Elisabeth Weber
Junior Fellow (10/2017–07/2018)
The First World War and the Emancipation of Romanian Jews
Romania only decreed the full equality of its Jewish population immediately after the end of the First World War. There had been hefty conflicts over whether and how Romania’s Jews were to be emancipated since the middle of the nineteenth century, with the topic being considered by governments and Jewish organisations in Romania as well as in Western Europe and the USA. This project examines the debate surrounding the emancipation of Romania’s Jews during the First World War. The point of departure for this analysis is the Uniunea Evreilor Pământeni (Union of Indigenous Jews), founded in 1910, and its efforts towards the emancipation of the Romanian Jews and against antisemitism in Romanian society. As the activities of the union were always related to the actions and positions of the Romanian government, the great powers, and western Jewish organisations, these perspectives will – following Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann’s notion of histoire croisée – be examined in all their manifold interconnections. This will allow for the logic of the various agents to be examined against the background of the lines of conflict manifesting themselves during the war on the international, national, regional, and inner-Jewish levels.
Elisabeth Weber is a Ph.D. candidate in the research group The First World War and the Conflicts of the European Postwar Order (1914–1923) or: The Radicalisation of Antisemitism in Europe at the Centre for Research on Antisemitism at the Technical University in Berlin. From 2009 to 2013, she worked on various exhibitions at the Deutsches Historische Museum in Berlin. Since 2016, she has been involved in various book and exhibition projects among others for the Berlin City Museum.