American Jews View the Holocaust and Israel

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doing it. Even if this had been the case, how can one understand what was going on, for anti-Semitism had always existed, but Jews had never been threatened with disappearing? Feingold consequently suggests that “the inability of the modern imagination to envision the world of Auschwitz affected the early Jewish response to the Holocaust” (206). Although I agree with him on that point, I want to provide a nuance to it. American Jews failed to react efficiently during the annihilation of European Jews. But afterward, they hid behind a pretext, which is the assertion given by Feingold. Then they promote Zionism as a way of saving Jews and acting their part in the tragedy. But if they waited so long to react, I would argue that the real reason why they encouraged Zionism is different from their claim on a Jewish haven.

The reason for my position is that American Jews did not attempt to help European Jews moving to America when the situation grew critical in Europe. As depicted in Roth’s novel, it all seems exaggerated. We feel like American Jewry has caused the slaughter perpetrated on their European fellows by massively moving to America but refusing a refuge to their brethren when anti-Semitism grew in Europe. The Holocaust looks to have been “instigated by the wish to put an end to Jewish life in Europe that their massive emigration had embodied” (131). Even if American Jews could feel different from European ones, they would by no means want to destroy what they still consider to be where they come from. But they nevertheless did not act as part of the Jewish people but “responded to the crisis both as Jews and as Americans” (Feingold 213). The more they assimilated into American society, the more acculturated they became. The ties between American and European or Israeli Jews were thus severed. Acknowledging that they were still Jewish and bound to their brethren, American Jews agreed to help them; but in no case at the expense of their wellbeing, which is, of course, understandable, though a bit paradoxical, since the wellbeing of every Jew should be a major issue for them. Those assertions can be verified in what follows: “The widespread indignation over the cruelties inflicted on the Jews of Germany was not accompanied by any great enthusiasm for their resettlement in the United States. […] American Jews were eager to rescue fellow Jews from Hitler’s reach, but not at the expense of their own security” reports Samuel Halperin (Spear 85). Even though some authors claim that American Jews supported Zionism only because they saw in it a solution to a major refugee crisis, I am convinced that they wanted to take a step against Hitler and regret now their lack of action, which was nonetheless existent. Harris insists on the fact that they are still “haunted by the nightmarish events of the Holocaust” (96).

It is now time for me to nuance my claim that American Jews were all Zionist without the real desire to see a Jewish national state but only because they did not want to welcome more of their fellows in America. The fact is that some American Jews, even if they acquired an American identity, maintained a strong attachment to the Jewish traditions and its claim for the land they lived in thousands of years ago: “Israel has been in our prayers, our hopes, our dreams for 1900 years, since the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 c.e. But in the wake of the Shoah (Holocaust), it became strikingly clear that a Jewish sovereign state was vital to Jewish survival in the most literal sense” (Harris 97). We can even observe the migration of some American Jews from America to the new state of Israel, once it had been created. It is the case of Smilesburger. Obviously, Americans who are heading to Israel have both a strong faith and the wish to change Israel. But they do not necessarily understand what other Holocaust survivors may have lived because they had the chance to flee from the catastrophe before it was too late. What I have in mind here are the huge differences we may notice between Smilesburger and Apter, Roth’s cousin. Apter was not particularly likely to survive. “He had been saved by a German officer who’d kidnapped him at the Polish transport site and sold him to a male brothel in Munich. […] Apter was nine” (Roth 17). He has lived through traumatic periods and this has affected his later way of life: he has a low self-esteem, he lives in the city, and he does not make much money. On the contrary, Smilesburger went to America after the Holocaust where he earned a lot of money as a jeweler. He went to Israel when he retired. We thus observe that every Jew experienced the Holocaust differently, which is not astonishing due to their different personality, ages, sex, and family background…

However, some other American Jews were indeed Zionist and supported the creation of a Jewish national state because they did not want all Europeans Jews to migrate to their own country. The main reason for their behavior was economic and promoted by the politicians. Spear emphasizes this aspect of Zionism: “So effective was the economic argument that it caused many American Jews to view the refugee question with ambivalence. […] Zionism’s tremendous growth in the 1930’s was not wholly inspired by altruism” (85). The second reason, being the refugee crisis, has already been mentioned above. Feingold explains it clearly in his book: “[In 1939], American Jews had begun to view the crisis of German Jewry in Zionist terms. They came to Zionism, not through the esoteric ideology of Zionist thinkers who spoke of the ‘renaissance of the Jewish people’, but through the refugee crisis” (217). This view will however change with the years and the real destruction of European Jewry. The last reason is on the level of culture. American and European Jews developed differently on both sides of the ocean. Over time, they distanced themselves from each other. The first detachment occurred long before the events when many European Jews left their country for America. Through their “experiences during the interwar years… [they were] less able to identify with the worldwide Jewish interest” (Feingold 205). In May 1964, Blaustein reminds us: “To American Jews, America is home” (8). This is of course not the case for Israeli Jews and Americans do not see why they should be resettled in the United States. It provides a great illustration for those who have strong ties to Zionism and who are “blackmailing” (Roth 128) American Jewry.

The question remains whether the creation of a new state would be profitable or not. It implies to partly move a people from its land (the Palestinians in this case) and will obviously be the starting point for fights between their respective inhabitants. We can wonder if Zionism is then the right solution or if Israel should be a “sojourn”