In this episode of New Books Network, Željko Stanojević speaks with historian Giuseppe Motta about Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State (Routledge, 2026), a study of Jewish displacement, statelessness, humanitarian action, international law, and international institutions between the First and Second World Wars.

Drawing on extensive archival research in the records of the League of Nations and the Joint Distribution Committee, Motta reconstructs the political and legal environment in which Jewish refugees from East-Central Europe struggled to find protection after the collapse of empires and the redrawing of national borders. The book follows the refugee question from the aftermath of World War I through the rise of Nazism and the Évian Conference of 1938, asking how states, international organizations, humanitarian agencies, and Jewish institutions responded to people increasingly left outside effective national protection.

A central theme of the conversation is the tension captured in the subtitle, Beyond the State. The interwar refugee crisis exposed a basic contradiction: refugees required protection that crossed national borders, while international law remained dependent on the sovereignty and political choices of individual states. Motta explains how the Jewish refugee question became connected to statelessness, minority protection, humanitarian responsibility, migration control, legal identity, and international cooperation across Europe.

The discussion also explores the wider forces surrounding Jewish displacement: the legacies of World War I, new states in Central and Eastern Europe, nationalism, antisemitism, Bolshevism, Zionism, migration policy, and the restrictive political climate of the 1920s and 1930s. Particular attention is given to the League of Nations and the Joint Distribution Committee, whose archives reveal both institutional debates and the practical difficulties faced by refugees seeking safety and legal recognition.

Rather than treating Jewish refugees only as a prelude to the Holocaust, Motta places the interwar period in its own historical and legal context. This perspective helps explain how ideas later central to international refugee law and human rights developed through earlier crises, experiments, failures, and negotiations.

Giuseppe Motta is Associate Professor of History of International Relations at Sapienza University of Rome and a member of the Editorial Board of the European Hebrew Journal (EHJ).

Motta will also speak at the European Hebrew Journal International Online Conference, New Discoveries and New Directions in Biblical, Hebrew, and Theological Studies. On 7 November 2026 at 19:00 CET, he will lead a live scholarly debate based on this book. His biography, book information, presentation details, and conference session are available on Giuseppe Motta’s conference page.

The interview is hosted by Željko Stanojević, President of the Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature, Editor-in-Chief and Managing Editor of the European Hebrew Journal, and a New Books Network host in Biblical Studies. The Belgrade-based Institute promotes international scholarship in Hebrew language, Jewish studies, Biblical studies, Semitic studies, history, religion, and related interdisciplinary fields.

Keywords and themes: Jewish refugees, interwar Europe, League of Nations, Joint Distribution Committee, statelessness, Jewish migration, Évian Conference, antisemitism, minority rights, humanitarianism, refugee law, international law, East-Central Europe, Jewish history, human rights, nationalism, international relations, refugee protection.

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Giuseppe Motta, "Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State" (Routledge, 2026)

New Books Network

Giuseppe Motta, "Jewish Refugees and the International Community Between the Two World Wars: Beyond the State" (Routledge, 2026)