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Published by EH.NET (January 2002)
Derek J. Penslar, _Shylock's Children: Economics and Jewish Identity in
Modern Europe_. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. xii + 374
pp. $45 (cloth), ISBN: 0-520-22590-2.
Reviewed for EH.NET by Andrew C. Godley, Department of Economics, Reading
University. <[log in to unmask]>
Derek Penslar, Professor of Jewish history at the University of Toronto,
has embarked on an ambitious research agenda, and this monograph is a very
encouraging first fruit. First Penslar wants to understand and
contextualize the debate on the 'Jewish problem' in modern Europe, and so
ultimately to explore the societal origins of mid-twentieth century
European anti-Semitism. Because so much of contemporary discussion was
framed in economic terms, Penslar focuses on how the perception of the Jews
in nineteenth century Europe altered with the emerging intellectual
framework of modern political economy. Thus, Jewish economic man emerged
during the halcyon days of laissez faire out of earlier Physiocratic
stereotypes of the pauper and plutocratic merchant Jew.
This is a worthwhile contribution in itself, because for too long Jewish
history has seemed insulated from and unconcerned with the emerging
research agendas of other areas of history, notably economic history.
Penslar therefore joins with many of the current younger generation of
Jewish historians in trying to understand the modern Jewish experience
firmly within the context of the host societies and economies in which they
were living. The real step forward here, however, is not so much in a deep
and detailed understanding of changing Gentile perceptions, but of how Jews
internalized those stereotypes.
Penslar articulates this internalization of shifting Gentile perceptions
through the writings of several leading (mostly) German Jewish
intellectuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The
emotional and intellectual underpinning of so much of this output, argues
Penslar, was the fragile progress of emancipation. Much of the tone of
Jewish writing on Jewish self-identity was therefore apologetic and
romantic.
Penslar then traces the principal outcome of this process, which was in an
ever-growing investment in communal philanthropy. First, this was for the
simple ameliorative purpose of reducing communal poverty and so avoiding
Gentile stigma. Ultimately, and fully in keeping with the spirit of late
nineteenth century social reformism, Jewish philanthropic agencies embarked
on wholescale social engineering. The Jewish communal elite invested in
programs to divert migration streams, to alter the occupational profile and
to improve the educational backgrounds of the teeming Jewish masses from
the East. The overwhelming majority of these interventions were wholly
unsuccessful. The one outstanding exception was of course Zionism.
While Zionism was exceptional in terms of its eventual success, it was a
program wholly representative of the matrix of Jewish self-perception.
Penslar outlines how early Zionists, in common with most westernized Jews
as well of course as Gentile opinion, saw Jewish culture as arrested and
backward (p. 66) and so how, "mainstream Zionist thinking contained much of
general Jewish social policy's sense of embarrassment and shame, its
internalization of economic anti-Semitism and desire to demonstrate to the
gentiles that Jews are not inveterate schnorrers" (p. 239).
This is an impressive work. While not a work of economic history, Penslar's
monograph provides important insights for any researcher interested in
Jewish economic history. While not quantitative, he is perfectly
comfortable with a numerical approach and so avoids falling into the
familiar trap of placing undue emphasis on unrepresentative cases. The book
is well researched, original in conception and ground breaking. Above all,
however, he provides a valuable bridge between Jewish and economic
historians and one that will be well traveled in the coming years.
Andrew Godley is lecturer in economics at the University of Reading and
author of _Jewish Immigrant Entrepreneurship in New York and London,
1880-1914: Enterprise and Culture_ (Palgrave, 2001).
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Published by EH.Net (January 2002). All EH.Net reviews are archived at
http://www.eh.net/BookReview
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