TY - JOUR
T1 - Right‐wing ideologies among American Jews: The seductive myth of power in crisis
AU - Baumel Schwartz, J.
PY - 1998
Y1 - 1998
N2 - The liberal tradition has been noted by historians and social scientists for over half a century as a central factor in the ideological composition and collective identity of American Jews. In spite of this seemingly liberal trend, twice within a period of three decades during the twentieth century did a nationalist‐Jewish right‐wing movement flourish in the United States. During the 1940s the right‐wing Zionist Irgun delegation ‐ more commonly known as the Bergson Boys ‐ made its impact among American Jewry, while the late 1960s and early 1970s were punctuated by the appearance of Meir Kahane's militant‐nationalist Jewish Defense League (JDL). This essay examines the issue of historical continuity between these two groups and the movement they claimed as their ideological source ‐ the Revisionist‐Zionist movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It also discusses what the Bergson Boys and the JDL had to offer the seemingly liberal American Jewish community. By probing the history, structural and tactical patterns of the three organizations, the essay examines how the two American‐based groups took advantage of the structure of political opportunities ‐ particularly those presented by the uniquely American system of mass media ‐ to form a progressive pattern based upon what seems to be a single, developing model. Finally, the essay brings the issue of right‐wing Jewish nationalism up to the present and asks what we can learn from our conclusions regarding contemporary right‐wing trends in the American Jewish community.
AB - The liberal tradition has been noted by historians and social scientists for over half a century as a central factor in the ideological composition and collective identity of American Jews. In spite of this seemingly liberal trend, twice within a period of three decades during the twentieth century did a nationalist‐Jewish right‐wing movement flourish in the United States. During the 1940s the right‐wing Zionist Irgun delegation ‐ more commonly known as the Bergson Boys ‐ made its impact among American Jewry, while the late 1960s and early 1970s were punctuated by the appearance of Meir Kahane's militant‐nationalist Jewish Defense League (JDL). This essay examines the issue of historical continuity between these two groups and the movement they claimed as their ideological source ‐ the Revisionist‐Zionist movement founded by Vladimir Jabotinsky. It also discusses what the Bergson Boys and the JDL had to offer the seemingly liberal American Jewish community. By probing the history, structural and tactical patterns of the three organizations, the essay examines how the two American‐based groups took advantage of the structure of political opportunities ‐ particularly those presented by the uniquely American system of mass media ‐ to form a progressive pattern based upon what seems to be a single, developing model. Finally, the essay brings the issue of right‐wing Jewish nationalism up to the present and asks what we can learn from our conclusions regarding contemporary right‐wing trends in the American Jewish community.
UR - http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13537119808428547
M3 - Article
SN - 1353-7113
VL - 4
SP - 75
EP - 109
JO - Nationalism and Ethnic Politics
JF - Nationalism and Ethnic Politics
IS - 4
ER -