Volume 29, Issue 1 - Themenheft: Judentum und Krankheit

The article suggests ways of dealing with the intricate discourse on »Jewish Diseases« from antiquity up to the present - both within and beyond anti-Semitism. Firstly, it presents a four-dimensional model that systemizes the different ways in which the sources talk about the subject. In employing this model the article develops images of Jews and Judaism constructed by them. Secondly, the article distinguishes between a »documenting« and a »deconstructive« way in which the sources are used in the humanities. However, since sources dealing with »Jewish Diseases« are always biased and based on subjective premises, the article pleads for investigating the latter. This even applies to the modern biomedical discourse, for instance on »genetic Jewish Diseases«, which promotes the biologisation and essentialisation of what it means to be Jewish.

In the first half of the 19th century, based on a misunderstanding and misinterpretation of biblical texts, several German physicians transformed the phenomenon named »Zara’at« in Hebrew into a specific disease called »Lepra Hebraeorum«, »Lepra Judeorum« or »Lepra Mosaica«. The authors applied traditional anti-Semitic stereotypes in order to explain the origins of this fictitious hereditary illness, which was said to befall Jews especially and to be transmitted by them to Non-Jewish populations. The genesis of »Lepra Hebraeorum« was completed by Christian ideas of the disease, linking leprosy to a sinful lifestyle and lust. However, in Jewish conceptions »Zara’at« never has been connected to sin or even to disease. It was rather regarded as a warning or punishment for derogatory speech. Soon after the discovery of »Mycobacterium leprae« in 1873 any reference to »Lepra Hebraeorum« disappeared from German medical writings.

This paper explores the relation between the »Black Death« and the persecutions of Jews in the mid-14th century. At first glance, it may come as a surprise that pogroms never took place during an outbreak (as some black legends claim). They were a phenomenon which occurred, typically, before or (seldom) after a plague. When everyone had to reckon with the deadly danger, the charge of well-poisoning, which had a long and fatal tradition, moved to the centre again, accompanied by other incriminations of Jews. Having been of more theoretical (or magic) importance before then, the terrible accusation now seemed to be justified more than ever by the medical theory that poisoned water could cause »miasmata«. The general anxiety, described excellently by Petrarch and other contemporaries, provided an ideal playground for fanatics and zealots who tried to convince people of the validity of such assumptions. It is therefore no wonder that the number of pogroms increased dramatically in 1348/49. They were promoted by the tactics of the emperor who sold his profitable role as a »protector of the Jews« increasingly to the »Imperial Free Cities«. In many towns the Black Death was preceded (or sometimes followed) by anti-Jewish massacres that were instigated by anti-Jewish writings and pamphlets. Only a general crisis of mentality and widespread moral decadence made this possible. The solid financial interests of certain groups of society seem also to have played an important role. Nevertheless, we have to admit that these medieval persecutions have left many questions open - to this day.

It is noticeable that diabetes - unlike other diseases usually associated with Jews, such as leprosy, haemorrhoids and scabies - was not linked to Judaism until the second half of the nineteenth century. The first statistics used to prove that Jews suffer from this metabolic disorder with particular frequency came interestingly from a physician in Karlsbad who noticed that there was a disproportionately high number of Jews among his diabetes patients. Since the end of the nineteenth century, mortality statistics from various cities (Boston, New York, Frankfurt) or regions (Prussia, for instance) have also been used as evidence in the medical literature. They also seem to confirm the higher mortality rates in Jewish diabetes sufferers. Doubts as to the reliability of such statistics were expressed early on. It was pointed out, for instance, that some of the figures came from spa towns or specialized medical practices and were therefore linked to a particular class of Jews and non-Jews. Some physicians sought the cause of the ailment in certain racial characteristics, others in the idiosyncratic behaviours of this demographic group. Given the highly complex processes underlying the origin of diabetes, the findings of modern genetic research may well also prove to be incorrect in the future.

In my article, I discuss the American debate on the predisposition of Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries toward tuberculosis. In focusing on the illness, I compare the Jewish population with the African American population. While physicians at the time thought that there was widespread immunity to the disease among Jews, it was reported that there was an above-average number of cases among African Americans. Both groups differed significantly from white Americans. I argue that not only differences but similarities between Jews and non-Jews, too, were written into the medical discourse at the time. I demonstrate this through an analysis of contemporary medical texts. I believe that historians have overwhelmingly neglected to incorporate such publications into their analyses, because they feared that the historical evidence they contain might challenge their assumptions.

The years around 1900 were marked by discussions on whether Jews were particularly susceptible to mental suffering. Not only was the topic presented by racial hygienists with anti-Semitic hrust, it also played a prominent role for Jewish physicians. The causes of »Jewish nervousness« were discussed controversially, either as a hereditary biological system of the Jewish »race« or as caused by the specific history of Jews in exile, where they lived in an anti-Semitic environment, or their particular urban lifestyle that was alienated from nature, or a tendency to mental illness. The »Israelite Health and Nursing Establishment« in Bendorf-Sayn understood itself as an institution that specialized in the needs of Jewish patients and kept them safe from anti-Semitic attacks. However, it was only intended for a solvent clientele. In public welfare institutions patients of Jewish faith generally could not expect any concessions and were discriminated against, in particular by psychiatrists oriented towards racial hygiene.

Twenty years ago, »homosexuality« was only disputed by Rabbis and their scholars, but today LGBT-people are part of daily Jewish life, even in some orthodox communities. Despite the fact that modern Zionism and the sexual reform movement were founded at almost the same time, the two parties were, for many decades, never in accordance. Apparently neither male nor female »sexual in-betweens« fitted into a modern Zionistic culture or orthodox communities. This changed in 1980s due to HIV/AIDS and the success of sexual reform movements in the Western world. Today, the difference between rich and poor seems to be much more important than the question of hetero- or homosexuality.

The tzaddik , a central figure in Hasidism, is revered as a »mysterious Rabbi« and acts as an adviser and particularly also as a healer. While both worldly medicine and its state agencies are rejected, he works with methods rooted in Practical Kabbalah. They focus on the use of magical words such as the names of God or of angels to which the Baal Shem, the Master of the Name, has access. Under the influence of their power he not only inscribes amulets and speaks prayers, but also tells, or becomes the protagonist of, stories with which he also mobilizes the divine forces. This contribution concentrates on the therapeutic function of story-telling, using examples both from the traditional Hasidic literature, the Shivhei ha-Besht for instance, and modern Jewish stories that draw on Hasidic literature, such as the work of Georg Langer and Joseph Roth.

When working as a country doctor in Czarist Russia, the Jewish author and poet Saul Tschernichowsky (1875-1943) had close contact with the rural population and with the Jews living there. Meeting the village folk and peasants brought back memories of his own childhood spent in the country that made him realize the discrepancy between »yesterday’s world« and modern times. Academic medicine did not count for much in the country. The peasants wanted »proper« drugs, by which they meant drugs whose strong smell and conspicuous colour suggested effectiveness. Some of Tschernichowsky’s medical experiences from that time have found their way into his literary oeuvre, for instance into the stories »be-inyan ha-mumchim« (Concerning experts) and »ze’adim rishonim« (First steps), and particularly also into his idyll »Berele chole« (Berele is sick), composed in 1907, which is an attempt at making this literary genre also fruitful for Modern Hebrew Literature. Analysis of its content reveals that the historiographic inference that Jewish and non-Jewish religious-magic medicine overlap and influence each other is congruent with Tschernichowsky’s poetically alienated description.

Zionism is rooted in the programme for overcoming the Diaspora. The descriptions of this programme go hand in hand with an in-depth »diagnosis« of the sufferings of the Diaspora as a symptom of the ongoing animosity towards Jews and their persecution even, and particularly, in the age of emancipation. This cultural, social and political diagnosis was described in Zionism - and it is no coincidence that this happened mostly through physicians - as the medical and psychiatric pathologization of the »Jewish people’s body«. In this process of naturalization and scientification paradigms and methods of the contemporary humanities and social sciences were applied, including concepts as controversial as that of the »Jewish race«. The present analysis examines this medical account from two complementary perspectives: the medical verbalization of the political discourse of Zionism on the one hand (Leon Pinsker, Max Nordau, etc.), and the politicization of medicine on the other (Arthur Kahn, Felix Theilhaber, etc.).

Josef Horovitz was one of the most important orientalists of his time. Born in 1874 in Lauenburg (Pommern), he died unexpectedly in 1931 at the age of 57 in Frankfurt am Main, just before the National Socialists came to power. His letters and postcards, written in the years 1930-31 to his disciple Shlomo Dov Goitein, provide information about their relationship but also give a good insight into the differences in the scientific approach between the generations. They are also revealing with regard to Horovitz’ scientific work and his position on the »Jewish question«. It becomes clear that, at that time, Horovitz was working on a commentary on the Koran which he could not finish because of his early death. And as for the »Jewish question«, it shows that he believed in the possibility of a peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine on the basis of a mutual recognition of interests.

When Bessie Gotsfeld (1888-1962) founded the »Mizrachi Womenʼs Organization of America« (aka AMIT) in 1925, religious Zionist women in Europe also started to organize their work in several European countries. In 1928, Meir Berlin (later Meir Bar-Ilan), one of the leading rabbis of the Mizrachi movement, met in Vienna with Anitta Müller-Cohen (1890-1962), a prominent Zionist woman activist. After that meeting, Müller-Cohen joined the ranks of the Mizrachi movement and started to build up a »European League of Mizrachi Women«. Besides Germany, there were important local associations in Belgium, Great Britain and the Netherlands. The ambitious project of the European Mizrachi women caused a conflict with the WIZO, the biggest and most important organization of Jewish women, that escalated at the VIth World Congress of Zionist Women in Basel in 1931. The rise to power of National Socialism in Germany in 1933, challenged the developing Mizrachi Women’s League beyond their means and finally led to their destruction during the Shoah. In this paper, I trace the network of Jewish women who engaged with the Mizrachi Women’s League, and analyse their personal commitment. Additionally, the paper focuses on the different ideological backgrounds of Mizrachi women at a local and international level. Hence, the conflict between different Zionist women’s organisations, i. e. Mizrachi versus WIZO, gains center stage.