Critical Crossroads: Jewish Responses and Experiences during the Refugee Crises of the Twentieth Century

Session Submission Type: Lightning Session

Abstract

This lightening-round panel offers fresh perspectives on Jewish experiences during the refugee crisis of the twentieth century. Varying in geographic focus from Europe and North Africa to the United States and Central America, these papers move beyond traditional studies that emphasize government initiatives or policies. They not only underline the resourceful means that Jews used to aid refugees at home and abroad but also give voice to refugees themselves.

Four of the five papers consider specific instances of Jewish refugee relief and highlight the diversity of Jewish responses. Zohar Segev’s paper examines the World Jewish Congress during the 1930s and how its leadership deviated from conventional American Jewish philanthropy by using political initiatives to help European Jewry. Employing this tactic promoted the Jewish cause in ways that transcended mere provision of economic assistance. Eric Mazur presents a case study of the SS Quanza, a Portuguese ship chartered to take refugees from Lisbon to New York and Veracruz, Mexico, in the summer of 1940. Although some wealthier refugees were able to disembark, nearly a third were refused in both cities. Eventually, the US State Department intervened and remaining passengers successfully left the boat. Alma Heckman and Erin Corber shift focus from the Americas to Europe and North Africa, concentrating on grass-roots efforts within Jewish communities. Heckman’s paper gives much needed attention to Moroccan Jewish responses to the refugee crisis and the effect that refugees had on local Jewish communities and political developments, as well as on Moroccan Jewish institutions. Corber examines Le Renouveau, a Jewish émigré farming colony in southwestern France, after Hitler’s rise to power. She underscores the importance of these projects as a response to the antisemitic and xenophobic rhetoric of the French Far Right that drew on nineteenth-century ideals of economic utility, integration, and French identity. Finally, Meredith Scott-Weaver’s paper centers on refugees in French internment camps at the end of the 1930s. Based on first-hand accounts, it examines the realities of camp life by the eve of war with Germany and the methods that refugees employed to gain liberation.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Ari Joskowicz, Vanderbilt University

Individual Presentations

• From Philanthropy to Politics: The World Jewish Congress & the Refugee Crisis of the 1930s - Zohar Segev, University of Haifa

• Celebrating Quanza:The Strange Voyage of the Not-so-Damned Ship of Jewish Refugees, and Its Stranger Story Since - Eric Michael Mazur, Virginia Wesleyan College

• Beneficiaries and Benefactors: the Refugee Crisis and Moroccan Safe Haven - Alma Rachel Heckman, University of California, Los Angeles

• “I could have mistaken him for a Norman!”: Jews and Farming in Interwar France - Erin Melissa Corber

• In Their Words: Jewish Refugees and the French Internment Camp System - Meredith Scott-Weaver, University of Delaware

• The response of the Zionist movement and American Jewry to the pogroms in the Ukraine, 1918-1920: A comparative outlook - Gur Alroey, University of Haifa

Respondent

• Ari Joskowicz, Vanderbilt University