Jewish history

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  12/20/2020
  

  Brandeis U. Press and a Historian Split over how to Talk about Jews and White Supremacy

  The racial justice protests of 2020 pushed up sales of Marc Dollinger's book on political relationships between Jewish and African American groups. But Brandeis University Press has balked at publishing a new introductory essay that suggests American Jews need to acknowledge and confront their privileges as white Americans.

• 
• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  12/19/2020
  

  Historian: Polish Society Shunned Jewish Survivors Returning From Nazi Camps

  Historian Lukasz Krzyzanowski argues that most Poles today are “unwilling to accept the bitter fact that they live in a post-genocidal land.”

• 
• SOURCE: Haaretz
  12/6/2020
  

  How Hanukkah Returned to Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall Decades After the Holocaust

  The annual Hanukkah concert at the Royal Concert Hall in Amsterdam resumed in 2015 after a hiatus that began with Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Many Dutch Jews hope that the event will support unity in a community that is diverse in terms of observance and smaller in number than it was in 1946.

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  11/19/2020
  

  Effi Eitam Leading Yad Vashem Disgraces the Memory of the 6 Million

  by Derek Penslar and Susannah Heschel

  "The politicization and radicalization of the institution will rob it of its legitimacy. Yad Vashem cannot fulfill its responsibilities with Effi Eitam at its helm."

• 
• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  11/15/2020
  

  Dozens Of Academics Oppose New Controversial Yad Vashem Chair

  Holocaust historian Deborah Lipstadt is among the academics criticizing the appointment of a right-wing politician to head the Israeli Holocaust memorial and educational center, arguing that his remarks toward Palestinians and Arab Israelis are disqualifying. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Nation
  11/16/2020
  

  The Impresarios of Trent: The Long and Frightening History of the Blood Libel (review)

  Magda Teter's new book examines the history of the pernicious antisemitic myth, its cultivation by Christian authorities, and its amplification by the growth of print and literacy in renaissance Europe.

• 
• SOURCE: Haaretz
  11/8/2020
  

  Revered Polish Jew, Holocaust Survivor Joins Protests Over Top Appointment at Yad Vashem

  A prominent Polish Holocaust survivor has objected to the appointment of Effi Eitam, an Israeli politician and former military commander, to chair the directorate of the Holocaust memorial because of inflammatory statements calling for the deportation of Palestinans from the West Bank and calling Arab Israelis a "fifth column." 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Republic
  11/10/2020
  

  How the World Gave Up on the Stateless (Review)

  Over 10 million people are stateless today, and governments seem hell-bent on increasing their numbers. A new book examines how the rise of modern states created the dire circumstance of statelessness. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  11/2/2020
  

  Searching for Refuge After the Second World War

  New books by David Nasaw and Paul Betts examine the uncertain fate of Jewish Holocaust survivors in postwar Europe, the problem of massive human displacement, and the tension between interpreting Europe's refugee problem in universal terms or focusing on the specific consequences of anti-Jewish policies and prejudice. 

• 
• SOURCE: The Guardian
  10/8/2020
  

  Holocaust Survivor's Daughter in Legal Battle With Historian over Claim of Lesbian Liaison with Nazi Guard

  Hájková, who is researching the queer history of the Holocaust, said testimonies by survivors of the camps and legal documents from the guard’s trial led her to conclude that the two women might have had a lesbian relationship, either coercive or consensual. However, she acknowledged that there was no definite proof of this.

• 
• 10/18/2020
  

  Fraught Family Reunification After the Holocaust

  by Rebecca Clifford

  "A tenth of Europe's pre-war population of Jewish children survived the Holocaust. Many sought and achieved reunification with their families, but reunification did not usually end the trauma endured by this "fragment of an entire generation."

• 
• SOURCE: Society for U.S. Intellectual History
  9/28/2020
  

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Abraham Lincoln, and American Jewish History

  by Rebecca Brenner Graham

  Public mourning for Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a prominent Jewish American evokes Abraham Lincoln's role in supporting Jews in Civil War service, and the Jewish community's mourning after his assassination.

• 
• SOURCE: Patheos
  9/22/2020
  

  RBG, Historian: Why Justice Requires Memory

  by Chris Gehrz

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg's sense of justice was informed by a clear view of the path of American history and the knowledge that change toward equality was neither automatic nor unidirectional.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  9/19/2020
  

  How Jewish History and the Holocaust Fueled Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Quest for Justice

  by Gillian Brockell

  The passing of the Supreme Court Justice is occasion to review her 2004 address to the U.S. Holocaust Museum. 

• 
• SOURCE: Forward
  8/24/2020
  

  The Passing of Pioneering Historian Moses Rischin Marks the End of an Era

  by Jonathan Sarna

  Moses Rischin, the last survivor among the bold group of scholars who created the field of American Jewish history following World War II, died last week in San Francisco at the age of 94. His passing marks the end of an era.

• 
• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  

  US Holocaust Survivor Who Spent Decades Fighting For Family’s Looted Art Dies

  Family of biochemist and tabletop designer Martha Nierenberg, 96, says they’ll continue legal battle for art collection, stolen by the Nazis and still held by Hungary.

• 
• 7/3/2020
  

  New Novel "The Collaborator" Explores the Moral Ambiguities of a Holocaust Rescuer

  by Diane Armstrong

  Do we have the right to judge the actions of people in life and death situations? Are we honour-bound to keep promises, no matter to whom they were made, and in what situations? Can a man be a hero and a collaborator?

• 
• SOURCE: The New Yorker
  6/29/2020
  

  In Search of King David’s Lost Empire

  The evidence of David’s life is sparse. Was he an emperor? A local king? Or, as Biblical archaeologist Israel Finkelstein claims, a Bedouin sheikh?

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  The SS Officer's Armchair

  by Daniel Lee

  The discovery of a trove of documents in an old armchair led the author on a five-year search for information about a previously anonymous Nazi, whose history intersected with the author's family in surprising ways.

• 
• 5/3/2020
  

  Lessons on Isolation and Humanity in a Family's Letters from Hiding

  by Daphne Geismar

  A virus doesn’t discriminate. But our social structures, systemic biases, and policy choices have made some populations particularly vulnerable. This pandemic has changed us. We must make changes so this tragedy, like the Holocaust, isn’t repeated.