A ‘Useful Past’ and the Crisis of the European Jews: Popular Jewish Historiography in Germany, France and Hungary in the 1930s

Abstract

The article presents various types of historical writings and the use of memory on the part of European Jewish public spokesmen in the 1930s, in order to cope with the rising threat of Fascism and Nazism. It focuses on the level of popular writing and is based first and foremost on publications in liberal and communal Jewish journals. The developing forms of the useful past are examined comparatively in three communities: Germany, France and Hungary.

Modern German, French and Hungarian Jewries were formed under the impact of emancipation. As a part of this process, mainstream spokesmen in these communities developed a new form of historiography, by presenting a useful past that supported their aspiration to integrate into the local societies as equal citizens. Their views on the past were therefore based both on Jewish and on local national historical narratives, attempting to harmonize between them.

Examining the discourse of the 1930s on Jewish history, the article seeks to point to continuity and change in the presentation of the Jewish past. Thus, for example, it presents the ongoing intensive use of the recalling of key historical heroes (such as Moses Mendelssohn, in Germany, and Adolf Crémieux, in France), as well the change in the emphasis of their public representation. A key issue that is dealt with in the article is the changing attitude of certain liberal Jewish spokesmen to the idea of progress.