Context Podcast Digital Collection

Johanna Bringhurst: Hello everyone, and welcome to context. This program is brought to you by the Idaho Humanities Council with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The views expressed here today do not necessarily represent those of the IHC or the NEH. My name is Johanna Bringhurst and joining us today is Doctor Nick Underwood, a historian of modern Jewish and modern European history from the College of Idaho.

Doctor Underwood has taught courses on modern Jewish, European and world history at Sonoma State University, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and Napa Valley College. He has held postdoctoral fellowships at the GHI Pacific Regional Office at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Fraenkel Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Michigan. He also serves as managing editor for the journal American Jewish History, and as project manager for the Digital Yiddish Theater Project.

Nick, thank you for joining me here today to discuss Jewish history. Many Idahoans have learned about the tragic history of the Holocaust, but do not know much about the full history of the Jewish people. There are thousands of years of rich history to study, and we have limited time together. So can you help us understand the essentials and where we can begin learning?

Dr. Nick Underwood: So, Johanna, first of all, I'd like to thank you for the invitation to be here. It's a it's a it's a thrill to participate in this project. And with the IHC, big supporter of the work that you're doing. And again, just appreciate the invitation. yes. So, thousands of years of Jewish history in 30 minutes, I think.

I think we can do it right. you know, and I think you're right, too. You know, one of the things that hopefully will kind of come out of this conversation is that I think a lot of people when when they have any experience or understanding about Jewish history, it's either tied to kind of two, two moments, right?

The Holocaust or kind of biblical history. Right. And I think what happens in between and after, especially after the Holocaust, is one of the things hopefully will come out of this conversation and kind of really kind of deepened understanding of, of a really varied global kind of experience for, for, for, for Jews. Right. and, I think that hopefully that'll kind of come through in this conversation.

Johanna Bringhurst: Thank you. I'm excited to learn more for myself and for our listeners as well.

I will focus less on the kind of like the, the theology and more really kind of on the, on the history. So we'll be thinking about kind of patterns and migration and we'll talk about language, and kind of where Jews have found themselves throughout time and for some of the reasons for that, if that, if that, if you think that's an okay approach.

Johanna Bringhurst: That sounds perfect.

And over hundreds of years, rabbis debate and kind of think about and put together, the, the Talmud, there's two Talmuds. There is one, that is finished first in, Jerusalem it's sometimes referred to as either the Jerusalem Talmud or the Palestinian Talmud. both, both terms are used. and then also there's the Babylonian Talmud.

Johanna Bringhurst: Great. Can I ask you, when most people think of Jews, they think of their religious identity. But you talked about an ethnicity and a race beyond.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yes.

Johanna Bringhurst: Just a just a belief system. Could you explain more?

You know, I think that it's interesting sometimes to think about religion as almost a modern construct, right? I mean, if you were thinking about ancient times, you were thinking about even the years 500 C.E. religion, culture, society, all these things are intertwined with one another, right? we see kind of over time, the separation of some of these, and we kind of see like, well, we'll start to see, as we move in, in more in the modern period.

but as Jews leave, their ancient homelands, and go to other places, their interaction with religion, their interactions with other societies change, and they're almost always in kind of constant discussion, with those creator societies. I'm not sure if that's a satisfying.

Johanna Bringhurst: Yes.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Or yes. Yes. It's complicated.

Johanna Bringhurst: Of course. And do all the rabbis agree with each other on how to understand the Talmud and the Bible, or is there a range of thinking?

Dr. Nick Underwood: There is a range of thinking. And, you know, one of the things that I think is beautiful about kind of the Talmud, especially so the way that it's printed, there's originally the Babylonian Talmud that's printed. And then over into the Middle Ages. What ends up happening is that there are later versions of the Talmud that are actually, printed with later rabbinic commentary.

They're debating, I think, sometimes, you know, the most, Jewish approach to taxes, that they're in constant debate with those texts. And what does that mean? Why this word? How is this word used here in this section? Whereas maybe in the Book of Numbers that Hebrew is is used in that word is used differently here and then maybe later, it's used differently.

Johanna Bringhurst: Thank you. Thank you. So then after this time period, Jews began to spread out across Europe, across the Middle East. What did that look like?

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yeah. So first, after kind of leaving or kind of dispersion, up until it's one of the things that I think is, is, is, is, eye opening to, to, to many people is that between the seventh and the 13th centuries, 90% of, global, global Jewry lived in Islamic societies, mostly around the Mediterranean, and also up into the Iberian Peninsula, which until 1492 was, primarily controlled by Islamic empires.

so I think, you know, so primarily the initial migrations are in and around the Mediterranean. and like I said, from the seventh to about the 13th century, the majority of global Jewry live in those lands. It's after, it's really kind of after, 1492, which is with first the Inquisition and the expulsion of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula by, Ferdinand and Isabella.

and then we start to see kind of like movement into other parts of the world. But it's, it's a it's an important thing to understand at first when the migration is kind of, regional to some extent. and then we start to see kind of Jews, like, expand out to other places around the world.

Johanna Bringhurst: When did Jews first come to America and North and South America?

Dr. Nick Underwood: So, yes. So the the first. so I'll first say this. So Jews start to move into Europe, mainly around the year 1000, but in very small numbers in the Rhineland, in the western part of Germany, into the Americas. It happens after the expulsion and it happens as a result of the expulsion. So the first Jewish communities in the Americas that we see are in a, a area port town in the northern part of Brazil.

called Recife, around just shortly after the year 1500. And then it's from there, that we start to see the first, kind of arrivals of Jews in, what can now be referred to as North America, in the Dutch colony of, New Amsterdam. And it's about, 1654 that there are there's actually recent, recent, history that's actually kind of uncovered that, this is probably the first established community that comes to North America.

There apparently are a few other, there are a few other, Jews that have come to, this area, but they don't they don't stay. They leave. but we still refer to as, this community from Recife that comes to Amsterdam as the first kind of, Jewish community in North America.

Johanna Bringhurst: Wow. I did not realize it was so early. I think we always think of the Puritans. Yes. Settling here, that's really interesting.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yeah. It's interesting. And I also should note too that. So and I, and I apologize for not mentioning this earlier is, you know, when we start to see this, these diasporas from kind of ancient homelands, we start to see kind of also different communities of Jews emerge. Right? So when we're talking about the Jews being, displaced from the Iberian Peninsula, we're talking about a group of Jewish, Jews who are known as, Sephardim, or, which comes from the old biblical term for what is known as the, the Arab peninsula called Sepharad.

so when we're talking about the Jews that come to the Americas, first, those are Sephardic Jews who are establishing themselves in Recife and then in, New Amsterdam, the other communities of Jews, Ashkenazi Jews who are Jews that originate from Central Europe, Ashkenaz and also, category of Arab Jews, who we probably won't talk about very much today because we only have a limited amount of time.

but Mizrahi Jews, too, so are kind of mostly Jews of Arab descent to some extent. so when we're talking about these, when we're talking about, global Jewry, we're talking about different communities. Ashkenazi Jews and Sephardic Jews sometimes have different practices in how they interpret, certain, holidays and whatnot. use the same books, right?

Johanna Bringhurst: How were Jews received by those communities and what was life like for them?

Dr. Nick Underwood: It's, it depends. the community in Recife is is stable there for a number of years. The reason they moved, is because the government, they're starting to kind of, put more, restrictions on kind of, mobility, practice. so, you know, there's some stability there, but they moved, that's why they moved to New Amsterdam.

Johanna Bringhurst: So then in the 18th, in the 19th century, things started to change. But the rise of Yiddish culture, can you help us understand what that what does Yiddish mean? And and why was this a successful change?

And so I'm like, I really kind of develop a flourishing kind of Ladino culture as well. So whenever Jews kind of are moving around, they're adopting languages. and there are scholars working on, these Jewish languages, and they're finding that there are dozens and dozens of them that have emerged around, around the world in different periods of time.

but back to Yiddish. so I mentioned that Yiddish is a is a is a language that kind of emerges, in the, around the year 1000. and it's used widely by a number of Jews in Eastern Europe after Jews are kind of like moved from Central Europe into Eastern Europe. That's used by a number of them.

It is kind of part of, the, the Jewish Enlightenment that happens, around the same time as the European Enlightenment. It's also a language used, primarily by, Hasidic Jews, as they're kind of establishing themselves around the 18th and 19th centuries. and it's also a moment it's also the language that in the 19th century will end up being used, by Yiddish speaking Eastern European Jews who are trying to figure out, how to establish kind of new national identities.

And we start to see a rise of secular Yiddish culture that really kind of has this kind of like, national identity embedded into it. and it's a really remarkable, project that happens. It's mostly in the late 19th century. we see a bunch of a number of writers kind of switched from maybe writing in Hebrew, maybe writing in, Russian to writing, writing in, in Yiddish.

so we have a wide kind of flourishing, kind of, Yiddish culture that that is really kind of happening in the late 19th century and carrying on into, into the early 20th century and in Eastern Europe, where we're talking about, millions of Yiddish speakers of this period, too, which is also which, if you think about it on a very basic level, makes sense as to why why Jews would want to start to create in this language, because this is the language that people are actually using, right?

This is how people are communicating. So perhaps we can elevate this to some sort of different kind of stature.

Johanna Bringhurst: So Jews in Europe at this time are talking to each other in Yiddish every day and then starting to write and create fiction and explore their culture using the Yiddish language. This is so fascinating to me, and I'm curious, did the rise of Yiddish culture come because Jews wanted to be a part of the communities where they had settled, but also retain their Jewishness?

Or how would you view that?

Dr. Nick Underwood: So I think it's, you know, it's important to understand the context that this happening in right. When we think of Eastern Europe, we're talking about Europe, but we're not really talking about central or Western Europe. Right? When we think of Central Europe, we think of German speaking lands. Right? These are mostly, mostly monolingual spaces. It's not entirely true, but generally speaking, you know, a form of German, like Yiddish once was right. Western Europe also, you know, it's people are speaking ..., maybe, Spanish.

It's a very different place than the rest in central and Western Europe. So and I say that only to say that these are multilingual, multinational kind of empires. And so, yes, to, to to answer your question, that is what's happening. Right. We can develop these cultures. We can develop this identity that is, an attempt to kind of maintain some sort of, some sort of Jewishness that might work in this framework.

Maybe it's a linguistic kind of national understanding. but yet, still part of these larger societies.

Johanna Bringhurst: That is really interesting because you're right. When we think of Europe today, it's nation states, clearly defined borders, languages. But Eastern Europe was so different at that time. All of Europe was in the early 20th century. Conflict and other factors caused a lot of migrations around the globe. What was happening to Jewish communities in Europe at that time?

Dr. Nick Underwood: So it's a, turn. It's a great question. And I'll kind of I want to go back to one thing that I said before, too, is that kind of so Yiddish is not only its function in exactly the space that you're, that you're talking about. Yiddish is also the language. So, when the Russian Empire, absorbs or takes a majority of Poland, they mark off what's called the Pale of Settlement.

and it's a, it's an area restricted. It's not only Jews, but Jews are restricted to this area. So it's also there's a few things that are happening here. So the Yiddish is happening in that context. but it's also happening in this space where Jews are restricted to and a settlement, is in place until the early 20th century.

so it's also there's this other element to that where kind of like Yiddish is forming in a, in a time and a place, where, Jews are restricted. they're facing kind of limits on where they can go and move. so it's also a way for Jews to kind of connect with themselves. So it's, it's simultaneously informed by kind of like the larger forces at play in Eastern Europe.

Excuse me. but also kind of for the particular Jewish experience, which is, that Jews in Eastern Europe are living in these, in these, in the Pale of Settlement and the pale of Settlement covers, a vast majority of the Eastern Europe that we, that we, that we're familiar with, places that we're talking about today.

Kiev. Warsaw. all these split Poland, what we know, we think of as Poland and Ukraine. Belarus. These are that was the kind of original like that was the area of the settlement. so, so yes. So just and I. Yeah. So. Okay, so excuse me. so turn of the century, what ends up happening is we start to see kind of, conflict also arise and a lot of different ideologies.

The 19th century, right, is kind of like when, when capitalism starts to flourish and socialism and communism and all these isms that, you know, and, in, in, in, in, at least in, when I teach our civilization course, you know, this is the 19th century is the century of isms, right? Everything is popping up. Romanticism, and Jews are kind of also kind of attaching themselves to some of these movements.

we also start to see, with the, with the, with that violence, we start to see pogroms, kind of emerge. Right. So as early as earlier than this, but still kind of definitely after, 1881, we start to see pogroms in Eastern Europe. Pogrom is, as a as a as a word use. It comes from, a Slavic word, that can mean a lot of things, but typically within the Jewish experience, it means kind of a targeted violence against a Jewish community.

And a pogrom can be, five to hundreds or thousands of Jews kind of being attacked. So that's what I mean by the word, pogrom. So, with the turn of the century, we start to see these riots of pogroms, and it really kind of affects how Jews start to think about themselves, how they start to kind of think about ways of organizing themselves.

it should be, you know, when we when we start to think about the rise of Yiddish and the rise of, like, this particular kind of Eastern European, Jewish national, however we to understand it identity, it's at the same moment that we start to see Zionism in modern Hebrew kind of be established as a, as another potential, potential kind of Jewish national identity too.

Johanna Bringhurst: So can you explain Zionism to us and how, how maybe how it was perceived and what it originally was meant?

And we know now that actually he developed some of these ideas prior. But the Dreyfus affair is definitely still linchpin in kind of the understanding of the development of Zionism. and Zionism is a movement that that sought, to establish a autonomous political homeland. And I'm actually going to split that up a little bit for Jews. I say political because I mentioned Theodor Herzl, who was sometimes called the father of political Zionism.

But in the earlier 20th century, there's a variety of Zionisms right. There's a cultural Zionism that is a, put forth by a person named Ahad Ha'am, who really thinks that it should be a Hebrew culture that drives people to a particular place. And there's more of a grassroots way of kind of establishing a national home.

Herzl thinks that it ought to be done by way of kind of, international diplomacy. so there's a variety of Zionisms that happen and emerge in the late early 20th century. Originally, it was not always thought that Palestine would be the place that this national homeland would who would emerge. There's many people who were thinking of places around, around, around the world, the Pampas and Argentina in the so-called or the Uganda Plan and kind of, in West Africa, there's a number of Zionists too, that think that there should be, that, that the homeland should be placed in Eastern Africa.

that is where they kind of start focusing more on, what they would call Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel or Palestine, as it would have been called then under the Ottoman Empire. and even kind of dating to the Roman Empire. so, yeah. So Zionism is this attempt, this varied attempt, through a different route about how to find a Jewish national homeland somewhere, which is in opposition to, to some extent, of what the people who were advocating for Yiddish were doing because the Yiddish speakers thought that they could create that national autonomy in the places where they saw themselves.

of course, that's not true of all Yiddish speakers. But, you know, if we're thinking big picture about kind of how these national identities are evolving and how they're emerging, they're they're they have different kind of, they have rootedness, understood differently.

Johanna Bringhurst: Okay. So going.

Dr. Nick Underwood: That's helpful for.

Johanna Bringhurst: So as the 20th century is progressing, there isn't one unified idea among Jewish people of what Zionism means or where should be a homeland, or even what that looks like. But most are living and speaking different languages and different nationalities. But Yiddish culture kind of unites them across those borders. Is that fair?.

Dr. Nick Underwood: For Yiddish speakers.

Johanna Bringhurst: For Yiddish speakers, yes.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Right. I mean.

Johanna Bringhurst: in Spain.

Dr. Nick Underwood: In Spain Ladino speakers and speakers who are speaking various languages. Their their approaches to this is are going to be very different, right? Ladino speakers in the Ottoman Empire in the early stages. I'm not I'm not supportive of some of that or this is, of course, I'm speaking very generally here. generally speaking, not, not supportive of the Zionist movement because they have some stability with the Ottoman Empire.

Right. There's lots of different approaches and debates and arguments about how, how these kind of, issues, to be solved. So, even among the Yiddish speakers, there's debate, right? Is it, do we, do we kind of adhere to Republican societies? Right. Like places like France? Is that where we can create this, this Yiddish cultural world for us?

Is it adherence to socialism or communism? Right. Is it like, you know, an abandoning of these types of frameworks that that, that are kind of seen in some of these states? so even within the Yiddish communities and, and Zionist communities too, there's debates about how, how this should work, how this looks like, so it only complicates I, I'm only complicating the picture further, unfortunately, and not making it simpler.

because there is there is agreement amongst some groups, but there are many groups that are in disagreement with each other.

Johanna Bringhurst: History is complicated.

Dr. Nick Underwood: It's, you know, my students hate it when I, when I, when they ask me a question, I say, you know, it's complicated.

Johanna Bringhurst: I can really. So in the 20th century now we have World War one. There's a lot of change in Europe. instability, famine, depression leads to a lot of migration, which also sets the stage for the Holocaust. What do we need to to understand to be able to put into context the Holocaust in the greater story of the Jewish people?

the Dreyfus affair is a turning point in kind of thinking about Jews in society. Right? Many scholars and historians think of like prior to the Dreyfus affair, when we think of anti-Semitism, we're thinking about anti Judaism, right? It's targeted violence sometimes against Jews because of the practices that they're doing as primarily not Christian. Right. Most pogroms, most kind of anti Jewish violence happens in in Christian dominated lands like Europe.

Right. And there's historical reasons for that. it doesn't, it does happen in the Islamic lands but not as common. so with the Dreyfus affair that what we start to see is we start to see this shift away from anti Judaism to something that is really kind of embedded into the racial theories that are emerging in Europe in the late 19th century.

And we start to see a racialization of Jews. Right. And so it's important to understand that because it helps contextualize how and why, in the early 20th century, this so-called Jewish question emerges so broadly, and is confounding for people because of how, non-Jews are starting to imagine Jews in racial categories and assigning them kind of, inherent or centralized qualities that they think, are, disrupting their particular societies.

Right. So it's important to understand that, especially if we think about, Hitler's anti-Semitism, it is a very racialized antisemitism. So it's important to understand that this kind of, along with this instability, kind of socially and culturally, politically, that's happening in Europe at this time. We're also seeing this rise of this kind of racialized antisemitism that is feeding, into these changes.

And it's not just in Europe that these anti-Semitism, this racialized anti-Semitism are spreading. but to kind of to kind of keep us on track a little bit. We'll kind of focus on, on the European case here, but so, yeah, so that's what's happening. and we start to see kind of, Jews being kind of scapegoated, really kind of for all the ills of society.

Right? Whether it's the rise, you know, the anti-Semitic tropes that exist that, you know, Jews control money and are moneylenders and, you know, kind of therefore, kind of controlled global finance, in the early 20th century, there was a famous banking family. The Rothschilds were both, based in France. you know, that was a code among anti-Semites, for kind of targeting Jews as kind of, being in charge of global finance.

There's a contemporary parallels, today. but historically speaking, the Rothschilds, were part of that. Alongside that, though too Jews were kind of blamed for, Bolshevism, communism. Right. So they're kind of like, attached to these, these elements of society that, people are threatened by. Right. And so kind of we start to see this is where this racialized component comes in, right?

Where like there's this kind of, people, anti-Semites tend to think that there's something centralized about these Jews that kind of make them, have a propensity towards, towards these movements. Right. And it has to do with othering, scapegoating. How do we blame the ill, how do we simply, blame or place blame or understand the root causes for, our societies?

and in the European case, primarily what happens in the early 20th century is that Jews start to be targeted. they were, of course, like I mentioned before, targeted, before. But we start to see this uptick in kind of these, these moments of antisemitism, fed through, this lens of kind of a racialized understanding of them at this particular moment.

Johanna Bringhurst: Okay. So Hitler, in seeking power in Germany, lies about Jews to have a scapegoat, a convenient scapegoat as to why the German economy is in shambles, why German people feel that they are not receiving their proper place in the global order of things. I think it's really important when we talk about like othering and scapegoating, to be really clear that this was not true.

These were lies.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yes.

Johanna Bringhurst: And. Hitler sought to manipulate German people to gain power by lying about blaming Jewish people for the troubles in their country.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yes. And I think, Johanna, it's a good point to make about all of these kind of, stereotypes that they're not rooted in truth. Right. we'll step back for a second to kind of be able to flesh that out even more. there is an antisemitic myth that, develops, called the blood libel, which is that Jews kidnap a Christian child, murder that child, and use that blood as an ingredient in martyr for Passover.

I have seen a number of recipes for matzo over the years. I have never seen one, ever, that includes even a teeny tiny drop of blood. Right? No, never seen it. Never seen it. So. Yes. To Europe.

Johanna Bringhurst: So we can rule that out?

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yeah. Rule it out. so. Yeah. So the point, I mean, just to further your point that these ideas are, based on kind of fear, scapegoating and an attempt to very simply, blame someone for larger societal lives. And in the case of Europe, when we're talking about a small population, right, usually these Jewish communities in these in these places are one, three, 1%, 3% very small.

it's easy to blame a minority for society's ills, right. so, yes, they're all completely fabricated. They're not they're there's no truth to or, you know, kind of a world, you know, a group of Jewish cabal that's, you know, controlling all of global finances. Many people in the early 20th century thought, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is, a fabricated, book by the Russian Empire.

That is a secret, supposedly a secret meeting of Jews that are trying to that meet to control, global finance, completely fabricated. You know, if we look back at Jewish history, especially in these places, you know, Jews in Germany had some upward mobility and there was a large German Jewish middle class, same thing in, in France, especially by the, late 19th and early 20th century.

But if we think about, like Jews broadly conceived in Europe, we're talking about a fairly impoverished population. We're not talking about a wealthy population. Yes, we mentioned a couple wealthy families. But again, just to kind of prove or to further your point, that a lot of this is just fabricated. There, there. I think you're right. They're lies like I think the the word you used is it's perfect.

and and then they're not really kind of they're, they're, they're, they're, they're rooted in an attempt to kind of, create an explanation for the ills of society than they are rooted in the actual actual truth.

Johanna Bringhurst: Absolutely. So Hitler escalates his anti-Semitic beliefs and views after the Nazi Party takes total control of the German government and begins a systematic campaign of exterminating Jews from Germany. And as Germany expands its borders through invading other nations to exterminate Jews in those nations as well. the Holocaust is very widely known. We've all learned about it in school, read books, seen movies.

But what happened after the Holocaust? Because I guess, well, I will be honest, when I was growing up learning about the Holocaust, the story that I or the narrative that I intuited was. That the war ended and the allies beat Hitler, and it was it's all okay from there. But the first time that I traveled to Europe, I really learned for myself how successful Hitler and his regime was in really murdering millions of people.

And they were largely successful in that goal.

But not totally successful. What happens to the Jewish people after the Holocaust? How do survivors rebuild? Where do they go? Walk us through it

So it's it's an important thing to remember that that mass murder happened in Eastern Europe. Right. so.

Johanna Bringhurst: You mean Poland? Ukraine? Yes. Belarus? Yes. The former Yugoslavia?

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yes. Those those places. Right. I mean, if we if you map, where the five main killing centers are the operation Red heart and others, those are in Eastern Europe, right? There are concentration camps all over. Right? There's tens of thousands of concentration camps. Okay. You know, colleagues of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum are uncovering and there's estimates.

I think it's now like 55,000 concentration camps all over Europe. But in terms of like mass killing, that's really happening in Eastern Europe, both by way of these camps, by these, extermination centers, but also, by way of, of, some, some people refer to it as, the Holocaust by bullets, the, the murdering of millions of Jews just by armed people on the front lines.

Right. some cases, it's where they originally came from. Some places we see Jews going to places such as South Africa, Argentina. there's a number, that try to make their way through Brazil and Uruguay. also Jews go to places like Mexico. And then, of course, we a number of Holocaust survivors come to the United States, and dramatically, kind of transform the, the, the American Jewish population.

you know, if we think about the Holocaust, one thing that it does and, you know, we kind of talked about kind of Jews migrating and we talked about Jews going to South Africa in the wake of the expulsion from, the Iberian Peninsula. We talked about Jews in the Islamic lands and how that changes. the Holocaust really is another moment of transformation, of global global Jewish population, where, the centers of Jewish, life are no longer in Europe.

There will now end up being an in other places and, and after, May of 1948 and, the establishment of the state of Israel, will will over time see Israel, the United States, and then by the mid 50s, early 60s, France will end up being the third largest Jewish population in the world. So the Holocaust does kind of cause a major transformation of where, where Jews are, because of murder and also because of the migration that happens as a result of that.

there were housing shortages, there was political instability, economic crises. so they were trying to establish themselves back in other places that were, you know, had been destroyed in a number of ways. So the attempt to kind of reintegrate into European society was it was a difficult one. but, I'm working on a new, new book, that is specifically trying to answer this question of what happens to Jews who go back to France, and especially Yiddish speakers who go back to France.

and, and they're doing that relatively quickly. so there are attempts to kind of reinstitute some of these, cultural practices, French speaking Jews do the same. German speaking Jews in Germany do the same as well. There are Jewish populations that that remain in in Europe. Hitler was not successful in eradicating Jewish life from Europe.

And a lot of these, a lot of these attempts actually are how can I say this politely? are a response to that in kind of saying that, you know, at least the, the figures that I am researching and writing about are very, very deliberate in the attempt to reestablish Jewish life in Europe as a response to Hitlerism, as the word that they use as a response to Hitlerism.

some of these, if we're talking about native speakers, some of these Yiddish speakers try to maintain Yiddish. Some of them shut it, in North America, there is there's a number of Yiddish speakers who seek refuge here, and a number of them, and don't transmit, Yiddish. They try to integrate or assimilate into maybe Canadian or, or, U.S societies and shed, shared Yiddish to some extent.

so there is a there's a variety of ways, of course. I mean, this is the story of our conversation. there's a variety of ways that choose kind of respond to their postwar moments. And some of it is to maintain those cultures, and some of those are to, integrate, and maintain a Jewishness, but in a different way that maybe works in, these new settings for them.

Johanna Bringhurst: So how would you describe the, state of Jewish communities in 2023?

Dr. Nick Underwood: In the world?

Johanna Bringhurst: Yeah, yeah.

Start in the United States.

Dr. Nick Underwood: I mean, I think in the United States, it's, you know, there's a long Jewish history here. And I think that it to me, it's hard to talk about, you know, kind of the American Jewish community, right? I mean, you know, my own work on France. I talk about French Jewish communities, plural, because there's a number of them and they're not always in agreement with each other.

speakers in Eastern Europe, of course, but still nonetheless, you know, a a challenge to kind of, bring some of those, elements back. we've had, you know, the, the global or the, the American Jewish, community remains, you know, it's integrated and successful in a, in a number of a number of ways.

I mean, it's a it's a difficult it's a difficult and challenging, question to answer and probably is the topic of a, of a different conversation. but, but I think it's kind of, emblematic of, of the Jewish history in, in, in the Americas here is that it's diverse and, varied. Excuse me. and, I think integrated into the fabric of American society, probably in ways that most people don't recognize or realize.

in a number of ways.

Johanna Bringhurst: Absolutely. I think most Idahoans would be surprised to know how long there has been Jewish communities in Idaho. here in Boise, where we're recording, we have had, a Jewish community since the 1800s. Is that right?

there was the the original kind of German Jewish, community that followed, the reform movement, which is a German Jewish kind of, development, from the early 19th century, and then kind of exported to, to the Americas. and then shortly after that, about 40 years later, there is an Eastern European Orthodox community that is established, in, in Idaho.

And for a number of years, those two communities maintained their own synagogues. Over time, they blended and they kind of merged into, the congregation that is now, but yes, there is a there's a long and deep history. Idaho also is the first. So, Moses Alexander, who was one of the founders of, Congregation Beth Israel, which is the first the German Jewish, community that I mentioned.

Johanna Bringhurst: That's a history to be proud of.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think that it shows, it it shows the kind of like the depth and the complexity of kind of the history of Idaho and, and who has been a part of society here and who is kind of being represented in the kind of, in the, the upper echelons of Idaho society in Idaho.

Johanna Bringhurst: We are fortunate to have so much religious diversity and so many different congregations and religious groups that have settled here or originated here. Can you talk a little bit about why that is such a valuable legacy for Idahoans to be a place of religious diversity?

Dr. Nick Underwood: I mean, I think that any place that has a variety of people in it is valuable. I mean, maybe that's maybe I'm biased because I'm a historian that studies, you know, places that I don't live in. And then I'm fascinated by it and fascinated by, different languages being spoken and the ways that people kind of structure their lives.

Right? I think that there's a way that, you know, societies can be built, that have these various approaches to maybe religion or whatever it might be. And I think there's something to be valued there, because I think that we only we can only learn from that. you know, I think that whatever we experience, different cultures and different ways of thinking and just organizing ourselves in the lives and, and, and our lives in the way that we think about each other or to think about ourselves is, is is important and valuable.

you know, one of the when I teach at the College of Idaho, I teach an introduction to Judaism class. And, Rabbi Dan Fink always invited the class to to come for, Shabbat service on a Friday and have students experience that because many of the students that, take our classes are some of them do, but few of them, most of them do not have a Jewish background.

And so this is kind of an exposure, to Judaism, a Jewishness for them, he invites them and a number of them take a number of them, take him up on the offer, and they they write about it and the transformative experience a number of them think that think of it, right, that this is, experience and exposure to something they've never seen before and how much they value it.

and really, I think is, is I think just exposing ourselves to, to these, to these just kind of ways of life, I think are important and I think only, only help kind of create a, a more interesting and, constructive kind of society. Right? I mean, again, maybe I'm maybe I'm biased. Maybe I'm kind of leading a little into what I personally am interested in.

but, yeah, I don't know. I grew up in a kind of multicultural household, so I think to some extent I'm kind of influenced by that as well.

Johanna Bringhurst: I agree, and I really appreciate your description of how valuable it is to have that diversity. I am a person of faith, and being curious about other faiths has only enriched and strengthened my experiences and trying to understand, the human experience, our religious views and faith. There's such a or, or not having them is such a part of our human experience, and it really helps us to appreciate and understand each other.

And I really appreciate it. I hate to end on a sour note, but I do want to talk more about anti-Semitism. You would think that after the tragedy of the Holocaust, we wouldn't be seeing anti-Semitism any more. but we are, and it has been on the rise in recent years. Why do these lies persist? Do you think?

Dr. Nick Underwood: it's hard to this is going to be speculative. it's hard to get into the mind of of an anti-Semite. but I think that these I, I think, you know, I have a colleague who sometimes refers to anti-Semitism as Judeo phobia. And I think that as long as there's fear of another and in this case, fear of fear for what we're talking about Jews.

and those fears that we know are based on kind of lies and misunderstandings, misperceptions, misconceptions, that I think that these ideas will persist. And I think that the reason that they do exist is because they're simple answers for people's ills. and I think that as long as there are societies and I, I hope that I'm wrong about this.

And I think as long as that those fears exist, then we will start to have we will still have people kind of put forward, the particular agendas, that are kind of based on, on these anti-Semitic ideas. and I think that what we're seeing here, I think one of the changes that's happening is, we're seeing there's always been kind of grassroots level anti-Semitism historically.

but we're, we've but we're starting to see kind of a shift away from, this kind of top down kind of, governmentally sanctioned, anti-Semitism to something that's kind of more into the fabric of, of various communities around the world. and I think that that is something to be fearful of. and it is also something that we need to be constantly aware of when we're thinking about kind of the the rise of anti-Semitism, that there is potentially something new about what's happening, in the way that people are thinking about about Jews.

and kind of as to your point, completely, disregarding the historical record, and, and a factual understanding of kind of, of Jewish history, Judaism, whatever it might be. and I think it's good to be, to, to pay attention to that. Not sure if that satisfyingly answers your question.

Johanna Bringhurst: well, it is a terrible question, but I appreciate what you said in particular about fear. When we fear each other. Yes, that can lead to hatred, to,

To not understanding each other. Yes. So if we can be curious about each other and seek to understand each other, we can eliminate fear and misunderstanding. And I think you did your part today, helping us to understand more about Jewish history and culture. And I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me today.

Dr. Nick Underwood: And it was a pleasure. It's been, wonderful to talk with you. And and again, you know, I think that what you know, what the Idaho, Humanities Council is doing is exactly this, right? I mean, there's something embedded in, in the humanities to have these conversations that has. I mean, your point is great to to ask questions and and explore and be curious.

I think that's kind of, those are those are approaches to, to, to thinking about some of these topics. And I appreciate the invitation to talk with you about them. And, hopefully we'll have a chance to talk again.

Johanna Bringhurst: Thank you. And I'll share more information about Doctor underwood, it and his scholarship in the notes for this episode. Thank you.

Dr. Nick Underwood: Thank you.