Quotas: The ’Jewish Question’ and Higher Education in Central Europe, 1880-1945

In 1920, the Hungarian parliament introduced a Jewish quota for university admissions, making Hungary the first country in Europe to pass antisemitic legislation following World War I. Quotas explores the ideologies and practices of quota regimes and the ways quotas have been justified, implemented, challenged, and remembered from the late nineteenth century until the middle of the twentieth century. In particular, the volume focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, with chapters covering the origins of quotas, the moral, legal, and political arguments developed by their supporters and opponents, and the social and personal impact of these attempts to limit access to higher education.

Judith Szapor is associate professor in the Department of History and Classical Studies, McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Her latest monograph, Hungarian Women’s Activism in the Wake of the First World War: From Rights to Revanche was published in 2018. In her current project, she explores the intended and unintended impact of the numerus clausus on Hungarian Jewish women and families.