The debate over Jewish employment structure in the Journal for Demography and Statistics of the Jews (1905-1931)

Nicolas Vallois (1)

1 CRIISEA - Centre de Recherche sur les Institutions, l'Industrie et les Systèmes Économiques d'Amiens - UR UPJV 3908

The late 19th century saw the multiplication of statistical studies on Jewish populations. This literature is now known as “Jewish Statistics” or “Jewish Social Science” (JSS). This article focuses on the articles published in der Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden (Journal for Demography and Statistics of the Jews, ZDSJ). The ZDSJ was the main journal in JSS and appeared from 1905 until 1931. Existing scholarship on JSS has either focused on the influence of Zionism (Hart, 2000) or eugenics and race theory (Efron, 1994). This article proposes to relate JSS to economic problems and economic theories. As suggests the intellectual profile of the main contributors to the ZDSJ, we argue that JSS was a by-product of the German historical school in economics. We then analyze how this intellectual background was applied to the main economic concern in JSS, which was the question of Jewish “occupational” or employment structure.

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Nicolas Vallois. The debate over Jewish employment structure in the Journal for Demography and Statistics of the Jews (1905-1931). 2019. ⟨hal-02189066⟩