Integration through Distinction: German‐Jewish Immigrants, the Legal Profession and Patterns of Bourgeois Culture in British‐ruled Jewish Palestine¹

Abstract

This article examines the encounter of the German Jewish immigrants with the crystallizing of local Jewish community in British-ruled Palestine during the 1930s and 1940s. It argues that their accepted image as cultural aliens, based on their allegedly incompatible European-like bourgeois life-style, was propagated by both parties in this encounter, causing their marginalization and at the same time serving them as an important socio-cultural resource. Focusing on the field of the legal profession, it analyses the 1930's and the already emerging and highlyaccepted patterns of a local middle-class civic culture (despite its rejection by the political discourse), which facilitated the advancement of an elite group of Germanborn lawyers in this field.

Loyal Opposition: Minorities and State Law

“…… The tourist commented: “I have never seen anything like this … only one person stopped their car.” To which the driver instantly replied: “Look at him and you can immediately see that he's a yekke . Only the yekkes are such idiots.” (Sela-Sheffy 2006, 37)…”

“…These lawyers, claimed Sela-Sheffy, employed a strategy of “integration through distinction.” They became identified with professionalism, objectivity, and aloofness from politics, and these characteristics made them attractive in the eyes of politicians such as Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, born in Russia. Ben-Gurion used them as a “loyal opposition,” allowing them to man the highest positions in Israel's new legal system while maintaining their ethnic cohesion and distance from the Israeli political system (Sela-Sheffy 2006).…”

„Diese meine Sprache, die so männlich geworden ist.“ Jeckes in Palästina/Israel im Spannungsverhältnis zwischen Sprachen und Geschlecht

“…61 Ihre eigen-sinnige Art der Akkulturation war eine Form der "integration through distinction". 62 Jeckischkeit als "symbolic ethnicity" 63 ist demnach als retrospektives Konstrukt der Post-Migration im Kontext von Sprach-und Kulturkontakten zu verstehen. Dies ermöglicht es den Jeckes, in den retrospektiven Selbstzeugnissen durchaus alternative Geschlechtsentwürfe zu formulieren, die mit dem zionistischen…”

Hijacking Law

“…Likhovski notes the distinctly legal orientation and expertise of the yekke community historically. By the late 1930s, German Jews represented about 12 percent of the Jewish population of mandate Palestine (Sela-Scheffy 2006, 49 at n. 3). The postmandate chapter of this community's history is of special interest here.…”

“…At these moments of tight postcolonial turnarounds, minority cultures like yekke and Parsi communities became especially important. As Likhovski observes, a disproportionate number of early judges of the Israeli Supreme Court were German Jews (see Oz-Salzberger and Salzberger 1998; Sela-Scheffy 2006, 45–47). They played a key role in solidifying the court's institutional reputation among Israelis during its first few decades.…”