Ostjuden

(Eastern Jews)

   Almost a fifth of the Republic's Jews (totalling somewhat under 600,000) were Ostjuden: Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and Russia. A wave of Russian pogroms had inaugurated a mass migration in 1881, and revolution and renewed pogroms heightened the numbers during and immediately after World War I. Of 100,000 Ostjuden who had entered Germany between 1914 and 1920, 55,000 remained in 1922. Fearful of returning east and prevented from entering the United States, the Ostjuden (whose chief language was Yiddish) became an economic and emotional burden to their assimilated coreligionists in Germany. The Central Association of German Citizens of Jew-ish Faith,* the Jewish defense league, claimed in 1925 that many Ostjuden were racketeers, swindlers, currency and stock cheaters, and thieves and fences," ideal stereotypes for anti-Semites. In fact, the typical Ostjude led a meager existence as an itinerant salesman or industrial worker. Although not every German Jew disowned his Eastern brethren—Zionists and many Orthodox Jews revered their traditions—the typical response was uneasiness.

   The ambivalence of German Jews to their Eastern brethren was induced largely by the dual challenges of anti-Semitism* and Zionism. Prompted by both kinship and an attachment to liberalism, German Jews had long championed the emancipation of Ostjuden. But when these Halbasien ("half-Asian") Jews de-scended en masse upon Germany, sympathy changed to fear. Because their unsavory presence damaged the liberal Jews' assimilationist philosophy—which perceived Jews as just another group of Western Europeans—the Ostjuden were pressed to leave Germany as soon as possible (during 1905-1914, 70,000 had emigrated to the United States). The aspiration to secure Germany from an Eastern infestation was not shared by all German Jews: some, moved by hu-manism, selflessly aided and educated Eastern Jewry; others, harboring romantic notions of racial purity, idealized their unassimilated Eastern brethren as superior beings. But too many German Jews failed to acknowledge that anti-Semitism was directed not simply at Ostjuden but at Judentum generally. Ironically, the inability of German Jews to grasp that assimilation had become a hollow dream in Germany may have been aggravated by the presence of Ostjuden, from whom they carefully differentiated themselves.

   REFERENCES:Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers; Jacob Katz, From Prejudice to De-struction; George Mosse, German Jews beyond Judaism; Niewyk, Jews in Weimar Ger-many; Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers.