French Discourses on Exorbitant Jewish Memory

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn J. Dean
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Sustained Attention ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Television Shows ◽  
Vichy Regime ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
French Intellectuals ◽  
General Effort

This chapter discusses the general effort of French intellectuals after the 1980s to define victims and the experience of victimization in a new cultural context. Among many scholars and critics in France, Jews, the particularity of whose sufferings under the Vichy regime and in the Holocaust were only belatedly recognized, have been increasingly associated with victims and a hyperbolic rhetoric of victimization. The sustained attention paid in the last two decades both to Vichy's crimes against Jews and to the Holocaust itself in speeches, commemorative rituals, trials, and television shows led not only to an association of Jewish identity with collective injury, but also, to a French backlash against too much Jewish memory. French journalist and writer Nicolas Weill uses the term “Holocaust Fatigue” to describe the same phenomenon, and views it as the “probable cause” of public apathy when anti-Semitism allegedly resurged in France between 2000 and 2002.

Wartime Crises

2021 ◽  
pp. 89-116
Author(s):  
Doris Kadish
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Marital Status ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
American Identity ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
New York Intellectuals ◽  
Roosevelt Administration ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Partisan Review ◽  
Jewish Writers

This chapter considers how Rahv’s Marxism and anti-Stalinism shaped his timid response to fascism. It presents the loosening of his ties with Marxism and move toward the American identity manifest in “Paleface and Redskin,” which divided American writers into plebian redskins (Steinbeck, Dreiser) and patrician palefaces (Eliot, James). The muted response to the Holocaust by major newspapers, the Roosevelt administration, and Jewish groups sets the stage for a discussion of how Partisan Review responded, including publishing Eliot despite his alleged anti-Semitism. A discussion of the complexities of Rahv’s marital status and military record is followed by a consideration of “Under Forty,” essays on Jewish identity by eleven young Jewish writers which Rahv published as editor of Contemporary Jewish Record in February 1944 and which reflected his evolving identity as an American Jew. The chapter closes with reactions to the Holocaust—by Rahv, New York intellectuals, and in my own life.

scholarly journals A PROJECT OF CONSTRUCTING A CONTEMPORARY JEWISH IDENTITY IN RABINOVICI’S NOVEL SUCHE NACH M

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisda Liyanti
Keyword(s):  
Identity Formation ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Active Engagement ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nazi Past ◽  
New Phase

Attitude to the Nazi past turns to its new phase in the 1980s, after the time of repressing, silent and mourning brings the new discourse in talking about the Holocaust. It was a tendency of "denying" the Holocaust and new anti-semitism movement. In the 90s, Jewish authors confirm their position as „self-determined agents' in the literary and political area. One of them is Doron Rabinovici, an Austrian Jewish author who wrote the novel Suche Nach M in engaging on the project of constructing a contemporary Jewish identity. In this article, the question of how Robinovici proposes the construction of contemporary Jewish identity will be answered through critical reading on Jewish myth and identity formation theory. The result shows two major strategies that he proposes in his novel: “deconstructs” the Jewish myth (by playing other possibilities to interpret them and unveil the truth) and suggests the self-referential concept (find oneself based on 'the self' instead of immersing self in 'the Other‟). These two strategies can be seen as an active engagement with one own traumatic past. It is a historical- and self-awareness approach to construct a problematic contemporary Jewish identity.

The New Anti-Semitism and Diasporic Liminality: Jewish Identity from France to Montreal

1969 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Aaron Kenedy
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Primary Reason ◽  
Case Study Approach ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Anti Jewish

Through a case study approach, 40 French Jews were interviewed revealing their primary reason for leaving France and resettling in Montreal was the continuous threat associated with the new anti-Semitism. The focus for many who participated in this research was the anti-Jewish sentiment in France and the result of being in a liminal diasporic state of feeling as though they belong elsewhere, possibly in France, to where they want to return, or moving on to other destinations. Multiple centred Jewish and Francophone identities were themes that emerged throughout the interviews.

The Tropes of Jewish/Muslim Difference

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yulia Egorova
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Communal Violence ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

The chapter explores how notions of Jewish and Muslim difference play out in the history of communal violence in independent India. In doing so it will first interrogate the way in which trajectories of anti-Muslim ideologies intersect in India with Nazi rhetoric that harks back to Hitler’s Germany, and the (lack of) the memory of the Holocaust on the subcontinent. It will then discuss how the experiences of contemporary Indian Jewish communities both mirror and contrast those of Indian Muslims and how Indian Jews and the alleged absence of anti-Semitism in India have become a reference point in the discourse of the Hindu right deployed to mask anti-Muslim and other forms of intolerance.

scholarly journals On Becoming a Non-Jewish Holocaust Writer: Yann Martel’s Beatrice and Virgil

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
Rachel F. Brenner
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Holocaust Memory ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
The World ◽  
Family Level ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Origins

To appraise Martel’s non-Jewish perspective of Holocaust thematic, it is important to assess it in the context of the Jewish relations with the Holocaust. Even though the Jewish claim to the uniqueness of the Holocaust has been disputed since the end of the war especially in Eastern Europe, the Jewish response determined to a large extent the reception of the disaster on the global scene. On a family level, the children of survivors have identified themselves as the legitimate heirs of the unknowable experience of their parents. On a collective level, the decree of Jewish annihilation constructed a Jewish identity that imposed an obligation to keep the Holocaust memory in the consciousness of the world. Martel proposes to supersede the history of the Holocaust with a story which would downplay the Jewish filiation with the Holocaust, elicit an affiliative response to the event of the non-Jewish writer and consequently integrate it into the memory of humanity at large. However, the Holocaust theme of Beatrice and Virgil refuses to assimilate within the general memory of humanity; rather, the consciousness of the event, which pervades the post-Holocaust world, insists on its constant presence. The omnipresence of the Holocaust blurs the distinctions between the filiative (Jewish) and affiliative (non-Jewish) attitudes toward the Jewish tragedy, gripping the writer in its transcendent horror. Disregarding his ethnic or religious origins, the Holocaust takes over the writer’s personal life and determines his story.

Antisemitism in Doubt. Historical and Methodological Reflections on Contemporary Europe

2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-216
Author(s):  
Amos Morris Reich
Keyword(s):  
Normal State ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
State Of Israel

Abstract In the attempt to find an Israeli approach to understanding the current European ambivalence towards Jews, this study focuses on the question of post-Holocaust anti-Semitism. It analyzes a specifically Israeli structure of experience of “schizophrenia” resulting from its decoupling of antisemitism from the Holocaust. It is shown that the justification of anti-Semitism has changed after the Holocaust. Thus, anti-Semitism has developed from a “cultural code” to a “semiotic problem”. The article concludes that the two main forms of Israel’s response to European anti-Semitism are inseparably linked to the question of whether Zionism ended with the establishment of the modern state of Israel and whether Israel is a “normal” state.

Concerto for Orchestra “The Yellow Stars” by Isaac Schwartz: In the Mirror of Ashkenazi’s Musical Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 19-37
Author(s):  
И.Ф. Двужильная
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Folk Song ◽  
Huge Number ◽  
Musical Culture ◽  
Entire Life ◽  
The Holocaust

В статье предпринят анализ последнего произведения выдающегося петербургского композитора Исаака Шварца (1923–2009) — мемориального опуса памяти жертв Холокоста. Аргументированно доказывается, что ашкеназская культура, в том числе и музыкальная, была органичной частью всей жизни композитора. Об этом свидетельствуют сформировавшийся в детские годы этнослух И. Шварца, огромное количество песен на идиш, которые он мог играть наизусть часами и, безусловно, тематизм инструментального концерта «Желтые звезды», в котором наряду с цитатным материалом выявляются и многочисленные авторские темы, отмеченные знаком еврейской идентичности. В них прослеживаются традиции синагогальной молитвы, клезмерского музицирования, идишской народной песни. Вместе с тем в работе с тематическим материалом, с формой, с оркестровкой обнаруживается прочная связь И. Шварца с ленинградской-петербургской композиторской школой. The article analyzes the last work of the well-known Petersburg composer Isaac Schwartz (1923–2009) which is a memorial opus in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. It is argued that the Ashkenazi musical culture was a natural part of the composer’s entire life. This is evidenced by the ethnic rumor of Schwartz formed in his childhood, a huge number of songs in Yiddish that he could play by heart for hours and, of course, the themes of the instrumental concerto “The Yellow Stars”, which demonstrates, along with quotation material, numerous author’s themes, marked by Jewish identity. They trace the traditions of synagogue prayer, klezmer music, Yiddish folk song. At the same time, the work with thematic material, with form, and with orchestration, reveals Schwartz’s tight relationship with the Leningrad-Petersburg school of composition.

Recontextualizing Acts

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-40
Author(s):  
Christopher Stroup
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Acts Of The Apostles ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Religious Rhetoric ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Ancient Christianity ◽  
Previous Scholarship

This chapter situates Acts of the Apostles historically and examines previous scholarship on Jewish identity and Acts. It argues that Lukan ethnic reasoning—as mediated by the cultural context of Greek cities under Roman rule—sought to create an alternate construal of Jewish and Christian identity. This alternate identity integrated Christian non-Jews into the civic hierarchy. The chapter then surveys the scholarship on Jews and Judaism in Acts and looks at recent developments in interpretation that have emphasized the author's rhetoric rather than “attitude.” It also discusses four texts that highlight the value of ethnic reasoning and, scholar of ancient Christianity, Denise Kimber Buell's discussion of four uses of religious rhetoric in ethnic reasoning. Ultimately, Acts leverages the connection between gods, people, and places in its depiction of Jewish identity. It employs ethnic rhetoric in order to present all Christians as Jews and to privilege Christians as an ideal embodiment of Jewishness for the Roman-era polis.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document