Racial Science, Social Science, and the Politics of Jewish Assimilation

摘要

Examines the work of Jewish social scientists who, in the first decades of this century, analyzed modern Jewish life from the perspective of anthropology & medicine. While the historiography of the social & racial sciences has focused almost exclusively on Jews as objects of these sciences, scholars have begun to explore the degree to which Jews were involved in social & racial scientific research about their own people. Trained in the natural & social sciences, Jewish researchers shared the same conceptual & methodological framework as their non-Jewish counterparts; yet they had their own social & political agendas. Jewish social scientists, while united in their desire to counter scientific anti-Semitism through the use of social science, nonetheless were divided in the political or ideological conclusions they drew from their findings. More specifically, how anthropological & medical analyses of Jewry were impelled by the debate between Jewish assimilationists & nationalists (Zionists) over Jewish integration in modern society & culture is demonstrated. 4 Figures. Adapted from the source document.