Jewish Brazilian Post-Holocaust Fiction: The Body as a Source of Polymorphous Memory Discourse in Cíntia Moscovich’s Por que sou gorda, mamãe?

In this article, I propose a reading of the Brazilian novel Por que sou gorda, mamãe? (2006) through the prism of the body as an oblique signifier of polymorphous post-Holocaust memory discourse. I will be employing the idea of the “strange body” in the following, that is, an experience of estrangement that can arise from trauma-induced conflict or fracture and “is capable of testifying to complexes of social operations and realities well beyond not only a given subject, but also a given generation” (Atkinson 2017, 34). In Cíntia Mos­covich’s novel, this strange-bodiness is articulated through the uncanny presence of an obese Jewish female body; a body which bears witness to a subversive force of trauma and denounces the fascist ideology within the continuities of subtly intertwined European and Brazilian histories. European Jewish life in shtetlech, pogroms, exile, and the Holocaust merge not only with the Brazilian context of Jewish immigration, but also with the history of Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985).

Globalizing Diaspora

Between the 1860s and the early 1920s, more than two million Jews moved from small towns in Eastern Europe to the United States. Smaller groups went to other destinations in the Americas, Western Europe, Palestine, and South Africa. This chapter discusses the background and impact of that mass migration around the world. The global diffusion of Jews from Eastern Europe concentrated in three new Jewish centers: the United States, the Soviet Union, and Israel. The Eastern European Jewish mass migration, however, did not ultimately lead to the formation of a distinct diaspora of Yiddish-speaking Jews, but rather became the driving force behind a dramatic transformation of the Jewish diaspora as a whole. The reasons for this can be explained by several factors: accelerated Jewish assimilation in these centers, the short period of the mass migration, the great diversity of the migrants, and the almost complete destruction of Jewish life and culture in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust.

The Revolution in Science in America, 1900-1950

The US lagged behind the European powers, Germany, Britain and France, in scientific research and development at the beginning of the 20th century. Why this occurred and how Germany and Britain supported their flourishing scientific research cultures are discussed. The first serious expansion in basic scientific research in the US occurred with the influx of European Jewish scientists fleeing Nazism in the 1930’s. They specifically brought with them knowledge of atomic physics. The influence of Vannevar Bush, who was Director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development during World War Two proved crucial for the expansion of civilian research and development after the War, supported by the Federal Government. Also after the War, Operation Paperclip brought German scientists to the US and they had significant influence on developments in aeronautics, rocketry and space exploration.

The National Mission

The chapter analyses Zionist reactions to the outbreak of the First World War throughout the region. The war challenged traditional strategies and represented a severe crisis, both for the international Zionist movement, which fell apart and took new shape, and for local branches, drained of many of their members who were now in uniform. Zionists had vastly differing expectations of the war, which changed as the front moved eastwards and the Central Powers conquered much of Poland and the Baltic. As part of this German conquest of the East, several German Zionist activists travelled the region and tried to establish themselves as a leading force amongst East European Jewry. Their perception and representation of East European Jewry related to the type of nation-building they wanted to implement there. This project, which was fundamentally a ‘civilizing mission’, played out differently in the varying German occupation regimes of the Generalgouvernement Warschau and Ober Ost, and had profound impacts on local communities and activists, as well as on subsequent events. The chapter details the specific impact of the war on East-Central European Jewish societies, analysing the different occupation regimes and their diverse policies towards the Jewish population. It also demonstrates how Zionist concepts of nation, civilization, and modernity were adapted to local conditions and the immediate struggle for survival.

Society for the Protection of the Health of the Jewish Population (OSE): Jewish Humanitarian Mission for over 100 Years

The essay's primary purpose is to bring to the attention of readers interested in the history of the Jewish people that the dramatic 20th century is not only the victims of the Holocaust–and not only the heroism of the military on the battlefields. It is active resistance to barbarism–the rescue of defenseless people through daily civilian activities, nevertheless associated with a constant risk to life. This paper examines non-political and non-religious secular Jewish welfare society within Jewish political and national movements. This essay considers five historical periods of the activity of OSE. These periods are: 1912–1922; 1922–1933; 1933–1945; 1945–1950; 1950–present time. This chronological classification is somewhat imperfect; however, each period reflects the dynamic of functional changes in the initial tasks of the society to review the goals of the organization to satisfy the urgent needs of the European Jewish community in a debatable circumstance of the 20th–21st centuries.

Challenging the Fundamental Premise of White Supremacy: DNA Documents the Jewish Origins of the New England Colony

The English Puritans of New England are a foundational element in the current racist ideology of White Supremacy. Depicted in history books as stalwart British Protestants who braved bitter winters and Native predations to establish a “City on the Hill”—a beacon to the world of freedom and liberty—the Puritans became ideals in the American consciousness. But what if this is a misrepresentation, created largely in the mid and late 1800s to serve as a political barrier against Catholic, East European, Jewish, and Asian immigrants who threatened the “American way of life”? The present research uses genealogical DNA data collected from descendants of the New England settlers to demonstrate that these original “Yankees” were of Jewish ancestry. The WASP origination of New England is shown to be a false narrative.

Exploring political rupture through Jewish children’s diaries: Kindertransport children in France, 1938-1942

This article focuses on France as a refuge for unaccompanied Central European Jewish children on the eve of World War II. Contrary to the United Kingdom, which accepted 10,000 Jewish children through Kindertransport, only 350-450 children entered France. This article utilizes children’s diaries and organizational records to question how children perceived and recorded their displacement and resettlement in France, a country that would soon be at war, and then occupied, by Nazi Germany. By questioning how these events filtered into and transformed children’s lives, I argue that the shifting political environment led to profound transformations in these children’s daily lives long before their very existence was threatened by Nazi–Vichy deportation measures. Most children were cared for in collective children’s homes in the Paris region in which left-oriented educators established children’s republics. Yet the outbreak of war triggered a series of events in the homes that led to changes in pedagogical methods and new arrivals (and thus new conflicts). The Nazi occupation of France led to the children’s displacement to the Southern zone, their dispersal into new homes, and the reconfiguration of their networks. This analysis of children’s contemporaneous sources and the conditions under which they were produced places new emphasis on the epistemology of Kindertransport sources and thus contributes to larger theoretical discussions in Holocaust and Childhood studies on children’s testimony.