Jews & gentiles

A previously unpublished manuscript by Cahnman (1902-1980), edited and published by colleagues. A refugee from Hitler's Germany (he fled in 1939), Cahnman continued his sociological writings in the USA. He argues that in the diaspora the Jew has played the role of mediator or transmitter of spiritual and material goods. He is an outsider who is, on the one hand, viewed with mistrust and, on the other, appreciated. His role has caused irritation in many places, but not at all times. The Jews have often suffered from their position between the upper and lower "millstones" of society. While the Jewish experience often overlaps with antisemitism, it is not identical with it. Noting the influence of Christian anti-Jewish ideology, claims that by the 12th century the socio-economic factor as a cause of antagonism overshadowed all else. Discusses Jewish usury and demonization of Jews, the alternation of welcoming and expelling the Jews in relation to class struggles, the failure of medieval Spain's monarchy to withstand popular and Church-supported pressure to punish the Jews, the challenge of racism and imperialism to the nation state, the situation wherein Jews were criticized by both Left and Right, the gap between real and mythical Jews, Zionism as a reaction to antisemitism, anti-Jewish stereotypes in Soviet and other communist societies, and the Jews as outsiders even in America. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)