Exploring the transnational translation of ideas: German social work education in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

This article explores the transnational exchange of knowledge of ideas in social work in the first half of the twentieth century. Drawing upon the notion of transnational translation of knowledge, the study presented here sheds light on the interaction between the knowledge and ideas brought to Palestine in the early 1930s by German social worker refugees, and the dominant perceptions, values, and conditions of the Jewish community in that country. The case study follows the efforts to introduce a German model of social work education into Palestine and, particularly, the struggle of leading German-Jewish social worker Siddy Wronsky and others to legitimize the approach of social work developed in Weimar Germany in the 1920s. While a system of local social work institutions did eventually emerge during the period studied, the effort to effectively introduce the German social work approach into Palestine was less successful. The failure to gain legitimacy of the German approach to social work in a social context where the labor movement dominated with a contrasting notion of social welfare was the reason that the translation of knowledge to Palestine was only partially successful.

Keywords:

• Social work history
• social work education
• transnationalism
• Jewish history
• social welfare
• translation of ideas

Acknowledgement

We are very grateful to Ayana Halpern for kindly providing us information on the backgrounds of German-Jewish social workers in Palestine. We are also grateful for the comments by Hannah Yekel, a former student at the Palestine school.

Notes

1. On the history of social work in Europe see Hauss & Schulte, 2009; Lorenz, 2006. On the history of social work in the United States, see Katz, 1986.

2. Alice Salomon (1872–1948) was the predominant figure in German social work for much of the first half of the twentieth century and established the first school of social work in that country (Lees, 2004; Wieler, 1988).

3. Gertrud Bäumer was, together with Helene Lange, one of the leading protagonists in the German bourgeois women’s movement. Together with Marie Baum she founded the Social Women’s School and Social Pedagogical Institute in Hamburg in 1917 and promoted the establishment of social work as a profession in Weimar Germany (Hopf, 1997).

4. Siddy Wronsky (1883–1947) was one of the major protagonists in the establishment of social work as a profession in Germany. She was born to assimilated Jews in Berlin. Educated as a teacher, she started her civic engagement in social welfare in 1906. In 1908 she became head of the “Archiv für Wohlfahrtspflege” which was of particular importance for German social work and social welfare. The archive remained her professional domain until she emigrated to Palestine in 1933, just before the Nazi regime took power. She collaborated closely with Alice Salomon and taught at the Social Women’s School in Berlin. She was also a founding member of the “Deutsche Akademie für Soziale und Pädagogische Frauenarbeit” (German Academy for Social and Pedagogical Professions of Women”), which sought to improve the standards of social work education (see Konrad, 2007; also see Hayut, 1957; Itzkovitz, 1969).

5. Indicative of the small number of trained social workers in the country is that the number of social workers who participated at the first professional meeting of the newly formed Department for Social Service was nine, (see Deutsch, 1970, p. 171; also see Zmora, 2002).

6. For analyses of Hadasah’s activities in Palestine, see Simmons (2006). Henrietta Szold has been the subject of a number of biographies, among them Dash (2009) and Fineman (1961).

7. This a rough calculation based on figures provided by Wronsky in a speech marking the tenth anniversary of the school, in which she noted that 56 social workers from overseas had participated in the orientation courses required of foreign-trained social workers during the decade that the school had been in existence. Forty-five of these originated from Germany. A much smaller number of German social workers arrived prior to the establishment of the school, see “Wronsky Speech to Mark the Tenth Anniversary of the School,” 13.12.1944, Central Zionist Archive (CZA) A149, 30.

8. See note 5.

9. Indeed, she reports in her diary that she met Szold on 16 September, merely 10 days after leaving Germany, in order to discuss issues regarding social welfare and social work education (see Blätter des JFB, 1934, 10, quoted in Matthäus & Roseman, 2010, p. 70).

10. On her Zionist beliefs, see, for example, her address to a conference on Jewish population policy in 1929 on the dangers facing German Jewry (quoted in Gillerman, 2009; see also Cohen, 1957).

11. Center for Jewish History (CJH) RG13/HNO/Box 79/Folder 5.

12. For a personal description of the first class, see the autobiography of Gelber (1989, pp. 55–57). See also Wronsky’s Speech to Mark the Tenth Anniversary of the School, 13.12.1944, CZA A149, 30.

13. See a letter, dated 25.6.1946, from Wronsky to Dr. Abraham Katznelson, head of the Department for Social Service, in which she describes the cramped conditions in the apartment, CZA J1 1887.

14. See Wronsky’s report to the school board, 1.6.36, CZA J1 4455.

15. Meeting of the school board, 14.4.42, CZA J1 4455. The school board consisted of the school administration, leading officials from the Vaad Haleumi and the Histadrut, and public figures. The school executive committee consisted of the school administration and two officials from the Vaad Haleumi.

16. In 1951, a separate social work school was established by the Tel Aviv Municipality in Tel Aviv (see Schlesinger, 1957).

17. Beit Hasefer LeSherut Soziali (The School for Social Services), (1944). “Jerusalem: The School for Social Services,” p. 7.

18. See minutes of the school executive committee, 14.4.1942, CZA J1 4455.

19. Siddy Wronsky, “A Report on the Work of the Social-Pedagogy Department,” 6.7.1940, CZA J1 4455.

20. The Field Training Program, CZA J1 4455.

21. Zippora Bloch had worked as a volunteer in social welfare institutions in the 1920s and then studied social work formally in Berlin before returning to Palestine and establishing the first social welfare bureau in Jerusalem (Bloch, 1989; Yefet, 1965).

22. The Institute for Social Studies, 24.7.1939, CZA J1 4455.

23. “A Proposal for a Two-Year Field Training Program,” 18.11.42, CZA J1 4455; Also see “A Report on the School for Social Services,” CZA J1 6856.

24. For more on these, see “The Training School for Social Service of the Vaad Haleumi,” CZA J1 31.707.

25. For a critique of Wronsky’s dominant role in determining the content of studies at the school, see Weiner (1979, pp. 144–149).

26. See, for example, her report to the school board, 22.10.41, CZA J1, 4455.

27. “The Teaching Program of the School for Social Service,” CZA J1 33, 142.

28. CZA J1 A149/25.

29. A good example of this is a publication of the school, HaRayon HaSoziali BeKitvai Herzl (The Social Idea in Herzl’s Writings), published in 1945.

30. An essay entitled Darchei HaEzra HaSozialit (The Paths of Social Assistance), published in Dvar Hapoelet, 17.5.34.

31. See also Siddy Wronsky (n.d.), Shitot shel Hakirot Sozialiot al Yesod Soziologi [Methods of Social Inquiry on the Basis of Sociology], CZA A149/13.

32. Studies on the settlement movement at the turn of the twentieth century also show that settlement houses functioned as a fit-all solution for a broad range of perceived social problems (cf. Köngeter, 2013).

33. Meeting of the school board, 22.10.41, CZA J1 4455.

34. See comments by Szold in a meeting with Histadrut officials on 16.3.38, Lavon Labor Movement Archive (LMA), IV-251-3.

35. On Mishan, see Gal (1997). The tension between Mishan and the Department of Social Service is well reflected in a letter sent by its secretary to the Histadrut on 20.10.1937, in which he claims that Mishan is providing parallel social welfare services (CZA 1078A). See also a Mishan report on this, LMA IV-231-15.

36. Indeed, during 1944, the Union announced that, due to its perception that it had no influence over decision-making in the school, it would cease sending its representatives to the school board. See a letter from the union to Abraham Katznelson on 20.4.1944 and Wronsky’s reply on 11.5.1944, CZA J1 1887. Also see, for example, a letter from Miriam Bitan, the head of the union, sent to Katznelson on 9.7.1945.

37. See the exchange of letters between Katznelson and the Hebrew University leadership between 1943 and 1945, CZA J1 1887.