Re: [Cz-L] Explanation and Apology

Mimi's story is only a very superficial explanation.
The truth is that most Jews did not want to be Jewish.
  If was not a very big Metzie - bargain that is.
  Except the ultra religious who believed they were the chosen people
  by the Almighty .
   We were born Jewish , by coincidence.
    Became special by circumstances.
   In Habsburghia of the 19 century an opportunity arose.
     Emancipation allowed the affluent Jews to grow mustachios
  drop the Talles and the Yarmelke and the Yiddish and their
  ancestry and move up - away of Jewishness.
   Even the lower income Jews were following suit.
    Not very successfully.
  ( This is a very much simplified version for the beginner)
Hardy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Taylor" <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>
To: "CZERNOWITZ-L" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2012 5:01 AM
Subject: [Cz-L] Explanation and Apology

> In a message which I sent to Christian, I explained my lack of
> familiarity with the northern, lower part of Czernowitz, which was
> mostly Jewish. I am afraid that part of what I wrote to Christian and
> which was included in his reply to me, which was sent to the whole
> list
> will be misunderstood, because I did not choose my words carefully.
>
> I wrote:
>> Czernowitz was incredibly snobbish, even though many of the Jewish
>> inhabitants were only one or two generations removed from the orthodox,
>> the poor and the uneducated, once they were educated and rose above
>> poverty, they wanted to have very little to do with the poor,
>> uneducated
>> and orthodox or the ones who did not speak German.
>> Mind you, we did not deny our Jewishness, my parents and their
>> friends,
>> were actually proud of it and spoke and read good literary Yiddish.
>> They also maintained good relations with their relatives who lived in
>> the surrounding villages, but socially they kept their distance from
>> those
>> who lived in the lower town.
>
> When I wrote "educated" I meant that they had studied in a "Gymnasium"
> or "Lyceum" and had acquired a general education, not just a Jewish
> one.
> I also did not mean to imply that being orthodox was, or is synonymous
> with poverty and /or lack of education. Consider Zvi Yavetz.
>
> Nor do I think that this snobbishness, practiced by a large section
> of
> the Jewish population of Czernowitz, is to be lauded or liked.
>
> Mimi

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Received on 2012-12-11 01:14:59