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.
