Memorandum Svazu Čechů-židů v Republice československé postoupené vládě během přípravy národnostního statutu v roce 1938
Memorandum by the Union of Czech Jews in the Czechoslovak Republic submitted to the Government during Preparation of the Nationality Statute in 1938

Summary/Abstract: The number of suggestions submitted to the government by the representatives of ethnic minorities during preparation of the nationality statute in 1938 included one enterprisingly submitted by a Jewish union. The authors analyse the Memorandum prepared by the Union of Czech Jews in the Czechoslovak Republic, the highest institution of the Czech Jewish assimilationist movement. Although we do not have a response from government bodies to this document, we can state that it reflected the strong self-confidence of the Czech Jewish movement and simultaneously its exceptional loyalty to the Czech nation and the Republic. The Memorandum also demonstrates the permanent optimism of the movement, which continued in its sharply defined stance against the rival Zionist movement. The awareness of the danger to the republic evidently overrode the awareness of the danger to the Jewish minority. The Czech Jewish movement based its reasoning on sources from the last decade of the 19th century, the corner stone of which was the Czech Jewish understanding of the term “nation”, which combined the traditions of Judaism, enlightenment and romanticism. A new aspect was the willingness of the Czech Jewish movement to cooperate with orthodoxy, while its efforts to present its own reasoning as being in the state and national interest and its abiding trust in the institution of the state were “traditional”.

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