Aaron P. Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199296132
- eISBN:
- 9780191712302
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199296132.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The task of the early Christian apologists was fundamentally one of constructing, maintaining, and manipulating the identities of Christianity and its rivals — Greeks, Jews, Romans, and others. ...
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The task of the early Christian apologists was fundamentally one of constructing, maintaining, and manipulating the identities of Christianity and its rivals — Greeks, Jews, Romans, and others. Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica, written in the early part of the 4th century, is the most comprehensive and sustained attempt in early apologetic literature to represent Christian, Greek, and Jewish ethnic identity as the basis for its defence of Christianity. This book traces the manipulations of ethnicity in Eusebius’ Praeparatio and highlights the implications of such ethnic argumentation for the understanding of Christian-Jewish and Christian-Greek relations, as well as the limits of modern notions of ‘religion’ to early Christian identity. Christianity is seen as a new nation (ethnos) — and at the same time a restoration of the oldest nation, that of the Hebrews — and is distinguished from the other nations of the Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Jews, and Romans who are all shown to possess inferior ethnic identities. Eusebius’ apologetic argument rests not on a defence of Christian doctrine or belief, but upon a vision of the ancient ethnic landscape, which manipulates national histories and boundaries so as to elevate Christians (as Hebrews) to a level of superiority in their national character and antiquity.Less
The task of the early Christian apologists was fundamentally one of constructing, maintaining, and manipulating the identities of Christianity and its rivals — Greeks, Jews, Romans, and others. Eusebius of Caesarea’s Praeparatio Evangelica, written in the early part of the 4th century, is the most comprehensive and sustained attempt in early apologetic literature to represent Christian, Greek, and Jewish ethnic identity as the basis for its defence of Christianity. This book traces the manipulations of ethnicity in Eusebius’ Praeparatio and highlights the implications of such ethnic argumentation for the understanding of Christian-Jewish and Christian-Greek relations, as well as the limits of modern notions of ‘religion’ to early Christian identity. Christianity is seen as a new nation (ethnos) — and at the same time a restoration of the oldest nation, that of the Hebrews — and is distinguished from the other nations of the Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Jews, and Romans who are all shown to possess inferior ethnic identities. Eusebius’ apologetic argument rests not on a defence of Christian doctrine or belief, but upon a vision of the ancient ethnic landscape, which manipulates national histories and boundaries so as to elevate Christians (as Hebrews) to a level of superiority in their national character and antiquity.
Phillip Cary
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195336481
- eISBN:
- 9780199868438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336481.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Aspects of Augustine's doctrine of grace that are worth being critical of include his belief in the human capacity for intellectual vision; his belief that intellectual vision sees more deeply than ...
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Aspects of Augustine's doctrine of grace that are worth being critical of include his belief in the human capacity for intellectual vision; his belief that intellectual vision sees more deeply than faith in the Gospel of Christ; his belief in a psychological order of salvation that begins at a particular moment of conversion to faith; his location of the power of prevenient grace within the soul rather than in external signs such as word and sacrament; his notion that we can find God by looking within the self; and his failure to see that God is other and external to the self because he is the God of the Jews, and that this is a blessing for all nations.Less
Aspects of Augustine's doctrine of grace that are worth being critical of include his belief in the human capacity for intellectual vision; his belief that intellectual vision sees more deeply than faith in the Gospel of Christ; his belief in a psychological order of salvation that begins at a particular moment of conversion to faith; his location of the power of prevenient grace within the soul rather than in external signs such as word and sacrament; his notion that we can find God by looking within the self; and his failure to see that God is other and external to the self because he is the God of the Jews, and that this is a blessing for all nations.
J. Warren Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195369939
- eISBN:
- 9780199893362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369939.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, ...
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Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, especially in moral theology. Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue argues that Ambrose of Milan’s theological commitments, particularly his understanding of the Christian’s participation in God’s saving economy through baptism, are foundational for his virtue theory laid out in his catechetical and other pastoral writings. While he holds a high regard for classical and Hellenistic views of virtue, Ambrose insists that the Christian is able to attain the highest ideal of virtue taught by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. This is possible because the Christian has received the transformative grace of baptism that allows the Christian to participate in the new creation inaugurated by Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. This book explores Ambrose’s understanding of this grace and how it frees the Christian to live the virtuous life. The argument is laid out in two parts. In Part I, the book examines Ambrose’s understanding of human nature and the effects of sin upon that nature. Central to this Part is the question of Ambrose’s understanding of the right relationship of soul and body as presented in Ambrose’s repeated appeal to Paul’s words, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). Part II lays out Ambrose’s account of baptism as the sacrament of justification and regeneration (sacramental and proleptic participation in the renewal of human nature in the resurrection). Ultimately, Ambrose’s account of the efficacy of baptism rests upon his Christology and pneumatology. The final chapters explain how Ambrose’s accounts of Christ and the Holy Spirit are foundational to his view of the grace that liberates the soul from the corruption of concupiscence.Less
Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, especially in moral theology. Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue argues that Ambrose of Milan’s theological commitments, particularly his understanding of the Christian’s participation in God’s saving economy through baptism, are foundational for his virtue theory laid out in his catechetical and other pastoral writings. While he holds a high regard for classical and Hellenistic views of virtue, Ambrose insists that the Christian is able to attain the highest ideal of virtue taught by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. This is possible because the Christian has received the transformative grace of baptism that allows the Christian to participate in the new creation inaugurated by Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. This book explores Ambrose’s understanding of this grace and how it frees the Christian to live the virtuous life. The argument is laid out in two parts. In Part I, the book examines Ambrose’s understanding of human nature and the effects of sin upon that nature. Central to this Part is the question of Ambrose’s understanding of the right relationship of soul and body as presented in Ambrose’s repeated appeal to Paul’s words, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). Part II lays out Ambrose’s account of baptism as the sacrament of justification and regeneration (sacramental and proleptic participation in the renewal of human nature in the resurrection). Ultimately, Ambrose’s account of the efficacy of baptism rests upon his Christology and pneumatology. The final chapters explain how Ambrose’s accounts of Christ and the Holy Spirit are foundational to his view of the grace that liberates the soul from the corruption of concupiscence.
Ariel Colonomos and Andrea Armstrong
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199291922
- eISBN:
- 9780191603716
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199291926.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were ...
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The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were designed to compensate the victor for the damages caused during the war. The Wiedergutmachung (literally “making the good again”) program as it is called in Germany, or Shilumim (the payments) as Israelis usually prefer to refer to it, innovates in many areas and goes beyond this interstate framework. Jewish leaders participated in the Luxembourg negotiations that led to the signature of the 1952 treaty, and community networks played a crucial role in the distribution of the money to the victims. Civil society groups played an instrumental role in the United States as plans for reparations were being discussed during the war. Neither the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) nor Israel existed during the war. Reparations have been paid to the state of Israel and were paid to Jewish Holocaust survivors regardless of their nationality. The FRG benefited politically and economically from this treaty. It was able to enter the international arena and establish diplomatic relations with Israel, whose economy greatly benefited from the money it received.Less
The post-world war II German-Israeli reparations program is the largest, most comprehensive reparations program ever implemented. Traditionally, reparations were supported by the vanquished and were designed to compensate the victor for the damages caused during the war. The Wiedergutmachung (literally “making the good again”) program as it is called in Germany, or Shilumim (the payments) as Israelis usually prefer to refer to it, innovates in many areas and goes beyond this interstate framework. Jewish leaders participated in the Luxembourg negotiations that led to the signature of the 1952 treaty, and community networks played a crucial role in the distribution of the money to the victims. Civil society groups played an instrumental role in the United States as plans for reparations were being discussed during the war. Neither the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) nor Israel existed during the war. Reparations have been paid to the state of Israel and were paid to Jewish Holocaust survivors regardless of their nationality. The FRG benefited politically and economically from this treaty. It was able to enter the international arena and establish diplomatic relations with Israel, whose economy greatly benefited from the money it received.
Naomi Koltun-Fromm
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199736485
- eISBN:
- 9780199866427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736485.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies, Religion and Society
This book set out to demonstrate how sexuality became central to Jewish and Christian notions of holiness and holy community in the postbiblical period. In particular, this study was motivated to ...
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This book set out to demonstrate how sexuality became central to Jewish and Christian notions of holiness and holy community in the postbiblical period. In particular, this study was motivated to determine why sexuality, especially sexual restraint, became a primary demarcation of sacred community boundaries among Jews and Christians in fourth-century Persian-Mesopotamia. To accomplish this task, the book focused on the exegetical underpinnings that link holiness to sexuality in these communities’ emerging hermeneutics of holiness and sexuality. In the fourth-century Mesopotamian context, ascetic practitioners found biblical textual support as compelling as any other outside cultural norm. Sexual asceticism thus finds its rightful place in the formative periods of both religious traditions through the lens of comparative biblical exegesis, social constructs, and the study of the theological developments of the Hebrew biblical notions of holiness.Less
This book set out to demonstrate how sexuality became central to Jewish and Christian notions of holiness and holy community in the postbiblical period. In particular, this study was motivated to determine why sexuality, especially sexual restraint, became a primary demarcation of sacred community boundaries among Jews and Christians in fourth-century Persian-Mesopotamia. To accomplish this task, the book focused on the exegetical underpinnings that link holiness to sexuality in these communities’ emerging hermeneutics of holiness and sexuality. In the fourth-century Mesopotamian context, ascetic practitioners found biblical textual support as compelling as any other outside cultural norm. Sexual asceticism thus finds its rightful place in the formative periods of both religious traditions through the lens of comparative biblical exegesis, social constructs, and the study of the theological developments of the Hebrew biblical notions of holiness.
Marc Gopin
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195146509
- eISBN:
- 9780199834235
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195146506.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
In 1993, when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sealed the Oslo peace agreement, it was heralded as the beginning of a new era in the Middle East peace process. Instead, violence on both sides has ...
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In 1993, when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sealed the Oslo peace agreement, it was heralded as the beginning of a new era in the Middle East peace process. Instead, violence on both sides has continued to plague the region. The brutal facts on the ground have called into question the style of diplomacy that saw its greatest triumph with the Oslo Accords. This book asserts that the failure of the peace process stems in large part from its complete neglect of cultural and religious factors; attempted solutions have ignored the basic needs and values of average people. The author argues for a far greater integration of the religious communities of the region into peace‐building efforts. Drawing on his own personal experience with religion‐based peace initiatives in Israel and Palestine, he writes of the individuals and groups that are already attempting such reconciliations. He offers a detailed prescription for future negotiations using methods specifically designed to undermine the appeal of religious extremists by subtly incorporating religious values and symbols into the procedures of official and unofficial diplomacy, believing that a combination of secular and religious methods of peacemaking will yield a rich and creative model for conflict resolution. Any effort at peacemaking that fails to take into account the deep religious feelings of Muslims, Jews, and Christians is destined to fail. Only by including religion in the peace process can we move past fragile and superficial agreements and toward a deep and lasting solution. The book is arranged in two parts – Analysis, and Practical applications.Less
In 1993, when Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin sealed the Oslo peace agreement, it was heralded as the beginning of a new era in the Middle East peace process. Instead, violence on both sides has continued to plague the region. The brutal facts on the ground have called into question the style of diplomacy that saw its greatest triumph with the Oslo Accords. This book asserts that the failure of the peace process stems in large part from its complete neglect of cultural and religious factors; attempted solutions have ignored the basic needs and values of average people. The author argues for a far greater integration of the religious communities of the region into peace‐building efforts. Drawing on his own personal experience with religion‐based peace initiatives in Israel and Palestine, he writes of the individuals and groups that are already attempting such reconciliations. He offers a detailed prescription for future negotiations using methods specifically designed to undermine the appeal of religious extremists by subtly incorporating religious values and symbols into the procedures of official and unofficial diplomacy, believing that a combination of secular and religious methods of peacemaking will yield a rich and creative model for conflict resolution. Any effort at peacemaking that fails to take into account the deep religious feelings of Muslims, Jews, and Christians is destined to fail. Only by including religion in the peace process can we move past fragile and superficial agreements and toward a deep and lasting solution. The book is arranged in two parts – Analysis, and Practical applications.
Ellen M. Umansky
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780195044003
- eISBN:
- 9780199835485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195044002.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This introductory chapter presents the author’s explanation of the rationale behind this volume. Specifically, he sought to understand the growing Jewish attraction to Christian Science. He discusses ...
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This introductory chapter presents the author’s explanation of the rationale behind this volume. Specifically, he sought to understand the growing Jewish attraction to Christian Science. He discusses the subsequent responses by the Jewish communal leaders, and the attempts of several individuals to combat the inroads made by Christian Science against the counter movement of Jewish Science.Less
This introductory chapter presents the author’s explanation of the rationale behind this volume. Specifically, he sought to understand the growing Jewish attraction to Christian Science. He discusses the subsequent responses by the Jewish communal leaders, and the attempts of several individuals to combat the inroads made by Christian Science against the counter movement of Jewish Science.
David Vital
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199246816
- eISBN:
- 9780191697623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199246816.003.0420
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Three-fifths of the civilian population of Jews of continental Europe were done to death in the course of World War II by Germany and its allies. It was to be the solution for all time of what was ...
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Three-fifths of the civilian population of Jews of continental Europe were done to death in the course of World War II by Germany and its allies. It was to be the solution for all time of what was conceived in Berlin as the Jewish Problem. Most victims were killed by firing squads or in gas chambers installed in camps dedicated to the purpose. The rest were finished off by massive ill treatment and starvation in the ghettos and concentration camps into which they had been corralled, or by subjection to homicidally intense slave labour and forced marches. The military defeat of Germany occurred before the programme could be completed, but National Socialist hegemony over Europe lasted long enough for the result to fall very little short of the intention – which was to deal the Jewish people, notably in its great east European heartland, a blow from which recovery would be impossible.Less
Three-fifths of the civilian population of Jews of continental Europe were done to death in the course of World War II by Germany and its allies. It was to be the solution for all time of what was conceived in Berlin as the Jewish Problem. Most victims were killed by firing squads or in gas chambers installed in camps dedicated to the purpose. The rest were finished off by massive ill treatment and starvation in the ghettos and concentration camps into which they had been corralled, or by subjection to homicidally intense slave labour and forced marches. The military defeat of Germany occurred before the programme could be completed, but National Socialist hegemony over Europe lasted long enough for the result to fall very little short of the intention – which was to deal the Jewish people, notably in its great east European heartland, a blow from which recovery would be impossible.
Richard Kalmin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195306194
- eISBN:
- 9780199784998
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195306198.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter attempts to exemplify the contention first presented in the introduction that significant aspects of the history of the Jews of late antiquity will have to be rewritten once the latest ...
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This chapter attempts to exemplify the contention first presented in the introduction that significant aspects of the history of the Jews of late antiquity will have to be rewritten once the latest developments in Talmud text criticism are taken into account. Although these developments greatly complicate the historian's task, they add depth and subtlety to the historian's arguments and ensure that conclusions rest on a firmer literary foundation. Among the more significant findings will be the discovery that there is less reason than earlier scholars thought to view early Babylonian rabbis as important players in the Jewish community's interactions with the Persian government. The chapter strengthens and adds subtlety to one of the central arguments of this book: that the Babylonian Talmud tends to portray Babylonian rabbis as inward-looking, with the study house to a significant extent the sum total of their experience, even in situations where it had been the consensus of earlier scholarship that they served as the pre-eminent leaders of the Jewish community.Less
This chapter attempts to exemplify the contention first presented in the introduction that significant aspects of the history of the Jews of late antiquity will have to be rewritten once the latest developments in Talmud text criticism are taken into account. Although these developments greatly complicate the historian's task, they add depth and subtlety to the historian's arguments and ensure that conclusions rest on a firmer literary foundation. Among the more significant findings will be the discovery that there is less reason than earlier scholars thought to view early Babylonian rabbis as important players in the Jewish community's interactions with the Persian government. The chapter strengthens and adds subtlety to one of the central arguments of this book: that the Babylonian Talmud tends to portray Babylonian rabbis as inward-looking, with the study house to a significant extent the sum total of their experience, even in situations where it had been the consensus of earlier scholarship that they served as the pre-eminent leaders of the Jewish community.
Melvin I. Urofsky
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0040
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the books, The Israeli-American Connection: Its Roots in the Yishuv, 1914–1945 by Michael Brown and Envisioning Israel: The Changing Ideals and Images of North American Jews by Allon Gal, ...
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A review of the books, The Israeli-American Connection: Its Roots in the Yishuv, 1914–1945 by Michael Brown and Envisioning Israel: The Changing Ideals and Images of North American Jews by Allon Gal, (ed.) is presented. These two books purport to explore the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community, one successfully and the other far less so.Less
A review of the books, The Israeli-American Connection: Its Roots in the Yishuv, 1914–1945 by Michael Brown and Envisioning Israel: The Changing Ideals and Images of North American Jews by Allon Gal, (ed.) is presented. These two books purport to explore the relationship between Israel and the American Jewish community, one successfully and the other far less so.
Elizabeth Boa
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158196
- eISBN:
- 9780191673283
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158196.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
This study of Kafka centres on gender. The author's insights show how, in an age of reactionary hysteria, Kafka rejected patriarchy yet exploited women as literary raw material. Drawing on Kafka's ...
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This study of Kafka centres on gender. The author's insights show how, in an age of reactionary hysteria, Kafka rejected patriarchy yet exploited women as literary raw material. Drawing on Kafka's letters to his fiancée and to the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská, the author illuminates the transformation of details of everyday life into the strange yet uncannily familiar signs which are Kafka's stylistic hallmark. The book argues that gender cannot be isolated from other dimensions of identity, and relates Kafka's alienating images of the male body and fascinated disgust of female sexuality to the body-culture of the early twentieth century, and to interfusing militaristic, racist, gender, and class ideologies. This is the context also for the stereotypes of the New Woman, the massive Matriarch, the lower-class seductress, and the assimilating Jew. The book explores Kafka's exploitation yet subversion of such stereotypes through the brilliant literary devices which assure his place in the modernist canon.Less
This study of Kafka centres on gender. The author's insights show how, in an age of reactionary hysteria, Kafka rejected patriarchy yet exploited women as literary raw material. Drawing on Kafka's letters to his fiancée and to the Czech journalist Milena Jesenská, the author illuminates the transformation of details of everyday life into the strange yet uncannily familiar signs which are Kafka's stylistic hallmark. The book argues that gender cannot be isolated from other dimensions of identity, and relates Kafka's alienating images of the male body and fascinated disgust of female sexuality to the body-culture of the early twentieth century, and to interfusing militaristic, racist, gender, and class ideologies. This is the context also for the stereotypes of the New Woman, the massive Matriarch, the lower-class seductress, and the assimilating Jew. The book explores Kafka's exploitation yet subversion of such stereotypes through the brilliant literary devices which assure his place in the modernist canon.
Christian Goeschel
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199532568
- eISBN:
- 9780191701030
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199532568.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History, Social History
The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip ...
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The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.Less
The Third Reich met its end in the spring of 1945 in an unparalleled wave of suicides. Hitler, Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler and later Göring all killed themselves. These deaths represent only the tip of an iceberg of a massive wave of suicides that also touched upon ordinary lives. As this suicide epidemic has no historical precedent or parallel, it can tell us much about the Third Reich's peculiar self-destructiveness and the depths of Nazi fanaticism. The book looks at the suicides of both Nazis and ordinary people in Germany between 1918 and 1945, from the end of World War I until the end of World War II, including the mass suicides of German Jews during the Holocaust. It shows how suicides among different population groups, including supporters, opponents, and victims of the regime, responded to the social, cultural, economic and, political context of the time. The book also analyses changes and continuities in individual and societal responses to suicide over time, especially with regard to the Weimar Republic and the post-1945 era.
Andrea Petö
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0014
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War ...
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A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War is the most painful chapter in the history of Hungarian Jewry. The book investigates the motivations and morality of various actions taken by different actors in this drama. If events of the Hungarian Holocaust constitute a kind of moral drama, the same is true of the historical narrative, which also has its heroes, villains and neutral figures, and whose narrator, as Hayden White puts it, recounts the story with the “author's moral authority”.Less
A review of the book, Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary by David Cesarani is presented. The deportation and murder of 435,000 Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War is the most painful chapter in the history of Hungarian Jewry. The book investigates the motivations and morality of various actions taken by different actors in this drama. If events of the Hungarian Holocaust constitute a kind of moral drama, the same is true of the historical narrative, which also has its heroes, villains and neutral figures, and whose narrator, as Hayden White puts it, recounts the story with the “author's moral authority”.
Susan Zuccotti
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family by Kate Cohen is presented. Despite its title, the book is much more than just a memoir. In addition ...
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A review of the book, The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family by Kate Cohen is presented. Despite its title, the book is much more than just a memoir. In addition to presenting two separate accounts written by an Italian Jewish father and son (distant relatives of the author), Kate Cohen has interviewed the mother and daughter, added excerpts from other survivor testimonies, provided some historical background and analyzed the psychological effects of identity-changing and hiding. She concludes with her own personal meditations on what it means to be a Jew. While sometimes uneven, the result is enlightening and provocative. Cohen does not shy away from the negative or the controversial.Less
A review of the book, The Neppi Modona Diaries: Reading Jewish Survival through My Italian Family by Kate Cohen is presented. Despite its title, the book is much more than just a memoir. In addition to presenting two separate accounts written by an Italian Jewish father and son (distant relatives of the author), Kate Cohen has interviewed the mother and daughter, added excerpts from other survivor testimonies, provided some historical background and analyzed the psychological effects of identity-changing and hiding. She concludes with her own personal meditations on what it means to be a Jew. While sometimes uneven, the result is enlightening and provocative. Cohen does not shy away from the negative or the controversial.
Jonathan Judaken
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, Esau's Tears: Modern Antisemitism and the Rise of the Jews by Albert S. Lindemann is presented. Albert Lindemann's ambitious account of modern antisemitism aspires to be a ...
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A review of the book, Esau's Tears: Modern Antisemitism and the Rise of the Jews by Albert S. Lindemann is presented. Albert Lindemann's ambitious account of modern antisemitism aspires to be a significant revisionist analysis of a phenomenon that runs like a blood-red thread through the tapestry of modern European history. He incisively insists that antisemitism should not be understood in terms of an irreversible development that climaxes in the Nazi destruction of European Jewry, and that contemporary historians must work against the distorting lens of the Shoah in evaluating its history. Instead, he aspires toward a nuanced contextualization of antisemitism within a broad history of the role of Jews and Judaism in modern Europe and America, purporting “to offer a more penetrating and sophisticated analysis of the emergence of antisemitism in modern times”.Less
A review of the book, Esau's Tears: Modern Antisemitism and the Rise of the Jews by Albert S. Lindemann is presented. Albert Lindemann's ambitious account of modern antisemitism aspires to be a significant revisionist analysis of a phenomenon that runs like a blood-red thread through the tapestry of modern European history. He incisively insists that antisemitism should not be understood in terms of an irreversible development that climaxes in the Nazi destruction of European Jewry, and that contemporary historians must work against the distorting lens of the Shoah in evaluating its history. Instead, he aspires toward a nuanced contextualization of antisemitism within a broad history of the role of Jews and Judaism in modern Europe and America, purporting “to offer a more penetrating and sophisticated analysis of the emergence of antisemitism in modern times”.
Theodore H. Friedgut
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0017
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction ...
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A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction of a single family's fate during the Holocaust, it has a totally different focus — the continuation of life through and after the war, and the costs of survival.Less
A review of the book, Doors to Madame Marie by Odette Meyers is presented. The book is a personal chronicle of survival, both physical and moral. Not unlike The Diary of Anne Frank in its depiction of a single family's fate during the Holocaust, it has a totally different focus — the continuation of life through and after the war, and the costs of survival.
Michael Berenbaum
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0018
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is ...
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A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.Less
A review of the book, The Union Kommando in Auschwitz: The Auschwitz Munitions Factory through the Eyes of Its Former Slave Laborers (Studies in the Shoah, Vol. 13) by Lore Shelly (ed. and trans.) is presented. Some historians are wont to proclaim that they do not rely upon oral history but rather on contemporaneous documentation. The recollections of survivors are seemingly unreliable: they are not the stuff of history, certainly not of serious historians. Lore Shelly's disciplined efforts to compile the testimonies of scores of workers who worked in the munitions factory at Auschwitz shows us the possibilities and the difficulties of oral history. Shelly also demonstrates how indispensable oral history is for understanding the Holocaust.
Alan Mittleman
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0019
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will ...
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A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will welcome Gershon Bacon's expansion of his authoritative dissertation on Agudat Israel. The present study is a comprehensive investigation of the origins and diverse fields of activity of Agudat Israel in Poland. In addition, the author has provided an epilogue that chronicles Aguda activity during the Holocaust, as well as its activities in the state of Israel.Less
A review of the book, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 by Gershon C. Bacon is presented. Students of interwar Polish Jewry, modern Jewish politics and Orthodoxy will welcome Gershon Bacon's expansion of his authoritative dissertation on Agudat Israel. The present study is a comprehensive investigation of the origins and diverse fields of activity of Agudat Israel in Poland. In addition, the author has provided an epilogue that chronicles Aguda activity during the Holocaust, as well as its activities in the state of Israel.
David Engel
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, Lema 'an herutenu veherutkhem: habund bepolin 1939–1949 (For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1939–1949) by Daniel Blatman is presented. Blatman's ...
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A review of the book, Lema 'an herutenu veherutkhem: habund bepolin 1939–1949 (For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1939–1949) by Daniel Blatman is presented. Blatman's pioneering study of the Bund during the Second World War and afterwards places its author squarely within the latter camp. In his words, “the Bund's struggle during the Holocaust to survive, on the one hand, as a movement bearing a particular ideological legacy and, on the other, to integrate itself into the [overall] Jewish struggle for survival represents an additional aspect of the manner in which Jews coped with the burden of that time” — an aspect worth studying because it embodied “a fundamentally different perception” of the threat facing Polish Jewry “than that of the Zionist youth movements and parties” whose perspective “has been adopted without dissent by historians and scholars in Israel”.Less
A review of the book, Lema 'an herutenu veherutkhem: habund bepolin 1939–1949 (For Our Freedom and Yours: The Jewish Labor Bund in Poland 1939–1949) by Daniel Blatman is presented. Blatman's pioneering study of the Bund during the Second World War and afterwards places its author squarely within the latter camp. In his words, “the Bund's struggle during the Holocaust to survive, on the one hand, as a movement bearing a particular ideological legacy and, on the other, to integrate itself into the [overall] Jewish struggle for survival represents an additional aspect of the manner in which Jews coped with the burden of that time” — an aspect worth studying because it embodied “a fundamentally different perception” of the threat facing Polish Jewry “than that of the Zionist youth movements and parties” whose perspective “has been adopted without dissent by historians and scholars in Israel”.
Lloyd P. Gartner
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195134681
- eISBN:
- 9780199848652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195134681.003.0021
- Subject:
- History, History of Religion
A review of the book, Lest Memory Cease: Finding Meaning in the American Jewish Past by Henry L. Feingold is presented. The book presents Feingold's collected articles, some of which originated as ...
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A review of the book, Lest Memory Cease: Finding Meaning in the American Jewish Past by Henry L. Feingold is presented. The book presents Feingold's collected articles, some of which originated as lectures to Jewish organizations, and others that appeared mainly in the labor Zionist magazine, Jewish Frontier. One of Feingold's virtues, present here, is a skillful analysis of the contemporary American Jewish scene. He draws historical parallels with restraint, his articles and lectures are fluent and read easily — and they make points. The most prominent of Feingold's observations is the effect of liberalism and secularization on American Jews.Less
A review of the book, Lest Memory Cease: Finding Meaning in the American Jewish Past by Henry L. Feingold is presented. The book presents Feingold's collected articles, some of which originated as lectures to Jewish organizations, and others that appeared mainly in the labor Zionist magazine, Jewish Frontier. One of Feingold's virtues, present here, is a skillful analysis of the contemporary American Jewish scene. He draws historical parallels with restraint, his articles and lectures are fluent and read easily — and they make points. The most prominent of Feingold's observations is the effect of liberalism and secularization on American Jews.
