Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Interwar Slovakia
Rebekah Klein-Pejsova spoke to us about Jewish loyalty, nationality and citzenship in Interwar Slovakia. To be honest, the entire presentation was way over my head. As of late, we had focused on differing modes of Judaism, but this was an entirely different subject alltogether. Having no previous knowledge of Jewish involvement in Slovakia, I found it difficult to follow. Mrs. Klein-Pejsova told us that the Jews were a suspect minority in Slovakia, and that a Czech was a Czech and a Czechoslovak was a Slovak. In terms of us learning from what the Jews experienced while in Slovakia, we can observe 1. the transition to an empire state, 2. broad changes in the region and 3. how an international situation affects dom developments. A large portion of the lecture dealt with the Treaty of Trianaan (sp?) which was a disaster for Hungary. The Hungarian Jewry wished to revise this treaty entirely. I wish that this lecture had been easier to follow, and that relevance to us being Jews today was introduced. I felt the topic to be very unrelatable for me. Having some connection made between us and the Slovakian Jews would have given the lecture more of an impact.
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Having received a Phd from Columbia, I am sure Rebekah Klein Pejsova has some marvelous scholarship. Unfortunately, it was not clear from last Tuesday's lecture. The hypothesis that loyalty, nationality, and citizenship were affected by the development of the slovakian nation state seems sound. But, I did not see the evidence to support this hypothesis. There was one letter concerning the building of a Hungarian war memorial. Yet, this letter was written by non jews looking at Jews. The evidence, if there was any, was purely secondary. What did Jews feel about their own identity? Did they see themselves as Slovaks, Hungarians or Chzeks? Slides of buildings give no information whatsoever. Today for example there are scores of buildings constructed in Williamsburg, Monroe, an Kiryas Joel. Do these buildings tell us anything about the citizenship and American identity of the Satmar Chassidim that build the buildings? Can one extrapolate to other buildings, or to members of different communities? I would want to see archival evidence from building committees and synagogue boards. In Delaware there have been 3 major synagogue building projects completed in the last year. The projects have significantly different meanings for each of the congregations involved and with all of them I think one would be hard pressed to extrapolate some message of Delawarean citizenship. Wearing Nike sneakers does not make one an athlete.
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