Confronting the Jewish Rejection of Jewish Particularism: Chaim Zhitlowsky’s Anti-Assimilationist Intervention in the American Yiddish Press

Abstract

This article examines Chaim Zhitlowsky’s (1865-1943) use of the “internal” Jewish space of the Yiddish press to critique the American melting pot and present his alternative “internationalist” model. He also attempted to raise the consciousness of immigrant Jews by analyzing the reasons for their failure to embrace what he defined as “progressive nationalism.” His application of Eastern European autonomist ideas to the American context offers a provocative critique of cosmopolitan tendencies in progressive politics, in Jewish circles and beyond.