Anti-Semitism among Palestinian Authority Academics
One of the primary objectives of the Palestinian Authority (PA) after its establishment in 1994 was to delegitimize Israel. These efforts were evident throughout Palestinian society and involved various channels including television, schoolbooks, and culture. The delegitimization of Israel incorporated various hate messages, especially the denial of Israel’s right to exist.
President Truman’s Decision to Recognize Israel
The charge that domestic politics determined our policy on Palestine angered President Truman for the rest of his life. In fact, the President’s policy rested on the realities of the situation in the region, on America’s moral, ethical, and humanitarian values, on the costs and risks inherent in any other course, and on America’s national interests.
A Rabbinical Revolution? Religion, Power and Politics in the Contemporary Ukrainian Jewish Movement
The role of the “religious element” in the contemporary Ukrainian Jewish movement is examined in the wider context of Jewish politics in that country. Analyses focus on the reasons for and objectives of the political advancement of Ukrainian rabbinic leaders in the second half of the 1990s and the growth of their influence on Jewish community-building in post Soviet Ukraine. Also discussed is the political nature of the rabbinic leadership and the place of Jewish spiritual leaders as a ruling group within the disposition of political forces in the local Jewish community.
The Regeneration of French Jewry: The Influx and Integration of North African Jewry into France, 1955-1965 by Michael Laskier
American Jewry and the State of Israel: How Intense are the Bonds of Peoplehood?
American Jewish leadership, initially ambivalent about the creation of a Jewish state, quickly formed a pro-Israeli consensus within the Jewish community. The 1950 Ben-Gurion-Blaustein Agreement effectively removed many of the irritants in American Jewish-Israeli relations such as dual loyalty, negation of the Diaspora, and who may speak on behalf of the Jewish people. In turn, American Jewish leadership helped frame the ongoing special relationship between Washington and Jerusalem.
Muslim-Jewish Interactions in Great Britain
There are an estimated two million Muslims in the United Kingdom. The largest communities come from the Indian subcontinent, in the following order: Pakistan, Bangladesh, India. The Jewish community numbers approximately three hundred thousand. On some religious issues such as circumcision Muslims and Jews have common interests. On others, such as the introduction of religious law, their positions greatly diverge.
The Diplomatic Dance with Hamas
While the hope that Hamas could somehow be lured away from its genocidal agenda seems to be gaining wider currency, not only is the destruction of Israel not a bargaining chip, it is the heart of the matter. Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, sees Palestine as but one battle in a worldwide holy war to prevent the fall of a part of the House of Islam to infidels.
Four Questions about American Jewish Demography
How many Jews live in the United States? Is the number increasing or decreasing? Do more Jews live in Israel or in the United States? And do the answers to these questions matter? The controversy surrounding these issues stems from the existence of various definitions of Jewish identity as well as the methodological difficulties involved in estimating Jewish populations. It is likely that somewhere between 5.2 million and 6.4 million Jews live in the United States, with the most probable range b
The Palestinian Refugee Issue: Rhetoric vs. Reality
The sixty-year-old Palestinian refugee issue has little connection with reality. It has become solely a bargaining chip used by Arabs and Palestinians in peace talks with Israel and, as such, is a distraction from the real issues of terrorism and boundaries. The same pattern evolved for Jews who fled Middle Eastern and North African countries, even though their number was some 50 percent larger than Palestinian refugees and the difference in individual assets lost was even greater.
Expanding Holocaust Denial and Legislation Against It
Over half the states of Europe now criminalize Holocaust denial. They accept the premise that deniers are extremists who use denial, among other means, to rehabilitate Nazism. Their legal rationale in doing so is usually that denial negates the historical facts established at Nuremburg in 1945 rather than that it constitutes offensive or threatening speech.
Representations of the Holocaust in Today’s Germany: Between Justification and Empathy
German narratives on the Holocaust and World War II have changed since 1945, propelled by debates about the period, political developments, and distance from the historical event. Native Germans tend to focus increasingly on their own fate as Germans and to idolize their society’s behavior during the Holocaust era. Immigrants and immigrant students in Germany have trouble relating to the Holocaust, which often seems to them strictly a part of German history that has no connection to them.
Jewish Displaced Persons in Postwar Italy, 1945-1951
Despite the Racial Laws of fascist Italy implemented in 1938, thousands of foreign Jews were authorized to remain in the country. These Jewish prewar and wartime refugees, about 20 percent of all Jewish refugees in postwar Italy, were the so-called old refugees.
Hermann Cohen’s Secular Messianism and Liberal Cosmopolitanism
The German Jewish thinker Hermann Cohen (1842-1918) had interesting perspectives on messianism, liberalism, and Zionism. Despite the great changes that the nature of Jewish life on the one hand, and the conceptions of liberalism on the other, have undergone since Cohen wrote, many modern thinkers continue to frame their political positions on strikingly "Cohenian" grounds. Hence the theoretical basis of his attack on Zionism and nationalism in the name of liberal universalism
Rivkah Fishman-Duker on Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, by Martin Goodman
The Challenge of Ancient Judaism
Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations, by Martin Goodman, London, Penguin Books, 2007, 639 pp.
Reviewed by Rivkah Fishman-Duker
Michelle Mazel on Le Juif Errant est arrivé (The Wandering Jew Is Home), by Albert Londres
The Unseen Writing on the Wall
Le Juif Errant est arrivé (The Wandering Jew Is Home), by Albert Londres, Edition Motifs, 2007, repr., 296 pp.
Reviewed by Michelle Mazel
