Rebekah Klein-Pejsova's talk

First and foremost, I'll agree with most of the other blog participants that this lecture was a bit over my head. I think there was too much crammed into one hour, and with little to no background in the subject area, I found myself lost for the most part. As far as the politics were concerned, I tried to follow along but found myself just getting more and more confused. When I asked Rebekah for a recap of "why this study of Slovakia helps us understand larger ideas," I was given four responses that I could almost understand. I guess I'm going to just try and talk about the one thing that I did get out of her lecture, and I hope that it was one of the things that she intended for me to understand: how Jews and their struggles with identity in Slovakia can provide a case study for how Jews struggle to maintain their own cultural identity and still have a national identity within the country that they live.

As far as I understood, Jews within Slovakia were put in a difficult situation when it came to the creation of Hungary's "Heroes Temple Memorial". On the one hand, this memorial was being created for the Jewish soldiers who lost their lives in the war. However, on the other hand, this was a Hungarian war memorial, and many of the Jews who were being asked to participate were part of the Slovak territory that now belonged to Czech Republic. The Czech repulic wanted to see that the Jews in Slovakia were really loyal to their new borders, and their fears were not unreasonable, given the delicate situation that these Jewish people were in. After conducting an investigation in 1931, they found that Slovak Jews really didn't participate in the Hungarian project. Why is this? The Slovak Jews, while they wanted to commemorate their dead, did recognize their loyalty to their new borders. They liked the higher standards of living that Slovakia provided, and were through dealing with the anti-semetic political platforms in Hungary. So, as a compromise, Slovak Jews began to commemorate their soldiers locally. The created plaques in local cemetaries, etc... They were able to maintain their Jewish identity and their duty to their lost loved ones while still operating within the boundaries of their new nation. It was not so much about assimilation, since for the most part these Jews kept a separate cultural identity; it was about respect for the land that, at the moment, they called home.

I can understand this scenario. Jewish people are scattered all around the world today, and they have been for as far back as I can recall. The concepts of Jewish identity and national identity have always been questioned; can the two be different and still exist harmoniously? It is a question that is difficult to answer, and for all of us who don't have the fortune to live in a Jewish nation, it is a problem that we struggle with daily. This goes back to when I talked about, in another post, whether I was a Jewish-American or an American-Jew. If I call myself a Jewish-American, then I am recognizing myself as nationally American, but culturally Jewish. In this conversation, I think this identification makes me most sense. At the end of the day, I am Jewish, and that culture comes with certain responsiblities that I refuse to ignore. However, I am also a citizen of the United States of America, and for better or worse, I do feel a sense of national identity to this place I have called home for my entire life. And so, when I make decisions, I try to still maintain my responsibilities to my Jewish culture, even if I have to accomodate them a little in order to stay loyal to my national identity. It's a confusing mix of labels, but throughout Jewish history there have been tons ofquestions surrounding Jews and their true loyalties, many times to the point that it lead to their destruction. It is unfortunate, too, that so often the Jewish people were persecuted, because I almost can bet that if you actually took time to ask the Jewish people living in those nations, they would give you an answer similar to that of mine and the Slovak Jews.