Jason Lustig
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197563526
- eISBN:
- 9780197563557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197563526.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
The introduction presents the book’s core argument that twentieth-century Jewish archives were not just about the past but also about the future: We can look to a process whereby Jews turned ...
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The introduction presents the book’s core argument that twentieth-century Jewish archives were not just about the past but also about the future: We can look to a process whereby Jews turned increasingly toward archives as anchors of memory in a rapidly changing world. Jews in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine all sought to gather the files of the past in order to represent their place in Jewish life and articulate a vision of the future. It situates these projects in the history of community-based archiving and archival theory and methodology, as well as Jewish history at large. It also dives into the ways we can see archive making as a metaphor for the broader patterns in modern Jewish history, as Jews sought to gather the sources and resources of their culture both before the Holocaust and especially in its aftermath.Less
The introduction presents the book’s core argument that twentieth-century Jewish archives were not just about the past but also about the future: We can look to a process whereby Jews turned increasingly toward archives as anchors of memory in a rapidly changing world. Jews in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine all sought to gather the files of the past in order to represent their place in Jewish life and articulate a vision of the future. It situates these projects in the history of community-based archiving and archival theory and methodology, as well as Jewish history at large. It also dives into the ways we can see archive making as a metaphor for the broader patterns in modern Jewish history, as Jews sought to gather the sources and resources of their culture both before the Holocaust and especially in its aftermath.
Jason Lustig
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197563526
- eISBN:
- 9780197563557
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197563526.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture examines Jewish archives in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine and argues that historical records took on potent value in ...
More
A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture examines Jewish archives in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine and argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory, precisely because archives presented one way of transmitting Jewish culture and history from one generation to another. Creating archives was one means for Jews to take control of their history, especially after the Holocaust, when efforts at archive restitution removed looted archives from the hands of perpetrators. Such efforts also raised complex questions of who could actually “own” this history. This book contends that twentieth-century Jewish archival efforts served as a proxy for wide-ranging struggles over the meaning and control of Jewish culture: whether in Israel’s claims to be a successor to European Jewry, the reality of American Jewry’s rising prominence, or the question of the continued vitality of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust, gathering archives was a means to assert dominance over Jewish culture by making claims of ties to the past and constituting a kind of “birth certificate” or legitimization of communal life. A Time to Gather presents archive making as a metaphor with the dispersion and gathering of documents falling in the context of the Jews’ long diasporic history. In the end, a rising urgency of archival memory in Jewish life and the importance of history’s traces meant archives were powerful but contested symbols of control of the past, present, and future.Less
A Time to Gather: Archives and the Control of Jewish Culture examines Jewish archives in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine and argues that historical records took on potent value in modern Jewish life as both sources of history and anchors of memory, precisely because archives presented one way of transmitting Jewish culture and history from one generation to another. Creating archives was one means for Jews to take control of their history, especially after the Holocaust, when efforts at archive restitution removed looted archives from the hands of perpetrators. Such efforts also raised complex questions of who could actually “own” this history. This book contends that twentieth-century Jewish archival efforts served as a proxy for wide-ranging struggles over the meaning and control of Jewish culture: whether in Israel’s claims to be a successor to European Jewry, the reality of American Jewry’s rising prominence, or the question of the continued vitality of Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust, gathering archives was a means to assert dominance over Jewish culture by making claims of ties to the past and constituting a kind of “birth certificate” or legitimization of communal life. A Time to Gather presents archive making as a metaphor with the dispersion and gathering of documents falling in the context of the Jews’ long diasporic history. In the end, a rising urgency of archival memory in Jewish life and the importance of history’s traces meant archives were powerful but contested symbols of control of the past, present, and future.
Jason Lustig
- Published in print:
- 2022
- Published Online:
- December 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780197563526
- eISBN:
- 9780197563557
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780197563526.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History
This chapter considers the overall impact of the twentieth-century proliferation of archive activities in Jewish life and the rising paradigm of total archives in particular. By looking at the ...
More
This chapter considers the overall impact of the twentieth-century proliferation of archive activities in Jewish life and the rising paradigm of total archives in particular. By looking at the development of Jewish archiving in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine, we see the concrete manifestation of the impulses of a “time to gather” in Jewish cultures around the world. These efforts represent a kind of community-based archives, but also the internal tensions: What happens when there is a widespread understanding of the value of archives, and they represent resources of cultural capital worth fighting for? This conclusion also places the history of Jewish archives and the struggles to “own” the past in the broader context of the emerging information society. Altogether, this history indicates contentious struggles over what it means to have control over history in its most practical terms.Less
This chapter considers the overall impact of the twentieth-century proliferation of archive activities in Jewish life and the rising paradigm of total archives in particular. By looking at the development of Jewish archiving in Germany, the United States, and Israel/Palestine, we see the concrete manifestation of the impulses of a “time to gather” in Jewish cultures around the world. These efforts represent a kind of community-based archives, but also the internal tensions: What happens when there is a widespread understanding of the value of archives, and they represent resources of cultural capital worth fighting for? This conclusion also places the history of Jewish archives and the struggles to “own” the past in the broader context of the emerging information society. Altogether, this history indicates contentious struggles over what it means to have control over history in its most practical terms.
