Odessa was the most bloody pogrom of them all. After it was over, the city's police chief estimated the casualties has over 900 wounded and 200 dead... Chris Doss
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Thanks a lot. It helps to know: ``The bulk of the defense militias were not specifically Jewish -- they were organized mainly by the social democrats and socialist revolutionaries (a large percentage of which were, however, Jews)...'' This implies the Odessa pogrom targets were a mixed bag.
Are the Absolutists the equivalent of Monarchists? Also were the Absolutists linked with the Russian Orthodox church?
(I ask because the two most nortorious anti-Semites that Strauss dealt with in the 20s were Catholic: Paul de La Guard and Carl Schmitt. Wasn't Heidegger also Catholic? The central theme in Strauss at this point in time was trying to examine and form a philosophical kind of political theology---out of his experience with Zionism.)
According to the limited notes I've read on Jabotinsky, his experience fighting the Odessa pogrom turned him to Zionism. One note said he helped organize a Jewish militia but I am uncertain he actually did the organizing.
When he got to Germany after WWI, many of the local Zionist groups were not ready to learn any military training---which had become Jabotinsky's speciality after his duty in the British Army Jewish brigade in WWI. (This later military duty and activity makes me suspect Jabotinshy became a professional soldier---radicalized after his experience in Odessa---and not before. Before, he might have been a liberal or social democrat. He wrote for what was described as a liberal Moscow newpaper----Moskovskie Vedomosti?)
In one of these notes, Jabotinsky asked Strauss (who in 1923 was a part-time columnist for a couple of Zionist magazines) how rifle training was going in the Blau-Weiss? The answer wasn't mentioned.
Most likely Strauss was appalled, since he was busy in his columns lecturing the more leftwing secular Zionists on their lack of attention and development of religious and cultural matters. In WWI, Strauss's military duty (at eighteen) was as a translater in Belgium and as far as I know he was never in the trenches.
Most of Strauss's experience with Zionism was through the Blau-Weiss as a high school kid and later as a youth group leader. I think the Blau-Weiss groups were essentially Jewish Boy Scouts into hiking, nature, and cultural activities. I seriously doubt they ever learned to field strip a bolt action carbine.
So, when J asked how rifle practice was going, it must have been a very funny put down...
CG