JONATHAN I. ISRAEL
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198219286
- eISBN:
- 9780191678332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219286.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, History of Religion
It is important to note that during the expansion of the European Jewry, the diaspora undergone by the Jewish population – especially in central Europe, Spain, Poland, and Italy – veered away from ...
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It is important to note that during the expansion of the European Jewry, the diaspora undergone by the Jewish population – especially in central Europe, Spain, Poland, and Italy – veered away from the general demographic trends across Europe, since other populations either experienced declines or remained stagnated. This pattern was evident not only among the Jews across Europe in the seventeenth century, but also in other such places wherein their growth and expansion were not inhibited. This chapter, however, discusses how the period between 1713 and 1750 marked a significant decline in the demographic position of the European Jewry, wherein the growth of the population was evidently slower that the proliferation of other societies, the society being seemingly incapable of facilitating growth during this particular period.Less
It is important to note that during the expansion of the European Jewry, the diaspora undergone by the Jewish population – especially in central Europe, Spain, Poland, and Italy – veered away from the general demographic trends across Europe, since other populations either experienced declines or remained stagnated. This pattern was evident not only among the Jews across Europe in the seventeenth century, but also in other such places wherein their growth and expansion were not inhibited. This chapter, however, discusses how the period between 1713 and 1750 marked a significant decline in the demographic position of the European Jewry, wherein the growth of the population was evidently slower that the proliferation of other societies, the society being seemingly incapable of facilitating growth during this particular period.
Derek J. Penslar
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520225909
- eISBN:
- 9780520925847
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520225909.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter talks about the massacre of two-thirds of European Jewry in the Holocaust, which, combined with the economic modernization of postwar Europe, has eliminated the Jews from their previous ...
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This chapter talks about the massacre of two-thirds of European Jewry in the Holocaust, which, combined with the economic modernization of postwar Europe, has eliminated the Jews from their previous position as a prominent urban elite in what had been the largely agrarian societies of east-central and eastern Europe. Even before the war, German and Austrian Jewry had been pauperized by the expropriation of Jewish businesses, property, and capital. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when capitalism's transfiguration of Europe was the guiding star of the social thought, speculation about the position of Jews in Europe (the Jewish Question) could not be separated from anxiety about the new industrial order (the social question). Jews continue to have grave, even existential problems, but for the vast majority of world Jewry, the “Jewish question” as it was understood throughout modern European history has ceased to exist.Less
This chapter talks about the massacre of two-thirds of European Jewry in the Holocaust, which, combined with the economic modernization of postwar Europe, has eliminated the Jews from their previous position as a prominent urban elite in what had been the largely agrarian societies of east-central and eastern Europe. Even before the war, German and Austrian Jewry had been pauperized by the expropriation of Jewish businesses, property, and capital. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when capitalism's transfiguration of Europe was the guiding star of the social thought, speculation about the position of Jews in Europe (the Jewish Question) could not be separated from anxiety about the new industrial order (the social question). Jews continue to have grave, even existential problems, but for the vast majority of world Jewry, the “Jewish question” as it was understood throughout modern European history has ceased to exist.
Eliyahu Stern
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300179309
- eISBN:
- 9780300183221
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300179309.003.0008
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This chapter explains that the experience of Jewish modernity tends to be seen as a process of secularization; an arc starting with the Jews living under static corporate structures and ending with ...
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This chapter explains that the experience of Jewish modernity tends to be seen as a process of secularization; an arc starting with the Jews living under static corporate structures and ending with their becoming citizens of nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and acculturated members of civil society. It notes that this shift was inaugurated by Moses Mendelssohn and his Berlin-based followers. The farther modernity travelled across Europe, the more it barely registered in eastern European Jewry's religious expressions, intellectual institutions, and political movements.Less
This chapter explains that the experience of Jewish modernity tends to be seen as a process of secularization; an arc starting with the Jews living under static corporate structures and ending with their becoming citizens of nation-states, congregants of reformed synagogues, and acculturated members of civil society. It notes that this shift was inaugurated by Moses Mendelssohn and his Berlin-based followers. The farther modernity travelled across Europe, the more it barely registered in eastern European Jewry's religious expressions, intellectual institutions, and political movements.
S. Ilan Troen
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300084269
- eISBN:
- 9780300130218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300084269.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter discusses the construction of new identities by examining how European Jews understood the purposes and meanings of Zionism in Zion. Pioneers built Zionism on a rejection of Europe and ...
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This chapter discusses the construction of new identities by examining how European Jews understood the purposes and meanings of Zionism in Zion. Pioneers built Zionism on a rejection of Europe and an anticipation of creating an alternative modern Jewish personality. The analysis presented in the chapter rests on a study of the largest social institution established by Zionist society: a secular, public school system. Through it, Zionist ideologues, public officials, and educators attempted to transform European Jewry. Willing to preserve what they admired in the culture of the shtetl, they rejected its passivity in the face of physical threats and actual violence. These educators insisted on a new national, educational, cultural ideal. The chapter reveals that in turning away from the traditional orthodox schooling of the shtetl, Zionists developed a new curriculum to produce modern, secularized Jews who were capable of defending themselves and their homeland.Less
This chapter discusses the construction of new identities by examining how European Jews understood the purposes and meanings of Zionism in Zion. Pioneers built Zionism on a rejection of Europe and an anticipation of creating an alternative modern Jewish personality. The analysis presented in the chapter rests on a study of the largest social institution established by Zionist society: a secular, public school system. Through it, Zionist ideologues, public officials, and educators attempted to transform European Jewry. Willing to preserve what they admired in the culture of the shtetl, they rejected its passivity in the face of physical threats and actual violence. These educators insisted on a new national, educational, cultural ideal. The chapter reveals that in turning away from the traditional orthodox schooling of the shtetl, Zionists developed a new curriculum to produce modern, secularized Jews who were capable of defending themselves and their homeland.
Michael Berkowitz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520251120
- eISBN:
- 9780520940680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520251120.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II ...
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This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II Europe in what came to be known as the DP, or “displaced-persons” problem. Because racial anti-Semitism was a possibly questionable way to express opinions in postwar Germany, especially in the U.S. zone of occupation toward which most Jewish DPs migrated, Germans' view of Jews as criminals was a major factor in the dynamic between Jews, Germans, and the U.S. Army. The chapter also notes that the presence of a thriving black market certainly abetted the perception of DPs as a “criminal element,” and a number of forces combined to ensure that DPs had few other means, outside of the black market, to survive.Less
This chapter shows that the stigma of Jews as criminals was one of the most resilient and widespread perceptions among Germans as they confronted the remnant of European Jewry in post-World War II Europe in what came to be known as the DP, or “displaced-persons” problem. Because racial anti-Semitism was a possibly questionable way to express opinions in postwar Germany, especially in the U.S. zone of occupation toward which most Jewish DPs migrated, Germans' view of Jews as criminals was a major factor in the dynamic between Jews, Germans, and the U.S. Army. The chapter also notes that the presence of a thriving black market certainly abetted the perception of DPs as a “criminal element,” and a number of forces combined to ensure that DPs had few other means, outside of the black market, to survive.
Peter Y. Medding
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195128208
- eISBN:
- 9780199854592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195128208.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
In tracing its historical development, this chapter attempts to clarify the place of the elderly in the Jewish family, along with broader issues of communal organization. Topics discussed include the ...
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In tracing its historical development, this chapter attempts to clarify the place of the elderly in the Jewish family, along with broader issues of communal organization. Topics discussed include the elderly in the traditional family structure of East European Jewry, traditional and “modern” approaches to caring for the aged, and communal dynamics and the establishment of old-age homes.Less
In tracing its historical development, this chapter attempts to clarify the place of the elderly in the Jewish family, along with broader issues of communal organization. Topics discussed include the elderly in the traditional family structure of East European Jewry, traditional and “modern” approaches to caring for the aged, and communal dynamics and the establishment of old-age homes.
JONATHAN I. ISRAEL
- Published in print:
- 1985
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198219286
- eISBN:
- 9780191678332
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198219286.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, History of Religion
For the European Jewry, the eighteenth century marked another significant event in history, as this was the period in which the community experienced a ‘decline’; somewhat contrary to previous ...
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For the European Jewry, the eighteenth century marked another significant event in history, as this was the period in which the community experienced a ‘decline’; somewhat contrary to previous accounts, in which the Jewish integration was initially proceeded with acceleration. Ellis Rivkin, a contemporary historian, expressed how such was to be viewed as a shift from emphasizing ‘liberating ideas’ to what he termed ‘developing capitalism’. As he too believed that the eighteenth century was a period of economic growth across the west, he emphasized the notion of increasing freedom in terms of economic movement and opportunity. In this chapter, although the decline in the eighteenth century is rather doubtful, we look back at the significant impacts of the Jewish influence on early modern European life.Less
For the European Jewry, the eighteenth century marked another significant event in history, as this was the period in which the community experienced a ‘decline’; somewhat contrary to previous accounts, in which the Jewish integration was initially proceeded with acceleration. Ellis Rivkin, a contemporary historian, expressed how such was to be viewed as a shift from emphasizing ‘liberating ideas’ to what he termed ‘developing capitalism’. As he too believed that the eighteenth century was a period of economic growth across the west, he emphasized the notion of increasing freedom in terms of economic movement and opportunity. In this chapter, although the decline in the eighteenth century is rather doubtful, we look back at the significant impacts of the Jewish influence on early modern European life.
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804770569
- eISBN:
- 9780804776523
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804770569.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
This book examines the Jews and Jewish communities of Moravia during the Age of Emancipation. It takes a comparative approach to Moravian Jewry and sheds light on the religious, ideological, ...
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This book examines the Jews and Jewish communities of Moravia during the Age of Emancipation. It takes a comparative approach to Moravian Jewry and sheds light on the religious, ideological, political, and socioeconomic challenges that transformed Central European Jewry.Less
This book examines the Jews and Jewish communities of Moravia during the Age of Emancipation. It takes a comparative approach to Moravian Jewry and sheds light on the religious, ideological, political, and socioeconomic challenges that transformed Central European Jewry.
Carolyn J. Dean
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780801449444
- eISBN:
- 9780801460333
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801449444.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This book offers a bold account of how the Holocaust's status as humanity's most terrible example of evil has shaped contemporary discourses about victims in the West. Popular and scholarly attention ...
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This book offers a bold account of how the Holocaust's status as humanity's most terrible example of evil has shaped contemporary discourses about victims in the West. Popular and scholarly attention to the Holocaust has led some observers to conclude that a “surfeit of Jewish memory” is obscuring the suffering of other peoples. The text explores the pervasive idea that suffering and trauma in the United States and Western Europe have become central to identity, with victims competing for recognition by displaying their collective wounds. It argues that this notion has never been examined systematically even though it now possesses the force of self-evidence. It developed in nascent form after World War II, when the near-annihilation of European Jewry began to transform patriotic mourning into a slogan of “Never Again”: as the Holocaust demonstrated, all people might become victims because of their ethnicity, race, gender, or sexuality—because of who they are. The recent concept that suffering is central to identity and that Jewish suffering under Nazism is iconic of modern evil has dominated public discourse since the 1980s. The book also argues that we believe that the rational contestation of grievances in democratic societies is being replaced by the proclamation of injury and the desire to be a victim. Such dramatic and yet culturally powerful assertions, however, cast suspicion on victims and define their credibility in new ways that require analysis.Less
This book offers a bold account of how the Holocaust's status as humanity's most terrible example of evil has shaped contemporary discourses about victims in the West. Popular and scholarly attention to the Holocaust has led some observers to conclude that a “surfeit of Jewish memory” is obscuring the suffering of other peoples. The text explores the pervasive idea that suffering and trauma in the United States and Western Europe have become central to identity, with victims competing for recognition by displaying their collective wounds. It argues that this notion has never been examined systematically even though it now possesses the force of self-evidence. It developed in nascent form after World War II, when the near-annihilation of European Jewry began to transform patriotic mourning into a slogan of “Never Again”: as the Holocaust demonstrated, all people might become victims because of their ethnicity, race, gender, or sexuality—because of who they are. The recent concept that suffering is central to identity and that Jewish suffering under Nazism is iconic of modern evil has dominated public discourse since the 1980s. The book also argues that we believe that the rational contestation of grievances in democratic societies is being replaced by the proclamation of injury and the desire to be a victim. Such dramatic and yet culturally powerful assertions, however, cast suspicion on victims and define their credibility in new ways that require analysis.
Tresa Grauer
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300084269
- eISBN:
- 9780300130218
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300084269.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter argues that Zionist responses to the powerlessness of European Jewry also entered the consciousness and art of American Jews, who shared the idea that building a Jewish state reflected ...
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This chapter argues that Zionist responses to the powerlessness of European Jewry also entered the consciousness and art of American Jews, who shared the idea that building a Jewish state reflected courage and symbolized a will to live. Expressions of this conviction are found in the writings of Meyer Levin and Leon Uris, who wrote from the perspective of the Jewish people's need for security, a deep sense of the injustice visited on Jews, and an appreciation for the virtue and courage of those who established Israel as an appropriate and necessary response to the Holocaust. The chapter traces and analyzes the decline of this view in the American Jewish experience, focusing on the work of Philip Roth, particularly The Counterlife (1986) and Operation Shylock (1993).Less
This chapter argues that Zionist responses to the powerlessness of European Jewry also entered the consciousness and art of American Jews, who shared the idea that building a Jewish state reflected courage and symbolized a will to live. Expressions of this conviction are found in the writings of Meyer Levin and Leon Uris, who wrote from the perspective of the Jewish people's need for security, a deep sense of the injustice visited on Jews, and an appreciation for the virtue and courage of those who established Israel as an appropriate and necessary response to the Holocaust. The chapter traces and analyzes the decline of this view in the American Jewish experience, focusing on the work of Philip Roth, particularly The Counterlife (1986) and Operation Shylock (1993).
S. Ilan Troen
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300094831
- eISBN:
- 9780300128000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300094831.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
This chapter discusses the first generation of pioneers and planners who imagined a land filled with villages in imitation of the Europe they had known before emigration. They assumed that the ...
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This chapter discusses the first generation of pioneers and planners who imagined a land filled with villages in imitation of the Europe they had known before emigration. They assumed that the European experience could be applied directly to changing European Jewry into a Middle Eastern peasantry. Jewish agricultural colonization transformed Palestine from a poorly developed and backward country into a land that supports hundreds of villages and boasts one of the most modern and efficient agricultural systems in the world. This result, however, was not achieved merely by transplanting European models. Nearly fifty years of systematic experimentation and adaptation were necessary to produce the methods by which a modern nation based on villages might be established. In the course of a process of trial and error, the economy and agricultural technology of the Zionist village were necessarily transformed.Less
This chapter discusses the first generation of pioneers and planners who imagined a land filled with villages in imitation of the Europe they had known before emigration. They assumed that the European experience could be applied directly to changing European Jewry into a Middle Eastern peasantry. Jewish agricultural colonization transformed Palestine from a poorly developed and backward country into a land that supports hundreds of villages and boasts one of the most modern and efficient agricultural systems in the world. This result, however, was not achieved merely by transplanting European models. Nearly fifty years of systematic experimentation and adaptation were necessary to produce the methods by which a modern nation based on villages might be established. In the course of a process of trial and error, the economy and agricultural technology of the Zionist village were necessarily transformed.
Ian Thomson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780823233588
- eISBN:
- 9780823241811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823233588.003.0018
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
A complicated, difficult man, Levi was noted for his determination to keep secret what he wished to keep secret. His late essay collection, The Drowned and the Saved typically contains many elisions ...
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A complicated, difficult man, Levi was noted for his determination to keep secret what he wished to keep secret. His late essay collection, The Drowned and the Saved typically contains many elisions and concealments. In one chapter, Levi refers to a German admirer of his as “Mrs. Hety S”; in the course of her life she wrote a total of fifty-seven letters to Levi. Hety Schmitt-Maas, the real-life “Mrs. Hety S,” had corresponded with Levi for almost twenty years and was vitally important to him as a writer. Sections of Levi's books could not have been written without her. From her home in Wiesbaden, she put Levi in touch with writer friends and other contacts in Germany, creating an ever-expanding network of correspondence among them. In this way she hoped to counteract Himmler's cynical pledge that the destruction of European Jewry would be an “unwritten page of glory.”Less
A complicated, difficult man, Levi was noted for his determination to keep secret what he wished to keep secret. His late essay collection, The Drowned and the Saved typically contains many elisions and concealments. In one chapter, Levi refers to a German admirer of his as “Mrs. Hety S”; in the course of her life she wrote a total of fifty-seven letters to Levi. Hety Schmitt-Maas, the real-life “Mrs. Hety S,” had corresponded with Levi for almost twenty years and was vitally important to him as a writer. Sections of Levi's books could not have been written without her. From her home in Wiesbaden, she put Levi in touch with writer friends and other contacts in Germany, creating an ever-expanding network of correspondence among them. In this way she hoped to counteract Himmler's cynical pledge that the destruction of European Jewry would be an “unwritten page of glory.”
John M. Efron
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300083774
- eISBN:
- 9780300133592
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300083774.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book concludes with a retelling of how the Nazis obliterated the prolonged and intense German Jewish involvement with medicine as part of their war of extermination against European Jewry. ...
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This book concludes with a retelling of how the Nazis obliterated the prolonged and intense German Jewish involvement with medicine as part of their war of extermination against European Jewry. Stretching from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, the Jewish engagement with medicine was truly reflective of Jewish life and values. Because Judaism regards the physical and mental well-being of its adherents as a sine qua non of a religiously fulfilled and fulfilling experience, the sages of antiquity saw the doctor as playing a vital role. For this reason, physicians had long been esteemed figures in Jewish society, and the eagerness with which their services were sought was regarded as an expression of the fundamental tenets of Judaism. In fact, the cultural and social worlds of the Jewish people were dominated by a sense that the doctor was an asset to society, and a partner of God.Less
This book concludes with a retelling of how the Nazis obliterated the prolonged and intense German Jewish involvement with medicine as part of their war of extermination against European Jewry. Stretching from the Middle Ages to the Holocaust, the Jewish engagement with medicine was truly reflective of Jewish life and values. Because Judaism regards the physical and mental well-being of its adherents as a sine qua non of a religiously fulfilled and fulfilling experience, the sages of antiquity saw the doctor as playing a vital role. For this reason, physicians had long been esteemed figures in Jewish society, and the eagerness with which their services were sought was regarded as an expression of the fundamental tenets of Judaism. In fact, the cultural and social worlds of the Jewish people were dominated by a sense that the doctor was an asset to society, and a partner of God.
Jonathan Judaken
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479835041
- eISBN:
- 9781479814954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479835041.003.0009
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explores Léon Poliakov’s often unacknowledged contributions to the establishment of Holocaust studies and how he understood a key engine in the machinery of the destruction of European ...
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This chapter explores Léon Poliakov’s often unacknowledged contributions to the establishment of Holocaust studies and how he understood a key engine in the machinery of the destruction of European Jewry: anti-Semitism. Poliakov’s breakthrough book, Bréviaire de la haine: Le IIIe Reich et les juifs (Harvest of Hate), published in 1951, was the first general history of the Holocaust. As a foundational survey of the Holocaust—widely disseminated, wide-ranging, and with penetrating insights—Poliakov’s work became a palimpsest that sketched key aspects of the Shoah that were developed and treated by others, but rarely with full credit to their origins in his work. Also, Poliakov’s interpretation of Nazi anti-Semitism was profoundly perceptive and merits consideration in its own right.Less
This chapter explores Léon Poliakov’s often unacknowledged contributions to the establishment of Holocaust studies and how he understood a key engine in the machinery of the destruction of European Jewry: anti-Semitism. Poliakov’s breakthrough book, Bréviaire de la haine: Le IIIe Reich et les juifs (Harvest of Hate), published in 1951, was the first general history of the Holocaust. As a foundational survey of the Holocaust—widely disseminated, wide-ranging, and with penetrating insights—Poliakov’s work became a palimpsest that sketched key aspects of the Shoah that were developed and treated by others, but rarely with full credit to their origins in his work. Also, Poliakov’s interpretation of Nazi anti-Semitism was profoundly perceptive and merits consideration in its own right.
Alexandra Garbarini
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300112528
- eISBN:
- 9780300135039
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300112528.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter looks at the historical and theoretical considerations that surround the manner through which the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of European Jewish men and women have related their ...
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This chapter looks at the historical and theoretical considerations that surround the manner through which the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of European Jewish men and women have related their experiences. It looks at the personal diaries of those that lived and survived throughout the experience in an attempt to understand and survey Jewish victims' responses to the genocide they saw. These diaries also constitute one component of their responses—the victims of the genocide produced written testaments for their relatives abroad and for the world at large in order to preserve the memory of the mass extermination that went on. From April through October 1943, for example, Kalman Rotgeber gave testimony about three-and-a-half years of German occupation from a hiding place on the “Aryan” side of Warsaw.Less
This chapter looks at the historical and theoretical considerations that surround the manner through which the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of European Jewish men and women have related their experiences. It looks at the personal diaries of those that lived and survived throughout the experience in an attempt to understand and survey Jewish victims' responses to the genocide they saw. These diaries also constitute one component of their responses—the victims of the genocide produced written testaments for their relatives abroad and for the world at large in order to preserve the memory of the mass extermination that went on. From April through October 1943, for example, Kalman Rotgeber gave testimony about three-and-a-half years of German occupation from a hiding place on the “Aryan” side of Warsaw.
David Engel
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804759519
- eISBN:
- 9780804773461
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804759519.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
The Nazi Holocaust is often said to dominate the study of modern Jewish history. This book demonstrates that, to the contrary, historians of the Jews have often insisted that the Holocaust be ...
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The Nazi Holocaust is often said to dominate the study of modern Jewish history. This book demonstrates that, to the contrary, historians of the Jews have often insisted that the Holocaust be sequestered from their field, assigning it instead to historians of Europe, Germany, or the Third Reich. It shows that reasons for this counterintuitive situation lie in the evolution of the Jewish historical profession since the 1920s. This study takes readers on a tour of twentieth-century scholars of the history of European Jewry, and the social and political contexts in which they worked, in order to understand why many have declined to view their subject from the vantage point of Jews' encounter with the Third Reich. The author argues vehemently against this separation and describes ways in which a few exceptional scholars have used the Holocaust to illuminate key problems in the Jewish past.Less
The Nazi Holocaust is often said to dominate the study of modern Jewish history. This book demonstrates that, to the contrary, historians of the Jews have often insisted that the Holocaust be sequestered from their field, assigning it instead to historians of Europe, Germany, or the Third Reich. It shows that reasons for this counterintuitive situation lie in the evolution of the Jewish historical profession since the 1920s. This study takes readers on a tour of twentieth-century scholars of the history of European Jewry, and the social and political contexts in which they worked, in order to understand why many have declined to view their subject from the vantage point of Jews' encounter with the Third Reich. The author argues vehemently against this separation and describes ways in which a few exceptional scholars have used the Holocaust to illuminate key problems in the Jewish past.
Bruce Rosenstock
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- March 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780823231294
- eISBN:
- 9780823235520
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fso/9780823231294.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Religion
Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement ...
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Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement in the traumatic upheavals brought on by the Great War—this book offers a reappraisal of the intersection of culture, politics, theology, and philosophy in the modern world through the lens of two of the most important thinkers of their day, Moses Mendelssohn and Franz Rosenzweig. Their vision of the place of the Jewish people not only within German society, but also within the unfolding history of humankind as a whole challenged the reigning cultural assumptions of the day and opened new ways of thinking about reason, language, politics, and the sources of ethical obligation. In making the “Jewish question” serve as a way of reflecting upon the “human question” of how we can live together in acknowledgment of our finitude, our otherness, and our shared hope for a more just future, Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig modeled a way of doing philosophy as an engaged intervention in the most pressing existential issues confronting us all. In the final chapters of the book, the path beyond Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig is traced out in the work of Hannah Arendt and Stanley Cavell. In light of Arendt's and Cavell's reflections about the foundations of democratic sociality, the book offers a portrait of an “immigrant Rosenzweig” joined in conversation with his American “cousins”.Less
Drawing together two critical moments in the history of European Jewry—its entrance as a participant in the Enlightenment project of religious and political reform and its involvement in the traumatic upheavals brought on by the Great War—this book offers a reappraisal of the intersection of culture, politics, theology, and philosophy in the modern world through the lens of two of the most important thinkers of their day, Moses Mendelssohn and Franz Rosenzweig. Their vision of the place of the Jewish people not only within German society, but also within the unfolding history of humankind as a whole challenged the reigning cultural assumptions of the day and opened new ways of thinking about reason, language, politics, and the sources of ethical obligation. In making the “Jewish question” serve as a way of reflecting upon the “human question” of how we can live together in acknowledgment of our finitude, our otherness, and our shared hope for a more just future, Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig modeled a way of doing philosophy as an engaged intervention in the most pressing existential issues confronting us all. In the final chapters of the book, the path beyond Mendelssohn and Rosenzweig is traced out in the work of Hannah Arendt and Stanley Cavell. In light of Arendt's and Cavell's reflections about the foundations of democratic sociality, the book offers a portrait of an “immigrant Rosenzweig” joined in conversation with his American “cousins”.
Gur Alroey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804789325
- eISBN:
- 9780804790871
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789325.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
The Jewish migration at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth was one of the dramatic events that changed the Jewish people in modern times beyond recognition. Millions of ...
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The Jewish migration at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth was one of the dramatic events that changed the Jewish people in modern times beyond recognition. Millions of Jews sought to escape the stressful conditions of their daily lives in Eastern Europe and find a better future for themselves and their families in one of the countries of immigration overseas. The vast majority of the Jewish emigrants went to the United States; others, in much smaller numbers, reached Argentina, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century until World War I, about 35,000 Jews reached Palestine. Because of the difference in the scale of this migration and also because of the place the land of Israel possesses in Jewish thought, historians and social scientists have tended to apply different criteria to immigration to Palestine than those usual in the study of immigration. They have stressed the uniqueness of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the importance of Zionist ideology as a central factor in that immigration. This book seeks to question the assumption of these researchers and present a more complex picture of both the causes of immigration to Palestine and the profile of the mass of immigrants who reached the port of Jaffa in the years 1904-1914.Less
The Jewish migration at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth was one of the dramatic events that changed the Jewish people in modern times beyond recognition. Millions of Jews sought to escape the stressful conditions of their daily lives in Eastern Europe and find a better future for themselves and their families in one of the countries of immigration overseas. The vast majority of the Jewish emigrants went to the United States; others, in much smaller numbers, reached Argentina, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century until World War I, about 35,000 Jews reached Palestine. Because of the difference in the scale of this migration and also because of the place the land of Israel possesses in Jewish thought, historians and social scientists have tended to apply different criteria to immigration to Palestine than those usual in the study of immigration. They have stressed the uniqueness of Jewish immigration to Palestine and the importance of Zionist ideology as a central factor in that immigration. This book seeks to question the assumption of these researchers and present a more complex picture of both the causes of immigration to Palestine and the profile of the mass of immigrants who reached the port of Jaffa in the years 1904-1914.
Caitlin Carenen
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814741047
- eISBN:
- 9780814708378
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814741047.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter recounts the challenges faced by the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), including opposition from the American Council on Judaism and the American Friends of the Middle East, ...
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This chapter recounts the challenges faced by the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), including opposition from the American Council on Judaism and the American Friends of the Middle East, as well as the myriad tensions brought about by the Cold War. The organization's purpose was to arouse Christian concern in pointing out the plight of European Jewry during and after the war and acknowledge their desire to go to Palestine. Additionally, it tried to note the historic ties of the Jewish people to Palestine—something which many American Christians had forgotten, overlooked, or not even known. Fortunately, the ACPC—the most powerful pro-Israel Christian organization in the United States—had, on the whole, succeeded in its mission to develop a solid grass-roots basis for Protestant support for Israel in the United States.Less
This chapter recounts the challenges faced by the American Christian Palestine Committee (ACPC), including opposition from the American Council on Judaism and the American Friends of the Middle East, as well as the myriad tensions brought about by the Cold War. The organization's purpose was to arouse Christian concern in pointing out the plight of European Jewry during and after the war and acknowledge their desire to go to Palestine. Additionally, it tried to note the historic ties of the Jewish people to Palestine—something which many American Christians had forgotten, overlooked, or not even known. Fortunately, the ACPC—the most powerful pro-Israel Christian organization in the United States—had, on the whole, succeeded in its mission to develop a solid grass-roots basis for Protestant support for Israel in the United States.
Gur Alroey
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780804789325
- eISBN:
- 9780804790871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804789325.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Jewish Studies
The aim of this chapter is to examine the journey to Palestine in a comparative perspective, beginning with the bureaucracy involved in the emigration process, tracing the journey by train to the ...
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The aim of this chapter is to examine the journey to Palestine in a comparative perspective, beginning with the bureaucracy involved in the emigration process, tracing the journey by train to the ports of departure Odessa and Trieste, and ending with the sea voyage and arrival in the port of Jaffa.Less
The aim of this chapter is to examine the journey to Palestine in a comparative perspective, beginning with the bureaucracy involved in the emigration process, tracing the journey by train to the ports of departure Odessa and Trieste, and ending with the sea voyage and arrival in the port of Jaffa.
