Holocaust Consciousness Research Articles

Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness

(2002). Deconstructing Holocaust Consciousness. Journal of Palestine Studies: Vol. 32, No. 1, pp. 78-89.

REVIEW: <strong>CRITICAL REAPPRAISALS OF AHARON APPELFELD</strong>: Yitshak Ben MORDECAI AND IRIS PARUSH, EDS. <em>BEIN KEFOR LE'ASHAN: MEHKARIM BITSIRATO SHEL AHARON APPELFELD.</em> and Yigal Schwartz. <em>KINAT HAYAHID VENETSAH HASHEVET: AHARON APPELFELD—TEMUNAT 'OLAM</em>. and Yigal Schwartz. <em>AHARON APPELFELD: FROM INDIVIDUAL LAMENT TO TRIBAL ETERNITY.</em> and Gershon Shaked. “REQUIEM LA'AM HAYEHUDI SHENEHERAG” IN <em>HASIPPORET HA'IVRIT, 1880-1980,</em> and Gershon Shaked. <em>MODERN HEBREW FICTION,</em> ED.

Critical Reappraisals of Aharon Appelfeld Stanley Nash Yitsḥak Ben Mordecai and Iris Parush, eds. Bein kefor leʿashan: Meḥkarim bitsirato shel Aharon Appelfeld. Beersheba: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press and Mosad Bialik, 1997, 248 pp. Yigal Schwartz . Kinat hayaḥid venetsaḥ hashevet: Aharon Appelfeld-temunat ʿolam. Israel: Magnes Press and Keter, 1996, 235 pp. Yigal Schwartz , Aharon Appelfeld: From Individual Lament to Tribal Eternity. Brandeis University Press of New England, 2001, xxv + 194 pp. Gershon Shaked . "Requiem laʿam hayehudi sheneherag" in Hasipporet haʿivrit, 1880-1980, vol. 5, 48 pp. Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad and Keter, 1998. Gershon Shaked , Modern Hebrew Fiction, ed. Emily Budick. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2000. Aharon Appelfeld . Beyond Despair: Three Lectures and a Conversation with Philip Roth. New York: Fromm International, 1994, 80 pp. Aharon Appelfeld . Sippur ḥayyim. Israel: Keter, 1999, 178 pp. Aharon Appelfeld . "Zikkaron ishi vezikkaron kibbutsi-siḥah," 7 pp., in Zikkaron samui, zikkaron galui, ed. Yoel Rafel. Tel Aviv: Ministry of Defense, 1998, 242 pp. The essays in Bein kefor leʿashan, an extraordinarily fine volume from Ben Gurion University Press, were originally a series of papers presented at a Hebrew University colloquium in 1994. That event marked the peak of Appelfeld's acclaim in Israel after a period when it might have seemed that he was receiving more attention in America, in English translation, than he was in his own country. The reasons for this disparity may reside in the fact that the Israeli literary establishment viewed [End Page 334] Appelfeld as out of step with the dominant emphases-the kibbutz, the army, the entire "first-person plural" ethos (or the debunking of same)-of its leading authors. Appelfeld moved from the periphery to the center of Israeli letters only around the time that Israeli nostalgia for Diaspora Judaism manifested itself in works such as Binyamin Tammuz's Mishle bakbukim (1975) and Yitsḥak Orpaz's Reḥov hatomazhina (1979), and when Holocaust consciousness, or Holocaust-centeredness, in Israel began to catch up with these sensibilities in America. Appelfeld's fortunes in the United States-and perhaps, indirectly, in Israel as well-were given a huge boost by the attention lavished on Appelfeld by Philip Roth in his New York Times Book Review interview1 and in Roth's novel Operation Shylock (1993). The appearance in English translation now of Yigal Schwartz's monograph and of Gershon Shaked's excellent overview of Appelfeld in his Hasipporet haʿivrit, regrettably abridged in the otherwise very fine and useful English version, is a significant milestone for Appelfeld. Hitherto, English readers have been graced by Gila Ramras-Rauch's useful full-length monograph,2 which provides plot summaries, bibliographies, and biographical background. The relative absence of plot summaries in Schwartz's book increases the English reader's appreciation for and dependence upon what Ramras-Rauch has done. Appelfeld's Beyond Despair, a collection of his lectures and interviews, is the best window in English into Appelfeld's worldview as expressed in his own words. And, of course, one cannot underestimate the importance of the labors of Appelfeld's translators, particularly the indefatigable Jeffrey Green, who have made available in English almost all of Appelfeld's works, including some novellas published only in journals or newspapers that readers of the original Hebrew would be hard-pressed to find. Alan Mintz's insightful analyses of Appelfeld's early stories in Ḥurban,3 Leon Yudkin's chapter in Escape into Siege,4 Naomi Sokoloff 's study in her Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction5 and her study of Tzili,6 Ruth Wisse's critical review in Commentary,7 and Jeremy Edlow's unpublished dissertation8 account for most of what has been available in English until now. Recently, Emily Budick's article appearing in Modern Language Quarterly9 frames the debate with Michael André Bernstein, the trenchant analyst/critic of Appelfeld's most famous English story,10 in the context of Holocaust literary theory. [End Page 335] In his book From Individual Lament to Tribal Eternity and in his essay from Bein kefor leʿashan, Yigal Schwartz dwells upon Appelfeld's personal search for the roots of his tribal...

Public Art between Cultures: The "Aboriginal Memorial," Aboriginality, and Nationality in Australia

Previous articleNext article No AccessPublic Art between Cultures: The "Aboriginal Memorial," Aboriginality, and Nationality in AustraliaTerry SmithTerry Smith Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Critical Inquiry Volume 27, Number 4Summer, 2001 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/449025 Views: 59Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 2000 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article: Australian Sculpture, Nineteenth and Twentieth Century, (Apr 2021): 429–457.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118767979.ch19Fiona Foley , Genealogy 4, no.33 ( 2020): 74.https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy4030074David W. Kupferman Power and Pantaloons: The Case of Lee Boo and the Normalizing of the Student in Micronesia, Journal for Cultural Research 17, no.11 (Mar 2013): 37–68.https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2011.634199David W. Kupferman Power and Pantaloons: The Case of Lee Boo and the Normalizing of the Student, (Jul 2012): 69–95.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4673-2_4A. Dirk Moses Genocide and Holocaust Consciousness in Australia, History Compass 1, no.11 (Jan 2003): **–**.https://doi.org/10.1111/1478-0542.028

Response to Lederhendler and Lang

T am, of course, pleased that Eli Lederhendler had so many complimentary things to say about The Holocaust in American Life. In my response I'll accentuate the negative: concentrate on points of disagreement in the interests of fruitful engagement. Lederhendler has two major criticisms of the book. First, he believes that I underrate the influence of the Holocaust on American Jewry in the late 1940s and early 1950s; he suggests that there was a Holocaust awareness in early postwar American Jewish life that bears closer look than Novick is prepared to give it. The question really is not one of subterranean awareness, because awareness (that is, knowledge) of the Holocaust was universal among American Jews, as was awareness that but for the accident of parents' (or grandparents') immigration, they would have shared the fate of European Jewry. Rather, it is matter of how central or marginal this was to their consciousness. The investigation of this sort of thing is (to put it mildly) difficult, because it has to be based on indirect evidence, on inference, and on what might be termed informed intuition. My low estimate of the salience of Holocaust consciousness in those years squares with the impressions of contemporary observers, whom I cited in the book. I cited as well number of published symposia in those years in which Jewish participants were invited to talk of what had shaped their thinking and about the grounds of theirJewish identity. The fact that, in these symposia, the Holocaust was almost never mentioned seemed to me very suggestive (though not decisive) in judging its private salience. Although I emphasized that the absence of much Jewish public discourse about the Holocaust did not mean the absence of discussion around the kitchen table, I registered my belief

HOLOCAUST AWARENESS AND EDUCATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Experimentation in Holocaust education began in American schools in the mid‐1970s. After construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., the subject gained momentum. The last two decades have seen continuous development. In five states, Holocaust education is required at all school levels; in sixteen others, it is highly recommended. Serious teaching of the Holocaust started in earnest only long after World War II, when the horrors were at a distance and survivors started breaking the silence. Only then did systematic research begin. Teaching about the Holocaust developed as a result of Holocaust consciousness and of the growing feeling of its relevance to American culture. Such instruction also developed against a background of ongoing public debate concerning the Holocausts uniqueness, a controversy that has found its way into various teaching programs.

“Negroes are not Jews”: Race, Holocaust Consciousness, and the Rish of Jewish Neoconservatism

Research Article| October 01 1999 “Negroes are not Jews”: Race, Holocaust Consciousness, and the Rish of Jewish Neoconservatism Michael E. Staub Michael E. Staub Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Radical History Review (1999) 1999 (75): 3–27. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-1999-75-3 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation Michael E. Staub; “Negroes are not Jews”: Race, Holocaust Consciousness, and the Rish of Jewish Neoconservatism. Radical History Review 1 October 1999; 1999 (75): 3–27. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-1999-75-3 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsRadical History Review Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 1999 by MARHO: The Radical Historians' Organization, Inc.1999 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal Issue Section: Feature Articles You do not currently have access to this content.

The Americanization of the holocaust

If the Holocaust, as image and symbol, seems to have sprung loose from its origins, it does not mean we should decry Americanization; rather, the pervasive presence of representations of the Holocaust in our culture demands responsible evaluation and interpretation.-from the Introduction The Holocaust is everywhere in American cultural consciousness today-in movies, books, theater, and television, in college courses, museums, and public monuments. In The Americanization of the Holocaust, Hilene Flanzbaum presents a collection of essays on America's cultural appropriation of this central event in twentieth-century history. The authors discuss a broad range of topics and examples, from Schindler's List to Elie Wiesel's throwing out the first pitch at the Mets season opener in 1988, from the idealizations of Anne Frank to a cookbook of recipes from survivors of the Terezin concentration camp, from a look at Art Spiegelman's acclaimed comic book Maus to a contemporary faux pas at the Nike Corporation. While several authors draw directly from the testimony of survivors, the volume as a whole examines how much of our knowledge of the Holocaust comes to us through cultural filters--from editors and publishers, producers and directors, artists and advertising executives. Covering the more than fifty years since the end of the Holocaust, this rich and comprehensive overview spans a wide variety of critical approaches, media, and genres. Contents and contributors: The Imaginary Jew and the American Poet, Hilene Flanzbaum . Aliens in the Wasteland: American Encounters with the Holocaust on 1960s Science Fiction Television, Jeffrey Shandler . Imagining Survivors: Testimony and the Rise of Holocaust Consciousness, Henry Greenspan . America's Holocaust: Memory and the Politics of Identity, James E. Young . Inheriting the Holocaust: Jewish American Fiction and the Double Bind of the Second-Generation Survivor, Andrew Furman . Surviving Rego Park: Holocaust Theory from Art Spiegelman to Berel Lang, Amy Hungerford . Three Thousand Miles Away: The Holocaust in Recent Works for the American Theater, Joyce Antler . The Cinematic Triangulation of Jewish American Identity: Israel, America, and the Holocaust, Sara R. Horowitz . Reflections on the Holocaust from Nebraska, Alan E. Steinweis . Who Never Was There: Slavery and the New Historicism-Deconstruction and the Holocaust, Walter Benn Michaels . Suffering as a Moral Beacon: Blacks and Jews, Laurence Mordekhai Thomas . Play Will Make You Free: Reprising The Triumph of the Will in Chicago's Nike Town, Andrew Levy

Holocaust consciousness in the 1990s: Adrienne Rich's “then or now”

If the volume Dark Fields of the Republic is Adrienne Rich's most recent demonstration of her poetry's relationship to history, to her contemporaries, and to the future, then the sequence, Then Or Now, is its black hole. Drawn partly from the letters between Hannah Arendt and Karl Jaspers, these poems exert a strong gravitational pull—absorbing both die volume's opening allusion to Brecht's What kind of times are these, and its closing edgelit inscription of truth from darkness. In her note to Then Or Now, Rich implies that the sources of this force are aspects of Holocaust consciousness that continue to hold us in thrall. While reading diese letters, she writes, she had been reflecting on concepts of 'guilt' and 'innocence' among artists and intellectuals like [her] self in the United States. The poems owe much also to the continuing pressure of events (78). Thus, the relationship between Arendt and Jaspers provides a genealogy for