scholarly journals Shmuel Zygielbojm (1895–1943) as a Figure in Polish Historical Discourse

2020 ◽  
pp. 131-150
Author(s):  
Michał Trębacz ◽  

Szmul Zygielbojm, activist of the socialist Bund, member of the National Council of the Republic of Poland in London, on the night of May 11-12, 1943, committed suicide. It was a deliberate act of protest against „the inaction with which the world is staring and allowing the Jewish people to exterminate.“Quite early this universal act of opposition to evil became an argument showing Polish merits and non-Polish faults in informing the world about the Holocaust. How did historians and publicists talk about Zygielbojm? What role was assigned to him in the discourse about the Holocaust and Polish-Jewish relations? Why has the Bundist figure returned in contemporary debate?

Author(s):  
David L. Weddle

After Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70CE, Jewish tradition reimagined animal sacrifices as devotional acts, such as prayer, fasting, and study of Torah, as well as giving up individual desires to fulfil God’s will. Rabbis interpreted the story of Abraham’s binding Isaac for sacrifice (the Akedah) as the model of absolute obedience to divine commands (mitzvoth) and as the basis for the election of the Jewish people to bear witness to the one God. Their commentary, however, included the horrified reaction of Sarah’s scream to the news of Abraham’s act, ending in her death, indicating dissent from sacrifice as religious ideal. Rabbinic tradition transferred the site of sacrifice from temple to synagogue in rituals of High Holy Days, to the family table in Passover and Sabbath rituals, and to the individual will in submission to Torah. In the mystical teaching of Kabbalah, God sacrifices to create the world and Jews are called to sacrifice to redeem the world (tikkun olam). Such vocation of redemptive suffering was called into question by the Holocaust, and some contemporary Israeli poets refer to the Akedah in expressing misgivings about calls to sacrifice in defense of Israel.


Author(s):  
Stanisław Krajewski

This chapter looks at Fr. Tadeusz Sroka's An Israeli Diary, or the Religious Dimension of Man's Fate (1985). An Israeli Diary takes the form of excerpts from a diary written in the years 1970–71. Each entry opens with press news about political events in the Middle East, followed by pondering over the Bible or the fate of the Jewish people. There are hardly any data concerning contemporary Israel, except a few facts showing Arab intransigence and the hopeless situation of Israel ‘in human terms’. The author says very little about Jewish history and nothing about Judaism; the Talmud is not mentioned, even in places where it could have been useful, for example in reflecting on capital punishment. The author's perspective is metaphysical; he assumes that the election of Israel is eternal. This, incidentally, is the official standpoint of the Catholic Church today, confirmed more than once by John Paul II. As a result, Israel is seen as the centre of the world. Next, the fate of the Jews reveals the ultimate perspectives of the human condition: on one pole the Holocaust, on the other the re-creation of the state by visionaries, in defiance of reason. Israel is a sign for the world, and today's secular Israel is an appropriate sign for the contemporary materialistic world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-569
Author(s):  
Sh. Mukhamedova

The article considers the Holocaust reflection in world literature and popular authors as the best painters of the Holocaust repressions. Naturally, the Holocaust is a trauma which cannot ever be restored, a gap that cannot be bridged. Down to the present day, this remains an important topic for discussion. Despite the overwhelming persecution and death that surrounded the Jewish nation, hundreds of thousands of Jews survived the nightmare of the Holocaust. In order to integrate the past in their lives, survivors want to testify and/or write down their experiences. These stories of survival provide the only glimpse of ‘goodness’ that comes from the terrible story of the Holocaust. It proves that, even in history’s darkest hour, there was a glimmer of hope; that in a world that seemed to be falling apart, good still had the capacity to overcome evil. All stories written on the destiny and sufferings of the Jewish nation are worth analysis. However, we took only those which are in the form of confession. The chosen novels can be classified by the types of the central heroes and heroes have been divided into subgroups according to their age, nation, and, of course, the gender. The article aims to reaffirm the importance of the novels by using three literary approaches — historical, biographical and social. The biographical approach is taken for the analysis to identify the link between the work and the authors, who build a story on the basis of their own memories and real-life experience. Furthermore, the socio-historical problems highlighted in the novels are very relevant, since they still exist in modern societies in one or another form. The article reflects how even one novel encompasses morality, dignity, humanity issues and at the same time reveals the author’s position related to the indifference of the world regarding cruelty and evading responsibility for anti-human crimes along with how to avoid them in the near future.


1994 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-90
Author(s):  
Esther Hautzig

The author's feelings and experiences in sharing the Holocaust with her own children and the children she addresses regularly in schools are discussed in this paper. From her talks and exchanges with young people, it has been the author's experience that stories of how we lived, not perished, make the greatest impact on young and old listeners. Unless we know the people's lives and what the Jewish people, as well as society at large, lost through the deaths of countless brilliant, educated, compassionate people, as well as children whose futures will always remain unknown and unrealized, we cannot fully mourn their deaths. To really know what the world lost through the Nazi terror, we must share stories of family members and of people we knew and admired with those to whom Holocaust victims are becoming statistics and numbers, not individuals with vibrant lives and futures that were cut down. Children particularly need to hear life stories of those who perished, not only the facts of how their lives ended. The author reports on sharing the Holocaust experience, not only with Jewish children, but with children of all religions, colors, ages and backgrounds-not only in person, but through correspondence, conference calls/ visits and classroom exchanges as a volunteer for the New York City School Volunteers Program in which she takes part.


Moreana ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 55 (Number 209) (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire Phélippeau

This paper shows how solidarity is one of the founding principles in Thomas More's Utopia (1516). In the fictional republic of Utopia described in Book II, solidarity has a political and a moral function. The principle is at the center of the communal organization of Utopian society, exemplified in a number of practices such as the sharing of farm work, the management of surplus crops, or the democratic elections of the governor and the priests. Not only does solidarity benefit the individual Utopian, but it is a prerequisite to ensure the prosperity of the island of Utopia and its moral preeminence over its neighboring countries. However, a limit to this principle is drawn when the republic of Utopia faces specific social difficulties, and also deals with the rest of the world. In order for the principle of solidarity to function perfectly, it is necessary to apply it exclusively within the island or the republic would be at risk. War is not out of the question then, and compassion does not apply to all human beings. This conception of solidarity, summed up as “Utopia first!,” could be dubbed a Machiavellian strategy, devised to ensure the durability of the republic. We will show how some of the recommendations of Realpolitik made by Machiavelli in The Prince (1532) correspond to the Utopian policy enforced to protect their commonwealth.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 150
Author(s):  
Veton Zejnullahi

The process of globalization, which many times is considered as new world order is affecting all spheres of modern society but also the media. In this paper specifically we will see the impact of globalization because we see changing the media access to global problems in general being listed on these processes. We will see that the greatest difficulties will have small media as such because the process is moving in the direction of creating mega media which thanks to new technology are reaching to deliver news and information at the time of their occurrence through choked the small media. So it is fair to conclude that the rapid economic development and especially the technology have made the world seem "too small" to the human eyes, because for real-time we will communicate with the world with the only one Internet connection, and also all the information are take for the development of events in the four corners of the world and direct from the places when the events happen. Even Albanian space has not left out of this process because the media in the Republic of Albania and the Republic of Kosovo are adapted to the new conditions under the influence of the globalization process. This fact is proven powerful through creating new television packages, written the websites and newspapers in their possession.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 25-37
Author(s):  
Alexander N. Danilov

The article discusses the meanings of life and value priorities of the post- Soviet society. The author argues that, at present, there are symptoms of a global ideological crisis in the world, that the West does not have its own vision of where and how to move on and has no understanding of the future. Unfortunately, most of the post-Soviet countries do not have such vision as well. In these conditions, there are mistrust, confusion, paradoxical manifestation of human consciousness. The main meanings that determine our life-world are: the desire of citizens for social justice and social security, the desire to figure out and understand the basic values of modern society, how honestly and equally the authorities act toward their fellow citizens, and to what extent they reflect their interests. The meanings of life, which are the answers to the challenges of the time, are embodied in the cultural code of each nation, state. The growth points of new values, which will become the basis for the future sustainable development of a new civilization, have yet to be discovered in the systemic transformative changes of the culture. In this process, the emergence of a new system of values that governs human life is inevitable. However, modern technology brings new troubles to humans. It has provided wide opportunities for informational violence and public consciousness manipulation. Nowadays, the scenario that is implemented in Western consumer societies claims to be the dominant scenario. Meanwhile, today there is no country in the world that is a role model, there is no ideal that others would like to borrow. Most post-Soviet states failed to advance their societies to more decent levels of economic development, to meet the challenges of the modern information age, and to provide the population with new high living standards. Therefore, in conditions of growing confrontation, we should realistically understand the world and be ready to implement changes that will ensure sustainable development of the state and society without losing our national identity.


Author(s):  
Tatiani De Azevedo Lobo ◽  
Marli M. Moraes Da Costa

Resumo: O presente ensaio busca apresentar e fomentar algumas questões pertinentes ao debate contemporâneo sobre a pobreza, demonstrando a importância do tema no cenário mundial. Para tanto, inicialmente discorre-se sobre a construção histórico-social da pobreza e suas características contemporâneas. Com efeito, aponta-se a limitação dos fatores tradicionalmente apresentados como causadores da pobreza, como cultura, genética, geografia etc. Além disso, apresentam-se as formas atuais de monitorar o fenômeno, como o coeficiente de Gini e o IDH. Posteriormente, aborda-se a distribuição mundial da pobreza. Nesse ponto, colaciona-se que a pobreza é um problema mundial. No entanto, é perceptível que o Sul ainda concentra maior número de indivíduos pobres do que o Norte. Na esteira dos últimos dados da pesquisa realizada pelas Nações Unidas, houve uma nítida ascensão do Sul, especialmente nos indicadores sociais ligados à educação. A seguir, trata-se do capital social e da Teoria das Capacidades, apresentando-se novas abordagens da pobreza. Assim, o capital social trata de uma ideia utilizada para verificar a rede de relacionamento dos indivíduos. Já a Teoria das Capacidades está ligada com a ideia de oportunidade da liberdade. Por fim, estuda-se as políticas públicas, bem como seu aspecto fragmentário. Conclui-se, assim, sobre a necessidade de implementação de políticas públicas elaboradas sob a égide de novos paradigmas, a fim de possibilitar o tratamento específico do fenômeno da pobreza, conforme as peculiaridades de cada local. Para tanto foi utilizado neste trabalho o método de abordagem hipotético-dedutivo, o método de procedimento monográfico e a técnica de pesquisa, operacionalizados por meio do emprego de vasta pesquisa bibliográfica. Abstract: This essay seeks to provide and foster some relevant to the contemporary debate on poverty issues, demonstrating the importance of the issue on the world stage. For this purpose, initially spoke about the historical and social construction of poverty and its contemporary features. Indeed, he pointed out the limitation of the factors traditionally presented as the cause of poverty, as a culture, genetics, geography, etc. Furthermore, we presented the current ways of monitoring the phenomenon, such as the Gini coefficient and the HDI. Subsequently addressed the global distribution of poverty. At this point, if collated that poverty is a worldwide problem. However, it is apparent that the South still more concentrated than the poor North individuals. In the wake of recent data from research conducted by the United Nations, there was a sharp rise in the South, especially in social indicators related to education. Next, we treated the capital and the Theory of Capabilities, presenting new approaches to poverty. Thus, social capital is an idea used to verify the relationship network of individuals. Already Capabilities Theory is linked with the idea of freedom of opportunity. Finally, we studied public policy, as well as its fragmentary appearance. Thus, it is concluded on the need to implement public policies prepared under the aegis of new paradigms to enable specific treatment of the phenomenon of poverty, according to the peculiarities of each site. For that was used in this work the method of hypothetical-deductive approach, the method of procedure and the monographic research technique, operationalized through the use of extensive academic research.


Author(s):  
Aaron Segal ◽  
Tyron Goldschmidt

This chapter formulates a version of idealism and argues for it. Sections 2 and 3 explicate this version of idealism: the world is mental through-and-through. Section 2 spells this out precisely and contrasts it with rival views. Section 3 draws a consequence from this formulation of idealism: idealism is necessarily true if true at all. Sections 4 and 5 make the case for idealism. Section 4 is defensive: it draws from the conclusion of section 3 to reply to a central, perhaps the central, anti-idealist argument. Section 5 is on the offense: it develops a new argument for idealism based on the contemporary debate in philosophy of mind. The contemporary debate in philosophy of mind has been dominated by physicalism and dualism, with idealism almost totally neglected. This chapter rectifies this situation.


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