Jews and Race: Writings on Identity and Difference, 1880–1940

3 Preface from Jews, Race, and Environment

21 Maurice Fishberg (1872–1934) was a physician, professor of medicine, and anthropologist . He was born in Russia and emigrated to the United States in 1889. Fishberg authored an important textbook, Pulmonary Tuberculosis (1916), and worked and taught at numerous New York City hospitals, as well as for the United Hebrew Charities. He was regarded as the leading American Jewish authority on the subject of Jews and race, having published numerous articles on the subject in both general and Jewish journals and newspapers. Jews, Race, and Environment was a comprehensive collection of contemporary research as well as a statement of Fishberg’s belief that Jewish traits had social, rather than biological, origins. The book was reprinted in 2006. This volume is an attempt to present the results of anthropological, demographic , pathological, and sociological investigations of the Jews. Considering that one-fifth of all the Jews in the world live at present in English-speaking countries, and that the migrations of Eastern European Jews tend toward the United States and England with its colonies, I believe I need not apologize for claiming attention to this subject. The facts presented are not available in any book, and it may safely be declared that the whole world is interested in the subject of the Jews as a race, and the getting into closer touch with the ethnic relations of the Jews. Moreover, the perennial problem, whether it is possible to assimilate the vast number of Southern and Eastern immigrants to the United States and British colonies has been applied more to the Jews than to any other white people. It has even been questioned whether there is ever a probability of incorporating the Jews into the body politic of Anglo-Saxon communities. That anthropology only is competent to answer this question is agreed. Yet there is no book in English treating of the race traits of the Jews. The literature on the subject in English consists mostly of investigations by special parliamentary commissions, containing opinions of statesmen, social workers, educators, etc. It appears that the prevailing opinion is that the Jews, alleged to have maintained themselves in absolute racial purity for three or four thousand years, may prove 3 | Preface from Jews, Race, and Environment Maurice Fishberg Jews, Race, and Environment (1911; New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2006). 22 | G E N E R A L O V E R V I E W S hard to assimilate. On the one hand we have those Jews who take great pride in the purity of their breed, and, on the other, the people among whom they live who see a peculiar peril in the prospect of indefinitely harboring an alien race which is not likely to mix with the general population. This apprehension is confirmed by the Jewish nationalists, who look for repatriation in Palestine, or some other territory, thus corroborating the opinion that they are aliens in Europe, encamped for the time being, and waiting for an opportunity to retreat to their natural home in Asia. Indeed, the problem has of late been given of- ficial recognition in Anglo-Saxon countries. When bills were introduced in Parliaments aiming at the exclusion of Asiatic immigration, it was questioned whether Jews might not be considered Asiatics under the law; and in the United States a bill was recently introduced in Congress specifically declaring that the law prohibiting immigration and naturalization of Asiatics does not refer to Jews, Armenians, and Syrians.38 This inquiry into the race traits of the Jews could not be carried out by a study ofthesepeopleinanyonecountry,becausewefindattheoutsetthattheypresent significant differences depending greatly on their birth-place, social and political conditions, and, in general, the environment in which they find themselves. Their anthropological characteristics could best be studied in New York City, where exist a million Jews from Europe, Asia, and Africa; and we have taken advantage of the material thus offered by obtaining anthropometric measurements of about three thousand Jews in this city. The conclusions as to the anthropological types of the Jews are based on these measurements, as well as on a collation of the scattered literature on the subject. The demography of the Jews could best be studied from official government publications in those countries where the censuses classify the population by religious confession. The changes in the physical, social, and economic conditions of the Jews under emancipation could best be studied in Western Europe and America, and this study involved a careful search into the...