Rolf Behrens on Deutsche Orientalistik zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus 1933 – 1945 (German Oriental Studies during the time of National Socialism 1933 – 1945), by Ekkehard Ellinger
Scientists for the Regime
Deutsche Orientalistik zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus 1933 – 1945 (German Oriental Studies during the time of National Socialism 1933 – 1945), by Ekkehard Ellinger, Deux Mondes, 2006, 595 pp. [German]_
Reviewed by Rolf Behrens
Malcolm F. Lowe on Männer – Bunde – Rituale: Studentenverbindungen seit 1800, by Alexandra Kuerth
Swords and Sociology
Männer – Bunde – Rituale: Studentenverbindungen seit 1800, by Alexandra Kuerth, Campus Verlag, 2004, 213 pp. [German]
Reviewed by Malcolm F. Lowe
An Ugly Truth? Le village de l’Allemand ou le journal des Frères Schiller [The German Man’s Village or the Diary of the Schiller Brothers] a novel by Boualem Sansal. Paris: Gallimard 2008, 264pp.* Reviewed by Michelle Mazel
“When I see what the Islamists are doing where we live and elsewhere, I tell myself they will do worse than the Nazis if they take over one day,” says Malrich, one of the book’s two main protagonists, a young Muslim born in Algiers who lives in a dreary Paris suburb. (222) A suburb he says is becoming more and more like a concentration camp ruled by its two leaders he calls the Emir and the Imam. (257) The author of these inflammatory statements, the man who puts these words in the mouth of his young hero, is a Muslim himself, a man born and bred in Algiers.
“Jerusalem: Capital of the Jews”:
The Jewish Identity of Jerusalem in Greek and Roman Sources
For ancient Greek and Roman pagan authors, Jerusalem definitely was a Jewish city. This article draws on references to Jerusalem from nearly twenty different sources, dating from the third century BCE to the third century CE, which are included in the late Professor Menahem Stern’s comprehensive anthology, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. An examination of these texts indicates the unanimous agreement that Jerusalem was Jewish by virtue of the fact that its inhabitants were Jews, it
Secondary Anti-Semitism: From Hard-Core to Soft-Core Denial of the Shoah
The core principle of secondary anti-Semitism is the refusal or rejection of remembrance of the unprecedented crime which Germans committed during the Second World War, namely the Shoah.
Jerusalem: The Ideal City of the Bible
The function of cities is to enable humans to better achieve peace, harmony, prosperity, and happiness. How those functions should be handled depends upon what kind of city is involved. For this we may turn to the Bible for insight and guidance.
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.
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
