Antisemitism, Statistics, and the Scientization of Hebrew Political Discourse: The Case Study of Ha-tsefirah

Over the past decade, the nineteenth-century engagement of Jews with statistics has become the subject matter for a growing body of literature within the field of Jewish studies.¹ As the literature indicates, social scientists, influenced by the natural sciences, began using statistical data as a tool for legitimation and a source of hope for solving social problems. Jews became an important object of social-statistical studies, which were often used to justify antisemitic ideas. Jewish social scientists and physicians, who saw themselves as obligated to answer this "scientific antisemitism," used the same statistical tools to do so, and therefore helped to usher the Jewish people into the modern age of statistics.The adoption of such tools, however, though motivated by an apologetic need, had its own particular internal effects on Jewish studies and society.

The focus of research so far has been on the role of scientists and physicians—small professional elites—in encouraging the use of statistics in Jewish public life. As a result, these studies have referred mainly to Central and West European communities rather than to those in Eastern Europe.² Since Western Europe was, in fact, the source of these trends of scientization,³ it is only natural that this region would be of primary concern. In addition, the integration of Jews within non- Jewish societies, and especially among elite groups, occurred much earlier and was a more dominant phenomenon in Central and Western Europe than in Eastern Europe. Therefore, focusing on the Central and Western elites indeed seems crucial to understanding these processes. As a result, however, the role of East European communities in encouraging the use of statistics—the social agents that encouraged this use, the implementation of this knowledge, and the unique characteristics of its spreading—has been understudied.

In this article, I further explore the link between "scientific antisemitism" and the use of statistics as a tool within Jewish communities. I will especially stress the possible contribution of the use of statistics to change in political discourse. The contributions of this article to existing literature are twofold. First, the article takes the existing discussion of the role of statistics in Jewish life beyond Central and Western Europe and focuses on East European communities. Second, it emphasizes the role of popular discourse in the promotion of the use of statistics as illustrated through the Hebrew press. Focusing on the East European Hebrew press allows us to better understand the social narratives and hopes that accompanied the yearning for statistical knowledge in Jewish communities in general and in East European communities in particular, and also illuminates the role of the Hebrew press in bringing modern knowledge into Jewish life.

I will focus here on the strategic use of statistics in political rhetoric —specifically in its response to antisemitic claims—as it is revealed through the journal Ha-tsefirah⁴ in the 1880s. This campaign was part of the political discourse in Ha-tsefirah, supervised by Nachum Sokolov, who was the second editor of Ha-tsefirah⁵ and, for years thereafter, one of the leaders of the Zionist Federation. Ha-tsefirah's original objective as a journal was to disseminate scientific and technological ideas among the Jewish communities of Eastern Europe. It provided its readers with a window to new worlds—to natural and technological wonders. It presented these subjects in Hebrew⁶—the language of prayer of which the readers had at least minimal mastery. Ha-tsefirah thus aimed at opening areas of knowledge to the Jewish audience that were previously closed to them, written as they had mostly been in the countries' vernacular languages (Polish, Russian, etc.) in which few of the Jews had proficiency.⁷

Although Ha-tsefirah is by no means the only nineteenth-century Jewish journal to show interest in statistics, it reveals techniques for and a dedication to engaging with statistical knowledge that...