The Diaspora and Jewish Character

Abstract

Parallel to the growth of “revisionist” historians in the United States (who see the U.S. co-responsible for the Second World War along with Germany and Japan), there has now arisen in Jewish historiography a radical approach to the diaspora question. It is exemplified in the writings of Bruno Bettelheim, for example, whose essay The Informed Heart, constitutes a mordant critique of Jewish survivalism. He argues that Jews have overcome the vicissitudes of history by making status quoism their major slogan and aim. The chief thrust of the diaspora experience in this view is towards effecting a modus vivendi with a surrounding environment.

The Jews as a people feel that they have the will and the strength to survive whatever may happen, without any ifs or ands. They cannot accept a theory which makes their survival conditional on their ceasing to be dispersed, because that theory implies that failure to end the dispersion would mean extinction, and extinction is an alternative that cannot be contemplated in any circumstances whatsoever. Ahad Ha-Am.