AHC/PC/WI: A Jewish state in Eastern Europe?

W

WolfBear

Well-known member
Would it have been plausible with a 20th century PoD to have a Jewish state in Eastern Europe? Ideally, I would prefer that this be done outside of Germany and in the absence of a Holocaust. For instance, could a Germany that wins World War I decide to create a Jewish state in a part of Eastern Europe in order to provide an Eastern European alternative to Zionism (or perhaps an Eastern European version of Zionism)?

Thoughts on this?
 
Grodno Governorate of the Russian Empire, made into a German supported Jewish buffer state to cover the flanks of a German sponsored Baltic’s, mini-Poland, and Ukraine. The state is completely dependent on German support for survival and its existence makes life difficult for Jews wherever Poles, White Russians, lithuanianians, Russians, and Ukrainians have a majority or any self government.

Grodno (western Belarus-eastern Poland) had the highest proportion of Jews to total population in Russianempire, alongside Moghilev governorate (eastern Belarus) and Warsaw governorate.
 
raharris1973 said:
The state is completely dependent on German support for survival and its existence makes life difficult for Jews wherever Poles, White Russians, lithuanianians, Russians, and Ukrainians have a majority or any self government.
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Do you mean that they would want their own Jews to migrate to Grodno?

That said, though, Grodno Governorate as a whole was "only" 17.4% Jewish:

countyBelarusiansUkrainiansJewsPolesRussiansLithuaniansGermans
Province as a whole44.0%22.6%17.4%10.1%4.6%……
Bialystok26.1%…28.3%34.0%6.7%…3.6%
Belsky4.9%39.1%14.9%34.9%5.9%……
Brest1.8%64.4%20.8%3.9%8.1%……
Volkovysk82.4%…12.4%2.1%2.3%……
Grodno65.7%…19.9%5.7%6.2%1.4%…
Kobrinsky…79.6%13.7%2.2%3.1%……
Pruzhany75.5%6.7%12.8%1.4%3.0%……
Slonimsky80.7%…15.2%1.6%2.1%……
Sokolsky83.8%…12.2%1.2%1.8%……

In contrast, Odessa and the area around it was 19.8% Jewish AND had a major port:

Jews1926.PNG


Might the Odessa area be a better location for a Jewish state? At leat it would be more self-sufficient that way rather than being surrounded by hostile neighbors whom only Germany would actually be willing to keep in check?
 
WolfBear said:
Do you mean that they would want their own Jews to migrate to Grodno?
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No. I didn't say that. I don't think it's really implied in what I said. If the Germans supported some sort of project using a buffer state it would probably only be mandatory/semi-mandatory heavily promoted for Russian Empire subjects, not Germany's own, although that won't stop some loudmouths from suggesting it.

WolfBear said:
Might the Odessa area be a better location for a Jewish state? At leat it would be more self-sufficient that way rather than being surrounded by hostile neighbors whom only Germany would actually be willing to keep in check?
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Well it's got an advantage of having a port, and being on the edge of only two enemy nationalities now, Romanian and Ukrainian. But the fact is, this state is pretty much dead meat by the hand of whatever medium power neighbors it has, and whose nationals are expelled or minoritized, if and when their great power protection falls away.

In a way, the Palestinians were still a smaller and weaker enough enemy for gathered Jews to handle, compared to any enemy/neighbor in Europe, despite all of OTL's controversy and strife. Despite Palestinians affiliation with larger Arab and Islamic communities, their smallness at the point of contact in Palestine, and fragmented distribution throughout the wide Middle East and North Africa, and competing elite political agendas detracted from an effective effort to conquer the Israeli Jews.
 
raharris1973 said:
No. I didn't say that. I don't think it's really implied in what I said. If the Germans supported some sort of project using a buffer state it would probably only be mandatory/semi-mandatory heavily promoted for Russian Empire subjects, not Germany's own, although that won't stop some loudmouths from suggesting it.



Well it's got an advantage of having a port, and being on the edge of only two enemy nationalities now, Romanian and Ukrainian. But the fact is, this state is pretty much dead meat by the hand of whatever medium power neighbors it has, and whose nationals are expelled or minoritized, if and when their great power protection falls away.

In a way, the Palestinians were still a smaller and weaker enough enemy for gathered Jews to handle, compared to any enemy/neighbor in Europe, despite all of OTL's controversy and strife. Despite Palestinians affiliation with larger Arab and Islamic communities, their smallness at the point of contact in Palestine, and fragmented distribution throughout the wide Middle East and North Africa, and competing elite political agendas detracted from an effective effort to conquer the Israeli Jews.
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I mean the Jews in Germany's Eastern European puppet states moving to Grodno, not the Jews in Germany proper, which they will never accept since life in Germany is obviously much better for them.

Fair point about the Palestinians. Honestly, though, I wonder if a surviving reformed Russian Empire--or perhaps a surviving Russian Republic--could decide to create a Jewish Autonomous Region in Odessa within a Greater Russia. That way, it would have the protection of a Great Power and, let's face it, it would be much more appealing for Jewish settlement than the Jewish Autonomous Oblast is*!

*Unless one wants to have easy access to Chinese food! ;)
 
WolfBear said:
Would it have been plausible with a 20th century PoD to have a Jewish state in Eastern Europe?
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No, it would not. It was actually tried - the problem is virtually no Jews were interested.
www.britannica.com

Jewish Autonomous Region | Oblast, Russia, Map, & History

Jewish Autonomous Region, autonomous oblast (region), far eastern Russia, in the basin of the middle Amur River. Although established in 1934 theoretically as a home for Jews in the Soviet Union, no mass Jewish migration developed, and Russian and Ukrainian settlers heavily outnumber the Jews.
www.britannica.com www.britannica.com
The same thing happened when Hertzel and the British government suggested Uganda as a refuge for Jews from Russia (and other places, but at the time the Jews in Russia were the ones with most obvious difficulties), the suggestion was enough to get the representatives of Eastern Eurpean Jewish communities to walk out in protest from the Zionist Congress

The Uganda Proposal (1903)

Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org

I suppose if Jewish culture and society in those communities was radically different then you could have a situation where it was possible, but in that case the POD is centuries earlier and would have a lot more significant effects.
 
Post-WW2 there was the verbal proposal for an Israel in East Prussia. Needless to say but it went anywhere for what had just happened.
 
The Unicorn said:
Seriously?! That I hadn't heard about. Who thought that was a good idea?
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I presume it was someone in the Roosevelt-Truman administration. It never went beyond a proposal for all the reasons you can imagine, not mention that it was already under joint Soviet-Polish partition at that point.
 
The Unicorn said:
Seriously?! That I hadn't heard about. Who thought that was a good idea?
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My bad it was a Anglo-Irish guy Hacohen, Dvora (1991). "Ben-Gurion and the Second World War: Plans for Mass Immigration to Palestine". In Jonathan Frankel (ed.). Jews and Messianism in the modern era: metaphor and meaning. Vol. 7. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 255. ISBN 978-0-19-506690-6.

In 1941 Lord Moyne suggested to David Ben-Gurion that Jewish refugees could be resettled in East Prussia after Germany was defeated and the area's German inhabitants were expelled. Ben-Gurion responded that "the only way to get Jews to go [to East Prussia] would be with machine guns"

From wikipedia.
 
TheRejectionist said:
In 1941 Lord Moyne suggested to David Ben-Gurion that Jewish refugees could be resettled in East Prussia after Germany was defeated and the area's German inhabitants were expelled. Ben-Gurion responded that "the only way to get Jews to go [to East Prussia] would be with machine guns"
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Interesting, thanks.

I wonder how Ben Gurion managed to keep from bursting into laughter at the suggestion, especially delivered to the effective Prime Minister of the Jewish state in Palestine.
 
The Unicorn said:
Interesting, thanks.

I wonder how Ben Gurion managed to keep from bursting into laughter at the suggestion, especially delivered to the effective Prime Minister of the Jewish state in Palestine.
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It doesn't take much, WW2 was one of the shittiest periods in the world. Also he knew what was happening in the German-run territories.

Though he didn't know the scale, if memory serves me right.
 
WolfBear said:
Would it have been plausible with a 20th century PoD to have a Jewish state in Eastern Europe? Ideally, I would prefer that this be done outside of Germany and in the absence of a Holocaust. For instance, could a Germany that wins World War I decide to create a Jewish state in a part of Eastern Europe in order to provide an Eastern European alternative to Zionism (or perhaps an Eastern European version of Zionism)?

Thoughts on this?
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Judeopolonia.Germans thought about creating state made from former polish lands ruled by jews in 1914 - but,since they need cannonfodder and jews in 1914 do not fought,they decided on creating "free" Ukraine,Poland and Lithuania instead.
 
ATP said:
Judeopolonia.Germans thought about creating state made from former polish lands ruled by jews in 1914 - but,since they need cannonfodder and jews in 1914 do not fought,they decided on creating "free" Ukraine,Poland and Lithuania instead.
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Where did you get the "Jews did not fight" claim? There were ~100,000 jews in the german army in WWI

Searching for "Judeopolonia" I get a 19th century anti-semetic conspiracy theory, which makes me less interested in digging into it.
 
The Unicorn said:
Where did you get the "Jews did not fight" claim? There were ~100,000 jews in the german army in WWI

Searching for "Judeopolonia" I get a 19th century anti-semetic conspiracy theory, which makes me less interested in digging into it.
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In german army.We are taking about russian and polish jews.Neither of them fought well.Plan was for 29-30 million people state with 2 million germans and 6 millions jews as superior races,and others as underhumans.\It was proposed in 1914 by Komitee zur Befreiung der Ostjuden ,as one big Pufferstaat,but becouse it would mean that all poles and most ukrainians would fight them,german abadonned it and followed with "free"Ukraine and puppep Poland.

Germans,being led by prussians,do not even thought about giving back what they stolen from Poland and deal in honest manner.
Which cut only source of recruits who would fight - Poland.

Good,that lost thanks to that and other mistakes.

Second coming of Judeopolonia was 1920,when soviets come with"polish" goverment made mainly from jews.They lost.
Unfortunatelly,they win in 1945 - only dumb polish cryminals supported them,good for removing nails and nothing more.
Soviets must provided their own people to rule - or polish jews.They ruled till 1956.

In 1968 dumb commie poles removed them from power,but not hurt in any manner - those who leave could,for example,take 4kg of silver , 25 painting and many other things per family.Officers who worked for Izrael could go there - if they were soviets,they woud end in gulag.
They leaved and their descendents tell to our days how bad poles hurt them - when their polish victims go to massgraves or must leave their homes without nothing.

P.S if you knew polish - Judeopolonia,żydowskie państwo w państwie polskim.Andrzej Szczęśniak,Polwen 2001.
 
ATP said:
In german army.We are taking about russian and polish jews.Neither of them fought well.
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Not sure about polish jews, but Russian jews were conscripted just as often as any other russian and fought just as well as other conscripst in the Russian army, i.e as long as they were constantly supervised and they didn't have a good chance of running away.
 
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