What also came crashing down during these years was the elaborate system of minority treaties whereby the Allies had vainly hoped to solve a problem that, within the political framework of the nation-state, is insoluble. The Jews were an officially recognized minority in all Successor States, and this status had not been forced upon them but had been the outcome of claims entered and negotiations conducted by their own delegates to the Versailles Peace Conference. This had marked an important turning point in Jewish history, because it was the first time that Western, or assimilated, Jews had
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