Chapter 1. A Time of Crisis: 1929-1932
[1.5. Eastern
Europe: Crop failures, nationalism and economic crisis
provoke harsh anti-Semitism since 1928/1929]
[1928/9: Eastern Europe: Crop
failure - destabilization of Jewry economically and
politically - government actions against Jews]
Masses of Jews were living under the most unsettled
circumstances, economic and political. After the crises of
1924-26, another general crop failure in 1928/9 all over
Eastern Europe affected the economies of those countries. The
Jewish middle class was still largely dependent on small
trading operations involving the village-town relationship,
and as peasants all over Eastern Europe became economically
weaker, the Jewish position became increasingly precarious.
This also affected the political position of the Jews. Since
the peasants formed the majority of the population in all
these countries, the various governments made efforts to
assuage them. Their direct economic relations with the Jews
and their inability to pay the Jewish traders and artisans
turned the peasant-Jewish relationship into political
antagonism, expressed in nationalism and anti-Semitism among
large sections of the population. While these tendencies had
been ingrained among the population for centuries, they were
virulently expressed when economic crisis and increased
nationalism coincided in the late 1920s. (p.28)
