113 results for "History"

Antisemitism and the American far left

Norwood, Stephen H.
"Stephen H. Norwood has written the first systematic study of the American far left's role in both propagating and combating antisemitism. This book covers Communists from 1920 onward, Trotskyists, the New Left and its black nationalist allies, and the contemporary remnants of the New Left. Professor Norwood analyzes the deficiencies of the American far left's explanations of Nazism and the Holocaust. He explores far left approaches to militant Islam, from condemnation of its fierce antisemitism in the 1930s to recent apologies for jihad. Norwood discusses the far left's use of long-standing theological and economic antisemitic stereotypes that the far right also embraced. The study analyzes the far left's antipathy to Jewish culture, as well as its occasional efforts to promote it. He considers how early Marxist and Bolshevik paradigms continued to shape American far left views of Jewish identity, Zionism, Israel, and antisemitism"--
Cambridge University Press 2013-08-19 318 pages

In the Shadow of the Polish Eagle: The Poles, the Holocaust and Beyond

Cooper, L.
A study of antisemitism in Poland in the 20th century. Describes the increase in antisemitism between 1918-39. Reflects on the question of the role of Polish antisemitism in the Holocaust. During the war, most Poles either collaborated with the Nazis or at least approved of the economic measures against the Jews. The rightist anti-German resistance (e.g. Narodowe Sily Zbrojne) regarded Jews as enemies of Poland and sometimes cooperated with the Nazis in the murders. The Armia Krajowa was also antisemitic, and sometimes killed Jews. Many Poles profited from the Holocaust. The Catholic Church was silent. Discusses, also, the Poles who rescued Jews and their motivations. At the end of the war there was a wave of murders of Jews who had survived the Holocaust or were repatriated from the USSR. Antisemitism remained a political factor in Poland both in the communist and post-communist periods.
Palgrave Macmillan 2016 255 pages

Blood and belief: the circulation of a symbol between Jews and Christians

Biale, David
Ancient biblical Judaism ascribed magical and supernatural properties to blood. Both Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity inherited this attitude toward blood, and adopted, each in its own way, symbolic and spiritualized rituals connected with blood. Throughout the centuries, Judaism and Christianity borrowed beliefs and rituals from one another. Argues that the blood libel emerged as a negative by-product of an increase in popular eucharistic piety. Encouragement for this accusation was provided by the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, which approved the doctrine of transubstantiation and heightened popular interest in blood, especially Christian blood. The alleged Jewish consumption of Christian blood seemed to prove the dogma of transubstantiation in popular consciousness. In the 19th century the blood libel emerged again in Europe, devoid of its theological underpinning but supplemented with a belief in blood as the bearer of heredity, and hence of the ethnic and racial traits of the person. Academic authorities, from August Rohling to the Nazi Erich Bischof, tried to prove the truth of the blood libel and created the theory of blood - i.e. racial pollution. It was in such a form that blood mysticism was picked up by the Nazis. The revival of the blood libel in the 19th century provoked a wave of literature refuting the accusation. Paradoxically, while Jews were vigorously rejecting the claim that human blood played a role in their rituals, some of them adopted the blood language of modern nationalism, a belief in the nation-making "Jewish blood".
University of California Press 2007-10-23 299 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

Heeding the call: Jewish voices in America's civil rights struggle

Finkelstein, Norman H.
"Heeding the Call: Jewish Voices in America's Civil Rights Struggle" chronicles the multifaceted role of Jewish Americans in the difficult struggle for civil rights. Their story will inspire the next generation of young Jews and African Americans to renew the legacy of cooperation which once united both groups. The struggle for equal rights in America forged a close connection between African Americans and Jews. But in recent years, that once amicable relationship has become strained. In "Heeding the Call," young people will discover how much the shared history of both groups unites rather than divides them.
Jewish Publication Society 1997 208 pages

Dyed in crimson: football, faith, and remaking Harvard's America

Eleff, Zev
"In 1926, Harvard athletic director Bill Bingham chose former Crimson All-American Arnold Horween as coach of the university's moribund football team. The pair instilled a fresh culture, one based on merit rather than social status, and in the virtues of honor and courage over mere winning. Yet their success challenged entrenched ideas about who belonged at Harvard and, by extension, who deserved to lay claim to the American dream. Zev Eleff tells the story of two immigrants' sons shaped by a vision of an America that rewarded any person of virtue. As a player, the Chicago-born Horween had led Harvard to its 1920 Rose Bowl victory. As a coach, he faced intractable opposition from powerful East Coast alumni because of his values and midwestern, Jewish background. Eleff traces Bingham and Horween's careers as student-athletes and their campaign to wrest control of the football program from alumni. He also looks at how Horween undermined stereotypes of Jewish masculinity and dealt with the resurgent antisemitism of the 1920s"--
University of Illinois Press 2023-02-28 284 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

The crime of my very existence: Nazism and the myth of Jewish criminality

Berkowitz, Michael
Examines the role of the image of "Jewish criminality" in the rise of Nazism, in the Holocaust, and in the perception of Jews in postwar Germany. The conception of Jews as born criminals, and of Nazism as a force which rose to put an end to "lawlessness", occupied a larger role in Nazi anti-Jewish ideology and practices than has heretofore been acknowledged in the historiography of the Holocaust. Nazi racism as such was not sufficient to convince the German masses of the "Jewish danger": the centuries-long stereotype of the "Jewish criminal" influenced the population's internalization of Nazi dogma and served as a rationalization and excuse for Nazi anti-Jewish measures - from boycott to mass murder. However, it was the Nazi system itself that promoted criminality and moral corruption, both amongst the victims and the perpetrators. For instance, the Nazi-invented ghetto, in 1940-43, became a hotbed of criminality. Dwells on the Jewish police in the ghettos as a manifestaion of this moral decay. In the Nazi camps, it was the criminals who took the top positions in the prisoners' hierarchy. Focuses, in particular, on a shift in Nazi ideology in 1944-45: the attitude toward Zionism, which had been ambivalent before then, changed to a view of Zionism as a great danger and as the foremost enemy. The Nazis depicted Zionism as the greatest incarnation of Jewish criminality. The stereotype of Jews as criminals persisted in postwar Germany, and affected the perception of the DPs on the part of both the Germans and the U.S. Army.
University of California Press 2007 321 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

Economic origins of antisemitism: Poland and its Jews in the early modern period

Levine, Hillel
In this wide-ranging exploration of the economic roots of antisemitism, Hillel Levine trace the position of Jews from the end of the sixteenth century to the demise of the Polish state in 1795. Levine explains why Poland was not able to to modernize its backward social, economic, and political system at a time when Western European countries were rapidly evolving, and he shows that Jews were blames for this failure to modernize, furling an economic antisemitism that contributed to the Holocaust and is with us still.
Yale University Press 1991 271 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

The Jewish enigma: an enduring people

Englander, David
The survival of Jewish identity and culture is one of the great enigmas of history. Faced with persecution, dispersal, pogroms and Hitler's "Final Solution", the future of the Jewish people was far from secure. "The Jewish Enigma" seeks to discover what made survival possible. In seven chapters, scholars trace the history of the Jewish people from the first Babylonian exile to the current state of Western and American Jewry. Topics covered include Jews in Islamic lands, the Emancipation, the history of anti-Semitism, the history of East European Jewry as well as the troubled history of Zionism and the Palestinians.
Open University in association with P. Halban : Spiro Institute 1992 266 pages

Rachel's secret

Sanders, Shelly
"Rachel is a Jew living in Kishinev, Russia. At fourteen, Rachel knows that she wants more from life than the traditional role of wife and mother. She has dreams of being a writer. But everything is put on hold when a young Christian man is murdered and Rachel is forced to keep the murderer's identity a secret. Tensions mount as the Christians' distrust of the Jews is fueled by prejudice and rumour. While Rachel keeps the truth to herself, she watches as lies and anti-Jewish propaganda leap off the pages of the local newspaper, inciting Christians to riot against the Jews. Violence breaks out on Easter Sunday, 1903, and when it finally ends, Rachel finds that the person she loves most is dead and that her home has been destroyed. As she struggles to survive the aftermath of the riots-or pogroms-support comes from someone totally unexpected, when a young Christian named Sergei turns against his father, a police officer complicit in the riots, to help Rachel. With everything against them, the two young people find comfort in the bond that is growing between them, one of the few signs of goodness and hope in a time of chaos and violence."--Publisher's website.
Second Story Press 2012 248 pages

Rachel's promise

Sanders, Shelly
It is late 1903, and Rachel and her family are leaving Russia to escape the murderous riots against Jews. They travel cross country on the Trans-Siberian Railway to the coast and board a ship for Shanghai. China offers refuge, but life for them there is difficult and strange. The opportunity to write for a Jewish newspaper may help Rachel ensure her family's survival while not giving up her dreams for her future. Still in Russia, Rachel's friend Sergei leaves home for a factory job in St. Petersburg, soon joining the rebelling workers, but realizing he has traded one source of danger for another. Separated by so much, the two teenagers try to make their way in the turbulent political times of the early twentieth century--their only connection the letters they write, and their fierce hope for the future.
Second Story Press 2013 278 pages

Notes from the other side of night

Pilon, Juliana Geran
Notes from the Other Side of Night is a diary-memoir written upon Juliana Geran Pilon's return to her native Romania in 1975, which she had left along with her family when she was just fourteen. Poetically weaving together modern insight and realities with childhood perceptions, Pilon tells the haunting stories of her parents, grandparents, neighbors, and friends. Although the scenery of her native home had remained essentially unchanged since her childhood, Pilon recalls streets that are no more, homes and churches that have been demolished. Yet, the hills and forests, the flowers and mountains, the heat of old Bucharest, remained the same. The scenes and characters described in this book are simply unforgettable. Despite the many tragedies it describes--anti-semitism, political imprisonment, and judicial execution were ruthless realities under communism--Notes from the Other Side of Night is not a depressing book. Pilon writes with a detached melancholy about events and characters that illustrate Hannah Arendt's terrifying "banality of evil." But she remembers, as well, those few who managed to remain human beings until the end. Ultimately, hope triumphs in this memoir. This edition includes a new foreword, which discusses the initial writing and publication of this and previous editions.
Transaction Publishers 2014 148 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