Jewish Middleman Role Taken By Other Nationalities Zenner

Minorities in the Middle: A Cross-Cultural Analysis, by Walter P Zenner. 1991

Do Not Blame Everything on the Poles: The Jewish Middleman and His Counterparts in Other Cultures, With Boycotts, Pogroms, etc. Jews Go Beyond Middleman Minority Concept

Zenner, the author, identifies himself as a child of German Jewish merchants. (p. ix). He discusses many middleman minorities, such as the Chinese in Malaysia, and provides a history of the concept of the middleman minority. However, one could add Endek thinker Jedrzej Giertych, who compared the Polish-Jewish antagonisms in Poland with the Malaysian-Chinese ones. Please read the detailed Peczkis review of, In Defence of My Country.

ENTREPRENEURIAL MIDDLEMAN MINORITIES: WITH CONNOTATIONS OF PRIVILEGE AND PARASITISM

The author defines middleman as follows (quote) The members of these minorities can be seen as intermediaries between the ruling elite and the masses–in peasant societies–as merchants, government contractors, and even as government bureaucrats. In economic terms, they are middlemen between the producers and the consumers. Even doctors, lawyers, and other professionals can be seen in these terms. They are seen primarily as merchants, moneylenders, and the like, rather than as organizers of productive enterprises…Several definitions are in use. The first defines an ethnic group as a middleman minority if a substantial and disproportionate number of its members are engaged in trade and finance. (unquote). (p. xii). In the remainder of my review, I concentrate on parallels between the experiences of the Jewish and non-Jewish middleman.

ECONOMIC BOYCOTTS: NOT ONLY ENDEKS AGAINST JEWS

(quote) Africans, however, did not resent the Asian traders equally. When Baganda traders organized a boycott of Indian traders in Uganda in 1959-60, they received little support and some opposition from other Africans. (unquote). (p. 193).

EXPULSIONS OF VARIOUS MIDDLEMAN MINORITIES

(quote) Just within the past 30 years, we have witnessed the partial expulsion of Asians from Kenya, the total expulsion of this group from Uganda, and the expropriation and forced exodus of many Chinese from Vietnam. (unquote). (p. xi). (quote) During the Turkish massacres of World War I, Jews would describe how they were forced to show their distinctive undergarment, the ZIZIT, and the sign of their circumcision to save their lives, so they would not be mistaken for Armenians or Christians. (unquote). (p. 166).