JUDAICA - Wisdom In Torah

to behave according to previously established patterns, a minority
turned to solutions of either cultural pluralism or Jewish
nationalism as the more satisfactory for the long run. A
greater need was also felt for the maintenance of Jewish cultural
(including religious) continuity and for closer ties with
other Jewish communities. The net result was a somewhat
decreased atomization of the Western European Jewish communities
and their activities as well as the development of
new cultural and economic institutions which strengthened
the sense of Jewish identity and were instrumental in the moments
of crises that lay ahead.
EASTERN EUROPE. To explain the economic activities of the
Jewish communities in Eastern Europe during the third quarter
of the 19th century and until World War II in purely economic
terms, in terms of the market opportunities, demand
for products, and labor supply would not only be a difficult
task but provide incomplete and sometimes misleading answers.
Since so much more is known about the economic
conditions of this period, the interaction of the economic
and extra-economic factors, be they political, legal, or psychological,
is keenly felt. The outstanding characteristic of the
other factors was the existence of a measure of discrimination
against the Jews that was much more intense in this part of
the world than elsewhere. Thus, in spite of the progress of a
modern market economy, in spite of the process of industrialization
that took place there, there was a strong residue of
discrimination that limited the benefits of economic progress
for the Jews and affected their economic activities. One rather
striking example is to be found in the exile of Jews from the
rural areas of Russia in the 1880s. The process of urbanization
that took place as a result of industrial development is a
familiar phenomenon and one that affected Jews in the rural
areas. But there is a qualitative difference between a process
that creates new opportunities in urban areas and draws labor
away from the rural areas, and a mass exile that uproots tens
of thousands and forcibly transplants them in a new economic
and social environment with no visible means for their economic
survival and with no economic alternatives since the
demand for their labor or service is absent. Apart from such
major catastrophes, the conditions of discrimination included
a whole chain of minor calamities which created an atmosphere
of uncertainty and determined the behavior of large
masses of the Jewish population in Eastern Europe. Thus, the
development of a capitalist society in Eastern Europe, while
creating new economic opportunities was, as far as the Jews
were concerned, accompanied by unsettling features that
were constantly threatening to destroy the benefits bestowed
by the economic progress. It is, therefore, proper to emphasize
that the economic and social conditions of the majority
of the Jews in Eastern Europe were influenced by a number
of external constraints, one of which was the Pale of Settlement
in Russia. The existence of the Pale limited the mobility
of most of the Jews and virtually excluded them from some
of the more important regions and dynamic centers of indus-
economic history
try, trade, and public life and often forced them to accept opportunities
that could be described as second best. The existence
of legal and economic discrimination made the process
of social mobility much more difficult and expensive for the
Jews. The limitations on entering areas of employment, professions,
public service, and education decreased their chances
of fully contributing to the process of economic development
and benefiting from it. While the advancement of the industrialization
process destroyed some of the traditional areas of
Jewish economic activity and created new ones, the process
itself was erratic and did not allow for the formation of longterm
expectations or less costly adjustments. Thus, while on
the whole the Jewish population benefited from the process,
growing in size and slowly improving in income position,
the accompanying hardships were burdensome and unsettling.
Given the relatively slow pace of economic progress of
the regions of concentrated Jewish population in Eastern Europe
(western part of the Russian Empire, northeastern part
of the Hapsburg Empire, and Romania), coupled with the
existence of discriminatory policies, these regions were primarily
involved in the migration of Jews to Western Europe
and America. But although emigration had the function of a
safety valve, it could not counteract the impact of the industrialization
process, which, while injecting a new dynamism in
the economic and social sphere, affected the life of the Jewish
communities by creating new areas of internal conflicts and
threatening to destroy the traditional values built up through
centuries of relative cultural isolation. To the extent that they
represented breaks with previous traditions and emphasized
the existence of new opportunities, the very processes of industrialization
and urbanization raised the level of expectations
of the Jewish masses and made them more aware of their
relationship to the outer world. This led to the development
of new patterns of thought, increased sensitivity to the conditions
of discrimination, and a more intensive search for new
solutions to the specific problems of the Jews. The awareness
of common specific problems was demonstrated not only
in the economic but also in the cultural sphere. In spite of
some tangible returns to the cultural assimilation of groups
of Jews, until the end of the period a cultural homogeneity of
the Jewish population in Eastern Europe was preserved. This
culture embraced the basic elements of traditional moral and
religious values with an addition of modern elements developed
during the period following the Enlightenment in Eastern
Europe. While the symbiosis of the elements of the traditional
culture with those of a secular, modern, and nationally
oriented one was by no means harmonious, the tensions had
a culturally stimulating effect. It was a period of very intensive
cultural activity and creativity by the Eastern European
Jews, marked by the revival and modernization of Hebrew literature
and development of modern Jewish literature in Yiddish.
Cultural activities, in addition to rudimentary religious
training and bare literacy, penetrated and affected the Jewish
lower classes which had previously been excluded from most
of their cultural heritage.
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 6 135