1 - “Individual Rights Were Not Enough for True Freedom”

Summary

In support of the world’s most dispersed minority, Jewish lawyers and advocates had been among the staunchest supporters of the interwar minority rights regime. This support was such a foundational part of Jewish internationalism that it did not subside even as the postwar world abandoned international minority protection. Flying in the face of prevailing trends in international politics that promoted the solution of minority problems through population transfer and domestic assimilation, Jewish advocates abortively sought to rescue minority rights from the historical dustbin. Many found the individualist cast of human rights to be an insufficient shield against potential policies of forced assimilation and sought to salvage some forms of groupist protection in various forums, including during negotiations over the postwar European peace and international treaty-making at the United Nations. Jewish activists developed an associational-inflected critique of human rights that was ahead of its time but ignored altogether in its day.