Is Israel the latest Pale of Settlement?

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The ancestors of most North American Jews originated in the Pale of Settlement. About 5 million Jews lived there. The Pale of Settlement was within the boundaries of the Russian Empire. However, those Jews didn't originate in Eastern Europe at all. Their ancestors came from the Holy Roman Empire and their language (Yiddish) could arguably be described as a Judaized form of German. I won't go into how Jews got to Western Europe in the first place.

Today's State of Israel, I believe, occupies land that was once entirely within the Ottoman Empire. In fact, the first large-scale influx of Jews to that region began before that empire fell.

I think there are many parallels. Jews in the old Pale of Settlement suffered many pogroms. There is no question in my mind that the events of 7 October were essentially a pogrom. The only difference being that Jews in Israel managed to secure the territory in which they live and have the means to retaliate, that they did not have under the Czar.

I think this perspective suggests a more nuanced understanding of events since 7 October than most of what the popular media offer.

The modern state of Israel has nothing in common with the "Pale of Settlement" in the old Czarist Russian Empire.

And even if it did have any resemblance ...there is no point to your point.

The Pale of Settlement (late 1700s to 1917) was a VAST swath of Eastern Europe that encompassed all of the Russian ruled part of Poland, all of Belarus, most of Ukraine, and all of the Baltic states, and Moldavia.

Even in that within-the-pale area Jews were a minority. Jews number five million, but there were tens of millions of Gentiles (including all Poles and Ukrainians, and Moldavians etc)lived in the same area. Jews didnt run the place.

Outside (east) of the Pale the population was almost purely Russian Orthodox. But the Czars liked to keep the Jews in the western part of their empire that had other minority religions as well...like Roman Catholicism. There more Roman Catholics in the Pale than Jews.

In modern Israel Jews are the majority, and run Israel as a sovereign nation with its own armed forces. And the whole reason for Israel's existence is for...the oppressed Jews who mostly came from the Pale of Settlement to escape the oppression of living in the Pale of settlement.

So if you're an oppressed Jew in Silesia you're fair dinkum because all the rapes and mass graves have earned you street cred, but once you gain the upper hand you're some sort of Biblically prophesied demonspawn? You and I are both Americans. We've had the upper hand for centuries, yet somehow the world tolerates us. Maybe we don't deserve that.

I fail to see the parallels between an aggressive ethno-state and the Pale of Settlement.

There isn't some outside force punishing Jews for living outside of Israel, for starters.

I'd disagree that attacks on the state of Israel are the same as pogroms, in particular because the state of Israel isn't just able to retaliate, but also has for more capacity for organized violence. One of the factors that seems important to pogroms is that the targeted minority lacks the ability to adequately respond.

I'd argue that attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank far more closely resemble pogroms, especially because the ones doing the violence are unlikely to face any consequences from the state. When Jews were the targets of pogroms the perpetrators rarely suffered consequences because the state condoned their actions or even supported them. When settlers attack Palestinians the Israeli state behaves similarly as the relevant state in other examples.

If it's fair to view October 7th as a pogrom than you have to acknowledge the the Israeli response to 7 October as a much more massive pogrom. Many pogroms were committed as collective punishment in response to some crime blamed on the entire minority community. Examples would be the 1984 Sikh massacre (committed against Sikhs in response to the assassination of the Indian PM by her Sikh bodyguards) or the Istanbul pogrom of 1955 (targeting Greeks who were falsely blamed for a bombing).

I agree with you that popular media doesn't offer particularly informed or nuanced understandings, but so far neither have you MaxE. For starters, you seem to be conflating pogrom with when Jews get attacked when it's often been associated with a massive power imbalance between those doing the attacking and those being attacked.

There is no correlation. Israel is an aggressive, heavily militarized state backed by the largest world superpower and it has been using that power since its inception to displace and kill many thousands of Palestinians. Israel is not the victim and it has not been subject to any pogroms.

The Pale of Settlement was a negative barrier. "Jews can NOT move beyond this line". Israel is a positive mandate: "this land is reserved FOR Jews as their homeland". Opposite things.

And actually there WAS a second "officially Jewish state" in the world. Still exists actually. That was intended as a homeland for Jews of the world- that did resemble Israel in concept. And it was created, oddly enough, by the successors to the Czars: the Soviet Union. And it had its glory days at the same inter war time that the Zionist movement was paving the way for the future creation of Israel out of Palestine. The two places competed.

This homeland was the Autonomous Jewish Oblast (Oblast means province or district).

You can still find it on maps of Asia today. It is a 12 thousand square mile region on the north side of the Amur River (the River that forms the boundary line between the Russian Far East and Northeast China).

Stalin created the district in the thirties. And it did attract Jewish settlers from the western part of Russia. At its height it had fifty thousand Jewish inhabitants in the late Forties (about a forth of the place's 300K inhabitants). Coulda been a second Israel. Except after 1950 the Jewish settlers all ...moved to the actual Israel. Today only a few hundred Jews remain though the district still retains the name and its official Jewish status.

Kinda sad. What if the Holy Land had been barred of Jewish settlement and mainstream Zionism had to be put on hold, and this place sandwiched between Russia and China had become "Israel"? With several million Jews? The Jewish Autonomous Oblast is slightly larger than Israel (including the occupied territories).

Anyway...you may wonder why was Stalin so generous to Jews? Turns out he wasnt. He was just terrified that either Japan, China, or subversive surviving White Russian fighters (principally Cossacks) would seize the Russian Far East so he needed every trick to get loyal settlers from European Russia to go east to populate the Soviet Far East border areas.

Last edited by naturalplastic on 05 May 2024, 9:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ummmm....
Well...you're a one man debating tournament. And have summed up all of the arguments of both pro and anti Zionists.

The Jews need their own homeland...and it has to be in their Biblical homeland of ancient Judea and ancient Israel... but you had to dispossess the native Arab people...but you Americans are no better cause you stole your land from the Indians...blah blah blah. The debate pretty much goes in that same circle.

So ...just a pick a side! Lol!

Sorry. My life got better when I learned to not argue with people.

It's also a great cope when looking to avoid information or opinions that might cause you to reevaluate your position on a topic.

I strongly sympathise with that. I get sick of all the adversarial willy-waving crap that goes on in social media. Suspended judgement is very often the sanest position to have, IMO.

The Pale of Settlement = the Russians forced me to live in the the yard

Israel = now I force the Palestinians to live in the yard

Seems the lesson Zionists learned from the Tsar was its either forcibly expel others or be forcibly expelled yourself.