Notes
1. The "purposes" of this are of course, debatable. Some have argued that by taking Jewish men from the community Russia aimed to break down community cohesiveness and therefore power. The conscription policy did of course deeply affect the Jewish community in ways that had nothing to do with the conversion of the absent soldiers. Due to town draft quotas, communities were often divided against each other in an attempt to keep their sons and husbands out of the army. The kahals were in charge of supplying a certain number of boys per year. Wealthier Jews were able to pay their children's way out of the draft. Poorer children often went with the khappers (kidnappers) in their place. As a Folk-song illustrates:
Tots from school they tear away
And dress them up in soldier's gray.
And our leaders and our Rabbis,
Do naught but deepen the abyss.
Rich Mr. Rockover has seven sons,
Not one a uniform dons;
But poor widow Leah has an only child
And they hunt him down as if he were wild" (Baron 1964: 37-38).
2. Russian Orthodoxy was the "official" religion to the extent that other forms of Christianity were hardly tolerated by the ecclesiastical (or political) authorities any more than Judaism was. At different points in Russian history Christian groups such as the Jesuits and Old Believers were condemned and/or expelled from Russia.
3. Conte describes Catherine's rule as an example of "enlightened despotism." Though she was a "reader of Montesquieu and a friend of Diderot and Voltaire," her reign was harsh and exploitative. Serfdom was expanded, nobility was given absolute authority (Conte 1994: 80). I point this out as another example of "enlightened" ideology serving the same ends as harsher, reactionary ideology.
4. A classic example: Myths about the uncontrollable sexuality of African-Americans reflect the repressed desires and fears of white Americans.
5. Sachar may himself be somewhat of an Orientalist, and I can't take his language too seriously, considering his often condescending representation of Russian peasantry. Beside himself, he makes the association of the mysterious Orient with the Jews.
6. This essay is intriguing to historians for its own anomaly. Marx was the son of a converted Jew, and this essay is considered by some to be a classic example of "Jewish self-hatred and leftist anti-Semitism". (Mendes-Flohr & Reinharz, 268). Others argue that Marx was not anti-Semitic, and that his work subtly points to the way in which German/Capitalist culture projects its least desirable qualities onto the Jews. Marx may be using Judaism as an example of religion in general; it is clear that he believes that society must be "emancipated" from all religions: "The Political Emancipation of the Jew or the Christian&endash;-of the religious man in general&emdash;is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, Christianity, and religion in general" (Marx, 1844 trans. Bottomore 1963: 10) I do trust those experts on Marx who argue that Marx is pointing to projection, not doing it himself. But unless one is an expert reader of Marx, (which I am not) passages of the essay appear overtly anti-Semitic. A critical reader can decide for him/her self. Regardless of Marx's intentions the essay is valuable as an articulation of the way in which economic hardship and greed are projected onto Jews.
7. "Fleshy desires" cannot be ignored as an example which might be included in the section on fantasy. I am not aware of the original Russian, but in this translation there is a definite sexual overtone. The perversity associated with the Jews in this piece resembles the German image of the Judensau, which depicts grotesque Jews with horns suckling from a goat, and eating its excrement (Trachtenberg 1946: Cover page).
8. "Zhyd" is a derogatory way of saying "Jew" in Russian. There is an in depth discussion of this in the section on the Judaizers. The term survives in Russia to this day.
9. Obviously, the Tsars were not leftists and did not see the lord/peasant system as wrong, so they would not connect Judaism with their system of class control.
10. Incidentally, the accused were acquitted, but not before a number of them had died in prison.
11. Ritual Murder accusations also produced a pogrom in 1881 and a mob murder of ten Jews in 1884. Here irrationality and fear translated into violence. Taussig's book is an excellent study in the way in which the convergence of fear and fantasy produce violence.
12. Interestingly, Zizek takes us full circle to the original definition of "scapegoat" the animal onto which ancient Jews conferred all their sins, and sent out to the woods to die. Here, as in Zizek's model, abstract variations from the ideal society are projected onto some element of the physical world, then alienated from it.
13. Alexander Herzen's account (1835) of his chance meeting with a group of cantonist boys being marched off through the cold is cited by nearly every historian of the subject. It reveals the brutality with which cantonist boys were treated. Here is a short sample:
"Pale, worn out, with frightened faces, they stood in thick, clumsy soldiers' overcoats, with stand-up collars, fixing helpless, pitiful eyes on the garrison soldiers, who were roughly getting them into ranks. The white lips, the blue rings under the eyes... No painting could reproduce the horror of that scene" (Baron 1964: 37).
14. Stanislawski claims the soldiers were often better educated than their superiors in their Old Testament, and that army chaplains found it very difficult to debate with them. Theological anti-Judaism, which attempts to render Judaism wrong or obsolete with Christian theology has an enormous complexity and history. Ideas of the Jew as Christ-killer and Judaism as obsolete are still propagated today. It is disturbing to see how theology over the years has served to legitimate anti-semitism in various spheres.
15. Tallit: prayer shawl worn by men when reading Torah and praying. Tefilin: leather "phylacteries" which Jewish men wrap around the arm and head while praying.
16. My oversight of gender issues in this paper has been pointed out to me many times. One of the "obvious" Others of western patriarchy which I neglected to mention here are women. They are the subject of fantasy, they are simulataneously feared and desired, they are often scapegoated. Also, my reading of Zizek is simplified. He works in the context of psychoanalytic theory in which every fantasy is in some way associated with libido. This leads to another possibility: The representation of the Jewish man as female. The Jews were believed to be too cowardly and weak to enter the army &endash;Nicholas thought he could turn them into men. If the Other is at once feared and desired, could "desire" be understood as the desire to control, to transform the Jewish (is it a man or a woman) into a real Russian man?
17. "Old Testament Law" or "Mosaic Law" refers to the laws set out in the Old Testament on which Jewish religion and laws are based. The Torah (The first 5 books of the Old Testament) is the most sacred text in Judaism. Some Christians view it as a lesser preamble to the New Testament. In the eyes of the Orthodoxy, too much reverence for the Old Testament appeared "Jewish."
18. The Talmud is an ancient (1st and 2nd centuries) Jewish text, considered the heart of Jewish thought. It is a series of writings and interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures (The Old Testament). It contains the essential teachings, laws, and ideas of Judaism. Lifetimes are dedicated to Talmudic study.
19. Zizek illustrates this concept of the ideology "knowing in advance" with the Fascist ideology. He claims that it is inaccurate to say that the Fascist ideology is not aware of the impossibility of its vision. On the contrary,
"The Jew is the means, for Fascism, of taking into account, of representing its own impossibility: in its positive presence, it is only the embodiment of the ultimate impossibility of the totalitarian project - of its immanent limit" (Zizek: 127).
An individual can only be convinced to identify with the Fascist vision of society as long as its inherent impossibility is projected onto the Jew.
20. Althusser conceived of "the State" as synonymous with "the state apparatus, which defines the State as a force of repressive execution and intervention 'in the interests of the ruling classes'" (Althusser 1972: 137). The Tsars and nobles of Russia, until Alexander II (1855), kept their peasants poor and powerless.
Illustrations:
1. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia, ed: Archie Brown, Michael Kaser & Gerald Smith. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p.90.
2. Encyclopedia Judaica. New York: MacMillan, 1971. Vol. 13, p. 746.
3. Roskies, David G. & Diane K. The Shtetl Book. USA: KTAV Publishing House, inc. 1975, p. 217.
4. Roskies, David G. & Diane K. The Shtetl Book. USA: KTAV Publishing House, inc. 1975, p. 158.
5. Encyclopedia Judaica. New York: MacMillan, 1971. Vol. 13, p. 746.
6. Tratchenberg, Joshua. The Devil and the Jews. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943, cover page.
7. Lazar, Moshe. "The Lamb and the Scapegoat: The Dehumanization of Jews in Medieval Propaganda Imagery." in Anti-semitism in Times of Crisis. ed: Sander L. Gilman & Steven T. Katz, New York: New York University Press, 1991, p. 67.
8. Lazar, Moshe. "The Lamb and the Scapegoat: The Dehumanization of Jews in Medieval Propaganda Imagery." in Anti-semitism in Times of Crisis. ed: Sander L. Gilman & Steven T. Katz, New York: New York University Press, 1991, p. 68.
9. Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Soviet Union. ed: Graham Speake. New York: Facts on File, inc. 1989, p. 110.
10. Cultural Atlas of Russia and the Soviet Union. ed: Graham Speake. New York: Facts on File, inc. 1989, p. 121.
11. Encyclopedia Judaica. New York: MacMillan, 1971. Vol. 7, p. 1395.
12. Roskies, David G. & Diane K. The Shtetl Book. USA: KTAV Publishing House, inc. 1975, p. 179.
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