Kreisky, Israel, and Jewish Identity by Daniel Aschheim (review)

Reviewed by: Kreisky, Israel, and Jewish Identity by Daniel Aschheim Laura A. Detre Daniel Aschheim, Kreisky, Israel, and Jewish Identity. New Orleans: University of New Orleans Press, 2022. 225 pp. One of the most significant political figures in postwar Austria was Chancellor Bruno Kreisky. Holding office from 1970 to 1983, he not only served a remarkably long term but also oversaw a tremendous amount of transformation, both physically and culturally. The 1970s were a period of building and relative prosperity and also saw the arrival of a generation of Austrians who had not experienced the war and the Nazi regime. All of that would be enough to make Kreisky an important figure, but perhaps the most remarkable thing about his success as a leader in a country that had enthusiastically participated in the Holocaust just a generation earlier is that Bruno Kreisky had Jewish origins. At the same time that Kreisky held power in Austria, the modern State of Israel, then in its third decade, continued to face existential threats. Kreisky's administration overlapped with the Yom Kippur War, the Camp David Accords, and the Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. It is also in these years that Israel became an associate member of the European Common Market. Alliances with other countries were and are a significant part of Israel's survival, and all of this was happening in the midst of the Cold War, which not only made for complicated alliances all over the world but was also a significant factor in the flight of Soviet Jews out of their homeland and to new homes in Israel, often through intermediary countries like Austria. Daniel Aschheim's book, Kreisky, Israel, and Jewish Identity is a welcome examination of a significant political figure and his undeniably complicated relationship with both his own Jewish identity and the world's only Jewish-majority state. This book is based largely on interviews with Austrians and Israelis, many of whom had firsthand knowledge of Kreisky's interactions with Israel [End Page 145] and of his feelings about his own complicated identity. It is important to note that he did not deny that he descended from Jews and that he was for parts of his life immersed in secular, acculturated Austrian Jewish culture. Nevertheless, he did not identify as a Jew. In fact, he was deeply offended by the idea that his origins required him to see the world through a Jewish lens or that his loyalties would lie with Jews. This desire to distance himself from Jewishness was at times a source of frustration to people who believed that, as a victim of Nazi persecution, Kreisky should have a heightened level of empathy for Jewish people and causes. One thing to note about this book is that it comes from a perspective, perhaps more common in Israel, that if an individual meets a particular definition of what it means to be a Jew, then it is difficult if not impossible for them to opt out of that identity. No matter how secular the individual is or how much they deny their Jewishness, they are fundamentally a part of that community. Bruno Kreisky did not share this worldview, and that is the source of much of the conflict between him and Israelis. Kreisky did not believe that he had any natural alliance with other Jews. To him, because he had not opted into Jewishness, he was not a part of that community and as the chancellor of Austria, a primarily Catholic state, he could not and would not advocate for Jewish positions. As an example of this conflict between Kreisky's identity and the way that Israelis and other allies view Jewish identity, Aschheim writes that Kreisky was imprisoned by the Austrofascists in 1935. He goes on to note that "until the end, Kreisky was convinced that his imprisonment had been due to him being a Socialist and not a Jew" (57). It is clear from Aschheim's tone that he questions this belief, but it is highly likely that Kreisky's assessment was accurate. The Austrofascist regime was bigoted and many Austrofascists espoused antisemitism, but this antisemitism rarely translated into policy. On the other hand, this period...