in 1917. The leaders of the Jewish socialist parties who emigrated to the United States after 1907 preserved more connections with the alter heym, the old homeland, but only a tiny minority of them abandoned their new home in 1917. Austrian Galicia, with its large Jewish population, played a similar role of providing a new field of socialist activities among the Jewish “proletariat” for some leaders of the Jewish Social-Democratic Workers’ Party “Poalei Zion,” who had integrated into the Austrian Poalei Zion Party.31 However, none of them remained in Galicia permanently.32 The Russian Poalei Zion also had an “ideal” geographical place where their energy could be directed – the Jewish Settlement (Yishuv) in Palestine. During the period of 1905-1914 many party members moved to Palestine, with the clear goal of staying there forever, and formed the Palestinian Poalei Zion Party. Some of them indeed became accustomed to the country, while others could not withstand harsh Middle Eastern realities and left for Europe or the USA.33 31 On the Russian Poalei Zion Party see various works by Matityahu Mintz, especially: Mintz, Matityahu. Ber Borokhov: ha-ma’agal ha-rishon, 1900-1906 [Ber Borochov. Circle One, 19001906]. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University & Ha-kibbutz Ha-meuhad, 1976; Idem. Haver ve-yariv: Yitshak Tabenkin be-mifleget poalei-tsiyon, 1905-1912 [Friend and Rival. Yitshak Tabenkin in the Poalei Zion Party, 1905-1912]. [Ef’al]: Yad Tabenkin, 1986; Idem. Ve’idat Krakov shel mifleget ha-poalim ha-sotsial-demokratit ha-yehudit poalei-tsiyon be-rusiyah, ogust 1907 [The Krakow Convention of the Jewish Social Democratic Workers’ Party Poalei Zion in Russia, August 1907]. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1979; Idem. Manhigut u-manhigim be-mifleget poalei-tsiyon be-rusiyah me-reshita ve-ad hafikhat oktober [Leadership and Leaders in the Poalei Zion Party in Russia from its Beginning Until the October Revolt]. Iyunim be-tkumat Israel 6 (1996): 147-162. On the Austrian Poalei Zion see Unger, Shabtai. Poalei-tsiyon ba-keisarut ha-ostrit, 1904-1914 [Poalei Zion in the Austrian Empire, 1904-1914]. Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev, 2001. 32 For example, Leon Chazanovitch (Katriel Shub, 1882-1925) became an editor of a newspaper of Austrian Poalei Zion in Lemberg (Lviv) in 1907 and Yitshak Tabenkin (1887-1971) was a leading member of the local organization of Poalei Zion in Cracow in 1910-1912 (Unger, Poalei-tsiyon ba-keisarut ha-ostrit, 102-103; Mintz, Haver ve-yariv, 133-142). 33 On the so-called Second Aliyah of 1904-1914 see Bartal, Israel, Israel Tzahor, Yehoshua Kaniel (eds.). Ha-aliyah ha-shniyah [The Second Aliyah], 3 vols. Jerusalem: Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi Press, 1997.

46 

 Vladimir Levin

America and Palestine became countries where Jewish political emigrants from Russia tended to integrate and to continue their socialist work in a new environment. However, those leaders of the Jewish Socialist parties who wished to continue their political activities in Russia had to stay in Europe. The leaders of the Bund had already had the experience of emigration before 1905, and therefore the transition from the activity in Russia to the activity abroad was an easy one. Most of them, after escaping from Russia in 1908-1910, settled again in Switzerland, in the places that they knew and loved from the prerevolutionary years.34 During that period Switzerland again became the center of Bund’s emigrant political activities. The Bund also preserved its organizational framework: its Foreign Committee continued working from Geneva, the “groups of supporters” that had existed in the student colonies and the so-called “workers’ associations” were organized in the cities with a significant number of immigrant Jewish workers. However, the geographical dispersion of those groups shows that Switzerland was not the only place of Bundist activity. In 1909 only three student “groups of supporters” existed in Switzerland, in Berne, Geneva, and Zurich, while there were ten such groups in Germany (Berlin, Karlsruhe, Manheim, Baden-Baden, Munich, Braunschweig, Darmstadt, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Mittweida, only two of them, Berlin and Frankfurt, being in Prussia), three in France (Paris, Nancy, Montpelier), two in Belgium (Brussels, Liege) and one in Vienna. Small organizations of Bundist workers existed in Paris, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Glasgow, and Offenbach (a town in Hessen-Darmstadt with leather industry), but not in Switzerland.35 At the same time, in the first years after the 1905 revolution, many second tier activists of the Bund settled in France, especially in Paris.36 They studied in the 34 For example, Vladimir Medem and Vladimir Kossovskii settled in Geneva and Rafael Abramovich – in Zurich. See Medem, Vladimir Medem, 455-466; Herts, Jacob S. (ed.). Doyres bundistn [Generations of Bundists], vol. 1 New York: Unzer tsayt, 1956-1968, 37 and 40; Abramovich, Rafael. In tsvey revolutsyes: Di geshikhte fun a dor [In Two Revolutions: the History of a Generation]. New York: Arbeter-ring, 1944, 1: 345-346. 35 Sed’moi s”ezd Ob”edinennoi organizatsii rabochikh fereinov i grupp sodeistviia Bundu zagranit­ sei [Seventh Convention of the United Organization of Workers’ Associations and Groups of Supporters of the Bund Abroad]. Geneva: Tsentral’noe biuro Ob”ed. org. rabochikh fereinov i grupp sodeistviia Bundu zagranitsei, 1909, 5-6. On the geography of the Bundist colonies in Europe see Weill, Claudie. Russian Bundists Abroad and in Exile, 1898-1925. In Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100, Jack Jacobs (ed.), 46-55. New York: New York University Press, 2001. 36 For example: Abram Braun (Sergey, 1881-1940) in 1908-1912, Israel Plavskin (1883-1938) in 1908, Shmuel Chupak (1880-1944) in 1908, Nadia Grinfeld (1887-1918) in 1910-1912, Kalman Zilberdik (1885-1911) in 1911, Yakov Peskin (1881-1943) in 1912, Hersh Mendl (1893-1968) in 1913. See Herts, Doyres bundistn, 1: 303, 360, 409, 423, 450, and 468; Mendl, Hersh. Zikhroynes fun a yidishn revo­ lutsyoner [Memoirs of a Jewish Revolutionary]. Tel Aviv: I.L. Peretz Publishing House, 1959, 122-150.



Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia 

 47

Sorbonne and were active in the local group of the Bund,37 but had abandoned party work connected with Russia almost entirely. Even the “father of the Bund,” Arkadii Kremer, came in 1912 to study in the Electro-Technical Institute in Toulouse, when, according to his wife, “he felt that he could bring no great benefit to the organization.”38 Likewise, the leaders of the other Jewish Socialist parties went to France in order to study and to reduce the level of their political activity.39 From its establishment in 1905 the Zionist-Socialist Workers’ Party had small branches abroad: workers’ groups in Paris, London, and Budapest,40 and student groups in Berlin, Geneva, and Mittweida.41 They were united into the Western European League of the Zionist Socialists,42 but it could not serve as an organizational base for the leaders, who were forced to emigrate after 1907. The Zionist-Socialist student groups continued to exist after 1907, mostly in Germany;43 however, like the few groups of the Poalei Zion and SERP,44 they could not compete with the Bund. After 1908, an important new “Jewish” émigré center emerged in Europe – Vienna. One of the main leaders of the Jewish Socialist Workers’ party, the SERP, 37 On the Bund’s group in Paris see Dubnova-Erlikh, Sofia. Khleb i matsa: vospominaniia, stikhi raznykh let [Bread and Matza: Reminiscences, Poetry from Various Years], T. V. Lanina (ed.). St. Petersburg: Maksima, 1994, 141-143. 38 [Kremer], Pati. Zikhroynes vegn Arkadin [Reminiscences about Arkadi]. In Arkadi. Zamlbukh zum ondenk fun grinder fun “bund” Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935) [Arkadi. Collection in the Memory of the Founder of the Bund Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935)], 22-72. New York: Unzer tsayt, 1942, 63. 39 For example, Mark Yarblum (1887-1972) from Poalei Zion, Michael Rashkes (?-1938) and Yosef Lestschinsky (1884–1935) from the Zionist-Socialists. See Mintz, Haver ve-yariv, 124-126; Charney, Daniel. Vilne [Vilna]. Buenos-Aires: Tsentral-farband fun poylishe yidn in Argentine, 1951, 151; Dubnov-Erlikh, Sofia. Yosef Lestshinski – zayn lebn un shafn [Yosef Lestschinsky – his Life and Oeuvre]. In Khmurner-bukh, 45-177. New York: Unzer tsayt, 1958, 79 and 82. 40 Der nayer veg 2 (May 5 [18], 1906): 76-80; 11 (July 7 [20], 1906): 479; Dos Vort 2 (May 25 [June 7], 1907): 27; 5 (June 25 [July 7], 1907): 35; 7 (July 12 [25], 1907): 35; Unzer veg 1 (August 19 [September 1], 1907): 36-37; 7 (October 19 [31], 1907): 37-38. 41 Der nayer veg 3-4 (May 19 [June 1], 1906): 144; Dos vort 5 (June 25 [July 7], 1907): 36; 11 (August 2 [15], 1907): 34; Unzer veg 7 (October 19 [31], 1907): 36-37. 42 The League was mentioned for the first time in 1905, when it published a Russian brochure Deklaratsiia Sionistsko-Sotsialisticheskoi Rabochei Partii. The League was also mentioned in 1907: Unzer veg 1 (August 19 [September 1], 1907): 33; 7 (October 19 [31], 1907): 37. A report that the League began to work again appeared in 1909: Yidishes Frayland 1-2 (January 1910): 24. 43 The groups in Geneva and Halle were mentioned in 1909 and the groups in Munich, Berlin, Darmstadt and Halle – in 1911. See Yidishes frayland 1-2 (January 1910): 24; letter of Iosif Rain (pseudonym) to L. Abramzon, July 17, 1911, GARF, col. 102, inv. 1911, file 55, fol. 2 (microfilm in CAHJP, HMF 230). 44 A group of SERP was mentioned in Liege in 1910: letter of Marcus Gil to Tsilia Slitinskaia, April 27, 1911, GARF, col. 102, inv. 1911, file 55, fol. 5 (microfilm in CAHJP, HMF 230). For the groups of Poalei Zion see Mintz, Haver ve-yariv, 124.

48 

 Vladimir Levin

Mark Ratner (1871–1917), settled in Vienna in the end of 1908 after spending a year in Berlin and Switzerland.45 He earned his living as a correspondent of the Russian newspaper Kievskaia Mysl’ (‘The Kiev Thought’), and younger SERP leaders – Moyshe Zilberfarb (1876-1934), Shimon Dubin (1869-1944), Michael Levitan, and Moyshe Raskin – joined him later in that city.46 The leaders of the Socialist-Zionist party – Willy Latski-Bertoldi (1881-1940), Max Schatz-Anin (1885-1975), David Davidovich-Lvovich (1882-1950), Yosef Chernikhov (1882-?), Yosef Kruk (1884-?), Isaiah Khurgin (1887-1925) – also settled in Vienna in 1908. Their material situation was quite poor, and they formed a kind of commune, which consisted of the Central Committee members and their families. The Yiddish writer Daniel Charney (1888-1959), who lived with them, called this group di hunger komune (‘the hunger commune’). Ratner was a little bit better off, and they could sometimes borrow from him in order to visit one of the Viennese coffeehouses.47 At the same time, the center of the Russian Poalei Zion party also moved to Vienna. The situation of Poalei Zion was better than that of the SERP and the Socialist-Zionists, because the Bureau of the World Union of Poalei Zion was situated in Vienna, where its head, Shlomo Kaplansky (1884-1950), studied at the Technische Hochschule.48 The Bureau, although it had no funds, served as an organizational center. At the end of 1908, the representative of the Russian Poalei Zion in the Bureau, David Bloch (Efraim Blumenfeld, 1884-1947), moved from Zurich to Vienna. The charismatic leader of the Russian party, Ber Borochov (18811917), was elected to the Bureau of the World Union in September 1909; he also moved to Vienna, coming from Liege, Belgium, where he had lived for two years, since the summer of 1907. In 1910 Bloch and Borochov were joined in Vienna by Avrom Revutsky (1889-1946).49 45 Letter of A. Garting, head of the Russian secret service in Paris, to the Police Department, October 31(18), 1907, GARF, col. 102, inv. 1907, file 353, fol. 122 (microfilm in CAHJP, HMF 221); Landa, V. M. Mark Borisovitsh Ratner, zayn lebn un tetikayt [Mark Borisovitsh Ratner, his Life and Activity]. In Tsum ondenk fun M. B. Ratner: zamlbukh [In Memoriam M. B. Ratner: a Collection]. [Kiev]: Kiever farlag, [1919], 3-39, here 30. 46 See Mintz, Matityahu (ed.). Igrot Ber Borokhov, 1897-1917 [Letters of Ber Borochov, 1897-1917]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1989, 207, n. 12, 13; A letter of the head of St. Petersburg Security Department (okhrana) to the Police Department, October 4, 1911, GARF, col. 102, inv. 1911, file 55, part 40, litera Б, fol. 4 (microfilm in CAHJP, HMF 230). 47 Charney, Daniel. Barg aroyf (bletlekh fun a lebn) [Uphill (Pages of a Life)]. Warsaw: Literarishe bleter, 1935, 181-201; Kruk, Yosef. Tahat diglan shel shalosh mahapekhot [Under the Banner of Three Revolutions], vol. 2. Tel Aviv: Mahbarot le-sifrut, 1968-1970, 36. 48 On the World Union of Poalei Zion and its Bureau see Unger, Poalei-tsiyon ba-keisarut ha-os­ trit, 297-344. 49 Mintz, Igrot Ber Borokhov, 284; Idem, Manhigut u-manhigim, 156 n. 19.



Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia 

 49

In this way, the majority of leaders of the three proletarian Zionist parties settled permanently or spent significant time in Vienna. Vienna also became the operational base for their connections with Russia. The most active party was Poalei Zion, which had the technical facilities of the World Union’s Bureau; since December 1908 David Bloch had been publishing the Informatsions-bletl (‘Information Bulletin’), which was sent to the Poalei Zion that remained in Russia. The Zionist-Socialists and the members of SERP also produced their literature in Vienna, but they were less prolific.50 Due to the presence of their leaders in Vienna, party conferences were also convened in this city: Poalei Zion had their conference there in September 190951 and the SERP in June 1910.52 In 1911, the Zionist-Socialists tried to use the organization of the Swiss Territorialists in Zurich as their base. Max Schatz-Anin and the West-European League of SSRP had moved to that city for that purpose, but this attempt was fruitless.53 In the end, the leaders of the Bund also moved to Vienna in 1912. The best Bundist journalists – Rafael Abramovich (1880-1963), Vladimir Medem (18791923), Bronislaw Grosser (1883-1912), Moyshe Olgin (1878-1939) and A. Litvak (1874-1932) – settled there in order to edit a new Bundist newspaper, which had to be legally published in Warsaw. The establishment of the new center was met with jealousy by the Foreign Committee in Geneva, but the Bundist tradition of compromising won this time as well.54 The editing of a newspaper remotely did not go well. The weekly Lebns-fragn (‘Life Questions’) in Warsaw was stopped by the authorities after two issues, and a new newspaper, Di tsayt (‘The Time’), was established in St. Petersburg. However, it was much harder to edit a newspaper in St. Petersburg from Vienna, and with time its editing was given over to the Bundists living in the Russian capital. However, the new center in Vienna did not disperse. On the contrary, Vienna housed the Ninth Conference of the Bund in 1912, and the Bund’s Eighth Congress was scheduled to take place in that city in August 1914.55 50 Yidishes Frayland in 1910; Izvestiia Zagranichnogo Komiteta SERP in 1911. 51 Barikht fun der viner partey-konferents. In Yidisher arbeter pinkos (tsu der geshikhte fun der poyalei-tsien bavegung) [Jewish workers’ book of records (to the history of the Poalei Zion movement)], Zerubavel (ed.), 172-279. Warsaw: Naye kultur, 1927. 52 “Rezoliutsii tret’ei Konferentsii Evreiskoi Sotsialisticheskoi Rabochei Partii” [Resolutions of the Third Conference of the Jewish Socialist Workers’ Party], Izvestiia Zagranichnogo Komiteta SERP [News of the Foreign Committee of SERP] 1 (August 1911), 5-7. 53 A letter of Iosif Rain (pseudonym) to L. Abramzon, July 17, 1911, GARF, col. 102, inv. 1911, file 55, fol. 2 (microfilm in CAHJP, HMF 230); Circular Letter I/IV of the West-European League of SSRP, July 15, 1911, ibid., fol. 3-4. 54 Mill, Pionern un boyer, 2: 236-238. 55 On the Vienna Bundist activities see Abramovich, In tsvey revolutsyes, 1: 346-351 and 356-365;

50 

 Vladimir Levin

Thus, the center of the Russian-Jewish political emigration moved from Switzerland to Vienna during the period between the first Russian Revolution and the First World War. While in 1878 Liberman was arrested and expelled for his socialist activities, in the second decade of the twentieth century Vienna became a perfect place for directing the parties’ work in Russia and maintaining connections with local organizations. From a geographical perspective, the connections with Russia were much simpler from Vienna than from Switzerland, Paris, or London. From a political perspective, the deteriorating relationships between the Romanov and Habsburg Empires after the Bosnian crisis of 1908 made the Austrian police less eager to check the activities of Russian revolutionaries.56 While the Russian secret police was very active in Switzerland and France, and even received French support to a certain degree, there were no complaints about the Russian police activity in Austria.57 In addition, one of the advantages of living in Vienna, in comparison with Switzerland, was that many parties’ leaders could earn their income by serving as Viennese correspondents for Russian or Yiddish newspapers. The thriving capital of a multinational empire and one of the Great Powers provided many more news items and discussion topics for foreign correspondents than quiet Swiss university cities. The attractiveness of Vienna and of Austria in general was recognized not only by the Russian-Jewish political emigrants, but also by their “Russian” colleagues. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) – banned by German police from staying in Berlin – lived in Vienna in 1907-1914, edited there the newspaper Pravda (‘Truth’), which was distributed in Russia, and served as a correspondent for the same Kievskaia Mysl’, for which Mark Ratner also worked.58 Vladimir Lenin (1871-1924) settled in Austrian Galicia in 1912 in order to supervise closely the publication of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda in St. Petersburg and oversee other Bolshevik activities in the Russian territory.59

Medem, Vladimir Medem, 481-495; Jacobs, Jack. Written Out of History: Bundists in Vienna and the Varieties of Jewish Experience in the Austrian First Republic. In In Search of Jewish Communi­ ty: Jewish Identities in Germany and Austria, 1918-1933, Michael Brenner, Derek J. Penslar (eds.), 115-133. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, here 116-119. 56 See Abramovich, In tsvey revolutsyes, 1: 345. 57 On the Russian political police abroad see Peregrudova, Z.I. Politicheskii sysk Rossii, 18801917 [Political Investigation in Russia, 1880-1917]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2000, 140-168. 58 On Trotsky see Deutscher, The Prophet Armed, 183-210. 59 On Lenin see Vladimir Il’ich Lenin. Biograficheskaia khronika [Vladimir Il’ich Lenin. Biographical Chronicle], vol. 3: 1912-1917. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1972, 8-273; Service, Robert. Lenin: A Political Life, vol. 2: Worlds in Collision. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991, 34-66.



Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia 

 51

Russian and Russian-Jewish revolutionary activities in Austria-Hungary came to a halt with the outbreak of the First World War. With the beginning of hostilities all Russian subjects had to leave Austrian territory, and most of them headed again to Switzerland. Neutral Switzerland was a convenient place for citizens of combatant countries who opposed the war, and the problem of the great distance to Russia lost its importance, since smuggling illegal literature into Russia became nearly impossible after the continent was divided by warring front lines. However, Switzerland could provide neither context for socialist activities nor livelihoods for the activists, and therefore the attractiveness of the United States and the possibilities there for socialist activists became even more promising than before the war. Thus, many Russian-Jewish political emigrants moved to the USA during the First World War and became actively involved in Jewish politics there.60

Conclusion As this article has shown, the best places for émigré members of Jewish socialist movement and Jewish socialist parties in the Russian Empire were London and New York. There they could enjoy exceptional personal safety and unlimited access to Jewish “masses.” However, due to the geographical distance to Russia and the possibilities of conducting socialist work among local “masses,” the emigrants usually lost the connection with the movements and parties in Russia. Their emigration was typically considered permanent and all their energy was directed towards local Jewish and socialist politics. This option was well suited to those socialists who devoted themselves to the Jewish cause: their emigration to a new geographical location did not demand changes in their commitment. For the émigré revolutionaries who did not consider separate Jewish activities necessary or desirable and fully identified with the Russian movement, this option of change in audience without changing the general commitment did not exist.

60 Among those who moved to the USA during the war were Max Goldfarb, A. Litvak, Moyshe Olgin (all Bund) and Ber Borochov (Poalei Zion). On their participation in American-Jewish politics see Frankel, Prophecy and Politics, 509-546; on Borochov see also Mintz, Matityahu. Zmanim hadashim, zmirot hadashot: Ber Borokhov, 1914-1917 [New Times, New Songs: Ber Borokhov, 1914-1917]. Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1988. Among “Russian” revolutionaries the most prominent was Trotsky, deported by the authorities from France and Spain in 1916, but also Nikolai Bukharin, Alexandra Kollontai and V. Volodarsky (Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed. Trotsky: 1879– 1921. London: Oxford University Press, 1954, 213-243).

52 

 Vladimir Levin

The most convenient countries for those émigré politicians who wished to continue their involvement in Russian affairs were Germany (especially Prussia) and Austria-Hungary (especially the Austrian part of the dual monarchy). Geographical distances from those countries to Russia were short, which made connections with underground organizations “at home” easier and cheaper. However, the regimes of both countries effectively suppressed the activities of revolutionaries from Russia. Only after 1908 did Austria become an almost ideal place for Russian-Jewish (as well as “Russian”) émigré revolutionaries, while Prussia continued to prevent the formation of émigré centers until 1914. Switzerland and France were situated in the middle, between those two poles. They had no convenient or fast connections to Russia, but were situated much closer to it than Great Britain and the United States. France attracted many “Russian” émigrés and a smaller number of “Jewish” ones. However, living in France could hardly be compatible – as is seen in the abovementioned examples – with full-scale Jewish revolutionary activity in Russia. In Switzerland, on the other hand, the unique combination of personal security, large numbers of Jewish students, a long tradition of Russian political emigration, and a central location in Europe, allowing easy contacts with other European cities, enabled the most important émigré center. It could be abandoned for more convenient options, such as happened in 1901, 1905, and after 1908, but Russian-Jewish revolutionaries, as well as their “Russian” colleagues, could always return there in times of trouble, like in 1907 and 1914.



Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia 

Figure 3: Detail of the cover of the Bundist periodical The Latest News, No. 229, May 1905.

 53

Sandrine Mayoraz

The Jewish Labor Bund in Switzerland “And every member of our organization will profess to be, and feel that he is, an equal member of the Bund, irrespective of where destiny has cast him – be it Geneva or Vilna.”1 This sentence concludes a report of the organization of all Bund groups outside of the Russian Empire. It was written in Geneva in August 1906, at a time when the network created by exiled Bundists was expanding. Since the arrival of John Mill in Geneva in 1898 and his efforts to build up an organization abroad to support the Bund in the Russian Empire, the Bundists who had been forced to flee Tsarist Russia had spread the ideas of the party in many cities and countries in Europe and beyond. The existing literature about the history of the Bund2 before the Russian Revolutions of 1917 mentions the organization of the Jewish socialist party outside of Russia, but largely limits its treatment to a brief description of the Foreign Committee of the Bund and the circles abroad.3 Although there have been recent studies on topics such as the networks of the Bund abroad in the broader context of migration, a detailed analysis of the structure of the Bund outside Russia and the important role it played in supporting the party members and Central Committee in the Tsarist Empire for the period until 1917 has yet to be undertaken.4 In this paper, I will begin by explaining the organizational role of Switzerland for the Bund by briefly presenting the Bund’s structure in this country and 1 Ochet o deiatel’nosti Ob”edinennoi Organizatsii Grupp Sodeistviia Bundu Zagranitsei za vremia ot 15 marta do 15 iiulia 1906 goda. Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeyter Bund Collection (AYABC), International Institute of Social History Amsterdam (IISH), 10, p. 24. 2 Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeter Bund in Lite, Poyln un Rusland (‘The General Union of Jewish Workers in Lithuania, Poland, and Russia’, short: Bund). 3 Cf. Tobias, Henry J. The Jewish Bund in Russia. From its Origins to 1905. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972; Minczeles, Henri. Histoire générale du Bund. Un mouvement révolutionnaire juif. Paris: Austral, 1995. For a short article that is entirely dedicated to the Bund organization abroad, see Weill, Claudie. Russian Bundists Abroad and in Exile, 1898-1925. In Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe. The Bund at 100, Jack Jacobs (ed.), 46-55. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001. Claudie Weill also dedicates a section in one of his books to the subject: Weill, Claudie. Les cosmopolites. Socialisme et judéité en Russie (1897 – 1917). Paris: Syllepse, 2004, 129-151. 4 See for instance Frank Wolff’s dissertation entitled “Neue Welten in der Neuen Welt? Der Allgemeine Jüdische Arbeiterbund im Migrationsprozess zwischen Osteuropa, den USA und Argentinien 1897-1947, Eine globale Mikrostudie.” (Bielefeld University, 2011); Mayoraz, Sandrine. “Der jüdische Arbeiterbund in der Schweiz von den Anfängen bis 1914.” Basel: [unpublished master’s thesis], 2010. For an overview of the historiography of the Bund, see Wolff, Frank. Historiography on the General Jewish Labor Bund. Traditions, Tendencies and Expectations. Medaon 4 (2009): 1-12.



The Jewish Labor Bund in Switzerland 

 55

looking at the kind of support that was built up there by the Bundists. Secondly, I will present the history of the Jewish printing press (later called the Imprimerie israélite), which had been established in Geneva in 1898 for the party abroad and remained there (albeit not in continuous operation) until 1917. The perception of the Bund and Bundists by the Swiss authorities and their reaction to the presence of the Bund on their territory will also be addressed in this section. Finally, I will examine the relationship between the Bundists and their social environment in Switzerland. My article is based on archival sources from the Schweizeri­ sches Bundesarchiv in Berne (BAR), the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam (IISH) and the Archives d’État in Geneva (AEG). These consist mainly of reports and information sheets of the organization of the Bund abroad (in the case of the sources from Amsterdam) and some police documents about Bundists who were kept under surveillance by the Swiss authorities (in the case of the Swiss sources). I have drawn on the memoirs of Vladimir Medem (1879-1923) for their colorful (but subjective) descriptions of some aspects of his time spent in Switzerland and of the atmosphere in the Russian “colony” in Berne.

Organization and Structure of the Bund in Switzerland In the second half of the nineteenth century, Switzerland was a place of refuge for many revolutionaries and socialists from various European countries. Among them were left-wing political activists from the Russian Empire. They benefited not only from Switzerland’s central geographical location within Europe, but also from the restraint exercised by the Swiss authorities, who did not intervene in their revolutionary activities as long as these did not threaten the security of the country.5 The political situation in the Russian Empire and the less than exacting admissions requirements at several Swiss universities attracted a great number of Russians (including a high percentage of women and Jews) to Zurich, Berne, Geneva, and to a lesser extent Lausanne. These students formed “Russian colonies” in 5 On Switzerland as a place of refuge for revolutionaries, see Collmer, Peter. Die Schweiz und das Russische Reich 1848-1919: Geschichte einer europäischen Verflechtung. Zurich: Chronos, 2003; Gidkov, Anina. Exil als Lebenswelt. Prägungen einer Generation von Revolutionären. In Die Russische Revolution 1917, Heiko Haumann (ed.), 47-58. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2007; Neumann, Daniela. Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz (1867-1914). Zurich: Hans Rohr, 1987.

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 Sandrine Mayoraz

which political life spread and which attracted many students who previously had little or no ties with politics. Members of the various revolutionary parties of the Russian Empire abroad saw these Russian colonies as a prime target audience for political agitation. The Jewish Labor Bund was no exception. However, the case of the Bund merits particular attention insofar as exiled members of the party sought to create an official, well-organized supporting structure with its center in Switzerland. From 1898 to 1917 the Bund was represented in Switzerland on three levels: (a) through the Foreign Committee of the Bund, which was active in Geneva almost without interruption from its creation until 1917; (b) through the tsentral­ nye kruzhki (Russian: ‘central circles’) in cities like Geneva, Berne, Zurich and Lausanne; (c) through the Obed”inennaia organizatsiia bundovskikh kruzhkov zagranitsei (‘United Organization of the Bund Circles Abroad’) and its Central Office, which worked from Berne and later from Geneva. (a) John Mill (1870-1952) founded the Foreign Committee of the Bund in Geneva in the latter part of 1898. Its aim was to support the Central Committee in the Russian Empire as much as possible. This was to be achieved, on the one hand, through financial help. It regularly organized fund-raising activities and collected donated money to be sent to Russia. For instance, special relief funds were founded to assist political prisoners and their families or to support strike movements in the Russian Empire. On the other hand, the Foreign Committee intended to aid the party by printing and smuggling literature into Russia and distributing it in the “colonies” all over Europe. This was called “literary aid.” To this end, the members of the Foreign Committee established a printing press in Geneva. The Bund in Russia soon recognized the significance of the Foreign Committee and the importance of this material support for the party. At the third congress of the Bund, held in Kovno in December 1899, the Central Committee recognized the Foreign Committee in Geneva as its official representative abroad.6 (b) Soon after the creation of the Bund in Russia, support groups sprung up in a number of cities outside of Russia, especially in places where many Russian-Jewish socialists resided. Once the Foreign Committee had been founded, these groups organized themselves in tsentralnye kruzhki (‘central circles’). The names they gave themselves reflected their commitment to the progressive ideas they sought to propagate. In Switzerland, for instance, the central circle in Geneva was named Gleichheit (‘Equality’), the one in Berne Zukunft (‘Future’), the one in Lausanne Nachalo (‘Beginning’), and the one in Zurich Achdes (‘Unity’).7 6 Tobias, Jewish Bund, 93-94. 7 Kratkii ocherk deiatel’nosti ob”edinennoi organizatsii bund. kr. zagranitsei za vremia ot



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(c) In January 1902, delegates of all of the central circles that existed abroad decided to meet in Berne in order to find a way to organize and coordinate themselves more efficiently. They created the Obed”inennaia organizatsiia bundo­ vskikh kruzhkov zagranitsei (‘United Organization of the Bund Circles Abroad’) and the Tsentral’noe Biuro (‘Central Office’). The report on this meeting defines a number of essential organizational points concerning the central circles: a central circle was to be composed of at least three members; a new member could only be admitted if no one voted against it; the function of a central circle was to support the Foreign Committee in its activities for the party in Russia.8 In practice, this meant financial and literary aid: Members were encouraged to campaign among the emigrants (both students and workers) from the Russian Empire and to acquaint West European socialists with the Bundist cause. Although the Central Committee of the Bund was aware of the role these circles played in supporting the activities of the party in Russia, it did not recognize the tsentralnye kruzhki as official party organs until 1906. This lack of recognition caused some disgruntlement among the exiled Bundists, who felt that the Central Committee did not appreciate their work as much as it should.9 Nevertheless, they intended to establish and develop an enduring, deeply rooted organization for those Jews from the Russian Empire who lived abroad, as the last sentence of the report on the activities of the central circles in 1902 makes apparent: “The past year has clearly shown the viability of such an organization. Our next task is its further development.”10 Of particular importance was the Tsentral’noe Biuro (‘Central Office’). It was defined as follows: “The Central Office is the link between the individual Bund circles.”11 It was composed of at least five members. The central circles elected four persons from their own ranks, and one person was appointed by the Foreign Committee. The first Central Office consisted of members of the central circle in Berne, where it had its headquarters. It remained there until May 1906 when its then secretary, David Makhlin, was expelled from Switzerland. He had been accused by the Swiss authorities of having in his apartment a box with chemical instruments and substances that could be used for making a bomb. After his expulsion, the Central Office was transferred to Geneva.12 1ogo janv. po 20 dek. 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 5A. 8 Ochet o pervom s”ezde tsentral’nykh bundovskikh kruzhkov 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 5A. 9 Medem, Vladimir. Vladimir Medem, The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist. Samuel A. Portnoy (ed.). New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1979, 299. 10 Kratkii ocherk deiatel’nosti ob”edinennoi organisacii bund. kr. zagranitsei za vremia ot 1ogo janv. po 20 dek. 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 5A, 18. 11 Ochet o pervom s”ezde [...] 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 3. 12 David Makhlin (spelled Machlin in the Swiss sources, 1879-1952) came to Switzerland in

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The Central Office fulfilled the dual function of coordinating the central circles themselves and linking these circles with the Foreign Committee. It was responsible for organizing the central circles, arranging presentations and lectures by prominent members of the socialist movement in many cities, and organizing the usual celebrations and demonstrations. It also played an important role in transmitting information about the latest developments in the Russian Empire to the Foreign Committee. This information was transferred to the colonies by individuals newly arriving, or returning, from Russia. The Central Office sent regular inquiries to the central circles to confirm the exact number of circle members, the average number of participants in discussion evenings, demonstrations, and celebrations, the size of the colonies, and the amount of money that each central circle had collected and spent. The supervising role of the Central Office did not mean that the tsentral’nye kruzhki had no direct connections with the Foreign Committee. It was explicitly recommended that in the case of very urgent information or questions, the central circles should contact the Foreign Committee in Geneva directly.13 The structure was thus not only vertical, and remained flexible. The Central Office was of great importance for the Foreign Committee as it linked the latter with the various central circles, which over the years had come to be established all over Europe and even in North and South America. Because the Central Office concentrated on the communication, coordination and groundwork in the colonies, the Foreign Committee was able to focus on questions of publication and on assisting the Central Committee in the Russian Empire. One point that gave rise to many discussions during the first meeting of delegates of all the central circles abroad in Berne in January 1902, was the matter of the public announcement of their existence. It was decided that extreme caution should be exercised. The Bund was illegal in Russia, and the exiled Bundists feared that tsarist spies would discover their organization; indeed, spies flourished in the colonies in the West, included in Switzerland.14 In his memoirs, Vladimir Medem describes the activities of the Bund group in Berne and confirms that the autumn of 1904 after being expelled from Prussia for his participation in a Russian demonstration. He was a Bundist who played an important role in the Bund abroad until 1906. After his expulsion from Switzerland, he returned to the Russian Empire. Around 1910 he was active in Vilna and was arrested. After the revolutions of 1917 he remained in Soviet Russia, where he suffered under the Bolshevik and Stalinist repressions. He probably died in a camp in 1952. For a more detailed description of his life and activities, see my article “Bundistische Hochburg.” Der Allgemeine Jüdische Arbeiterbund in Bern. In Geschichte der Juden in Stadt und Region Bern, René Bloch, Jacques Picard (eds.). Zurich: Chronos, 2014 (forthcoming). 13 Ochet o pervom s”ezde [...] 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 4. 14 See Medem, Vladimir Medem, 223.



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the central circle in Berne was kept under tight secrecy. Potential new members were approached very carefully; rather than asking the person directly if she or he wanted to join the organization, Bundists asked, “Would you be willing to enter a Bund group if one were organized?”15 The conspiratorial character of the organization is also apparent in the sources – almost no names are mentioned in the documents of the Bund examined for this paper.16 In the statistics about the number of members or supporters, for instance, mathematical data is given, but no lists of names or pseudonyms. Thus, with its organizational center abroad located in Switzerland, the Bund in Russia had a solid basis for work and support. Of particular significance was the Bund’s printing press, which had been installed in Geneva soon after the creation of the Foreign Committee in 1898.

The History of the Jewish Printing Press Initially, the printing press that John Mill had established for the dissemination of Bundist literature and propaganda was located in the Chemin des Pervenches in Carouge, a neighboring commune of Geneva. In the minutes of the fourth congress of the Bund, held in Białystok in May 1901, we learn about the existing possibilities for sending money to the party. One such possibility is listed as the “Redaktion des ‘Jüdischen Arbeiters’, Chemin des Pervenches, maison Hengel, Genève – Suisse.”17 This maison Hengel was located at 10 Chemin des Pervenches. However, the printing office was first located at number 4, as stated in a letter by Alfred Didier (1842–1903), the Staatsrat (cantonal government councillor) of the Department of Police and Justice of the canton of Geneva to the Office of the Attorney General in Berne: “We [the cantonal government] have the honor to inform you that there exists in Carouge, at 4 rue des Pervenches, a Jewish printing office where brochures in Hebraic letters are printed: this printing office is held by one Rabkine Israel.”18 The consequence of this announcement was that the Office of the Attorney General decided to hire a person who could read Yiddish in order to

15 Ibid., 360 and 467-468. 16 I examined only the Russian-language documents of the AYABC and IISH. 17 Chetvertyi s”ezd Vseobshchago Evreiskago Rabochago Soiuza v Litve, Pol’she i Rossii, 1901. AYABC, IISH, 5C, 23. 18 Le Conseiller d’Etat Chargé du Département de Justice et Police (Genève) au Ministère Public Fédéral, April 12, 1900. E21: Polizeiwesen 1848-1930, Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv Bern (BAR), E21 7701.

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verify the content of the publications.19 However, in the BAR, I found only one document indicating this kind of check. It therefore remains unclear whether the Swiss authorities regularly kept an eye on the publications or not. It is possible, as the printing office was new, that the Swiss police merely wanted to get some general information about the kind of publications produced. There is no documentation about the existence of the Bund’s printing office in the commercial register of the canton of Geneva. However, the name “Rabkine” appears in the 1901-1906 editions of the Annuaire du Commerce Genevois with the information “imprimeur, Pervenches 10, Carouge.” We find the same information under the name “Vilter, Marc.”20 This proves that a certain Marc Vilter was also involved in the work of the Jewish printing office. We have no information about the exact number of those working at the printing office established by John Mill. Nevertheless, there are two important individuals who were active for the Bund in 1901 in Geneva and whose fates should merit discussion here because of their direct impact on the organization of the Bund abroad: Arkadii Kremer (1865-1935) and Chaim Bernstein (1877-?). Arkadii Kremer, one of the founders of the Bund, fled the Russian Empire in 1900. After spending some months in Paris, he settled in Geneva in December 1900.21 Chaim Bernstein, who also escaped from Vilna, was registered in Geneva as of February 9, 1901. He, too, had spent some time in Paris before arriving in Switzerland. Soon after Kremer and Bernstein settled in Geneva, an incident occurred that eventually lead to their expulsion. On April 5, 1901, left-minded groups organized a public meeting in the Bonfantini room in Geneva. They wanted to protest against the extradition of the Italian anarchist Vittorio Jaffei22 and to support the students’ demonstrations in Russia. The meeting was attended not only by emigrants from Russia, but also by Swiss and Italian citizens. Thus, according to the report of the Attorney General, the gathering was composed “predominantly of foreigners, among

19 The printing office of the Foreign Committee published many political pamphlets, Yiddish translations of important socialist texts, and the periodical Der yidisher arbeter, which became the official organ of the Foreign Committee and was published by the latter until 1904. See Tobias, Jewish Bund, 93-94, 396. 20 Annuaire du commerce genevois, extrait de l’annuaire du commerce suisse. Geneva: Chapalay et Mottier, 1895-1951. For this paper, I looked at the volumes for the years 1898 to 1919. 21 Questionnaire, April 9, 1901. BAR, E21 9068. 22 The Italian anarchist Vittorio Jaffei was accused by the Italian government of having taken part in the assassination of King Umberto I on July 29, 1900. The federal court authorized his extradition on April 1, 1900. See the article “L’extradition de Jaffei,” Gazette de Lausanne 103, 77 (April 1, 1901).



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whom the Russian or Slavic element in turn made up the large majority.”23 After the meeting, some of the attendees took part in a demonstration in front of the Italian and Russian consulates, where they “sang, shouted and whistled revolutionary songs.”24 One of the demonstrators in front of the Russian consulate threw a stone at the building. The stone landed in one of the rooms of the consul’s private apartment. Moreover, the armorial bearings of the edifice were torn down and destroyed. These events caused a diplomatic crisis between the canton of Geneva and the Russian consul, who accused the police of not doing anything to prevent the incidents.25 The police investigations led to the arrest of several persons. Six of them (five Russians and one Italian) remained in provisional detention, among them Arkadii Kremer and Chaim Bernstein. Despite the efforts of their lawyer and a petition signed by more than a hundred people who were present at the demonstration, the two Bundists were expelled from Switzerland on April 17, 1901. In the Swiss police archival documents, the Bund is not mentioned. In the form completed by the police after his arrest, Kremer stated that he was a “proofreader/printer” and that he had already been sentenced to prison in Moscow “for political infractions.” Only his address (10 Chemin des Pervenches) indicates his connection with the Jewish printing office.26 The same is true of Bernstein. In his police dossier it is stated that he was a “proofreader at the Russian printing office”27 and that he lived at 7 Route de la Cluse, which was the address of the printing office of the Russian social democrats.28 It is only in a report by his attorney César Hudry to the Swiss Federal Council, in which Hudry sought to vindicate his clients, that we discover that Bernstein resided at the Russian printing office and worked for the Jewish printing office.29 This relationship between the Bund and other Socialists will be examined in a later part of this paper. Let us return to the impact of Kremer’s and Bernstein’s expulsion on the Bund in Switzerland.

23 Auszug aus dem Protokoll der Sitzung des Schweizerischen Bundesrates, April 17, 1901. BAR, E21 13908. 24 Ibid. 25 Séance extraordinaire du 6 avril 1901. AEG, RC 487. 26 Questionnaire, April 9, 1901. BAR, E21 9068. 27 Questionnaire, April 9, 1901. BAR, E21 8646. 28 Its publications included the periodical Krasnoe Znamia. This was a journal of the Sojuz russ­ kikh sotsialdemokratov and was linked to Rabochoe Delo. See Kluge, Ernfried E. Die russische revolutionäre Presse in der zweiten Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts 1855-1905. Zurich: Artemis-Verlag, 1948, 140. 29 Incidents du 5 avril 1901. Exposé présenté au Haut Conseil Fédéral par Me César Hudry, April 16, 1901. BAR, E21 13908.

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Figure 4: Detail from the dossier of the Fremdenpolizei on Chaim Bernstein.



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For the Bund’s organization in Geneva, the loss of Kremer and Bernstein had major consequences: The Foreign Committee and the printing office were transferred to London.30 In the official sources from the Bund there is no precise description of how exactly the relocation took place. The transfer of the printing office was mentioned by the Geneva authorities in a letter to the office of the Attorney General on September 11, 1901: “We have the honor to inform you that the Israelite printing office which was installed at 10 Chemin des Pervenches has just been relocated to London. Its owner Rabkine Israel has also left for London.”31 This last sentence contradicts the entry in the Annuaire du commerce genevois, where Rabkine is given as imprimeur from 1901 until 1906. In the archives in Geneva, there is no information about the date of his departure. It appears that he left without informing the authorities.32 It is possible that he kept his address at 10 Chemin des Pervenches in order to avoid possible confusion for other Bundists coming to Geneva or supporters who wanted to send money to the Foreign Committee and who did not know that Rabkine had departed for London. Not all Bundists left Geneva with the relocation of the Foreign Committee and the printing office to London. There was still at least one Bundist to receive the mail addressed to Rabkine: Mark Vilter, who remained in Geneva until October 1906, when he eventually informed the city authorities of his intention of returning to the Russian Empire.33 In addition to Vilter, there must have been other members of the Bund who remained in Geneva and with whom the Foreign Committee kept close contacts. Proof of this is furnished by the following event: Before the fifth party congress of the Bund, scheduled for June 1903 in Zurich, a secret preliminary meeting was organized in Geneva in the spring of the same year. About ten Bundists travelled to Geneva, among them three members of the Foreign Committee: John Mill, Tsemakh Kopelson (1869-1933) and Arkadii Kremer.34 Some Bundists must have been in Geneva to take care of the arrangements and organize the smuggling of these persons over the Swiss border. Furthermore, a report by the Geneva police from November 1903, in which the “different Russo-revolutionary groups in Geneva” are described, alludes to the

30 See Medem, Vladimir Medem, 274; Weill, Russian Bundists Abroad, 51. 31 Le Conseiller d’Etat Chargé du Département de Justice et Police (Genève) au Ministère Public Fédéral, September 11, 1901. BAR, E21 7701. 32 This was actually quite typical of the Bundists who stayed in Switzerland for a while. Vladimir Medem, for instance, did announce his arrival in Berne in 1901, but gave no notice of departure to the city authorities. 33 Letter from Marc Vilter to the Conseil d’Etat Genevois, June 3, 1906. Dossier étranger, AEG, Vilter 4650/00. 34 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 272.

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links between London and Geneva.35 It is the first official Swiss report in which an attempt is made to distinguish between the several socialist movements from the Russian Empire that were active in Switzerland. In it, the police director characterizes the Bund as follows: “The ‘Alliance’ [the Bund; S.M.] is independent from other groups; its ‘Central Committee’ abroad has its domicile in London, which is also where its organ ‘Latest News of the Bund’ [probably Poslednye Izvestiia; S.M.] is published. The same is sent from London to Geneva, and from there, by order of the Central Committee, to Russia.”36 Although the report was written in the fall of 1903, at about the same time as the return of the Foreign Committee to Geneva, it shows clearly that contacts with Geneva had not been interrupted and that the remaining Bundists in the city still played an active role in smuggling illegal literature to Russia.

The Return of the Foreign Committee to Geneva in 1903 and the Imprimerie Israélite In his memoirs, Vladimir Medem recalls the relocation of the Foreign Committee from London back to Geneva: “The foreign committee moved back to Geneva in the autumn of 1903, at which time I too was appointed a member of the committee, and consequently took up residence in Geneva.”37 Together with the Foreign Committee, the printing office was also transferred back to Geneva. In the sources used for this paper, there is no information about the reasons why the Foreign Committee returned to Geneva at this time. It is worth bearing in mind that the composition of the “colonies” in London and in Switzerland was radically different. While in London there were few Jewish students but a lot of Jewish workers who had emigrated from the Russian Empire, the Swiss cities had important Russian-Jewish “student colonies.”38 It may be assumed that it was easier for the Foreign Committee to find people who spoke several languages (such as Yiddish and Russian) and could help with the editorial activities and organization of the Foreign Committee among the student emigrants in Switzerland than among the worker emigrants in London. Thus the Foreign Committee probably returned to Geneva for logistical and organizational reasons. 35 Part of the report is copied in a letter from the Office of the Swiss Attorney General to the Schweizerische Justiz-und Polizeidepartement in Bern, November 29, 1903. BAR, E21 5577. 36 Ibid., 3. 37 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 299. 38 See for instance Weill, Les cosmopolites, 144-146.





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Figure 5: Letterhead of the Imprimerie Israélite in Geneva.

The return of the printing office is confirmed for the first time in a police inquiry about a certain Abram Mytinkowitsch39 who applied to the Geneva authorities for a residence permit in February 1904. The police documents record that Mytinkowitsch had been living in the town since January 20, 1904, and that he had already spent time in Switzerland during his studies at the University of Berne from April 1901 to November 1902. We also learn that he had worked in London in a printing office named “Nathanson” before coming to Geneva. Regarding his current occupation in Geneva, the police officer writes: He currently administers the Israelite printing office at rue de Carouge where the Israelite periodical named the Latest News of the Revolutionaries in Russia is printed. […] He also brought from London a part of the printing press that is no longer used there. There is cause to believe that this printing office served in London for the party and journal the Bound or Bund whose transfer to Geneva was announced some days ago.40

This report reveals both that the printing press was working again, and that the Swiss authorities now made a clear link between the Bund, the printing press, London, and Geneva. Another person involved in the functioning of the Imprimerie israélite was Moise Kamenschein (1872-?). He obtained a residence permit on January 12, 1904.41 Unfortunately, the Geneva archives have not preserved many files from 39 That is, Abram Iakolevich Mutnik (1868-1930), one of the founders of the Bund. Because he appears in the Swiss sources only under the name Mytinkowitsch, I have chosen to follow this spelling for the purposes of this paper. 40 Département de Justice et Police (Genève), Police de Sûreté, Enquête, February 18, 1904. Dossier étranger, AEG, Mytinkowitsch 12948. 41 Bureau des Permis de Séjour, demande de renseignements, January 12, 1904. Dossier

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this period. Nevertheless, in Kamenschein’s dossier there is a report about him that was written at the request of the canton of Geneva on the occasion of his application for an entry permit in November 1925. It reads: The named KAMENSCHEIN Moïse […] arrived in Geneva in December 1903 from London, where he was part of the editorial department of the journal the Bund, organ of the Jewish socialist workers’ party at that time. In journalistic circles he was known by the pseudonym ‘Nathanson.’ His arrival in Geneva coincided with the transportation and transfer from London of the printing office of the ‘BUND’ to our city. He later ran, in association with one Mr. BLUMIN [Bliumin is sometimes written Blumin in the Geneva sources; S.M.] a small Israelite Printing Office.42

We can infer from this paragraph that Kamenschein came to Geneva because of the relocation of the Jewish printing press. Moreover, it is probable that he was the owner of the printing press in London, as the name of the latter was the same as his pseudonym, ‘Nathanson.’ There is also a dossier on Mendel Bliumin, who is mentioned in the Kamenschein report. It, too, is dated November 27, 1925, when Bliumin likewise requested an entry permit. Regarding Bliumin’s activities in Geneva, the police officer reports: “Associated with KAMENSCHEIN Moïse, he held a small Israelite Printing Office at 81 rue de Carouge, but his main occupation was journalism under the pseudonym of ‘KURSKY’.”43 Thus we can conclude that Bliumin was one of several pseudonyms of the well-known Bundist Franz Kursky, whose arrival date in Geneva in 1906 coincides with the date on which Bliumin settled there. Further evidence about the presence of the printing office of the Foreign Committee in Geneva can be found in the Annuaire du commerce genevois. In the 1905 edition, the Imprimerie russe at 81 rue de Carouge is mentioned for the first time.44 Then, from 1907 until 1918, the entry for 81 rue de Carouge becomes “Bliumin, Mendel, imprimerie israélite.”45 This change coincides with the registration of the printing office under the name of Mendel Bliumin at the Geneva commercial register at the end of August 1906. 46 The Bundists thus wanted the printing press étranger, AEG, Kamenschein 94936. 42 Département de Justice et Police (Genève), Service de la Sûreté, Enquête, November 27, 1925. Dossier étranger, AEG, Kamenschein 94936. 43 Département de Justice et Police (Genève), Service de la Sûreté, Enquête, November 27, 1925. Dossier étranger, AEG, Bliumin 65221. 44 No other names are given, and there is no indication that this was actually the Jewish printing office. The same is true of the year 1906. 45 Annuaire du commerce genevois, 1905. 46 In the description of its activities, the enterprise is defined as “Imprimerie, édition de bro­ chures russes et israëlites avec sous-titre ‘Imprimerie Israëlite’.” See Registre du commerce, réper-



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to be consistent with Swiss law. I argue that two distinct factors led to the official registration of the printing office in the commercial register. On the one hand, it decreased the risk of being accused of illegal activities, because the printing office now existed officially. This of course did not protect the owners from potential problems concerning the content of the publications. It is also noteworthy that the name of the Bund is mentioned neither in the commercial register nor in the Annuaire. Nevertheless, the registration at least guaranteed the printing office the right to conduct its activities legally. On the other hand, this registration indicates a more profound change in the party itself. The revolution of 1905-1907 had brought political changes to Russia, including the introduction of freedom of association and an easing of censorship. These changes led many Bundists to rethink the party strategy. Legalization became more and more important to many of them. They believed that the illegality and conspiratorial structure of the Bund prevented it from achieving its goals and gaining new supporters. This strategic shift was also discussed among the Bundists abroad. During the fifth meeting of the Obed”inennaia organizatsiia bundovskikh kruzhkov zagranitsei (‘United Organization of the Bund Circles Abroad’) in March 1906, the delegates decided to undertake “legalization” (legalizatsiia). Specifically, this implied that from now on the central circles (which were now called gruppy sodeistviia – assistance groups) ceased to act in secret: They could now undersign flyers and pamphlets, and make their existence officially known.47 Registration with the Geneva authorities was certainly part of this new strategy. The Imprimerie israélite represented a great source of support for the Bund. It produced all sorts of propaganda leaflets, flyers, and journals, in Yiddish as well as in Russian. Some writings were even published in other languages including French, German, and English in order to win non-Russian-Jewish opinion (such as that of other socialists) for the cause of the party. Although the name of the Bund was not directly linked to the printing office in the commercial register, the Swiss authorities were certainly aware that its activities were related to the Jewish socialist party.48 Scattered reports on the printing office prove that the Swiss authorities kept the Imprimerie under surveillance. They also demonstrate the significance of the printing press and of Geneva for the network created abroad in its efforts to support the Bund in Russia. In a letter from Berlin to the Swiss Attorney General, we read: toire alphabétique, AEG, Mi B 812n. 47 Ochet o deiatel’nosti Ob”edinennoi Organizatsii Grupp Sodeistviia Bundu Zagranitsei za vremia ot 15 marta do 15 iiulia 1906 goda. AYABC, IISH, 10, 2. 48 See the personal dossier on Abram Mytinkowitsch: Dossier étranger, AEG, Mytinkowitsch 12948.

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[...] according to a reliable, confidential message that has just reached me, some packages with anarchistic literature will leave New York for Geneva and London – seemingly for re-forwarding to Russia [...] The latter [addresses to which the packages were to be sent; S.M.] will probably be communicated by means of registered letters to the ‘Israelite Printing Office,’ 81 rue de Carouge in Geneva.49

This clearly demonstrates that Geneva was part of a smuggling network with centers in New York and London, two cities that were immigration centers for the masses of Jewish workers from Eastern Europe.50 In response to this letter, the Office of the Attorney General decided to take action. On March 9, 1904, it ordered the Geneva Department of Justice and Police to investigate the Jewish printing office. The Geneva police sent its report one week later.51 Sadly, it is preserved in neither the Swiss Federal Archives nor the Geneva archives. However, we know from the correspondence between Berne and Geneva that the investigations continued. On March 18, the secretary of the Geneva Department of Justice and Police forwarded the following note to the secretary of the Office of the Attorney General: “[The secretary of the Department of Police and Justice; S.M.] transmits to you a report concerning the names and addresses to which printed material is sent by the Israelite Printing Office.”52 Due to the scarcity of the sources, we do not know how the investigation developed and to what conclusions it came. Nevertheless, the police investigation and surveillance of the printed material show that the Swiss authorities had a certain interest in the Imprimerie israélite: From October 1904 to March 1906, the Geneva police regularly collected the periodicals published by the Jewish printing office and handed them over to the Office of the Attorney General, who sent them to a translator, the librarian André Langie (1871-?) in Lausanne.53 Langie’s task was to read the publications, summarize their content and report on any appeals to violence or other ideas that could endanger Swiss public life. In addition to analyzing the content of the Bundist publications he also perused several other leftist Russian writings from the “colonies.” These included Iskra, the periodical of the

49 Letter of the Chief of Police (Berlin) to the Attorney General in Berne, March 4, 1904. BAR, E21 14015. 50 See the paper by Vladimir Levin in this volume. On the importance of New York for the mass emigration of Jewish workers from Eastern Europe, see Michels, Tony. A Fire in their Heart: Yid­ dish Socialists in New York. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. 51 Le Conseiller d’Etat Chargé du Département de Justice et Police (Genève) au Ministère Public Fédéral, March 16, 1904. BAR, E21 14015. 52 Letter of the secretary of the Department of Justice and Police (Geneva) to the secretary of the Office of the Attorney General, March 28, 1904. BAR, E21 14015. 53 See dossiers BAR, E21 14024 and BAR, E21 14025.



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Russian social democrats that was founded by Lenin. As for the Bund, most of Langie’s time was spent reading the Russian version of Poslednye Izvestiia (‘The Latest News’),54 and sometimes the Yiddish version, probably depending on what he received from the authorities. The systematic inspection of the publications ended when Poslednye Izvestiia ceased to be printed in January 1906,55 although the Jewish printing press continued its activities.56 We cannot be certain that the Swiss authorities stopped observing the Imprimerie israélite in March 1906, when André Langie wrote his report on the final issue of Poslednye Izvestiia. It is possible that the files have been lost. However, the fact that the authorities found nothing alarming in the writings analyzed might have lead them to reduce the frequency of surveillance, or even to abandon it entirely. Whatever the case, this loose surveillance allowed the Foreign Committee of the Bund to produce important writings in support of the party abroad and in Russia.57 The Foreign Committee and the Central Office were certainly aware of the significance of the printing office, because written propaganda was one of the two main recruitment methods of the Bund abroad (the other being oral propaganda). It took the form of the publication and distribution of Bundist literature among the inhabitants of the colonies, the translation of important texts and appeals by the Bund into Polish and Russian, and the reprinting of numerous articles which had been published in the Russian Empire but not yet been distributed abroad.58 Propaganda was central to the dissemination of Bundist ideas and the acquisition of new members. Both written and oral propaganda required contact with other individuals in the vicinity. I turn now to some aspects of these encounters between Bundists and non-Bundists.

54 This periodical was published for the first time in spring 1901 and was issued only by the Foreign Committee. The aim was to introduce the Russian-speaking readers of the colonies abroad to the Bund and its cause, and to provide information about the situation in the Russian Empire with regard to the labor movement and the ideological conflicts within and between the different movements. It sometimes also appeared in Yiddish. See Kluge, Russische revolutionäre Presse, 174. 55 After the summary of the last issue of this periodical, there is no further mention of publications by the Jewish printing office in the dossier BAR, E21 14025. 56 Under the direction of Vladimir Medem, it published, for instance, the periodical Otkliki Bunda (‘Responses of the Bund’) in 1908. See Medem, Vladimir Medem, 456. 57 An in-depth examination of the role of the Imprimerie israélite for the party and for communications between the different Bund groups was beyond the scope of this paper and should be a subject of subsequent research. 58 See Ochet o pervom s”ezde tsentral’nykh bundovskikh kruzhkov 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 5A.

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The Relations of the Exiled Bundists with Their Social Environment It is generally assumed that the Russian and Russian-Jewish immigrants living in Switzerland had little contact with the local Swiss population. An illustration of this is provided by Vladimir Medem’s description of life in the colony in Berne: There was no love lost for the colony. It was like an island in a strange, cold, and even hostile sea. […] Whatever the ‘Russians’ did – their total conduct, their way of life – was decidedly alien and weird in his [a Swiss person’s] eyes. […] Relations with Swiss colleagues were very strained even at the university, and close friendships with any of the native residents were rarely seen. In general, we lived a life apart. Although we resided for years in the very heart of Switzerland, we had no notion of what Swiss life was alike.59

We find similar statements concerning other Bundists who sojourned in Switzerland. In the above-cited reports on Kamenschein and Bliumin, the police officer writes: “We must add that the information obtained about BLUMIN and KAMENSCHEIN comes from their coreligionists, as the two cited above never frequented any establishments outside of the Russian-Jewish community.”60 Although contacts between Bundists and the Swiss population were rare, this does not mean that they did not exist at all. For instance, there is the particular case of Liebmann Hersch (1882-1955), the father of the philosopher Jeanne Hersch (1910-2000). Liebmann Hersch was a Bundist who lived in Switzerland and took an active part in the intellectual life of the country, without ceasing to fight for the interests of the Bund. He came to Geneva in 1904, where he studied and obtained his PhD in sociology in 1913. Two years later he was appointed professor of statistics and demography at the University of Geneva.61 His engagement for the Bund lasted his entire life and influenced his many writings on Jewish migration. Such a case remained the exception, however, as most of the Russian-Jewish students and political emigrants returned to Russia following the revolutions of 1917, if not earlier. Another interesting question is that of support of the Bundists by Swiss socialists. In the police dossiers on a number of Bundists who spent some time in Geneva, the name of the Geneva socialist politician Jean Sigg (1865-1922) appears twice: once in connection with Abram Mytinkowitsch, and again in the context of Vladimir Medem. When Mytinkowitsch came to Geneva, it was Jean Sigg who 59 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 217-218. 60 Département de Justice et Police (Genève), Service de la Sûreté, Enquête, November 27, 1925. Dossier étranger, AEG, Bliumin 65221. 61 Pressat, Roland, Louis Henry. Liebmann Hersch (1882-1955). Population 10, 3 (1955): 529-530.



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wrote to the authorities to ask for a settlement permit: “One of my friends, Abram Mytnikowitsch [sic], a Russian Jew, has settled as a printer at 81 rue de Carouge. A political refugee because of his socialist ideas, he asks me to request a settlement permit from your administration.”62 The letter bears the letterhead of the Schweizerisches Arbeitersekretariat (Swiss Labor Secretariat), where Jean Sigg was employed. Some years later, Sigg also helped Medem, this time together with another socialist from Geneva called Emile Nicolet (1879-1921). Medem had returned to Switzerland in 1908. At the end of the following year, he officially applied for a residence permit. The request was accompanied by a letter from Sigg and Nicolet in which they vouched for Medem and guaranteed payment of the obligatory deposit. Thanks to a positive police report and the financial guarantee of two Swiss politicians, Medem obtained his residence permit in January 1910.63 Unfortunately, it remains unclear where Jean Sigg and Mytinkowitsch became acquainted and where Jean Sigg and Emile Nicolet met Vladimir Medem. Sigg took part in the socialist and revolutionary emigrants’ activities in Switzerland on a number of occasions. He participated in discussions and presentations within the Russian revolutionary movement in Geneva. For instance, his name appears on a poster announcing a meeting organized by the RSDRP (Russian Social Democratic Worker’s Party) and the Bund on March 1, 1907.64 Some years earlier, on April 5, 1901, he had delivered a speech at the gathering in the Bonfantini room that led to the demonstration in front of the Russian consulate and the eventual expulsion of Kremer and Bernstein. As for Nicolet, I found his name in connection with the collection of money by the RSDRP65 in support of the social democrats who were imprisoned after the dissolution of the Second Duma (1907). In the appeal for financial support (composed in French), it is written that the contribution lists should be sent to Nicolet, who was apparently living at 8 rue de Carouge, that is, in the same street as the Bund’s Foreign Committee.66 The interventions of Sigg and Nicolet in favor of Mytinkowitsch and Medem prove definitively that contact existed between Bundists who had settled in Switzerland and the local socialists. Members of the Bund also attended meetings organized by the Swiss socialists. On May 1, 1906, for example, Bundists took part in a local Swiss event and delivered speeches in German.67 62 Letter from Jean Sigg to Mr Odier, Chief of the Department of Police and Justice (Geneva), February 11, 1904. Dossier étranger, AEG, Mytinkowitsch 12948. 63 See Dossier étranger, AEG, Medem 24786. 64 See BAR, E21 14018. 65 Which included the Bund and the SDKPiL (Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania). 66 See AYABC, IISH, 281. 67 The source does not give specific details on where it took place and who attended. See Ochet

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The Bundists’ relationships with other groups of political activists from the Russian Empire depended on the situation and on the composition of the colonies. As mentioned above, Bundists and Russian social democrats had collaborated closely before the Bund left the RSDRP in 1903. There were close relations between the printing press at the Chemin des Pervenches and the one at 7 rue de la Cluse. This is apparent from the police dossiers on Chaim Bernstein and Mark Vilter.68 Furthermore, in the dossier on a certain “Blumenfeld, Joseph” who was registered as the tenant of the printing press at 7 rue de la Cluse, we read: “He currently keeps company with Rabkine Israel and does a little work with him at 4 Chemin des Pervenches.”69 The numerous changes in the names of the tenants of the Russian printing office attest to the high mobility that was characteristic of the majority of Russian emigrants in Switzerland.70 Another social democrat who was important for the Bundists in Geneva was Vladmir Petrovich Akimov (18721921).71 He supported Arkadii Kremer when he submitted a request to the Swiss Federal Council, five months after he had been expelled from the country, that he be permitted to return to Geneva for a few days, because he “had to leave Switzerland within a matter of hours and […] did not have the necessary time to settle [his] debts and the affairs of an enterprise in which [he] was employed.”72 Akimov went to the authorities personally as “chef de l’imprimerie russe” to vouch for Kremer and to explain that Kremer had previously worked for him and needed o deiatel’nosti Ob”edinennoi Organizatsii Grupp Sodeistviia Bundu Zagranitsei za vremia ot 15 marta do 15 iiulia 1906 goda. AYABC, IISH, 10, 20. 68 Bernstein worked for the Jewish printing office (according to his attorney) but was said to work and live at the Imprimerie russe, 7 rue de la Cluse (according to the police report). This was the printing press of the Soiuz russkikh sotsial-demokratov (‘Union of Russian Social Democrats’). This address appears for the first time in the Annuaire du commerce genevois in the entry “Blumenfeld, J., imprimeur.” There are parallels to Bernstein in the case of Vilter, who lived at the chemin des Pervenches 10 (the address of the Jewish printing office), but worked at “Imprimerie Iwantchin, route de la Cluse 7” (see Département de Justice et Police [Genève], Service de la Sûreté, July 3, 1900. Dossier étranger, AEG, Vilter 4650/00). 69 Le Conseiller d’Etat Chargé du Département de Justice et Police (Genève) au Ministère Public Fédéral, June 20, 1900. BAR, E21 5486. 70 A quick search in the Annuaire du commerce genevois reveals that another name appeared at the address 7 rue de la Cluse in the 1900 edition: “Sonchinski, M., imprimeur.” In the editions of 1903 and 1904, at the same address, the previous name has disappeared and is replaced by that of “Iwantchin, W., imprimerie.” The 1902 volume was missing from the Geneva Library, so I was unable to determine whether this change had already taken place in 1902. 71 Vladimir Petrovich Akimov, whose real name was Vladimir Petrovich Makhnovets, appears in the Geneva sources under the name Wladimir Akinoff. For the purposes of this paper, I will continue to use the form Akimov. 72 Letter from Aron Kremer to the Bundesrat for Justice and Police, September 24, 1901. BAR, E21 13908.



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to come to Geneva to put some affairs in order in his (Akimov’s) Russian printing office.73 The request was ultimately rejected, but the fact that it was made proves that Akimov and Kremer were in contact with one another. Akimov’s involvement with the Bundists comes to light once more even after the conflicts within the RSDRP that resulted in the decision of the Bund delegates at the RSDRP party congress of 1903 to secede. He is mentioned in the context of the Foreign Committee’s relocation of its domicile together with the printing office from London back to Geneva at the end of 1903. In the dossier on Abram Mytinkowitsch, the new owner of the Imprimerie israélite, we are given the following information: “[Mytinkowitsch] took over this printing office from the above-named Machnovetz, Wladimir, aka Akimoff.”74 It is no coincidence that the Bundists took over (or eventually bought) part of Akimov’s printing equipment soon after he was obliged to leave Switzerland because his propaganda activities had become too conspicuous.75 It was probably convenient for both parties, but it proves nevertheless that they were able to derive benefit from each other’s situations. Indeed, the Central Office encouraged communication and contact with other revolutionary groups from the Russian Empire that were active in the colonies. In a report on the first meeting of all central circles in Berne in January 1902, the fifth chapter is entirely devoted to the relations of Bundist circles with other circles and organizations. According to this document, the Foreign Committee had the right to assess whether a circle or an organization was to be considered reliable or not. The Bund central circles had the right either to collaborate selectively with other organizations for special occasions or to associate with them over a longer period of time on the basis of a mutual contract.76 In a report dating from August 1906, we discover that the Bund and the RSDRP held regular joint meetings in Berne or Zurich where they held discussions and exchanged literature.77 In addition, joint clubs and establishments (such as reading groups and canteens) and relief funds for emigrants flourished, and May 1, 1906 was celebrated together with other groups in several cities.78 The author of the report writes: “Lastly, we 73 Dossier on Aron Kremer, BAR E21 9068. 74 Département de Justice et Police (Genève), Police de Sûreté, Enquête, February 18, 1904. Dossier étranger, AEG, Mytinkowitsch 12948. 75 On March 9, 1903, the Canton of Geneva decided to expel him. He appealed and stayed in Geneva at least until the end of May 1903. See Dossier d’expulsion, AEG, Akinoff Exp. 256/03. I did not find a date of departure. 76 Ochet o pervom s”ezde tsentral’nykh bundovskikh kruzhkov 1902 g. AYABC, IISH, 5A, 9-10. 77 Ochet o deiatel’nosti Ob”edinennoi Organizatsii Grupp Sodeistviia Bundu Zagranitsei za vremia ot 15 marta do 15 iiulia 1906 goda. AYABC, IISH, 10, 13-14. 78 The cities in question are not specified.

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report that there is a group of Russian social democrats in Berne that has a good relationship with our group. The Estonian comrades were invited to attend our discussion; they gave interesting accounts of their activities.”79 Concerning relations with parties other than the RSDRP, the report makes no mention of contacts with the PPS (Polish Socialist Party) or the SDKPiL in Switzerland, although groups affiliated to these parties existed in Berne and Zurich. The Bund circles had little contact with the Socialist Revolutionaries. However, when the Swiss authorities wanted to expel a socialist revolutionary activist, the Zurich Bund group published an announcement, authorized by the Foreign Committee, in which it declared that this particular activist was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.80 The only official hostility concerned the Zionists. The Central Office described them as enemies and warned against their ability to mobilize and their financial capacity: “They collect large sums of money and undercut the social democratic press, because they have many foreign European organs at their disposal in which they systematically discredit and slander the Bund. We must pay great heed to the powerful enemy that is threatening our organization from this front.”81 This reflected the tough competition for new members in the colonies. Vladimir Medem gives the following account: [...] we had a big debate in Bern with the Zionists. It was an event that shook all the colony. There had been smaller debates on previous occasions, but this time the Zionists wished to mount a general assault. […] The debate was joined [sic]. We went at each other for three evenings in a row. It was extremely turbulent. […] As usual, however, both sides won: each side carried the day with its own people.82

A similar depiction, reflecting the opposite side, is given in Vera Weizmann’s (1881-1966) memoirs. Chaim Weizmann’s future wife, who lived in Geneva from 1900 to 1906, recalls: “The competition for politically-unattached Jewish young people was unremitting and bitter. Jewish Bundists (socialists) and Zionists [...] strove to win over as many ‘souls’ as possible.”83

79 Ochet o deiatel’nosti Ob”edinennoi Organizatsii Grupp Sodeistviia Bundu Zagranitsei za vremia ot 15 marta do 15 iiulia 1906 goda. AYABC, IISH, 10, 16. 80 Ibid. The Bundists probably hoped that the expulsion could be prevented by proving that this person was part of an ‘official’ party. 81 Ibid., 17. 82 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 261-262. 83 Weizmann, Vera. The Impossible Takes Longer. The Memoirs of Vera Weizmann, Wife of Isra­ el’s First President as Told to David Tutaev. London: H. Hamilton, 1967, 13-14.



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Conclusion The tight network of Russian-Jewish students and revolutionaries who had gathered in Swiss cities since the 1870s and 1880s, the geographical location of Switzerland in the middle of Europe, the indulgence of the Swiss authorities and their relatively mild surveillance, all provided good conditions for the establishment of an organizational center of the Bund outside Russia. The first cornerstone for this was the creation of the Foreign Committee. The organization of the Bundists abroad was mobile and flexible. It was able to adapt – for instance with the foundation of the United Organization of the Bund Circles Abroad and the Central Office in Berne in January 1902. It was closely linked to individuals and could therefore easily be destabilized when several of its members left the country. This happened, for instance, when the Foreign Committee and the Jewish printing press were relocated to London in 1901, or when the Central Office was transferred from Berne to Geneva in 1906 after the expulsion of David Makhlin. The Jewish printing press was one essential structural element of the Bund abroad. It remained in Geneva from its creation in 1898 until the dissolution of the organization of the Bund abroad soon after the revolution of February 1917 and the fall of the Romanovs, except for the period from the spring of 1901 to the autumn of 1903. It allowed the Foreign Committee to print and disseminate propaganda writings in Yiddish, Russian, and sometimes also other languages, from newspapers and theoretical articles to political pamphlets and appeals for support. With the return of the Foreign Committee to Geneva at the end of 1903, the printing press was established together with the ‘headquarters’ of the Committee at 81 rue de Carouge. Here, the Imprimerie israélite, as it now called itself, continued its activities. This time, the Swiss authorities made a connection between the Bund and the printing press, and had the content of some of the publications surveyed at regular intervals between October 1904 and March 1906. This surveillance found no evidence of dangerous activities and there is no proof that it continued. Moreover, as of August 1906, the Imprimerie israélite was officially registered in the commercial register of the canton of Geneva. This step demonstrates both the desire of the Bundists in Geneva for long-term development and the will to ensure the safety of the printing press. While relations between the Bundists and the Swiss cannot be defined as intense, they did nevertheless exist, as evidenced by the examples of Jean Sigg and Emile Nicolet. Contacts within the colonies were more developed and, indeed, explicitly required, given that the ideas and interests of the Bund were respected by these other organizations. The many connections between Bundists and social democrats of other parties, even during the period when the Bund was

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no longer part of the RSDRP, prove that the boundaries were not as clear as official discourse might suggest. The only declared enemies were the Zionists, with whom the Bund competed for the loyalty of the students and other members of the colonies who were not yet politicized. With its organizational structure outside the Russian Empire, in particular in Switzerland, the Bund abroad provided valuable assistance to the Central Committee in Russia over the years and allowed its exiled members to continue their engagement for the cause. This paper attempts to provide an initial look at the subject. There is still much to research regarding the precise functioning of the different networks within the Bund and their connections with other parties, such as the Swiss Social Democrats.

Gabriella Safran

Some Russian Jewish Writers in Switzerland and the Valorization of Jewish Argument Style1 Over time, notions of appealing or annoying sounds have shifted. Since the 1990s, the “sensory turn” in humanities scholarship has inspired cultural historians to examine the changes in listening over time, especially in the francophone and anglophone worlds.2 Only recently has the historiography of the voice and the ear begun in Russia, or among modern Jews, but shifts in listening have been part of the great changes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Eastern European Jewish culture and ideas.3 Acculturation and the rise of Jewish nationalisms, radicalization and the turn toward a new Orthodoxy – each of these movements has entailed training the ear toward certain sounds and away from others. This article considers one of those shifts in listening, when some writers from the Russian Empire began to valorize Jewish speech and argument style. They described certain ways of speaking as typically Jewish, including speaking loudly, defending one’s opinion in a combative way, and using gestures and other body language that transgressed some contemporary notions of decorum, and they began to present these speech characteristics as artistically inspirational 1 I am grateful to those who led me to the sources I needed in linguistics: Vincent Barletta, Sarah Benor, Isaac Bleaman, Cynthia Coburn, Miyako Inoue, Dan Jurafsky, Adrienne Lo, and John Rickford. Many thanks also to Zachary Baker, Lazar Fleishman, Gregory Freidin, Leo Greenbaum at YIVO, Michael Kahan, Larry Marshall, Michelle Oberman, Derek Penslar, William Safran, Steven Zipperstein, and all the scholars who offered helpful suggestions after I presented early versions of this paper at McGill University and at the conference in Basel, especially Anna Gonshor, Mikhail Krutikov, and Eugene Orenstein. 2 Schwartz, Hillel. Making Noise: From Babel to the Big Bang & Beyond. New York: Zone Books, 2011; Corbin, Alain. Village Bells: Sound and Meaning in the 19th-century French Countryside, trans. Martin Thom. New York: Columbia University Press, 1998; Smith, Mark M. Listening to Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001; Rosenfeld, Sophia. On Being Heard: A Case for Paying Attention to the Historical Ear. The American Histori­ cal Review 116, 2 (April 2011): 316-334; Damousi, Joy, Desley Deacon (eds.). Talking and Listening in the Age of Modernity: Essays on the History of Sound. Canberra: ANU E Press, 2007; Erlmann, Veit (ed.). Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity. New York: Berg, 2004; Bull, Michael, Les Back (eds.). The Auditory Culture Reader. New York: Berg, 2003. 3 Lovell, Stephen. How Russia Learned to Listen: Radio and the Making of Soviet Culture. Kri­ tika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasia History 12, 3 (Summer 2011): 591-615; his unpublished manuscript, ‘Glasnost’ in Practice: Public Speaking in the Era of Alexander II; Hacohen, Ruth. The Music Libel against the Jews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011.

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and appealing. In the term used by the linguistic anthropologist Asif Agha, a set of speech characteristics is defined as a unique style that typifies a group of people through enregisterment, the “processes through which a linguistic repertoire becomes differentiable within a language as a socially recognized register of forms.”4 Thus the enregisterment of BBC English or urban feminine Japanese is a historical process that can be dated and situated among other processes of identity formation. Once enregistered, speech styles may be perceived as attractive or unfortunate: my contention is that in the early twentieth century, Jewish argument style, as depicted in the fiction and memoirs of a few writers from the Russian Empire, began to appear appealing to Jewish and non-Jewish audiences – and that this phenomenon was linked to these writers’ location in Switzerland. A comic aside in a memoir by the classic Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Rabinovich, 1859-1916) exemplifies this valorization of Jewish argument style. Sholem Aleichem, who left the Russian Empire in 1905, was living in Switzerland on and off through 1914. In his 1908 memoir, Fir zenen mir gezesn (‘The Four of Us Sat Down’), he describes a 1907 hike in the mountains with three other Jewish writers, the Yiddish and Hebrew prose master Mendele Moykher Sforim (Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, 1836-1917), whom he calls “the grandfather” (der zeyde), the famous Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik (1873-1934), whom he calls “the poet,” and the Russian prose writer Ben-Ami (Mark (Mordechai) Iakovlevich Rabinovich, 1854-1932), whom he calls “my colleague with the hot temper.” From time to time, the four men stop hiking, sit on the grass, and tell stories. Sholem Aleichem interrupts one such episode with a “metapragmatic” statement, that is, one that refers to “a wide range of reflexive social practices of language use, including representing, evaluating, reporting, quoting, citing, classifying, scripting; reifying in the form of dictionaries, etiquette books, scholarly theories of language use, and everyday commentaries about how people speak,” to cite the linguistic anthropologist Miyako Inoue.5 Sholem Aleichem’s autobio­ graphical narrator muses on the speech of himself and his friends: Do you ever want to be someone other than who you are? As for me, sometimes I’d like to be a non-Jew – of course, not permanently, heaven forbid! I just mean for a little while, and I’d look with my non-Jewish eyes and see – what is it like when Jews are going and talking and making a racket and debating and waving their hands around? I mean, doesn’t it seem

4 Agha, Asif. The Social Life of Cultural Value. Language and Communication 23 (2003): 231-273, here 231; cf. Irvine, Judith T., Susan Gal. Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation. In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Politics, and Identities, Paul V. Kroskrity (ed.), 35-83. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 2000; Inoue, Miyako. Vicarious Language: Gender and Lin­ guistic Modernity in Japan. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. 5 Inoue, Vicarious Language, 18.



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that would be a very interesting picture? A completely ordinary conversation would certainly appear to me as though we were fighting and quarreling […] Almost everyone we saw during our travels, including Frenchmen, Germans, and Englishmen, paused and looked at us with wonder, as though we came from who knows where and were wearing who knows what kind of clothes. I think it was because we spoke just a bit too loudly, and also partly because all four of us spoke at once. To speak all at the same time is an art that only we Jews possess.6

In the same jocular vein, he contrasts the writers’ speech to the decorum on which the Zionist leader Theodor Herzl had insisted at the Zionist congresses held from 1897: “Our [Jewish] assemblies, law courts, festivals, and meetings are known worldwide. Parliamentarism, that is, the idea that each one speaks in turn, is an innovation for which we can thank Zionism, and especially Dr. Herzl. It really is a good thing, but not everywhere or all the time.”7 Sholem Aleichem returns here to the topic that inspired his best fiction, Jewish speech, but whereas the garrulous Jews in the stories he wrote before leaving the Russian Empire usually address other Jews, here he imagines the audience as non-Jews strangely drawn to the sound of Jews speaking too-loudly and simultaneously.8 Sholem Aleichem reflects humorously here on his own enregisterment of Jewish speech style, which is triggered by finding himself and his fellow Jewish writers as one group of tourists among many, united by their occupation (hiking in the Swiss Alps) and distinguished by their speech. Some other memoirs and fiction by writers from the Russian Empire in Switzerland from the 1890s through the 1910s, both Jews and non-Jews, show similar valorization of Jewish speech. The first part of this paper considers the background to this phenomenon, demonstrating that Jewish speech style had been enregistered in both Western Europe and the Russian Empire, identified as an off-putting and chaotic speech mode that many modernizing Jews wanted to reject. Part two examines the attention to speech style among the Russian intelligentsia, which may have triggered a new way of listening to ethnic speech difference. In Switzerland, where the varied languages of locals and visitors could be heard, and where revolutionaries debated how to reach varied audiences, it became possible to hear the speech style of Jews – and other groups – as appealing. The attraction to ethnic speech led not only to the well-studied phenomenon of the valorization of Yiddish as a language equal 6 Sholem Aleichem. Fir zenen mir gezesn. In Ale Verk, vol. 15, 111-186. New York: Sholemaleykhem folksfond, 1917, here 122-123. 7 Ibid., 123. 8 On the absence of non-Jews in Sholem Aleichem’s fiction, see Miron, Dan. The Literary Image of the Shtetl. In The Image of the Shtetl and Other Studies of Modern Jewish Literary Imagination, 1-48. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2000.

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to others, but also to the valorization of Jewish speech style as a distinctive mode of expression – a valorization of precisely that mode of speech rejected by modernizing Jews such as Herzl. Part three compares Sholem Aleichem to S. An-sky (Shloyme-Zanvl Rappoport, 1863-1920), a Russian and Yiddish writer who lived in Switzerland from 1901 to 1905 and who began to valorize Jewish argument style during his Swiss years. This paper’s final section situates the writings of these Russian writers in Switzerland in relation to debates about Jewish speech among twentieth- and twenty-first-century literary critics, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists, and depictions of folk speech in Russian literary and linguistic history more broadly conceived, in order to understand why living in Switzerland in the decades before 1917 made Jewish argument style appear appealing.

“Talk with your hands” Both in the Russian Empire and in Europe, certain speech characteristics were perceived as markers of Jewishness: Jews were criticized for speaking loudly, combatively, chaotically, and with excessive gestures. The belief that Jewish ritual required the production of loud, unharmonious sound emerged in Christian medieval Europe, then died down, to be revived in the 1870s by Pope Pius IX and to circulate in German-speaking territories in the early twentieth century.9 The music historian Ruth Hacohen, who investigates the “music libel against the Jews,” notes that the Jewish spoken word sounded as repellant and disorderly as Jewish music. Sigmund Freud’s student, Theodor Reik, wrote in 1919, “it may be remarked that the phrase ‘there’s an uproar here like in a synagogue’ [Es geht zu wie in einer Judenschule], which originated in the Middle Ages […] has obtained […] peculiar popularity in our beloved city Vienna.”10 Such negative depictions of Jewish sound were integral to the development of the anti-Semitic discourse of the era. In the Russian Empire, where legislation and custom meant that many Jews in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries still wore distinctive clothing, practiced distinctive professions, spoke a distinctive language (Yiddish), and lived apart from non-Jews, it is not surprising that they were heard as producers 9 Hacohen, Music Libel, 126 and 130. 10 Reik, Theodor. Das Shofar. In Das Ritual, Psychoanalytische Studien, 1928, trans. Douglas Bryan as: The Shofar. In Ritual: Psychoanalytical Studies. New York: International Universities Press, 1958, 235. Cited in Hacohen, Music Libel, 126; Cf. Weinreich, Uriel. Notes on the Yiddish Rise-Fall Intonation Contour. In For Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birth­ day, 11 October 1956, 633-643. The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1956, 641, note 23.



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of distinctive noises that formed part of a multiethnic imperial soundscape. (The sixth movement of Modest Mussorgsky’s 1874 piano suite, “Pictures from an Exhibition,” entitled “‘Samuel’ Goldenburg and ‘Shmuyle’,” or “Two Polish Jews, Rich and Poor,” indicates that Jews were imagined to possess their own sound, linked to their societal roles.) In this vein, Dostoevsky’s 1861 prison memoir describes the Jewish convict Isai Fomich as producing grotesque noise, especially during his weekly prayers. He recited them in a sing-song voice, shouting, spraying himself with spittle, turning round and round in circles and making wild, ridiculous gestures […]. Now he would suddenly bury his face in his hands and begin to recite in a sobbing voice. His sobs would increase in intensity, and nearly wailing, in a state of exhaustion, he would lower his head […] but then again, suddenly, in the midst of the most violent sobbing, he would begin to roar with laughter […].11

Isai Fomich acts as petty businessman and moneylender for the jail, and his attention-getting performance recalls depictions of Jewish speech in other mercantile contexts. Like marketplace hawkers throughout the world, Jewish market vendors in the Russian Empire used pitch, gesture, exaggeration, and hyperfluent speech to draw attention.12 In 1858, the Slavophile Ivan Aksakov described the sound of the marketplace: Jews […] lend the bargaining process a particular sort of fervent animation; they run, fuss, barge in, uttering every word with such quick gestures, their swift, guttural speech resonates everywhere, everywhere, at every step, they stop passersby, advertising their wares.13

Jewish writers too depicted Jewish speech as physically and sonically excessive. Sholem Aleichem’s story “Competitors” describes a man and a woman who sell food on the train: “Both always appear together, fight to get through the same door 11 Dostoevskii, Fedor M. Zapiski iz mertvogo doma [Notes from the House of the Dead]. In Pol­ noe sobranie sochinenii v 30 tomakh [Complete Collected Works in 30 Volumes], vol. 4. Leningrad: Nauka, 1972, 95; translation from Dostoyevsky, Fyodor. The House of the Dead, trans. David McDuff. New York: Penguin, 1985, 149-152. 12 As Richard Bauman notes, “The artfulness of commercial talkers like pitchmen, auctioneers, street-vendors, carnival barkers, and the like is widely recognized.” Bauman, Richard. Performance. In A Companion to Folklore, Regina F. Bendix, Galit Hasan-Rokem (eds.), 104. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2012. Cf. Kapchan, Deborah A. Gender on the Market: Moroccan Women and the Revoicing of Tradition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996. 13 Aksakov, Ivan. Issledovanie o torgovle na ukrainskikh iarmarkakh [A Study of Trade at Ukrainian Markets]. St. Petersburg: Tipografiia imperatorskogo akademii nauk, 1858, 36 and 327-328. Cited in Glaser, Amelia. Jews and Ukrainians in Russia’s Literary Borderlands. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012, 11.

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of the same car, and give the same sales spiel, though with different manners of speaking […] both shove their goods in your face; and both talk such a blue streak at you that you end up buying something whether you meant to or not.”14 The verbal excess seen as distinguishing Jewish speech in the prayer service or the marketplace could carry over to other contexts; the notion of excessively passionate and combative argumentation emerges repeatedly in descriptions of Jewish speech and even Jewish writing. Thus the revolutionary Pavel Axelrod as a child remembered being criticized by his teacher for having “the bad characteristics of Jewish writers who always find fault with everything.”15 In Switzerland as elsewhere in Western Europe, the Jews from the East, even more than local Jews, were heard as producers of speech accompanied by sound, heat, and motion, testifying to excessive passion and threatening to last longer than would be seemly. The Social Democrat (SD) David Farbstein, who was active in Swiss politics, was criticized for a non-Swiss demeanor demonstrated in his verbal style, including a “vitality of movement” that evoked both Russia and the Old Testament.16 Some assimilating Jews in Western Europe, wanting to dissociate themselves from the notion of uncouth Jewish noise, connected it instead to the “Ostjuden,” the Jews who had moved into German-speaking lands from the East.17 Benjamin Harshav argues that modernizing Jews, Socialists, Zionists and Yiddishists, wanted to dissociate themselves from their old selves, a negation expressed above all through speech. “The individual tried to repress in his own emotions and behavior every manifestation of the negative ‘we’ (‘don’t yell like a Jew,’ ‘don’t be pushy,’ ‘don’t talk with your hands,’ etc.).”18 His observation may be most true of the Zionist congresses, seven of the first ten of which took place 14 Sholem Aleichem. Konkurentn. In Ale Verk, vol. 28. New York: Sholem-aleykhem folksfond, 1917, 12; translation from Sholem Aleichem. Competitors. In Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories, trans. Hillel Halkin. New York: Schocken, 1987, 137. 15 Ascher, Abraham. Pavel Axelrod and the Development of Menshevism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972, 16. 16 Porträt-Bilder zürcherischer Parlamentarier. Separatdruck aus der Schweizerischen Wo­ chen-Zeitung. Zurich: Frey, 1909, 32-35. I am grateful to Anna Liesch, who circulated this citation at the Basel conference. 17 Hacohen, Music Libel, 147. Even Gershom Scholem, who was close to many Ostjuden, reveals a sense of irritation at the excessive speech of an “Eastern Jew” in a 1918 diary entry complaining about the “utter hideousness and demonic overheating” (‘die völlige Abscheulichkeit und dämonische Überhitzung’) of the lecture style of Anna Tumarkin, a Jew from the Russian Empire and the first woman to receive a doctorate at Berne; she taught philosophy at that university from 1906. Scholem, Gershom. Tagebücher 1917-1923. Frankfurt am Main: Jüdischer Verlag, 2000, 408. I am grateful to Shifra Kuperman for sending me this citation. 18 Harshav, Benjamin. Language in Time of Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993, 18.



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in Basel between 1897 and 1911. The Viennese journalist and Zionist leader Herzl carefully stage-managed these congresses with what the historian Carl Schorske calls “fanatical attention to upper-class forms.”19 The setting was the elegant Casino building; delegates were required to wear white tie and tails; and the slow, dignified movements of Herzl as he strode to the podium conveyed the corporeal decorum of this new Jewish speech; the entire performance, and the parliamentary order of the proceedings, were calculated to appeal to the assimilated Jewish Western European middle class, among whom Herzl expected to find leaders for his movement.20 Herzl’s careful staging of the Zionist Congresses reacted to the discourse around Jewish speech that includes the critique of Farbstein’s “vitality of movement” and Dostoevsky’s description of Isai Fomich “spraying himself with spittle” when he prays, remarks that dwell on the corporeality of the speaker. This depiction of another person as tangibly, even grotesquely physical evokes the tendency that Judith Butler identifies as typical of male writers who write about women in an “othering” mode. For them, “others are their bodies, while the masculine ‘I’ is the noncorporeal soul. The body rendered as Other – the body repressed or denied and, then, projected – reemerges for this ‘I’ as the view of others as essentially body.”21 That is, Dostoevsky hears Isai Fomich’s voice as the product of an absurdly bespittled body, and Farbstein’s critics heard him as speaking from a too-mobile body; in each case, the writer is situating himself as less embodied, composed more purely of soul.

“Few speak in a truly artistic way” While Jewish speech was depicted similarly in Eastern and Western Europe, the attitudes of Russian Jews to their own speech must be contextualized in the specific history of listening in the Russian Empire. Throughout the nineteenth century, educated Russians feared that their speech was backward relative to that 19 Schorske, Carl R. Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture. New York: Vintage Books, 1981, 171. 20 Berkowitz, Michael. Zionist Culture and West European Jewry before the First World War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, esp. Chapter 1. 21 Butler, Judith. Variations on Sex and Gender: Beauvoir, Wittig, and Foucault. In Feminism as Critique: On the Politics of Gender, Seyla Benhabib, Drucilla Cornell (eds.), 128-142. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987, 133. Irina Erman discusses this passage and Russian Jews in “At Home in the Margins: Vasily Rozanov, Autobiography, and Alterity.” Stanford: [unpublished PhD Dissertation], 2012.

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of more “modern” countries in Western Europe or the United States.22 The native tradition of state and church rhetoric seemed to provide models only for ceremonial or “epideictic” speech, directed toward a sympathetic audience, rather than polemics meant to persuade the skeptical.23 The literary historian Yurii Lotman wrote of the obsession of the small literate elite in the 1810s with “the various forms of spoken language.”24 That generation’s interest in the spoken word would become a broad-based national obsession with the 1855 ascent of Tsar Alexander II, whose Great Reforms of the 1860s and 1870s, including the institution of an oral, adversarial legal system, with public trials, lawyers, and juries, provided occasions to practice new modes of speaking and listening. As the cultural historian Stephen Lovell demonstrates, from a public debate in 1860 between the historians Nikolai Kostomarov and Mikhail Pogodin, to disputes among students at Moscow University gatherings in 1861-1862, to arguments in the provincial assemblies and at the city parliaments of Moscow and St. Petersburg, to lawyers’ speeches at the new courts, some members of the Russian public tried to move others with their spoken words, and other Russians listened or read the transcripts and evaluated their efforts.25 In the late 1880s and 1890s, non-Russian speech models became increasingly available to Russian orators. Classes on oratory and recitation were introduced in secondary schools and, in 1893, at Moscow University.26 A certain M. Brodovsky, the author of a guide to “the art of oral exposition,” explained in 1887 that the Russian public desperately needed the kind of help that was already available in German and other languages. Teachers, lawyers, priests, and government officials all had to speak publicly more than ever before, but “unfortunately […] few […] read aloud and speak in a truly artistic way.”27 In the next twelve years, sev22 Lovell, Glasnost’ in Practice. 23 Khazagerov, G. G. Politicheskaia ritorika [Political Rhetoric]. Moscow: Nikkolo M, 2002, 5-31. 24 Lotman, Iurii. The Decembrist in Daily Life (Everyday Behavior as a Historical-Psychological Category). In The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History, Alexander D. Nakhimovsky, Alice Stone Nakhimovsky (eds.), 94-149. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985, 99. 25 Lovell, Glasnost’ in Practice. 26 Byford, Andy. Between literary education and academic learning: the study of literature at secondary school in late Imperial Russia (1860s-1900s). History of Education 33, 6 (November 2004): 637-660, here 639. He cites Vereshchagin, Iu. Izuchenie slovestnosti v nashikh gimnaziiakh. Filologicheskie zapiski 2-3 (1893), 9-11. On the Moscow University declamation classes, see Chekhov, A. P. Khoroshaia novost’. In Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v tridtsati tomakh, vol. 16. Moscow: Nauka, 1974, 83 and 266, cited in Lovell, Glasnost’ in Practice. 27 Brodovskii, M. Iskusstvo ustnogo izlozheniia (chtenie vslukh, deklamatsiia, oratorskaia rech’ i proch) [The Art of Oral Exposition (Reading Aloud, Declamation, Oratory, and So On)]. St. Petersburg: Knigoizdatel’stvo Germana Goppe, 1887, iii. In fact, Russia was not so far behind, as interest in public speaking and recitation grew around the world in this period; Damousi and



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enteen volumes on oratory were published in Russian (versus six over the preceding two centuries), most containing exemplary speeches by Russian or French lawyers or ancient rhetors.28 If the way for Russians to learn to speak would be to follow the examples of non-Russians, then from the 1870s, more young Russians got the opportunity to do so. Universities in Berne, Zurich, and Geneva accepted Russian students with imperfect German and French, and those unable to attend university at home – including Jews, whose numbers were limited by strict quotas, women, who until 1908 were not allowed in at all, and those expelled for political activity – poured into the Swiss university towns. As Aline Masé shows in this volume, up to a third of the total number of students in Zurich and Berne in 1907-1908 were from Russia, of whom some 70 percent and 75 percent, respectively, were Jews.29 Like college students living closely together in other times and places, they inhabited a linguistic and cultural “contact zone” characterized by ethnic, gender, and class mixing.30 Jews interacted with Christians, and men with women, more intensely than in the Russian Empire, and students from different countries met, but one feature united them: almost everyone was young.31 Some of the students also met professional Russian revolutionaries, for whom Switzerland provided an attractive base, with its minimal police surveillance and relative proximity to the Russian Empire. Among them was An-sky; in his late thirties when he moved to Switzerland in 1901, he seemed to the students, in the words of the Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, “a sort of universal uncle.”32 Like any travelers, the Russian students and revolutionaries in Switzerland were attentive to new sensory experiences, including listening. In Berne, the Bundist leader Vladimir Medem recalled a clock tower. “At high noon the bells in the tower would begin to play a Swiss melody, while from a window near the Deacon offer Anglophone examples. 28 Per a WorldCat search on “oratory,” limited to Russian texts, conducted on February 20, 2012. Lev Trotsky attributed his success as a speaker to Arthur Schopenhauer’s The Art of Controversy. Service, Robert. Trotsky: A Biography. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press, 2009, 45 and 99. 29 See the article of Aline Masé in this volume. 30 Mary Louise Pratt (Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession 91 (1991): 33-40) uses this term to “refer to social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power,” 34. 31 Jehouda, Josué. L’histoire de la colonie juive de Genève. Geneva: Editions Synthésis, 1944, 64-65, Cited in Salmon, Laura. Glas iz pustyni: Ben-Ami, istoriia zabytogo pisatelia [A Voice in the Desert: Ben-Ami, the Story of a Forgotten Writer], trans. Galina Denisova. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo Peterburgskogo instituta iudaiki, 2002, 99. 32 Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949, 64.

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very top a whole procession of tiny figures moved out onto the balcony. And the crowd, necks craning, would stand and gape.”33 The Russians were particularly attentive to oratory. Influenced by the professional activists, some joined political parties. Whether they became Bundists or Zionists, SDs or SRs (Socialist Revolutionaries), their political affiliations meant that they were welcome at regular evening meetings where people drank tea, sang, gave speeches, and debated. Medem remembered the evening referatn (‘lectures’) in Berne, followed by discussion and then an hour of song and socializing, as more compelling than the next morning’s chemistry lectures, which some students slept through. They had to pay to attend the referatn, but that was no barrier: they “would sooner have denied themselves lunch than gone without a lecture.”34 The Russians in Switzerland became oratorical tourists, even connoisseurs. As they listened, they evaluated the effects of speeches on themselves, repeating particularly good phrases, “winged expressions.”35 They were willing, according to the Russian saying, “to sacrifice their own father (or both parents) for the sake of a well-turned phrase.”36 Their memoirs contain generalizations such as Medem’s: French thought and language has […] the capacity to present a matter with the greatest clarity and explicitness, so that the most ordinary of mortals is able to grasp it. But he retains only the externals […]. In that respect I much prefer the Germans. Their thought has less brilliance and is more ponderous perhaps, but it has, withal, substantially greater profundity and honesty.37

Accounts of the speech of the Russians in Switzerland by themselves and others struck many of the same notes as the depictions of Jewish speech: excessive volume, combative defense of ideas, and a bodily performance including gestures. Unlike the orderly figures who emerged from the Berne clock at noon with a pleasant melody, the Russian students and revolutionaries produced disorderly sounds at a less civilized hour: they walked around at night, talking loudly, singing, whistling, even dancing, and keeping other people awake.38 Benito Mus33 Medem, Vladimir. Vladimir Medem, The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist. Samuel A. Portnoy (ed.). New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1979, 216. 34 Ibid., 219. 35 V. M. Chernov repeated the “winged expressions” of Charles Rappoport, whom he disliked, V Partii sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov: Vospominaniia o vos’mi liderakh [In the Socialist Revolutionary Party: Recollections of Eight Leaders], A. P. Novikov, K. Khuzer (eds.). St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2007, 89. 36 Ibid., 111. 37 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 259. 38 Ibid., 218; Hirshkan, Tsvi. Der rusish-yidisher yid (Sh. A. Anski) [The Russian-Jewish Jew (Sh. A. Anski)]. In Unter eyn dakh [Under One Roof], 68-75. Warsaw: Rekord, 1931, 73-74. This must



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solini, as a student in Geneva in the early 1900s, watched the Russians among his fellow students stay up all night arguing, “following along the track of an idea like so many bloodhounds.” He saw speaking for them as a physical activity pursued with a mixture of compulsion and pleasure: they indulged in “orgies of strong talk and weak tea.”39 The revolutionaries boasted about their own physical stamina for talk. A critical speech in 1888 by the Populist Chaim Zhitlowsky (1865-1943) about the SD Georgii Plekhanov (1856-1918) triggered two months of discussion, which were dubbed the “seventy-two Zurich nights.”40 To judge by the memoirs, the Russians liked speeches that were physical performances, demonstrating the speaker’s endurance and willingness to attack and displaying a passion barely held in check. This preference was evident in their consensus about the French socialist leader Jean Jaurès (whom Medem excluded from his blanket criticism of the French).41 The SD Leon Trotsky admired the ability of Jaurès to captivate an audience with his display of passion; he called him “an orator by the grace of God.”42 Chernov noticed that Jaurès would get so sweaty while he spoke that he would have to run off stage to change his shirt before answering questions – and sometimes he would even have to take a break and change his shirt in the middle of a speech.43 These listeners were drawn to the corporeally excessive image of Jaurès, literally heated by the passion of his own words. Their interest in the bodily details of Jaurès’s charismatic performance reveals their commitment to oratory neither as an end in itself, nor as the mastery of a single universally accepted standard, but as a means of persuasion directed at specific people. Although Trotsky, Medem, and Chernov represented different political parties that targeted different audiences (Trotsky’s SDs were interested primarily in urban workers, Medem’s Bundists in Jews, and Chernov’s SRs in peasants), they each cared about a speaker’s ability to affect specific listeners. have been particularly annoying in Berne, which had been legislating noise for almost 300 years: the first law against “singing and shouting in streets or houses on festival days” was passed in 1629, and later laws limited barking dogs and noisy children. Tingley, Kim. The Whisper of the Wild, The New York Times Magazine, March 18, 2012, 45, citing R. Murray Schafer, The Tuning of the World. 39 Cited in Sarfatti, Margherita. The Life of Benito Mussolini. London: Thornton Butterworth, 1925, 104, 108, and 112; itself cited in Rappoport, Helen. Conspirator: Lenin in Exile. London: Hutchinson, 2009, 93. 40 Felicia Figa, Marek Web, “Guide to the Papers of Chaim Zhitlowsky (1865-1943), 1881-1958, RG 208,” YIVO finding aid, http://findingaids.cjh.org/?pID=1278442 (accessed on September 16, 2012). 41 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 259. 42 Service, Trotsky, 166. 43 Chernov, V Partii sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 136-137; cf. 74.

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The radicals in Switzerland were highly aware of the challenges that reaching their particular audiences might pose, as demonstrated by the efforts that the SRs – whose leaders were mostly of non-peasant origin – put into finding a style of propaganda that could appeal to peasants, and the decision of the largely russophone Bundist leadership that they would need to switch to Yiddish in order to reach the Jewish workers.44 It may have been a fear of their own inadequacies as speakers in relation to their audiences that made these men so compelled by Jaurès’s example of a charismatic speech style that drew on bodily performance and that possessed a power that could be communicated to these Russians effectively in French. In his memoirs of the Jewish SRs whom he knew in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe, the non-Jewish SR leader Viktor Chernov valorized what he depicted as a rhetorically effective Jewish argument style. Ilia Rubanovich, a Jew who was born in France but grew up in Odessa, was an admired orator, which Chernov attributed to his mixed background: “What an unusual and interesting fusion in him, I thought: here the authentic, analytical psychologism of the Russian style, presented with merciless directness; here the heightened emotion of classical French eloquence; here the whole nervous passion of the Jew.”45 He described other Jewish SRs as not quite in control of their own bodies. Osip Minor, he wrote, had an “impressionable, nervous, impetuous nature” and the “temperament of a fighting popularizer and propagandist.” He could lose his cool and fly into a rage, but he meant well: under his thick moustache and “prophetic Old Testament beard” was a warm smile.46 Of Yakov Vilenskii, a Jewish boy at his high school, Chernov wrote, “He was a fierce debater, as though he had been filled with mercury.”47 With their “nervous passion” and “impetuous nature,” “filled with mercury” and topped off with thick moustaches and Old-Testament beards, Chernov’s Jewish orators speak out of bodies that have been, in Butler’s terms, thoroughly “othered.” Chernov was viewed (and viewed himself) as a philo-Semite, and one might dismiss these depictions of Jews as a case of philo-Semitic discourse that reproduces all the elements of anti-Semitic discourse, albeit with a positive spin. However, the depictions of Jaurès and his sweat-soaked shirt by Chernov and others indicate that corporeality could genuinely appear a useful attribute in 44 Fishman, David E. The Bund and Modern Yiddish Culture. In The Emergence of Modern Jewish Politics: Bundism and Zionism in Eastern Europe, Zvi Gitelman (ed.), 107-119. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003. 45 Chernov, V Partii sotsialistov-revoliutsionerov, 153 and 170. 46 Ibid., 357-358 and 365. 47 Ibid., 27.



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a speaker, particularly one wanting to persuade listeners who do not share his language and culture. Unlike the writers Butler criticized, who wanted to situate themselves as disembodied, logical souls, the Russian revolutionaries were conscious that effective oral propaganda would require stylistic and bodily performances that could vary depending on the audience. Given this notion, they could imagine Jewish speech difference as a stage technique used by those who can when it suits their purposes. Indeed, this is how Chernov describes An-sky, as a consummate code-switcher, a person who could move easily from one language or register to another as the occasion demanded: “Semyon Akimovich, when I turned the conversation to a purely Russian peasant matter, himself seemingly turned into a Russian.”48 Medem’s reaction to a speech that Weizmann gave in Berne in the autumn of 1902 shows that he too saw a restrained oratorical style as ineffective. He did not excel with any particular oratorical gift. He spoke in a slow, even fashion, somewhat drily; indeed, he was a bit dull […] He weighed and measured his words, and he kept himself under studied control. As to the lecture itself, it was a tremendous disappointment. The colony had been accustomed to lectures that were impressive and penetrating – lectures of solid content. But Weizmann spoke for about half an hour, and, just when everyone thought that he had concluded his introduction and was now warming to the essence of his presentation, he stopped to acknowledge that he had said all that he wanted to say. It seemed almost like a mockery, and the audience was terribly indignant. We asserted that the lecture was no lecture at all; that there was nothing to which to respond; and that there would be no discussion. But the next Zionist speaker, Aberson, stepped forward and “saved the situation.” He proceeded to sermonize. His speech, full of the most incredible and fantastic things, did have some content nonetheless, and offered substance for discussion. The debate was joined. We went at each other for three evenings in a row. It was extremely turbulent.49

The Bundist’s poor opinion of the Zionist’s oratory may stem from their political differences, but he phrases his critique in corporeal terms, suggesting that Weizmann did not have the stamina or energy to give an exciting speech, that his “slow, even” style and “studied control” prevented him from affecting the audience’s feelings. In his own memoirs, Weizmann portrays himself as a spontaneous “Russian” speaker, in contrast to Herzl’s Viennese aristocratism (“he was full of Western dignity which did not sit well with our Russian-Jewish realism; and without wanting to, we could not help irritating him”), and he recalls his student years as characterized by temporally excessive speech (“I think with something

48 Ibid., 125 and 135. 49 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 261-262.

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like a shudder of the amount of talking we did”).50 Weizmann was some five years older than Medem and had greater experience conducting propaganda among a range of people, but for Medem, his speech style appeared physically inadequate and inauthentic, “no lecture at all.” In dismissing Weizmann’s measured talk, Medem signaled that he found more effective precisely what was identified as Jewish argument style: loud, combative speech, gesturally performative and temporally extended.

“I’ll reduce you to ashes with my words” If Sholem Aleichem’s amused depiction of “Jews […] going and talking and making a racket and debating and waving their hands around” echoes the valorization of Jewish argument style in the writings of Medem and Chernov, then the attitude that these men shared may have influenced the writings of S. An-sky, who was close to both Medem and Chernov and identified more readily than Sholem Aleichem with the Russian revolutionary intelligentsia and its obsession with propaganda. Indeed, the development of this obsession among the Russian revolutionaries in Switzerland may help explain an important shift in An-sky’s writing. If for his first thirty-eight years (from 1863 to 1901), this writer listened to, and for, primarily Russian culture and revolutionary voices, in his last twenty (from 1901 to 1920) he chose to hear Jewish sounds as well, and he found those sounds inspirational. Given what we have seen thus far, there was something about Berne, Zurich, and Geneva in the years before the First World War that made An-sky begin to train his ethnographic, journalistic, and writerly ear toward Jewish voices, an experience that paralleled that of some other Russian Jews in Switzerland.51 In a September 1904 letter, An-sky asked his childhood friend and revolutionary comrade Zhitlowsky whether he had read Sholem Aleichem’s new story, “Hodl,” the second in that writer’s Tevye the Dairyman series (later transformed into Fiddler on the Roof).52 An-sky’s interest in that story was understandable, since he was writing a novella with a very similar plot and characters.53 In Sholem Aleichem’s story, Hodl, Tevye’s second-oldest daughter, craves an edu50 Weizmann, Trial and Error, 37 and 45. 51 See Safran, Gabriella. Wandering Soul: The Dybbuk’s Creator, S. An-sky. New York: Harvard University Press, 2010. 52 Letter from Rappoport (An-sky) to Zhitlowsky, undated, “1904 Sentiabr’” in pencil, begins, “Khot’ i ne ochen’ veseloe tvoe pis’mo.” Chaim Zhitlowsky papers, YIVO, RG 208. 53 Letter from Rappoport to Zhitlowsky, June 25, 1904. Chaim Zhitlowsky papers, YIVO, RG 208.



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cation. Tevye befriends a penniless but quick-tongued Jewish boy, Perchik, who gives lessons to other local children for money and teaches Tevye’s daughters in exchange for his meals. Just when the matchmaker has offered Tevye a wealthy husband for her, Hodl and Perchik tell him that they are planning to marry. Perchik, a revolutionary, is arrested and sent to Siberia, and the story ends when Hodl sets off by train to join him. In the summer of 1904, An-sky had written to Zhitlowsky from a Zurich café where he had been writing a novella in Russian, “Pionery” (‘Pioneers’), also about young Jewish radicals in the Russian provinces: sharp-tongued debaters, girls needing to be extricated from unwelcome matches, and people who study even though they know that as Jews, they have little chance of getting into university.54 Because the two stories cover similar ground, the differences between them may demonstrate the effect of residence in Switzerland on An-sky’s depictions of the Russian Empire.55 His characters know that to continue their education, they will have to leave their homes and perhaps even their country: one explains that she plans to go to the University of Zurich because she knows it accepts women students.56 The lifestyle of the characters in “Pioneers” recalls the Russian student colonies in Switzerland: whereas Tevye’s daughters are still at home, An-sky’s young Jews bunk together in a rented room in a provincial capital (presumably modeled on his home town, Vitebsk). They share meals, or go hungry; they interact across class and gender lines more than they would have at home, while speaking most often with people their own age. Like the students in Switzerland, they enjoy singing, tea-drinking, polemical speeches, and discussion. Usually young people gathered at Mirkin’s every Saturday after dinner: gymnasium students who lived with their parents; members of the proletariat like those who lived at the orei miklat; and yeshiva students who were freethinkers of various degrees. They would come to smoke a cigarette after a filling dinner, to drink tea from the samovar, to eat a piece of pork sausage “out of principle,” and primarily to meet friends, converse, argue, and in general, breathe freely.57

The orei miklat, or “cities of refuge,” is a Biblical term for places where those accused of manslaughter can seek asylum; the young rebels use it to designate 54 Safran, Wandering Soul, 108-110. 55 Letter from Rappoport to Zhitlowsky, November 24, 1904. Chaim Zhitlowsky papers, YIVO, RG 208. An-sky defended the students and set up a reading room for them in Berne. 56 An-sky, S. Pionery [Pioneers]. In Sobranie sochinenii [Collected Works], vol. 3. St. Petersburg: Prosveshchenie, 1911-1913, 150. 57 Ibid., 203-204. I have adapted my translation of this and other passages from the forthcoming translation of Pioneers by Michael Katz. I follow his decision to use Ashkenazic-style spelling for Hebrew words, as An-sky did in his text.

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their shared rental. Mirkin opens up his room to the gymnasium and yeshiva students and the “members of the proletariat,” and there he and they enact a mix of traditional Jewish practices and behavior marked as rebellious. To light a cigarette or drink tea using a samovar heated on the Sabbath is as deliberate a flouting of Jewish law as to eat pork sausage, but the practice of gathering on Saturday afternoon to sing and speak is traditional. As when they name their refuge orei miklat, the rebels are critiquing Jewish practice while claiming their connection to it. The funniest examples of their ambivalent attitude toward tradition are the verbal improvisations by the most traditionally educated young men. Sholem Aleichem’s Tevye constantly boasts of his Talmudic knowledge, but his mistranslations of Hebrew and Aramaic lines from the liturgy reveal the limitations of his education. An-sky’s pioneers, in contrast, really know rabbinic argumentation. Uler, who boasts that he attended two yeshivas, both of which had to close after he converted all the students into freethinkers, is persuaded to offer a mock drash, an oral argument. He warns his listeners, “Watch it, I’ll reduce you to ashes with my words, as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai does with his glance!”58 He proceeds to “prove,” on the basis of Deuteronomy 32:1, that Moses was a “Realist,” a materialist thinker who followed the philosophy of the Russian writer Dmitry Pisarev. The delighted audience recognizes that his proof is an exercise in nonsense. With Uler’s virtuoso performance as its high point, the novella abounds in similar scenes, where characters comment on their own linguistic practices and those of others. They point out that those who lack a gymnasium education struggle with Russian speech culture; they remark that those who have not attended yeshiva are not familiar with rabbinic argumentation; the narrator reflects on the difficulty of modern conversation between men and women; and one young man falls in love with a young woman’s combative speech style. “I’m not afraid of anyone! I’m a Cossack!” she says, and he agrees, “I’ve never seen such fire!”59 Hodl too is a sharp-tongued girl, as her father observes repeatedly, but An-sky’s characters, even more than Sholem Aleichem’s, display what Inoue calls the linguistic ideologies demonstrated by “metapragmatic” statements.60 Like the Romantic generation, as Lotman described it, these people are obsessed by the spoken word.61 If the shift in An-sky’s listening practices during his Swiss years is understood in Inoue’s terms as the adoption of a new linguistic ideology – one that identified and valorized elements of speech as “Jewish” and associated them 58 Ibid., 215. 59 Ibid., 23, 168, 181, and 196. 60 Inoue, Vicarious Language, 18. 61 See footnote 24.



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with a particular persona – then this novella expresses his new beliefs about language. It evidences the retraining of his ears in Switzerland. The loving descriptions in “Pioneers” of radicalized ex-yeshiva students who produce mock-Talmudic speeches that display their own rejection of religion suggests that in the environment of the Russian student colonies in Switzerland, where young people from the Russian Empire were trying to learn – or invent – a rhetorical art that would make them modern and simultaneously allow them to conduct effective propaganda, An-sky began to seek out positive oral models in Jewish speech modes, particularly those associated with rabbinic argumentation. Like his characters in the novella, he was well aware that non-Jews and assimilated Jews scorned Jewish speech. Nonetheless, he could celebrate even attributes of Jewish speech that might appear most unattractive; in words that echo Medem and Chernov, he could describe Jewish speech as admirable because it was embodied and combative, not produced by a disembodied logic but by a corporeal creature performing its passion with charisma. As an SR, An-sky believed in the value of studying and learning to imitate peasant speech; during his Swiss years, he began to turn his ethnographic-plus-propagandistic energy onto the Jews. Long after he left Switzerland, he continued to associate the debates he had heard there with rabbinic argument, as when he called the Menshevik Yulii Martov “a Jewish type, a hairsplitter” (a tip fun a yidishn pilpul-mentsh).62

Language Loyalty and Jewish Linguistics The attention that Sholem Aleichem, Medem, Chernov, and An-sky gave to Jewish speech in Switzerland in the two decades before the Revolution anticipates contemporary debates about Jewish speech difference. The literary critic Sander Gilman argues that the notion of Jewish vocal difference is pernicious, motivated more by a need to distinguish Jews from Christians than by any real phenomena. He sees the construction of the Jewish voice as different – what Agha would call its “enregisterment” – as part of an attempt “to create an absolute boundary of the difference of the Jew even as this boundary historically shifts and slides. Jews sound different because they are represented as being different.”63 That is, anti-Semitic logic requires even assimilated Jews to be unable to command the languages of Christians. In contrast, sociolinguists define “Jewish speech” as not 62 An-ski, Sh. Mayn bagegenish mit Kamenevn [My Meeting with Kamenev]. In Gezamlte shriftn [Collected Works], vol. 11. Vilna, Warsaw, New York: Ferlag “An-ski,” 1925, 103. 63 Gilman, Sander. The Jew’s Body. New York: Routledge, 1991, 11 and 19-20.

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only recognized Jewish languages such as Hebrew or Yiddish, but Jewish variants of languages such as English or Russian. Deborah Tannen shows that New York Jewish English is characterized by “excitement and exuberance,” repetition, rapid-fire questions, and a high tolerance for interruption.64 Deborah Schiffrin studies Jewish speakers of English who use argument as a form of sociability.65 Unlike the picture painted by Gilman, in which Jews are imagined to speak “Jewishly” whether they intend to or not, contemporary sociolinguists describe Jewish language as part of an arsenal of linguistic elements that speakers deploy at will. Sarah Benor situates Jewish language alongside other linguistic practices: Language […] enables people to perform and perceive broad social dimensions like ethnicity, social class, age, and gender […] Through selective deployment of their repertoires, individuals are able to align themselves with some people and distinguish themselves from others. Similarly, individual Jews have access to an array of stylistic resources, including a distinctively Jewish repertoire, and they deploy various combinations of these resources as they position themselves in relation to other Jews and to non-Jews.66

What Benor finds for English holds for Russian as well, as demonstrated by Anna Verschik. She argues that Jewish Russian, which emerged in the second half of the nineteenth century, persists into the twenty-first as a “linguistic repertoire that Russian Jews can draw on to joke, to show in-group solidarity, and to present a recognizable linguistic portrayal of another Jew.”67 Whereas sociolinguistics seeks to describe speech difference accurately, linguistic anthropologists such as Agha and Inoue want to understand the ideologies that define certain speech patterns as constituting significant difference. My examination of the language politics among Russian Jews and their interlocutors in Switzerland before 1917 suggests that the notion of Jewish speech difference began to seem worth claiming for some Jews from the Russian Empire as they

64 Tannen, Deborah. Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk among Friends. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 77 and 82. 65 Schiffrin, Deborah. Jewish Argument as Sociability. Language in Society 13, 3 (September 1984): 311-335, here 314-315 and 332. For an analogous discussion of ethnically specific modes of argument, see Kochman, Thomas. Black and White Styles in Conflict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981. 66 Benor, Sarah Bunin. Do American Jews Speak a ‘Jewish Language’? A Model of Jewish Linguistic Distinctiveness. The Jewish Quarterly Review 99, 2 (Spring 2009): 230-269, here 234. Cf. Bucholtz, Mary, Kira Hall. Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach. Dis­ course Studies 7, 4-5 (2005): 585-614; Eckert, Penelope. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice: The Linguistic Construction of Identity in Belten High. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell, 2000. 67 Verschik, Anna. Jewish Russian and the field of ethnolect study. Language in Society 36 (2007): 213-232, here 213.



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articulated their identity in the multi-lingual Swiss context and in reaction to the models of linguistic assimilation provided by Western European Jews, most visibly by Herzl at the Basel congresses. One facet of this reclamation of Jewish speech difference was the rise of Yiddishism: the valorization of that language as a means of propaganda among the Bundist leadership in Switzerland was one of the steps leading to the Czernowitz conference of 1908, at which Jewish writers affirmed their commitment to use Yiddish and to resolve the logistical problems it posed. However, the Czernowitz participants claimed not Jewish speech difference as such, but the equality of the Jews to other nations that possess the right to use their native tongue. Its organizer, Nathan Birnbaum, conforms to Harshav’s depiction of modernizing Jews who want to dissociate themselves from the past. Birnbaum defended Yiddish as a way for Jews to regain respect and dignity among other nations, describing it as moving (like Herzl in Basel) “with quiet but firm tread,” as developing “rules and systems,” and as destined to become “a language held in high estimation.”68 His reclaiming of Yiddish, while it strongly echoes the nationalist reclamation of other ethnic tongues (Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, etc.), has little in common with An-sky’s and Sholem Aleichem’s celebration of Jewish speech as attention-getting corporeal performance. I have worked to situate the ideology that valorizes trans-linguistic Jewish speech difference by Russian Jews in Switzerland in the history of Russian oratory. In conclusion, I want to locate this phenomenon in another part of the history of listening in Russia, the development of ethnography and anthropology. From the 1870s, Russian Populists spent time among the recently freed serfs, collecting their folklore, reading to them, and hoping to convince them to rebel. When arrested and exiled, some of them, such as Lev Shternberg and Vladimir Bogoraz, took the opportunity to do fieldwork and produce monographs on Siberian peoples.69 The Russian anthropological tradition that these men founded was tied more strongly than its Western counterpart both to folkloristics and to propaganda, and thereby to the aesthetic – the effort to understand what made some words and performances more appealing than others. The well-known Formalist literary critics of early-twentieth-century Russia, such as Viktor Shklovsky, Boris Eikhenbaum, and Roman Jakobson, saw folklore, the oral, and the question of what made audiences react as falling well inside their purview. And the poets 68 Birnbaum, Nathan. Opening Address at the Conference for the Yiddish Language, translated from Yiddish by Joshua Fishman, http://www.ibiblio.org/yiddish/Tshernovits/birnbaum-op. html (accessed on September 16, 2012). 69 Ssorin-Chaikov, Nikolai. Political Fieldwork, Ethnographic Exile, and the State Theory: Peasant Socialism and Anthropology in Late-Nineteenth-Century Russia. In New History of An­ thropology, Henrika Kuklick (ed.), 191-206. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

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agreed. Thus the “zaum” or transsense language poetry of the Futurist Velimir Khlebnikov drew on folklorists’ collections of Slavic incantations, which both Futurists and critics were reading eagerly in the decade before 1917.70 As Khlebnikov proclaimed, combinations of words can affect listeners whether or not they communicate a message: “transrational language […] has a special power over the consciousness.”71 By listening to the peasants, Khlebnikov was arguing, poets could learn to use their magical language and to affect their own listeners powerfully. Thus the Futurists’ invention of a transsense language of art that draws on peasant magic and the valorizing of Jewish speech by Russian Jews in Switzerland may both stem from a Populist tradition that linked folk language to art and to the ability to persuade. The voices of early-twentieth-century Russian artists and critics would resonate in the history of Jewish linguistics. Among those listening to St. Petersburg in the 1910s was Max Weinreich, who would become a pioneering Yiddish linguist. Born in the Empire’s Baltic borderlands in 1894, he went to a Petersburg high school from 1909 to 1912, then entered St. Petersburg University, but moved to Marburg in 1919 to finish his degree.72 A Yiddish activist from his early teens, he participated in Petersburg Jewish cultural politics; he told Jakobson that he had heard the venerable Hebraist Alexander Harkavy reflect on his disillusionment with the hopes he had once cherished that Jews would attain equal rights in the Russian Empire.73 Through the last two decades of Weinreich’s life in the United States, he and Jakobson corresponded in a mix of Russian and English on linguistics and the Russian culture to which they both felt a tie.74

70 From 1913 through 1920, the Russian Futurists such as Khlebnikov and Aleksei Kruchennykh experimented with Zaum, a seemingly nonsense language based on elements of Slavic. In 1913, Jakobson suggested that Khlebnikov look at I. A. Sakharov’s Skazaniia russkogo naroda [Tales of the Russian Folk], and he found it inspirational. Cooke, Raymond. Velimir Khlebnikov: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987, 88. 71 Khlebnikov. Our Foundation, cited in Cooke, Velimir Khlebnikov, 89. 72 Estraikh, Gennady. Review of History of the Yiddish Language by Max Weinreich. Slavic Review 69, 2 (Summer 2010): 469-471, here 470; Glasser, Paul. 2010. Weinreich, Max. In YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Weinreich_Max (accessed on July 24, 2012). 73 Jakobson, Roman, Morris Halle. The Term Canaan in Medieval Hebrew. In For Max Wein­ reich on his Seventieth Birthday: Studies in Jewish Languages, Literature, and Society, 858-886. The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1964, 161. 74 Max Weinreich, correspondence with Roman Jakobson. Max Weinreich, Papers, 1930s-1968, YIVO, RG 584, especially on reading Grossman’s Ispoved’ odnogo evreia [Confession of a Jew] (Weinreich to Jakobson, January 1, 1955) and Berberova (Weinreich to Jakobson, February 8, 1955), both in folder 551c.



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Uriel Weinreich, Max Weinreich’s son and Jakobson’s student, was born in what is now Vilnius in 1926 and grew up fluent in Russian as well as German and Yiddish. Having arrived in the United States in 1939, he studied linguistics at Columbia University. In 1949, he went to Switzerland to research a doctoral dissertation that would become the founding text of the new subfield of contact linguistics. Switzerland is, of course, celebrated for its linguistic diversity, and it must have been more accessible to Weinreich than other such locations (such as the Balkans or the Caucasus). Like the students from the Russian Empire in the decades before 1917, he may also have been drawn by that country’s openness and tolerance. His conclusions about Swiss languages evoke the pre-revolutionary Russian Jews there and offer an explanation for their changing language ideologies: “It is in a situation of language contact that people most easily become aware of the peculiarities of their language as against others, and it is there that the pure or standardized language most easily becomes the symbol of group integrity. Language loyalty breeds in contact situations just as nationalism breeds on ethnic borders.”75 He showed that non-standard or mixed languages too can inspire loyalty. Whereas nineteenth- and twentieth-century nationalisms had presented bilingualism as aberrant, as opposed to the “normal” situation of the monolingual who speaks a single language perfectly, Weinreich’s study of Swiss languages presents bilinguals as purposefully borrowing words from other languages to achieve the effects they desire; he insists that they are intelligent as monolinguals, if not more so.76 The year after he returned from Switzerland, he wrote an article about macaronic songs, where Yiddish, Hebrew, and Slavic words are combined, usually to humorous effect; Weinreich suggests among other explanations for this phenomenon that they exemplify playfully artistic transsense language, or “zaum.”77 A few years later, in 1956, he published an article in a festschrift for Jakobson, arguing for a cross-linguistic Jewish speech difference resulting from language contact and located in specific intonational patterns of Talmudic argument: “‘Yiddish intonation’ does NOT coincide fully with that of coterritorial languages except for minor local resemblances; in fact, the Jew stands out by his intonation in every country of the Old World as well as the New.”78 First in Switzerland and then among Jews, he spoke for the valoriza75 Weinreich, Uriel. Languages in Contact: Findings and Problems. The Hague: Mouton, 1968, 100. See the newest version of this seminal text: Weinreich, Uriel, Languages in Contact: French, German and Romansch in Twentieth-Century Switzerland, Ronald I. Kim, William Labov (eds.). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co., 2011. 76 Ibid., 56-61 and 114. 77 Weinreich, Uriel. Di forshung fun ‘mishshprakhike’ yidishe folkslider [The Study of Macaronic Yiddish Folksongs]. YIVO-Bleter 34 (1950): 282-288, here 285. 78 Weinreich, Uriel. Notes on the Yiddish Rise-Fall Intonation Contour, 640-641. Cf. Newman,

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tion of non-standard languages and their speakers; his vision of Jewish language made room not only for Yiddish and Hebrew but also for ethnically marked versions of other languages. If the combination of the widespread attention to speech culture in Russia’s late imperial period, the fascination with non-standard language among the radical and creative intelligentsia, and the atmosphere of multilingual Switzerland fostered a valorization of Jewish argument style in An-sky and Sholem Aleichem before the revolution, then Weinreich’s work in the early 1950s continues their tradition. Of course, Jewish writers did not need to go to Switzerland in order to valorize Jewish speech style – though it may have been Isaak Babel’s upbringing in Odessa, a liberal, mercantile, multilingual environment not unlike Switzerland, that fostered the valorization of Jewish speech style in his fiction. Nonetheless, because each of these writers has been so influential in how Jewish speech is imagined and heard, and, in the case of Weinreich, how language difference itself is understood, it is valuable to situate them inside broader histories of listening, with their unexpected continuities in time, from the end of the nineteenth century to the mid-point of the twentieth, and in the unexpectedly shared space of Switzerland.

Zelda Kahan. The Jewish Sound of Speech: Talmudic Chant, Yiddish Intonation and the Origins of Early Ashkenaz. The Jewish Quarterly Review XC, 3-4 (January-April 2000): 293-336, here 329330.

Aline Masé

Student Migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the Universities of Berne and Zurich, 1865-1914 Introduction Prior to World War One, Imperial Russia1 had been a major country of origin of foreign students at Central and Western European institutions of higher education. Swiss universities attracted the largest share of Russian students, among them a great number of women, owing to Switzerland’s pioneering role in admission of females as regular students. Yet analyses have revealed that the “Russian” student migrants were seldom Russians stricto sensu, but rather members of national minorities suffering from tsarist oppression and Russification policies, that is, Poles, Ukrainians, Armenians, and above all, Jews.2 Indeed, estimates by contemporaries and later by historians confirmed that between fifty and eighty percent of all these “Russian” students at French, German and Swiss universities were of Jewish heritage.3 They were victims of the numerus clausus established in 1887, which drastically limited the number of Jewish students at universities in Imperial Russia, but also of general political, social, and economic discrimination. The outright invasion of Swiss universities by Russian-Jewish students in the three decades before the First World War was no coincidence but rather an interaction between discriminatory tsarist policies against Jews, on the one hand, and exceptionally liberal admission policies of Swiss institutions of higher learning, on the other. This article sketches the dimensions and patterns of the student 1 The terms Russia, Imperial Russia and Tsarist Empire, as well as other variants and combinations, are used interchangeably. They all denote the political and geographic entity governed by the Romanov family. 2 In Berne and Zurich, any student migrant coming from the Tsarist Empire was labelled “Russian” irrespective of their national belonging. Neither the academic nor the political authorities obviously cared about the ethnic heterogeneity of the Russian Empire. I am using “Russian” in quotation marks throughout the text in order to emphasize that I am not necessarily talking about ethnic Russians, and/or that even though the sources refer to Russians, the people they are talking about might as well identify as Jews, Armenians, Poles or others. 3 See Ruppin, Arthur. Russische Studenten an westeuropäischen Universitäten. Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden 11 (1905): 9-11 as only example of a comparative study. While for German institutions, we can rely on statistical material collected by the universities themselves, Swiss and French academic authorities did not care about religious affiliation or social background of their students. Thus we only have estimates for these countries.

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migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the universities of Berne and Zurich in German-speaking Switzerland between the 1860s and the outbreak of World War One. A special focus is laid on the particular attraction of the University of Berne.

State of the Art While the contemporary public was well aware of the many “Russians” at institutions of higher learning in Central and Western Europe,4 scholarly interest in student migration from Tsarist Russia has remained scanty and one-sided. For a long time, the “Russian” students at universities in France, Germany, and Switzerland have been studied mainly with regard to their political activism and revolutionary circles.5 This perception is certainly justified, given that political motives for emigration from the Russian Empire were common particularly in the nineteenth century, and that students’ political activity might have even gained momentum in the colonies abroad. But the average “Russian” student migrant resided in the West primarily to pursue an academic education. The somewhat narrow focus on the political aspect can be explained partly with a dominating interest in the history of Russian political revolutionaries and their activities abroad, particularly among Marxist historians of the twentieth century. But above all, it was the contemporary concern of authorities in Germany and France with the alleged political danger emanating from the “Russian” student youth which created the picture of an out-and-out politicized generation. In both France and Germany, historians can draw on an enormous arsenal of records produced

4 See Neumann, Daniela. Studentinnen aus dem Russischen Reich in der Schweiz 1867-1914. Zurich: H. Rohr, 1987, 93-117; Peter, Hartmut R. “Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bombenwerfer?” Zeitgenössische Wahrnehmungsmuster und Stereotype der Betrachtung der Studenten aus Russland in der Forschung. In Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bombenwerfer? Studenten aus dem Russischen Reich an deutschen Hochschulen vor dem 1. Weltkrieg, Hartmut R. Peter (ed.), 11-32. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001, 11-13; and Wertheimer, Jack. The ‘Ausländerfrage’ at Institutions of Higher Learning: Controversies over Russian-Jewish Students in Imperial Germany. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXVII (1982), 187-215. 5 Examples are Meijer, Jan Marinus. Knowledge and Revolution. The Russian Colony in Zurich 1870-1873: A Contribution to the Study of Russian Populism. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1955; Senn, Alfred E. The Russian Revolution in Switzerland. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1971; and Bankowski, Monika. Die erste ‘russische Bibliothek in Zürich’ 1870-1873. In “Der Parnass liegt nicht in den Schweizer Alpen.” Aspekte der Zürcher Universitätsgeschichte, Verena StadlerLabhart (ed.), 229-259. Zurich: H. Rohr, 1991.



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by large-scale police surveillance that documents the political involvement of “Russian” students abroad.6 Only in the 1990s has the phenomenon of student migration from the Tsarist Empire been reconsidered as a more comprehensive theme. Recent studies cover questions relating to the social composition of the Russian student body in the West and to the display of Polish nationalism among the student youth, for example.7 In Switzerland, however, the new interest has not really gained ground. Apart from extensive studies of the notorious first Russian colony8 of Zurich (18711873), where Russian girls who had aspired to a university education abroad were suddenly drawn into the fervid political disputes among Russian populists, a detailed analysis of the student migration from Tsarist Russia to German- and French-speaking universities in Switzerland is still missing. Russian women have received considerable attention on the part of Swiss women historians as pioneers of the Frauenstudium9 in Berne, Geneva and Zurich in the early 1860s;10 but their arrival in even greater numbers as of the 1880s was largely overlooked – just as was the increase in attendance of their male counterparts. Moreover, while the few historians who were concerned with one aspect or another of Russian student migration to Switzerland prior to the First World War have stressed the large percentage of Jews among these “Russians,” hardly anyone has made the effort to verify the claim. I am familiar with only two estimates on how many “Russians” at Swiss universities were Jewish: Arthur Ruppin’s general assessment of Russian-Jewish students in Europe and Daniela Neumann’s estimates for the University of Zurich. They present similar numbers between 50 percent and 80 percent. 6 See Peter, Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bombenwerfer, 13-23 on the various reasons for why historiography has generally focused on the political aspect of student migration from the Tsarist Empire to Western European universities. 7 Claudie Weill (1996, 2001, and 2003), Hartmut R. Peter (2001) and Hartmut R. Peter/Natalia Tikhonov (2003) merit particular mention for studying the Russian student migration to Germany and other Western countries as a multifaceted historical phenomenon. See references section for exact titles. 8 The term “colony” is used to capture the collectivity of “Russian” students in a specific town as well as their social space, their institutions and their places of residence. It was a term already used by contemporaries. 9 There is no equivalent in English, but Frauenstudium essentially refers to the admission of women as regular students at universities. 10 Cf. Rogger, Franziska, Monika Bankowski. Ganz Europa blickt auf uns! Das schweizerische Frauenstudium und seine russischen Pionierinnen. Baden: Hier+Jetzt, 2010; Brügger, Liliane. Russische Studentinnen in Zürich. In Bild und Begegnung: Kulturelle Wechselseitigkeit zwischen der Schweiz und Osteuropa im Wandel der Zeit, Peter Brang, Carsten Goehrke, Robin Kemball, and Heinrich Riggenbach (eds.), 485-508. Basel, Frankfurt am Main: Helbing und Lichtenhahn, 1996; and Neumann, Studentinnen.

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But neither Neumann nor Ruppin explain how they determine a student’s Jewish background. Nor are their numbers helpful; Ruppin, in 1905, indicated between 850 and 1,270 Jewish students for all universities in Switzerland, which does not allow for any qualified statement about one particular institution, and Neumann only studied the female students.11 For the University of Berne, there is no estimate concerning Russian-Jewish students at all. As is the case with studies on Russian students in general, the few existing, fragmentary analyses of Russian-Jewish students at Swiss universities are either concerned with their political involvement with the Bund, Zionism, or general Russian revolutionary movements, or else with the female individuals. No historian has shown interest in the overall picture of the migration of Russian-Jewish students to Switzerland qua students and Jews.

Source Material and Challenges A qualified statement about Russian-Jewish student migration to Switzerland demands a good deal of meticulous research and statistical analysis; source material is scarce. Most information on students (numbers, place of origin, field and duration of studies, living situation in Switzerland) is taken from enrollment catalogs of the universities of Berne and Zurich and from the respective databases on former students managed by the two university archives.12 Files recording decisions and debates of the academic senate and of individual faculties collected at the state archives of Berne and Zurich also yielded considerable evidence on institutional policies regarding the “Russian” students.13 Evidence for the non-academic life of Russian Jews, their social activities and their experience of the migrant situation is very difficult to find. Names of student organizations or other cultural and political associations that were officially registered with the

11 Cf. Ruppin, Russische Studenten, and Neumann, Studentinnen. 12 Cf. Verzeichnis der Behörden, Lehrer, Anstalten und Studierenden der Universität Bern, Sommersemester 1865 – Wintersemester 1914/15, Berne: Universität Bern; Verzeichnis der Behörden, Lehrer, Anstalten und Studierenden der Hochschule Zürich, Sommersemester 1869 – Wintersemester 1914/15, Zurich: Universität Zürich; Datenbank Studierende 1834-1914, Universitätsarchiv Bern (UAB), http://apps.uniarchiv.unibe.ch/index.php?syst=stud_1834_1914; and Matrikeledition 1834-1924, Universitätsarchiv Zürich (UAZ), http://matrikel.uzh.ch/pages/0.htm. 13 Cf. Immatrikulationsbestimmungen Polen und Russland, Staatsarchiv Zürich (StAZH), Z70.248-250; Aufnahmeprüfung, Ausländer, StAZH, Z70.216; Zirkulare, Drucksachen, Entscheide, Staatsarchiv Bern (StABE), BB IIIb 196-200; Russenfrage, StABE, BB IIIb 495; and Immatrikulation/Zulassung, StABE, BB IIIb 1003.



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university could be traced for the twentieth century, and statutes as well as membership rosters are available for Jewish fraternities.14 For an impression of life in the Russian-Jewish student colonies of Berne and Zurich, I mostly relied on individual perspectives. Some of the Russian-Jewish students enrolled in Swiss universities were – or later became – major political figures in the Bund or in the Zionist Movement and reflected their student years in Berne or Zurich when they published their life stories. I could draw on the memoirs of Daniel Charney, David Farbstein, Gina Medem, Vladimir Medem, Chaim Weizmann and Chaim Zhitlowsky.15 These life-stories represent a time span of the late 1880s up to 1912 and document various political positions. They are valuable sources for individual experiences of the student colonies in Berne and Zurich. However, the life stories of Bund theoretician Vladimir Medem and Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann – which offer the most extensive reflection of Russian-Jewish student life in Switzerland – hardly represent the everyday life and experiences of student migrants but automatically overemphasize the role of politics in the student colonies.16 An outside perspective on the scope of Russian-Jewish students’ political involvement is practically non-existent. Unlike the German and French authorities, neither cantonal nor federal police in Switzerland cared much about the political ideas and gatherings of Russian and Russian-Jewish students, as long as these focused on the conditions in their home countries.17 14 Cf. Studentenschaft der Universität Zürich, Vereine und Verbindungen, StAZH, WII 1230012340 and Platzer, Peter. Jüdische Studentenverbindungen in der Schweiz. 3rd ed. Hilden: WJK-Verlag, 2009. 15 Cf. Charney, Daniel. Barg aroyf: Bleter fun a lebn [Uphill: Pages of a Life]. Warsaw: Lite­ rarishe Bleter, 1935; Farbstein, David. Aus meinem Leben. In Schweizerischer Israelitischer Ge­ meindebund 1904-1954. Festschrift zum 50-jährigen Bestehen, 197-224. Basel: Schweizerischer Israelitischer Gemeindebund, 1954; Medem, Gina. A lebnsveg: oytobiografishe notitsn [A Way of Life: Autobiographical Notes]. New York: Gina Medem Bukh-Komitet, 1950; Medem, Vladimir. Fun mayn lebn [From My Life]. New York: Vladimir Medem Komite, 1923; Weizmann, Chaim. Reden und Aufsätze 1901-1936, Gustav Krojanker (ed.). Tel Aviv: Hitachduth Olej Germania, 1937; Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error: The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann. London: Harper & Brothers, 1949; and Zhitlovsky, Chaim. Zikhroynes fun mayn lebn [Stories of My Life]. New York: Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky Yubiley Komitet, 1935. 16 See Peter, Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bombenwerfer, 29-30. 17 Cf. Goehrke, Carsten. Das östliche Europa und die ‘Zuflucht Schweiz’: Eine Bilanz aus historischer Sicht. In Asyl und Aufenthalt: Die Schweiz als Zufluchtsort und Wirkungsstätte von Slaven im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Monika Bankowski (ed.), 317-333. Basel: Helbing und Lichtenhahn, 1994, 321; Leutenegger, Eliane, Slavica Sovilj. Der Stellenwert der Schweiz für die revolutionäre Emigration aus dem Zarenreich im internationalen Vergleich. In Zuflucht Schweiz: Der Umgang mit Asylproblemen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, Carsten Goehrke, Werner G. Zimmermann (eds.), 459-504. Zurich: H. Rohr, 1994, 466-467; and Neumann, Studentinnen, 153-155.

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Figure 6: Postcard with view of the University of Berne, c. 1910.

Figure 7: Excerpt from the enrollment catalog of the University of Berne, winter term 1901-1902.



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A Russian-Jewish student, for the purpose of my research, is defined simply as a student with (patrilineal and/or matrilineal) Jewish background that entailed stigmatization and discrimination in Tsarist Russia. I do not claim that these students’ self-perception necessarily confirms such categorization. The same applies to the Russian part of the definition. Jews in Imperial Russia often identified as Polish instead of Russian – or sometimes as merely Jewish – depending on time, place, and socio-cultural environment. The ascertaining of the Jewish identity of a student from Imperial Russia listed in the enrollment catalog was quite a challenge. Unlike German universities, Swiss institutions did not require information on a student’s religious affiliation. Establishment of a student’s Jewish background thus involves comparison of the place of origin in the Pale of Settlement with first and family name. With the help of Alexander Beider’s Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire,18 I availed myself of onomastics. Beider’s list of the most common Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century and his typologies of Jewish surnames were very helpful guides. For men, however, given (=first) names were often more informative, as most male Jews used their sacred name or a Yiddish/Slavic calque of the same. Women quite often used Slavic/German given names; differentiation from non-Jews was more difficult in this case.19 Names are certainly no guarantee; many Jews were in a process of Russification or Polonization and also bore typical Polish or Russian names.20 But in many cases either given or family name made determination easy. For a man called Benzion Tschleneff, the given name leaves no doubt, and for a woman named Amalia Rosenfeld, it is the surname that points towards Jewish identity. Moreover, they came from Poltowa and Lublin, respectively – both cities had a sizeable Jewish population at the end of the nineteenth century.

Determinants of Migration The emigration of a secularized Jewish student youth from Tsarist Russia in the second half of the nineteenth century was principally motivated by ‘push-factors.’ Young Jews suffered from general socio-economic discrimination such as the ban on living outside the boundaries of the overpopulated Pale of Settlement and 18 Beider, Alexander (ed.). A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Russian Empire. Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu, 1993. 19 See Beider, Dictionary of Jewish Surnames, 1-6 and 35-36. 20 See Avrutin, Eugene M. Jews and the Imperial State. Identification Politics in Tsarist Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010, 148-179.

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restrictions regarding professional opportunities. Tsarist oppression had alienated young Jewry and turned them into a recruiting pool for the Russian opposition movement. In the 1860s and 1870s, when the first Jewish students made their way into the universities, they joined student protests in large numbers and were accordingly persecuted for involvement in opposition politics. Hopes among the Jewish community for emancipation and integration were, however, shattered in the 1880s. After the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881, anti-Jewish pogroms spread over the Southern Provinces of the Russian Empire and the rights of Russian Jewry were again curtailed. Emigration of Jews from the Tsarist Empire became a mass phenomenon. But more importantly, the anti-Jewish atmosphere in the 1880s also triggered the emergence of radical political movements based on the idea of auto-emancipation21 and Jewish national renewal. The issuance of the October Manifesto in 190522 was accompanied by yet another outburst of violence against Jews. By that time, the politicization of the Jewish minority in Russia had reached impressive dimensions; the Bund and the Zionist Movement had gathered supporters since the late nineteenth century, and new socialist and Zionist-socialist parties emerged in the early twentieth century. Most of them stressed the national character of the Jewish people and the need for autonomy.23 Until the 1870s, the autocracy adopted a policy of Russification vis-à-vis the Jewish minority with the intention of undermining their traditional religious and national identity as well as their solidarity. A state-run Jewish school system was established in the 1840s to impair Jewish separatism and strengthen the influence of Russian culture among Jews. But this strategy was soon abolished. The enrollment of Jews in Russian secondary schools and universities increased substantially as a result of the opening of Russian educational institutions to all parts 21 Auto-emancipation was also the title given by Leon Pinsker to his book published in 1882. This work is often seen as representative for the new spirit of self-help and self-defence arising among Russian Jewry against the background of the 1881/1882 crisis. 22 The October Manifesto (officially: Manifesto on the Improvement of the State Order) was issued by Tsar Nicholas II as a response to the wave of political and social unrest (known as the Revolution of 1905) that spread through the Russian Empire since late 1904. The manifesto promised basic civil liberties and introduced universal male suffrage, among other things, but did not result in real reform. The Jewish population was still denied legal equality and violence against them did not cease until 1907. 23 The elaborations in this paragraph are based on Haumann, Heiko. Geschichte Russlands. 2nd ed. Zurich: Chronos, 2010; Haumann, Heiko. Geschichte der Ostjuden. 6th ed. Munich: dtv, 2008; Polonsky, Antony. The Jews in Poland and Russia, 2 vols. Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2010; Bartal, Israel. The Jews of Eastern Europe 1772-1881. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005; Klier, John D. Imperial Russia’s Jewish Question 1855-1881. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; and The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (online edition), http://www.yivoencyclopaedia.org/.



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of the population in the 1860s, and the tsar suddenly feared a disproportionate influence of a growing and radical Jewish intelligentsia. The student youth, in general, came to be a strong factor of civil disturbance and a source of anti-tsarist agitation. Universities were repeatedly shut down to inhibit protests; it was hardly possible to receive a regular academic education in Russia. Thus many students began to aspire to studies abroad – a privilege previously reserved for young noblemen. Jewish students were prominent among these early student migrants. Some were persecuted for (alleged) political agitation, but a majority were women who were excluded from access to universities in Russia since 1863/1864. Scholarly literature usually attributes the large-scale emigration of Jewish students from Tsarist Russia to the establishment of a strict numerus clausus for Jewish students at secondary schools and institutions of higher education. A first initiative to limit the number of Jewish students at state institutions was taken in 1881. In 1887, a circular issued by the ministry of education established the following quotas for Jews at academic institutions: ten percent of the student body in the Pale of Settlement, five percent in other provinces, and three percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg. In 1901, the numerus clausus was further tightened to seven, three and two percent, respectively. Finally, it was also extended to private institutions in 1908 and in 1911 to students taking examinations only.24 These quotas drastically limited the opportunities of Jews to obtain an academic degree – which remained the only way to achieve social and geographic mobility in Russia.25 Jewish women faced twofold discrimination; women were generally excluded from university education in Russia and could only study at special institutes in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where quotas for Jews were particularly strict. Moreover, women were mainly trained as teachers – a profession Jews were barred from. The movement of Russian-Jewish students to Switzerland definitely gained momentum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the numerus clausus pushed Jews with aspirations for an academic degree out of Russia. Yet my research shows that numbers of Jews among the “Russian” students in Zurich and Berne were considerable even in the 1860s and 1870s. Reasons for emigra24 Cf. Polonsky, Jews in Poland and Russia, 2: 15 and 79-80; Weill, Claudie. Etudiants russes en Allemagne 1900-1914: Quand la Russie frappait aux portes de l’Europe. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996, 86-88; and Hausmann, Guido. Der Numerus clausus für jüdische Studenten im Zarenreich. Jahr­ bücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 41 (1993): 509-531 regarding the history of the numerus clausus for Jewish students in the Russian Empire. 25 Government decrees of 1861 and 1879, respectively, authorized Jews with a higher academic degree and subsequently all Jewish university graduates to settle and work outside the Pale of Settlement.

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tion were manifold; general discrimination and humiliation because of religious affiliation, persecution for certain political views, and the prospect for women to enroll at selected universities in Western Europe made Jewish students leave Russia even before the NC practically forced them to get education abroad.26 Jews from the Tsarist Empire studied at universities in Belgium, France, Germany, and Switzerland. But most chose the latter: the universities of Zurich, Berne, Geneva and Lausanne were uniquely attractive for Russian Jews because of their liberal admission policies. In the nineteenth century, a foreign student only needed to supply a certificate of good conduct, whereas locals had to produce a Maturitätszeugnis27 or equivalent preparatory education. Over the years, and especially with the greater interest of students from Eastern Europe, requirements became stricter. Both Berne and Zurich began to demand proof of preparatory education and/or entrance exams from foreigners around the turn of the century in order to curb the number of unprepared students. But the academic authorities still hesitated to enforce too rigorous terms. First of all, the universities of Berne and Zurich were founded by liberal governments in the 1830s and wished to defend their political heritage. Secondly, the young institutions had large capacities for learners but could not hope to fill their lecture halls with domestic students. They therefore found their raison d’être in attracting foreign students in order to secure their existence. The exceptionally early admission of women as regular students in the 1860s was another consequence of this surplus of capacities. For Russian-Jewish women, the possibility to study medicine in

26 The elaborations concerning tsarist educational policies are based on Polonsky, Jews in Po­ land and Russia; Huser, Karin. Russische Studentin trifft Schweizer Studenten: Die medizinische Fakultät als intergeschlechtlicher und interkultureller Begegnungsort. In Innenansichten einer Ärzteschmiede. Lehren, Lernen und Leben – aus der Geschichte des Zürcher Medizinstudiums, Iris Ritzmann, Wiebke Schweer, and Eberhard Wolff (eds.), 109-130. Zurich: Chronos, 2008; Ettinger, Shmuel. Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart. Die Neuzeit. In Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes: Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart, 5th ed., Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (ed.), 887-1348. Munich: C. H. Beck, 2007; Russländische Studenten an deutschen Hochschulen und Universitäten im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert. In Enzyklopädie Migration in Europa. Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Klaus J. Bade, Pieter C. Emmer, Leo Lucassen, and Jochen C. Oltmer (eds.). Zurich: NZZ Verlag, 2007; Peter, Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bombenwerfer; Ivanov, Anatolij E. Die russländische Studentenschaft an den deutschen Hochschulen Ende des 19. und zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts: Kulturhistorische Fragestellungen. Idem, Schnorrer, Verschwörer, Bomben­werfer, 33-49. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001; Hausmann, Numerus clausus; Neumann, Studentin­ nen; Alston, Patrick L. Education and the State in Tsarist Russia. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969; and Meijer, Knowledge and Revolution. 27 This is the diploma students receive after successful completion of their Gymnasium education in Switzerland. A Maturitätszeugnis qualifies for enrollment at any public university.



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Switzerland exerted a particularly strong pull; only a precious few French and Belgian institutions allowed female students at that time.28 To speakers of Yiddish, Berne and Zurich offered the advantage of a German-speaking environment. Daniel Charney even recalls how – according to legend – some professors mistook Yiddish for a dialect of Swiss-German.29 Oral and written “propaganda” for Switzerland and its educational institutions should not be underestimated, either. Books and journal articles written by Russian(-Jewish) students provided information about admission policies, living conditions in Swiss university towns, student organizations, political groups – and even about possibilities to get kosher food. Many students also shared their experiences with family and friends back home and induced further migration via loose networks. Both formal and informal information paths thus contributed to the creation of a chain migration of Jewish students from Tsarist Russia to Switzerland.30 Over the years, the small Russian-Jewish student communities in Berne and Zurich grew into something like a little shtetl with an established infrastructure. For those students who left Russia for political reasons, either because they had to escape imprisonment or because they wished to become actively involved in revolutionary movements, Switzerland was the most attractive place, anyway. The guarantee of legal protection, of freedom of press and assembly, had fostered the development of the Helvetic Republic into a center of Russian émigré revolutionary activity. For the Bund and Zionist organizations, the Russian-Jewish student colonies presented a first-rate recruiting ground.

28 Cf. Bolleter, Sarah, Heini Ringger (eds.). Rückblenden, Einsichten, Ausblicke – Universität Zürich 2008. Wissen teilen: 175 Jahre Universität Zürich. Zurich: Universität Zürich, 2008; Tikhonov, Natalia. Migrations des étudiants et féminisation de quelques universités européennes: A la recherche d’une convergence. In Universitäten als Brücken in Europa. Studien zur Geschichte der studentischen Migration, Hartmut R. Peter, Natalia Tikhonov (eds.), 43-53. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003; Neumann, Studentinnen; Regierungsrat des Kantons Bern (ed.). Hochschulge­ schichte Berns 1528-1984. Zur 150-Jahr-Feier der Universität Bern 1984. Berne: Universität, 1984; Gagliardi, Ernst. Die Universität Zürich 1833-1933 und ihre Vorläufer: Festschrift zur Jahrhundert­ feier. Zurich: Verlag der Erziehungsdirektion, 1938; Erb, Hans. Geschichte der Studentenschaft an der Universität Zürich 1833-1936. Zurich: [publisher unknown], 1937; Feller, Richard. Die Univer­ sität Bern 1834-1934. Berne: Haupt, 1935; Marti, Hugo. Die Universität Bern. Küsnacht a. R.: Fritz Lindner Verlag, 1932; Spühler, Willi (ed.). 100 Jahre Universität Zürich, Zurich: [publisher unknown], 1932; Lasche, A. Historisch-statistische Notizen über die Unterrichtsanstalten in Bern. Zeitschrift für schweizerische Statistik 9, 2 (1873): 75-78; Ruegg, Reinhold. Das Schulwesen des Kantons Zürich. Zeitschrift für schweizerische Statistik 5, 7-9 (1869): 137-159; as well as the files from Universitätsarchiv, StABE and from Rektoratsarchiv, StAZH. 29 Cf. Charney, Barg aroyf, 119-120. 30 Cf. Brügger, Russische Studentinnen, 490-493 and 502-503, and Neumann, Studentinnen, 110-116.

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Russian-Jewish Students at the Universities of Berne and Zurich Migration of Jewish students from the Tsarist Empire to the universities of Berne and Zurich generally exhibited similar patterns; after all, the movement was triggered by specific structural conditions and events in Russia that affected both institutions alike. Still, various factors led to different developments and arrangements at the universities of Berne and Zurich. The following elaborations will be complemented by two graphs that illustrate the numbers of “Russian” students over time and the proportion of Jews among them at the universities of Zurich and Berne, respectively.31 These illustrations are based on my own research and render approximate estimates concerning the percentage of Jews. At the medical faculty of the University of Zurich, two Russian women first asked to be enrolled as regular students in winter term (WT) 1864/1865. This was the beginning not only of the Frauenstudium in Switzerland but also of more than five “Russian decades” at Swiss universities. Of the roughly fifteen “Russian” pioneers per semester in the late 1860s, about twenty-five percent were of Jewish origin. At the time of the first Russian colony in 1872/1873 – its emergence was a direct consequence of the radicalization of the student youth in Russia and of the repressive response on the part of the tsarist authorities –, the share of Jews equalled about fourty percent of more than 100 “Russian” medical students. The tsar was alarmed by the development of Zurich into the center of Russian revolutionary activity abroad and by the mingling of Bakunin, Lavrov and the like with the many Russian women students. An ukase32 published in June 1873 thus barred all Russian women who would continue their studies in Zurich after January 1, 1874, from employment in Russia. Many complied and returned to Russia. But some chose to transfer to the University of Berne instead, where these Russian women students opened the gates for “Russians” in general, just as they had done in Zurich a decade earlier. At the University of Zurich, the “Russian” student body only began to return to its earlier levels in the late 1880s.

31 Figures on student enrollment can be checked with the official semester records published by each university (Verzeichnis der Behörden, Lehrer, Anstalten und Studierenden) as well as with the almost annual tables in the Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Statistik, Berne, 1 (1865) - 51 (1915). 32 An “ukase” was a proclamation of the tsar, the government, or a religious leader in Imperial Russia which had the force of law. The ukase of 1873 directed against women students in Zurich was nullified in the mid-1880s.



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Table 2: Minimum percentage of Jews among “Russian” students at the University of Zurich (1865-1915).

Jews were represented in disproportionately high numbers among the “Russian” student body in Switzerland right from the start.33 The percentage of women among the Russian-Jewish pioneers was impressive – it oscillated between fifty percent and seventy percent and only dropped markedly after 1910. At both the University of Berne and that of Zurich, numbers of Jewish students from Russia increased conspicuously and continuously in the 1890s – presumably a deferred effect of the establishment of the numerus clausus for Jewish students at Russian universities in 1887. At the University of Berne, enrollments of students from Russia leapt from roughly 100 to about 200 per semester between 1898 and 1900 and continued to rise dramatically during the following years. This relates directly to the suppression of student riots in Russia in 1899 and the subsequent shutdown of all institutions of higher learning.34 Oddly enough, the University of Zurich received more “Russians” in the mid- to late 1890s (around 120 individuals) 33 According to estimates, the Jewish minority equalled about four percent of the entire population within the boundaries of the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth century. See Polonsky, Jews in Poland and Russia, 2: 3 and 11. 34 Cf. Weill, Claudie. Russian Bundists Abroad and in Exile 1898-1925. In Jewish Politics in Eastern Europe: The Bund at 100, Jack Jacobs (ed.), 46-55. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001, 90, and Alston, Education and the State, 154.

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and experienced a temporary low with fewer than 100 students in 1900/1901.35 Between 1901 and 1908, the invasion of students from the Tsarist Empire, predominantly Jewish, was impressive both in Berne and Zurich and reached its peak in 1907/1908 with about 450 “Russians” in Zurich and over 700 in Berne (of no more than 1,500 and 1,700 students in total). Of these students, roughly seventy percent and seventy-five percent, respectively, were Jewish. The unforeseen inrush had palpable reasons: Student unrest had again erupted in Russia in 1901 and was even greater in extent than the protests of 1899. During the turmoil of the years 1903-1906, political repression was severe, and universities were completely shut down in 1906. A wave of politically motivated student migrants thus reached Switzerland. At the same time, the tightening of the numerus clausus for Jews in Russia in 1901, 1908, and 1911 determined the increasing proportion of Russian-Jewish students in Berne and Zurich in the twentieth century. The universities of Berne and Zurich responded to such demand with stricter entrance requirements. The overall concern of both institutions and cantonal governments was threefold: that infrastructure would be strained by too many “Russians,” that the level of instruction would suffer from these students’ insufficient education, and finally that the reputation of the university might suffer as consequence of the second. At its fifth conference in 1908, the Schweizerische Rektorenkonferenz36 agreed to coordinate admission policies throughout Switzerland and adopted specific guidelines for the enrollment of Russians. Entrance requirements should at least equal those established by Russian universities, and if a student could not present adequate documents, he or she needed to pass a standardized exam. An Exmatrikel37 obtained from another university was no longer, on principle, accepted as entry ticket. Such coordination across the country was intended to prevent foreign students from overrunning the more lenient institutions and from misusing attestations obtained there to circumvent the strict entrance requirements of others. New enrollments on the part of students from Tsarist Russia indeed decreased at all institutions of higher learning in Switzerland after 1908. Yet it is doubtful whether the new countrywide entrance requirements were accountable for 35 Despite intensive research, I could not ascertain any particular reason for this temporary drop. There was neither a specific event in Russia that would hinder emigration, nor did the University of Zurich introduce new regulations. 36 This body included all heads of institutions of higher learning on Swiss territory. It was established in 1904 mainly to coordinate policies and to exchange experiences across the country. 37 An Exmatrikel is a written confirmation attesting the attendance of lectures and courses that a student receives upon leaving university, no matter whether he/she finished with a degree or not.



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this “success;” enrollment figures and university records suggest that the drop in numbers of “Russians” was mainly due to the departure of women, who be­­ nefitted from the opening of universities to female students back home.38 In any case, Swiss universities once more experienced a Russeninvasion (‘invasion of Russians’)39 with over 400 “Russians” in 1913 and 1914. The percentage of Jews now amounted to nearly eighty percent of the “Russian” student population at the University of Zurich and to even more in Berne; at both Faculties of Medicine, their numbers even equalled more than eighty-five percent of all students from Tsarist Russia. Berne and Zurich followed the Prussian example and introduced quotas for foreign students in order to counter the demand on the part of “Russians.”40 The numerus clausus in medicine was formally applied to all foreign students but essentially directed against the “Russians,” as they were the only ones to exceed the maximum of sixty enrollments per semester. But these measures, taken in late 1913, essentially proved redundant; with the outbreak of war in 1914, most foreign students left Switzerland and never came back. At the University of Berne, the arrival of the “Russians” was delayed and was – initially – a mere consequence of the tsarist ban of 1873 on studies in Zurich. But student migration from the Tsarist Empire to Berne slowly grew into a mass phenomenon. Beginning in the 1890s, the University of Berne received a far larger quantity of “Russians,” and thus also of Jewish Russians, than did Zurich. In 1907/1908, Berne had over 700 “Russians” (of whom about eighty percent were Jews), while Zurich counted not even 500 (seventy percent Jews). Only in 1913/1914 did Zurich catch up with Berne. But the presence of students from Russia was never as eye-catching in Zurich as it was in Berne: The University of Zurich attracted many foreign students, among them a considerable number of Germans. In Berne, however, the “Russians” essentially were the foreigners.

38 For this interpretation see Letter of the Rector’s Office of the University of Berne to its Medical Faculty, February 14, 1914. Professorenbesoldungen, Titelanerkennungen, Russenfrage, Militärisches (1900-1914), StABE, BB IIIb 495. 39 Letter of the Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy to the Rector’s Office, November 1913. Immatrikulationsbestimmungen: Polen und Russland, StAZH Z70.248-250. 40 Cf. Speech of A. Gobat, June 1904. Zirkulare, Drucksachen, Entscheide, StABE, Universitätsarchiv BB IIIb 196-200; Protocol of Zurich Government, August 1, 1907. Immatrikulationsbestimmungen: Polen und Russland, StAZH, Z 70.248-250; Protocol of Zurich Department of Education, October 10, 1913. Immatrikulationsbestimmungen: Polen und Russland, StAZH, Z 70.248-250, and Letter of Dean of the Berne Medical Faculty, February 14, 1914. Professorenbesoldungen, Titelanerkennungen, Russenfrage, Militärisches (1900-1914), StABE, Universitätsarchiv BB IIIb 495.

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Table 3: Minimum percentage of Jews among “Russian” students at the University of Berne 1865-1915.

Between two thirds and three quarters of Jewish student migrants from Russia enrolled at a medical faculty, as did their non-Jewish counterparts. In the last couple of years before the First World War, there was hardly a Jewish student who did not choose the Faculty of Medicine. The paramount interest of Russian-Jewish students in obtaining a degree in medicine has manifest reasons. The medical profession was one of the few prestigious fields in Tsarist Russia in which Jews were allowed to practice; it offered economic security and allowed living outside the Pale of Settlement, that is, an escape from oppressive conditions. But the choice of medicine was also motivated by a moral desire – especially among women – to contribute to the welfare of Russian society, in general, and to the transformation of Jewish society, in particular. At the University of Zurich, Russian-Jewish students were rare at other faculties; their numbers at the Faculty of Law were negligible and the interest in philosophy was modest. If a Russian-Jewish student enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy, he or she most likely studied chemistry or physics. At the University of Berne, however, quite a few Russian-Jewish students chose the Faculty of Philosophy and followed a historical-philosophical track in the late 1890s and early 1900s. While in terms of absolute numbers, the medical faculty in Berne always attracted many more students, the large concentration



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of Jewish students from Russia at the Bernese Faculty of Philosophy stands out in comparison with their non-Jewish counterparts, who hardly appeared in its records. There is no definite answer to the question why Russian-Jewish students in Berne professed an exceptionally strong interest in philosophical subjects; we lack records of individual motivation. Yet part of the explanation probably lies in the presence of Prof. Ludwig Stein, born in Hungary and trained as a rabbi of Liberal Judaism, who taught political and systematic philosophy at the University of Berne from 1891 until 1909.41 Prof. Stein was well known as a scholar and political thinker, but he was also a Jew of East-European origin whom Russian-Jewish students at all faculties could identify with. Apart from Ludwig Stein, there was another crucial figure of East-European Jewish origin who turned the University of Berne into a particularly attractive destination for Jewish students from the Tsarist Empire: Prof. Naum Reichesberg was professor of law from 1898 until 1928. Reichesberg, a socialist, also figures prominently in Vladimir Medem’s depiction of the Berne colony: The head of the colony was Prof. Naum Reichesberg, a Russian Jew, a socialist, but also a professor at the University of Berne. In his capacity as an official figure and a renowned personage in the city, the colony was under his wing. People invariably turned to him when hard pressed and in difficulty.42

It is very likely that the presence of Reichesberg, who was widely known for his works on social relations and the rights of workers, prompted many Russian-Jewish student migrants to settle in Berne – particularly those with socialist positions.43 There is no indication of a comparable character in Zurich who would create an ersatz home abroad for Jews from the Tsarist Empire. There were other reasons for Russian-Jewish students to opt for the University of Berne rather than for the more renowned University of Zurich. Official admission policies were never evidently more demanding at the University of Zurich. But Medem recalls how, around 1900, Jewish students in Berne jokingly remarked that they could submit a train ticket instead of a diploma to be enrolled at the

41 Cf. Stein, Ludwig. Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz (online edition), http://hls-dhs-dss.ch/ (accessed on October 24, 2011), and Biografia Ludwig Stein. In Centro Studi Ludwig Stein, Associazione Centro Studi Ludwig Stein (ed.). Vicenza IT. Retrieved from http://www.ludwigstein.org/ biografia.asp (accessed on October 24, 2011). 42 Medem, according to the English translation of his memoirs (Medem, Vladimir. Vladimir Medem: The Life and Soul of a Legendary Jewish Socialist, Samuel A. Portnoy (ed.). New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1979, 220). 43 Cf. Senn, Russian Revolution, 9-10.

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University of Berne.44 And according to Yiddish poet Daniel Charney, graduates from yeshivas were still enrolled without difficulties in the 1910s.45 If I cannot confirm such lax requirements on the basis of university records, it is clear that Albert Gobat, superintendent of public instruction in the canton of Berne from 1882 until 1906, was widely known as “protector of the Russians” (Beschützer der Russen)46 and repeatedly blocked the attempts of the political and academic authorities to abandon the university’s lenient admission policies.47 It cannot be verified whether students from the Tsarist Empire were aware of Gobat’s friendly attitude. But they were generally well informed about local conditions and university policies. According to witnesses, Russian-Jewish life was much more astir in Berne than in Zurich at least since the early 1890s, and Jewish students who left the Tsarist Empire to study in Switzerland had certainly heard about the vibrant Berne “shtetl.”48 The Berne colony also figured as center of the general Russian and the Russian-Jewish political emigration in German-speaking Switzerland, if we believe the memoirs of Vladimir Medem, Daniel Charney, and Chaim Weizmann. Their accounts portray animated political struggles between populists, internationalist socialists, Bundists, and various Zionist groups in the Swiss capital. The “era of Zhitlowsky” (1891-1903) must have had a particularly strong impact on the Berne colony.49 Chaim Zhitlowsky had first spent three years in Zurich and moved to Berne in 1891, where he enrolled at the Faculty of Philosophy for one semester. In Berne, Zhitlowsky was the uncontested leader of the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party (SR), a populist-socialist agrarian movement.50 But he also continued his struggle for Jewish national emancipation and his research into Jewish history, which he had previously taken on in Russia, and carried with him to Berlin and Zurich. His synthesis of Jewish nationalism and revolutionary socialism became very popular among the Russian-Jewish students in Berne and probably laid the ground for the conquest of the Berne colony by the Bund in the early twentieth century.51 Certainly, Zurich also featured a local Bundist group, 44 Cf. Medem, Fun mayn lebn, 278. 45 Cf. Charney, Barg aroyf, 119. 46 Feller, Universität Bern, 449. 47 Cf. Regierungsrat, Hochschulgeschichte Berns 1528-1984, 410-413 and Feller, Universität Bern, 439-509. 48 Cf. Farbstein, Aus meinem Leben, 198 and Weizmann, Trial and Error, 69. 49 Cf. Charney, Barg aroyf, 221 and Farbstein, Aus meinem Leben, 198-199. 50 Cf. Weinberg, David H. Between Tradition and Modernity: Haim Zhitlowski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha-Am, and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Identity. New York: Holmes&Meier, 1996, 94-96 and Medem, Fun mayn lebn, 282. 51 Cf. Medem, Fun mayn lebn, 285; Gina Medem, A lebnsveg, 130-133, and Weinberg, Between



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Zionist organizations, and other cultural and political associations where Russian-Jewish students could engage in discussions.52 But there is no evidence of Zurich playing a crucial role in the political emigration of Russian Jewry, whereas Berne is often referred to in literature and contemporary comments explicitly as center of Bundist and socialist activity.53 If a Jewish student left Russia for political reasons, then Berne seemed like the obvious place to go. Most Russian-Jewish students in Switzerland studied at more than one academic institution and thus brought their experiences and habits from one colony to the other. The “Russian” colonies in Western Europe all resembled each other with regard to infrastructure and social life; a common eating center, a library (“reading hall” in contemporary usage), a mutual aid society and various cultural and political student organizations also constituted the heart of the Berne and Zurich colonies.54 In a most foreign environment, the Russian-Jewish students felt the need to cling together, as the following depiction of the Berne colony by Vladimir Medem attests: One was forever in the presence of the group, forever in the company of close friends. At noon it was the Russian eating center; in the afternoon there was a quick visit to someone for a glass of tea and a bit of chocolate. The evening was the time for a meeting, a referat (lecture), a discussion. Referatn were scheduled with great frequency; and when such lectures took place it was simply impossible to remain at home. Thus, one would partake of the lecture and the ensuing discussion, and stay on after the discussion for another hour of song and the enjoyment of good fellowship.55

The insularity of the Russian(-Jewish) student colonies was supported not least by the students’ geographical vicinity. Most students from the Tsarist Empire settled in furnished rooms around the university. Colony life was in constant flux; new students arrived and brought new ideas and preferences, others left and took political convictions with them, and Tradition and Modernity, 94-98. 52 Cf. Studentenschaft der Universität Zürich, Vereine und Verbindungen, StAZH, WII 12310; Medem, Fun mayn lebn; Farbstein, Aus meinem Leben; Platzer, Jüdische Verbindungen; Denz, Rebekka. Bundistinnen: Frauen im Allgemeinen Jüdischen Arbeiterbund (“Bund”) dargestellt an­ hand der jiddischen Biographiensammlung “Doires Bundistn”. Potsdam: Universitätsverlag, 2009; and Mayoraz, Sandrine. “Der jüdische Arbeiterbund in der Schweiz von den Anfängen bis 1914.” Basel: [unpublished Master’s Thesis], 2010. 53 Cf. Medem, Fun mayn lebn, 285; Weizmann, Trial and Error, 69-75, and Frankel, Jonathan. Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 222-227 and 270-287. 54 Cf. Charney, Barg aroyf, 221 and Feller, Universität Bern, 442, among others. 55 Medem, Vladimir Medem, 219. Italics in the original.

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those who stayed tried to form the newcomers. Some Russian-Jewish students arrived with an Exmatrikel from a German or Russian institution, others moved in between Berne and Zurich, and a third group started off their “careers” in Switzerland and went on to study in Germany. The average duration a Jewish student from Tsarist Russia spent at the universities of Berne and Zurich lay between two and four semesters. The motives for such extensive inter-university movement can only be guessed; they include personal relationships, political involvement and convenient admission policies.

The Russian-Jewish Student Migrants as Particular and Cohesive Group of Migrants Many historians have treated the emigration of Russian-Jewish students as part of the “betterment migration” of East European Jewry that evolved into a mass phenomenon towards the end of the nineteenth century. This does not do justice to the specific determinants of student migration from Tsarist Russia. Certainly, the two population movements set in around the same time and can be understood as responses to similar push-factors. Yet Jewish students did not leave Russia for good and they would not become part of an East European Jewish diaspora in the West. On the contrary, the Russian-Jewish students went abroad only to get the indispensable academic title they were refused in Russia, and with the firm intention of returning home after their studies in order to contribute to the welfare of their people in Russia. It seems that the vast majority indeed did so – only for very few individuals can a long-time residence in Western-European exile be evidenced.56 The distinction between the Russian-Jewish student migrants and their non-Jewish Russian counterparts, as well as between the students and the large Russian political émigré community in Switzerland, is much more difficult to establish. Of course, Jewish students in Tsarist Russia suffered from specific discrimination qua Jews; extrinsic factors alone would thus justify treating Rus56 The information retrieved from the considered university records, the enrollment catalogs and databases, as well as from memoires, suggests that the predominant majority of Russian-Jewish students returned to Russia after a rather short sojourn in Switzerland. Rebekka Denz, Bundis­ tinnen, 60-64 and Daniela Neumann, Studentinnen, 183-238, have been able to track some of the women students of Russian-Jewish background; practically all of them returned to Tsarist Russia after leaving university, though some later emigrated to Palestine/Israel or other parts of the world. Of those individuals who stayed in Switzerland, many did so as political refugees, some married a local, and some applied for Swiss citizenship (e.g. David Farbstein).



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sian-Jewish student migrants as a special group within the context of student migration from the Tsarist Empire at large. However, did Jewish students themselves identify as a cohesive group? Up to the 1890s, there is no evidence of specifically Jewish student organizations or political groups – at least such are not visible in names or (religious) infrastructure. It seems that Jewish students tried to minimize their otherness and did not feel the need to identify as anything other than Russian in public. The 1860s and 1870s were the years when many a young Jew in Russia joined the general opposition movement and believed that the amelioration of the situation of Jews in Russia was tied to the abolition of tsardom. But with a vast majority of Jews in the “Russian” colonies of Switzerland, it was not even necessary to label an organization or institution Jewish. Just like in a shtetl in Russia, one lived in a Russian context but in a pronouncedly Jewish world. Indeed, both Medem and Weizmann, who came to Switzerland around the turn of the century, refer to the “Russian colony” in Berne when they describe the life of Russian-Jewish students. Only Daniel Charney specifically refers to the Russian-Jewish colony in his memoirs. However, he represents the student body of the 1910s, a time when Jews in Russia had developed a much stronger national Jewish identity and when a variety of specifically Jewish political parties had emerged in Russia and in exile.57 In the twentieth century, above all, the Russian-Jewish students abroad exhi­bited a staggering social cohesion; the insularity and intimacy of the colonies, the common experience of alienation from Russian society which had grown since the 1880s, and the shared enthusiasm for a radical reconstruction of Jewish life and national self-liberation made the Jewish students from Russia close ranks across all political differences.

Conclusion Jewish students from the Tsarist Empire moved to Switzerland to pursue an education because qua Jews, they faced particular adversities in Russia. A secularized Jewish youth in Russia suffered from general socio-economic discrimination and Russification policies, was persecuted for large-scale involvement in the Russian opposition movement, and was above all penalized by a strict numerus clausus 57 It is impossible to address the most fascinating – and at times contradictory – developments among Russian Jewry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century at length here. I thus refer the interested reader to the following works: Frankel, Jonathan. Crisis, Revolution, and Rus­ sian Jews. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009; Frankel, Prophecy and Politics; and Polonsky, Jews in Poland and Russia.

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established in the 1880s in order to keep Jews away from academic education that would enhance their chances for social and geographic mobility. The universities of Berne and Zurich became a popular destination to study for the desired degree – mostly medicine – because these establishments featured liberal admission policies and gave young men and women irrespective of nationality, social status, religious affiliation, and preparatory education the opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual abilities. The student migration of Russian Jews to Berne and Zurich began in the 1860s but turned into a mass phenomenon only towards the end of the nineteenth century. In Berne and Zurich – as in other Western European university towns – the Russian-Jewish students settled in secluded colonies with established infrastructure and unique social dynamics. For the emerging political parties of modern Russian Jewry, these student colonies in the West proved a perfect recruiting ground. Though contemporaries and historians have noted the preponderance of Jews among the hundreds of “Russian” students per semester especially after the turn of the century, a scholarly analysis was missing until now. I have tried to fill this academic void by establishing approximate figures of Russian-Jewish students in Berne and Zurich across the more than five decades from 1865 to 1914. In absolute numbers, students from Russia exceeded a hundred only in the late 1890s – with the notable exception of the first Russian colony in Zurich. But Jews figured disproportionately among the student migrants even in earlier years. At both universities, the proportion of Jews among “Russians” passed the fifty percent mark in the 1880s and continued to rise in the course of the twentieth century. Just before the outbreak of war, over eighty percent of the more than 400 students from Tsarist Russia in Zurich and roughly eighty-five percent in Berne were of Jewish origin. Berne was home to the largest group of students from Tsarist Russia throughout the 1900s and up to 1914. The – mostly Jewish – “Russians” must have been exceptionally noticeable in the capital; against merely 67,600 inhabitants and just under a thousand regular students in 1900, a group of 400 foreign-looking students from the Russian Empire cramped in the inner city was eye-catching.58 What’s more, the resident of Berne – quite contrary to that of Zurich – was not at all used to immigrants. In view of this conspicuous quantity of student migrants from the Tsarist Empire in the Swiss capital and its exceptionally politicized colony, and given that the University of Berne attracted more Russian-Jewish students in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century than any other place in Switzerland – and 58 Cf. Fläche und Bevölkerung der Städte mit mehr als 30,000 Einwohnern. In Statistisches Lex­ ikon der Schweiz, Bundesamt für Statistik BFS (ed.). Retrieved from http://www.bfs.admin.ch/ bfs/portal/de/index/themen/01/22/lexi.html (accessed on December 15, 2011).



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Europe, for that matter –, a historian must be startled to find that the memory of the Bernese Russenzeit has vanished along with the Russian Empire. There is still much to (re-)discover about the Russian-Jewish students in Berne, above all as regards their role in the political landscape of modern East European Jewry.

 Part II Individual Experiences, Switzerland, and the Literary Imagination

Tamar Lewinsky

Kalman Marmor in Switzerland: Reconstructing a Sojourner’s Biography In 1891, the Hebrew periodical Ha-melits published Reuven Breinin’s short story “Vidui ehad ha-tseirim” (‘Confessions of one of the young people’). It tells the story of a child prodigy who, under the influence of the East European Jewish Enlightenment and emerging modern Jewish politics, becomes a rising star on the horizon of modern Hebrew literature. He pursues his academic career and secular education in one of the Western European universities that had started to attract young Jews from the Pale of Settlement. The narrator returns to his people after years of poverty and deprivation in Berlin – torn between the personal goal of self-improvement, hunger for European culture, and political and national responsibilities. It is, as the first-person narrator points out, an account not only of his own biography, but of that of a whole generation of East European Jews in need of a new model of educational formation that was at once national and European.1 The generation Breinin depicts in his semi-autobiographical tale was aptly described by Bernhard Weinberg as a transitional generation,2 caught between a traditional, religiously defined understanding of Jewishness and one that was revolutionary and national in orientation. For this generation, temporary internal or cross-border migration in many ways served as catalyst for this transition. One of these many travelers walking the line between tradition and modernity, between Eastern and Western Europe, was the Yiddish writer and cultural activist Kalman Marmor (1876-1956), and it is not surprising to read in his autobiography of the massive influence Breinin’s story had on him when he was studying at the yeshiva in Vilna.3 Maybe the reading of “Vidui ehad ha-tseirim” planted the seed of the idea in his mind to leave his native guberniya in order to pursue 1 Breinin, Reuven. Vidui ehad ha-tseirim [Confessions of One of the Young People], Ha-melits [The Advocate], May 7, 1891 (No. 90), 2-3; Ibid., May 8, 1891 (No. 91), 2-4; Ibid., May 12, 1891 (No. 94), 2-4. 2 Weinberg, David H. Between Tradition and Modernity. Haim Zhitlowski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha-Am, and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Identity. New York, London: Holmes & Meier, 1996, 1. 3 Marmor, Kalman. Mayn lebns-geshikhte [My Autobiography], vol. 1. New York: YKUF, 1959, 268269. On the impact of Breinin’s Hebrew publications on Marmor, see Marmor, Kalman. Ruven Braynin (zikhroynes) [Reuven Breinin (Memories)]. In: Tsum hundertsn geboyrn-tog fun Ruven Braynin [The Centennial of the Writer Reuven Breinin], Nakhman Mayzel (ed.), 93-97. New York: YKUF, 1962. Throughout his biography Marmor gives details of the reading material that was important to him at specific times in his life.

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a university degree abroad. Yet, before he eventually left the Tsarist Empire for Switzerland almost a decade later, he experienced an intricate process of moving back and forth between traditional learning, Haskala and modern Jewish politics: He immersed himself in modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, became actively involved in the socialist Jewish workers’ opposition, flirted with kabbalistic rituals, burdened himself with hard physical work in a wood-turner’s workshop, and resumed traditional learning, before he finally decided to acquire a university degree.4 From 1899 to 1902, Marmor studied at the universities of Berne and Fribourg under precarious financial conditions. It was a coming of age for the young socialist Zionist, cultural activist, and Jewish public intellectual. In many ways, his journey (intellectual and physical) resembled the image of the Jewish Bettel­ student (‘beggar student’) created by Breinin less than a decade earlier. This paper seeks to reconstruct some central episodes in Marmor’s Swiss period, drawing on his autobiographical writing and his rich personal correspondence. It is designed as a case study, hopefully adding to the understanding of the many facets of Jewish students’ life in Switzerland in the transnational political and personal contexts. The paper’s structure is mainly chronological. However, each of the main sections dwells on one specific aspect of Marmor’s life. The first chapter brings into focus the key influences and ideas he had to grapple with during his years inside and outside the student colonies in Switzerland. The second chapter sheds light on Marmor’s affectionate relationship with his wife Sore-Shifre and the personal challenges he confronted. Finally, the last chapter examines Marmor’s growing devotion to political activism towards the end of his student life and during the following years. I believe that the examination of these manifold aspects and perspectives enables us to better understand the turning points, decision-making processes, and crises in the life of a young sojourner in Switzerland.

Preliminary Remarks on Methodology and Sources To describe the specific situation of Marmor as a student migrant, I use the concept of the sojourner, introduced by sociologist Paul C.  P.  Siu in 1952. Siu describes the sojourner as a stranger who has no intention of remaining permanently in the new environment. According to this model, three main characteristics can be ascribed to sojourners. First, although the motives and aims of migration may 4 On this period, see Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 173-365.



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be heterogeneous, “the intrinsic purpose of the sojourn is to do a job and do it in the shortest possible time.”5 Second, the sojourners’ stay abroad involves a movement back and forth; sojourners never lose their ties to their homeland.6 And third, sojourners associate with members of their own ethnic group in what Siu terms cultural “colonies,” that are characterized by “symbiotic segregation” and “social isolation.”7 The concept of a sojourner can aptly be applied to Marmor. Although his larger life narrative might suggest a description of him in terms of a Jewish transmigrant – or a socialist internationalist, or even a socialist Zionist gone astray – I suggest that reconstructing Marmor’s biography through the lens of Siu’s conceptual framework helps us to remain wary of a teleological and simplified reading of a specific and formative period in Marmor’s life. Moreover, it contributes to a more precise definition of a very specific subcategory of transnational migration, that is, temporary student migration.8 The biographical reconstruction of Marmor’s Swiss period requires us to draw on personal as well as institutional and secondary sources. However, the main focus will remain on Marmor’s autobiographical writing. His autobiography, hitherto neglected in research on East European Jewish life in Switzerland,9 adds to a handful of Yiddish memoirs by Gina and Vladimir Medem, Chaim Zhitlowsky, Daniel Charney, and John Mill.10 While all of these memoirs convey colorful descriptions of the bustling Russian-Jewish colonies and political circles in 5 Siu, Paul C. P. The Sojourner. American Journal of Sociology 58, 1 (1952): 34-44, here: 35. A job is defined here as part of a career and can thus also refer to university studies. 6 Ibid., 39. In the case of Marmor, homeland is defined both by cultural identification with East European Jewry as well as family and kinship. Therefore, homeland is not a narrowly-defined term or one specifying geographical ties. 7 Ibid., 36. For a re-evaluation of Siu’s concept within the context of modern (sociological) debates on transnationalism and transmigration, see Merz-Benz, Peter-Ulrich. The Chinese Laundryman: A Model for the Social Type of the Sojourner – and a Living Transcultural Phenomenon. Asiatische Studien/Etudes Asiatiques LXIV, 1 (2010): 89-100. 8 A plea for the categorization of transnational migration patterns is made in Lüthi, Barbara. Transnationale Migration. Eine vielversprechende Perspektive? H-Soz-u-Kult, April 13, 2005. http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/forum/2005-04-003.pdf. 9 Frankel draws on Marmor’s memoirs, but mainly for the purpose of shedding light on other central actors in modern Jewish politics. See Frankel, Jonathan. Prophecy and Politics. Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, 312-313. 10 Charney, Daniel. Barg aroyf: Bleter fun a lebn [Uphill: Pages of a Life]. Warsaw: Literarishe Bleter, 1935; Medem, Gina. A lebnsveg: oytobiografishe notitsn [A Way of Life: Autobiographical Notes]. New York: Gina Medem Bukh-Komitet, 1950; Medem, Vladimir. Fun mayn lebn [From My Life]. New York: Vladimir Medem Komite, 1923; Mill, John. Pionern un boyer: Memuarn [Pioneers and Builders: Memoirs], 2 vols. New York: Farlag “der veker,” 1946-1949; Zhitlowsky, Chaim. Zikhroynes fun mayn lebn [Stories of My Life]. New York: Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky Yubiley Komitet, 1935.

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Switzerland, only Marmor’s hefty two-volume Mayn lebns-geshikhte (‘My Autobiography’), in which Marmor meticulously depicts his life until 1908, offers detailed insight into the everyday life of a Jewish student. Moreover, it is, to my knowledge, the only account of the more disparate group of Jewish students at the Catholic-oriented university in the bilingual city of Fribourg.11 Individual chapters of Marmor’s memoirs had been serialized in the New York-based Yiddish daily Morgn-frayhayt (‘Morning Freedom’) between 1947 and 1952. They appeared irregularly due to Marmor’s deteriorating health.12 At full length, Mayn lebns-geshikhte was published posthumously in 1959. Certainly, when reading Mayn lebns-geshikhte, we must be aware of the historical distance and the general problem of biographical writing – and especially of Jewish biographical writing after the Holocaust – as a source in historical research. A first caveat is made explicit in the author’s introduction in which the experienced biographer13 reflects on the impulse to put into writing the story of his life for future generations. Only in the autumn of his life, Marmor explains to his readers, did he begin to see his story in a different light, as the memoir of a specific type of life story in a modern Jewish world, of someone who was active for more than half a century in the cultural and public life of the “Jewish renaissance.”14 The danger of not only writing down his personal recollections, but also incorporating general trends and ideas, is manifest. A second caveat concerns the general problem of reliability in personal memoirs. Marmor is aware of this danger when he defines his biographical method in the second volume: He always aimed to depict events not ex post facto, he writes, but sought to describe them from his point of view at the time they occurred.15 To ensure that this viewpoint is preserved, I also draw on family correspondence and documents from the Kalman Marmor archives as well as other secondary sources.16

11 I am not aware of any record of the life of Jewish students in Fribourg except for a short paragraph in Chaim Weizmann’s autobiography (Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949, 50). 12 Mayzel, Nakhmen. Tsu di leyener. Introduction to: Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 9-14, here 12. 13 Among his major biographical writings are a monograph on the Yiddish playwright Yankev Gordin and monographs on the left-wing Yiddish poets David Edelshtat and Yosef Bovshover (Marmor, Kalman. Yankev Gordin. New York: Ikuf, 1953; Ibid. David Edelshtat. New York: Folks farlag fun der yidisher sektsye fun internatsionaln arbeter ordn, 1942; Ibid. David Edelshtat. New York: Ikuf, 1950; Ibid. Yosef Bovshover. New York: Kalman Marmor yubiley-komitet, 1952). 14 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 15. 15 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 651-652. 16 Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO Institute for Jewish Research (YIVO), RG 205.



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Becoming a Student in Switzerland At the time of his emigration, when he was in his early twenties, Marmor had already lived in various cities and towns in Tsarist Russia. Born in Akmian17 in 1876, he grew up in the rural communities of Mayshegole and Katshishok in the Vilna district.18 Of his thirteen siblings, ten died in childhood and another one in his youth.19 Immediately following his bar mitzvah, Kalman was sent to Vilna to study in a public yeshiva, where he was also taught non-religious subjects. The capital of Misnagdic scholarship and emerging political movements in tense times quickly became his new intellectual and political home. In the winter 1891/1892 he learned about the agricultural colonies of the Jewish Colonization Association and was arrested when trying to leave the country to become a peasant in one of the colonies in Argentina.20 Later he joined the worker opposition, an internationalist Jewish socialist movement. However, he left Vilna in order to continue his studies of both religious and secular subjects in Yanishok and Pren.21 Eventually, like many of his socialist friends from Vilna, Marmor decided to learn a trade and started to work in a woodturning shop in Aleksot in the south of Kovne, where he met his future wife Sore-Shifre.22 Although a staunch socialist, he returned to his traditional roots and lived the life of a bal-tshuve, a penitent returning to religion, for several months. After his mother’s premature death in 1898, he returned to secularism. The loss of his mother had a profound emotional impact on him and marked the end of his childhood home, because his father decided to remarry and move to Vilna.23 Internal migration thus preceded Marmor’s emigration from Tsarist Russia and certainly contributed to his ability to quickly adapt to new circumstances and surroundings.

17 Okmyany (today: Akmenė). For the purposes of this paper, the Yiddish names of towns and cities are used. In the following: Mejszagoła (today: Maišiagala); Yonishki (today: Joniškis); Pren (today: Preniai); Aleksota (today: Aleksotas). 18 For a short biography, see Kalman Marmor. In Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur, vol. 6, 113-119. New York: Alveltlekher yidisher kultur-kongres, 1965, and Frakes, Jerold C. Marmor, Kalman. Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Vol. 13. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 556. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 Aug. 2012. The Encyclopaedia Judaica erroneously gives 1879 as his date of birth. 19 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 69. 20 Ibid., 250-264. 21 Ibid., 264-279. 22 Ibid., 335-336. 23 Ibid., 347-349.

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His emigration from the Russian Empire itself took place in 1899. The former yeshiva student, who, in the course of less than a decade, had become a secular socialist, had finally made the decision to obtain a university degree in Western Europe. On the very day of his marriage, he left together with his younger sister Dobe for Berlin and Rotterdam. From there, she took the ferry to London, where part of their maternal family had settled, while he travelled south to Berne.24 Berne, the Swiss capital with its medieval buildings, the river Aare, and the panorama of the Alps was an unlikely destination for the young Kalman Marmor, even more so since he arrived on May 1, 1899. Workers paraded in the main streets leading to the Gurten Mountain, singing workers’ songs. For Marmor, who had experienced the workers’ holiday as a highly dangerous and clandestine meeting in the woods outside of Vilna in 1895,25 joining the marching workers who were protected by the Swiss police force was a taste of freedom.

Figure 8: Postcard from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, Berne, May 3, 1899.

According to his autobiographical recollections, in the beginning everything went smoothly for the young student. He easily made friends in the Russian colony, rented a room from an elderly Swiss couple, registered with the university on May 24 Ibid., 365-367. 25 Ibid., 310-312 and 370-371.



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15, 1899 without encountering any obstacles, and began to study philosophy.26 He sent a happy postcard from Berne to his wife, Sore-Shifre, full of descriptions of the city that was going to be his new temporary home.27 Right from the onset, Marmor showed great interest in Switzerland and Swiss politics. In this regard he certainly differs from other students of his generation who seem to have hardly ever left the closed world of their colonies.28 Contact zones may have existed in the daily lives of all of them, but there is little evidence in the source material of their interaction with the local population or any active interest they might have showed in their host-country. Marmor, however, enjoyed wandering around the city and its outskirts. He attended lectures on Swiss history and used Swiss military maps to orient himself in the nearby mountains; he was a habitual reader of the liberal daily Der Bund and the social democratic Tagwacht. In order to get a better sense of Swiss politics, he regularly attended the parliamentary sessions of the federal government and was astonished that the national councilors were allowed to hold their speeches in their own mother tongue. He even joined a Swiss students’ group that was active in nature conservation and helped them to collect signatures for an initiative against the killing of local birds.29 Although Marmor showed enormous interest in absorbing every detail of the daily life of the surrounding community, it remained the interest of a sojourner – eager for knowledge, but never with the intention of integrating or remaining in his temporary place of residence. His Jewish background and his political convictions formed the primary point of reference throughout his Swiss years. The knowledge he acquired through reading, exploring his surroundings, and interactions with the local population, fellow students, and teachers, ultimately served the Jewish national and political goals he pursued during his entire life. Excited to understand the inner workings of a democracy that, as it appears from Marmor’s autobiography, served him as a model political system with its citizens’ active participation, he attended the federal singers’ festival (Eidgenös­ sisches Sängerfest) that took place in Berne in 1899. He was present at the opening concert on July 7 and bought tickets for concerts of Volksgesang and Kunstgesang 26 Datenbank Studierende 1834-1914, Universitätsarchiv Bern (UAB), http://apps.uniarchiv. unibe.ch/syscomm/images/mata/9074_9085.gif. 27 Postcard from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, May 3, 1899. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 5. 28 Chaim Weizmann, for example, recalls that the colonies were “a curious world, existing, for us Jewish students, outside of space and time. We had nothing to do with our immediate surroundings outside of the university […] local politics, German and Swiss, did not exist for us.” (Weizmann, Trial and Error, 38). 29 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 377-387.

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(‘folk and classical singing’) on the following days.30 In his memoirs, he recounts that the singers’ festival was a key moment in his understanding of the nature of nationalism: I experienced this festival with the Swiss audience, with their singers, and with the other artists. I was full of enthusiasm and ecstasy, as if it were my own celebration. Only at the end of the festival, when strangers bid farewell to me as if to a brother, kissed and hugged me, kindly smiling through tears, I started to reflect: What kind of a guest (mekhutn) had I been there? Had I not rejoiced at a stranger’s wedding?31

Amidst the Eidgenossen, the Swiss citizens, Marmor sensed what it could mean to be part of a Jewish nation. Overwhelmed by strong feelings, he went back home and put his thoughts down on paper. Finally he understood: “The answer to all these questions is: I am a Jew. The child of a nation (folk) that has no fatherland and is a more or less tolerated stranger anywhere.”32 The close encounter with local traditions served, as it were, as a blueprint for his national ambitions. The colonies as an arena of ever-changing ideas, coalitions, and composition – every semester brought new faces to the city while others did not return after the spring and summer breaks – were a hothouse for new undertakings. Marmor’s quest for Jewish national and cultural independence translated into the founding of a society for the propagation of Hebrew in the colony33 and prompted him to work towards the founding of a “Jewish Club” in Berne in order to strengthen Jewish national ideas among the students and ultimately to establish a Jewish colony instead of the Russian and Polish colonies.34 In Marmor’s memoirs, the Jewish Club that took up its activities in February 1901, appears to have been the brainchild of himself and some of his close friends.35 The Jewish Club offered a kosher kitchen and a library, to which Marmor was later to donate his personal collection of Hebrew books.36

30 Entrance tickets, 1899-1900. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 40, Frame 385. 31 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 1: 394-395. 32 Ibid., 395. 33 Ibid., 391-393. It remains unclear, however, whether this society had any impact. An official Ivriyah society for the propagation of Hebrew as a spoken language was founded in Berne in 1906 by the Hebrew writer Jakob Cahan. 34 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 438. 35 Jakob Lewkowicz (Brief aus Bern [Letter from Berne], Die Welt, February 22, 1901 (No. 8), 7-8) gives February 23 as the official opening day. 36 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geschikhte, 2: 527-529; Letter from Kh. Hurvits to Kalman Marmor, January 24, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 41, Folder 409.



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After the fifth Zionist Congress in December 1901, the active Jewish students assembled around the Jewish Club fell into two factions. The first of these was the Jewish national students’ union Kadima (‘Forward’), a dueling fraternity (schlagende Verbindung) aimed at actively fighting anti-Semitism. Members wore the specific attire of dueling fraternities and chose the colors purple, white and red.37 Kadima was strictly national and defined its main purposes as the “exercise of Jewish self-confidence, the fostering of Jewish literature and history, and the steeling of physical strength.”38 A second and larger group formed the Akade­ mischer Zionisten-Verein, whose goals were national and cultural in orientation. It seems that many members of this second student organization identified with the ideas of the Democratic Faction. This progressive movement within the Zionist Organization under the leadership of Chaim Weizmann was founded during the Zionist Youth Conference that was held in Basel in December 1901, a few days prior to the fifth Zionist Congress.39 Marmor, who had been an official delegate to the Youth Conference,40 distanced himself from both organizations, the Akademischer Zionisten-Verein and the Kadima. In part, this may have been due to logistical or practical reasons: already in his second term in Switzerland, in late 1899, he had left Berne and had transferred to the University of Fribourg. But more important still, cultural and national work, to his mind, entailed the equality of all nations and national languages in a socialist society – an idea he propagated during his time as a student in Fribourg.41 Nevertheless, Marmor paid regular visits to Berne and the Jewish Club during his years in Fribourg. Friendship and communal aims as well as the notion of an organized Jewish student life that strongly opposed assimilation and strengthened knowledge of Jewish national values, traditions, and languages helped to prevent him becoming alienated from Jewish society while sojourning in a non-Jewish environment.42

37 Platzer, Peter. Jüdische Studentenverbindungen in der Schweiz (3. Auflage). Hilden: WJK-Verlag, 2009, 81; Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 527-528. 38 Bern, Die Welt, January 24, 1902 (No. 4), 20; Vortsman, Yekhezkl. Fun yidishn lebn in Bern III [From the Jewish Life in Berne III], Der Yud/Der Jude, November 13 (No. 46), 1902, 8. 39 See Klausner, Israel. “Democratic Fraction.” Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed., vol. 5. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. 552-553. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 3 July 2013. 40 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 513-520. 41 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 529-530. 42 Ibid., 531.

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Fribourg During his very first semester at the University of Berne, Marmor decided to change the focus of his studies and to pursue a degree in natural sciences. For financial reasons, he then left the Swiss capital and moved to the nearby city of Fribourg. The young University of Fribourg that had opened its doors just one decade earlier, in 1889, offered its students excellent laboratory conditions.43 Fribourg was a stark contrast to Berne in many ways. There was no bustling student life in the small medieval town at the intersection of the French and German-speaking parts of Switzerland. When Marmor was admitted for the winter term 1899/1900,44 the university had a total of merely 317 students, more than fifty percent of whom were foreigners, mainly from Germany, France, and Eastern Europe – with a high percentage of Poles.45 Women were not yet allowed as official students.46 Every day, Marmor travelled to the Pérolles plain at the outskirts of the city. This was where the faculty of natural sciences, established in 1896, was housed in an abandoned wagon factory, and here he worked under the auspices of Augustin Bistrzycki.47 Probably the most strongly felt difference between Berne and Fribourg was the small number of Jewish students. Marmor reports that there were only three other Jewish students of chemistry, and they all left for good before the end of the term because they lacked the means to support themselves.48 He felt depressed to see that while Polish aristocrats could easily afford their studies, young Jews from Eastern Europe failed to reach their academic goals. He compared the Jewish students with “audacious mountaineers in the Swiss Alps, who fall down when they have almost reached the peak of the mountain, while rich tourists ride up there 43 Altermatt, Urs. Die Universität Freiburg auf der Suche nach Identität. Fribourg: Academic Press Fribourg, 2009. 44 Album Universitatis Friburgensis Helvetorum, Fonds Chancellerie des Archives de l’Université de Fribourg. 45 Altermatt, Die Universität Freibourg, 183. For more details see also the printed directories of the university (Autorités, professeurs et étudiants. Behörden, Lehrer und Studierende. Semestre d’hiver 1890/91 – semestre d’été 1936. Fribourg: Impr. et  Libr. de l’Oeuvre de Saint-Paul, 18911936). 46 Altermatt, Die Universität Freibourg, 272-273. 47 Bystrzycki had also been the doctoral advisor of Chaim Weizmann. Altermatt, Die Univer­ sität Freibourg, 159-160; Altermatt, Urs. Die Universität Freiburg und Polen. Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Religions- und Kulturgeschichte 98 (2004): 147-157, here 151; Reinharz, Jehuda. Chaim Weizmann. The Making of a Zionist Leader. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, 50-51; Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 441 and 444-445. 48 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 442 and 451.



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with the electric train and enjoy themselves with great feasting (farbrengen dort in hulyankes).”49 The different composition of the student body and the lack of a Jewish or Russian colony impacted on Marmor’s daily life and habits in Fribourg. Due to the high number of Polish students, he immersed himself in the Polish language, which was familiar to him from his childhood days. He attended lectures in the Slavic department and read contemporary Polish women’s literature.50 Slavonic studies had been represented in the faculty of humanities since the university’s founding.51 As in Berne, Kalman Marmor began exploring the city. He attended services in the Protestant and Catholic churches and, in the absence of an East European Jewish environment, he visited the local Jewish community. He discovered, however, that he didn’t feel at ease among its members, most of whom were Alsatian Jewish merchants.52 Fribourg was, as he recorded in 1900, the “nest of the Swiss Catholics and the city where the Jews are not Jews, but Swiss, Alsatians and so forth of Mosaic faith.”53 Like many students, Marmor decided to skip the short summer term. Thus, in the spring of 1900 he traveled back to Lithuania to his family and wife in Mayshegole and Aleksot via Vienna and Warsaw.54 The sojourner Marmor resumed a tight schedule of studies at the University of Fribourg in the winter semester. Even at the University of Fribourg and without a Jewish student community, the socialist’s enthusiasm for modern Jewish politics and politics in general did not vanish. Together with two students from Poland, one Jewish and one non-Jewish, he co-authored a pamphlet entitled “Aseret ha-dibrot” (‘The Ten Commandments’) in which they listed their international socialist demands for the improvement of society and a range of claims for nations, particularly the Jewish nation, that did not live on a territory of their own.55 The following year, 1901, he helped to found a Jewish students’ union in Fribourg with little more than a dozen members.56

49 Ibid., 468. 50 Ibid., 452. 51 The professor of Slavonic studies was the Polish philologist Józef Kallenbach. See Altermatt, Die Universität Freiburg und Polen, 148. 52 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 452-453. 53 Untitled recordings, 1900. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 7. 54 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 454-455. 55 Marmor, Kalman: Aseret ha-dibrot, 1900. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 40, Folder 384; Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 422. 56 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 488-489.

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During his student years in Fribourg, Marmor regularly journeyed to meet old and new friends and acquaintances in the colony in Berne. One of his visits coincided with the New Year’s Eve festivities in the Jewish students’ community – a joyous yet physically exhausting event. He returned to Fribourg with a cold. It seems that he did not protect himself sufficiently when experimenting with ozone, and he began to hemorrhage and collapsed in the laboratory.57 After walking the line between life and death for ten days, he slowly began to recover.58 Once he had convalesced from his illness, he again arduously dedicated himself to his studies. Lectures began every day at eight o’clock in the morning and he did not leave the laboratories before seven o’clock in the evening. Having missed several weeks of studying during his illness, Marmor remained in Fribourg for the summer term of 1901. However, he spent the summer vacation in London with his uncle Morris Supperstein and his wife Sore-Shifre, who had moved there the previous year. During his second and last year as a student of natural sciences in Fribourg, Marmor made the acquaintance of the renowned Assyriologist Hubert Grimme and began attending his classes. He also became a member of Grimme’s exegetic Oriental department.59 In 1902 he became increasingly intimate with professor Grimme, who arranged for him to teach Hebrew classes for priests and monks. For some time, Grimme even tried to convince him to apply for Swiss citizenship and to find a permanent position at the university.60 For Marmor, the prerequisite – he would have had to convert – was too high a price to pay. The future he saw for himself lay not in Switzerland, but with the Jewish masses and his wife Sore-Shifre.

Sore-Shifre – a Love in Letters Sore-Shifre, a beautiful and pious seamstress Marmor had met in Aleksot near Kovne back in 1896 when pursuing his career as a wood turner, was the love of his life. Nevertheless, they faced severe obstacles from the very beginning of their relationship. Her father was opposed to their marriage, hoping for a profitable shidukh, an arranged marriage, for his daughter, while Marmor’s comrades of the 57 Ibid., 477-478. 58 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, February 28, 1901. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 46. 59 Membership card of the exegetic Oriental department (1901/02), signed by Hubert Grimme. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 40, Folder 385. 60 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 562.



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socialist worker opposition in Vilna accused him of having fallen in love with a religious girl who was not a party member.61 Notwithstanding these opposing voices, Kalman and Sore-Shifre eventually got married in 1899 after many months of separation. Yet on that very day, shortly after the wedding ceremony, Kalman Marmor left for Switzerland. They were to meet again only the following year, when he spent the summer term in Aleksot, and in the fall of 1900 they departed together and crossed the Russian-Prussian border. However, in Magdeburg they bid farewell to each other again. She left for London to join their relatives who had immigrated to England – a cousin of hers, his uncle Morris Supperstein and sister Dobe; he traveled back to Switzerland. Another year passed until they were reunited again in London and only in the following year, 1902, did he finally settle in with her there. As much as Sore-Shifre was at the very center of his romantic life, she was – as had already been the case during his Vilna years in the worker opposition – completely excluded from his political and academic life. He recalls matter-offactly in Mayn lebns-geshikhte that he did not tell any of his fellow students that he was married, because it was not considered appropriate in the student colonies to marry at a young age.62 In Berne, Marmor mingled freely with colleagues and fellow students of both sexes and entertained close friendships with many of the well-educated, overtly secular, and assimilated women who were not only perceived as a threat to moral standards by the local Swiss population, but were also observed critically from within the traditional Jewish community and even Zionist circles because of their departure from traditional gender patterns. Although Marmor embraced secularism, modern literary trends, and politics, and felt comfortable in the company of independent female students embodying the “New Women,” his relationship with Sore-Shifre seems to have followed a relatively traditional model.63 While he pursued his studies, she worked as a seamstress in London and they had agreed that Sore-Shifre would support him financially – an arrangement reminiscent of the ideal of the Jewish woman in Eastern Europe who provides the family’s income so that the husband can dedicate himself entirely to his studies.64

61 Ibid., 335 and 355-357. 62 Ibid., 401. 63 Hyman, Paula E. Two Models of Modernization: Jewish Women in the German and the Russian Empires. Studies in Contemporary Jewry 16 (2000): 39-53. On the New (Jewish) Woman in Hebrew literature, see Pinsker, Shachar M. Literary Passports. The Making of Modernist Hebrew Fiction in Europe. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011, chapter 11. 64 Freeze, ChaeRan Y. Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia. Hanover, London: Brandeis University Press, 2002, 35 and 64-65.

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Shortly after Sore-Shifre’s arrival in London in 1900, they began corresponding regularly. A large portion of the letters and postcards that were sent and received in Whitechapel and Fribourg are preserved in the Kalman Marmor archives and document both their respective living conditions in Britain and Switzerland and their highly emotional relationship.65 Upon arrival in London, Sore-Shifre was full of hope about her career as a seamstress and full of pity about Kalman’s poor living conditions in Fribourg. She was ready to send the larger part of her income to support him. Her first job, as she detailed in her letters, should pay fifteen shillings a week. She planned on sending him ten shillings – nine for his expenses, as he had deemed sufficient, and one for clothing. From the remaining five shillings she had to pay the rent for a room she shared with his sister and aunt, and to buy food.66 During her first months, Kalman’s extended family in London supported the new immigrant by inviting her to spend holidays and Friday nights with them. The family, especially his uncle Morris Supperstein, also helped by furnishing her own apartment, which was to be the home of the young couple over the summer months of 1901.67 It was a long-awaited visit and expectations were high. As early as April, Sore-Shifre was preoccupied with him buying suitable clothes for his summer in the British capital. She insisted that he had to wear a coat that was as elegant and fashionable as possible: The coat does not need to have sleeves, but should be worn with tippets. This is the way one dresses here and this, my dear, is how you should prepare yourself, since very fine people, to whom the uncle has been talking about you with great pride, are waiting to meet you here. Be healthy, fortify yourself and be looking good and fat, live without concerns, everything will now be fine.68

His autobiography provides little information about the time the couple finally spent together. Marmor dwells mainly on his own explorations of the city and on the visits he paid to his uncle. The meager information he gives about their private life is limited to him complaining about her being a poor cook and some 65 Incoming and outgoing letters were likely to be read not only by the addressee. This might be one reason why some of the early letters and postcards going to and fro often contain very general and practical information. See e.g. Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, April 8, 1901. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 46. 66 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, October 28, 1900. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 45; Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, November 7, 1900. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 45. 67 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 494. 68 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, April 8, 1901. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 46.



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remarks about a tour of the National Gallery, where she refused to contemplate Christian art, but liked Rembrandt as much as he did.69 However, as becomes evident from the exchange of letters dating from the months after his return to Switzerland in the fall of 1901, Marmor was sad about his visit in London. He accused Sore-Shifre of childish vanity and impatience. He even considered that he had made a mistake in traveling to London, because he had failed to take account of her “esthetic feelings” and had come to London “with unhealthy and neglected looks and zhargon language:” Inexperience, open-heartedness, fanatic veraciousness are at the root of all of my conscious and unconscious sins. It is very difficult to handle your weak nerves and I know only one solution and this is connected to the future…70

The reason why Sore-Shifre had become increasingly anxious was the poor health of her parents in distant Aleksot. Moreover, differing political opinions had caused Marmor to fall out with his uncle. The latter was an ardent British patriot and sided with his new heimat during the Boer War, whereas Marmor backed the Boers.71 This discord clearly affected the relationship between the uncle and Sore-Shifre: She started to complain that he no longer treated her like a guest, and began to suffer physical symptoms from the strain of the situation. Kalman, evidently worried about her condition, tried to fortify her and to quiet her nerves. Her letters, he said, sounded as if they were taken from a tragic tale by the Yiddish novelist Yankev Dinezon. In a loving, yet patronizing tone he urged her to take care of herself and once more invoked their shared goals: [...] in the near future you have to be healthy, alert and strong and energetic, vigorous and full of hope [...] keep true to your esthetic feelings. Eat dinners even if it is terribly expensive, dont work night and day, protect your health [...] dress warmly (especially warm woolen undergarments that you have to wash regularly […]) […] You know well that you are working towards something higher than people of your kind […] that you are fighting for intellectual (geystik) life! […] Take care of your health and don’t lose the gift nature has given to you, be beautiful!72

The crisis culminated when Sore-Shifre’s mother died in the fall of 1901. Her father, old and sick, found himself unable to take care of his children and con69 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 494-495 and 499-500. 70 Letter from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, October 10, 1901. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 52. 71 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 492. 72 Letter from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, November 8, 1901. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 52.

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sidered sending them away. Kalman Marmor and Sore-Shifre briefly discussed adopting her younger siblings. Since this was not feasible, Marmor decided that she had to support her family at least financially. He declared that he would no longer accept her money, even if this might signify the premature end of his university studies. Lacking the means to sustain himself, Marmor came to a momentous and counterintuitive decision. On February 10, 1902, after having attended a conference of the Kadima students’ union in Berne, he did not return to Fribourg. He told his friends that he was leaving for London, but his plans led him south, to Italy. He sent a postcard to Sore-Shifre telling her in dramatic words that he was leaving Switzerland: Now, I won’t write to you anymore until I achieve something, so don’t lose hope. However, if I don’t write to you for a long time, you will know that I have left this world – it is foreign to me… Moreover, I’d like to explain to you that, although I won’t use any of your income anymore, you should not live ‘only for others’ […] I will sacrifice my life for you. But not for your father… 73

For nearly two months, Marmor traveled in Italy, visiting Rome, Monte Cassino, Naples, Milan, Parma, Florence, Pisa, and several other cities in northern Italy. During this entire period, he did not contact his wife. When he eventually returned to Switzerland, he made a short stop-over in Geneva to meet Chaim Weizmann and Martin Buber, and – still unsure about his future plans – headed to Berne to stay with his friend Yosef Khayim Hurvits, the secretary of the Jewish Club.74 In the meantime, Sore-Shifre’s condition deteriorated. Without any word from her husband, tormented about the well-being of her siblings in Aleksot, and still suffering from depression after the death of her mother, she was almost incapable of physical work. In her first letter to her husband after his return to Switzerland, she talked about the guilty conscience she had because of her inability to help her most beloved.75 Weak and disheartened, she suffered even more from the way his family treated her: His uncle, who had supported her initially, had grown critical towards her and even insinuated in one of his letters to Marmor that she had been disloyal to her husband.76 Sore-Shifre was heartbroken when she learned of these accusations. “Oh Kalman!” she wrote, assuring him of her love: 73 Postcard from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, February 10, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 53. 74 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 536-559. 75 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, April 30, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 47. 76 Letter from Morris Supperstein to Kalman Marmor, May 3, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers,



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Only God knows my heart and he shall punish me if I have been unfaithful to you even for an hour […] but you are the only one I love and I don’t want to meet any other until my death. Kalman, dearest, if you could see how bad I look, you would say that I am not your loving Sore-Shifre, but a forty-year-old woman[.] This is how old I became this winter. I have become so meager and gloomy that I fear to look at myself […].77

Initially, Kalman was confused and unsure what to think, but he soon understood that he wanted to continue his life together with Sore-Shifre. He tried to comfort her and point to new directions. In a long letter, he tried to show empathy for her situation confessing that melancholic moods had befallen him after the death of his mother. Only now he gave her a belated explanation for his precipitous journey to Italy some months earlier: A series of letters in which she had repeatedly talked about death and in which she “almost sent [her] last will and testament,” had left him in a state of desperation. While he had initially considered traveling to Russia to look after her siblings so as not to lose her, he later understood that he did not have the capacity to do so. He had broken down and had seen only two ways out – “death or madness.” His voyage to Italy was, in his words, comparable to the journey of the prophet Jonah who had run away from God’s mission. He returned, however, to follow not the paths of death or madness, but the path to life.78 Returning to life meant resuming his studies in Fribourg, especially since Sore-Shifre urged him to do so. Kalman lived mostly on borrowed money and did not eat properly; and he soon started to lose faith again. Tensions between him and Sore-Shifre were still running high. She promised to send money more regularly, but at the same time she admitted that worrying about her family in Aleksot made it almost impossible for her to work and that she had not yet abandoned the idea of bringing her siblings and father to London. It seems that Sore-Shifre had lost confidence in the goals they had shared at the beginning of their marriage. In mid-June 1902, she wrote about the days when her love was strong enough to fantasize about a shared future even though they were separated from each other for many months and years: Oh! What a wonderful time, I tell myself and always think to myself, lonely in my bed, where are all these things I used to imagine after our wedding, when you left me. Back then I felt a singularly strong love for you, you were everything to me, I used to think how dear and delightful it would be when you would be close, when I could lie in your arms. And maybe then I could convince you how strong and burning my love to you is. Shivers go down my spine YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 47. 77 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor to Kalman Marmor, May 10, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 47. 78 Letter from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, May 11, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 53.

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now, remembering the times when we were close. [But] what became of my thoughts and hopes […] Now, today, I feel that my heart is empty. I don’t know myself what I want and to what my heart aspires. You are still the only one I love, but I lack the courage and hope of five years ago to pursue the goals we are striving for.79

Agitated and disturbed by her honest words, he answered on the very day he received her letter. In a dramatic reply he demanded that she make a final decision about their future: We feel that we have to see each other now, the sooner the better, see each other at all costs, and talk to each other in person; to show each other clearly our hearts… We have – for the time being at least – to live together long enough to be sure that we love each other truly and earnestly, faithfully and open-heartedly!… And even more importantly, that we can live in harmony.80

A love in letters no longer seemed feasible. Kalman did not want to go on with his life in Switzerland. He needed to see his Sore-Shifre and discuss with her face to face how to solve the problems concerning her siblings. In a melodramatic reply he asked her to make an “either/or” decision: If she chose to spend her life with him, he would travel to London immediately. If she decided to succumb to grief and despair and to dedicate her life to her family, he would return to Russia and devote his life to the higher ideals of political activism.81 A decision was soon taken. Kalman Marmor left Switzerland for good and settled in London with his beloved wife. In his autobiography, the reasons he gives for his choice are much less emotional. He states in retrospect that his knowledge of chemistry was good enough to become a teacher in London. Furthermore, he wanted to volunteer for the service of the Jewish people, even though there was neither a country to defend nor an army to join.82 It is safe to assume that financial reasons added to his decision to leave Switzerland. Morris Supperstein had supported his nephew financially only during his first year in Fribourg. From October 1900 until May 1901, Kalman Marmor received an average of sixty francs a month. In the 1901/1902 academic year he was dependent on Sore-Shifre and his sister Dobe. Between November 1901 and May 1902, Sore-Shifre sent him 277.70 francs, which amounted to an average of just over 46 francs a month. Two payments by his sister in April and June 1902 of less 79 Letter from Sore-Shifre Marmor, to Kalman Marmor, received June 15, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 47. 80 Letter from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor, June 15, 1902. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 6, Folder 53. Emphases in the original. 81 Ibid. 82 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 584.



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than forty francs in total added to this small sum. However, his monthly expenses by the end of 1901 totaled over ninety francs – seventy for living expenses and twenty to clear debts. He made a little bit of extra money tutoring Catholic students in Hebrew, but given that Sore-Shifre’s illness prevented her from sending him money on a more regular basis, the financial worries were simply too great.83

Kalman Marmor as a Political Activist In London, Marmor’s life changed in many ways. He was no longer a student sojourner, but a Zionist activist, popular orator, and journalist. In his private life, too, changes had occurred: Sore-Shifre gave birth to their son Shmuel on June 1, 1903. At that time, Marmor was largely bed-ridden. The damp climate and high levels of pollution in the British capital had caused his hemorrhages to return. On the advice of his doctors, he left London less than two weeks after the birth of his son and returned to the Swiss Alps for several months.84 Traveling from London to the Bernese Alps via Paris, Geneva and Berne, he met with old and new friends and acquaintances. His encounters with leading activists of the Zionist and other Jewish political movements in Geneva and Berne testify to the closely-knit transnational networks of these circles.85 It is worth noting that Marmor, though always loyal to his political convictions, was involved in heated debates and intimate conversations with friends and colleagues of opposing parties. For example, although Marmor disagreed politically with Chaim Zhitlowsky, on a personal level he found him far more agreeable than most of the local Zionists in Berne.86 And although he opposed the general ideas of the Bund, he made his debut as a journalist in the Geneva-based Bundist Yidisher arbeter with an anonymous study on anti-Semitism in Vienna.87 Some of the acquaintances dated back to Marmor’s early involvement in politics in the 1890s in Vilna and Kovne, while most stemmed from his years of study in Switzerland. A number of these friendships had come into existence or intensified during the third and fifth Zionist Congresses in 1899 and 1901, respectively. 83 Marmor, Kalman: List of money received in Fribourg. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Folder 7, Frame 244; Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 513-514. 84 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 628. 85 Ibid., 633-635, 639-641, and 644. On some of these activists of the Berne and Geneva circles, and Zvi Aberson in particular, see Weizmann, Trial and Error, 63-67. 86 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 644. 87 [Marmor, Kalman.] Der antizemitizm in Vin [Anti-Semitism in Vienna], Der yidisher arbeter, May 11, 1901, 20-28.

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Though short of means, Marmor had traveled to Basel in the hot summer of 1899 to attend the third Zionist Congress. The large group of students from Berne had kept together for the course of the event and many female students with whom he had rarely or never talked in Berne became his “sisters” and “mothers.” From them he learned that members of all Jewish parties – Zionist and non-Zionist – active in the colonies were present at the congress in order to raise money among the bourgeois delegates. The most prominent activists of his student circles were Bilu pioneer Chaim Chissin and Nachman Syrkin.88 While Marmor had only been a member of the audience in 1899, he was appointed official delegate to the fifth Zionist Congress that took place in Basel on December 26-31, 1901. In addition, as has been mentioned above, he was invited to the Zionist Youth Conference that opened in the week preceding the Zionist congress.89 During the conference, attended mainly by Russian-Jewish students from Swiss, German and French universities, he was introduced to the artist Efraim M. Lilien, whose paintings were well known to Marmor, as well as to the Hebrew writer Reuven Breinin, whom he fervently admired, and to Bertold Feivel, Martin Buber, Chaim Weizmann, and Leo Motzkin, among others.90 Other attendees already known to him were the literary critic Bal-Makhshoves (pen name of Isidor Eliashev, 1873-1924) and several friends from the Berne colony and from Geneva, among them the “Bundistenfresser” (‛scourge of the Bundists’),91 Zvi Aberson and Shaul-Eyzik Stupnitski, former fellow students from Berne University. In his autobiography Marmor gives a vivid depiction of the stormy proceedings of the youth convention, during which the Democratic Faction within the World Zionist Organization was founded. Marmor did not join the Democratic Faction. However, he supported its call for broad educational work among the Jewish masses and stayed in close contact with its leading members.92 Now, in 1903, having visited his friends and acquaintances in Geneva and Berne, Marmor traveled to Unterseen, a small village near Interlaken in the 88 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 421-423 and 427-430. 89 Ibid., 512-513. Marmor was appointed delegate for the city of Lomzhe, which he had never even visited. This was a common procedure: When local representatives could not afford the travel expenses to Switzerland, they looked for someone who could represent them. Names were often provided by the Zionist organization in Vienna. 90 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 515-516. 91 Weizmann, Trial and Error, 65. 92 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 516-523; Reinharz, Chaim Weizmann, 86-91; Klausner, Israel. Democratic Faction. In Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 5, 552-553. Michael Berenbaum, Fred Skolnik (ed.). Detroit: Macmillan Reference, 2007; Weisgal, Meyer W (ed.). The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, vol. II, series A (November 1902-August 1903). London: Oxford University Press, 1971, 461.



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Bernese Oberland. He was accompanied by the student Jakob Krol, who was to serve as his secretary. There was little time for rest for the ailing Marmor during his stay in the Pension Alpenruhe in July and August 1903. He was in charge of a special issue of the Hebrew newspaper Ha-kotel ha-ma’aravi (‘The Western Wall’), the organ of Ha-ma’aravi, a small socialist and Jewish national party to which he had devoted his time and energy in London. The current issue was dedicated to the sixth Zionist Congress that took place in Basel in August 23-28, 1903. Since the actual party members in London were workers and mostly poor writers, Marmor tried to encourage some of his friends in Switzerland to contribute articles. At the same time, he was engaged in prolific correspondence with political activists in Switzerland and London.93 In a letter to his party in London dated July 12, 1903, he outlined some of the principles of the movement. Ha-ma’aravi clearly opposed Diaspora life and aimed at implementing the ideal of a socialist “national internationalism” in Palestine. According to the program outlined at the congress in Basel, the Gegenwartsarbeit (work in the present) was part of their program only if it led directly to the goal of creating a Hebrew society outside of Europe.94 As Marmor explains in hindsight, this position of a manifest negation of the Diaspora was due to the desperate situation of Jewish emigrants in the aftermath of the Kishinev pogrom of 1903. Notwithstanding the limited impact Ha-ma’aravi might have had, it was vital in fighting the strong lobby for the Uganda plan among British Zionists.95 Moreover, since the Bernese Oberland was a popular destination for the members of the colonies seeking to escape the heat in the cities,96 Marmor regularly welcomed visitors from Berne, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich in the Pension Alpenruhe. One of them was the literary critic Bal-Makhshoves, who helped him to look over the manuscripts received and judge their literary merit.97 Their friendship had begun during Kalman’s summer vacation in 1900, when BalMakhshoves encouraged the young student to give public lectures for a broader audience in Aleksot. Since then, whenever they met they had long discussions about modern Yiddish literature and the Yiddish press. The two friends shared a love of Yiddish, the language of the Jewish masses in Eastern Europe, which was disdained by many Zionists. Indebted to the pro-Hebrew political line of Ha-ma’aravi, Marmor felt deeply conflicted. Notwithstanding his Zionist ideals, he had pursued national education in Yiddish since his early days of political 93 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 654-648, 658 and 663. 94 Quoted in Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 655-657. 95 Ibid., 657-659. 96 X. Ezrat sofrim, Ha-melits, November 3 (October 22), 1899 (No. 231), 1. 97 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 660.

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activism in Vilna and had never ceased to be an avid reader of modern Yiddish literature.98 This conflict was eventually solved in 1905, when Marmor joined the Left Poalei Zion party with its pro-Yiddish ideology and served as the editor of the party’s London newspaper Yidishe frayhayt (‘Jewish Freedom’). Another visitor to the Pension Alpenruhe was Chaim Weizmann, who came by bicycle along the shores of Lake Thun from Hilterfingen, where he was staying with family and friends. Weizmann wanted to clarify in person some points of discord concerning, among other things, the activities of the Democratic Faction. They had discussed these issues during Marmor’s stay in Geneva in June and had raised them again in their subsequent correspondence. A long letter by Weizmann in which he meticulously detailed his position brought them closer together, and Marmor visited Weizmann in return in Hilterfingen, where he met not only Weizmann’s fiancée, but also the Zionist leader and Hebrew author Nachum Sokolov, as well as several other friends.99 Fortified and his lungs cured, Marmor went on an excursion to Lauterbrunnen, a village near Interlaken, with some of his new friends. He shopped for souvenirs in Interlaken and went hiking in search of an edelweiss flower to press and send to Sore-Shifre in one of his letters.100 Some days prior to the official opening of the sixth Zionist Congress in August 1903, Marmor left for Basel to attend the assembly of the Hebrew-speaking participants organized by the Ivriyah society and other preliminary meetings, at which the question of the immediate settlement in Palestine of refugees from pogromstricken Kiev and Kishinev was discussed. Now, in his new position as an official delegate from London, he noticed with a certain amusement that the Hebrew press was suddenly interested in him: “When I arrived in Basel,” he wrote in a letter to his friend Zvi Aberson, Hebrew correspondents assaulted me with questions, asking whether I could give them a little news, and they took down every word I uttered […] and sent these utterances off to the editorial offices and now the whole Jewish world (kol tfutses Yisroel) knows that a delegate from London came to Basel with a whole load of news.101

98 Ibid., 637-678 and 658. 99 Ibid., 660, 665-666 and 668; Weisgal, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, 2: 433; Letter from Chaim Weizmann to Kalman Marmor, July 25, 1903. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 14, Folder 140. (For an annotated translation, see Weisgal, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, 2: 434-441). 100 Ibid., 668. 101 Letter from Kalman Marmor to Zvi Aberson, Basel, August 20, 1903. Kalman Marmor Papers, YIVO, RG 205, MK 495, Roll 42, Folder 427.



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Two years later, Marmor returned to Switzerland to attend the seventh Zionist Congress. On this last journey, too, he returned to the Pension Alpenruhe in his beloved Bernese Alps. With a certain pride, he took a new friend with him to show him the beauty of Switzerland that he had explored during his student days.102 His interests, however, had long ago shifted from a theoretical examination of politics in a small country on the margins of the main trajectories of East European mass migration, towards active involvement in the immigrant communities in the poorer areas of London through lecture series and Yiddish press activity. His years as a sojourner in Switzerland had ended irrevocably with his exmatriculation from the University of Fribourg in 1902.

Conclusion “I don’t find pleasure in telling you my story, since one is supposed to write the story of all the ants and not of just one of them, yet I do find pleasure in taking down some impressions […],” Reuven Breinin confessed in the opening passage of his “Vidui ehad ha-tseirim.”103 As I have sought to demonstrate in this article, by narrowing the perspective to the biography of a single sojourner instead of giving an account of the buzzing “anthill” of the student colonies in turn-of-thecentury Switzerland, we begin to gain a better understanding of what it meant for a young migrant to leave his home and family and embark on a temporary new life in a foreign place that bore little resemblance to his native country. During his years of sojourn, Marmor adjusted to the different environments in Berne and Fribourg on a variety of levels. While the social contexts – the bustling Russian-Jewish colony here, the non-Jewish and entirely male student body there – bore little resemblance to one another, Kalman engaged in political activity in both cities, developing his own ideas and convictions that would carry him beyond his sojourn in Switzerland. His transnational family life and his highly emotional marriage turned out to be both support and burden. Through Kalman Marmor’s biography we are able to trace diverse personal and societal entanglements and influences, as well as transnational emotional, monetary, cultural and political connections that had an abiding impact on the young student. These connections, though formative and characteristic for a specific chapter of Jewish migration history in modern times, have yet to be thor-

102 Marmor, Mayn lebns-geshikhte, 2: 720-724. 103 Breinin. Vidui echad ha-tseirim, Ha-melits, May 7, 1891 (No. 90), 2.

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oughly researched.104 The reconstruction of Marmor’s Swiss period can hopefully go a small way towards filling the gap of this research desideratum and serve as an example of a possible methodological approach. In this context, I suggest the use of the concept of the sojourner as a subcategory of transnational migrants, denoting a migration process that is characterized by the sojourner’s intention to spend only a limited time abroad, by his maintenance of close connections with his culture of origin, and by the low importance attached to integration in the temporary place of residence. As is the case with most of the former students who had been active in the colonies in Switzerland, Marmor is mainly remembered in the context of his subsequent career. In 1906 he emigrated with his family to the United States. There, he was the editor of the Left Poalei Zion’s Yiddish weekly Der yidisher kemfer (‘The Jewish Combatant’) until 1914, when he decided to join the American Labor Alliance and later the Communist party. He worked for the Chicago Yiddish daily Forverts (‘Forward’) and from 1922 until his death for the Yiddish Communist daily Morgn-Frayhayt, as well as for various other Yiddish newspapers. Throughout his life in the United States he remained true to his conviction of the importance of education, teaching numerous lectures and classes himself. He spent the years 1933-1936 in the Soviet Union as a guest of the Scientific Institute for Jewish Culture in Kiev. In 1934, his wife Sore-Shifre, who had supported him as his personal assistant, passed away. Kalman Marmor survived her by more than twenty years. He died in Los Angeles in 1956.

104 See also: Kobrin, Rebecca. Jewish Bialystok and its Diaspora. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2010, 5-6.

May B. Broda

East European Jewish Migration to Switzerland and the Formation of “New Women” The New Life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman (1875-1964)1

Introduction At the end of the nineteenth century the traditional culture of East European Jews was undergoing a process of transformation. Some women profited from the opportunities and challenges the secularization of East European Jewry offered. But a majority of Jewish women remained traditional in religious culture and poorly educated in secular and Jewish learning. Though there existed many different images, the Jewish woman in Eastern Europe is often pictured as a harassed housewife and mother wearing the shaytl, the married woman’s wig, and struggling to provide for her large family.2 Throughout Jewish history women were expected to contribute to the family income as long as it did not interfere with their central role in the domestic domain. The fundamental relationship for Jewish women was with their families, in particular with their husbands.3

1 First I would like to thank the descendants of the Reichstein-family Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Mirjam Lauper-Reichstein, Thomas Reichstein, Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann. Next go my thanks to Hans Josephsohn (1920-2012) and the other witnesses Noomi Gantert-Hurwitz, Regula and Ambrosius Humm-Rellstab. I extend my gratitude to Kirsten Heinsohn, Naomi Baldauf and Roman Sokalski for important special information. Further I express my thanks to the staff of the Staatsarchiv in Basel, the Stadtarchiv in Zurich and the Swiss National Archives in Berne. My appreciation goes as well to Iwona Kospion who translated Polish written passages and to Brian Poysden who translated all quotations and improved my English. Last but not least I am obliged to my companion Thomas Niklaus Dalang who provided support of all kinds. 2 Hyman, Paula E. Muster der Modernisierung. Jüdische Frauen in Deutschland und Russland. In Deutsch-jüdische Geschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte, Kirsten Heinsohn, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), 24-45. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006, 34-35; Idem. East European Jewish Women in an Age of Transition, 1880-1990. In Jewish Women in Historical perspective, Judith R. Baskin (ed.), 270-286. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998, 270-271. 3 Baskin, Judith R. Introduction. In Jewish Women in Historical perspective, Idem (ed.), 15-24. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998, 19-20; Haumann, Heiko. Geschichte der Ostjuden. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, 1990, 121-123.

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Jewish women formed an important segment of the mass emigration of Jews from Eastern Europe that started in the 1880s,4 and were among the newcomers to Western Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. However, very little is known about their emigrant lives. Switzerland is a case in point: In Swiss Jewish biography and historiography, they make scarcely more than “a cameo appearance”5 – except for those who achieved some fame in public life like the socialist Rosa Grimm-Schlain (1875-1955)6 or very recently the Jungian Sabina Spielrein (1885-1942) who became a doctor of medicine and psychiatry.7 Most of the women who have been given scholarly attention were pioneering female students at Swiss universities.8 One of the problems is that very often the governmental or local authorities counted only the immigrating men, singles and heads of family. This was due to the leading role of men in civic rights in those days. The Swiss national census in the year 1900 lists 12,264 Jews, a quarter of them being born in Russia.9 Right at the beginning of the twentieth century 1,738 foreign Jews – a quarter were Russians – lived in Zurich, a booming business and industrial city at that time. By 1910, the number of foreign Jews in Zurich had increased to 3,662, and more than 4 Guesnet, François. Polnische Juden im 19. Jahrhundert: Lebensbedingungen, Rechtsnormen und Organisation im Wandel. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1998, 42-44. 5 Hyman, Paula E. Gender and the Immigrant Jewish Experience in the United States. In Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, Judith R. Baskin (ed.), 312-336. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998, 312. 6 Studer, Brigitte. Un parti sous influence. Le Parti communiste suisse, une section du Komintern 1931-1939. Lausanne: L’Age d’Homme, 1994, 55-56, 216-217, 360-361, and 650; Studer, Brigitte. Rosa Grimm (1875-1955). Als Frau in der Politik und Arbeiterbewegung – Die Grenzen des weiblichen Geschlechts. In Auf den Spuren weiblicher Vergangenheit (2), Arbeitsgruppe Frauengeschichte Basel (ed.), 163-182. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 1988. 7 Richebächer, Sabine. Sabina Spielrein – Eine fast grausame Liebe zur Wissenschaft. Biographie. Zurich: Dörlemann Verlag, 2005; Carotenuto, Aldo (ed.). Sabina Spielrein. Tagebuch einer heimli­ chen Symmetrie. Sabina Spielrein zwischen Jung und Freud. 2nd ed. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag, 2003; Marton, Elisabeth. Ich hiess Sabina Spielrein. Documentary Film, 2002; Cronenberg, David. A Dangerous Method. Fiction Film, 2011. 8 Rogger, Franziska, Monika Bankowski. Ganz Europa blickt auf uns! Das schweizerische Frauen­ studium und seine russischen Pionierinnen. Baden: hier+jetzt Verlag, 2010; Tikhonov, Natalia. La quête du savoir. Les étudiantes de l’Empire russe dans les universités suisses 1870-1920. Geneva: [unpublished thesis, University of Geneva], 2004; Neumann, Daniela. Studentinnen aus dem Rus­ sischen Reich in der Schweiz 1867-1914. Zurich: Hans Rohr Verlag, 1987; Stadler-Labhart, Verena. Rosa Luxemburg an der Universität Zürich 1889-1897. Zurich: Hans Rohr Verlag, 1978; see also the contribution of Aline Masé in this book. 9 Hüsler, Esther. Vom Ghetto ins Ghetto? Herkunft, Zahl und Leben der ostjüdischen Immigran­ ten in Zürich 1880-1917. Zurich: [unpublished “Lizenziat” thesis, University of Zurich], 1980, 52, note 3.



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half of them were East Europeans.10 Between 1911 and 1917 the City of Zurich’s Statistics Office noted that 7,997 East European Jews, women, children, and men, had arrived; of these 2,625 persons were Jews from Congress Poland.11 Many of them were transmigrants.12 Of course, it would be fascinating to know more about the numbers and attributes of female East European Jewish immigrants to Zurich and to Switzerland. But as long as female Jewish immigrants did not ask for naturalization it is not possible to determine when and where they came from or what kind of occupation they had learned or followed.13 In order to answer questions regarding women and gender in the process of Jewish migration, we thus have to find different sources and new ways to address them. My special interest lies in the impact migration had on the average Jewish middle-class woman who had been raised in Eastern Europe and settled in Zurich at the beginning of the twentieth century. What kind of changes did such a woman experience? Did she start a new life? And what happened to her Jewish identity? I would like to focus on the question whether emigration helped to emancipate Jewish women from traditional gender roles and society’s expectations for women. To tackle this issue I will first introduce the concept of the “New Woman.” Second, by way of illustration, I will reconstruct the checkered life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman (May 3, 1875 in Włocławek to May 7, 1964 in Zurich), a married Jewish woman from Congress Poland who emigrated with her family from Kiev to Zurich in 1906.14 Third and last, I will try to draw some conclusions as to whether Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman became a “New Woman” after her emigration.

10 Kamis-Müller, Aaron. Antisemitismus in der Schweiz 1900-1930. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2000, 82; Hüsler, Vom Ghetto ins Ghetto?, 55. 11 Huser Bugmann, Karin. Schtetl an der Sihl. Einwanderung, Leben und Alltag der Ostjuden in Zürich 1880-1939. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 1998, 81-83. 12 Kamis-Müller, Antisemitismus in der Schweiz, 29-30. 13 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 85: The author recorded a total of 1,507 East European Jewish persons, 1,270 men and 237 women, who applied for naturalization in the city of Zurich between 1880 and 1917. 14 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 548, Stadtarchiv Zürich (StadtAZH), V.E.c.100.: The first registration card is in the name of “Reichstein, geb. Brockmann, Gustava” and not in the name of her husband, which is very unusual. The date of the registration and the deposit of documents is November 5, 1906. Her Russian passport was issued July 24, 1906, in Kiev and was valid until July 24, 1911.

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The concept of the “New Woman” The “New Woman” is a term whose meaning is rather vague.15 The concept is used to characterize either young working-class women at the end of the nineteenth century or young self-conscious women, so called “garçonnes,” “bachelorettes,” or “flappers,” in the Roaring Twenties of the twentieth century.16 It even includes the first generation of female academics of the bourgeois middle class, students and professionals.17 Whether the notion “New Women” implies married women, club-women or activists of women rights is not always clear.18 In her study on Jewish salon women and female converts to Christianity in the eighteenth and early twentieth centuries, Deborah Hertz concluded that those elite German-Jewish women with little formal religious teaching but more secular education escaped from the ghetto. They converted or married into Christian society.19 Marion A. Kaplan emphasized in her study of The Making of the Jewish Middle Class20 that German-Jewish women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries not only played an important role as wives, mothers, and guardians of the traditional Jewish home and middle-class family values, but also promoted “Bildung.”

15 In Britain the novelist Sarah Grand (Frances Elisabeth Bellenden Clarke, 1854-1943) who rejected feminine ideals of the middle-class, first used the term “New Woman” in 1894. In her definition the “New Woman” refused “to be treated either as a breeding machine or a prostitute,” denied “the idea that ‘Home-is-the-Woman’s-Sphere’” and “sought a wider world of thought and activity.” By the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century debates about the “New Woman,” marriage and sexuality occurred throughout Europe. See Caine, Barbara, Glenda Sluga. Gender­ ing European History 1780-1920. London, New York: Leicester University Press, 2000, 130 and 166; Heilman, Ann. New Woman Fiction: Women Writing First-Wave-Fiction. Basingstoke, New York: Macmillan, 2000. 16 Bock, Petra. Zwischen den Zeiten – Neue Frauen und die Weimarer Republik. In Neue Frauen zwischen den Zeiten, Petra Bock, Katja Koblitz (eds.), 14-37. Berlin: Edition Hentrich, 1995. 17 Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. Female, Jewish, and Educated. The Lives of Central European Uni­ versity Women. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002; Prestel, Claudia T. The “New Jewish Woman” in Weimar Germany. In Jüdisches Leben in der Weimarer Republik. Jews in the Weimar Republic, Wolfgang Benz, Arnold Paucker, Peter Pulzer (eds.), 135-156. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998. 18 Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. Die jüdische “Neue Frau” des frühen 20. Jahrhunderts. In Deutsch-jüdische Geschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte, Kirsten Heinsohn, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), 123-132. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006, 125. 19 Hertz, Deborah. Jewish High Society in Old Regime Berlin. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988. 20 Kaplan, Marion A. The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family and Identity in Im­ perial Germany. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.



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Harriet Pass Freidenreich tested these findings. She applied them to Central European Jewish university educated women of the early twentieth century, a selected group of “New Women,” “who defied conventional expectations for middle-class German and Jewish women by seeking personal self-fulfillment through higher education and careers in traditionally male professional fields, and in many cases, by opting not to marry or have children.”21 Further she tried to evaluate women’s Jewish identity. She developed a rough scale of three levels: First, the “‛Jewish Jews,’ who practiced Judaism in their daily lives, did research on Jewish topics, and/or became Jewish nationalists or advocates for Jewish women.”22 Second, the “‛Just Jews,’ who remained nominally within the formal structure of the Jewish community (known as the Kultusgemeinde in Central Europe) and socialized primarily with other Jews.”23 Third, the “Former Jews,” who largely rejected their Jewish identity “by formally leaving the Jewish community, whether through baptism or by becoming officially konfessionslos (without religion).”24 Regarding the question whether and how Jewish women became “New Women,” two categories have been lately established: The “New Woman” of Jewish origin and the “New Jewish Woman,” a modern woman with a strong positive Jewish identity.25 In this study on female East European Jewish migration to Switzerland, the concept of the “New Woman” is used to describe a type of woman who did not follow traditional gendered rules of female behavior. In other words, a “New Woman” was one who tried to lead a life that differed from her mother’s. The “New Woman” pursued activities, which expressed her independence and her self-esteem as well as her entitlement to a role in public life. While tracking the changes female East European Jewish immigrants experienced in Switzerland in the early twentieth century, we must consider their individual Jewish identity. What did being Jewish mean to the immigrants? How did their attitude to their Jewishness change in the process of settling in a foreign country? Did they choose to stay away from the organized Jewish community? And, if so, why? 21 Freidenreich, Female, Jewish, and Educated, xvii. 22 Ibid., xx. 23 Ibid. 24 Freidenreich, Harriet Pass. Jewish Identity and the “New Woman.” Central European Jewish University Women in the Early Twentieth Century. In Gender and Judaism. The Transformation of Tradition, Tamar M. Rudavsky (ed.), 113-122. New York, London: New York University Press, 1995, 115; Freidenreich, Female, Jewish, and Educated, xx. 25 The construct has a shortcoming: it omits the “New Jewish Man.” See Freidenreich, Die jüdische “Neue Frau,” 125-127; Prestel, The “New Jewish Woman,” 135.

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In the following section I would like to explore my concept of the “New Woman” and her Jewish identity, taking the life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman as an example.

The Life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman In broad strokes I will sketch the life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman by using a wide range of written sources together with photographs in private and public archives. A selection of the professional and amateur photographs torn from albums and handed down in the family is printed in this study.26 They echo the world Mrs. Reichstein lived in. Though they seem to give us intimate images of herself, her family, and her life, we have to read them and to reflect on what they represent.27 In addition, I conducted several oral history interviews28 with relatives and friends of the Reichstein family. Mrs. Reichstein (Figure 9) wrote two autobiographical notes in the 1950s, one about her childhood in Włocławek, Leslau, which at that time belonged to Congress Poland,29 and the other about her husband Isidor Reichstein.30 Already over eighty years old, she dedicated the childhood-memories to her eldest son Tadeus Reichstein (1897-1996) who was then a professor of chemistry at the University

26 Naomi Baldauf has used some of these photographs to reconstruct the lives of her greatgreat-great-parents’ generation in an artistically visualised essay; Baldauf, Naomi. “Mydentity / Migration. Audiovision.” Zurich: [unpublished “Diplomarbeit” thesis, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Visuelle Gestaltung], 2003. 27 Langford, Martha. Suspended Conversations. The Afterlife of Memory in Photographic Albums. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2001; Volk, Andreas (ed.). Vom Bild zum Text. Die Photographiebetrachtung als Quelle sozialwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. Zurich: Seismo Verlag, 1995. 28 Broda, May B. Erfahrung, Erinnerungsinterview und Gender. Zur Methode Oral History. In Er­ fahrung alles nur Diskurs? Zur Verwendung des Erfahrungsbegriffs in der Geschlechtergeschichte, Marguérite Bos, Bettina Vinzenz, and Tanja Wirz (eds.), 159-171. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2004. 29 Several copies of the same typewritten memoir exist with different handwritten additions. I am using Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Meine Kindheit. Erinnerungen. Zurich, without date, typewritten, 17p. Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt (StABS), PA 979a B 5-6 3. – Brian Poysden translated the original German quotations. In June 1962 Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman also recorded her childhood memories slightly changing the typewritten manuscript: Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa, Kindheitserinnerung, Zurich, June 1962, gramophone disk. Private Archives Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich (PAVL-R). 30 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen, Zurich, June 23, 1959, typewritten, 8p. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3.



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of Basel and had received the Nobel Prize in 1950.31 The memoir that addressed her relationship with her husband was written for her daughter-in-law, Henriette Louise Reichstein-Quarles van Ufford (1898-1993). These memoirs, filtered over time, contain only selected memories that the author wished to share with her intended audience. Autobiographies, memorials and testimonials are key sources of Jewish women’s history. However, their production, their intentions and their contents must always be critically examined.32

Childhood in Włocławek, Congress Poland Gustawa Brokman was born on May 3, 1875, into a bourgeois Polish Jewish family. Her father Jan Brokman (1849-1916) was a successful and wealthy timber-merchant (Figure 10) who owned a sawmill in the small Russian-Polish town Włocławek on the Vistula River (Figure 11), half an hour from the frontier to Prussian Germany. He had been brought up in the traditional Jewish way, but had become very liberal. Before marrying Jan Brokman, her mother, Sarah Jakobsohn (b. 1856), had resided in the United States of America. She was a socialite and entertained many guests. She also ran a matchmaking business. Three children survived: Gustawa was the eldest, followed by her sister Regina (1876-1958) and the youngest, her brother Stanislaw (1879-circa 1925).33 Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman pitches into the biography of the first twenty years of her life in a vivacious though literate style. On seventeen typewritten half A4-pages she recalls more or less chronologically one episode after the other. They are like momentary flashes into her past. The first episode of “Meine Kind­ heit. Erinnerungen” is very short. It reflects on her behavior as a child of two years: 31 Tadeus Reichstein. In Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz, http://www.hls-dhs-dss.ch/textes/d/ D14611.php (accessed on January 28, 2012). 32 Gebhardt, Mirjam. Der Fall Clara Geissmar, oder von der Verführungskunst weiblicher Autobiographik. In Deutsch-jüdische Geschichte als Geschlechtergeschichte, Kirsten Heinsohn, Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.), 233-249. Göttingen: Wallstein Verlag, 2006; Kaplan, Marion A. Weaving Women’s Words. Zur Bedeutung von Memoiren für die deutsch-jüdische Frauenge­ schichte. Ibid., 250-275. 33 Geburtsurkunde, Włocławek, December 16, 1938. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 1 and Erbschaft von Tante Regina Hercbergova, England 1957-1959. StABS, PA 979a B 5-1 3; Familienschein Reichstein, Israel, Ingenieur, Kiew, Russland, Formular B (für Kantonsfremde), Zurich, April 2, 1912. StadtAZH, Stadtrat Zürich, II. Bürgerliche Abteilung, Akten 1915 zum Stadtratsprotokoll Nr. B 561; Letter from Tadeus Reichstein, Basel, to René Loeb, Zürich, August 16, 1991. Private Archives Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich (PABPTS); Sterkowicz, Stanislaw. Tadeusz Reich­ stein. 14-15.

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The first event that I can remember: I’m around 2 years old. I’m standing in front of my sister’s cradle. She’s a year old. I push the cradle over together with the baby. Screaming – everybody comes to save the baby. I hide in a corner – I know, I’ve done something bad. I wanted to do it! I was jealous because of my nanny. She was taken away from me – she became my sister’s nanny. My sister was in my way, so she had to be thrown out together with her cradle. Mein erstes Erlebnis, an das ich mich erinnere: Ich stehe, etwa 2-jährig, vor der Wiege meiner Schwester. Diese, ein Jahr alt, [ich; M.B.B.] werfe die Wiege samt dem Kinde um. Geschrei – alles läuft zusammen, das Kind zu retten. Ich verstecke mich in einer Ecke – weiss Böses getan zu haben. Ich wollte es tun! Es war Eifersucht auf meine Amme. Man hat sie mir weggenommen – sie wurde zur Betreuerin meiner Schwester. Die Schwester war mir im Wege, darum sollte sie samt der Wiege herausgeschmissen werden.34

Looking back Gustawa Reichstein finds fault with herself. Throughout her memoirs she comments on and explains her actions at that time from a retrospective viewpoint. The second episode is one of the longest. Face to face with the impending end of her own life, she dwells on the death of her younger twin sister at the age of two to three and especially on the death of her beloved grandmother. Both events made a great impression on her. But the adults let them pass without a word. She felt left very much alone with her deep sense of loss. For the first and only time she mentions her relationship to God and her religious needs: Fortunately I was living with God. I prayed to him – spoke to him just like speaking to a trusted person, rocked his angels to sleep evening after evening by walking up and down in my room. All this I kept to myself. I felt sure everything that inspired me could be taken away if I didn’t keep it secret. Zum Glück lebte ich in Gott. Ich betete zu ihm – sprach mit ihm wie mit einem vertrauten Wesen, wiegte seine Engel Abend für Abend in den Schlaf, indem ich im Zimmer hin und her ging. All das verbarg ich vor den Mitmenschen. Ich ahnte, dass sie mir das, was in mir beseelt war, wegnehmen könnten, sobald ich es nicht still behüten würde.35

In the third episode Gustawa Reichstein deals with her secular education. At the age of six she was sent to a girls’ school. She did not like it at all:

34 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Meine Kindheit. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 1. Underlined in the original. 35 Ibid., 3.



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The teacher knows better. You have to obey. In my heart I resisted. I knew that something wasn’t right and came to the conclusion: school is one world and outside is another. Here you have to repeat what the teacher says, that’s the school world. Die Lehrerin weiss es besser. Man soll gehorchen. Mein Inneres wehrte sich. Hier stimmte etwas nicht und kam zum Schluss: Die Schule ist eine Welt und draussen eine andere. Hier hat man nachzusprechen, was die Lehrerin sagt, das ist die Welt der Schule.36

Later Gustawa and her younger sister were taught at home while their brother attended a secular high school. The girls learned German from a German governess and French from an impoverished Swiss lady. A professor who lived in the same house was responsible for their classical education. Somebody else gave them piano lessons. Gustawa did not enjoy them very much. She was not musical at all. Gustawa Reichstein’s narrative is neither straightforward nor elaborate. She recalls one incident after the other. With no direct connection with the preceding episodes, she depicts some elder female cousins who still hoped to get married. They lived in the same household in idleness. They were allowed to live there at the family’s expense. The servants – nannies, a governess, maids and pages – were there to work. At this point the storyteller is siding with the working classes. She becomes aware of social questions: One person works and the other lives in luxury – apparently this was fine. My mind was in a turmoil. From then on I lived for the defenseless. For me, however, it was simply a case of person to person. I had no interest in organizations. I stayed away from the social democrats and their class war. Die einen schufteten, die andern prassten – es schien ganz in Ordnung. In mir war ein Aufruhr. Ich lebte von da an für die Wehrlosen. Es ging jedoch bei mir immer nur von Mensch zu Mensch. Für Organisationen hatte ich kein Organ. Ich blieb fern von der Sozialdemokratie, fern von ihrem Klassenkampf.37

Gustawa Reichstein admits not having developed any political ambitions. Class war and socialism were her sister’s causes but not hers. She depicts herself as a recluse and dreamer (Figure 12). She was very close to her father Jan Brokman, who was her absolute ideal. And she was father’s darling: The love that surrounded me was a great help, I was sheltered. Especially by my father – he was my spiritual mentor, my soul guide. He was my ideal – he was my admonisher – he was my conscience.

36 Ibid., 3-4. Underlined in the original. 37 Ibid., 14.

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 May B. Broda

Die Liebe, die mich umgab, half mir, ich war geborgen. Vor allem vom Vater – er war mir geistiger Führer, Seelenführer. Er war mir Beispiel – er war mir Mahnung – er war mein Gewissen.38

She loved her mother. But more than once she emphasized that her mother’s matchmaking was not successful. She swore never to take up this business. She kept her promise. However, she had no idea that her own marriage had been arranged. While visiting a cousin in Warsaw she met her future husband, who was her cousin’s brother-in-law: I had absolutely no idea that all this had been planned. I wasn’t thinking in the slightest about marriage. He came often. After a while my passion was aroused. We became engaged to the delight of the whole family. They welcomed our marriage, which took place a year later in 1896. Ich war ahnungslos, dass hier Absicht vorlag. Ich dachte noch nicht entfernt an Heirat. Er kam öfter. Mit der Zeit kam Feuer in mich. Wir verlobten uns zur Freude der ganzen Verwandtschaft. Sie begrüssten unsere zukünftige Ehe, die ein Jahr später 1896 stattfand.39

On June 23, 1896, at the age of twenty-one, Gustawa Brokman got married in Warsaw. Her husband Israel, called Isidor, Reichstein, an engineer and chemist, was seventeen years older (Figure 13). He was born in Płock. His father Leiser Beir Reichstein was a cloth-manufacturer in Lodz. Because of excellent reports from school he was allowed to study in St. Petersburg. Later on he tried to earn a living mainly in the sugar-refineries around Moscow. After his father’s death in 1895 he experienced a crisis and left Russia. He went to Vienna where his younger twin brothers Moritz (1864-circa 1905) and Mathias Reichstein (1864-1907) owned a photo atelier. He found work at a technical bureau in Vienna.40 After his marriage, he founded, together with a Swiss partner, an engineering business in tsarist Kiev,41 at that time a twenty-four hours railway journey from Włocławek. 38 Ibid., 9. 39 Ibid., 17. 40 Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS; Tadeus Reichstein to René Loeb, August 16, 1991. PABPTS; Folgende Worte Victor Bergs sprach H. Debrunner am 17.4.1931 bei der Kremation unseres Vaters Isidor Reichstein (28.11.1859-15.4.1931). PABPTS. Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle. Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 551, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.: “Name: Reichstein-Brockmann, Jsrael. Eltern: d. Leisor Ber und Faly Mariem Posnersohn”. 41 Isidor Reichstein’s partner in Kiev was a Mr. Ott from Zurich: Eugen Curti to city council, Zurich, September 8, 1914, and Carl Heinrich Würgler, Hermann Stieger, Jacob Lorenz, Justus Gaule, Hans Tanner, Bescheinigung betr. den mehrjährigen Aufenthalt der Fam. Reichstein in der Schweiz, Zürich im April 1914. Both in StadtAZH, Stadtrat Zürich, II. Bürgerliche Abteilung, Akten 1915 zum Stadtratsprotokoll Nr. B 561.



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The First Ten Years of Married Life in Kiev, Russia Isidor Reichstein’s business in Kiev was a great financial success. He furnished sugar refineries and other factories with machines purchased mainly in Germany. For him this meant a great deal of travelling. Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman gave birth to five sons during the first ten years of her marriage (Figure 14). For the birth of her first child Tadeus on July 20, 1897 (Figure 15), she went back to her family in Włocławek. There, her husband had rented a house near the Vistula River where his young family usually stayed from May to September. In autumn the Reichsteins moved to their main home in Kiev. The youngest son Paul was born there January 30, 1905, shortly before the family migrated to Zurich.42 Hardly anything about the ten years the growing family spent in Kiev was handed down to posterity. But Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman gave some details about her married life in her previously mentioned second testimonial “Mein Mann. Erinnerungen,” which she wrote in the summer of 1959: K i e v. We were very happy together. He was reticent – I wasn’t talkative. And so our love kept us close. My youth, my unpreparedness for marriage, my clumsiness, putting the cart before the horse. The unfamiliar location, the foreign town. Everything was tolerated with patience by my husband – accepted. Neither reproaches nor demands were uttered that the house has to be kept in order. Good-natured mockery, when I had done something especially stupid. But he didn’t miss anything – saw everything. A discrete remark showed it. Just determining – never judging. That did one good. Overwhelmed with kindness, lovingly made aware of mistakes – never reprimanded – only treated with consideration – never offended. He looked after me like a father. – This was in Kiev. Ten years we stayed there then we moved to Zurich. And here my life changed. K i e w. Wir waren sehr glücklich beisammen. Er schweigsam – ich auch nicht beredt. So war die Liebe unser Kitt. Meine Jugend, mein Unvorbereitetsein auf die Ehe, unbeholfen, stellte vieles verkehrt an. Der fremde Ort, die fremde Umgebung. Alles wurde von meinem Manne geduldig getragen – hingenommen. Kein Vorwurf und kein Anspruch, der ihm zukäme, dass das Haus richtig bestellt wäre. Gutmütiger Spott, wenn ich etwas besonders dumm angestellt hatte. Und doch entging ihm nichts – sah alles. Eine feine Bemerkung deutete darauf.

42 The other three sons were Adam (1899 in Kiev-1988 in Zurich), Eduard (1901 in Kiev-1982 in Zurich) and Alexander Ignatius, called Ignaz, (1903 in Włocławek-1997 in Birsfelden). Paul died in 1995 in Hayward, California, and Tadeus in 1996 in Basel: Familienschein Reichstein, Israel, Ingenieur, Kiew, Russland, Formular B (für Kantonsfremde), Zurich, April 2, 1912. StadtAZH, Stadtrat Zürich, II. Bürgerliche Abteilung, Akten 1915 zum Stadtratsprotokoll Nr. B 561.; Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS; Tadeus Reichstein to René Loeb, August 16, 1991. PABPTS; Sterkowicz, Tadeusz Reichstein, 12 and 14; Interview with Thomas Reich­­ stein, Mönchaltorf, July 13, 2012.

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 May B. Broda

Nur feststellend – niemals bewertend. Wie gut das tat. Liebevoll getragen, liebevoll auf Fehler aufmerksam gemacht – nie gerügt – nur geschont – nie verletzt. Er beschützte mich wie ein Vater. – Dies in Kiew. Zehn Jahre waren wir dort, bis wir nach Zürich übersiedelten. Hier kam für mich die Wende.43

Before her marriage she had paid several visits to relatives in Berlin and Warsaw. Now, freshly married, she started a new life with her husband in Kiev, a place where she felt like a complete stranger. This made the relationship with her husband even more important. Neither of them was a great talker. And she was very insecure: She had no idea how to keep a bourgeois household. She was inexperienced in sexual matters. She claimed that her husband had regards for her clumsiness as well as for her naivety. He recognized her insufficiencies but never condemned her. He was indulgent. She felt protected by him. Isidor Reichstein who was almost twice as old as his wife became like a father to her. Looking back she considered the time spent in Kiev to have been very happy for both of them.44

Emigration and Adjustment in Zurich, Switzerland From 1904 to 1905 Tsarist Russia was at war with Japan. A war Russia lost. The so-called “Bloody Sunday” January 9, 1905, was the start of the first Russian Revolution. The political instability, the economic crisis, and the growing Anti-Semitism, which brought on new pogroms,45 were the reasons for the Reichstein family’s emigration from Kiev to Zurich in 1906 (Figure 16).46 Other members of the Reichstein family were involved in the move to Zurich, like Stefania Reichstein, the 20-year-old daughter of Isidor’s elder brother Dr. Elias Reichstein in Warsaw, who studied medicine at the University of Zurich and went back to Russia as a

43 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 4. 44 Ibid. 45 Haumann, Heiko. Lebenswelten im Zarenreich: Ursachen der Revolution von 1917. In Die Rus­ sische Revolution 1917, Heiko Haumann (ed.), 17-34. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2007, 30-31. 46 Rothschild, Miriam, Tadeus Reichstein, 20 July 1897 - 1 August 1996. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 45 (1999): 451-452.



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fully-fledged doctor.47 Zurich’s authorities did not allow the family’s nanny to stay in Switzerland. She had to return to Russia.48 The first flat Isidor Reichstein rented was at 56 Bolleystrasse,49 which is situated near the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in the city district Oberstrass where many Russian emigrants already lived.50 Two years later he bought the Fliederhof (Figure 17), a wooden chalet on the Zürichberg in the city district of Fluntern, today the “millionaires’ hill” of Zurich.51 The bill of sale to the value of CHF 100,000 was in the name of Gustawa Reichstein.52 With the move from Kiev to Zurich the eldest son, the eight-year-old Tadeus Reichstein, was sent to a Prussian boarding house in Jena. Two years later he joined his family,53 so the mother and her five children were finally together in Zurich. In her essay “Mein Mann,” Gustawa Reichstein remembers the big changes in her life in Zurich and what they meant to her. Her husband visited the family in Zurich twice a year (Figure 18). He earned money in Kiev and saved as much as he could. At the same time he was generous towards the needs of his wife who plunged into the education of her children in a very special way. Suddenly, Gustawa Reichstein had to act independently. She had to make all the decisions. She had to take care of herself and her five boys. Her comment was: “Alles musste

47 Stefania Reichstein got married in Russia, remained childless and was later divorced. She worked as a doctor in Russian army hospitals. She died in 1971 in Moscow; Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS; Tadeus Reichstein to René Loeb, August 16, 1991. PABPTS; Tadeus Reichstein to René Loeb, August 16, 1991. PABPTS; Matrikeledition 18341924, Universitätsarchiv Zürich (UAZ), http://www.matrikel.uzh.ch/active/index.htm. 48 Gustawa Reichstein, 3.5.1875-7.5.1964, Abdankung 11.5.1964, Worte des Erinnerns von Dr. Hugo Debrunner. PABPTS; Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 91-92: From June 1906, Zurich city authorities started to control immigration strictly and to turn away foreigners. 49 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, Serie 1901-1933, Nr. 548, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.; Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Hausbogen 1893-1978, Bolleystrasse 56, StadtAZH, V.E.c.92.. 50 From the 1870s Oberstrass and Fluntern, two city districts of Zurich, were popular with academics and wealthy Russians. The East European Jews settled mostly in the city districts Wiedikon and Aussersihl, called the “shtetl on the Sihl.” The West European Jews preferred two other city districts, Altstadt and Enge-Wollishofen-Leimbach; Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 127128 and 143-144. 51 The Reichstein-family never lived in the city district Enge, as Karin Huser Bugmann wrote; Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 149. 52 Eugen Curti to city council, Zurich, September 8, 1914, and Carl Heinrich Würgler, Hermann Stieger, Jacob Lorenz, Justus Gaule, Hans Tanner, Bescheinigung betr. den mehrjährigen Aufenthalt der Fam. Reichstein in der Schweiz, Zürich im April 1914. Both in StadtAZH, Stadtrat Zürich, II. Bürgerliche Abteilung, Akten 1915 zum Stadtratsprotokoll Nr. B 561. 53 Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS.

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ich selber entscheiden und die Führung übernehmen. Es war auch an der Zeit” (I had to decide everything myself and take the lead. It was about time).54 Gustawa Reichstein’s great project was to establish a co-educational reform school at the Fliederhof. In her school Jewish and non-Jewish girls and boys were to be brought up together using methods that were suitable for children (Figure 19). They should gain self-confidence and become autonomous subjects.55 The education was to be very different from what she had experienced in her childhood and youth in Congress Poland. She followed some of the ideas of the German reform pedagogue Gustav Adolf Wyneken (1875-1964), who at that time was famous. In 1906 Gustav Adolf Wyneken had established together with Paul Geheeb (1870-1961) the Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf in Germany. Great importance was attached to co-education, sexual education, the arts, physical training and self-determination. Gustav Adolf Wyneken criticized that many Jewish children joined the Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf.56 Gustawa Reichstein engaged as principal teacher of the Fliederhof-Schule Victor Berg (1884-1935), a German student,57 who also had to act as surrogate father to her sons. There were other teachers like Professor Sinai Tschulok (18751945) who owned a school himself in Zurich.58 He taught natural sciences and biology at the Fliederhof. When at home, Isidor Reichstein instructed mathematics and physics.59 Besides the usual teaching in the classroom, which took place in the parlour of the chalet, there were outdoor lessons (Figure 20). For instance, the pupils 54 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 5. 55 Erwin von Bendemann, Gustawa Reichstein, 3.5.1875-7.5.1964. PAVL-R. 56 Paul Geheeb was the first who left Wickersdorf. He later founded the Odenwaldschule. Gustav Adolf Wyneken was dismissed and became engaged in the Jugend- und Wandervogelbewegung. He returned twice to Wickersdorf and was twice convicted of the sexual abuse of pupils. In the Third Reich and afterwards he propagated “the superiority of the white race.” Späth, Andreas, Menno Aden (eds.). Die missbrauchte Republik – Aufklärung über die Aufklärer. Hamburg: Inspiration Unlimited, 2010; Näf, Martin. Paul und Edith Geheeb-Cassirer. Gründer der Odenwald­ schule und der Ecole d’humanité. Deutsche internationale und schweizerische Reformpädagogik 1910-1961. Weinheim: Juventa-Verlag, 2006. 57 Polizeiamt, Hausbogen 1893-1978: Freudenbergstrasse 20, StadtAZH, V.E.c.92.. 58 Sinai Tschulok, originally Tscholek, was born in Konstantinograd, Ukraine. He studied in the 1890s at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. From 1922 till 1945 he was a titulary professor of biology at the University of Zurich. His private school was at Plattenstrasse 29/31 in Fluntern. In 1911 he acquired Swiss citizenship. Tschulok’s daughter Vera (1898-1992) also attended the Fliederhof-Schule; Tadeus Reichstein, An Vera [Schwarz-Tschulok; M.B.B.] zum Abschied, Zurich, November 20, 1992. PAVL-R; Nachruf, Volksrecht, December 10, 1945; Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 151. 59 Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS.



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explored the nearby woods to study plants and animals.60 Smaller walks, excursions for a day and a walking tour of twelve to eighteen days once a year enhanced their physical fitness. Handwork like gardening and woodwork rounded off their education. Special attention was given to healthy nourishment.61 Plays, for instance by Shakespeare, were rehearsed and performed (Figure 21). Feasts were celebrated during the year: gymnastic displays, when Isidor Reichstein returned in summer, special musical and theatrical events to honor his birthday on November 28, and always at Christmas.62 Adam Reichstein (1899-1988), Gustawa’s second son, gave an account of the school life in the year 1910 (Figure 22). He criticized that the pupils still had to read and write Polish instead of learning Russian. He insisted he did not feel like being at school because the principal teacher Victor Berg often talked about various aspects of everyday life and world-events like women’s vote: In civics we discussed with Mr. Berg the subject of women’s vote, compared the small and the large city council of Zurich with the cantonal council and cantonal government, the Swiss national assembly with the Federal Council, in the end we spoke about “die Landsgemeinden” [the traditional open-air assemblies of Swiss cantons; M.B.B.]. In der Bürgerkunde sprachen wir mit Herrn Berg über das Frauenstimmrecht, verglichen kleinen und grossen Stadtrat mit dem Kantons- und Regierungsrat, der Nationalversammlung und dem Bundesrat, dann sprachen wir noch über die Landsgemeinden.63

Once, when they were reading in the book of Genesis, Victor Berg informed them about Martin Luther and the Reformation. The pupils started to discuss first reform ideas in general then reform clothes and corsets. Such deviations often occurred. In the words of Adam Reichstein, the Fliederhof-Schule was “ein Universalinstitut verbunden mit Laboratorium für experimentelle Pädagogik und Lebenskunst” (a universal institute with a laboratory for experimental pedagogy and the art of living).64 Gustawa Reichstein had become headmistress of the Fliederhof-Schule (Figure 23). She managed to earn money and to keep direct oversight of her five sons’ schooling until they joined the public higher education in Zurich, the Ober­ 60 Tadeus Reichstein, An Vera [Schwarz-Tschulok; M.B.B.] zum Abschied, Zurich, November, 20, 1992. PAVL-R. 61 Adam Reichstein, Der Schulbetrieb im Fliederhof während des Jahres 1910. PAVL-R. 62 Folgende Worte Victor Bergs sprach H. Debrunner am 17.4.1931 bei der Kremation unseres Vaters Isidor Reichstein (1859-1931). PABPTS; Tadeus Reichstein, An Vera [Schwarz-Tschulok; M.B.B.] zum Abschied, Zurich, November, 20, 1992. PAVL-R. 63 Adam Reichstein, Der Schulbetrieb im Fliederhof während des Jahres 1910. PAVL-R. 64 Adam Reichstein, Mister King auf dem Zürichberg, Weihnachten 1911. PAVL-R.

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realschule and the Gymnasium, and later the university. She killed two birds with one stone. The Fliederhof-Schule earned her renown in Zurich’s alternative academic society. Her advice was sought after. The children and parents respected her very much, and life-long relationships resulted, especially with some of the male pupils. The German-Jewish philosopher and poet Margarete Susman (1872-1966), called Susa by her friends (Figure 24), became one of her best friends. In 1912 Margarete Susman returned with her husband, the painter and art historian Eduard von Bendemann, and their only son Erwin (1906-2006) to live in Zurich where she had grown up from 1882 to 1892. With the beginning of the First World War Eduard von Bendemann joined the German Emperor’s army. The family followed him to Frankfurt am Main. Two years later Margarete Susman and her small son went back to Switzerland. When the parents, Margarete Susman and Eduard von Bendemann, decided to join the Revolution in Germany, they left their son Erwin at the age of eleven with Gustawa Reichstein.65 Erwin von Bendemann regarded his foster mother as a friend and “Deuterin des Daseins” (augur of existence): At that time 43 years old, she [Gustawa Reichstein; M.B.B.] received me, an 11-year-old boy, in her own special way. She didn’t kiss me, she didn’t embrace me, in fact she almost didn’t smile. She gave me a serious and searching look, but with the seriousness that did more good than all the caresses and cuddles could have done for a boy who was about to be sepa­ rated from his parents for a long time. It is such a quiet seriousness, which for me always remains an expression of her as a person. Sie, die damals 43jährige [Gustawa Reichstein; M.B.B.], empfing mich, den 11jährigen Knaben, auf die ihr so eigene Art. Sie küsste mich nicht, sie umarmte mich nicht, ja sie lächelte fast gar nicht. Sie sah mich nur ernst und prüfend an, aber mit dem Ernst, der mir dem Kind, das seine Eltern für lange Zeit verlassen sollte, wohler tat, als alle Liebkosungen es vermocht hätten. Es ist jener stille Ernst, der für mich stets der Ausdruck ihres Wesens geblieben ist.66

65 Margarete Susman was born in Hamburg. After the short intermezzo in revolutionary Frankfurt am Main, Eduard von Bendemann bought a farmer’s house in Säckingen where the family stayed until the divorce in 1928. Like his father, their son studied at the University of Basel. In 1933 Susa fled via Holland to Zurich where she died impoverished. Still famous is her book Frauen der Romantik (1929); Susman, Margarete. Ich habe viele Leben gelebt. Erinnerungen. Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1964, 14-15, 76-77, 82-83, 90, 101, 113 and 140-141; Steer, Martina. “… da zeigte sich: der Mann hatte keine Welt anzubieten.” Margarete Susman und die Frage der Frauenemanzipation. Bochum: Verlag Dr. Dieter Winkler, 2001, 65-67. 66 Erwin von Bendemann, Gustawa Reichstein, 3.5.1875-7.5.1964. PAVL-R.



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In Zurich Gustawa Reichstein had started to meet other people and to befriend them, partially through the principal teacher Victor Berg (Figure 25). Isidor Reichstein had problems with his wife’s new life. He preferred a solitary hermit-like existence whereas she now associated with many different people. The couple had arguments but had to come to an understanding (Figure 26). She was able to counter his doubts and jealousy by declaring her love for him on many occasions as she wrote in her second memoir “Mein Mann:” My husband saw that my friends provided and enriched me with aspects which were important for me but which he couldn’t provide because of the type of person he was. So he was disturbed. I saw that he was worried. So I went to him in love – so tenderly that he felt that we were both so closely attached to each other that there was no room for anybody else. He became quiet, reassured, the doubts subsided. From then on he was also able to accept my personal needs – to understand them and take then into consideration. It was a godsend for both of us because of our conflicting interests. Here one’s own reservations were an encouragement to the other – and a blessing to both of us. Mein Mann sah, dass mir die Freunde eine Seite vermittelten, mich bereicherten, die mir wichtig war, die er mir aber nicht geben konnte, seiner ganzen Wesensart nach. So war er beunruhigt. Ich sah ihn bekümmert. So ging ich zu ihm so in Liebe – so innig bis er spürte, dass da wo wir beide zutiefst verbunden waren, kein Platz für Andere war. Er wurde still, beruhigt, die Zweifel legten sich. Von da ab war er auch fähig, meine persönlichen Ansprüche gelten zu lassen – sie zu verstehen, ihnen Rechnung zu tragen. Beiden war es ein Geschenk bei unseren so gegensätzlichen Interessen. Hier war eigene Einschränkung von Forderung an den Andern – zum Segen eines jeden von uns beiden.67

1914 brought new challenges: As the First World War broke out Isidor Reichstein had to stay in Zurich. Due to the war and the nationalization that followed the October Revolution of 1917,68 he lost all his fortune. Only the Fliederhof and its large surrounding land of around 5000 m2 were left.69 At the age of fifty-five he felt unable to get a new position in Zurich although he spoke German and friends like the former Swiss consul in Kiev Carl Heinrich Würgler-Krasnoff (1860-1919), who had been living with his Russian wife in Zurich since 1910,70 tried to help him. He 67 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 6. Underlined in the original. 68 Haumann, Geschichte der Ostjuden, 168. 69 Tadeus Reichstein, Kurzgeschichte des Fliederhofs bis heute, Basel, April 22, 1983. PABPTS. 70 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 466, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.; Stutz, Werner, Nachruf auf eine bedeutende Historismus-Villa am Zürichberg. Zum Abbruch der Villa “Kiew” 1983. In Zürcher Denkmalpflege. Stadt Zürich 1980-1984, Hochbauamt der Stadt Zürich, Büro für Archäologie und Büro für Denkmalpflege (eds.), 10. Bericht, 2.Teil, 101-106 und 219. Zurich: Verlag Hans Rohr, 1986, 101-102.

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was very unhappy. Mrs. Reichstein described the increasing difficulties of their relationship and financial situation in her memoir “Mein Mann:” The Swiss consul in Kiev, Würgler, a close acquaintance, who was at that time in Zurich, came to him with a suggestion to establish together in Zurich a branch office of the Kiev operation. A suggestion which could rescue us from our financial situation. My husband declined. What for? “I’m a foreigner here, an outsider to the Swiss, I can’t speak their language.” [...] He was right – he was an outsider. His roots were in his homeland and he was too old to put down new roots. He didn’t have the energy. Torn from his homeland. Like a helpless child who is offered a hand – and refuses it. Der Schweizer Konsul in Kiew, Würgler, zur Zeit in Zürich, sein guter Bekannter, kam zu ihm mit dem Vorschlag, gemeinsam eine Filiale vom Kiewer Büro in Zürich mit ihm zu gründen. Ein Vorschlag, der die finanzielle Lage bei uns retten könnte. Mein Mann sagte ab. Warum auch? „Ich bin ein Fremder hier, den Schweizern ein Fremder, kann ihre Sprache nicht.“ [...] Er hatte recht – er war hier ein Fremder. Seine Wurzeln waren in der Heimat und zu alt um neu zu verwurzeln. Die Energie fehlte. Entrissen der Heimat. Wie ein hilfloses Kind, dem man die Hand reicht – diese zurückweist.71

Notwithstanding his feeling of alienation in Switzerland, he decided, together with his wife, that their five sons should be naturalized in Zurich for their personal safety. “Thaddeus,” Adam, Eduard, “Alexander Ignatius,” and Paul Reichstein from Kiev, Russia, were granted the civic rights of the City of Zurich on the condition that they obtained the Landrecht from the Government Council of the Canton Zurich, which happened June 3, 1915. The total of charges amounted to CHF 500.-. The civic rights document was issued August 4, 1915 (Figure 27).72 Soon afterwards the eldest son was drafted to serve in the Swiss army (Figure 28). Isidor Reichstein maintained hopes of returning to Kiev. For that he needed to keep his Russian passport. So he decided not to apply at the same time as his sons for Swiss citizenship.73 It seems that his wife went along with his decision. With the territorial changes after the First World War the nationality of the Reichstein parents changed: Płock was their place of origin. Their nationality now became Polish. Their confession was mentioned as Jewish and their permit of residence

71 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 6-7. 72 Protokoll der bürgerlichen Abteilung des Stadtrates Zürich, Verfügung des Stadtpräsidenten, B 561., May 30, 1915, and B 873., August 4, 1915. StadtAZH, V.B.a.13.. On the naturalization practice of the City of Zurich see Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 95-125. 73 Protokoll der bürgerlichen Abteilung des Stadtrates Zürich, Verfügung des Stadtpräsiden­ten, B 561., May 30, 1915. StadtAZH, V.B.a.13.; Eugen Curti to city council, Zurich, September 8, 1914. StadtAZH Stadtrat Zürich, II. Bürgerliche Abteilung, Akten 1915 zum Stadtratsprotokoll Nr. B 561.



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in Switzerland only “tolerant.”74 The naturalization laws of Zurich were tightened on November 3, 1920, a measure against the “Ostjuden.”75 After a dozen successful years Gustawa Reichstein had to close her reform school. On the one hand her youngest son Paul, born in 1905, had come of age. On the other hand her husband became very ill around 1920 and never recovered until his death on April 15, 1931.76 Though her eldest son Tadeus tried to earn money after completing his studies, the Reichstein family could barely make ends meet. Gustawa Reichstein had to sell land bit by bit.77 She decided to take in paying guests, young girls and young men (Figure 29). She recalled her new venture in “Mein Mann:” In desperation I decided to undertake something myself in order to feed the family. I took in paying guests. Youngsters around the same age as my sons. The house was quickly occupied. We had an income – it was enough to feed us. In meiner Verzweiflung beschloss ich, selber etwas zu unternehmen, um die Familie zu ernähren. Ich nahm Pensionäre auf. Junge Leute im Alter meiner Söhne. Das Haus war rasch besetzt. Das Einkommen war da – es genügte um uns zu ernähren.78

About her relationship with the young ladies in her boarding house she wrote in “Mein Mann:” Young girls also came. These were under my protection. Many of them were emotionally homeless. Here they found a home. I felt I was in the right place. What I started as a necessity had become a blessing for me and for others – in many ways. The feeling of being needed gave me strength, confidence and elevation. Auch junge Mädchen kamen. Diese waren meine Schützlinge. Viele von ihnen innerlich heimatlos. Sie fanden hier ein Heim. Ich fühlte mich am richtigen Platze. Was ich aus Not begann, wurde mir und anderen zum Segen – vielfach. Das Angefordertsein gab Kraft, Zuversicht und Entwicklung.79

74 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 545, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.: The authorities eliminated Gustawa Reichstein’s register card A.N.Nr. 44846 on April 1, 1921 and put her name on Isidor Reichstein’s card A.N.Nr. 46742. 75 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 104-105. 76 Folgende Worte Victor Bergs sprach H. Debrunner am 17.4.1931 bei der Kremation unseres Vaters Isidor Reichstein (28.11.1859-15.4.1931). PABPTS. 77 Tadeus Reichstein, Curriculum Vitae, Basel, May 4/22, 1993. PABPTS. 78 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa. Mein Mann. Erinnerungen. StABS, PA 979a B 5-6 3, 7. 79 Ibid.

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Among her guests were three sisters from the Netherlands.80 Two of them became her daughters-in-law: Henriette Madeleine Quarles van Ufford (1894-1975), called Maggy,81 was married on October 8, 1925, to her second-born son Adam82 and Henriette Louise Quarles van Ufford, called Lizzy,83 on July 21, 1927, to her eldest son Tadeus.84 Some of her guests were being psychoanalyzed by Dr. Carl Gustav Jung (18751961). How Gustawa Reichstein and Carl Gustav Jung got acquainted is yet to be ascertained.85 Particularly difficult cases were brought to stay at her house. She had gained the reputation of being a specialist for their treatment. Starting in 1933 Gustawa Reichstein gave shelter to many Jewish and other fugitives. One of them was the sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920-2012) (Figure 30), originally a citizen of Königsberg who stayed at her house from 1940 to 1943.86 He made drawings of the persons around him all the time, including his landlady (Figure 31). He even modeled her head. This work of art radiates a resolute power and roguishness (Figure 32). Hans Josephsohn recalled with what skill and ease his sixty-five year old landlady got along with her disparate clientele of men and women. He and his colleague Robert Jungk (1913-1994), later well known as a futurist, were quite a wild bunch. Gustawa Reichstein tolerated their various political activities and sexual escapades. She understood very well the needs of these homeless men. She and her son Tadeus were very generous by supporting them financially. Hans Josephsohn also mentioned that the Reichstein-family did not observe Jewish rites and holidays.87 It was very courageous to give board and lodging to refugees in two respects. Firstly, the refugees remained under regular observation and were questioned by the immigration police. Secondly, Gustawa Reichstein’s status as a Polish citizen was also precarious. In 1936 her motherland had started to expatriate Poles who

80 Mischa Quarles van Ufford (1901-1978), the youngest of the three Dutch sisters, was treated by C. G. Jung and his pupil Maria Moltzer in 1918. A year later she married the painter and woodcutter Ignaz Epper. 81 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 502, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.: Henriette Madeleine Quarles van Ufford is mentioned for the first time April 26, 1918 boarding at “Reichstein, Freudenbergstr. 20.” 82 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1965-1976, Nr. 281, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.. 83 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1901-1933, Nr. 507, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.: Louise Henriette Quarles van Ufford appears April 19, 1922 as a lodger at the Fliederhof. 84 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1934-1964, Nr. 130, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.. 85 Interviews with Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich, April 11, 2011 and August 2, 2011. 86 Mack, Gerhard. Hans Josephsohn. Zurich: Scheidegger & Spiess, 2005, 64. 87 Interviews with Hans Josephsohn, Zurich, May 28, 2011 and April 5, 2012.



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had lived abroad for more than five years.88 Apparently with the help of her sons Adam and Tadeus she tried to apply for Swiss citizenship.89 Further research is needed to find out whether her application was carried out and if so which authority turned it down, and for what reason. In those days “Ostjuden” who sought after Swiss citizenship were often rejected as not sufficiently assimilated.90 After the end of the Second World War Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman kept her Polish citizenship.91 She continued to run her boarding house with one or two women helpers right to the end of her life. She died May 7, 1964. She was cremated and her urn was buried next to that of her husband in the Fliederhof-garden.92

Conclusion To conclude, I will return to the initial questions: Did the life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman change in the process of migration? Did she become a “New Woman?” And, if so, in what regard? Mrs. Reichstein migrated twice in her life: first, from Włocławek to Kiev, where she, her husband and their growing family stayed ten years, and second, from Kiev to Zurich which became her home for almost sixty years until her death. Her mother Sarah Brokman-Jakobsohn and her husband Isidor Reichstein had already experienced transnational migration: Sarah Brokman had lived before her marriage in the USA; her son-in-law had left Lodz to study in St. Petersburg. In Moscow he tried to make a living, then went to Warsaw, and took a job in Vienna, Austria. After his marriage Isidor Reichstein regularly travelled in Germany buying the machinery he sold in his office in Kiev. There he worked together with a Swiss engineer from Zurich and the Reichstein family became acquainted with the Swiss consul. As a girl his wife had learned French from a Swiss lady. These contacts might explain why the Reichsteins chose Zurich as a place of destination when fleeing the troubles of the revolution in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century.

88 Milton, Sibyl. The Expulsion of Polish Jews from Germany: October 1938 to July 1939 – A Documentation. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook 29 (1984): 169-199. 89 Handnotizen von Tadeus Reichstein 1939-1940, StABS, PA 979a B 5-2 3. 90 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 114-115. 91 Einwohner- und Fremdenkontrolle, Meldekarten, 1934-1964, Nr. 123, StadtAZH, V.E.c.100.. 92 On November 20, 1944, Tadeus Reichstein bought the Fliederhof as his mother had wished. Tadeus Reichstein, Kurzgeschichte des Fliederhofs bis heute, Basel, April 22, 1983. PABPTS; Interview with Thomas Reichstein, Mönchaltorf, July 13, 2012.

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Gustawa Brokman was born into an upper middle class, liberal Jewish family in an industrial town in Congress Poland. She acquired all the class-appropriate education and bourgeois virtues expected of a woman of her background in the second half of the nineteenth century.93 She detested the girls’ school drilling at the primary level. She learned to speak four languages, Polish, Russian, German, and French. She received a secular education, but was she an intellectual? She and her sister had no guidance on sexual matters in the house of their liberal parents, as was the case in many strictly orthodox East European Jewish households.94 Though she questioned the matchmaking-business of her mother, she went blindly into a traditionally arranged marriage, a shidukh, with a member of the extended family, seventeen years her senior. Before marriage her husband, engineer Isidor Reichstein, had led a bachelor’s life in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Warsaw, and last in Vienna. The young family had its domicile in Kiev but during summer maintained close bonds with Gustawa’s family in Włocławek. Gustawa Reichstein fulfilled her responsibilities as a Jewish mother and gave birth to five sons. From the beginning she was not a gifted housekeeper and never tried to become one. At that time it was not so important that she and her husband were two complete opposites. Indeed, in general she seemed to follow the classical pattern of a Jewish woman’s bourgeois life at the end of the nineteenth century. But here and there some cracks appear in the mirror of the bourgeois ideal family. In Zurich the Reichsteins chose not to live downtown in the “shtetl on the Sihl” where the majority of the East European Jewish immigrants settled95 and the first generation continued with the same life style as before their emigration, making no attempt to assimilate.96 With the purchase of the chalet Fliederhof and a vast acreage of land on the unspoiled hill of Zurich the Reichsteins established their nuclear household in a non-Jewish environment. The husband continued his business in Kiev where he was very successful until the beginning of the First World War. Twice a year he visited his family in Zurich. Due to the regular absences of her husband, Gustawa Reichstein gained a lot of freedom. She took a decisive step and accomplished her idea of a reform school for girls and boys. She followed the most modern methods of education as a form of liberation. Instead of the gendered nature of education that was typical among 93 Rüthers, Monika. Frauenleben verändern sich. In Luftmenschen und rebellische Töchter. Zum Wandel ostjüdischer Lebenswelten im 19. Jahrhundert, Heiko Haumann (ed.), 223-307. Cologne: Böhlau-Verlag, 2003; Hyman, East European Jewish women in an Age of Transition, 274-275. 94 Haumann, Geschichte der Ostjuden, 125. 95 Huser Bugmann, Schtetl an der Sihl, 127-128. 96 Hüsler, Vom Ghetto ins Ghetto?, 61-62.



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traditional East European Jews,97 her goal was the equal socialization of boys and girls. Her pupils were taught universal knowledge. They were informed about all world religions. There was no specific Jewish teaching given. Gustawa Reichstein succeeded as headmistress. Her work was admired by experts. Her cooperation with other men, teachers, tradesmen and craftsmen, her initiative and her keen interest in getting to know other people caused considerable tension in relations with her husband. The marriage was no longer her fundamental relationship. In the end her husband respected her personal needs. The classical power relationship of a married Jewish couple98 had shifted in her favour. Though Isidor and Gustawa Reichstein shared the concerns of family and livelihood, from 1914 on she was responsible for the survival of the whole family. Her fifty-five-year-old husband had lost all his possessions in Russia. He was unable to start a new life in Zurich though he spoke fluent German. He could not adapt anymore. Later on his illness confined him to bed. He was paralyzed in a double sense. At that time Gustawa Reichstein had to give up her reform school. The education of her five sons had been more or less completed. Two of them lead a very wild life in their young years. Three succeeded professionally.99 The eldest son Tadeus was his mother’s darling. Early on he had to act as a surrogate father for his younger siblings. His career as a professor of chemistry, crowned with the Nobel Prize, filled Gustawa Reichstein with pride. Throughout her life she wanted to be independent. She continued to earn money with the boarding house and acted as a life counselor until she passed away. She kept an open house. Her generosity was proverbial as Hans Josephsohn and Erwin von Bendemann testified. Erwin von Bendemann, the son of Margarete Susman, emphasised Mrs Reichstein’s self-control in that she never talked about herself. He admired his foster mother’s strong ego that allowed her to help others in mental distress:

97 Hyman, Paula E. Two Models of Modernization: Jewish Women in the German and the Russian Empire. In Jews and Gender. The Challenge to Hierarchy, Jonathan Frankel (ed.), 39-53. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000, 46-47. 98 Rüthers, Monica. Tewjes Töchter. Lebensentwürfe ostjüdischer Frauen im 19. Jahrhundert. Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1996, 212 and 266-267; Levitt, Laura S. Reconfiguring Home: Jewish Feminist Identity/ies. In Gender and Judaism. The Transformation of Tradition, Tamar M. Rudavsky (ed.), 39-49. New York and London: New York University Press, 1995. 99 Korrespondenz von Tadeus Reichstein mit Familienmitgliedern, 1929-1990, StABS, PA 979a B 5-2; Reichstein, Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Bern (BAR), E 21/24087.

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She didn’t persuade anybody, didn’t calm anybody, didn’t make light of anything, she just guided the person who had become mentally distressed to find the way back to themselves by examining their problem, taught them to rely on their own hidden strengths and to realize their own potential. Sie redete keinem zu, beschwichtigte niemanden, bagatellisierte nichts, sondern führte die in Seelennot Geratenen auf dem Weg der Auseinandersetzung zu sich selbst zurück, lehrte sie, an den Strömen ihrer eigenen verschütteten Kräfte trinken und sich selber neu zu entfalten.100

Margarete Susman characterized her life-long friend as a very strong and dogmatic person who later became a “sage.” She praised her discretion and trustworthiness: [...] she [Gustawa Reichstein; M.B.B.] is strong, almost violent, holds on fast to something that once moved her – then later she was the only person who stood by me in my most difficult hour, in fact the only one who knew about it. In advanced age she became a unique sage. [...] sie [Gustawa Reichstein; M.B.B.] ist stark, fast gewalttätig, hält fest an einem einmal Ergriffenen – war dann später der einzige Mensch, der mir in meinen schwersten Stunden zur Seite stand, ja überhaupt um diese wusste. Im Alter ist sie zu einer einzigartigen Weisen geworden.101

Of course there exists a certain ambivalence in the perception of her character. Some people experienced her as too dominating. Others were even afraid of her.102 After the First World War her nationality had changed from Russian to Polish. In 1915 only the five sons and not the whole family were naturalized. This was because of her husband’s business in Kiev. In 1938 Gustawa Reichstein lost her Polish citizenship. Now she was an East European Jew without a nationality, a precarious status also in Switzerland.103 Her eldest sons, Tadeus Reichstein, then Professor at the University of Basel, and his brother Adam, a successful lawyer in Zurich, mobilized all the help they could to obtain Swiss citizenship for her as a Jew. It was not successful. The circumstances are still being examined.

100 Erwin von Bendemann, Gustawa Reichstein, 3.5.1875-7.5.1964. PAVL-R. 101 Susman, Ich habe viele Leben gelebt, 90. 102 Interviews with Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich, April 11, 2011 and August 2, 2011. 103 Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz – Zweiter Weltkrieg (UEK). Die Schweiz, der Nationalsozialismus und der Zweite Weltkrieg. Schlussbericht. Zürich: Chronos, 2002; Picard, Jacques. Die Schweiz und die Juden 1933-1945. Schweizerischer Antisemitismus, jüdische Abwehr und internationale Migrations- und Flüchtlingspolitik. Zurich: Chronos, 1994.



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That Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman died in 1964 as a Pole, however, had nothing to do with either nationalism or Jewishness, as falsely asserted by some.104 Although nothing is known as to whether the Reichsteins observed religious traditions in Kiev or not, we know for certain that she had dropped Jewish rituals and observance in Zurich.105 She celebrated Christmas,106 but never changed or gave up her Jewish faith. She acknowledged her Jewish origin. In death she and her long deceased husband rested in peace together. Through her own efforts Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman gained individual status in the public and private domains. Emigration had positive effects both inside and outside her marriage. As a bourgeois and liberally educated East European Jew she followed in Zurich modern West European gender patterns. She became not only a “New Woman” but also a “New Mother” of Jewish origin. She combined motherhood with a professional career. Her family, her reform school, later the boarding house and the adviser’s practice formed the crucial center of her activities in Zurich. She was no longer dependant on her husband. Her marriage had endured a process and had become based on equality. The reprinted photographs document how the young corseted bride broke out to become a considerate and solid matron. Mother wit and cool assessment radiate from Hans Josephsohn’s portraits and bust. In the course of geographic mobility Jewish family lives experienced changes. Under new circumstances, old habits and traditional patterns could be overcome, as it was the case in the life of Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman in Zurich. It was possible to achieve emancipation in the process of migration. The role of migration in the formation of Jewish “New Women” is not to be underestimated.

104 Sterkowicz, Tadeusz Reichstein, 15. 105 Interviews with Hans Josephsohn, Zurich, May 28, 2011 and April 5, 2012, Verena LuninReichstein, Zurich, April 11, 2011 and August 2, 2011, Thomas Reichstein, Mönchaltorf, July 13, 2012, and Benjamin Straumann, St. Moritz, March 9, 2012. 106 Gustawa Reichstein, 3.5.1875-7.5.1964, Abdankung 11.5.1964, Worte des Erinnerns von Dr. Hugo Debrunner. PABPTS.

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Figure 9: Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, over 80 years old.

Figure 11: Włocławek with the River Vistula in the foreground.

Figure 13: Israel (Isidor) Reichstein by M. Reichstein, Vienna, 1896.

Figure 10: Gustawa’s father Jan Brokman by Bernardi, Włocławek.

Figure 12: Gustawa Brokman, 1896.

Figure 14: Gustawa and Isidor Reichstein-Brokman by M. Reichstein, Vienna.



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Figure 15: The eldest son Tadeus Reichstein, by Fr. de Mezer, Kiev.

Figure 17: The chalet Fliederhof on the Zürichberg.

Figure 19: The reform school at the Fliederhof, 1912.

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Figure 16: Postcard with Isidor (right) and Gustawa (seated) Reichstein-Brokman and relatives, Zurich, November 13, 1906.

Figure 18: A Reichstein family gathering at the Fliederhof.

Figure 20: An outdoor lesson at the Fliederhof school.

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Figure 21: A play staged by the Fliederhof school, 1912. Figure 22: Adam Reichstein’s school essay “Der Schulbetrieb im Fliederhof während des Jahres 1910” [The 1910 Scholastic Year at the Fliederhof].

Figure 23: Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, Fliederhof.

Figure 24: Margarete Susman, Gustawa Reichstein’s best friend.

Figure 25: Victor Berg, Fliederhof school principal, unknown woman, Gustawa Reichstein.

Figure 26: Isidor and Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, Fliederhof, c. 1917.



Figure 27: The original record of civic rights granted by the City of Zurich to the five Reichstein sons, August 4, 1915.

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Figure 28: Tadeus Reichstein as Swiss Army soldier and his father, Fliederhof, September 16, 1917.

Figure 30: The sculptor Hans Josephsohn, a Jewish German refugee, 1941. Figure 29: The Fliederhof as boarding house.

Figure 31: Gustawa Reichstein. Drawing by Hans Josephsohn, 1940.

Figure 32: Gustawa Reichstein. Bust modeled by Hans Josephsohn, 1940.

Laura Salmon

Ben-Ami’s Swiss Experience: Narrative and the Zionist Dream But didn’t God Himself make a mistake when he settled the Jews in Russia so they could be tormented as if they were in hell? Wouldn’t it have been better to have the Jews living in Switzerland, where they would’ve been surrounded by first-class lakes, mountain air, and Frenchmen galore? Everyone makes mistakes, even God. Isaak Babel, “How Things Were Done in Odessa”

Ben-Ami, a Rediscovered Writer Ben-Ami (in Hebrew ‘son of my people’) is the main pseudonym of Mark (Mordechai) Iakovlevich Rabinovich (Province of Podolsk, 1854 – Tel Aviv, 1932),1 an important and productive representative of so-called “Russian-Jewish literature.” All of Ben-Ami’s works respect the three criteria of affiliation to this specific literary branch (as proposed in Markish 1985: the writer is a Jew, who writes about Jews, from a Jewish point of view).2 Ben-Ami wrote in two fields, that of memorial fiction and that of the socio-political essay, frequently linking the two genres with his characteristic and highly personalized Russian prose (he wrote or translated very few stories directly in Yiddish). Insofar as Ben-Ami was oriented toward the renewal of Jewish pride and traditions, his writings promoted a longing for the safe future of his people in its own independent territory. He had indeed a prominent role in the proto-Zionist and Zionist movements. For a long time, with the exception of a couple of quotations, obituaries, and entries in minor reference books, Ben-Ami’s name and his works were almost completely ignored or forgotten. The first mention is to be found in 1885 in Lazarev’s essay on the aims of Russian-Jewish literature;3 the last critical essay on his prose prior to its rediscovery in the 1980s appeared in 1923, when the writer was celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his literary activity.4 Some of Ben1 At the beginning of his literary activity, he used also the pseudonyms Reish-galuta (‘the head of the diaspora’) or simply M. 2 Cf. Markish, Shimon. A propos de l’Histoire et de la Méthodologie de l’étude de la littérature juive d’Expression russe. Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique XXVI/2 (1985): 139-152. 3 Lazarev, M.N. Zadachi i znacheniia russko-evreiskoi belletristiki [Tasks and Significance of the Russian-Jewish Narrative], Voskhod [The Rising] V (1885): 28-42 and VI (1885): 24-42. 4 Buchbinder, Naum A. Ben-Ami (k 40-letiiu ego literaturnoi deiatel’nosti) [Ben-Ami (on the 40th Anniversary of his Literary Activity)]. In Evreiskii Al’manakh. Khudozhestvennyi i litera­



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Ami’s works were brought to light and analysed in 1988 in a monograph dedicated to Russian-Jewish literature by the Italian scholar Danilo Cavaion.5 It was primarily thanks to Cavaion’s book that I discovered how little research has been conducted in this area and, in the following years, I myself was able to make some contributions, among them the monograph Una voce dal deserto. Ben-Ami, uno scrittore dimenticato (‘A Voice from the Desert: Ben-Ami, a Forgotten Writer’), in which I entirely reconstruct Ben-Ami’s life and works.6 This article specifically analyzes a question that has received only minor attention in my previous research on Ben-Ami, a question concerning the role of Switzerland in the writer’s prose and his attitude toward this beloved but temporary Western European shelter. Ben-Ami spent more than two decades in Geneva, after leaving the Russian Empire with his family (in 1905) and before moving permanently to Palestine (probably in 1924); moreover, even before settling in Geneva, he visited Switzerland repeatedly both on holiday and as a representative from Southern Russia at Zionist congresses. And, even though the number of pages that Ben-Ami dedicates wholly to his Swiss experiences is small, these are of great interest insofar as they contain crucial details about: –– his intimate attitude toward Switzerland; –– extremely significant events taking place in Jewish life during that period and relating to the nationalist question, to the problem of assimilation, and to the conflicts between different factions within the social democracy and “cosmopolitanism” movements;

turno-kriticheskii sbornik [Jewish miscellany. Artistic and literary-critical collection], Boris I. Kaufman, Iosif A. Kleinman (eds.), 261-269. Petrograd, Moscow: Petrograd, 1923. An interesting criticism was made in the same year by Arkady Gornfeld in one of the most important essays on the Russian-Jewish literature (cf. Gornfeld, Arkadii G. Russkoe slovo i evreiskoe tvorchestvo [The Russian Word and the Jewish Writing]. In Evreiskii Al’manakh, 178-194.) Further sporadic criticism on Ben-Ami is to be found only in Hebrew (Klausner, Yosef. Yotsre tkufa u-mamshikhe tkufa. [Creating an Age, Continuing an Age] Jerusalem: Masada, 1956), and Yiddish (Niger, Shmuel. Dertseylers un romanistn [Narrators and Novelists]. New York: Tsiko bikher farlag, 1946, 108-111). 5 Cavaion, Danilo. Memoria e poesia. Storia e letteratura dell’ebraismo russo moderno. Rome: Carocci, 1987. 6 Salmon, Laura. Una voce dal deserto: Ben-Ami, uno scrittore dimenticato [A Voice in the Desert: Ben-Ami, a Forgotten Writer]. Bologna: Pàtron, 1995. The book, which began as a doctoral dissertation, was first published in Italian and then translated into Russian in 2000. It offers a detailed reconstruction of Ben-Ami’s biography and bibliography as well as the description and criticism of his works (both printed and in manuscript). The most recent of other related journal articles and essays on Ben-Ami in various languages is my entry “Ben-Ami” in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, Gershon D. Hundert (ed.), 147-148. New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2008.

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–– the overall cosmogony underlying Ben-Ami’s Weltanschauung, i.e. the profound interaction between ideology and his own psychology. Given that the works of Ben-Ami were strictly based on his life experience, and primarily on memories of his childhood, the reconstruction of his biography was very important in studying his role as a writer and thinker. Most of the information that we have about Ben-Ami’s life can be found first of all in his own work, which is almost completely autobiographical and sufficiently trustworthy, although his narrative prose is prevalently fictional in its intent.7 He was probably born in the borough of Verkhovka (province of Podolia), but almost immediately after his birth the family had to move to Bessarabia and settled in the borough of Tuzly (Moldova), which in 1860 became part of the Russian Еmpire.8 When he was four years old, his family dispersed as a result of his father’s death. At the age of nine, his wanderings began and, at twelve, the young boy had his first and shocking encounter with the “big town” – Odessa. Here he entered the local gymnasium, but finished high school only later in Berdyansk. In the years 1870-1871, Ben-Ami was in Kiev, where he was admitted to the School of Medicine. Without concluding his medical education, he moved back to Odessa again, where in 1875-1877 he became a student at the local School of Literature and History – another institution from which he never graduated. During those years, cultural and literary life among the Jews was flourishing, especially in Odessa. There, Ben-Ami was able to meet many personalities who had a significant influence in his later life, ideology and literary activity: among them, the so-called “grandfather” and the “father” of Yiddish literature, Mendele Moykher Sforim and Sholem Aleichem; the pioneer of the “spiritual Zionism” Ahad Ha’am;9 and the famous Hebrew poet Haim Nachman Bialik.10 7 Some biographical facts were obscure even to the author himself (he did not know the year of his birth, for example) – and in literary renditions of his biography, Ben-Ami interestingly combines these gaps in the historical record with diverse fictional elements to surround his childhood in an atmosphere of mystery. Another difficulty with biographical research stems from the fact that most of the official documents relating to his life in Russia were lost or destroyed during the Second World War. Nevertheless, we can establish several facts about his life on the basis of details contained in various other sources. 8 Verkhovka and Tuzly were in fact shtetlekh, i.e. little towns with a prevalent Jewish population. I did not apply here the Yiddish term shtetl, which in this paper is predominately intended as the imagined, idealized mental representation of a deterritorialized Jewish world. 9 Like Ben-Ami and most of the other Jewish writers of that time, these three wrote under pseudonyms. Their names are, respectively: Sholem Yankev Abramovitsh, Solomon Rabinovich, Asher Gincberg. Ben-Ami could meet all these colleagues in the emigration years, both in Switzerland and Palestine. 10 Cf. Salmon, Una voce dal deserto, 52-68.



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In the spring of 1881, a wave of pogroms hit the South of the Russian Empire as a reaction against the assassination of Alexander II.11 In May of that year it was Odessa’s turn, and Ben-Ami was among the organizers of the first Jewish self-defense movement (he wrote some remarkable pages about this event). Nonetheless, he was shocked by the unexpected violence and by the collusion between the pogrom makers and the army, and became convinced that Jews would never be safe in the galut (diaspora). Ben-Ami thus decided to assume an active role and became “a voice” for his People – а voice from the Jewish “desert” of despair, delusion, and confusion – in defending the perspective of a safe future for his People.

Figure 33: Postcard showing Ben-Ami.

Later in 1881, Ben-Ami was living in Paris and in August 1882 visited Geneva for the first time. It was in this period that he began to send his first essays to the 11 The Jewess Gesia Gel’fman was accused of supporting the terrorist group, while the murderer, a Polish nobleman named Ignatii Grinevickii, had both a “Jewish nose” and a Jewish-like surname.

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journal Voskhod (‘The Rising’), the most significant Russian-Jewish monthly in St. Petersburg and the most prestigious in the entire Empire, thus initiating a longlived collaboration.12 Ben-Ami came back to Odessa in 1886, where he lived until 1905. During these years, he travelled twice to Lithuania (1894, 1899) and twice to Switzerland (1897, 1898), before moving to Basel to participate in the seventh Zionist congress in 1905. Due to a new wave of severe pogroms, he decided not to return to the Russian Empire and settled in Geneva.13 In 1924, Ben-Ami moved to Palestine, where he died in 1932; he is buried at the old cemetery in Tel-Aviv, close to his colleagues and associates Max Nordau and Ahad Ha’am. Ben-Ami had been an early advocate of the “Palestinian movement” as a member of the Hovevei Zion (or Hibbat Zion, The lovers of Zion), which afterwards gave rise to what is known as “spiritual Zionism.” Later, he became a staunch opponent of any form of Jewish assimilation, which he considered to be a terrible and dangerous illusion, rather than a real possibility. Even though he was apparently a maskil, i.e. a fully assimilated Jew, an educated writer able to use four languages (Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, and French), his family had Hasidic origins and Ben-Ami never ceased to feel a nostalgic regret for his childhood shtetl – or to consider that to be an ideal model for the future of Palestine, where peaceful coexistence with neighboring peoples was seen as a central premise. In all of his works, Jewish devotion is strictly connected with reminiscences of a Hasidic world idealized by a child’s naiveté, a world in which Ben-Ami’s pious father plays a leading role and serves as the ethical point of reference for all Jewish values. In terms of tradition and religion, the writer believed that the only weapon Jews had been able to successfully use over the course of many centuries in defending their right to exist as a distinct people was the peacefulness of the Jewish heritage, its only stronghold against the frivolity and brutality of both materialism and capitalism.

12 Salmon, Una voce dal deserto, 161-163. During his life, Ben-Ami published almost all his works in the periodical press. Worthy of note among his rare volume-length publications – and of great literary value – is the first tome of Sobranie rasskazov i ocherkov (‘Collected Stories and Sketches’), the only volume in a projected three-volume set that was ever printed: cf. Ben-Ami. Sobranie rasskazov i ocherkov. Odessa: Levinson, 1898). The book was reviewed positively by Ginzburg, Saul M. Iz mira unizhennykh [From the world of Humiliated People]. Voskhod VII (1898): 28-40. Ginzburg recognized Ben-Ami had a great “literary talent” and underlined his originality of style (ibid., 33). Ben-Ami, he claimed, was able to reveal aspects of the intimate, emotional Jewish life of the masses which had been completely left out from literary fiction. Because of his style and inspiration, the reviewer defined Ben-Ami as “a poet” (ibid., 34). 13 He was one of the 1,288,000 Jews who left the Russian Empire between 1897 and 1915. Cf. Slezkine, Yuri. The Jewish Century. Princeton, Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2006, 116.



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Ben-Ami was hence imprisoned in a great paradox: the expression of his own perspective at the level required by the ongoing ideological debate between the struggling factions inside Jewry called for both a profoundly assimilated education and the (consequently inevitable) decision to abandon both his mother tongue (Yiddish, the mameloshn) and his beloved holy language (Hebrew, the lashon kodesh, which at that time was coming into a new literary life). As he confessed at the end of his literary career, Ben-Ami came to deeply regret this early linguistic decision.14 With very few exceptions, he wrote both his memoirs and his fiction in Russian in order to be better understood by his opponents and to have greater impact on their way of thinking, though a series of sarcastic jabs at Russian and several touching comments about his “native” (rodnye) tongues, Yiddish and Hebrew, reveal the author’s true linguistic sympathies. Moreover, he not only chose to express himself in the language of his enemies, but also relied completely in his political works on a Western binary and Manichean way of thinking and writing, rather than on what Martin Buber has shown to be the skeptical style of the Hasidic tradition. From the latter, he inherited melancholic grief and sharp irony, but not an attitude of empathy toward views different from his own.

Ben-Ami’s “Swiss Prose” Some interesting reflections on Switzerland may be found in works that Ben-Ami wrote while still in Russia, primarily in the long ideological essay Glas iz pustyni (‘A Voice from the Desert’), which was published serially in the Voskhod supplement, Knizhki Voskhoda (1900-1901).15 This crucial essay contains various memories of Switzerland, most of them from the period when the Dreyfus affair was making a deep impression on both the psychology and social behavior of European Jews. Two opposite feelings dominate Ben-Ami’s Swiss reminiscences. On the one hand, he displays fascination for Switzerland’s superb natural environment, capable of dissipating the grief and anxiety of that threatening time;16 on the other hand, Ben-Ami reveals the discomfort that he felt at being constantly sur-

14 Salmon, Una voce dal deserto, 135-141. 15 Two further articles of Glas iz pustyni appeared in 1902 with the subtitle “Seriia vtoraia” (‘Second Series’) in the journal Budushchnost’ (‘The Future’). Their content suggests that there should have been more than two but the publication of the second series was interrupted. 16 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod XI (1900): 139.

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rounded by large numbers of both anti-Semites and frightened Jews who were continually attempting to hide their origins.17 The writer loved Switzerland’s natural environment, first of all thanks to the refuge that it offered from real life, from the material and psychological difficulties of the urban life, of the human world, which had left him with a permanent feeling of delusion and deprivation: How painful, [how] hard it is to tear myself away from this majestic realm of infinite beauty. How deeply I love this heavenly, divine, Swiss Nature. Among its majestic, free mountains I spent the best five years of my life; here I began my first literary work, which only under this free sky could ring wholeheartedly free […].18 With a deep melancholy and sadness I was looking to these divine places [he was on the Axenstrasse; L.S.], which I would soon leave. How painful it is for me each time to go away from this majestic kingdom of infinite delights. How deeply I love this divine Swiss nature. Among its majestic and free mountains I spent the best five years of my life.19

Located at the opposite pole of Ben-Ami’s ideological and emotional cosmogony is the town, crowded with a mass of humans who have been dehumanized, that serves as the emblem of an unnatural and horrible deformation of the world created by God: I see and feel death – death that shackles, chills and penetrates all – in that dismal pool of petty torments and sufferings, in that bloodied arena of wretched hungerings and frenzied clashes over some kind of possession or power-obsession, in that huge, filthy rubbish heap where millions of diverse beings creep, trample, and devour one another – in a word, where everything that we are accustomed to calling life occurs. Yes, there I see death all around, I sense everywhere the stench of the decaying corpse.20

Such vivid invective against the town, already very frequent in Ben-Ami’s writings before he became a Swiss immigrant, was later corroborated in three texts 17 In these same pages, he also curiously notices that at that time the widespread Swiss hotel-system (Pension) was the cheapest for everybody in Switzerland, i.e. the best solution to choose also for local residents. There was however an “extremely painful element,” typical of the Swiss hotel-system – the table d’hôte: around the same table, close to him, absolutely alien people were seated and he felt the need to keep silent, avoiding any involvement in the inescapable, permanent allusions to the “Jewish problem” with all its unpleasant consequences. Because of his permanent silence, he was given the nicknames (in the French and German Switzerland respectively) Monsieur le philosophe (‘Mister philosopher’) and Das schlechte Wetter (‘Bad Weather’) (ibid., 143). 18 Ibid., 152. 19 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod IX (1900): 152. 20 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod III (1901): 71.



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that directly address Switzerland, which he wrote in Geneva during a relatively settled period in his life. Here the contrast between the repulsive city-agglomerate and idealized nature assumes the aspect of a definite cosmogony. In the writer’s world-view, Nature (the realm of God) becomes the symbolic image of original Jewishness, symbolized by the mirror image of the shtetl/Zion.21 Opposed to this is modernity, which represents an abdication from tradition. In this cosmogony, tradition thus becomes the mirror image of nature in that both express complete respect for God – for His Word and for His World.

Figure 34: Verso of postcard sent from Ben-Ami to Zlatkin, Geneva, January 23, 1912. It displays the three languages Ben-Ami used during his years in Geneva: Hebrew, Russian, and French.

Ben-Ami’s first “Swiss work” is a short story entitled “Tovarishchi” (‘Friends’) and published in 1909 in the Journal Evreisky Mir (‘The Jewish World’). The second is a short but extraordinary memoir of the First Zionist Congress, published in Moscow in 1918 (in the collected papers edition by the Russian Safrut organization, which celebrated the Congress twenty years after it took place). The third work is still in manuscript: a tale under the title “Na vershine gory” (‘On the 21 Cf. Salmon-Kovarsky, Laura. Simvolika Ierusalima v tvorchestve Ben-Ami [The Symbology of Jerusalem in Ben-Ami’s Works]. In Oh Jerusalem!, Wolf Moskowich, S. Schwarzband, S. Garzonio (eds.), 141-154. Pisa, Jerusalem: Dip. di Linguistica, Univ. degli Studi di Pisa 1999, 144-145. It is remarkable that in Russian, the word rodnoi (native, intimate) has the same root as prirodnyi (natural), which is also the case with ‘native’ and ‘nature’ in English.

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Mountain Peak’), written in Geneva in 1911 and never published (at least in its Russian original version).22 An analysis of these three works offers a very coherent and detailed picture of Ben-Ami’s approach to the exceptional crises that beset European Jewry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, i.e. the power struggle among various Jewish socio-political entities: Social Democrats, Bundists, nationalists, Hasidim, the assimilated petty bourgeoisie, the capitalists, etc. Even though there are some masterpieces of literary quality and style among Ben-Ami’s works, this is not the case for the two fictional Swiss stories I mentioned above. “Friends” is at least a complete, organized tale, while “On the Мountain Peak” is quite weak in terms of both plot and style. Nevertheless, both stories are equally valuable for their attempt to give a sense of Jewish life in Switzerland during this ideologically very troubled period. From a purely literary point of view, only the article on the First Congress is written impeccably. In the short story “Friends,” the main topic is a classic theme of Ben-Ami’s prose: the contrast between the past (the “pure,” religious Hasidic life in the shtetl) and the present (the corrupted customs of the modern Western town). The past is similar to a world suspended in myth, as if shtetlekh were not part of the actual tsarist empire, but located on a distant and solely Jewish “island,” where misery and indigence are reworked by memory to become signs of moral integrity. The present/modernity, by contrast, represents the fall of the “pure world,” the tragic escape of young “Yidn” from the mythical Jewish home that they disdain to the “Goy”23 heart of Evil (the Russian town) with its crimes and punishments. Ben-Ami’s dream, a homecoming to ancient Zion, may consequently be understood as a sort of re-production of shtetl life in a country where the past can return and the materialist future can be eluded. The main reason for this nationalist solution, which he contrasts with other options (including the colonization of the New World), may be uncovered in the writer’s early biography: the loss of the shtetl was due to his father’s death and to the subsequent disintegration of family integrity. His father’s death meant the loss of his “paradise” and the premature arrival of a brutal time: he was forced to become acquainted with adulthood, the 22 The manuscript was found in 1991 (during my third year PhD research) in Ben-Ami’s archive at the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Givat-Ram (Jerusalem), where it is still preserved. At that time, the writer’s archive had been considered officially lost (also by the foremost specialist of Russian-Jewish literature, Shimon Markish, with whom I had the privilege to profitably discuss my research). Fortunately, Ben-Ami’s archive had been safely stored in one of the Library’s depots. It was afterwards officially catalogued as NLI V.1694. 23 Here and forth the term “Goy” is specifically used in its derogatory, impolite acceptation, which is consistent to the extremely negative reception of the Gentiles’ world by the Jewish Russian nationalists of that time.



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town, the world of Gentiles and the world of Jewish “betrayers,” those who had been deceived by the town’s illusion of modernity and of a “rosy future.”24 Palestine, the Fathers’ land, and the shtetl, the father’s land, overlapped – and this is the reason why Ben-Ami, unlike most of his fellow writers, treated both Hebrew and Yiddish with love and respect: at that time, the Zionists hated Yiddish, while Populists and Bundists mocked the absurdity of bringing archaic Hebrew back to life. The paradox of the idealization of the shtetl/Zion in opposition to Russia/ modernity, is due, first of all, to Ben-Ami’s hatred of “Russia,” by which he meant the political Tsarist Empire: he thought indeed of Russia as “evil” and of the shtetl as if it were a territory existing outside of reality, outside of Russian territory, as a land of pure Jewry. Realistically speaking, of course, the shtetl and Russia were the same place. Also the features of Jewish purity that he identifies seem mostly to have been generated by the Pale of Settlement, and thus by the shameful legislation dating back to the time of Catherine the Great in the late eighteenth century, that was responsible for the complete juridical and physical isolation of Jewish life from the Gentile world.25 As for the crucial question of how one might re-think the world of the shtetl, Ben-Ami tried to keep some possibilities alive: was it primarily the lethal symbol of diaspora? Was it the site of sectarian obscurantism? Or was the shtetl a place of salvation, a “national reserve,” where the original Jewish spirit and heart had been preserved? In “Friends,” Samulevich, the kheder-schoolmate of the protagonist Malkhin, comes for a one-day visit to Geneva, where Malkhin lives with his wife and four children in the horrible poverty of the modern town. In their youth, years ago, Malkhin had helped Samulevich escape from the shtetl, get a Russian higher education, and become a prosperous and successful Russified cosmopolite. Thus acculturated and Russified, a rich, assimilated lawyer who speaks and writes in perfect Russian, he visits Malkhin in Geneva. Malkhin’s own Russian is imperfect and reveals a Yiddish accent, despite the fact that he had been the first to leave the shtetl and had become a political activist of social-democratic stripe, a deeply convinced opponent of Jewish tradition. Arrested and condemned to five years in Siberia, Malkhin fled from Russia to Switzerland, where, after another period of political activity, he learned of his father’s death in the remote native shtetl and underwent a drastic ideological transformation, becoming a scholar of 24 Cf. Salmon, Una voce dal deserto, 203-275. 25 This paradox is still expressed in the way of life of American and Israeli Haredi Jews, who dress as their grandfathers did in the cold lands of the Pale of Settlement and in Eastern European cities: they nostalgically preserve a proud past, which can superficially seem to an outsider only the stigma of their former slavery.

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Jewish culture and of the Talmud, a nostalgic antagonist of assimilation. Clearly, both friends have undergone many changes since their last contact,26 changes that represent the very essence of the ongoing struggle in Jewish life and thought between the complete assimilation and social success represented by Samulevich (now rich and affirmed) and the poverty of Malkhin, who obtusely proceeds with his “suicidal” activity as a Jewish scholar, even though his children have no shoes. If Samulevich instantly feels a sort of oppressing shame while walking beside his ragged former friend, Malkhin is astonished by the dandyism of a man who has abandoned every form of Jewishness and become indeed, with his own help, a perfect outsider. They attempt to remember life in the shtetl together, but the ways that each remembers his individual past have nothing in common. Paradoxically, Samulevich, thanks to his position, had been giving material support to his shtetl, while Malkhin gave only the support of his vain writings. Ben-Ami’s message is clearly expressed in the last pages: as Samulevich hurriedly leaves Malkhin’s apartment, he promises to return again, but he also feels at the same time that he will not do so “because the bond between him and his schoolmate had been broken and a gulf had arisen.”27 The reason was not, Ben-Ami points out, ideological disagreement, but disparity in the two men’s material conditions. He saw this disparity as the inevitable consequence of the collapse of a distinct and traditional Jewish world, a world that was isolated, yet strong, and where the bourgeois and “urban” sense of belonging to a particular economic class was unknown. In this idealized realm, Jewish knowledge, wisdom, generosity, and morality were the only values worth living for, while in the promiscuous and corrupt world of the town, profit and venality had become the primary guiding lights for newly assimilated Jews. At the same time, through the protagonist Malkhin, who is restoring his faith in Jewish identity after a return from his socialist illusions, Ben-Ami indicates insistently that without their own specifically Jewish territory, there could be no social solution for Jews, only national dissolution. Assimilation, he observed, was only a theoretical solution to the problem, insofar as “no assimilation happened or could happen in contemporary Europe, where there is only a shameful pretence, which has no analogue in the history of spiritual adulteration, in the name of a few pitiful, illusionary benefits.”28 Marxian socialism is seen by the writer as a delusional diasporic ideology that can neither overcome the gap between real spirituality and capitalism, nor avoid pogroms, events that reflect dominance of physical strength characteristic of the Gentile world. Ben-Ami sees the return to Jewish cohesion in a Jewish 26 In Russian the key-word ‘change’ (izmenenie) has the same root as the word ‘betrayal’ (izmena). 27 Ben-Ami. Tovarishchi. Evreiskii mir IX-X (1909): 62. 28 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod XII (1901): 118.



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land as the only possibility for realizing what is ultimately, and paradoxically, a “return in the future,” i.e. the transformation of the future into the past, where spirituality – rather than physical strength – dominates. The shtetl, in its stark opposition to the concept of town/modernity, thus symbolizes the purity of separatism itself.29 At the same time, if the shtetl is cosmopolitanism’s very antagonist, the only tools that Ben-Ami has to defend this idea are his own cosmopolitan education and his knowledge of the language used by emancipated Jews, persons who are, in his words, “slaves in freedom,” “the real anti-Semites […] the most dangerous, the most pernicious.”30 In Ben-Ami’s ideological contrast, the world appears to be divided into two realms (which reflect the traditional opposition between Jerusalem and Rome articulated by Moses Hess) – one is Jewish, spiritual, the world of Genesis, while the other is “Goy,” materialistic, a dangerous Hydra swallowing all that is natural. In point of fact, Nature herself represents a third distinct realm which exists between the other two, but which confirms the link between spirituality and beauty. Nature is a territory that exists outside of this bitter contest and seems to sympathize with the human soul and to reflect its feelings, sorrows and joys. In the manuscript tale “The Mountain Peak,” for instance, Swiss nature is also represented as anthropomorphized. The narrator, enraptured by Swiss nature at the foot of the Mont Blanc chain, happens to meet two young Russian-Jewish girls and leads them to the camp where other Russian Jews are on holiday. These girls, who aspire to become assimilated, reveal a deep antipathy toward Jewish rites, traditions, and religion, as well as toward any form of particularism and separatism. Both, however, come from very pious families. One of them, in recounting the story of her own father, describes a perfect Jewish way of life in a Northern Russian town; her father’s behavior seems so Jewish that her listeners cannot believe such devotion could still possibly exist (especially outside the Pale). The whole group falls into a feeling of nostalgic melancholy that is triggered by her story, a feeling that merges with the marvelous landscape at sunset to produce a paradoxical sense of “tormenting delights” (Ben-Ami’s story ends with the words: “It was so sweetly poignant, and so sad, so sad …”). After listening to her story, the protagonist-narrator (who represents Ben-Ami himself) and all his friends are

29 Geneva is here a negative symbol, as is also the case with Odessa in many other writings. The only exceptions are the lakeside of the former and the seacoast of the latter, where Nature overcomes human moral degeneration. 30 Ben-Ami. Gerzl’ i pervyi kongress [Herzl and the First Congress]. In Safrut. K dvadtsatiletiiu pervogo sionistskogo kongressa v Basele [On the 21th Zionist Congress in Basel], vol. II, Lev B. Jaffe (ed.), 85-95. Moscow: Safrut, 1918, 89. For an English translation see Appendix I.

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“brought so far and far away, to the near but so distant native and dear world, which we considered vanished long ago:” That world suddenly emerged from the far distant hazy past and appeared against us in all its sharpness […] And how unexpectedly odd seemed to us all this magic [Swiss; L.S.] nature all around! It seemed to be suddenly changed, assuming a new aspect, a different expression. And all these powerful Alps Chains, it seemed, were looking with wonder at us and they seemed to say: “Some absolutely strange visitors came to attend us today. We’ve been never seen such a kind of people.”31

As a result, it would seem that Switzerland has two faces: it contains both modernity, in its cities, and is thus emblematic of the “Goy” world of Rome where there is no place for Jewish identity, and Nature, with its lakes, mountains and unique greenery, a distinct and contrasting world of occasional consolation, a sort of temporary and accessible paradise. It is worth noting that Nature, in Ben-Ami’s view, is the only place where humans still have no power and where they can be accepted only in their humility and meekness. Тhe Swiss landscape is described with the same love that emanates from Ben-Ami’s descriptions of pure Russian nature surrounding the shtetl: each time his protagonist goes into raptures over Switzerland’s natural beauty, his distant Russian memories begin flowing back. In “Friends,” Malkhin says: “What harmony there is in the murmur of a rolling mountain river, […] and what disharmony in the human hubbub.”32 He later reiterates this opposition in exclaiming: “How wonderful, how beautiful is God’s world and how mercilessly tormenting, poignant and bitter is life!”33 In Ben-Ami’s cosmogony, nature is the point of contact between poetry (beauty) and childhood: for him, the poetic, the prophetic, and the childish are a single entity. In his Rousseauian, pre-Freudian idealization, nature’s purity may be equated with the purity of children, seen as existing in a relatively natural and uncorrupted state. We might take as an example Ben-Ami’s comment on Theodor Herzl: “[a] great man cannot exist without a great prophetic or poetic soul, and the latter is unthinkable without childlike purity, childlike faith.”34 In the pages devoted to Herzl and to the First Zionist Congress, Ben-Ami offers a vivid picture of the atmosphere prior to the Congress and during its opening day. He describes the exiting climate of this epoch, which he calls “historical spring31 Here and henceforth, the quotations from the tale “Na vershine gory” are translated from the unpublished Russian manuscript (stored in the aforementioned Ben-Ami archive, Givat-Ram, Jerusalem). 32 Ben-Ami, Tovarishchi, 22. 33 Ibid., 50. 34 Ben-Ami, Gerzl’ i pervyi kongress, 86.



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time,” and provides interesting details about Herzl. In 1897, on the second or third of August, Ben-Ami left Odessa as a representative for the constituency of Odessa and Nikolaev in the organization Hovevei Zion, travelling first to Vienna and then to Switzerland. In Vienna, Ben-Ami met Herzl at 9 Türkenstrasse and from the first moment they became “allies,” a relationship that lasted until Herzl’s death. After Vienna and before Basel, Ben-Ami spent a couple of weeks visiting the places “in my dear Switzerland, where I had not been for eleven years.”35 In Basel, he took a room in the hotel Zum weissen Kreuz with a view over the Rhine, while Herzl (says Ben-Ami) lodged, as is well known, at the Drei Könige. In his memoirs on the Congress, Ben-Ami gives some interesting details about Herzl on the background of two still alive emotional peaks. The first of these may be found in his description of the appearance of the first Jewish national flag, alongside which Ben-Ami recalls the banners of “the proud, free corporations [cantons, LS] of the great, miniature Switzerland” exhibited at the Second Congress.36 The second emotional peak occurs in his response to Herzl’s speech on opening day: “But what is this?” he writes, “This is not the same Herzl whom I had seen to this point, whom I had just seen late the previous evening. Before us there appeared a wondrous, splendid, regal figure [...] It seemed that the great 2,000-year dream of our people had come true, that before us stands the Messiah of the House of David.”37 These short reminiscences offer in condensed form various commentaries on Herzl found in Ben-Ami’s previous writings. In “A Voice from the Desert,”38 for instance, we find interesting reflections on Herzl’s poor knowledge of the Jewish masses, of the very Jews who were so instrumental in his project of a Jewish State. In Ben-Ami’s dichotomous world, Zion remains the spiritual mirror image of childhood and purity, the place where Past and Future merge, a place which offers to his People, if nothing else, at least what is for Jews the main value in human life: hope.39 Hence, even Herzl, alien to both the spiritual life of the Jewish shtetl and the urban misery of East European Jewry, rises in Ben-Ami’s memories above Jewish sorrow to restore hope to his People. In Ben-Ami’s view, it was not a matter of political power: Zionism could first of all restore a sense of self-respect as a necessary premise for resolving the Jewish paradox, for “importing” the shtetl

35 Ibid., 90. 36 Ibid., 92; my italic. 37 Ibid., 95. 38 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod XII (1900): 125. 39 It is no accident that Ha-tikva (‘Hope’) is the name of the Israeli anthem.

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ideal fathers’ world into a new territory, which was in fact the old country where Jews could be free to be themselves.40 If Herzl and his “Vienna Zionism” (as it was called at that time) wanted to return to the Jews their political land and restore the “Roman” ideal of fatherland, inversely, the spiritual Zionism saw no possibility of finding a mere political solution to the Jewish question. The solution, as posited by Ben-Ami in “A Voice from the Desert,” should be drastically oriented to the renewal of original Biblical and Talmudic spiritual values: Oh no, it is not possible to reconcile fire and water, earth and sky. Yes, Rome and Jerusalem are two opposite elements. Rome was founded by robbers as the place where they gathered their loot […] and this predatory element became the foundation of its rise, of its world dominance […] Oh no! Not the spirit of Jerusalem, nor the ideals outlined on Mount Zion are the foundation of the life of the European peoples, but the spirit of Rome, the ideals outlined on Mount Palatin.41

This kind of dichotomy is hence the fil rouge through all of Ben-Ami’s works, including his Swiss prose. The nostalgic memory of the lost time in “non-Russian Russia” (fiction) merges with the restorative hope for a future for the past (the essay on Herzl). Nevertheless a paradox is still evident. The past to be restored is not the historical Apollonian time of Jewish political independence and power, but the dying world of the shtetl, where spiritual dignity, faith, and hope coexisted with poverty, discrimination, and foreignness.

Ben-Ami’s Longing for a Jewish Shelter in the Light of New Criticism Ben-Ami’s writings are a mirror not only of the writer’s Weltanschauung, but also of the overall deep split in Jewish thinking during the nineteenth and twentieth 40 An additional argument in favor of this interpretation could be the transparent allusion of the fictional hero’s surname Malkhin to a real person – David Makhlin (1879-1952), a forgotten, but very active representative of the Bund in Switzerland (he officially joined the bundist movement in 1901, arrived in Zurich in 1904, was arrested in 1906 in Berne, and sent back to Russia; he died in a Stalinist camp). The fact that in Ben-Ami’s story Malkhin’s little son has the name David seems to be no coincidence (from the middle of the story the heros name is written as Molkhin). See also Mayoraz, Sandrine. “Bundistische Hochburg.” Der Allgemeine Jüdische Arbeiterbund in Bern. In Geschichte der Juden in Stadt und Region Bern, René Bloch, Jacques Picard (eds.). Zurich: Chronos, 2014 (forthcoming). 41 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod X (1900): 138.



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centuries. At the beginning of the twentieth century, after the so-called “great pogroms” and the Dreyfus affair, it was impossible for Jews to avoid positioning themselves along the spectrum, which goes “from the tormented Jewishness to the Jewish pride,”42 but whatever the position, the result was contradictory. If a significant part of the ideologically active Jews saw in cosmopolitanism and socialism the very peculiarity of Jewishness, considering Zionism an anti-historical absurdity, their counterpart considered Zionism (or other forms of territorialism) the only possible escape not only from permanent persecutions, but also from the paradox of a cosmopolitan-national identity. The Zionist paradox was in the attempt of Jews to appropriate the very distant concept of the ‘nation’ as developed in European culture in order to defend the idea of their specific Jewish nationalism. But the same paradox was also to be found in Marxism and socialism that had been promising a new world without armies and boundaries, but also without Judaism. Jewish paradoxicality was due to a basic impossibility: being a People like all the other ones (i.e. having their own land), but also being able to preserve the specificity and identity acquired during centuries in the diasporic community (i.e. preserving a deep sense of relativity and cultural flexibility). Yuri Slezkine’s monograph The Jewish Century offers a new interpretation of this impasse, based on the analysis of the role of Jewish culture in twentieth-century history. Slezkine claims that two opposite cultural fields have determined the features of modern European history: the Apollonian one, which in Hess’s symbolism means the position of Rome, and represents strength, power, the army, territory; and the Mercurian one, which opposes the powerful Apollonian, nationalist realm with the only weapons at its disposal: intelligence, words, concepts. But, as presented by Slezkine, this opposition was contradictory: powerful abstract knowledge instead of a concrete army “was a weapon of weakness and dependence. Hermes needed his wit because Apollo and Zeus were so big and strong.”43 In Slezkine’s words, Jewish nationalism was “trying to transform Mercurians into Apollonians,”44 but this transformation in establishing Jewish national identity necessarily meant losing the culture. On the other hand, the Bundist and social-democratic movements required their activists to fight for equality of rights, and to subordinate Jewish identity to socialist ideals: they would be equal, but not Jews anymore, or at least not first of all Jews. Finally, the third solu-

42 Weill, Claudie. Les Cosmopolites. Socialisme et Judéité en Russie (1897-1917). Paris: Editions Syllepse, 2004, 154-155. 43 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 29. 44 Ibid., 269.

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tion, colonization, i.e. “the transformation of Jews into Americans” required “the transformation of revolutionaries into convalescents.”45 Anyway, what distinguished Jewish Mercurianism from Apollonian stability was a national identity founded on exportable values, and compatible with its essential “ubiquity.” The Jewish culture was basically a “nomadic” culture,46 where ideas, words and rites had been working for centuries as a reference point in place of a concrete territory: “A People having no own land to live on and wandering all over the world with a suitcase, in that suitcase can cultivate philosophy, literature and even music […]”47 For this reason Ben-Ami thought that no land could become a Jewish State if not founded on a specific Jewish culture, i.e. on traditions and values which had for so long been the counter values of bloody European nationalism (ironically-bitterly defined in Romain Gary’s first novel the Education européenne, the ‘European education’). Ben-Ami dreamt of a Jewish State having Talmud instead of weapons and rabbis instead of generals. This representation, as a literal application of Hess’s above-mentioned opposition between Rome and Jerusalem, became, together with all its naïveté, the foundations of spiritual Zionism, the traditionalist wing of “Palestinophilia” promoted by Ben-Ami and Ahad Ha’am (its main theorist).48 Ben-Ami thought of Jerusalem-Zion as the mirror-image of his own poetically idealized childhood in the shtetl, a place where Jewish values – first of all peace (shalom) – would be the sole reference points.49 In spiritual Zion, violence and intolerance (the “European education”) should have no place; the old-new Jewish country should be consistent with the heritage of true Jewishness. If the People of the Book stopped travelling in their own, autochthonous direction, if they imitated their enemies, if a Jewish army deafened the voice of Psalms, the comeback to Zion would make no sense: If a re-born Judaea were shown me under the guise of a modern, civilized State, with its apostolic military missions, its “thunder victories,” exultations and triumphs, I would reject it with disgust and I would prefer the worse galut to such an independence. Do you know why? Because in this kind of civilization and order, no independence is possible.50 45 Ibid., 319. At that time, Russian-Jewish immigration into Western countries was called “colonization.” 46 Ibid., 58. 47 Guberman, Igor’, Aleksandr Okun’. Putevoditel’ po strane sionskikh mudretsov [Guide-Book Through the Country of the Sages of Zion]. Saint Petersburg: Limbus Press, 2009, 66. 48 They are buried close to each other in the Trumpeldor cemetery in Tel-Aviv. 49 Ben-Ami considered homeland and peace as the main constituents of the “Jewish idea:” BenAmi. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod X (1900): 131. Cf. Salmon-Kovarsky, Simvolika Ierusalima, 145-147. 50 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod XI (1901): 132-133.



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Ben-Ami was convinced that in the new Zion, the strength of spirituality would pull the Arab neighbors in and prevail over the might of weapons: only in this way would the Jews be worthy of their destiny as the Chosen People able to welcome the Messiah, or at least to preserve their specific national distinctiveness. But Ben-Ami knew very well that the self-defense required to survive physically and would lead Jerusalem to imitate its Apollonian antagonists: Jewish spiritual independence in a Gentile world seemed a paradox in the same way as the Marxist revolution in one country in a capitalistic world. These contradictions had generated a permanent sense of longing and loneliness during Ben-Ami’s entire life: outside of dreams, in the real world, there was no Jerusalem without Rome. But outside of dreams, there was also no hope; thus, the only way to overcome the mismatch between rationality (the dimension of History) and hope (the dimension of Story) was a sort of “Zionism of narration,”51 which again seems to be an oxymoron. When Ezra Malkhin, in Ben-Ami’s Swiss story “Friends,” runs away from the shtetl to the town and goes through acculturation and socialist passion, he feels the need to break all relations with his native culture, with the shtetl, thus having no hindrance anymore in his fight “for the liberation of humankind from the killing economic and political oppression.”52 Malkhin abandons his own Story in the name of History, but nevertheless he feels that inside his heart, as to Gentiles’ faces, he remains a Jew. Ben-Ami expressed the postulate behind this conflict as early as 1901: Socialism is professed by Germans and Frenchmen, Englishmen, Italians and other European Peoples, but nobody among the leaders of the movement, whatever his nationality, will ever imagine that advocating socialism means destructing national ideals.53

Jews were indeed the only People who had to recant their identity (including their mother tongue) in order to have a role in any social fight but Zionism. This rejection meant the loss of what might be called the “right to nostalgia.” That is the reason why Ben-Ami considered socialism to be anti-Jewish, and why he needed a dream compatible with his Story, with his nostalgic melancholy (in Russian, toska). Nevertheless, in the political struggle within Jewish life, nostalgic Jews, i.e. people regarding the shtetl as their reference point, were in principle opponents of Zionism. For this reason Ben-Ami was neglected or even accused of

51 Cf. Jesi, Furio. Profilo storico-critico dell’autore e dell’opera, Introduction to I racconti dei Chassidim, by Martin Buber. Milan: Garzanti, 1985, XI. 52 Ben-Ami, Tovarishchi, 19. 53 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod VIII (1901): 97.

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fanaticism by almost all his interlocutors: he was in principle a lonely fighter, a prisoner of an illogical dream. As I argued in my previous research on Ben-Ami, and particularly in a paper devoted to Ben-Ami as a “wandering Jew,”54 none of the countries through which the writer wandered during his life – not Russia, nor Switzerland, nor Palestine – could fill the gap of the only concrete place where he psychologically and ontologically felt at home, the idealized shtetl, where he felt that Jewish values were safe. He could not accept any position that entailed the loss of his nostalgia. In The Future of Nostalgia, Svetlana Boym55 distinguishes between two different kinds of nostalgia that are in contrast to each other. “Restorative nostalgia” represents the loss of something known, concrete, be it a place, a person or a state of happiness; “reflective nostalgia” represents the elusive feeling of something lost which is neither concrete nor clearly known. In this second case the very possibility of restoration is in fact nonsensical (it is not possible to restore what has never been). Boym argues that the feeling of reflective nostalgia generated most of twentieth-century culture.56 In the case of Ben-Ami, who is basically a nineteenth-century writer, nostalgia should be understood as a mental state in between Boym’s two typologies. Ben-Ami was not yet able to elaborate at a deep level the mourning for “the irreversibility of time and unrepeatability of experience.”57 His sense of loss never turned into the “ironic inconclusive and fragmentary” style58 which “has less connection to the outside world”59 and is typical of twentieth-century Jewish literature. Particularly in his essays, Ben-Ami remained faithful to the restorative approach to nostalgia represented by Zionism. However, his fictional writings, with their dominance of empathy and spleen, show a tendency to overcome his restorative dogmatism: even in those writings where his nationalism apparently seems an unavoidable postulate in his discourse, melancholy acts in his remembering as a trigger of reflectiveness, erasing the boundary “between political nationalism and cultural intimacy, which, after all, is based on common social context, not on national or ethnic homogeneity.”60 Although the writer’s discourse is conditioned by his severity, seriousness and dramatic sensitivity (which 54 Cf. Salmon, Laura. Vechnyi emigrant: Ben-Ami, russko-evreiskii pisatel’ za rubezhom [An Eternal Emigrant: Ben-Ami, a Russian-Jewish Writer Abroad]. In Russkoe evreistvo v zarubezh’e [Russian Jews Abroad], Michail Parkhomovsky (ed.), 102-117. Jerusalem: Parkhomovsky, 1998. 55 Boym, Svetlana. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001. 56 All the case studies offered by Boym have to do with Russian literature and/or Jewishness. 57 Boym, The Future, 25. 58 Ibid., 50. 59 Ibid., 55. 60 Ibid., 43.



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is typical of all Russian-Jewish literature before Isaak Babel),61 his restorative dualism reflects some traits of the modern Jewish condition of ontological suspension, which are directly related to reflective nostalgia (toska). In other words, his restorative approach to the national question can also be seen more as the result of an intimate, psychological state than that of a rational political conviction. His paradoxical melancholy (toska) toward the lost world of childhood, poetry and faith (i.e. the shtetl) is not only a mere aesthetic background, but also the very engine of Ben-Ami’s poetics: “In the national ideology, individual longing is transformed into a collective belonging that relies on past sufferings that transcend individual memories.”62 The shtetl as an object of nostalgia was in fact a sort of myth, i.e. a mental chronotope existing only in the space of memory and in the time of remembering. The shtetl was related not to a Jewish territory, but to a “spiritual” or, to put it more precisely, to a socio-ideological and psychological reality. In Ben-Ami’s view, Zion should not and could not be a mere political restoration of an Apollonian Ur-land, but rather was a consolatory “reflection” (in Boym’s sense) of his inner sense of orphanage. Slezkine helps us to understand the connection between the psychological urge for a dream, on the one hand, and the concrete, real urge for a safe life, on the other. According to his theory, modernity in human culture is exactly the reflection of this Jewish paradoxicality: Deprived of the comforts of their tribe and not allowed into the new ones created by their Apollonian neighbors, they [Jews; L.S.] became the only true moderns […] It was a culture of solitude and self-absorption, a personification of Mercurian exile and reflexivity, a manifesto of the newly invented rebellious adolescence as a parable for the human condition.63

This seems to be a portrait of the protagonist of “Friends,” Malkhin, who is in many respects a perfect alter-ego of his author: the writer shares with his hero a deep hostility for the “bitter, ardent, and hopeless [...] love of repentant Mercurians for their Apollonian neighbors.”64 Ben-Ami’s internal split, hence, can be re-thought as the reflection of a mixed, hybrid nostalgia. On the one hand, he was the voice from the Apollonian Past, from the territory of History; on the other hand, he was the voice from the Poetic past, i.e. from the shtetl, which appeared “all the more radiant for having been 61 Babel is to be considered the first writer who introduced ease and humor in Russian-Jewish literature. 62 Boym, The Future, 15. 63 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 75. 64 Ibid., 141.

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extinguished.”65 This second voice was of a Mercurian (anti-Apollonian) kind, mercuriality being a synonym both of impermanence and narrative.66 In his desperate attempt to convince his opponents, his split voice became a modern manifestation of what appears as a “nostalgia for the Future.” In his dream, restorative and reflective nostalgia overlap: in spiritual Zion no Jew would feel the need to envy Apollonians – not because Jews will finally find their own Apollonian life, but because Zion would reflect the Mercurian poetics of the East European shtetl. In the future Zion the voice of Poetry would forever deafen the voice of the army, restoring the Jewishness purified from the Apollonian degeneration of European civilization. Ben-Ami’s spiritual Zionism was eventually oriented toward the “de-apollonization” of a restorative Apollonian dream. Zion is evoked as a place of restoration of reflectiveness. That is – a further paradox. The hope of spiritual Zionists was soon dissipated, because Zion was fully apollonized (there is indeed no Jerusalem without Rome), but the alternative to Palestine offered to the Jews by European civilization was Auschwitz. The only concrete place where during his life Ben-Ami ultimately found some “peace on earth” therefore remained Swiss nature, which not surprisingly always conjures up in his writings a supernatural, unworldly world. Majestic, divine, supreme, royal, regal, infinite, eternal, superior, magic spell, rapture, ecstasy – these are some of the repeated qualifiers of Ben-Ami’s descriptions of Swiss nature. It was the only “spiritual Zion” he actually encountered in his life, capable of mitigating that “Heimweh, which often stronger than sorrow moves the human soul.”67

65 Ibid., 323. 66 Ibid., 8. 67 Ben-Ami. Glas iz pustyni. Voskhod XII (1900): 126.

Ber Kotlerman

“For the Pleasure of Life in Switzerland, I Had to Start Spitting Blood” Sholem Aleichem’s Scriptwriting Debut against the Background of the Beilis Case1

Sholem Aleichem’s “Meeting” with Dickens in Lausanne From June to November 1846, the British writer Charles Dickens, accompanied by his wife, six children, four maids and a dog, rented the tranquil Villa Rosemont in Lausanne in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. The villa was located at 14 Avenue Tissot, on the shores of Lake Geneva, and commanded a view of the snowy Dents du Midi mountain. Here Dickens wrote his  The Battle of Life and began work on Dombey and Son.2 Sixty-six years later, in the summer of 1912, the Russian Jewish writer Sholem Aleichem (Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, as his name appears in his Russian passport, 1859-1916) rented a room in the same Villa Rosemont. He had no idea that the famous Dickens, whose stories he had so enjoyed in his youth, once lived there. It was not the spectacular views of the mountains and lake that attracted Sholem Aleichem to the Villa Rosemont in Lausanne, but its proximity to the surgical clinic, where his wife Olga was to undergo surgery on her leg. Here he continued work on his novel Der blutiker shpas (‘The Bloody Jest’).3 His son-in-law Yitzhok Dov Berkowitz (1885-1967), himself a gifted Hebrew and Yiddish writer, later recalled how, on a summer’s day in 1912, he visited Sholem Aleichem in his quiet pension in Lausanne. They went into a small garden and sat down at a round garden table. 1 The author wishes to thank the staff of the Tel Aviv Beth Shalom-Aleichem (Sholem Alei­chem House, hereinafter BSA), of the New York YIVO Institute, and of the Hebraic Section, African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., for their help while working on the papers of Sholem Aleichem used in the preparation of this article. 2 Watts, Alan S. The Life and Times of Charles Dickens. London: Studio Editions, 1991, 11-28. 3 The word ‘Jest’ here – according to the original English translation of Ben-Zion Goldberg of the screenplay under the same name made in New York in 1915 and copyrighted by Sholem Aleichem. The translated screenplay was preserved in the BSA archives. See also Sholom Aleichem. The Bloody Hoax, trans. Aliza Shevrin. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

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This morning I sat here in this chair on which you sit now, said Sholem Aleichem, to write a bit in the sunshine. I wrote for about an hour, then decided to get up and walk, but still sat for a while in thought. What was I thinking? I remember clearly thinking about Dickens. Why Dickens all of a sudden? It seems to have been a chain of associations. I was writing a novel, then remembered Bal-Makhshoves’ letter, and this in turn made me think of Amfiteatrov’s letter – our critics, their critics. Bal-Makhshoves [pen name of Isidor Yisroel Eliashev, Yiddish publicist and literary critic from Kovno, 1873-1924] is looking for financial motives in my writing; Amfiteatrov [Alexander Amfiteatrov, Russian writer, 1862-1938] is looking for the world’s motives, he compares me to Charles Dickens… I thought that after all Amfiteatrov is a goy, a stranger. He believes, apparently, that we, the Jews, have literature on the scale of English literature, and that nothing could be easier than for us to produce a Dickens. Dickens, no less! Such scope, such breadth – as expansive as the great British Empire itself. If Amfiteatrov made even a brief visit to Warsaw and encountered there the source of our literature, if he saw these paltry penny rags, and our writers, who count themselves lucky to get a three-ruble advance fee, he would not have looked for anything other than financial motives in my work and would not have compared me with Dickens… Okay, Dickens also traveled to foreign countries, lived in Switzerland, just like me. Der khilek iz nor in dem, vos ikh, um tsu konen zikh onton dos fargenign fun zitsn in der Shvayts, hob gemuzt frier onheybn shpayen mit blut… – The only difference is that for the pleasure of life in Switzerland, I had to start spitting blood… Such were my thoughts this morning, I swear. So I sat here, lost in these thoughts, and then I looked up, like this. […] and suddenly I saw that there was a sign on the wall.4

Sholem Aleichem took Berkowitz’s hand and led him to the front of the house, where a brass plaque proclaims that Charles Dickens lived here in 1846. “How do you like this meeting sixty-six years later?” he asked with evident satisfaction. “And the whole story? It’s the finger of God, is it not?”5 Despite the apparent pleasure of “meeting” Dickens in Lausanne, the association between Switzerland and “spitting blood” in this episode reveals, in the first instance, Sholem Aleichem’s sense of the forced nature of his stay in this country, where he lived intermittently from 1906 onwards. It can also be seen as a reminder of the lung disease that prompted doctors to advise him to stay in Swiss mountain resorts. Sholem Aleichem’s daughter Marusia (Marie Waife-Goldberg) describes the “gypsy” life led by the family in those years: In time we adjusted to a sort of life that depended on climate, following the sunshine and warmth through the seasons in various lands. Winters, October through March, in Nervi, Italy; spring[s], April through May, in Lugano or Montreux, Switzerland; summers, June, July, August, in the Black Forest resorts of Southwestern Germany. September was a problem 4 Berkovitsh, Yitskhok-Dov. Undzere rishoynim: zikhroynes-dertseylungen vegn Sholem-Aleykhem un zayn dor. Vol. 5. In shturem [Our Classics: Memoirs and Stories about Sholem Aleichem and His Generation. Vol. 5. In Storm]. Tel Aviv: Hamenora, 1966, 56-57. 5 Ibid., 57.



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month, spent, according to the weather, in one of these places. Everywhere we were only temporary residents, living in rented furnished quarters, or en pension strangers in a foreign land, without the possibility, reason, or desire to become part of any place. Only the mail, letters, newspapers, periodicals, books, connected us with our own world, which remained Russia and the Jewish communities elsewhere. The arrival of the mail was the great event in our life, the echo of the real world, where people were rooted in their own soil, contending, struggling, with achievement or frustration. Ours was a life in a hothouse, nurturing a precious flower that could not withstand the winds outside. […] This irregular sort of existence normalized itself for us almost into a routine.6

With respect to geography, Marusia defined the life of their family as taking place “in and around Switzerland,”7 stressing a certain centrality of Switzerland. The other children probably also saw it this way: Sholem Aleichem’s eldest son Misha attended the University of Lausanne, and the younger Numa went to elementary school there. For the writer himself, whose “own world remained Russia,” this centrality meant that Switzerland served as a kind of a transit station, useful only for changing from one train to the next. He did so, in fact, with startling frequency. His final year in Central Europe, from the summer of 1913 to the summer of 1914, was spent on the move and is the clearest illustration of this. In that year he spent summer in Wiesbaden and its environs and the second half of the fall in Berlin, and celebrated the New Year (1914) in Paris. From there he went on to Liège and Antwerp, and spent late winter and early spring in the Italian town of Nervi. The family remained in Lausanne almost all of this time, with the writer making a brief appearance “home” before finally leaving Switzerland in April 1914. His health had improved noticeably, after constant illness and a nervous breakdown in the winter of 1912-1913. Marusia observed that “the more his condition improved, the more restless and fidgety he became.”8 This time Sholem Aleichem’s concern resulted in a new venture – a movie. It was in Lausanne, during these short periods of rest between trips in 1913-1914, that Sholem Aleichem wrote a number of scripts for silent films.

6 Waife-Goldberg, Marie. My Father, Sholom Aleichem. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, 255. 7 Ibid., 262. 8 Ibid., 261.

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Sholem Aleichem’s Little Known Debut as a Scriptwriter: The Bloody Jest In the spring of 1913 Sholem Aleichem had been received in Berne by the renowned Swiss clinician Hermann Sahli. Professor Sahli confirmed that Sholem Aleichem’s lungs were now clear and he could go wherever he wanted, even home to Russia. He felt “like a prisoner released from a long confinement.”9 Russia (which he had been planning to visit on a reading tour since at least 1912) was a matter of great importance: The main point of his remark about “spitting blood” was undoubtedly the impossibility of returning. The writer had left his homeland at the height of the anti-Jewish pogroms. He witnessed them first-hand in the autumn of 1905 in Kiev, where the shameful “Beilis case” was now unfolding.10 It was the story of Beilis, who was accused of the ritual murder of a Christian boy, that Sholem Aleichem addressed in the novel The Bloody Jest and later transformed into a screenplay. The novel The Bloody Jest, written mostly in Switzerland, was published in installments throughout 1912 in the Warsaw Yiddish newspaper Haynt (‘Today’).11 The “attack” on Sholem Aleichem by the above-mentioned literary critic from Kovno, Bal-Makhshoves, was in connection with this novel. Bal-Makhshoves accused the writer of recycling the cheap journalistic reports from the Mendel Beilis ritual murder trial in Kiev, which had been widely reported in Russia and abroad since 1911. Sholem Aleichem, who was deeply hurt by this accusation, had been trying to lend legitimacy to his writing by having a Russian translation of this novel published in Russia. “I dare say,” he wrote to Vladimir Korolenko (18531921), the writer and editor of the liberal St. Petersburg journal Russkoe bogat­ stvo (‘The Russian Treasures’), “that if a book were to appear some day refuting persuasively this absurd vestige of the Middle Ages, which suits the taste of our homegrown primitive ‘patriots’ so well, then that book would be my novel.”12 Unfortunately, censorship caused the “Russian plan” to fail. After the beginning of the trial in May 1913, however, the subject of Beilis was addressed in the fictional and stylized correspondence between Menachem-Mendel and 9 Ibid., 263. 10 Beilis, Mendel. Blood Libel: The Life and Memory of Mendel Beilis, Jay Beilis, Jeremy Simcha Garber, Mark S. Stein (eds.). Chicago (IL): Beilis Publishing, 2011. 11 The publication of Der blutiker shpas: an oysergeveynlekher roman began in Haynt on January 13 (26), 1912, and ended on December 31, 1912 (January 13, 1913). 12 Sholem Aleichem’s letter to Korolenko, November 23, 1912 (Russian). In Sholom-Aleikhem. Sobranie sochinenii, T. 6 [Collected Works, Vol. 6], 669 (No. 122). Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura, 1974.



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Sheine-Sheindel in the series of Menakhem-Mendl stories13 whose publication Sholem Aleichem began in the period 1892 to 1903 and resumed in the pages of Haynt in the latter half of 1913.14 It seems that in this context Sholem Aleichem began also to think about his new passion – cinematography. Sholem Aleichem was clearly attracted to cinematography as a new and exciting sphere of creativity. As Berkowitz recalled in his memoirs, Sholem Alei­ chem was “a big admirer and trembling worshiper of the cinema” from at least the beginning of the 1910s.15 This contrasted with the predominant opinion of the time in East European Jewish circles. Thus in 1913 the Warsaw author Zalman Vendrov wrote the following passage, not concealing his sarcasm: Tolstoy and Shakespeare, Heine and Börne, Edison and Marconi […] In their best years they were never as popular as Max Linder. […] Of what worth is the work of a writer, an artist, a learned inventor, in comparison with the work of which Max Linder is capable? Max Linder can jump from the fourth floor, swallow swords, shave with scissors and have a haircut with a razor blade, dance the tango and walk on his hands, eat baby birds and a moment later spit them out alive, ride in a car and suddenly take off in an airplane, leap out a window right into the sea and take a ride on himself.16

Sholem Aleichem’s receptiveness to new trends can perhaps be attributed to the fact that for many years he lived far from most cultural institutions and literary circles of the East European Jewry, detached from the dictates of high culture. To all appearances, the transformation of The Bloody Jest into a screenplay began in the German city of Wiesbaden in the summer of 1913. The writer had moved here from Lausanne with the family for spa treatments. Sholem Aleichem completed his first film script in Lausanne in October 1913. According to Berko­ witz, it was written “especially for Germany,”17 which seemed to him to be the best place for it – cinematography was developing there at an unprecedented pace, and it was beyond the reach of the Russian censor. In October 1913 Sholem Aleichem came to Berlin with the German translation of The Bloody Jest and contacted Rudolph Schildkraut (1862-1936), a famous actor at the Deutsches Theater who performed under the direction of Max Reinhardt. Schildkraut had recently 13 Sholem-Aleykhem. Menakhem-Mendl. In Ale verk fun Sholem-Aleykhem [The Complete Works of Sholem Aleichem], vol. X, 11-219. New York: Folksfond, 1918. 14 See, for example, Sholem-Aleykhem. Brivlekh tsu Menakhem-Mendil fun Sheyne-Sheyndil zayn vayb [Letters to Menakhem-Mendel from His Wife Sheine-Sheindel]. Haynt, September 23 (October 6), 1913. 15 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 82. 16 [V. N. Drof]. Der kinematograf (fun der vokh) [The Cinema (of the Week)]. Haynt, November 29 (December 12), 1913. 17 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 93.

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made his cinematic debut in Der Shylock von Krakau (‘Shylock from Krakow’),18 which was shot in Krakow in the summer of 1913 by Berlin’s Union film studios.





Figure 35: Sholem Aleichem in Lausanne, October 1913, amateur photo by the writer’s son Misha.

As Berkowitz recalled, “Sholem Aleichem counted heavily on Schildkraut acting in The Bloody Jest in the role of David Shapiro, the Jewish stockbroker from Kiev in whose home the Russian student Popov becomes acquainted with Jewry and Jewish problems.”19 The figure of Shapiro is depicted rather superficially in the novel, and is in no way central. However, in the subsequent 1914 theatrical adaptation of the novel Shver tsu zayn a yid (‘It’s Hard to Be a Jew’), Shapiro becomes the protagonist. It is possible that when he first set out to increase Shapiro’s prominence in the tale, Sholem Aleichem’s intention was simply to interest Schildkraut in the project. Nevertheless, as he worked on the script he shifted the accent in other areas as well. One example of this is the Passover seder scene. It is mentioned only in passing in the novel, but is fleshed out in detail in the Russian-lan18 Ball, Robert Hamilton. Shakespeare on Silent Film: A Strange Eventful History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968, 164-165 and 344. 19 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 93.



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guage screenplay Krovavaia shutka (‘The Bloody Jest’) found in the archives of the Sholem Aleichem House in Tel Aviv and never published. By accentuating this characteristic national ritual, Sholem Aleichem was consciously moving away from the comic aspect of The Bloody Jest and heightening the dramatic tension. In doing so, it was as if he were tailoring it to Schildkraut’s predominantly tragic theatrical persona. On the whole, Sholem Aleichem’s first attempt at writing a film script remained as close as possible to the text of the novel. His approach to cinema can best be characterized as “intuitive.” It was natural for him to obtain his ideas about cinematography from first-hand impressions of numerous films. This is evidenced, for example, in Sholem Aleichem’s letters to Mendel Vorkel – (1878 - after 1948), an actor in the amateur Yiddish theater of Riga. The latter acted as intermediary in exchanges between the writer and Riga-based filmmaker Semen Mintus (?-1952) from 1913 to 1914. In December 1913 Sholem Aleichem asked Vorkel: “Does he [Mintus] have a boy actor, twelve to thirteen years old? (Someone like ‘Willie’?) I have a big comic role for him based on all twenty-two stories about Motl, the son of Cantor Peisi!”20 With the words “Someone like ‘Willie’,” the writer described the type of youth he would like to see in the movie based on one of his screenplays and adapted from the first part of the series Motl Peyse dem khazns (‘Motl, Peisi the Cantor’s Son’).21 The films being shown in 1913 in Swiss movie theaters reveal that “Willie” was the popular actor and child prodigy Willie Sanders (or Willy Saunders, 19061990) – the “little cinema rascal,” Der kleine Kino-Bengel, to quote the contemporary Swiss cinema journal Kinema22 – who played in numerous films by the French company Éclair. In 1911-1916 Willie featured as the hero of about seventy (!) series, acting in all kinds of comic situations.23 From Sholem Aleichem’s letters one gets the impression that he imagined his Motl as a kind of uniquely Jewish response to the new French fashion of producing films with child stars. Indeed, the serial nature of the Motl stories – whether they involved preparing ink, selling kvass (a Russian soft drink), or trapping mice – with the young protagonist being virtually the only connecting element – made them well suited to the format of 20 See Tsinberg, Yisroel, Shmuel Niger (eds.). Tsum ondenk fun Sholem-Aleykhem [In Memory of Sholem Aleichem]. Petrograd: Y. L. Perets-fond, 1917, 122 (No. 4). The letter is dated December 21, 1913. 21 Sholem-Aleykhem. Motl Peyse dem khazns. Ershter teyl [Motl, Peisi the Cantor’s Son. Part One]. In Ale verk fun Sholem-Aleykhem [The Complete Works of Sholem Aleichem], vol. XVIII, 9-292. New York: Folksfond, 1920. 22 See, for example, Frankreich. Kinema 19 (May 10, 1913): 12. 23 On successful French series starring children, see Crafton, Donald. Comic Series. In Encyclo­ pedia of Early Cinema, Richard Abel (ed.), 210. London & New York: Routledge, 2005.

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the French child star serials such as the seemingly endless series of Willie films: Willie and the Poor Peasants, Willie and the Gendarmes Engage in Sport, Willie Prefers Liberty to Wealth, and so on.24 As he never took part in the actual shooting of a film, Sholem Aleichem took little advantage of the possibilities of the movie camera and the effects it could produce. He imagined that the shooting of the film would take place for the most part frontally, with a stationary camera. The only effect he used in his first film script, The Bloody Jest, was the “flashback.” The hand that frequently appears on the screen displaying various words, and the letters, books, and so on presented in close-ups, constantly link the sequence of frames to the original text of the novel. The illustration from the Passover Haggadah in which Abraham raises his hand with a knife over Isaac appears on the screen three times and becomes the distinctive compositional climax of the film, symbolizing the Russian authorities’ total lack of understanding of the essence of Judaism and the absurdity of the blood libel. In Berlin, actor Rudolph Schildkraut led Sholem Aleichem to the film company Union, but hopes of producing a film adaptation of The Bloody Jest were soon dispelled: Several weeks of nervous expectation and agitated hopes went by, but this dream ended […] in nothing. The German film director replied that although this little piece was very interesting and well adapted for the screen, it was impossible to screen it in Germany because of censorship: The German government would not allow the production of a film that blackened the name of Russia, especially at this time, when relations between the two countries were strained.25

Sholem Aleichem received Union’s rejection just days before the sensational conclusion of the Beilis trial in Russia. The verdict, fully acquitting the accused, was delivered on the evening of November 10, 1913. The Russian Jewish colony in Berlin marked this event in the popular Café des Westens on the Kurfürstendamm in Charlottenburg. Sholem Aleichem, too, was there, “crying for joy.”26 Against this background, Berkowitz states specifically that the refusal to produce The Bloody Jest in Berlin did not especially disturb Sholem Aleichem.27 However, Berlin disappointed him. A few months earlier, in July 1913, Sholem Aleichem had informed the Baku oil magnate Shmuel Shriro (whom he met in Lausanne 24 For Willie Sanders’ filmography, see http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0761759/ (accessed on March 14, 2013). 25 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 93. 26 Ibid, 95. 27 Ibid, 93.



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and was trying with all his might to win over as patron) of his intention to move to Berlin. “I am dying to be in Berlin by the end of the summer, in order to settle in there with my family for the winter. I am bored to death by Switzerland, and especially Lausanne, which after your departure became a dead city, a cemetery.”28 Now, after his unsuccessful attempt to collaborate with the Berlin film company Union, he decided that his permanent address for the time being would remain “deathly boring” Lausanne. It was there, away from the bustle of big city life and the literary community, that he was free to think about his future plans and indeed to realize some of them.

New Cinematic Vision: From The World Is Going Backwards to the Old Kasrilevke Protagonists In 1913-1914 Sholem Aleichem approached various filmmakers in Germany, the United States, the Russian Empire (including Poland and Latvia), and France, mostly from his base in Lausanne. These contacts yielded no tangible results, but the writer left behind several film scripts in Russian as well as in Yiddish and German translation.29 Some have been lost, and only one was ever published.30 Rather than deterring him, the rejection of his first film script by the Germans in November 1913 most probably inflamed his interest in cinematography even more. Immediately following the celebration in Berlin of Beilis’ liberation, Sholem Aleichem had the idea for a new film script: I will debut with one splendid piece, a new one. I have in mind something that has not yet appeared in my writings. God Himself has commanded that I make my debut with this piece exclusively for the screen. It has many very plastic scenes, genuinely humorous, both Jewish and non-Jewish. […] The only thing that needs to be done is to act it out and capture it on film.31 28 Sholem Aleichem’s letter to Shriro, July 23, 1913 (Yiddish). In Briv fun Sholem-Aleykhem, 18791916 [Sholem Aleichem’s Letters, 1879-1916], Avrom Lis (ed.), 577 (No. 676). Tel Aviv: Beyt Shalom-Aleykhem & Y.-L. Perets-farlag, 1995. 29 See Kotlerman, Ber (Boris). ‘In kinematograf ligt a groyse tsukunft’ oder Sholem-Aleykhems letste libe [‘The Cinema Has a Great Future,’ Or the Last Love of Sholem Aleichem]. Afn shvel 350-351 (2011): 13-18. 30 The fact that some film scripts were preserved in the BSA archives in Tel Aviv was noted for the first time in the bibliographical guide Shmeruk, Hone. Shalom-Aleykhem – madrikh le-hayav u-le-yetsirato [Sholem Aleichem – A Guide to His Life and Works]. Tel Aviv: Porter Institute for Poetics and Semiotics, 1980, 74. 31 Sholem Aleichem’s letter to Vorkel, November 1 (14), 1913 (Yiddish). In Sholem-Aleykhem:

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Figure 36: The first version of Sholem Aleichem’s screenplay Di velt geyt tsurik written in Lausanne and published in the New York Yiddish weekly Der amerikaner, December 26, 1913.

zamlung fun kritishe artiklen un materyaln [Sholem Aleichem: A Collection of Critical Articles and Materials], 265-266 (No. 42). Kiev: Melukhe-farlag far di natsyonale minderhaytn in U.S.S.R., 1940.



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What “splendid piece” did Sholem Aleichem have in mind that was not related to his previous literary activity? Practically all of the film scripts by Sholem Alei­ chem mentioned anywhere in the available sources are adaptations of already existing works. The sole exception is the short screenplay printed in the writer’s collected works in Yiddish under the title Di velt geyt tsurik (‘The World Is Going Backwards’), described by the author as “Cinema-Fantasy for Hanukkah.”32 This screenplay was written in early December 1913, when Sholem Aleichem returned from Berlin to Lausanne. During Hanukkah of 1913, the New York Yiddish weekly Der amerikaner (‘The American’) published the screenplay.33 This publication was the first public testimony to Sholem Aleichem’s interest in cinematography.34 Immediately following this, a slightly improved version was published by the Parisian Der nayer zhurnal (‘The New Journal’),35 under the editorship of the Yiddish poet from Poland Avrom Reyzen. Unlike The Bloody Jest, The World Is Going Backwards is not what we would now consider a screenplay, but rather a synopsis with an ideological message. It consists of four segments linked by one unifying idea: The lighting of Hanukkah candles by three generations of the Veirakh family, a wealthy Russian-Jewish clan. The family’s name means “incense,” which further contrasts the Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony to the Christian celebration of Christmas. This is how Sholem Aleichem imagined high-quality Jewish cinema: as an art form based on authentic cultural codes that were intelligible to the nationally-oriented Jewish public. In the first part of the script, the candles are lit by Avrom (Abraham) Veirakh; in the second, by his son Itskhok (Isaac); and in the fourth, by his grandson, Yashenka (Jacob). The fact that the protagonists have the same names as the forefathers of the Jewish people is intended to put the audience on the right interpretive track. Between the second and the fourth sections, the action moves to the nursery, away from the Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony, where a Christian nursemaid has been instructed by the child’s mother to hold little Yashenka. This is because the assimilated parents light the candles only for the sake of the aged grandfather, and there is no need for prejudices to be “kindled” in the grandchild. The decorated Christmas tree in the nursery represents an alternative. 32 Sholem-Aleykhem. Di velt geyt tsurik [The World Is Going Backwards]. In Ale verk fun SholemAleykhem [The Complete Works of Sholem Aleichem], Vol. XXIII, 189. New York: Folksfond, 1921. 33 Sholem-Aleykhem. Di velt geyt tsurik [The World Is Going Backwards]. Der amerikaner, December 26, 1913. 34 See Kotlerman, Ber. Sholom Aleichem, the Yiddish author who flirted with screenwriting. Haaretz – Herald Tribune, February 17, 2012. 35 Sholem-Aleykhem. Di velt geyt tsurik [The World Is Going Backwards]. Der nayer zhurnal 1 (January 2, 1914): 2-3.

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However, in the following (fourth) scene, which takes place after the grandfather has died, the student Yasha revives the ancient tradition. The astonished mother shrugs her shoulders, throws her hands in the air, and cries: “The world is going backwards! […] Who knows what else we’ll live to see?”36 Still using the style of the old magic lantern presentations, Sholem Aleichem already intuitively sensed the change brought by motion pictures, and wanted to reflect this new relationship between the written word and the on-screen image. Moving away from the written text, Sholem Aleichem time and again fills the atmosphere with elements of the Jewish “national spirit,” thereby revealing a definite esthetic program. Serving contrapuntally as the connecting link between the generations in all the scenes is a large and finely wrought silver khaneke lempl, a Hanukkah menorah (nine-branched candelabrum), clearly of venerable age, with two lions at its base and strange birds with their heads turned outwards at the top. This candelabrum placed by the door sets the tone for the whole film and as such functions in the same way as the illustration from the Passover Haggadah portraying Isaac’s sacrifice in The Bloody Jest. For further visual effect, the old-fashioned decor of Avrom Veirakh’s home is full of stage props that will be very familiar to a Jewish audience: old goblets among silver and gold utensils, a dried-up myrtle branch left over from the recent Sukkoth holiday, portraits of Jewish sages on the walls. The latter are juxtaposed with portraits of Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I of Russia, symbolizing both the progressiveness and the patriotism of the owners. On the child’s head is a yarmelke (skullcap) embroidered with gold threads; in the background is a Hasid, the child’s melamed (tutor), in a long satin kapote (coat) and fur kapelyush (cap). The first part of the script concludes with an image that strikes a powerful national chord: The traditional Hanukkah dreydl (top) appears on the screen, spinning, showing all its four sides with the Hebrew letters “nun,” “gimel,” “hei,” and “shin.” In the second part, the home, which now belongs to the son, Isaac Abramovich, has been renovated and – very symbolically – the portraits of the rabbis have been replaced by modernist paintings. Later, in the fourth part, the modernist paintings will be replaced again by a portrait of the grandfather in a black frame, conveying an unmistakable message: The grandson has returned to the traditions of his ancestors. Further on in the text the reactions of the parents’ guests are described. Some are surprised by Yashenka’s behavior, while others are quite pleased: “So the Veirakh boy is a Zionist!”37

36 Ibid., 3. 37 Ibid.



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Sholem Aleichem evidently had the Beilis trial on his mind the whole time, and at first he tried to create a connection between the new film script and this current event. As mentioned above, on the eve of Hanukkah he sent the first version of this script to Der amerikaner, the popular weekly supplement on science, art, and literature of the conservative New York Yiddish newspaper Mor­ gen-zhurnal (‘The Morning Journal’). At the last minute, Sholem Aleichem asked to make several changes to the “picture.” The following is of particular interest: “[…] has been written there in capital letters: ‘BEILIS IS TO BLAME.’ Delete this and put instead: ‘YASHA BLESSES THE HANUKKAH CANDLES.’”38 Ultimately, Sholem Aleichem decided to refrain from drawing any parallels with the Beilis trial and its favorable conclusion. Perhaps he took into consideration remarks made by the above-mentioned Russian writer Alexander Amfiteatrov regarding the outcome of the case. The occasion was Amfiteatrov’s reply to the congratulations Sholem Aleichem sent out to many people with whom he corresponded. Amfiteatrov, who, like Sholem Aleichem, had been living in exile for many years in the small northwestern Italian town of Vezzano, dampened Sholem Aleichem’s ardor somewhat in his return letter: That it could be worse, in this you are, of course, correct. But it should have been better, and to tell the truth, I secretly hoped that it would be better – I say this openly and consider the clamor of delight to be excessive. […] I am very much afraid of the influence of this affair on the mentality of the masses. I have apprehensions that I dare not express in the press.39

However, it seems more plausible that because Sholem Aleichem considered the Beilis affair to have exerted enormous influence on the mood of Jews in Russia, he decided that it was more important to depict this influence than to mention the affair itself. Enough of the sacrifice ritual: The lighting of candles on Hanukkah substitutes the Christmas tree, which was imposed by an alien culture, represented by the Christian nursemaid. In this metaphorical way, Sholem Aleichem sought to present the national awakening among Jewish youth. It would not appear that the screenplay for The World Is Going Back­ wards was written with the expectation that it would be filmed. When it was published, Sholem Aleichem had already distanced himself from its heavyhanded, pathos-fueled style, which was intended to fuse the various symbols into a complex visual continuum. The writer intuitively understood that in the motion-picture business, it would be more natural for him to go back to the pro38 Sholem Aleichem’s letter to Faller, December 10, 1913 (Yiddish), BSA, MP 6/21 (Capital letters in the original). 39 Amfiteatrov’s letter to Sholem Aleichem, November 18, 1913 (Russian), BSA, LA 28/30.

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tagonists of his archetypal shtetl Kasrilevke, the setting of many of his stories. Adapting this approach for the screen was not the easiest of tasks, especially for Sholem Aleichem’s vernacular style of writing in which the elements are carefully drawn “not from the visual perspective (not in the way things, nature, and people look), but from the acoustic, verbal point of view,” as the Soviet literary critic Meir Wiener observed.40 Whatever the case, in December 1913 Sholem Aleichem prepared at least three more screenplays, in Russian, in his working room at the Lausanne Pension Helios, this time in his distinctive sentimental, comical style: Neunyvaiushchii Tevel (‘Resilient Tevye’), Khava, Teveleva doch’ (‘Chava, Tevye’s Daughter’),41 and Pokhozhdeniia schastlivogo Motelia (‘The Adventures of Lucky Motl’).42 The subject of Beilis was tucked away in a drawer for the meantime. Now Sholem Aleichem turned to his “real-life writing” and changed his approach markedly to the emerging Jewish cinematography. As Berkowitz recalled, Sholem Aleichem already “believed fervently that here, in this new field, he would make an international name for himself.”43 Cinematography captivated Sholem Aleichem. On the “Great Sabbath,” the Saturday preceding Passover, April 4, 1914, the writer’s family celebrated in Lausanne the bar mitzvah of Numa, the youngest of the children. The married daughters Tissa and Lyalya had arrived from Berlin with their children. The elder son Misha came from the tuberculosis sanatorium in nearby Leysin, an alpine resort at the eastern end of Lake Geneva. Together with the Hebrew-language author Aaron Abraham Kabak, who also lived in Lausanne, Sholem Aleichem had reserved a separate room in a Jewish restaurant to hold the festive Passover seder meal that was to take place soon. The writer, indulging what he himself described as his perpetual “purely egoistic instinct,” always wanted to see his whole large family around him as much as possible. But this time, in view of his approaching departure for the reading trip to the Russian Empire, he was also very eager to 40 Viner, Meir. Tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur in 19tn yorhundert (etyudn un matery­ aln). Vol. 2: Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem-Aleykhem [On the History of 19th Century Yiddish Literature (Studies and Materials). Vol. 2: Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem]. New York: YKUF, 1946, 297, and Viner, Meir. Batrakhtungen vegn Sholem-Aleykhems humor [Reflections on Sholom Aleichem’s Humor]. Sovetish 12 (1941): 33. 41 See Weitzner, Jacob. Sholem-Aleichem in the Theater. Northwood (UK): Science Reviews – Lonsdale Press, 1994, 96-100. See also Weitzner, Kobi. Sholem Aleichem: Screenwriter. Yiddish 10, 1 (1995): 57-61. 42 Kotlerman, Ber. ‘Going through the Seven Circles of Hell – Joyfully, a la Motl:’ Sholem Alei­ chem’s Missing Film Script about Motl the Cantor’s Son. Jewish Quarterly Review (2013, forthcoming). 43 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 92.



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discuss with Berkowitz the subject of cinema, which could brook no delay.44 Berkowitz, however, was not able to come, as he later regretfully recalled.45 On the evening of the second day of Passover, April 12, 1914, Sholem Alei­ chem and his wife Olga left Lausanne for Warsaw to begin their long Russian journey. More than three months later, the writer and his wife left Warsaw for the small German Baltic Coast resort of Ahlbeck. They arrived there on July 24, 1914, to find the rest of their family eagerly awaiting them. The children had travelled from Lausanne with a large trunk packed full of manuscripts. This was Berkowitz’s idea – to do together some work at leisure on Sholem Aleichem’s writings for the Warsaw jubilee publication of the writer’s collected works, and perhaps also to adapt some of them into screenplays. The move proved fateful. Just over a week later, World War I broke out. As a Russian citizen, Sholem Aleichem was forced to escape to Copenhagen, Denmark, from where he emigrated to the United States. Sholem Aleichem never returned to Switzerland, and who knows if he would have been able to retrieve his archive during the turmoil of World War I?

44 See Sholem Aleichem’s letter to Berkowitz and Kaufman, April 5, 1914 (Yiddish). In Dos Sholem-Aleykhem bukh [The Sholem Aleichem Book], Yitskhok-Dov Berkovitsh (ed.), 122 (No. 126). New-York: Sholem-Aleykhem bukh komitet, 1926. 45 Berkovitsh, Undzere rishoynim, 107.

Mikhail Krutikov

Kabbalah, Dada, Communism: Meir Wiener’s Lehrjahre in Switzerland during World War I1 It may seem ironic that in the entire life of Meir Wiener (1893-1941), which was full of unexpected turns and dramatic tensions, the period of World War I was the period of calm and concentration. Wiener spent in Switzerland four formative years of his life, 1915-1919, during which he studied philosophy and literature at the Universities of Basel and Zurich, wrote critical articles for German Jewish periodicals and conducted his own research in medieval Hebrew poetry. In Switzerland Wiener maintained a wide network of connections in different circles: among Jewish religious thinkers and Hebrew scholars, cosmopolitan avant-garde artists, and Russian revolutionaries. All of them found a temporary shelter under the protection of the neutral Swiss Confederation, and after the end of the war they moved away to different parts of the new world that emerged outside Switzerland: some to Palestine under the newly established British mandate, some to the newly reconstituted states of post-war Europe, some to the revolutionary Russia. After his return to Vienna in 1919, Wiener got involved with the local groups of Hebrew and Yiddish writers. Around 1920 he moved to Berlin where, according to his sister’s account, he got an editorial job at Ullstein, one of the major German presses. In Berlin he met Soviet Yiddish writers Leyb Kvitko, Der Nister and Peretz Markish, and under the influence his interests shifted toward Yiddish and communism. Having spent about ten months in Paris in 1925-1926, Wiener decided to immigrate to the Soviet Union, where he made a remarkable career as a scholar and critic of Yiddish literature. He served as a senior researcher at the Kiev Institute for the Jewish Proletarian Culture, and moved to Moscow in 1932, where he became, in 1937, the head of the Department of Yiddish language and literature at the Moscow State Pedagogical Institute. When the department was closed down in 1938, Wiener retained a respectable position in the Soviet Writers’ Union and continued to publish his works and edit scholarly and literary collections. When Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, Wiener enlisted in the Soviet Army and was killed in action near Smolensk in the autumn of 1941. 1 I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Nicholas Block for helping me with translating from German, Ms. Sara Feldman for translating from Yiddish, to Dr. Arkady Zeltser for providing me with materials from the National Library in Jerusalem, and to Dr. Hermann Wichers, Ms. Krishna Das and Ms. Caroline Senn for providing me with the information from the city archives of Basel and Zurich.



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Today he is remembered mostly as a Marxist historian of Yiddish literature, while his literary works and memoirs in Yiddish, which were published in the Soviet Union during and after his lifetime, as well as his earlier German criticism, poetry and translations from Hebrew are largely forgotten. My intellectual biography of Wiener, From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), focuses on the Soviet period of his life, while this paper presents an expanded overview of Wiener’s life in Switzerland and analyzes the imagery of Basel and Zurich in an unfinished Yiddish novel that Wiener wrote in the Soviet Union during the 1930s.

Coming to Switzerland Wiener was born in Krakow, the old capital of Poland, which was then located in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia, into an observant middle class family with a strong traditional background, which traced its Krakow roots back to the seventeenth century. His father Zelig was a successful textile merchant with business connections in Vienna and Bohemia, and his maternal grandfather Bin­ yomin Landau was a prominent scholar of the Talmud and Kabbalah as well as an amateur architect. Wiener always took a great pride in the history of his family and its prominent role in the Krakow Jewish community. But with the time his relationships with his father became tense, and ended up in a nearly complete break up after the death of his mother in 1922. Like many other aspiring Jewish intellectuals and men of letters of that age, Wiener strongly resented the “vulgar” materialistic aspirations of the father’s generation which achieved the coveted middle-class security under the benevolent reign of the beloved Kaiser Franz-Joseph. In Krakow Wiener attended a Polish gymnasium, while his Jewish education was entrusted to the prominent Hebrew scholar Ben-Zion Rappaport, with whom he studied not only religious texts but also medieval Hebrew literature. Grandfather Landau introduced him to the Kabbalah as a teenager, trying to inoculate him from the inevitable exposure at an older age to the skeptical criticism of the Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment. On the eve of World War I the family moved to Vienna, where they settled comfortably at 60 Praterstrasse in the better-off area of Leopoldstadt, the city’s most Jewish district. The father was able to transfer parts of his business to the capital, sparing his family the misery that befell tens of thousands of less fortunate Jewish refugees who flooded Vienna fleeing the Russian advance in Galicia during the first months of the war. Accord-

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ing to the memory of Wiener’s younger sister Franzi, he was found unfit for the military service, probably due to some lung problem, and left for Switzerland to recover at the end of 1915. According to the memory of the other sister Erna, in Vienna “Meir made immediate contact with the literary world and came into the right circles. It was at that time that he met Hugo von Hofmannsthal and many other literary well-known people.”2 Yet writing in 1917 to Martin Buber Wiener described his mood in Vienna as “suffering but hoping for better days” (leidend und vertröstet).3 Erna also reports that Hofmannsthal recommended Wiener to professor Joël at the Basel University, but I have not been able to verify this fact so far. Karl Joël (1864-1934), whose father was a rabbi in Silesia and a student of Schelling, studied philosophy in Leipzig and Strasbourg, where he received his Habilitation in 1893. The same year he was invited to teach at the University of Basel, where he became an ordinary professor in 1902 and rector in 1913. His philosophical system of “New Idealism” developed the ideas of Nietzsche’s Lebensphilosophie by emphasizing a comprehensive worldview and rejecting the positivist division of philosophy into specialized branches. Introducing himself to Buber in 1916, Wiener mentioned that he was working under Professor Joël’s supervision on the topic of “specific spiritual abilities of Jews” (spezifische Geistesfähigkeiten der Juden) with reference to Joël’s book Der Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Mystik (1906).4 Wiener never completed his university studies, but his work on Jewish mysticism remained strongly influenced by Joël’s understanding of mysticism as “the driving force and source of cognition, upon which it must draw over and over again for vital renewal” (die Mystik als Trieb und Quell der Erkenntnis, aus dem sie zu lebensvoller Erneuerung immer wieder schöpfen müsse). During his early, “idealist” period which largely coincided with his sojourn in Switzerland, Wiener shared Joël’s fundamental belief that “the world must first be experienced through senses, before it can be comprehended” (die Welt musste zuerst erlebt, d. h. erfühlt werden, ehe sie erkannt wird).5 His conversion to Marxist materialism in the early 1920s coincided with the linguistic switch from German to Yiddish as his language of expression.

2 Memoir of Erna Adlersberg. Meir Wiener Archives, Manuscript Department, National Library of Israel (NLI), 1763/2, p. 3. 3 Letter from Meir Wiener to Martin Buber, June 30, 1917. Martin Buber Archives, Manuscript Department, NLI, 897/9. 4 Letter from Meir Wiener to Martin Buber, October 17, 1916. Martin Buber Archives, Manuscript Department, NLI, 897/3. 5 Karl Joël. In Die Philosophie der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Raymund Schmidt (ed.). Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1923, 91.



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The only available sources of information about Wiener’s life in Switzerland are his letters to his younger sisters Franzi and Erna, to Martin Buber, and to Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, which are preserved in the archival collections at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, the literary archive Gnazim in Tel Aviv, and at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York, as well as the police registration forms in Swiss cities. Wiener registered the date of his arrival in Basel from Vienna as December 6, 1915, and around March 1916 he moved out to Zurich.6 In both cities he registered with the police as a university student, however neither the University of Basel nor the University of Zurich have any records of his official matriculation. He probably attended classes as an external student. Between 1916-1919, Wiener resided in Zurich but traveled widely: in August-September of 1917 he visited Pontresina (canton Graubünden), and the summer of 1917 he spent in Lausanne and the village of Lutry (canton Vaud), probably on vacation; one of his letters was sent from Lugano. Judging from his letters, his financial situation became more difficult in 1918-1919, and he did not leave Zurich until his departure to Vienna on September 6, 1919.7 In one of the earliest letters he mentioned to his father that he was exploring possibilities for business contacts with local textile merchants, but since this subject was not raised again and given Wiener’s aversion to business, one can assume that nothing had come out of this attempt. In the letter Wiener described his daily schedule as fully dedicated to study: My daily schedule: getting up at 7:30 a.m., take a walk in the forest until about 10 a.m., two-three hours of working in the library (the most important thing in my discipline), about two-three hours daily in the college, four hours a week of languages, a lot of homework, a lot of walking in forests and in the vicinity. In Zurich I gave up completely on pubs and coffee houses – instead walking, rowing, etc. Meine Tageseinteilung: stehe um halbe acht früh auf, spaziere im Walde bis gegen 10 Uhr, 2-3 Stunden Bibliotheksarbeit (in meinem Fache das Wichtigste) ungefähr 2-3 Stunden täglich Colleg, 4 Stunden wöchentlich Sprachen, viel Hausarbeit, viel Spazierengehen in Wäldern und Umgebung. Kneipereien, Caffehäuser habe ich in Zürich vollständig aufgegeben – statt dessen Spazierengehen, Rudersport u.s.w.8

Writing to the younger sisters, Wiener usually assumed a didactic paternal tone, sharing little information about his life. He was concerned about their education and manners, which he tried to control in the minute detail. His idea of the “most

6 Akten der Einwohnerkontrolle. Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, PD-REG 14a 2-1 1915/J Nr. 7805. 7 Registerkarten der Einwohnerkontrolle 1901-1933. Stadtarchiv Zürich, V.E.c.100./Nr. 621-625. 8 Letter from Meir Wiener to the Parents, October 20, 1916. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Letters Collection, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, 1.

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solemn duty” (vornehmste Pflicht) of a Jewish woman reflected his Zionist convictions of that time: You are a Jewess, and the knowledge of your people and its god has to be your holiest duty. Unconditional loyalty, wholehearted love belong above all else to the people from which one descends. In addition, the belief that it is the chosen, most glorious, holy one, as well as tormented and the most subjugated – at times truly lowly. In addition to this, a belief in our holy, eternal, awesome spiritual goods, in our great men from Moses and the prophets up to Baruch Spinoza, Heinrich Heine, to the youngest of our present day. In addition, the belief in our spiritual resurrection in the land of our fathers, in Palestine. Du bist eine Jüdin und das Allerheiligste hat Dir das Wissen um Dein Volk und um seinen Gott zu sein! Unbedingteste Treue, vorbehaltloseste Liebe gehört in allererster Reihe dem Volke dem man entstammt. Dazu gehört der Glaube, dass es das auserwählte, glorreichste, heilige wenn auch gequälte und am meisten erniedrigte – zuweilen auch wirklich niedrige – ist. Dazu gehört der Glaube an unsere heiligen, ewigen, gewaltigen geistigen Güter, an unseren grossen Heroen von Moses und den Propheten bis auf Baruch Spinoza, Heinrich Heine, bis auf den jüngsten des heutigen Tages. Dazu gehört der Glaube an unsere geistige Wiederauferstehung im Lande unserer Väter, in Palästina.9

Wiener saw in Zionism a continuation of the ancient messianic tradition of Judaism, which might come to a culmination as a result of the great upheaval of the war: Zionism is supposed to be infeasible? We have learned to consider a great deal that is called impossible as quite possible and feasible. Who would have thought the world war possible? Who would have thought possible the resistance by the Central Powers to a whole world full of enemies? Anything is possible! Everything is feasible! ‘If you wish it, it is no fairy tale,’ says Theodor Herzl. Der Zionismus soll unausführbar sein? Wir haben es gelernt, sehr Vieles das als Unmöglichkeit bezeichnet wurde doch als sehr möglich und ausführbar anzusehen. Wer hätte sich den Weltkrieg möglich gedacht? Wer hätte die ungeheure Widerstandskraft der Zentralmächte gegen eine ganze Welt voll Feinde für möglich gedacht? Alles ist möglich! Alles ist ausführbar: ‘Wenn ihr wollt, ist es kein Märchen’ sagt Th. Herzl.10

The life in the diaspora, on the contrary, presented many problems, which could cause a moral, intellectual and racial degradation, and are especially dangerous for a young Jewish woman: 9 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, May 9, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E9, emphasis in the original. 10 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, March 12, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E8.



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Truly, we have fallen in many respects due to the bitterness of diaspora life, and have lost many traits of the noble race. The worst of it, however, is with the Jewish girl. […] The Jewish girl is temperamental and very intelligent, as a consequence of which, she is doubly in need of a good upbringing. She is almost completely lacking however, especially with regard to the most important part of education – morals, religion, and good behavior. And the consequences are sad. The most prominent characteristics of Jewish girls are an incredible vanity, self-indulgence, pompousness, need for attention, dishonesty, and naughtiness. She talks loudly on the street as if she were at home, behaves ostentatiously, laughs boisterously, flirts with every man passing by, no matter who he is, gaining appallingly little respect and human dignity. I often have here the opportunity to observe Jewish girls, and all of that which I am writing here corresponds unfortunately only too well to reality. When she is approached on the street by the most ill-mannered of riff-raff, she responds positively to it without any hesitation, especially if he is a non-Jew. All self-control stops and she melts into the friendliest of ingratiation, instead of rebuffing such harassment and insult, which is absolutely inadmissible in polite company. Wahrlich, wir sind in mancher Beziehung durch die Bitternisse des Diasporalebens heruntergekommen und viele Merkmale der edlen Rasse verloren. Am schlimmsten aber steht es um das jüdische Mädchen. […] Das jüdische Mädchen hat Temperament und viel Intelligenz infolgedessen ist gute Erziehung doppelt nötig; sie fehlt aber fast ganz, besonders wo es sich um den wichtigsten Teil der Erziehung handelt, Moral, Religion und gutes Benehmen, und die Folgen sind traurig. Die hervorstehendsten Charakterzüge sind beim jüdischen Mädchen eine ungeheuere Putzsucht, Genusssucht, Prahlerei, Auffallsucht, Verlogenheit und Ungezogenheit. Auf der Strasse spricht sie laut, als ob sie zu Hause wäre, benimmt sich auffallend, lacht ungezogen, koketiert [sic] mit jedem Vorübergehenden, gleichviel wer er ist und bekundet recht wenig Anstand und Menschenwürde. Ich habe hier oft Gelegenheit jüdische Mädchen zu beobachten und alldies was ich Dir schreibe entspricht leider nur zu sehr der Wahrheit. Wenn sie von dem ungezogensten Flegel auf der Strasse angesprochen wird, geht sie ohne Weiteres darauf ein, besonders wenn es ein Nichtjude ist, welchem gegenüber bei ihr jede Selbstachtung aufhört und sie zerfliesst in freundlichster Liebenswürdigkeit, statt dass sie eine solche Belästigung und Beleidigung, die gesellschaftlich absolut unzulässig ist nach Gebühr abweist.11

Wiener goes on for several more pages, criticizing in minute detail every possible fault in young Jewish women’s public behavior and appearance. As a remedy, he suggests a program of methodical study of books from a comprehensive reading list: So, now I am done with my instructions and you can have a break from teacherly letters for a long time. I would like you to read this letter carefully and want to tell you that the bibliography has been very carefully put together and has taken a lot of my effort. Be careful

11 Ibid.

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that you do not lose it as usual. You will not be getting a new one from me so soon. In my opinion, it is near exemplary. So, nun bin ich mit den Belehrungen fertig und Du wirst für lange Zeit von schulmeisterlichen Briefen Ruhe haben. Ich möchte, dass Du diesen Brief aufmerksam liest und will Dir noch sagen, dass das Bücherverzeichnis sehr sorgfältig ausgearbeitet ist und mich Mühe gekostet hat. Gib Acht, dass Du es nicht wie gewöhnlich verlierst, ein neues bekommst Du von mir sobald nicht wieder. Meiner Ansicht nach ist es geradezu mustergültig.12

The list includes works of the classical German and European canon, such as Goethe, Heine, Dostoevsky, as well as historical novels and novellas by the Swiss writers Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Gottfried Keller. Among the contemporary writers Wiener recommends Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rainer Maria Rilke. Rilke was apparently Wieners favorite: as his sister Franzi recalls in a letter to Max Weinreich, once in the early 1920s Wiener read to her a fragment in Yiddish, which turned out a translation of Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge.13 The influence of Rilke’s novel is also noticeable in Wiener’s first novel, Ele Faleks untergang (The Downfall of Ele Falek), 1923. Wiener’s interest in the historical novel led him to writing two historical novellas that were set in the seventeenth century in Krakow (Kolev Ashkenazi, 1934, 1938) and Venice (Baym mitllendishn yam [At the Mediterranean Sea], first chapters 1935; remained unfinished), the two largest Jewish communities of the Christian Europe of that time.14 The Jewish section of Wiener’s reading list included the comprehensive history of the Jewish people by Heinrich Graetz as well as the modern texts by the Zionist thinkers Martin Buber and Ahad Ha’am. Wiener revealed few details about his life and studies in Switzerland to his sisters, and when he did, it was often to provide a model for their development: In the past few years, I have learned a lot and have been reflecting even more, and learned to watch life with more discipline, seriousness, and clarity. I learned foremost strict discipline with myself, it is this which we need the most – I learned to look at things perhaps more objectively, and I would like to share my experiences with you, dear sister, my whole life. The thought saddens me that you are developing without the inner refinement and support, which I would perhaps be called upon to give you.

12 Ibid. 13 Franzi Gross memoirs. Meir Wiener Archives, Manuscript Department, NLI 1763/1, 3. 14 More on Wiener’s novels see Krutikov, Mikhail. From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expression­ ism, Marxism and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011, 143-159 and 283-309.



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Ich habe in den letzten Jahren viel gelernt und noch mehr nachgedacht und lernte strenger, ernster und reiner auf das Leben zu schauen. Lernte in erster Reihe strenge Disziplin mir gegenüber, es ist dies was wir am meisten nötig haben – lernte vielleicht auch objektiver auf die Dinge zu schauen und ich möchte Dir liebstes Schwesterlein für mein Leben gern mit meinen Erfahrungen dienen. Der Gedanke, dass Du ohne innere Veredelung und Stütze, die ich Dir zu geben vielleicht berufen wäre, Dich entwickelst macht mich traurig.15

Only occasionally would he let Erna, the elder of the two sisters, into his inner world: You are playing music a lot, what a joy that is. In the last year, I have also listened to an extraordinary amount of good music. I did not use to have much time for music, but since I made an effort to push for a deeper understanding of music (not without the help of musically trained friends, a little work, and good will), it has given me so much joy. I often listen to classical music, almost every evening. I also go to concerts. The opera here is pretty abysmal, but with a very good Tonhalle where greats like d’Albert, Busoni, Nikisch, Strauss have given concerts in the last half year. But also personally, I have made a lot of music – serious, classical music. Du musizierst viel, das ist sehr erfreulich. Auch ich habe im letzten Jahre aussergewöhnlich viel gute Musik gehört. Ich hatte sonst für Musik wenig übrig, seitdem ich aber mich bemüht habe zu einem tieferen Verständnis der Musik zu dringen (nicht ohne Hilfe von musikalisch gebildeten Freunden, ein wenig Arbeit und guten Willen) hat sie mir schon sehr viel Freude gemacht. Ich höre oft, fast jeden Abend klassische Musik, auch besuche ich Konzerte. Die Oper ist hier zwar miserabel dafür aber eine sehr gute Tonhalle wo Grössen wie D’Albert [sic], Busoni, Nikisch, Strauss im letzten Halbjahr Konzerte gaben. Aber auch privat sehr viel Musik gemacht und zwar ernste, klassische Musik.16

Active social life did not save Wiener from feeling nervous and restless: “For eight months I have had no rest, sometimes I feel really rotten; but sometimes again I am restful for a few weeks. All this makes me feel exhausted, because my sufferings make me very nervous.” (Seit 8 Monaten hatte ich noch keine Ruhe, es geht mir zuweilen ganz verflucht; zuweilen wieder habe ich für einige Wochen Ruhe. Aus diesem Grunde fühle ich mich sonst erschöpft, denn mein Leiden macht mich stark nervös.)17 He complains that bad health makes him neglect his studies, but also mentions that he is “preoccupied with other things.” The economic effects of the war are felt even in neutral Switzerland: the classes at the university stop 15 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, May 9, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E9. 16 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, March 12, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E8. 17 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, September 10, 1918. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E5.

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at 4 pm “to save coal and light.”18 As time goes by, Wiener becomes increasingly worried about his future prospects. In September 1918 he writes to his friend and Erna’s fiancé Leon Adlersberg: “Literature brings no bread, an academic career even less [...] Besides, I am Jewish, and all I can achieve with great humiliation is a position of extraordinary professor.”19

Literary Criticism, Poetry and Study of Hebrew Mysticsm In 1916 Wiener started corresponding with Martin Buber, the editor of the newly established journal Der Jude, which was soon to become the most important cultural and intellectual Jewish journal of the time. Wiener’s first piece, a review of the anthology of Hebrew legends Der Born Judas (1916) by Micha Joseph Berdyczewski, appeared in the fourth issue of Der Jude in 1917; altogether during his years in Switzerland Wiener wrote six articles for that magazine, which also became part of the introduction to his anthology of his translations from Hebrew mystical poetry Die Lyrik der Kabbalah (1920) a collection of translations from medieval Hebrew poetry. While in Switzerland, he also composed his own poetry that was inspired by his study of Jewish mysticism. Three poems formed a collection titled Messias: Drei Dichtungen which also appeared in 1920. He also wrote two critical essays on German-Jewish expressionist poets Else Lasker-Schüler and Paul Adler, as well as a number of polemical articles on Zionist politics and ideology.20 The interest in Jewish mysticism brought Wiener in contact with the circle of the charismatic Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook (1865-1935), the future Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Jerusalem, and his son, Zvi Yehuda Kook (1891-1982), a future leader of religious Zionism, who found refuge during the war years in St. Gallen. One of their most devout followers was Rabbi David Cohen (1887-1972), also known “Ha-nazir” (‘The Nazarene’), a mystical thinker and a colorful personality. A scion of a rabbinic family from a shtetl near Vilno, David Cohen studied in the famous yeshivot of Slobodka and Volozhin, but his interests in science and philosophy

18 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, November 30, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E2. 19 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, September 10, 1918. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E5. 20 For a more detailed analysis of these works see Krutikov, From Kabbalah to Class Struggle, 45-51 and 75-87. For the list of Wiener’s works written in Switzerland see the bibliography to this article.



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Figure 37: Cover of Meir Wiener’s Messias: Drei Dichtungen, published in Vienna/Leipzig (R. Löwit) in 1920. The poems were written in Switzerland.

eventually brought him to St. Petersburg and Freiburg. After the outbreak of the war he managed to escape to Switzerland from Germany, where he was briefly interned as a Russian subject. He continued his studies of philosophy and law with professor Joël at the University of Basel, where he became the leader of a group of Jewish students who gathered for philosophical and religious discussions.21 In the autumn of 1915, on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, he visited Rabbi Abraham Kook in St. Gallen. This encounter had a profound spiritual effect on 21 David Cohen describes one of the gathering in a letter to Z. Y. Kook, Harel Cohen (ed.), Dodi le-Tsvi: Meah mikhtavim ve-igrot she-hehelifu beynehem ha-rav David Kohen ve-ha-rav Tsvi Yehuda ha-kohen Kuk [To My Dear Friend Zvi: One Hundred Letters and Postcards by Rabbi David Cohen and Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook]. Jerusalem: Ariel, 2004, 10-13.

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David Cohen and made him a life-long disciple of the “master.” He became vegetarian, refused to wear leather, kept silence during the entire month of elul and until Yom Kippur, and when he spoke it was only in Hebrew. In 1922 he settled in Jerusalem and dedicated his life to the service of his master; he never left the city again until his death fifty years later.22

Figure 38: Meir Wiener’s Zurich police registration card, dated March 28, 1919.

22 Cohen, David. In Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd ed., vol. 5. Michael Berenbaum, Fred Skolnik (eds.). Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007, 13.



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Wiener probably met David Cohen in Basel before March of 1916, and they corresponded (in Hebrew) until the beginning of 1919. Only one half of that correspondence, fifteen postcards sent by Cohen from Basel to Wiener in Zurich, have been preserved in Wiener’s archives in Jerusalem.23 These postcards are the evidence of an intensive intellectual discussion of Jewish philosophy, mystical thought and Zionism that went on between Wiener and Cohen during three years. Cohen recalled their encounter in his diary: “I was approached by Mr. Meir Wiener, a young man full of religious feelings who belonged to the circle of Dr. Buber and participated in the journal Der Jude. When I visited Zurich where he lived, we had spiritual conversations during our long walks. He told me that on Shabbat he felt the presence of a new elevating spirit.”24 In a letter of January 25, 1918, to Z. Y. Kook he mentions Wiener’s “fine” essay, which appeared in Der Jude (probably “Das Wesen des jüdischen Gebets”), to which Kook responds that he hadn’t seen it yet.25 In late 1918 – early 1919 Wiener exchanged three Hebrew postcards with Z. Y. Kook himself, which reveal a deep ideological split but also a degree of personal sympathy between them. Wiener accused the “kosher world” of being “immersed in commercial concerns and empty words” and having “neither time nor need to think about distinguishing between good and bad.” The future renewal of the Jewish people will come from “non-kosher Jews:” “Torah will be restored by their hands.” Wiener argued that the meaning of the Torah was not exhausted by the old tradition that led from the Bible through the Talmud, the Midrash and the Kabbalah to Hasidism, but rather was kept alive by being constantly renewed by the everyday activity in the “tents of Shem,” by which he means the entire Jewish people. “It was difficult for me to recognize this,” admits Wiener, but in the end he became convinced that the true “holiness, kashrut and divine spirit” are to be found among the “non-kosher,” the “sinners:” “it was among them that I felt that there is God among us.” In conclusion Wiener mentioned that some of the ideas close “in spirit” to the teaching of Rabbi Avraham Kook he expressed in an article that was about to appear in the Zionist almanac Jerubbaal.26 It took Z. Y. Kook three months to respond to this postcard, for which he profoundly apologized explaining it by the pressing needs connected with his imminent departure for Palestine. Politely but firmly he disagreed with Wiener’s view of the Orthodoxy as the key reason of the sorrow state of Jews and Judaism. Like Wiener, he was aware of the “spiritual decline” in the Orthodox world, and he 23 Meir Wiener Collection. Manuscript Department, NLI, 4 1763/55a. 24 Cohen, Dodi Le-Tsvi, 75-76. 25 Ibid., 76-77. 26 Letter from Meir Wiener to Avraham Kook, January 25, 1918. Gnazim Archives, 38-A, 88182aleph.

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also appreciated the “Wertherian” spirit and national idealism of the young generation, yet for him the key to Jewish revival was the spiritual “creative thought” of the Jewish religious tradition rather than the “material audacity” of the secular camp. Z. Y. Kook blamed the deficiency of the Jewish Orthodoxy on the sad state of the Exile, which could only be remedied by the creation of an independent Jewish entity in the Land of Israel. He reiterated this idea in his second postcard, which was sent three days later; in conclusion he asked Wiener to stay in touch and send him his new publications.27 Wiener’s response was brief. He insisted that “the greatest danger for living Judaism comes from clericalism:” “I don’t see a greater enemy of the spirit of Israel than the boorishness and arrogance of the Orthodoxy.” He regarded it as a duty of every “man of Israel” to fight against these “evil-doers” who, in his view, were more dangerous than the Polish pogromists who were tormenting “our flesh,” while the Orthodox “villains” (gasim) were suppressing the “spirit of Israel,” preventing it from rising to new life.28 Wiener’s negative attitude to Orthodox Judaism reflects his ideological shift to the left, which occurred around 1917. On November 30 of 1917, three weeks after the October revolution in Russia, he wrote to Erna: “What do you say, dear sister, about the armistice with Russia? God grant that this will be the beginning of the end. Lenin, the present ‘master’ of Russia, was a familiar figure here in Bolleystrasse, poor devil, ate at the same pension where I once boarded, and spent hours every day in the reading room.” (Was sagst Du liebste Schwester zum Waffenstillstand mit Russland? Gebe Gott dass es der Anfang vom Ende werde. Lenin der jetzige ‘Herrscher’ Russlands war hier auf der Bolleystrasse eine bekannte Figur, ein armer Teufel, ass in derselben Pension wo ich mich einst verkostigte [sic] und verbracht täglich Stunden im Lesesaal.)29 Wiener lived in Zurich on Bolleystrasse above the University area, first at number 43 and then at number 40 (today these addresses belong to the University Hospital), whereas Lenin resided at 17 Spiegelgasse, below the University. In reply to Max Weinreich’s query, Franzi Gross emphasized that Wiener had considerable sympathy for communism: “I have discussed this with my sister and she said that the encounter was not so casual as you imagine; they had meals every day together in the same Pension, not only Meir and Lenin and Trotsky but all their friends. How long it lasted I do

27 Pirkey David: Hoveret le-zekher David Yosef ben Avraham Plotkin [Chapters for David: A Collection in Memory of David Yosef, the son of Avraham Plotkin]. Beit El: A. Sasson, 1993, 11-13. 28 Letter from Meir Wiener to Avraham Kook, date not clear. Gnazim Archives, 38-A, 88184aleph. 29 Letter from Meir Wiener to Erna Wiener, November 30, 1917. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir, E2.



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not know but it must have been a year or two […] when he returned to Austria, after the war, he was definitely a sympathizer.”30 Although there is no direct evidence about Wiener’s involvement with avantgarde artists in Zurich, it is likely that he met there the Polish-Jewish Expressionist artist Marcel Slodki (1892-1944), who designed the poster for the opening of the Künstlerkneipe Voltaire, later known as the Cabaret Voltaire, 1916 (located at 14 Spiegelgasse, next to Lenin’s apartment). Born in Lodz into a wealthy family, Slodki studied art in Munich and Paris, and moved to Zurich in 1915.31 Between 1920 and 1923 he lived in Berlin, working for the radical revolutionary theatre group Wilde Bühne; he settled in Paris in 1923 or 1924. Slodki’s name appears frequently in Wiener’s papers during the 1920s, and a separate notebook of 1925 contains numerous but, unfortunately, barely legible pencil notes about Slodki’s life in Paris. In letters to the Hebrew writer David Vogel from Vienna and Paris in 1925-1925, Wiener singled out Slodki as a good and reliable friend, unlike most of his other acquaintances. Slodki went back to Poland in 1937, but at the outbreak of the war he returned to France to join his wife; they were denounced to the Gestapo in 1943 and deported to Auschwitz.32

Basel and Zurich in Wiener’s Literary Imagination Years later, probably during the 1930s, Wiener turned back to his life in Switzerland in the fragments of a Yiddish novel which was to remain unfinished.33 The identity of the protagonist undergoes changes through the manuscript. In the early chapters he is a chemistry student from Galicia named Yoel Lagodny, whereas later he becomes an artist and his name changes to Slovek. Lagodny is Polish for “meek,” while Slodki means “sweet;” the name Slovek is phonetically close to Slodki. The similarity between the imaginary Lagodny and real Slodki is evident in the last part of the novel which takes place in Berlin, where Lagodny gets deeply involved in the life of the impoverished proletariat. The historian of Polish Jewish art Yoysef Sandel specifically mentions Slodki’s interest in the life of the working class and his ability to find a common language with workers

30 Letter from Franzi Gross to Max Weinreich, August 19, 1968. YIVO Archives, RG 107, Box 5, Folder Viner, Meir. 31 Registerkarten der Einwohnerkontrolle 1901-1933. Stadtarchiv Zürich, V.E.c.100./Nr. 243. 32 Jozef Sandel, Umgekumene yidishe kinstler in Poyln. Warsaw: Yidish bukh, 1957, 231-234. 33 For an English translation of an excerpt of this novel, see Appendix II.

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in different countries.34 But there are some important differences in their background: Unlike Slodki, Lagodny comes from a poor Krakow family. We first encounter Lagodny in Paris on the eve of World War I, where he studies chemistry supporting himself by selling kitschy paintings and singing in a synagogue chorus. Unable to find a professional job in France, he decides to try his luck in the Basel chemical industry: “for two weeks he was hanging about in that painfully clean, hypocritically strict city, which had 140 millionaires who lived on their inheritance, but no work for someone with real skills.” (Er hot zikh arumgedreyt tsvey vokhn in der doziker paynlekh zoyberer, tsvuyakish shtrenger shtot, vu s’hobn gevoynt 140 alt-yerushedike milionern, ober far a mentsh, vos kon take epes oyf an emesn iz dort keyn arbet nit geven).35 After two weeks Lagodny gives up on Basel and moves to Zurich, where he had a few acquaintances from his hometown. But things don’t get better there. Wiener’s vivid and sarcastic picture of Zurich betrays his own attitude to the city where he spent three formative years of his life: And only there, in the lovely Zurich, which has so much serene and quaint beauty for the rich people who come to Switzerland to spend their time and money – it was there that he suffered true need. He starved for nearly three-quarters of a year. Is there another city that can compare with Zurich in its beauty? The wonderful Zürichsee, surrounded by beautiful mountains, forests around the city with its old quiet medieval streets and footpaths between mountains and valleys, with its noble dignity, enamored of everything there is to buy, with its multitude of rich people, with its distinguished modern educational institutions, with its rare libraries, and with its old established customs: when a citizen of Zurich dies, the city makes him a funeral for free. That is, one has the right to request six coaches from the city. But if perchance one wants a seventh, then he must pay for the entire funeral. “Concubinage” is forbidden: if someone lives with a woman without registration, he is called to the police station; actresses and dancers are listed in the register of suspected persons. The people are honest, sound, polite, businesslike, friendly, and hypocritical. Dozens of churches. One must pay taxes for churches of all faiths, and there are more and more of such fine customs. Ober dort ersht inem sheynem Tsirikh, vos hot azoyfil sheynkayt ruike, alt-oysgepeshtshete far di raykhe layt, vos kumen keyn Shvayts oysbrengen zeyer gelt un tsayt – dort ersht hot er gelitn di emese noyt. Er hot gehungert kimat dray fertl yor. Tsi iz do nokh a shtot, vos kon zikh mit ire sheynkaytn farglaykhn mit Tsirikh! Di vunderlekhe Tsirikh-zee arumgeramt mit sheyne berg, mit velder arum der shtot, mit uralte shtile geslekh mitlelterlekh, stezhkes fun barg in tol, fun tol tsum barg, eydele fornemkayt, farlibtkayt fun alts, vos s’iz tsu koyfn, mit on a shir raykhe mentshn, mit oysgetseykhnte hoykhshuln, naye moderne, mit bibliotekn zeltene, mit alt ayngefirte shtot-birgerlekhe minhogim: ven se shtarbt a tsirikher birger, 34 Sandel, Umgekumene yidishe kinstler in Poyln, 231. 35 Untitled manuscript. Meir Wiener Archives, Manuscript Department, NLI, 1763/16, 8. Translation from the Yiddish by Sara Feldman.



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makht im di shtot a levaye umzist. Me hot derbay dos rekht tsu farlangen 6 kazione kotshn. Tomer ober vil men a zibete – muz men batsoln far der gantser levaye. ‘Konkubinat’ iz farbotn, tomer lebt emets mit a froy nit farshribn ruft men im in politsye, aktrises, tentserins vern gefirt in der liste fun fardekhtike mentshn. Di mentshn zaynen erlekh, solid, heflekh, zakhlekh, frayntlekh, tsviesdik. Tsendliker kirkhn, shtayers muz men tsoln far kirkhes fun ale gloybns, un nokh un nokh a sakh azelkhe sheyne fayne minhogim.36

Unable to find a job in chemical industry, Lagodny has to do various odd jobs, as a sewage cleaner, a waiter in a restaurant, and a salesman in a glove store. He gradually sinks into depression and starts to blame himself for all his misfortunes. He is saved by a school friend Juzek Landau (the name of Wiener’s maternal grandfather), now a medical student preparing to the state exam in medicine, who finds him a job as an assistant in a medical laboratory. Yoel lives in the working-class district of Aussersihl with a roommate, a Russian Jewish typesetter named Tobias, who fled from an exile in Siberia, and frequents a little corner café in the upper part of the city, where tea is served Russian style, in glasses rather than teapots, with tea and boiled water separately. Yoel listens to the debates among Russian and Polish students and émigré intellectuals but finds little interest in politics. The return to normal life is disrupted by the outbreak of the war, when Yoel receives a letter in a “large heavy envelope with eagles and seals from the Austrian consulate” with a call for mobilization. Yoel is unable to comprehend the war: in his mind, wars could only happen in remote, uncivilized corners of the world, but not in the middle of Europe. He paid no attention to Austria-Hungary’s annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and now he believes that the conflict would be resolved soon and decides that the war does not concern him: “What did the old idiot Franz Joseph’s business had to do with him, Yoyl?” (vos geyt im, Yoeln, on dem altn idiots Frants-Yozefs gesheftn?).37 While Tobias offers Yoel a Marxist explanation of the reasons behind modern wars, Juzek Landau believes that the main reason behind this war is the revenge for the Kishinev pogrom, and therefore Jews should prove their loyalty to the Kaiser by serving in the army. Caught between these conflicting views, Yoel suddenly decides to return to Austria and join up the army. Yet his motive is not political: he simply wants to break up the miserable routine of his meager existence. Wiener explains this decision of his protagonist as a result of the collapse of Yoel’s simple world image, as childish revenge “for the sharp rupture that the world events had made in his poor and peaceful image of the world. [...] And let the whole mess come to an end.” (far dem sharfn ris, vos di velt-gesheenishn hobn arayngebrakht in zayn orem 36 Ibid., 8-9, emphasis in the original. 37 Ibid., 11.

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un fridlekh bild fun der velt [...] zol der gantser plonter nemen an ek)38 Drafted into the military, Yoel ends up spending most of the war in Moravia behind the front lines or in a hospital convalescing after an infectious disease. After the war, he moves to Vienna, where he witnesses the collapse of the Habsburg empire and the failure of the revolution, and then on to Berlin, where he is engaged in a sado-masochistic relationship with an under-aged girl whom he bought from her Lumpenproletarier father. The brief depiction in the novel of the East European Jewish émigré life in Switzerland significantly differs from what we know about Wiener’s life there. To begin with, he describes the period before his arrival in the country in 1915, when Yoel would already have gone back to Austria. As a character Yoel resembles the protagonist of Wiener’s first Yiddish novel, Ele Faleks untergang, which was written in Berlin in 1923 and published in Kharkov in 1929. That novel is set in preWorld War I Krakow and incorporates some of Wiener’s youth experience. Like Yoel, Ele Falek is a depressed young man from a humble background who makes a sudden decision to join the Austrian army, albeit in Ele’s case this happens before the war. Strikingly, what happens to these two characters might appear as a foreshadowing of Wiener’s own fateful decision to join the Soviet Army in 1941.

Conclusion Like many East European Jews of his age, Wiener came to Switzerland to study. But unlike most of them, he did not come from the Russian Empire where Jews were subject to numerus clausus. His choice of Switzerland was clearly motivated by the war. Exempt from the military service on health grounds, he chose to spend the war years in the safety of neutral Switzerland rather than at his home in Vienna. Wiener came to the University of Basel with a solid educational background and a financial support from the family, which made his situation more comfortable and secure than that of many Russian migrants. Notably, in his novel he decided to portray a more “typical” poor Jewish character rather than model the protagonist on himself, perhaps in order to fit better to the Soviet literary conventions. Although Wiener’s interests were mostly scholarly and intellectual, he maintained contacts in different circles, ranging from the Neo-orthodox Jewish intellectuals to the Russian revolutionaries and bohemian artists. In Switzerland Wiener wrote most of his German texts and began research for the anthology of Hebrew literature Anthologia Hebraica (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, 1922), which he co-edited with 38 Ibid., 12.



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the prominent Hebrew scholar Chaim Brody. For about two decades this anthology remained the standard work in the field of post-biblical Hebrew literature. Initially Wiener shared the ideas of spiritual Zionism of Ahad Ha’am and Buber, which put emphasis on the revival of Jewish culture in Hebrew with a “spiritual center” in Palestine. His available letters from this period show no indication of his interest in Marxism and communism, but this can be also explained by his unwillingness to share this information with his family (and perhaps with the Austrian military censor as well). Wiener’s communist sympathies became open after his return to Vienna, and solidified as a result of his friendship with Soviet Yiddish writers in Berlin in 1921-1923. He joined the Communist Party of Austria in 1925 and decided to emigrate to the Soviet Union where he was offered prospects of intellectual and literary work. In order to make this move he had to abandon his interest in medieval Hebrew and contemporary German literature, and switch to Yiddish as the language of his scholarly and creative writing. All these remarkable transformations were made possible by the unique situation, which emerged in Switzerland during the war years, when this neutral country in the very middle of the European war became the center of intense intellectual, artistic and spiritual exchange among diverse groups of East European Jewish migrants.

Meir Wiener’s works written in Switzerland, 1916-1919 Märchensammlungen. Der Jude 4 (1917): 280-283. Hass und Verachtung. Der Jude 8 (1917): 523-531. Von jüdischer Prophetie und Mystik. Der Jude 10 (1917): 692-701. Vom Wesen des jüdischen Gebetes. Der Jude 8 (1918): 418-426. Ziele des Zionismus. Jerubbaal: Eine Zeitschrift der jüdischen Jugend 1 (1918): 66-71. Else Lasker-Schüler. Jerubbaal: Eine Zeitschrift der jüdischen Jugend 1 (1918): 293-302. Reprinted in Juden in der deutschen Literatur: Essays über zeitgenös­ sische Schriftsteller, Gustav Krojanker (ed.), 179-192. Berlin: Welt, 1922. Zwei Hymnen aus dem Buch Rasiel. Esra 3 (1919): 84-85. Kabbalistische Hymnen. Esra 3 (1919): 85-86. Judas Ischariot und die Anderen. Esra 5 (1919): 150-155. Kern und Schale. Esra 7 (1919): 208-210. Zur Psychologie der Legende. Der Jude 10 (1919): 474-480. Probleme der Religionspsychologie. Der Jude 12 (1919): 569-576. Messias. Drei Dichtungen. Vienna: R. Löwit, 1920.

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Die Lyrik der Kabbalah: Eine Anthologie. Vienna: R. Löwit, 1920. Die Orientalische Metapher. Der Jude 3 (1921): 167-174. Paul Adler. In Juden in der deutschen Literatur: Essays über zeitgenössische Schrift­ steller, Gustav Krojanker (ed.), 251-259. Berlin: Welt, 1922.

Appendix I Ben-Ami

Herzl and the First Congress I. I am to speak about Herzl! Infandum, regina, jubes renovare dolorem [A grief too great to be told, o queen, you bid me renew, Aenid II, 3; M.D.]. Until now, I have not had the strength of will to speak about him, to address that national and personal tragedy. When I found out about the death of Herzl, I was overcome not only by the horror of the loss, but by a searing sensation of hurt. It seemed to me that we were being mocked with unheard-of cruelty, that the tsar’s crown had been placed upon our beggar’s head, only to be rudely snatched away, leaving us in our beggar’s rags. And I think that the majority felt the same thing. It was not for nothing that all Jewry was so shaken. And from everyone there was a terrible cry of despair: Ein mazol le-Yisroel1 – Israel is devoid of a fate. And each time that I immerse myself in memories of him, when I see before me the image of this greatest of Jews of the last few centuries, serving his people with all his heart, all his soul, and all his property, as a Jew should serve God, I am gripped by a burning feeling of indignation at this injury. This is why it is not easy for me to write these reminiscences. * * * Approximately six or seven months before the first congress, I received a book from Vienna, one that was not known to many, but about which all of Jewish publishing would soon be abuzz. This was the immortal Judenstaat. I remember how the following portions of the preface immediately struck me with their simplicity and their clarity: “The idea which I have developed in this pamphlet is a very old one: it is the restoration of the Jewish State. The world resounds with outcries against the Jews, and these outcries have awakened the slumbering idea.” “Everything depends on our propelling force. And what is that force? The misery of the Jews. Who would venture to deny its existence?”

1 Ashkenazic-style spelling for Hebrew is used according to Ben-Amis Russian transcription.

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“I believe that this power, if rightly employed, is powerful enough to propel a large engine and to move passengers and goods.” “I am absolutely convinced that I am right, though I doubt whether I shall live to see myself proved to be so.” “Am I stating what is not yet the case? Am I before my time? Are the sufferings of the Jews not yet grave enough?” “The Jews who wish for a State shall have it, and they will deserve to have it.”2 How forcefully, how convincingly this western Jew spoke! The great horrors of our inhuman torments, our disgraceful bondage and degradation had already been felt even there in Vienna, in the very same Vienna in which, seventeen years earlier, I had first become acquainted with our “emancipated” degenerated creatures, with their slavery in freedom, their cowardly hiding away of their Jewishness, and their obsequiousness toward their masters. “A sign of the times, I told myself, a great sign of the times!” The introduction followed, written in a stately, calm style, yet in which at times bubbled the burning flame of love and indignation. I could neither judge the practicalities of the plan itself nor its applicability; but I was struck by its simplicity and clarity, and even more by that unshakable conviction and faith, which approached childlike innocence, on the part of the author. It did indeed approach childlike innocence. For that is one of the most remarkable features, and one of the surest signs of a great, integrated, and harmonious soul. A great man cannot exist without a great prophetic or poetic soul, and the latter is unthinkable without childlike purity, childlike faith. I did not place much faith in the realization of the idea itself. Ten years of work in the Hovevei Zion committee, the indifference to our work among the masses, the opposition from the majority of the so-called intelligentsia, the absolute inability on the part of even the best and most devoted people to work hard and to engage in practical activities in general – all this had instilled in me grave doubts about the desire and ability of our people as such to do anything in order to create a better and more prosperous future. But the fact that this idea, which until then had been hidden away in the secret depths of the soul of all the best of us, now proudly made itself known to the whole world, elaborated with such clarity, so categorically… This one thing struck me and made an irresistible impression. “Something is germinating, something will come of this,” every part of me was saying. And into my soul, full of dark despair at everything that I saw around me, there entered a warm, shining beam of light, the light of a faint hope. Herzl with his Judenstaat appeared to me like an apparition from long ago… 2 Quoted according to the English translation of Herzl’s Judenstaat (The Jewish State. New York: American Zionist Emergency Council, 1946).



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II. Two months later, on a beautiful spring day of the year 1897, which may become the first year of our new historical era, I received the first issue of Die Welt along with a letter from the editors. Today, after the many years this Zionist periodical has existed, many will find it hard to imagine the powerful sensation brought forth by its appearance. Again, what affected and cheered me more than anything else was the fact that this journal had appeared in Vienna – that stronghold of assimilation and self-negation. It truly carried with it the scent of spring and revival. The appearance of an article under the byline of Nordau made an especially strong impression on me. And how! Saul among the prophets! Nordau in a Jewish national organization! This same Nordau, whom very few even knew was a Jew! I remember in 1881, at a time when the first pogroms had spread across all of southern Russia, I found myself in Vienna as a student in the capacity of a delegate from a group of Jews, who had decided to move to America. Meeting all of those Jewish barons and knights (with the exception of Ritter von Wertheim, then the leader of the Alli­ ance, a fantastic man and a good Jew) made the most irritating impression and caused me to despair. And in one of those moments of the bitterest despair, one young man from Russia gave me the joyous news: Max Nordau, author of the radiant and scathing book Die conventionellen Lügen was a Jew. “What good does that do for us Jews?” I asked resentfully. “There are a great deal of famous Jews, aren’t there, and yet they don’t serve us, but our enemies, including when everyone else has abandoned us.” And now, I again see Nordau among our number, returning to his brothers. Our prophets were starting to appear. The article, which appeared under the name Nordau, was called “Ein Tempel­ streit,” and it argued against Güdemann, who had published a brochure extremely hostile to the burgeoning national movement. That article was written brilliantly, with Nordau’s characteristic power and scathing, destructive sarcasm. Soon after that, on the horizon there appeared a bright star before dawn: the grandiose idea of a congress! Yes, it was a star before dawn on that spring morning. How deeply, deeply the impressions of that first spring of our people’s great awakening imprinted themselves on the soul, and how alive they appear before me now. Happy is he who lived through that spring. In order to powerfully feel and understand the spell cast by that memorable, historic spring, one has to have lived through all the horrors of the long, vicious winter that preceded it. In Russia, the authorities began to officially develop the wild system of exploitation and destruction of Jews, whom they perceived as enemies of des-

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potism and barbarous arbitrariness. And every day brought us some new horror, bread torn from the mouths of a thousand or ten thousand. We were surrounded by a beastly and bloody atmosphere. Among Jewry itself there was a collapse. The intelligentsia, in spite of it all, fled from Jewry, and, under the guise of “Russian culture,” sought to find respite among the enemies of its defenseless people, whom it abandoned to the vicissitudes of fate. The small fraction of the Hovevei Zion loyal to its people, who felt its pain, was a laughingstock and the subject of persecution and hatred from those turncoat “cosmopolitans.” That very handful, regardless of its dedication or burning idealism, gave a demonstration of its inability to realize its ideal. Palestinian colonization had arrived at its total crisis, from which, it seemed, there was no escaping. I remember the hopelessness with which we looked at one another at the meetings of our Odessa Committee. We realized that we were running in place and to go further along this path was impossible. But where and how could we find new ways forward when surrounded by the dominant mood of apathy? It appeared that this was it, everything that had been created had been built without a foundation, and it would collapse and be lost forever. Hearts were suffused with despair. And so, among this gloomy silence and despair, as though it were the trumpet call of the Messiah, there sounded Herzl’s call, summoning those in whom there still lived a sense of connection with their people to a congress. A congress! A Jewish congress, at which Jews would decide their own fate, their own future! The hearts of many were filled with joy. Those afflicted with hopelessness and despair saw their spirits rise. But there were those among the old Hovevei Zion, who greeted news of the congress either with skepticism or with hostility. In our Palestinian committee far from everyone greeted the congress or news of the ascendant new Zionism sympathetically. Our leader Abraham Grinberg was an especially strong opponent. He feared that Zionism would distract Hovevei Zion, and that our committee would be forced to disband. I was convinced of the exact opposite. Even Lilienblum, who very quickly gave in and became a fervent adherent of Herzl and Zionism, had at first harbored a somewhat negative attitude toward him. In general, the majority viewed Herzl’s plan as a bold project that would probably never be realized. To a certain extent, I shared those doubts and fears.



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III. Around the middle of June, I, along with several others in Odessa, received a detailed letter from the Viennese Zionist bureau, in which I was asked to participate in the congress, which was set to take place in Basel in the last days of August (the 29th, 30th, and 31st). And I didn’t hesitate to accept the invitation. At that time, naturally, there were not yet organized elections, but nevertheless, among the Hovevei Zion there was a great excitement. The congress was no longer merely a dream, but a fact. Everyone’s mood became brighter. Elections did end up taking place in many locations. Since, after all, certain provincial circles of Hovevei Zion had already formed an organization of sorts, they proposed delegates. Endowed with a mandate from Nikolaev and Odessa, on the second or third of August 1897 I departed Odessa bound in the first place for Vienna. I arrived there at seven in the morning, and by ten found myself at 9, Türkenstrasse (an address so well-known to Zionists), the location of the Zionist bureau and the editorial offices of Die Welt. I asked for Herzl. He was not there. I wanted to leave, in order to return later. But they told me that they would let him know right away and asked me to wait. They took me into a large room, in the middle of which was a long table, piled with copies of the latest issues of Die Welt. I took one of them and attempted to read, but I was decidedly in no condition to read even one phrase. Waiting to meet the author of Judenstaat and the daring initiator of the Jewish congress no less had me so worried, that I was in no condition to think about or perceive anything. Lo and behold, I see the man who had shaken the entire Jewish world, who was awakening so many hopes. Who does he profess to be? Will he be capable of bringing something to life, to justify even a small part of the hopes he is inspiring? And not being a great optimist in that regard, having little faith in the existence of strong, energetic, and unwavering people, or at least having not met any like that at the time, I gave myself over to various thoughts—and far from happy ones. I neglected to mention that for some reason I had imagined Herzl to be a sickly man, not very tall and with a slight hump. Somehow I had this image in my mind; I can’t explain it. Perhaps, the short, monosyllabic name had contributed to it. Of course, now it has a different connotation… I sat this way for ten minutes; suddenly, the door opened and there appeared on the threshold a tall, slender young man, who seemed about twenty-eight and was exquisitely dressed. Due to my near-sightedness, I didn’t note his features in detail.

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“This is some kind of visitor,” I thought, giving the appearance of being absorbed in reading. But the visitor approached me straight-away and with a slight bow and a gentle smile said, “Doctor Herzl.” Somewhat startled and confused, I quickly stood up and we shook hands. I admit, the exquisiteness and fashionableness of his clothing made somewhat of an unpleasant impression on me. For this reason, in the first minute, I experienced some embarrassment. But his winning smile quickly convinced me to forget the stylishness of his exterior. After a few minor observations and questions, I came directly to the crux of our common task. We spoke French, since I speak German poorly. I asked about the state of our cause, and whether he hoped to carry out his plans for a congress, and whether he had found many sympathizers and potential followers, etc. He answered that he had undoubtedly found many sympathizers and active friends. He nevertheless could not say that success was guaranteed. Far from it. The problem is not that too few side with him. This is natural in any new movement. The difficulty lies in the fact that there are a good number of active opponents, and a great many frequently impassable obstacles, which can be found at every step. It seemed that he knew our assimilationists well and did not expect anything from them in the sense of assistance or even the slightest sympathies. But he did not expect so much opposition from their side, nor did he anticipate their malicious, traitorous actions. In that regard they exceeded all expectations. Even the fiercest, unbridled anti-Semites have not displayed and presumably never will display as much hatred toward the Jewish national idea. Indeed, the true anti-Semites are those Jewish assimilationists – they are the most dangerous and malignant kind. And Herzl told me in detail the entire sad recent story of how the Munich Jewish society opposed the congress; about the various other hostile encounters and appearances; and about the vile slander that was being spread against him personally. He spoke with an outer serenity, but it was not difficult to see that inside him everything was bubbling, that he was occasionally filled with despair. While he spoke, a certain spark appeared in his dark, deep eyes, and more and more his face and his entire frame began to shine from within. “Thus far I have taken only tentative steps,” he summarized. “You should know this. Whether I can further the cause, I don’t know. Everything depends on that which is given to me by others. Only God can create something from nothing. If I meet similar difficulties on the road ahead, then I may not have the strength to go on – and I will leave. I showed the way. If there yet remains vital strength in the Jewish people, others will appear who will realize my ideas.” We spoke more about the character of the Jewish national idea itself, and then moved to the approaching congress. I suggested that a preliminary meeting should be organized in Basel. He answered that he himself had been thinking



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about this, and we agreed to arrive in Basel at least a week before the opening of the congress. We parted ways very amicably, like good-natured, old friends, even though we had spent no more than one-and-a-half to two hours together. I left completely serene. I had seen before me a quite extraordinary man, with a burning conviction that had settled deep within his soul; or else it had been born into his soul and grew within it. At the time, I noted that certain directness in everything that he said. There were not any of the vague generalities or tired phrases, which were so commonplace in the speeches and writings of the Palestinians. Everything he said had a whiff of the new and fresh about it. He came to it all himself, thought through everything himself, everything was the result of his own lengthy meditations. Of course he knew little of Judaism, but the spirit of Judaism was not as foreign to him as I had thought. He was also no stranger to Jewish life. He told me of how in his parents’ home they had celebrated all the holidays, including Passover, which they celebrated very solemnly. They also celebrated his bar mitzvah with great solemnity. Indeed, he brought forth many childhood memories of Jewish life, about which he spoke with love. The man I found was indeed the author of the Judenstaat – and not only that. And yet I still could not quite believe that he would be able to successfully carry out the congress with the dignity that befitted it. Incidentally, on that day I wrote home with the following message: “If the internal qualities of Herzl correspond to his extraordinary external qualities, then we will find in him a great leader for our movement.”

IV. Having wandered around for two weeks in my dear Switzerland, where I had not been for eleven years, I arrived in Basel on the twenty-first or twenty-second of August. Needless to say, I immediately went to the bureau of the congress, which at that time was located on Freiestrasse, not far from the Marktplatz. With my heart truly aflutter, I ascended the narrow staircase. It was indeed, in some fashion, the run-up to the congress. What was being done there? How were the preparations coming? More than anything else, my main concern was the question of delegates: were there a large number, who were they, etc. Behind a writing desk, in a long, narrow, dusty, and somewhat gloomy room, with only a single window looking out onto the constricted, narrow street, sat a

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young, local Jew, about sixteen or seventeen years old. He was answering questions with radiant hospitality; his answers were a bit vague, yet highly optimistic. According to him, every day dozens of delegates were arriving. After sitting for half an hour, I left in a somewhat pessimistic mood and took a room at the Zum weissen Kreuz hotel, with a window overlooking the blue Rhine, whose waters were calmly and majestically rolling. I thought to write a few letters and rest a bit. But I was too agitated and could not sit still. Thus I hurried to the bureau. On the bridge, I ran into David Farbstein, whom I had already met in Zurich. He asked me to go with him and look at the room, which he had rented for the congress in Kleinbasel. I went with him. To get to the room, one had to cross a small garden and make it through rows of small tables where the good residents of Basel drank beer. The room turned out to be quite gloomy and unfriendly, and it smelled like a cheap saloon. This was the Burgvogtei, so well-known to us, and which I do not wish to insult, since we would subsequently spend so many joyous and happy hours there. I spoke decisively against it. But Farbstein maintained that there were no other appropriate quarters, with the exception of one other room, which would require an enormous sum of money. I could not counter this logic, and the room was rented. On the way back, on the historic old bridge, the Mittlere Brücke, I met three or four young people dressed in worn suits, greasy hats, and yellow, sweaty collars. In them I recognized my dear countrymen, my fellow Russians. They were, of course, delegates. I was not terribly excited after this encounter. At three o’clock I found ten or twelve men at the bureau already, among whom there was only one man over forty years old. The rest were all young people similar to those I had seen on the bridge. “Here are your electors, Israel,” I thought. And I was further saddened. By evening guests from Germany and Austria appeared, among whom was Nathan Birnbaum, unfriendly and gloomy, dissatisfied with one and all; he considered himself somewhat of an unrecognized genius. In total, the number of delegates grew to approximately forty on that day. The next morning, on my way to the bureau, having crossed the bridge, I somehow serendipitously looked to my right and spotted Herzl at a distance. He was coming from the Drei Könige hotel, where he was staying. I became so happy, as if I had seen my closest, dearest friend. He also noticed me at that moment and quickened his pace, smiling at me from afar with his dear, charming smile. We gave each other a firm handshake, and he immediately began to inquire about everything



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that was happening. I told him everything I knew. Among other things, I reported that we had received a suggestion from one of the bureaus to deliver the many polyglot reactions from the press to our congress, and I asked him whether it was worth accepting this suggestion. He answered decisively: “No! When designing something, one must never pay too much attention to what others are saying.” His answer was fully in line with my own thoughts. Having spent half an hour in our bureau, we left to review the hall that had been rented for the congress. As soon as he saw it, Herzl resolutely exclaimed “No! No!” And in that same day we reserved the little hall with a few adjacent rooms in the Basel Stadtcasino, which would become for us an almost sacred historical site. The Jewish national blue and white flag flew for the first time above that building, and there in the days of the second congress the flags of the proud, free cantons of the great, miniature Switzerland saluted it. Whoever did not live through that moment, whoever did not see Herzl shining with pride and inward satisfaction, having appeared on the balcony to the deafening cries of “Hoch!” from the Swiss and Jewish sides – he has not witnessed great events. But I am getting somewhat ahead of myself. From the first minute of his arrival in Basel, Herzl completely, with every fiber of his being, acted in the interests of the congress. The rest of the world, for him, literally disappeared. He was involved in even the smallest details, he followed preparations with a keen eye, without letting anything escape his attention, anticipating everything. And at all times he was on the move, giving orders and following up on their execution. He gave his orders in a soft tone, with his customary charming smile, yet with such decisiveness that it would never have even occurred to anyone to do anything but carry out his orders unquestioningly. Here already was the magical effect of this sovereign among men. Indeed, Herzl was possessed of the nature of a sovereign, in the highest, moral meaning of the word. To stand near Herzl or to work closely with him meant becoming a blind executor of his will. It could not have been otherwise with such a gigantic personality. When several forces collide, the greatest of them prevails, when several wills collide, the most powerful overrides all the rest. This is so simple, so natural, that to speak of despotism or tyranny here is completely ludicrous. In large part, a despot or a tyrant is characterized by a lack of will and all moral standing. He represses and subjugates others with the help of a power alien to him; he thinks he controls all, but everyone else controls him. A strong will, on the other hand – a great personality – rules naturally, of its own accord, without aspiring to. I am saying this because many people accused Herzl of despotism and many complained that they could not work with him because of this. This was not so. Herzl never sought to have subservient, blind slaves, he did not seek subjects, but instead always sought collaborators who could realize what they had conceived, in a word, people would walk with him and follow him. As the

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creator of the idea, he could not become the executor of a will that was not his own or to follow someone else! And the tragedy of his life was that he was unable to find good assistants. Many even considered it their accomplishment to oppose this colossus and his so-called despotism. This is how all those “factions” and the opposition to Herzl came to be. Two days later, when we found ourselves at lunch in the Jewish hotel Braun­ schweig, Herzl bitterly complained to me about the lack of good assistants. He was moved to despair even more by the fact that among the staff he had come across several unscrupulous people. In order to console him, I told him the following story: “At the time of the Laibach festivities in 1848, when all the representatives of the so-called ‘Young Germany’ gathered, a watch was stolen in Bern. Having noticed the theft, the man exclaimed: ‘O, where is that scoundrel, why has he hidden himself? I could kiss him. Until now, the reaction has been victorious, because it had on its side all of the scoundrels, and on our side we had only honest people… Now that we have the thieves on our side, we can fully expect to win.’” This anecdote delighted Herzl, and he frequently recalled it. Needless to say, the question of the number of delegates worried him even more than it worried me. He told me about the many who promised to come, and the many who expressed sympathy for the congress. He was especially pleased by the ardent support of Rabbi Shmuel Mohilewer, who enthusiastically greeted Herzl’s idea. The latter not only rejoiced, but practically boasted about this support. He especially rejoiced in the support of rabbis. He believed that they possessed the key to the people’s heart. Nevertheless, his particularly attentive attitude toward spiritual rabbis was not simply a result of “politics” or diplomacy. The Jew that was awakening within him also roused in him an intensive reverence for the representatives of the spiritual life of the Jewish people, toward whom he harbored a deep and genuine respect. Herzl, as I noted earlier, undoubtedly knew little about Judaism, but in the depths of his soul he bore an ardent love for it. He conceived of the future Judenstaat as an all-European state. It was thus because he was entirely suffused by European civilization. But he was undoubtedly not a fanatic of Europeanness. If it had come to deciding the question of the culture and spiritual order of an already established Palestine, then Herzl would have been much more for Jewish national culture in the spirit of our prophets and our historic traditions than the current young Kulturträger [bearers of our culture]. Herzl would never have challenged something so sacred and valuable to our people. Being himself a historic personality, he could not but feel the tight connection between our future and our great history. He did not like it when the question of culture came up, because he considered it premature. “The child has not even been born, and they are vehemently arguing about how to raise it,” he



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whispered to me at the third congress, at a time of heated debates over a formulation proposed by the cultural commission. From the first moment in Basel, Herzl displayed greater confidence than in Vienna, and there was not a word more about doubts. The Rubicon had been crossed, and it was time to boldly move forward. This manifested itself in everything that he did and everything he said to me. Nevertheless, in all of the days leading up to the congress he no doubt felt himself on the verge of a decisive struggle and experienced powerful internal anxieties. Of course, he did not exhibit these anxieties, but I perceived them, above all in the hopes he expressed in those days. I was with him for nearly the entire time, and with every passing day, with every passing hour he became nearer and dearer to me. I worked on almost every commission, including the financial commission with Wolfssohn; and with all that was happening, it was necessary to give Herzl the most detailed reports and to ask for instructions. And the closer I got to him, the more his extraordinary, complicated nature revealed itself. And with every hour I could see more and more how deeply engaged he was with his idea and how he gave himself over to it entirely, without thinking of anything else. I had not previously encountered such selfless dedication even among the most ardent of our Hovevei Zion, all of whom I knew without exception. Such total disregard of self in the service of an idea amazed me. Nevertheless, I had not yet seen in him that powerful, mighty Herzl, who could become the leader, the Napoleon of the movement. His meekness, his charming manner, his gentlemanliness deceived me. “This doesn’t suit a leader who needs to show firmness and steadfastness,” I thought. The Congress was to begin on Sunday, and on the Friday before was the Vorkonferenz. This was attended by sixty or seventy people. Herzl, of course, presided. My whole interest was centered on his chairmanship. It was indeed something of a dress rehearsal or a mock battle. In general, this Vorkonferenz “of the Germans” made a very good impression on me. For the first time, I saw Western Jews with good Jewish hearts, with an ardent dedication to the national idea, possessing the famous tact and discipline that were entirely absent among Russian Jews. It amazed me that everyone spoke fluently and clearly; a few were downright gifted speakers. Today, after twenty years of Zionism, these qualities have developed among Russian Jews, but earlier they were quite rare. As for Herzl himself, he did not display anything out of the ordinary: he was somehow saving his strength for the right moment. He did ably deflect questions that might have led to sharp disagreements, and he did this artfully. But he spoke little and allowed others to speak more. He gave only brief explanations. He did all of this in such a mild manner that he seemed to me a weak chairman. Others came away

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with a similar impression and wondered whether it might be better to pick a different president for the congress. This created a very apprehensive mood. This mood of apprehension only grew the following day, when our Russian delegates began gathering separately. Among the youth, who formed a majority of the Russian delegates, there were a number of unruly elements, and they had already formed something resembling an “opposition.” There was assuredly no sense in such an “opposition,” and a basis for it did not exist. All attempts to calm these hotheads failed. Every day Herzl turned to me: “Aber, mein lieber Ben Ami, bändigen sie doch Ihre jungen Leute.” But to do this was quite difficult. Only late at night on the evening before the congress did I decide to throw myself into the angry surge of the noisy “opposition.” I reminded them of the importance of tomorrow’s events, which could be decisive in the life of our long-suffering people, etc. The Jewish outlaws gave up, and the most vehement promised to defend the honor of the congress, which they scrupulously did. Nevertheless, I could not fall asleep all night from anxiety… I felt myself to be truly on the verge of a great day of judgment for our entire people. What would the gzar din, the sentence, bring us? The morning of the great, historic day arrived: the day of the congress. Walking toward the Casino, I worried that my legs would fail. Here I am in the congress building at last. Everything is pervaded by an atmosphere of festive solemnity, everything is alive with a kind of wonderful warmth of kinship and cordiality; hearts overflowed with these sentiments, and they shined in the eyes of all. And over everything, in gentle waves, floated that quiet, dignified Jewish melancholy, enveloping all and infusing everything. From all corners of the Earth there gathered together the great family of Jacob that had been scattered across the globe. There will be a great deal to report to one another, all the endless troubles, all the suffering, all the weighty wrongs. This is both a joy and an immeasurable sorrow. Those that had gathered greet one another in a genial and solemn manner, with fraternal warmth and love. They converse quietly. Everything is suffused with restless expectation. The great moment is approaching. Suddenly everything grows quiet; a solemn hush. Up to the rostrum comes the elderly Doctor Lippe from Jassy, his silver-haired head covered with a skullcap he loudly and solemnly exclaims a blessing with an impassioned voice: “Blessed are you, Lord, king of all creation, who allowed us to live, exist, and arrive at the present day”… Ripples spread through the hall. Many eyes fill with tears. Behind me, someone quietly sobs. The somewhat excessively slow speech that followed this truly unforgettable moment spoils the mood and fills the soul with apprehension once again. Everyone looks around restlessly. The speech, however, comes to an end.



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Herzl slowly walks up to the rostrum. I stare at him intently. But what is this? This is not the same Herzl whom I had seen to this point, whom I had just seen late the previous evening. Before us there appeared a wondrous, splendid, regal figure, with a deep, distinguished and focused look, in which could be seen a quiet melancholy. This was no longer the elegant Herzl from Vienna, but a regal descendant of David, suddenly arisen from the grave, appearing before us in all his legendary grandeur and fantastical beauty. The entire audience was overcome with amazement, as though a historic miracle had occurred in front of our eyes. And was it not truly a miracle that had taken place?... In the next few minutes everything shakes from enthusiastic cheers, exclamations, applause, and stomping. It seemed that the great 2,000-year dream of our people had come true, that before us stands the Messiah of the House of David. Geneva. Translated from the Russian original by Markian Dobczansky, according to BenAmi. Gerzl’ i pervyi kongress [Herzl and the First Congress]. In Safrut. K dvadt­ satiletiiu pervogo sionistskogo kongressa v Basele [On the 21th Zionist Congress in Basel], vol. II, Lev B. Jaffe (ed.), 85-95. Moscow: Safrut, 1918.

Appendix II Meir Wiener

Fragments of an Unfinished Yiddish Novel Thus Yoyl sat out three months without work. Aside from drudging away with the occasional employment he had nothing whatsoever. He got up and left for Basel. He had heard that it was easier to find work there in the silk-dyeing industry. He walked around for two weeks in that painfully-clean and hypocritically-strict city which had enough room for one hundred forty old-money millionaires but no work for a man who was able to do something real. He considered his situation and moved to Zurich, where he had a few acquaintances from his hometown. And only there, in the lovely Zurich, which has so much serene and quaint beauty for the rich people who come to Switzerland to spend their time and money – it was there that he suffered true need. He starved for nearly three-quarters of a year. Is there another city that can compare with Zurich in its beauty? The wonderful Zürichsee, surrounded by beautiful mountains, forests around the city with its old quiet medieval streets and footpaths between mountains and valleys, with its noble dignity, enamored of everything there is to buy, with its multitude of rich people, with its distinguished modern educational institutions, with its rare libraries, and with its old established customs: when a citizen of Zurich dies, the city makes him a funeral for free. That is, one has the right to request six coaches from the city. But if perchance one wants a seventh, then he must pay for the entire funeral. “Concubinage” is forbidden: if someone lives with a woman without registration, he is called to the police station; actresses and dancers are listed in the register of suspected persons. The people are honest, sound, polite, businesslike, friendly, and hypocritical. Dozens of churches. One must pay taxes for churches of all faiths, and there are more and more of such fine customs. But Yoyl was frightfully starving. No work as a chemist did he find there, either. Having no choice, he worked with Italian seasonal laborers in sewage disposal, he went around peddling with cheap cravats, with stain removal paste for clothing, with glue for broken glass and porcelain. He was a waiter in a restaurant and a salesman in a glove shop. He became very unkempt, bitter, and indifferent. He began seriously to think that perhaps all this was his fault, because who else was to blame that there was no need in a chemist, and who had told him to study exactly what he desired? Didn’t it mean that it was his fault that he was going around idle, and why did the world have to worry that he had nothing to eat? Didn’t he take away food from people to whom it really belonged? If he could get along without a job, then who, besides himself, would



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need it, so that he could feed himself through it? He felt very humbled, dejected, and worthless. On one nice day he accidentally met with an old acquaintance from his childhood, from his school days, Yuzek Landau, who had studied medicine in Zurich and was now doing his practical training at the Zurich Policlinic, preparing himself for the state exam. Yuzek Landau immediately took Yoyl home and dressed him a little. Afterwards, using his connections among countrymen, he found him, as a favor and with a rather poor salary, a position as an assistant in a medical laboratory, a job that could usually be done by any intelligent person without any medical or special education at all. This was in July 1914. A few weeks later the newspapers reported about the war. A few days later he received a letter in a large heavy envelope with eagles and seals from the Austrian consulate that he should present himself for mobilization and conscription at the consulate. Yoyl was then twenty-four years old. To Yoyl, the news about he war seemed absurd, somewhat surreal. What? There would really be a war between entire nations, and one would slaughter the other as once upon a time in the savage times gone by? No, it wasn’t possible. It was somehow self-evident to him that a thing like this could happen only once upon a time, in the old days, or somewhere far, far away in Africa, between the Boers and the Englishmen, somewhere at the end of the world, between Russia and Japan, or in the far-flung corners of the Balkans. And even then this was not serious. But a true war in the middle of Europe? It was simply too implausible to be serious. Yoyl was far from any kind of political ideas. In a naïve manner he emphasized his indifference to anything that had to do with politics. In the newspapers he read only news about literature, arts, science, anything but not the political news. Politics was for him associated merely with corruption, fraud, swindle, and careerism. A few years earlier, when Austria annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, there were indeed talks about the danger of a war, but it had no serious effect on Yoyl’s mind, just as it was with nearly all people of his kind. Now the outbreak of the war seemed to him like some kind of a huge misunderstanding, and it should be clear for every reasonable person that it was indeed a misunderstanding, a danger that people must clear up immediately, call it off, and declare that it was not serious, and the conflict had been resolved. Did cultured nations carve out one another? It could not be. Therefore, during the first days the news did not disturb him at all. On the contrary, he was quietly excited. He didn’t truly believe in it, but the whole turmoil made something of a fresh, lively burst into the grey, philistine time. It was as if a crack filled with life opened up in his stifled young life and put an end to the gray monotone of petty existence. It seemed to him that somehow or other, something in the world

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would change, there would be more colors, and the iron cage of monotonous narrowness would be broken. But as time went by, it became increasingly difficult to cope with the fact. What did it mean to kill someone because of some Serbian landlords, who had provoked the war by the shooting of the Crown-Prince Ferdinand simply because they were unable to compete with the Hungarians in their pork exports to Austria? (Such a strange notion of the reasons of the war was going around in the Austrian colony.) As days and weeks had passed, and Yoyl saw that the war was in earnest, his whole previous image of the world became disturbed, with all its simplistic, naïve philosophical-political worldview. He had imagined thing simply: from year to year mankind was becoming more human and noble and the cruelties of the past were no longer possible. After all, there were no more slaves in the whole world. And many countries had already become republics. Primitive superstitions were increasingly abolished. Science and art had attained such a high level as never before. For example, in painting there were the French Impressionists: Cezanne, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir. In poetry, such poets as Werfel, George, Rilke, Dehmel, Hofmannsthal, whom he used to read as if he was doing something wrong. Culture had become refined and sublime at the highest level, and now, all of the sudden, a war! What did the old idiot Franz Joseph’s business had to do with him, Yoyl? And what then did it concern other people? Students and intellectuals from various countries, but especially from Russia and Poland, used to congregate in a small coffee house on the corner of a small lane in the upper part of the city, because there one could get tea in the Russian style, in glasses rather than in cups, tea and boiled water were served separately, and Yoyl used to go there as well. He listened with astonishment to the heated discussions, but did not quite understand what was going on in the conversations. Yoyl lived in Aussersihl, the working-class district of Zurich, together with a young Jewish typesetter from Russia. He was a pale man with large soft dreamy eyes and long hair, which was combed out in the style of an English pastor. Yoyl was glad to have this typesetter as his neighbor. He used to tease him for fun and say to him, the stubborn apostate, that although it had not been proven that God existed, it was also not possible to prove with logic that God did not exist. And although this was said in jest, because Yoyl had already long been far from every faith himself, and the typesetter, whose name was Tobias, knew this well, he nevertheless got terribly enraged, because he could not reply to it on the spot. He sometimes used to knock on Yoyl’s door in the middle of the night, wake him up, and tell him a new proof against the existence of God. Yoyl would try to prove to his neighbor that the war would end in a few days because it was not really possible nowadays. All the stories aside, how could millions of people fight against each other? Tobias the typesetter did not get at all enraged about this. He simply



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burst into loud laughter, like one laughs at wild childish nonsense. Tobias had escaped from Siberia a few years ago, and he had a much clearer understanding of what was going on in the world. First of all, Tobias enumerated, the way one does with a child, how many wars, great and small, had taken place in the past twenty years in Europe and in the rest of the world. He explained to Yoyl that the matter here was not about pigs, that other things were at stake here. Tobias also asked Yoyl if he was so much satisfied with his life that he could believe that everything was set in a good order and according to human interests. Yoyl did not understand it clearly. But it disturbed his certainty, his skepticism regarding the war. He was astonished—how did Tobias know it all, how did he get this kind of certainty? But Yuzek Landau and his countrymen said something completely different. With swollen mouths they cursed the Russia of the pogroms. It came out that the whole purpose of the war was nothing more than to take revenge for the pogrom in Kishinev. Yet Yuzek Landau’s talks made no sense to Yoyl, nor did the complaints that it was Jews in the first place who had to prove that they did not try to avoid the military service. All these talks did not touch him. But one day, when it was found at the consulate conscription office that he was fit for the military service, he decided, unexpectedly for himself, to go to Austria and serve. Why he made such a decision never became truly clear to him. Perhaps it was a deep and bitter frustration with the twenty-four years of his grey and gloomy life of silly misery and need that pushed him to that action, which promised him a colorful break of the grey-monotonous gloom. And there was in this decision also something of a resolve to destroy himself, because he put no concrete hopes on his going to war. And in addition, there was a kind of childish feeling of revenge, a desire to give someone a spanking, revenge against some stranger, who had to care for his and all other people’s welfare but who didn’t, revenge for his gloomy, foolish, hard life, and for the sharp rupture that the world events had made in his poor and peaceful image of the world. And if the savagery was to happen, then let him jump down head-first, and put an end to everything. And let the whole mess come to an end. Translated by Sara Feldman with Mikhail Krutikov, according to the typescript from the Wiener Archive, National Library of Israel, 1736/16, 8-14.

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Weinreich, Uriel. Notes on the Yiddish Rise-Fall Intonation Contour. In For Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday, 11 October 1956, 633-643. The Hague: Mouton & Co, 1956. Weinreich, Uriel. Di forshung fun ‘mishshprakhike’ yidishe folkslider [The Study of Macaronic Yiddish Folksongs]. YIVO-Bleter 34 (1950): 282-288. Weinryb, Dov [Bernard]. Be-reshit ha-sotsyalizm ha-yehudi: A. Sh. Liberman, bnei doro u-zmano [In the Beginning of Jewish Socialism: A. Sh. Liberman, People of his Generation and Time]. Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 1940. Weisgal, Meyer W (ed.). The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, vol. II, series A (November 1902-August 1903). London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Weitzner, Jacob. Sholem-Aleichem in the Theater. Northwood, UK: Science Reviews – Lonsdale Press, 1994. Weitzner, Kobi. Sholem Aleichem: Screenwriter. Yiddish 10, 1 (1995): 57–61. Weizmann, Chaim. Trial and Error. The Autobiography of Chaim Weizmann. London: Harper & Brothers, 1949. Weizmann, Chaim. Reden und Aufsätze 1901-1936. Gustav Krojanker (ed.). Tel Aviv: Hitachduth Olej Germania, 1937. Weizmann, Vera. The Impossible takes Longer. The Memoirs of Vera Weizmann, Wife of Israel’s First President as told to David Tutaev. London: H. Hamilton, 1967. Weldler-Steinberg, Augusta, and Florence Guggenheim-Grünberg. Geschichte der Juden in der Schweiz vom 16. Jahrhundert bis nach der Emanzipation. Zurich: Aktiengesellschaft für Verlag und Druckerei, 1966. Werberger, Annette. Grenzgänge, Zwischenwelten, Dritte – Der jüdische Schriftsteller und Ethnograph S. Anskij. Transversal 5/1 (2004): 62-79. Wertheimer, Jack. The ‘Ausländerfrage’ at Institutions of Higher Learning: Controversies over Russian-Jewish Students in Imperial Germany. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook XXVII (1982): 187-215. Wolff, Frank. Eastern Europe Abroad: Exploring Actor-Networks in Transnational Movements and Migration History, the Case of the Bund. International Review of Social History 57 (2012): 229-255. Wolff, Frank. Historiography on the General Jewish Labour Bund. Traditions, Tendencies and Expectations. Medaon 4 (2009): 1-12. Yevzerov M. Bio-bibliografishe yedies [Bio-Bibliographical Information]. In Arkadi. Zamlbukh tsum ondenk fun grinder fun “bund” Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935) [Arkadi. Collection in the Memory of the Founder of the Bund Arkadi Kremer (1865-1935)], 277-289. New York: Unzer tsayt, 1942. Yidisher arbeter pinkos (tsu der geshikhte fun der poyalei-tsien bavegung) [Jewish Workers’ Book of Records (to the History of the Poalei Zion Movement)], Zerubavel (ed.). Warsaw: Naye kultur, 1927. Zeitschrift für Schweizerische Statistik, Berne, 1 (1865) – 51 (1915). Zhitlovsky, Chaim. Zikhroynes fun mayn lebn [Stories of My Life]. New York: Dr. Chaim Zhitlovsky Yubiley Komitet, 1935. Zweig-Strauss, Hanna. David Farbstein (1868-1953): jüdischer Sozialist – sozialistischer Jude. Zurich: Chronos Verlag, 2002.

List of Contributors May Blossom Broda is a historian, filmmaker and research fellow in Sociology at the University of Basel. She specializes in contemporary history, gender studies and transnational migration research. Her contribution to this volume examines an aspect of her research work on the “Reichstein saga.” Her publications include “Der Schweizer Bürger Leopold Obermayer im KZ Dachau” in Nationalitäten im KZ (2007) and “Filmic Communication – Historians and Swiss Worker Movies of the 1930s and 1940s” in Heard-Seen (2007). In 2009 she collaborated with Beat Bieri to make the documentary film Das Bankgeheimnis. Vom Erfolgsmodell zum Stolperstein (Swiss Television). Ber Kotlerman  is academic director of the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies  at the Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan, and research fellow at Kokushikan University Asia-Japan Research Center, Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. in Jewish literature at the Bar Ilan University (2001). He is the author of Bauhaus in Birobidzhan (2008, with Shmuel Yavin), In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of ‘Soviet Jewish Statehood’, 1934-1949 (2009), The Cultural World of Soviet Jewry, 1919-1949 (2012), Sholem Aleichem Behind the Scenes of Early Jewish Cinema, 1913-1916 (forthcoming, 2013), and the editor of a number of collections, among them Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East, vols. I-II (2009 and 2011). Mikhail Krutikov is currently associate professor of Slavic and Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He holds a Ph.D. in Jewish Literature from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (1998) and was lecturer in Modern Yiddish Literature at the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies (1996-2002). He is the author of Yiddish Fiction and the Crisis of Modernity, 1905-1914 (2001) and From Kabbalah to Class Struggle: Expressionism, Marxism, and Yiddish Literature in the Life and Work of Meir Wiener (2011). Among his co-edited books are The Shtetl: Image and Reality (2000), Yiddish in Weimar Berlin (2010), and Joseph Opatoshu: A Yiddish Writer between Europe and America (forthcoming, 2013). Vladimir Levin studied at the Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg and at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received his Ph.D. in 2007. Currently, he is director of the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a post-doctoral fellow of the Inter-University Academic Partnership in Russian and East European Studies (IUAP), assigned a Deputy to Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He has published a row of articles on Jewish politics in the Russian Empire and on the history and architecture of synagogues. His book Out of Distress: Jewish Politics in the Period of Reaction in the Late Russian Empire, 1907–1914 has been accepted for publication by the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History. Recently he co-edited the two-volume publication Lithuanian Synagogues: A Catalogue (2010-2012). He currently works on two books on the synagogues of Volhynia (Ukraine) and Latvia, as well as on a larger research project on “Social History of the Synagogue in Eastern Europe.” Tamar Lewinsky holds a Ph.D. in modern history from the University of Munich. She has previously taught Yiddish language and literature at the Universities of Munich and Basel and is currently researching a project on Jewish transmigration (funded by the Swiss National Foundation) at the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Basel. She has written widely on Jewish Displaced Persons and Jewish life in post-war Germany. Her publications include Displaced Poets. Jiddische Schriftsteller im Nachkriegsdeutschland (2008), Unterbrochenes Gedicht (2011, trans.

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and ed.), “Paradise Lost? Postwar Memory of Polish Jewish Survival in the Soviet Union” in Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2010, with Laura Jockusch), and “1945-1949. Zwischenstation” in Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland von 1945 bis zur Gegenwart (2012, with Atina Grossmann). Stefanie Mahrer teaches modern Jewish history at the Center for Jewish Studies at Basel University. Her main fields of research include the history of Swiss Jews, the cultural and economic history of Western European Jewry, and migration history. In her Ph.D. thesis she worked on the history of Jewish watchmakers in La Chaux-de-Fonds (Switzerland). She is the author of Handwerk der Moderne. Jüdische Uhrmacher und Uhrenunternehmer im Neuenburger Jura 1800–1914 (2012). Other publications include: “Migration und Verbürgerlichung – Das Beispiel der jüdischen Uhrmacher in der Schweiz im 19. Jahrhundert” in Zwischenräume der Migration (2011) and “Auf der Suche nach der neuen Rolle” in “Nicht irgendein anonymer Verein... ” (2012). Aline Masé completed a BA in history and english at the University of Basel and received her MA in history at the Research Institute for History and Culture of the University of Utrecht (NL) with a master’s thesis entitled “Student Migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the Universities of Bern and Zurich, 1865–1914.” Her major fields of interest are modern European social and political history, the history of East European Jewry, and migration history. Sandrine Mayoraz is a project assistant at the Chair of East European History of the University of Basel. Her main fields of interest are Russian history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, East European Jewish history and culture, and migration from the Russian Empire to Switzerland. She is co-editor of Der Basler Friedenskongress 1912 und seine Aktualität (2012) and author of “Bundistische Hochburg” in Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Stadt und Region Bern (forthcoming, 2014). She is currently writing her Ph.D. thesis on the Jewish workers’ riots in the Pale of Settlement. Gabriella Safran is full professor at the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Stanford University. She holds a Ph.D. in slavic languages and literatures from Princeton University. Her main fields of interest are Russian literature, Yiddish literature, folklore and folkloristics, and the relationship between listening and literature (from a historical and sociolinguistic as well as a literary-critical perspective). Gabriella Safran has written extensively on Russian, Polish, Yiddish and French literature. Her publications include Wandering Soul: The Life of S. An-sky (2010), Culture Front: Representing Jews in Eastern Europe, co-edited with Benjamin Nathans (2008), and Rewriting the Jew: Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire (2000). Laura Salmon holds a Ph.D. in slavic studies from the University of Rome “La Sapienza.” She was assistant professor and subsequently associate professor of Russian at Bologna University (2001-2011). Since 2011, she has been full professor of Russian at Genoa University, where she teaches Russian and translation theory. Her main research fields are: Russian-Jewish literature, translation theory, onomastics, and humor studies (particularly Jewish humor). Among her many publications are: A voice from the desert. Ben-Ami, a forgotten writer (1995, translated into Russian); The Proper Name in Russian. Pragmatics, semiotics, translation (2002, translated into Italian); Mechanisms of Humor. About S. Dovlatov’s works (2008). As a translator of Russian literature (Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Dovlatov and other authors) she was awarded the Monselice Prize in 2009 and the special Tolstoy Prize “Italia – Russia” in 2010.

List of Illustrations Stefanie Mahrer Les Russes – The Image of East European Jews in La Chaux-de-Fonds and Zurich Figure 1: Erwin Halpern. Courtesy of Jeannette Halpern   34 Figure 2: Esther (Elsa) Fouks and Chaim (Heinrich) Gablinger from Poland. Courtesy of Jeannette Halpern   34 Vladimir Levin Jewish Political Emigration from Imperial Russia: Mapping the World in a Different Way Figure 3: Detail of the cover of the Bundist periodical The Latest News, No. 229, May 1905. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv, Berne (CH-BAR), E21 14025   53 Sandrine Mayoraz The Jewish Labor Bund in Switzerland Figure 4: Letterhead of the Imprimerie Israélite in Geneva. YIVO, David Pinski Collection   62 Figure 5: Detail from the dossier of the Fremdenpolizei on Chaim Bernstein. CH-BAR E21 8646   65 Aline Masé Student Migration of Jews from Tsarist Russia to the Universities of Berne and Zurich, 1865-1914 Figure 6: Postcard with view of the University of Berne, c. 1910. Staatsarchiv Berne, T.A Bern Universität 12   104 Figure 7: Excerpt from the enrollment catalog of the University of Berne, winter term 1901-1902. Universitätsarchiv Berne   104 Tamar Lewinsky Kalman Marmor in Switzerland Figure 8: Postcard from Kalman Marmor to Sore-Shifre Marmor. YIVO, Kalman Marmor Archives   126 May B. Broda East European Jewish Migration to Switzerland and the Formation of “New Women” Figure 9: Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, over 80 years old. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   174 Figure 10: Gustawa’s father Jan Brokman by Bernardi, Włocławek. Courtesy of Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich   174 Figure 11: Włocławek with the River Vistula in the foreground. From: Sterkowicz, Stanislaw. Tadeusz Reichstein. Życie i dzialalność naukowa. Wydanie II – zmienione i uzupełnione. Włocławek: Włocławskie Towarzystwo Naukowe, 1995, 17   174

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 List of Illustrations

Figure 12: Gustawa Brokman, 1896. Courtesy of Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich   174 Figure 13: Israel (Isidor) Reichstein by M. Reichstein, Vienna, 1896. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   174 Figure 14: Gustawa and Isidor Reichstein-Brokman by M. Reichstein, Vienna. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   174 Figure 15: The eldest son Tadeus Reichstein, by Fr. de Mezer, Kiev. Courtesy of Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich   175 Figure 16: Postcard with Isidor (right) and Gustawa (seated) Reichstein-Brokman and relatives, Zurich, November 13, 1906. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   175 Figure 17: The chalet Fliederhof on the Zürichberg. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   175 Figure 18: A Reichstein family gathering at the Fliederhof. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   175 Figure 19: The reform school at the Fliederhof, 1912. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   175 Figure 20: An outdoor lesson at the Fliederhof school. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   175 Figure 21: A play staged by the Fliederhof school, 1912. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   176 Figure 22: Adam Reichstein’s school essay “Der Schulbetrieb im Fliederhof während des Jahres 1910” [The 1910 Scholastic Year at the Fliederhof]. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   176 Figure 23: Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, Fliederhof. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   176 Figure 24: Margarete Susman, Gustawa Reichstein’s best friend. Staatsarchiv Basel-Stadt, estate of Tadeus Reichstein   176 Figure 25: Victor Berg, Fliederhof school principal, unknown woman, Gustawa Reichstein. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   176 Figure 26: Isidor and Gustawa Reichstein-Brokman, Fliederhof, c. 1917. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   176 Figure 27: The original record of civic rights granted by the City of Zurich to the five Reichstein sons, August 4, 1915. Courtesy of Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich   177 Figure 28: Tadeus Reichstein as Swiss Army soldier and his father, Fliederhof, September 16, 1917. Courtesy of Benjamin, Patrick and Till Straumann, Zurich   177 Figure 29: The Fliederhof as boarding house. Courtesy of Verena Lunin-Reichstein, Zurich   177 Figure 30: The sculptor Hans Josephsohn, a Jewish German refugee, 1941. Courtesy of Verena and Hans Josephsohn, Zurich   177 Figure 31: Gustawa Reichstein. Drawing by Hans Josephsohn, 1940. Courtesy of Verena and Hans Josephsohn, Zurich   177 Figure 32: Gustawa Reichstein. Bust modeled by Hans Josephsohn, 1940. Courtesy of Verena and Hans Josephsohn, Zurich   177



List of Illustrations 

Laura Salmon Ben-Ami’s Swiss Experience: Narrative and the Zionist Dream Figure 33: Postcard showing Ben-Ami. Courtesy of Gnazim Archives, Tel Aviv   181 Figure 34: Verso of postcard sent from Ben-Ami to Zlatkin. Courtesy of Gnazim Archives, Tel Aviv   185 Ber Kotlerman “For the Pleasure of Life in Switzerland, I Had to Start Spitting Blood” Figure 35: Sholem Aleichem in Lausanne. Courtesy of Beit Sholem Aleichem, Tel Aviv   204 Figure 36: The first version of Sholem Aleichem’s screenplay Di velt geyt tsurik. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington D.C.   208 Mikhail Krutikov Kabbalah, Dada, Communism: Meir Wiener’s Lehrjahre in Switzerland during World War I Figure 37: Cover of Meir Wiener’s Messias: Drei Dichtungen, published in Vienna/Leipzig (R. Löwit) in 1920   223 Figure 38: Meir Wiener’s Zurich police registration card. Stadtarchiv Zurich, 6 V.E.c.100. Einwohnerkontrolle der Stadt Zürich 1901-1933, Nr.621   224

 271

Index Aberson, Zvi 89, 143n85, 144, 146 Abramovich, Rafael 46n34, 49 Abramovitsh, Sholem Yankev, see Mendele Moykher Sforim Agudas Achim 32 Ahad Ha’am (Asher Gincberg) 180, 182, 194, 220, 231 Akimov, Vladimir Petrovich 72-73 Alliance Israélite Universelle 22, 235 An-sky, S. (Shloyme-Zanvl Rappoport) 80, 85, 89-93, 95, 98 Anti-Semitism vi, xiv, 3, 18-20, 39, 80, 88, 93, 133, 143, 160, 184, 189, 238 Aronzon, Moisei 39 Augustin Keller Loge 32 auto-emancipation 106 Axelrod, Pavel 82 Babel, Isaak 98, 178, 197 Baden 16, 34 Bal-Makhshoves (Isidor Yisroel Eliashev)  144-145, 200, 202 Basel xiv, xviii, 2, 9, 15-17, 23-24, 27, 83, 95, 133, 144-146, 155, 172, 182, 191, 214-217, 225, 227-228, 237-238, 239-241, 243, 246 Beilis, Mendel 199, 202, 206-207, 211-212 Belgium 46, 48, 108 Belostok 40 Ben-Ami (Mark (Mordechai) Iakovlevich Rabinovich) 8, 78, 178-192, 194-198, 233, 244 Berg, Victor 162-163, 165, 176 Berkowitz, Yitzhok Dov 199-200, 203-204, 206, 212-213 Berlin 37, 39, 42-43, 46-48, 50, 67, 116, 125, 130, 160, 201, 201, 203-204, 206-207, 209, 212, 214, 227, 230-231 Berne 2, 7-8, 15, 41, 46, 55-59, 65, 68, 70, 73-75, 85-86, 89-90, 99-104, 107-120, 126, 130, 131-137, 140, 143-145, 147, 202 Bernstein, Chaim 60-63, 71-72 Bialik, Chaim Nachman 78, 180 Birnbaum, Nathan 95, 240 Bistrzycki, Augustin 134

Bliumin, Mendel 66, 70 Bloch, David (Blumenfeld, Efraim) 48-49 Blumenfeld, Joseph 72 Borochov, Ber 48, 51n60 Breinin, Reuven 125-126, 144, 147 Brokman, Jan 155-157, 174 Buber, Martin 9, 140, 144, 183, 216-217, 220, 222, 225, 231 Bund, see Jewish Labor Bund Cabaret Voltaire 227 Charney, Daniel 48, 103, 109, 116,119, 127 Chernov, Viktor 87-90, 93 Chissin, Chaim 144 Cohen, David 222, 224-225 Communism 148, 214, 226, 231 Congress Poland 151, 154-155, 162, 170 Cosmopolitanism 179, 187, 189, 214, 236 Czernowitz Conference 95 Dada 214 Davidovich-Lvovich, David 48 Der Jude 9, 222, 225, 231 Der Nister 214 Der poylisher yidl 40 Diaspora 118, 145, 181, 187, 218-219 Diaspora Autonomism 44 Dickens, Charles 199-200 Dostoevsky, Fedor 81, 83, 220 Dubin, Shimon 48 Eliashev, Isidor Yisroel, see Bal-Makhshoves Endingen 16-17, 21n44 Evreisky Mir 185 Eynhorn, Dovid 2 Farbstein, David 28, 32, 82-83, 103, 240 Feivel, Bertold 144 First World War 1-3, 5-6, 8-9, 45, 50-51, 90, 99-101, 114, 164-166, 170, 172, 213-215, 218, 228, 230 Fliederhof 162-165, 169-170, 175-176 Forverts 148 France 22, 42, 46-47, 50, 52, 88, 100, 108, 134, 207, 227-228 Frankel, Jonathan 40 Frankfurt 31-32, 46, 164



Frauenstudium 3, 15, 99, 101-102, 109-110, 113, 137, 144, 150 Free Jewish Printing House 37-38 Free Russian Press 38-39 French 4, 13, 17, 67, 71, 85-86, 88, 101, 134, 157, 169, 170 Fribourg 7, 126, 128, 133, 134-136, 138, 140-142, 147 Futurism (Futurists) 96, 168 Galicia vi-vii, 28, 31, 34, 45, 50, 215, 227 Gender vii, 5.6, 85, 91, 137, 151, 153, 170, 173 Geneva 1-2, 6, 8, 15, 37-44, 47, 49, 54-61, 63-68, 70-75, 85, 87, 90, 108, 140, 143-146, 179, 181-182, 185-187, 199, 212 Germany 37,39, 41-42, 46-47, 52, 100,108, 118, 134, 155, 159, 162, 164, 169, 203, 206-207, 214, 223, 240 Gincberg, Asher, see Ahad Ha’am Gobat, Albert 116 Grimme, Hubert 136 Grosser, Bronislaw 49 Gurevich, Grigorii 39 Ha-emet 37-39 Ha-magid 38 Ha-melits 125 Ha-shahar 38 Harkavy, Alexander 96 Harshav, Benjamin 82, 95 Haskala 126, 215 Haynt 202-203 Hebrew 4, 8, 37-38, 78, 92, 94, 97-98, 125-126, 132, 136, 143-146, 180, 182-183, 185, 187, 199, 210, 212, 214-215, 222, 224-225, 227, 230-231 Hersch, Jeanne 70 Hersch, Liebmann 1-2, 70 Herzen, Alexander 38-39 Herzl, Theodor 79-80, 83, 89, 95, 190-192, 218, 233-234, 236-245 Hibbat Zion/Hovevei Zion 182, 234, 236-237, 243 Hilfscomité für jüdische Auswanderer 16 Imprimerie israélite 55, 64-69, 73, 75 Informatsions-bletl 49 Iskra 68 Israelitische Cultusgemeinde Zürich (ICZ) 17, 21, 24, 27-28, 31-33

Index  

 273

Israelitisches Religionsgesellschaft (IRG)  31-32 Israelitisches Wochenblatt für die Schweiz (IW) 21, 25, 29, 32-33 Italy 22, 140-141, 200 Ivriyah 146 Jakobsohn, Sarah 155-169 Jakobson, Roman 95-97 Jaurès, Jean 87-88 Jewish Club 8, 132-133, 140 Jewish Colonization Association 129 Jewish Labor Bund (Bund) xiii, 1-2, 6-7, 35, 41-47, 49, 55, 59, 61, 63, 65-68, 70-76, 85-89, 95, 102-103, 106, 109, 116-117, 143, 186, 193; Central Circles 56, 75; Central Committee 57, 64; Central Office 56-57; Conference of/Congress of 49, 63; Foreign Committee 41-43, 46, 54, 56, 67, 69, 71, 75; United Organization of the Bund Circles Abroad  56-57; Printing press, see Imprimerie israélite Jewish socialist movements 40-41, 43, 51, 129 Jewish Socialist Union 37, 39 Jewish Socialist Workers’Party (SERP) 44, 47-49 Jewish Workingmen’s Benefit and Educational Society 37 Jews, Swiss vi, 3, 6, 16-17, 20, 23-25, 27-29, 31-33 Jews, legal status 16 Joël, Karl 216, 223 Josephsohn, Hans 168, 171, 173, 177 Jüdisches Emigrations Comité 24 Jung, Carl Gustav 168 Kabak, Aaron Abraham 212 Kabbalah 214-215, 222, 225 Kadima 133, 140, Kamenschein, Moise 65-66, 70 Kaplansky, Shlomo 48 Khlebnikov, Velimir 96 Khurgin, Isaiah, 48 Kiev 8, 48, 146, 148, 151, 158-161, 165-166, 169-170, 172-173, 175, 180, 202, 204, 214 Kievskaia Mysl’ 48, 50 Klatzkin, Jakob 2

274 

 Index

Khlebnikov, Velimir 96 Kolokol 39 Königsberg 37-39, 168 Kook, Abraham Isaac 222-223 Kook, Zvi Yehuda 9, 217, 222, 225-226 Kopelson, Tsemakh 63 Kossovskii, Vladimir 43 Kremer, Arkadii 42-43, 47, 60-61, 63, 71-73 Kruk, Yosef 48 Kursky, Franz 66 Kvitko, Leyb 214 La Bienfaisante 22 La Chaux-de-Fonds 6, 13-14, 17-23, 26-27, 31-33 Landsmanshaftn vii Langie, André 68-69 Latski-Bertoldi, Willy 48 Lausanne 15, 41, 55-56, 68, 108, 145, 199-201, 203-204, 206-209, 212-213, 217 Lavrov, Petr 37, 110 Lebns-fragn 49 Lengnau 16-17 Lenin, Vladimir 50, 69, 226-227 Levin, Shmarya 42 Levitan, Michael 48 Liberman, Aron Shmuel 37-40, 50 Lilien, Efraim M. 144 Littman, Martin 21 Litvak, A. 49, 51n60 London 37-40, 42-43, 47, 50-51, 63-66, 68, 73, 75, 130, 136-143, 145-147 Lodz 158, 169, 227 Lugano 200, 217 Makhlin, David 57, 75, 192n40 Mamelot 26 Markish, Peretz 178, 186n22, 214 Marmor, Kalman 7, 8, 125-148 Marmor, Sore-Shifre 126, 129, 130-131, 136-143, 146, 148 Marxism 193, 215, 231 Medem, Gina 103 Medem, Vladimir 2, 46n34, 49, 55, 58, 63n32, 64, 69n56, 70-71, 74, 85-87, 89-90, 93, 103, 115-117, 127 Mendele Moykher Sforim (Abramovitsh, Sholem Yankev) 78, 180n9

Migration 1, 5, 9, 17, 54, 151, 153, 169, 173; determinants of 7, 105-109, 118; economic, 3, 6; from Tsarist Russia v, viii, 1, 2n6, 3, 5-6, 14, 20, 25, 29, 35-36, 43, 100-102, 106-107, 109-110, 118, 129-130, 150, 160; political 6, 35-52, 116-117; student 7, 99-121, 127; transnational 4, 5, 125, 127, 148, 169 Mill, John 35, 42, 54, 56, 59-60, 63, 127 Minhag ashkenas 32 Minsk 40 Mont Blanc 189 Morgn-Frayhayt 128, 148 Morgen-Zhurnal 211 Moscow 20, 61, 84, 107, 158, 161n47, 169-170, 185, 214 Motzkin, Leo 144 Mussorgsky, Modest 81 Mytinkowitsch, Abram (Abram Mutnik) 65, 70-71, 73 Nathanson 65-66 New Woman 137, 151-154, 169, 173 New York 37-38, 40, 44, 51, 68, 94, 128, 199n3, 208-209, 211, 217 Newspapers 2, 21, 45n32, 49, 75, 247; Hebrew 145; Yiddish 40, 49-50, 146, 148, 202, 211; Russian 48, 50 Nicolet, Emile 71, 75 Nordau, Max 182, 235 Numerus clausus 41, 99, 107, 111-113, 119, 230 Odessa 39, 88, 98, 178, 180-182, 189n29, 191, 236, 237 Olgin, Moyshe 49, 51n60 Orthodoxy 19, 31, 77, 170, 225-226 Ostjuden vi, 21, 24, 32, 82, 167, 169 Pale of Settlement 7, 39-40, 105, 107, 114, 125, 187, 189 Palestine 8, 22, 45-46, 118n56, 145-146, 179, 182, 187, 196, 198, 214, 218, 225, 231, 242 Paris 42-44, 46-47, 50, 60, 143, 181, 201, 214, 227-228 Passanten v Peddlers 24-25, 28-30, 33-34 Philanthropy 20-21, 24, 26 Philo-Semitism 88



Plekhanov, Georgii 87 Poalei Zion 45, 47-49, 51n60, 146, 148 Polish Socialist Party (PPS) 74 Poslednye izvestiia 64, 69 Pravda 50 Printing press 41-42, 55-56, 59, 65-67, 69, 72, 75 Protocols of the Elders of Zion 20 Rabinovich, Mark (Mordechai) Iakovlevich, see Ben-Ami Rabinovich, Solomon, see Sholem Aleichem Rabkine, Israel 59-60, 63, 72 Rappoport, Shloyme-Zanvl, see An-sky, S. Raskin, Moyshe 48 Ratner, Mark 48, 50 Reichesberg, Naum 115 Reichstein-Brokman, Gustawa 8, 149, 151, 154, 155-177 Reichstein, Isidor 154, 158-163, 165-167, 169-170, 174, 176-177 Reichstein, Tadeus 154, 161, 169n92, 175, 177 Reinhardt, Max 203 Revolution 17, 93, 98, 164, 195, 230; of 1905-1907, 6, 20, 25, 35, 37, 43-44, 46, 50, 67, 106n22, 160, 169; of 1917, v, 8, 36, 54, 58n12, 70, 75, 165, 226 Revutsky, Avrom 48 Rosenbaum, Menahem Mendel 2 Rubanovich, Ilia 88 Russian (Russian-Jewish) student colonies 2, 6-8, 41, 46, 55-56, 58, 64, 68-69, 72-76, 91, 93, 100, 103, 109, 117, 119-120, 126-127, 131-132, 137, 144-145, 147-148 Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party (RSDRP) 71-74, 76 Russian-Jewish Academic Society 42 Russo-Japanese War 20, 160 Sanders, Willie (Saunders, Willy) 205 Schatz-Anin, Max 48-49 Schildkraut, Rudolph 203-206 Sensory turn  77 shtetl viii, 109, 116, 119, 170, 180n8, 182, 185-192, 194-198, 212, 222 Sholem Aleichem (Rabinovich, Solomon) 8-9, 78-81, 90, 92-93, 95, 98, 180, 199-213, 271 Siberia 35, 91, 95, 187, 229, 249

Index  

 275

Sigg, Jean 70-71, 75 Siu, Paul C. P. 126-127 Slezkine, Yuri 193, 197 Slodki, Marcel 227-228 Smolenskin, Peretz 38 Social democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) 71n65, 74 Social democrats 86; Swiss 76, 82; Russian  61, 69, 71-72, 74-75, 87, 157, 186 Socialism 36, 40, 116, 157, 188, 193, 195 Socialist Revolutionaries vii, 2, 74, 86-88, 93 Socialist Revolutionary Party 74, 116 Socialist Zionism 42-44 Socialist Zionists 48, 126-127 Socialist Zionist Workers’ Party (SSRP) 44, 49 Société des dames 22-23 Société philanthropique 22 Sokolov, Nachum 146 St. Gallen 15-16, 222-223 St. Petersburg 39, 49-50, 84, 96, 107, 158, 169-170, 182, 202, 223 Stein, Ludwig 115 Stolypin, Petr 44 Strauss, David 21 Student colony /student colonies, see Russian (Russian-Jewish) student colonies Students, female, see Frauenstudium Supperstein, Morris 136-138, 142 Susman, Margarete 164, 171-172, 176 Switzerland; languages 79, 97, 185; nature  8, 184, 189-190, 198 Swiss Federal Council 30, 61, 72 Swiss-German 109 Syrkin, Nachman 42-45, 144 Trotsky, Leon 50, 51n60, 87, 226 Tschulok, Sinai 162 Tsukerman, Leizer 37 United States vi, 4, 14n3, 16, 40, 43-45, 51-52, 84, 96-97, 148, 155, 169, 207, 213, University; of Basel 9, 154, 164n65, 172, 216-217, 223, 230; of Berne 7, 65, 100, 102, 104, 110-111, 113-116, 120, 134, 144; of Fribourg 128, 133-135, 147; of Geneva  1, 70; of Lausanne 201; of Zurich 35, 91, 101, 110-111, 113-115, 160-161, 162n58, 217, 226

276 

 Index

Vienna 6, 37-39, 46-50, 80, 135, 143, 158, 169-170, 174, 191-192, 214-217, 223, 227, 230-235, 237, 243, 245 Vilna 2, 40, 54, 58n12, 60, 125, 129-130, 137, 143, 146 Vilter, Marc 60, 63, 72 Vinchevsky, Morris 37-40 Vitebsk 91 Vogel, David 227 von Bendemann, Eduard 164 von Bendemann, Erwin 164, 171 von Hofmannsthal, Hugo 216, 220 Voskhod 182-183 Vpered! 37 Waife-Goldberg, Marie 200 Warsaw 49, 135, 158, 160, 169-170, 200, 202-203, 213 Weinreich, Max 96, 220, 226 Weinreich, Uriel 97-98 Weizmann, Chaim 2, 74, 85, 89-90, 103, 116, 119, 128n11, 131n28, 133, 140, 144, 146 Western European League of the Zionist Socialists 47 Wiener, Meir 9, 212, 214-231 Włocławek 151, 154-155, 158-159, 169 Wolff, Jules 27, 31 World Union of Poalei Zion 48-49 World Zionist Organization 144

Yiddish vii, 1-2, 4, 8, 37, 40, 44, 48, 50, 59, 64, 67, 69, 75, 78-80, 88, 94-98, 105, 109, 116, 125-128, 139, 145-148, 178, 180, 182-183, 187, 199-200, 202, 205, 207-209, 211, 214-216, 220, 227, 230-231, 246 Yiddishism (Yiddishists) 82, 95 Yidisher arbeter 60n19, 143 Yishuv 45 Zhitlowsky, Chaim 2, 44-45, 87, 90-91, 103, 116, 127, 143 Zilberfarb, Moyshe 48 Zilberman, Eliezer Lipman 38 Zionism 8, 27-28, 42-43, 79, 102, 180, 182, 191-196, 198, 218, 222, 225, 231, 236, 243; Zionism Socialism (Zionist Socialists) 47, 49, 106; Territorialism  44, 193; Zionist 7, 27-28, 49, 74, 76, 79, 82-83, 85-86, 89, 103, 109, 116-117, 126-127, 137, 143, 145-146, 178, 187, 193, 198, 210, 218, 220, 222, 225, 237; Zionist Congresses 2, 8, 79, 82-83, 133, 143-147, 179, 182, 185, 190; Zionist Youth Conference 133, 144 Zurich 6-9, 13-15, 17-26, 28-34, 35, 41, 46, 48-49, 55-56, 63, 73-74, 85, 87, 90-91, 99-103, 107-118, 120, 145, 150-151, 159-167, 169-173, 175, 177, 192n40, 214-215, 217, 224-228, 240, 246-248