13 results for "Jewish History"

Hitler and the Holocaust

Wistrich, Robert S.
Robert Wistrich begins his history of the Holocaust by exploring the origins of anti-Semitism in Europe, and especially in Germany, to try explain how millions of Jews came to be killed systematically by the Third Reich. In the process of relating these events, he provides new and incisive answers to a number of central questions concerning the Shoah that have emerged over recent years: who, inside and outside Nazi Germany, knew that Jews were being murdered; how responsibility for the genocide should be divided between Hitler himself and ordinary Germans; and how historians have tried to make sense of the Holocaust. The book concludes by considering the legacy of Nazi crimes since 1945: the Nuremburg trials, the impact of the Holocaust on Diaspora Jewry (particularly in Israel and America), and the rise of neo-Nazism and Holocaust-denial.
The Modern Library 2003 295 pages

Israel: the will to prevail

Danon, Danny
Danny Danon has been a vocal opponent of disengaging in the Gaza Strip and West bank, and transforming the stalemate "two state/one state" dialogue to include regional partners, at times standing in direct opposition to his own party's leadership. A well-known and frequent speaker in the global arena, he is the rising voice for a fresh movement toward nationalism among the generation of Israelis currently coming to power. Here, Danon shares this vision with the world. It is a bold and uncompromising stance in the face of attacks on Israel's sovereignty by other Middle Eastern nations as the United States sends mixed signals of support to further its own goals in the region. Danon dissects the missteps and wrong turns that Israel's politicians have taken in the past by working to appease the United States and not offend their neighbors, instead of prioritizing their nation's own viability. With electrifying zeal, he tackles the challenges Israel faces today to undo what he sees as a consequence brought on by years of acquiescence to US policy. Danon believes "US pressure on Israel is hurting Israel and will do nothing to advance peace". Danon leads the charge toward a victorious future with an invitation for the United States and the Middle East to participate in, and not just dictate, Israel's international relations and policies (as opposed to an Israel cuckolded with an endless array of caveats toward those who would see it fall). No stranger to controversy, Danon's unabashed insights are a welcome revelation in the current quagmire of Middle-East international relations. A leading speaker to both Jewish groups and Christian Conservatives, the LA Jewish Journal says "What Danny says is what Bibi is actually thinking." For Danny Danon, this is only the beginning.
Palgrave Macmillan 2012-09-04 230 pages

The Final solution: origins and implementation

Cesarani,David
Although there is an immense amount of literature on the 'Final Solution' - the Nazis' attempt to exterminate the Jews of Europe during the Second World War - many critical questions still remain unresolved. The authoritative essays in The Final Solution set out to clarify the origins of the attempted genocide of the Jews, and to provide new answers to this period of history which often seems inexplicable." "The book draws on important new evidence, much of it from archives in Eastern Europe which have only recently become accessible. Contributors are among the leading experts in the field. The essays focus on the preconditions and antecedents for the 'Final Solution' and the immediate origins of the decision to murder Europe's Jewish population. They consider, too, the impact of the German invasion of Russia in June 1941 on the evolution of a genocidal policy and the response of the peoples and governments in Germany, occupied Europe, the Free World and the Jewish communities under the Nazis and in the West." "The results of this study are often controversial. The essays challenge many accepted notions about the behaviour of the German Army, how much the Germans knew, and the response of the non-Jewish population in Occupied Europe and the West." "The Final Solution will be of great interest to students of modern European history. It will also make invaluable reading for anyone seeking to understand further this most tragic chapter of recent history.
Routledge 1994-01 318 pages

The Jew as pariah: Jewish identity and politics in the modern age

Arendt, Hannah
The introduction by Feldman (pp. 15-52), "The Jew as Pariah: The Case of Hannah Arendt (1906-1975)", discusses her life and writings, including her views regarding antisemitism in the 19th-20th centuries. Pp. 240-279 contain material on the controversy over Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem" - exchanges between her and the scholars Gershom Scholem and Walter Laqueur stating their objections to her views, along with her responses.
Grove Press : distributed by Random House 1978 288 pages

Why we watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust

Hamerow, Theodore S.
While today the Nazi genocide of Jews is seen as a massacre unique in its savagery and a central feature of World War II, in 1933-45 it was accepted in the USA, and in the Western world in general, as one of the many wartime brutalities, almost understandable and predictable. Political leaders, public opinion, and later the Allied military greeted the first news concerning the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews with disbelief; later, when the facts of the Nazi mass murder of Jews became apparent, they tended to conflate the Nazi victimization of Jews with that of other ethnic groups. There was a tendency to diminish the scope of the genocide and even to see it as, at least partly, deserved by the victims. These views found expression in a commonly shared reluctance to receive Jewish refugees from Nazism. Opinion polls of the late 1930s-early 1940s show that the American public was consistently against any relaxation of immigration restrictions. In Western Europe and the rest of the Americas, sentiments were similar: some countries were ready to admit Poles, Czechs, and other refugees, but not Jews. These sentiments can only partly be ascribed to the economic hardships of the 1930s; their main cause was antisemitism, ethnic opposition to the Jewish alien. In the postwar years, the tendency to silence and trivialize the Holocaust persevered; it was only in the 1960s that public opinion recognized the Holocaust as unique. Argues against Peter Novick's view, according to which Holocaust memory initially fell victim to the Cold War. Contends that, in the 1960s, most people thought that the "Jewish question" was finally solved - by emancipation, assimilation and, last but not least, by the Nazi mass murder.
W.W. Norton & Co 2008 520 pages

The ruling class of Judaea: the origins of the Jewish revolt against Rome, A.D. 66-70

Goodman, Martin
Goodman examines the background of the AD 66 Judean revolt against Rome. He attempts to explain both the rebellion itself and its temporary success by discussing the role of the Jewish ruling class in the sixty years preceding the war and in the independent state that lasted until AD 70. The author shows that the revolt's ultimate cause was a misunderstanding by Rome of the status criteria of Jewish society.
Cambridge University Press 1995 263 pages

Our hands are stained with blood: the tragic story of the Church and the Jewish people

Brown, Michael L.
"The pages of church history are marked by countless horrors committed against the Jewish people. From the first persecutions of the Jews in the fourth century to the horrors of the Holocaust, from Israel-bashing in today's press to anti-Semitism spouted from the pulpit, this painful book tells the tragic story that every Christian must read. In a freshly updated and expanded edition of this pivotal work, Dr. Michael Brown exposes the faulty theological roots that opened the door to anti-Semitism in Church history, explaining why well-meaning believers so often fall into the trap of hate... and showing how you can bring an end to the cycle of violence. This generation can make a difference. Now is the time for change! Discover the important role you play in helping to shape a Church that will bless Israel rather than curse Israel." -- From back cover.
Destiny Image Publishers, Inc 2019-09-17 300 pages

On the eve: the Jews of Europe before the Second World War

Wasserstein, Bernard
Bernard Wasserstein presents a disturbing interpretation of the collapse of European Jewish civilization even before the Nazi onslaught. Wasserstein shows how the harsh realities of the age devastated the lives of communities and individuals. By 1939, the Jews faced an existential crisis that was as much the result of internal decay as of external attack.
Simon & Schuster 2012-05 552 pages

Prologue to annihilation: ordinary American and British Jews challenge the Third Reich

Norwood, Stephen H.
"American and British appeasement of Nazism during the early years of the Third Reich went far beyond territorial concessions. In Prologue to Annihilation: Ordinary American and British Jews Challenge the Third Reich, Stephen H. Norwood examines the numerous of ways that the two nations' official position of tacit acceptance of Jewish persecution enabled the policies that ultimately led to the Final Solution and how Nazi annihilationist intentions were clearly discernible even during the earliest years of Hitler's rule. Further, Norwood looks at the nature and impact of American and British Jewish resistance to Nazi persecution and the efforts of Jews at the grassroots level to press Jewish organizations to respond more forcefully to the Nazi menace. He examines the worldwide protest and boycott movements against Germany and German goods as well as mass demonstrations by working-class and lower-middle-class Jews in many American and British cities. Prologue to Annihilation details how the events of 1930-1936 tested American and British societies' willingness to accept Nazism and its anti-Jewish philosophy and illuminates the divisions that existed even within the Jewish community about how best to challenge Nazi antisemitic policies and atrocities"--
Indiana University Press 2021 347 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

The democratic ideal and the Shoah: the unthought in political modernity

Trigano, Shmuel
Is the Shoah a unique event or just one of the many genocides that have occurred (and continue to occur) in modern history? In The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah, Shmuel Trigano begins with the hypothesis that the Shoah must be understood in both universal and singular terms: insofar as it addresses the meaning and value of modernity, it is solely because the singular experience of the Jews is at its center. Drawing on history, political philosophy, hermeneutics, and psychoanalysis, Trigano argues that the attitude of democracy towards the Jews is key to understanding the very nature of democracy and the democratic ideal, and he postulates that the anti-Semitism that has haunted modern times is the same spectre that has haunted democracy throughout history in the form of nationalism, totalitarianism, and now multiculturalism. Can democratic theory rid itself of the dilemma between universality and particularity, between collectivity and individuality? This is the ultimate question addressed by this book.
SUNY Press 2009 329 pages