37 results for "World History"

Moynihan's moment: America's fight against Zionism as racism

Troy, Gil
On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring Zionism a form of racism. The move shocked millions, especially in the United States-- the country largely responsible for founding the UN. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the American Ambassador to the UN, denounced this attack on Israel as an anti-Semitic assault on democracy and stood up to the Soviet-backed alliance of Communist dictatorships and Third World autocracies that supported the resolution. His eloquent stand brought him celebrity in the U.S., but ultimately shortened his tenure at the UN by alienating American allies, adversaries, and much of the foreign policy establishment--including Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Nevertheless, Moynihan's moment was a turning point: a harbinger of a shift in American culture and politics that would culminate in the Reagan Revolution. Moynihan paved the way for a more muscular, idealistic, neoconservative foreign policy and for a new style of defiant "cowboy" diplomacy. In this book, Gil Troy argues that America's idea of itself--still torn, in the mid-'70s, between post-Vietnam and -Watergate defeatism and a growing sense of optimism--changed with Moynihan, altering both the left and the right in ways that continue to play out in the 21st century. Much of the rhetoric of this era survives in domestic foreign policy debates and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine, suggesting that Moynihan's struggle has much to reveal about American politics and its position on the world stage--Publisher's summary.
Oxford University Press 2013 357 pages

The legacy of Islamic antisemitism: from sacred texts to solemn history

Bostom, Andrew G.
Islamic antisemitism is as old as Islam itself, and is not a mere borrowing from non-Muslim sources, as has been claimed. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism provides comprehensive, meticulously documented evidence that a readily discernible, uniquely Islamic antisemitism—specific Muslim hatred of Jews—has been expressed continuously since the advent of Islam. Writing in 1971, S.D. Goitein, the pre-eminent scholar of Muslim-Jewish relations as revealed in the Geniza documentary record of the high Middle Ages (950-1250 C.E.), employed the term antisemitism, “…in order to differentiate animosity against Jews from the discrimination practiced by Islam against non-Muslims in general. Our scrutiny of the Geniza material has proved the existence of ‘antisemitism’ in the time and the area considered here…”. Goitein cited as concrete proof of his assertion that a unique strain of Islamic Jew hatred was extant at that time (i.e., up to a millennium ago)—exploding the common assumption of its absence—the fact that letters from the Geniza material, “…have a special word for it and, most significantly, one not found in the Bible or in Talmudic literature…but one much used and obviously coined in the Geniza period.” Important examples of antisemitic motifs in the foundational Muslim texts are presented: from the Koran and Koranic exegesis by the greatest classical and modern Muslim commentators; the hadith (words and deeds of the Muslim prophet Muhammad as recorded by pious Muslim transmitters), the sira (earliest Muslim biographies of Muhammad), as well as the writings of influential Muslim jurists, theologians, and scholars, from the Middle Ages through the contemporary era. These primary sources, and seminal secondary analyses translated here for the first time into English such as Hartwig Hirschfeld’s mid 1880s essays on Muhammad’s subjugation of the Jews of Medina, and George Vajda’s elegant, comprehensive 1937 study of the hadith—detail the sacralized rationale for Islam’s anti-Jewish bigotry. Numerous complementary historical accounts illustrate the resulting the plight of Jewish communities in the Muslim world across space and time, culminating in the genocidal threat posed to the Jews of Israel today. The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism debunks the conventional wisdom which continues to assert that Muslim Jew hatred is entirely a 20th century phenomenon, a loose amalgam of re-cycled medieval Christian Judeophobic motifs, calumnies from the Czarist Russia “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, and standard Nazi propaganda, that only arose after the advent of the Zionist movement and the protracted Arab-Jewish conflict over all of the lands comprising the original 1922 Mandate for historical Palestine. Scholars, educators, and interested lay readers will find this collection an invaluable resource for understanding the phenomenon of Muslim antisemitism, past and present. An updated Author’s Preface for this new edition—which includes materials through January 3, 2020—elucidates the current global pandemic of Muslim Antisemitism, and its resulting violent manifestations, in Israel, Western Europe, and the United States. Doctrinal drivers of this hatred, as espoused by iconic Muslim religious leaders representing the pinnacles of institutional Islamic religious education—both Sunni and Shiite—are introduced. This compendious, timely exposé rivets upon freshly translated samples of modern, seminal Koranic glosses—rife with Jew-hatred—which shape current understandings of Islam’s holy book, and Islam itself, by the Muslim masses. The new Preface concludes with a focused discussion about why non-Muslim religious leaders, especially Jews, must admonish institutional Islam to begin its own process, akin to Vatican II/Nostre Aetate, of expunging at least the most virulent Jew-hating motifs from Islam’s core theology.
[Independently published ; printed by Amazon] 2020 825 pages

Laboratory for world destruction: Germans and Jews in Central Europe

Wistrich, Robert S.
The Austro-Hungarian Empire was rife with ethnic tensions that undermined the possibilities for Jewish assimilation in Central Europe. The Jews were trapped between rising German nationalism and other nationalisms. Discusses various Jewish and non-Jewish attitudes toward the "Jewish problem", whereby Jews were often stereotyped (e.g. by Rosa Luxemburg) or were considered to need a solution separate from that of European majority peoples (e.g. Nathan Birnbaum and Max Nordau). Views Nietzsche as belonging more to the philosemites than the antisemites, for whom he had great scorn; however, his complexity and obscurity provided ammunition for antisemites, including the Nazis. Herzl believed that a Jewish state was needed to provide a home for Jews suffering from antisemitism. Freud's experience of antisemitism, combined with his negative view of human nature, left no room for illusions about Austrian and German acceptance of Jews. Karl Kraus exhibited elements of Jewish self-hatred when he identified the worst elements of contemporary journalism and capitalism with Jews. Karl Lueger used political antisemitism to become mayor of Vienna. He provided a model for Hitler, who imbibed antisemitic attitudes and stereotypes from the cauldron of nationalisms that was Austria-Hungary.
Published by University of Nebraska Press for the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (SICSA), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2007 404 pages

Holocaust denial

Stern, Kenneth S.
Surveys Holocaust denial activities and publications around the world, with a separate chapter on the United States (pp. 10-24), referring to the penetration of Holocaust denial propaganda in American universities and in the media. Focuses on concrete ways of refuting specific claims made by the deniers. The four appendices (pp. 100-152) include propagandistic material published by Bradley R. Smith (from the Institute for Historical Review), a transcript of a TV talk show on Holocaust denial (30 April 1992), a list of Holocaust-denying books and pamphlets (only author and title given), and articles from the "Journal of Historical Review."
American Jewish Committee 1993 193 pages

The wandering who? a study of Jewish identity politics

Atzmon, Gilad
An investigation of Jewish identity politics and Jewish contemporary ideology using both popular culture and scholarly texts. Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the 'Jewish State', we should ask what the notions of 'Judaism', 'Jewishness', 'Jewish culture' and 'Jewish ideology' stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the 'holocaust religion'; the meaning of 'history' and 'time' within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.
Zero Books 2011-09-16 202 pages

The history of the Holocaust in Romania

Ancel, Jean
Published by the University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, and Yad Vashem, Jerusalem Based on an unparalleled and exhaustive collection of original Jewish accounts and sources not available until the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu in the late 1980s, Jean Ancel provides a detailed analysis of the path of antisemitism that led to the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust in Romania. The Romanians, and other nations inside and outside the Balkans, related differently to ?their Jews? and ?other Jews,? that is, those living in districts annexed to Romania after the First World War and in areas occupied and annexed to the Romanian military administration after the Soviet invasion in June 1941. The Jews of the Regat, the core Romanian principality, suffered pogroms, decrees, and degradation, but on the whole they survived the Holocaust. Contradicting long-held assumptions, Ancel shows that Romanians were largely responsible for murdering their Jewish community?one of the largest in Europe before the war?and although its survival rate was the highest in Europe, the survival rate in areas where Jews were liquidated was one of the lowest.
University of Nebraska Press 2011-01-01 699 pages

Uprooted: how 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight

Julius, Lyn
Who are the Jews from Arab countries? What were relations with Muslims like? What made Jews leave countries where they had been settled for thousands of years? What lessons can we learn from the mass exodus of minorities from the Middle East? Lyn Julius undertakes to answer all these questions and more in Uprooted, the culmination of ten years of work studying these issues. Jews lived continuously in the Middle East and North Africa for almost 3,000 years. Yet, in just 50 years, their indigenous communities outside Palestine almost totally disappeared as more than 99 percent of the Jewish population fled. Some 650,000—including a minority of ideological Zionists—went to Israel. Before the Holocaust they constituted ten percent of the world's Jewish population, and now over 50 percent of Israel's Jews are refugees from Arab and Muslim countries, or their descendants. This same process is now repeating in Christian and other minority communities across the Middle East. This book assesses how well these Jews have integrated into Israel and how their struggles have been politicized. It charts the growing clamour for recognition, redress and memorialization for these Jewish refugees, and looks at how their cause can contribute to peace and reconciliation between Israel and the Muslim world.
Vallentine Mitchell 2018 340 pages

The Holocaust in Croatia

Goldstein, Ivo,Goldstein, Slavko
The Holocaust in Croatia recounts the history of the Croatian Jewish community during the Second World War, with a focus on the city of Zagreb. Ivo and Slavko Goldstein have grounded their study on extensive research in recently opened archives, additionally aided by the memories of survivors to supplement and enrich the interpretation of documents. The authors' accessible narrative, here available in English for the first time, has been praised for its objectivity (including rare humane acts by those who helped to save Jews) and is complemented by a large bibliography offering an outstanding referential source to archival materials. The Holocaust in Croatia stands as the definitive account of the Jews in Croatia, up to and including the criminal acts perpetrated by the pro-Nazi Ustasha regine, adding significantly to our knowledge of the Holocaust. -- Provided by publisher
University of Pittsburgh Press, published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 2016 728 pages

Bitter legacy: confronting the Holocaust in the USSR

Zvi Y. Gitelman
" . . . a chronicle of man's bestiality to man, and therefore the few exceptional instances of courage and humanity shine forth with particular brightness." —The Russian Review "Essential reading for any holocaust course." —Religious Studies Review Bitter Legacy collects scholarship from America, Israel, Russia, Germany, and the Ukraine on the perpetration of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and its lasting consequences from the postwar period through post-Soviet times. Newly accessible wartime archives in the former Soviet Union provide chilling details of what happened, of collaboration with the Nazis, and of rescue efforts, too.
Indiana University Press 1997-11-22 332 pages

The Dreyfus affair: a trilogy

Whyte, George R.
The cause celebre of the 19th century, the Dreyfus Affair destabilized French society (1894-1906) and reverberated across the world. Its repercussions continue to this day. A deliberate miscarriage of justice, the public degradation of an innocent Jewish officer and his incarceration on Devil's Island, espionage, intrigue, media pressure, vehement antisemitism and political skulduggery--all these elements, based on historical records, are contained in George R. Whyte's trilogy of plays which also focuses on Emile Zola's letter to the President of France, J'Accuse, arguably history's most famous plea for human rights.
Oberon Books 2010 126 pages

The New Anti-Semitism

Chesler, Phyllis
"Anyone who wants to understand the connection between anti-Semitism, Islamic terrorism, the role of propaganda and appeasement must read this book." -Natan Sharansky, author, The Case for Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror "I admire the courage of this vision and the power of the writing." -Rabbi Lord Dr. Jonathan Sacks "Passionate and beautifully written.... This book will make you weep. It will also make you angry and frightened." -Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School; author, The Case for Israel "Absolutely amazing...An indispensable guide to the apocalyptic sandstorms our world now faces." -Erica Jong, poet and novelist, Fear of Flying A dangerous worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but misinformed students, right-wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, academics, feminists, European politicians, journalists, and international human rights organizations have joined together to again scapegoat the Jews and the Jewish state for crimes they did not commit and for whatever ails the world. In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling and prize-winning Jewish feminist author Dr. Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism - now often seen in the form of anti-Zionism - has become fashionable and even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, Israel, America, and Western civilization.
Gefen Publishing House 2015 263 pages

Antisemitism and modernity: innovation and continuity

Maccoby, Hyam
Discusses the origins of antisemitism and especially its development in the modern world. Traces antisemitism to religious origins, to the fact that Christianity and Islam are both derived from Judaism and therefore have an Oedipal relationship to Judaism. Argues that non-religious antisemitism is all the more potent because of its unacknowledged religious roots. The modern world never quite emerged from the medieval world, and one of its unwanted legacies is its burden of antisemitism. Some of the chapters in this book are adaptations of articles published in "Midstream" (February & November 1970, May 1973, and March 1976), the "Times Literary Supplement" (25 June 1999), and "The Critical Survey" 3 (1967). Contents:
Routledge 2006 191 pages

Paul and Hellenism

Maccoby, Hyam
Seeks the origins of later Christian anti-Judaism in Gnosticism and Pauline theology. Describes Gnostic anti-Judaism as directed primarily against the Jewish God and his law, rather than against the Jewish people who are their blind servants. Judaism for the Gnostics is more contemptible than dangerous, since its power is only in this world, to which the Gnostics attached no importance. Suggests that their hostility was aroused by Judaism's claim to equate its God with the higher God of Hellenistic thought. Paul took over much of the Gnostic two-power scheme, including the view of the Jews as blind servants of the Law. Argues that his own anti-Judaism did not go beyond that of the Gnostics. But in seeing the Crucifixion as central to salvation, and in singling out the Jews for a special role in salvation history, he added to the Gnostic two-power theology elements that later took shape as the Christian view of the Jews as Christ-killers and instruments of Satan.
SCM Press 1991 222 pages

'My brother's keeper?': recent Polish debates on the Holocaust

Antony Polonsky
In recent years, a lively debate has developed in Poland on the question of what responsibility the Poles share for the mass murder of the Jews, which took place largely on Polish soil. This debate was sparked off by the showing in Poland of Claude Lanzmann's film, Shoah , which revealed how deeply-rooted anti-Jewish prejudice could still be found in the Polish countryside. Anti-semitism is something which Poland has preferred to forget. But before the Second World War hostility to the Jews was widespread and this climate of pervasive anti-semitism may have facilitated the Nazis' murderous plans. But Poles now, with great courage, are facing this dark side of their past. This book, translated and edited by a leading British historian of Poland, Antony Polonsky, is a major contribution to the history of the Holocaust. It gathers together the most important contribution to the current debate, revealing the agony many Poles feel about their lack of action during the war.
Routledge in association with the Institute for Polish-Jewish Studies, Oxford 1990 242 pages

Flashpoints: Israel, anti-semitism and the Holocaust

Abramovich, Dvir
Never one to shy away from controversy, Abramovich's thought-provoking collection of essays and intelligent writings are sure to arouse heated discussion. Mercilessly tackling everything from Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rants, The Holocaust, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons and the UN's anti-Israel stance, Flashpoints offers unique perspectives on Israel, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Jewish world. Whether you agree with him or not, one thing is certain: Abramovich's pieces will lead you on a journey of exploration and reflection, challenging what many people hold true about topics that are as relevant today as ever.
Hybrid Publishers 2014 292 pages

Outside Verdun: a novel from the First World War

Zweig, Arnold
A new translation of a forgotten masterpiece of German World War I literature, based on the author's own first-hand experiences of combat The war, an operation instigated by men, still felt to him like a storm decreed by fate, an unleashing of powerful elements, unaccountable and beyond criticism. Arnold Zweig's novel was first published in 1933 and is based on his own experiences in the German army during World War I. Following the unlawful killing of his younger brother by his own superiors, Lieutenant Kroysing swears revenge, using his influence to arrange for his brother's unit, normally safely behind the lines, to be reassigned to the fortress at Douaument, in the very heart of the battle for France. Bertin, a lowly but educated Jewish sapper through whose eyes the story unfolds, is the innocent man caught in the cross-fire. The book not only explores the heart-breaking tragedy of one individual trapped in a nightmare of industrialized warfare but also reveals the iniquities of German society in microcosm, with all its injustice, brutality, anti-Semitism, and incompetence. A brilliant translation captures all the subtleties, cadences, and detachment of Zweig's masterful prose.
Freight Books 2014-09 405 pages