There are a bunch of interesting fellows (and gals) that populate my synagogue.   Today, I will be talking about some facts from a book written by one such member- who actually is also a professor at UVA.  (I love the fact that someone else besides me considers that a local drive; I did the reverse, living in Charlottesville and commuting to my professorship in DC decades ago.)

Dr. James Loeffler is a Professor of History and Jewish Studies at UVa.  His new book is Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century.  His thesis (one I’ve brought to the fore more than once on this blog) that the concept of human rights is relatively new, arising about the time the League of Nations began.  Which is why many Jewish folks latched on to this new expansion of rights (civil, political, economic, cultural, and constitutional) as one tailor-made for them to promote.

After all, Jews had been slaughtered by Eastern Europeans for years- and this was before the Holocaust- during various pogroms.  (The Holocaust engineered the pogroms to be the ultimate slaughter, attempting to wipe the Jews off the face of the Earth.)  Membership in the League of Nations required adoption of Minority Treaties that conferred rights to their country’s inhabitants – despite their religion, nationality, or other reasons why they were minorities.  (You DO know that the United States never did join this group- despite the fact that it was the brainchild of President Woodrow Wilson.)

According to James, many of the Jewish activists and attorneys were also pushing for the formation of a Jewish state.  And, they used the umbrellas of the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress to advance the cause of human rights.

This cause went beyond the concept espoused during the Enlightenment (18^th Century), that developed the social contract and natural rights. You know- the rights we hold near and dear to our hearts as proclaimed in the  Bill of Rights (speech, assembly, a free press, independent judiciary, and elected- not appointed- representatives).

But, if you were Jewish in America (or Black), it was often illegal to run for office, working in certain professions were blocked, so those oft-proclaimed rights went only so far.  And, if you happened to live in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, China, and a slew of other places, minorities are routinely denied equal rights.

Of course, Israel did come to be- and while the theory of Zionism incorporates human rights and self-determination- the conundrum is what happens when people who were subjugated by Jordan and Egypt also want to have their own country? (Note:  This conundrum is not about civil rights but about a country of one’s own.  The same problem holds in Mongolia (with China), Chechnya (with Russia), Eritrea which is now separate from Ethiopia, as well as the two Sudans- among many others.)

That was the problem these Jewish advocates and activities realized after a while.  Their naiveté was clear- assuming a country would step up the plate and manifest moral leadership was never going to happen.  Because each nation gets to claim absolute sovereignty.  Which means it can treat its citizens as harshly or as fairly as it sees fit.  (And, we already know that the United Nations is a farce- even the International Court in the Hague rarely “gets its man”.)

So much for the dreams of the founder of International Court of Justice (Hersh Lauterpacht), Amnesty International (Peter Benenson), Institute of Jewish Affairs (Jacob Robinson, who also was very involved with the Nuremberg and Eichman tribunals), and American Jewish Committee (Jacob Blaustein; also founded AMOCO, which was gobbled up by Standard Oil).

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