Reference Type: Book Section
Author: Hartman, Zvi
Year: 2011
Title: A Short Comparative Study of the Failure of Jewish Assimilation in The Interwar Era: Ernő Ligeti (Cluj) and Mihail Sebastian (Bucharest)
Editor: Ciuciu, Anca - Crăciun, Camelia
Book Title: Istorie şi memorie evreiască. Volum omagial dedicat doamnei dr. Lya Benjamin
City: Bucureşti
Publisher: Hasefer
Pages: 108-119
Language: English
Keywords: Jewish minority, history, assimilation, intellectuals, literature, integration, ethnic identity, biographies, interwar period, hungarian jews, Transylvania, Bucharest
Abstract: (En) After the Versailles Treaties, the Romanian nation-state became a multiethnic entity where 71.9% were ethnically Romanians2. Consequently, it was difficult to find a common denominator for all its inhabitants. This paper focuses on two of the provinces in the new Romanian State, Transylvania and the Old Kingdom. The leading circles in these regions believed that the Jews - this "malignant foreign element" would impede the natural development of Romania.
Two Jewish writers, Ernő Ligeti and Mihail Sebastian, published books and articles in the interwar period indicating that they did not digest the mentality changes in the nations surrounding them. Retrospectively, it looks like they consciously kept their eyes shut. They believed that the assimilated Jews would have a chance to be part of the Gentile society and wanted to persuade first and foremost themselves, but also the Gentiles, that intellectual Jews like themselves should be part and parcel of the society in which they were living. This was their credo regardless of the real life situation. They were trapped in their misconception of a liberal society. These two writers represented the views of a large part of the assimilated Jews and a thin stratum of both Romanian and Hungarian intellectuals in Romania who believed in a liberal and democratic society.
URL: http://www.csier.jewishfed.ro/public_html/documente/istoriememorie.pdf