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The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders
by Paul BogdanorBefore 1967, Israel had the overwhelming support of world opinion. So long as Israel's existence was in harmony with politically correct assumptions, it was supported, or at least accepted, by the majority of "progressive" Jews, especially in the wake of the Holocaust. This is no longer the case. "The Jewish Divide Over Israel" explains the role played by prominent Jews in turning Israel into an isolated pariah nation. After their catastrophic defeat in 1967, Arabs overcame inferiority on the battlefield with superiority in the war of ideas. Their propaganda stopped trumpeting their desire to eradicate Israel. Instead, in a calculated appeal to liberals and radicals, they redefined their war of aggression against the Jews as a struggle for the liberation of Palestinian Arabs. The tenacity of Arabs' rejection of Israel and their relentless campaign - in schools, universities, churches, professional organizations, and, above all, the news media - to destroy Israel's moral image had the desired impact. Many Jewish liberals became desperate to escape from the shadow of Israel's alleged misdeeds and found a way to do so by joining other members of the left in blaming Israeli sins for Arab violence. Today, Jewish liberals rationalize violence against the innocent as resistance to the oppressor, excuse Arab extremism as the frustration of a wronged party, and redefine eliminationist rhetoric and physical assaults on Jews as "criticism of Israeli policy." Israel's Jewish accusers have played a crucial and disproportionate role in the current upsurge of antisemitism precisely because they speak as Jews. The essays in this book seek to understand and throw back the assault on Israel led by such Jewish liberals and radicals as Tony Judt, Noam Chomsky, George Steiner, Daniel Boyarin, Marc Ellis, Israel Shahak, and many others. Its writers demonstrate that the foundation of the state of Israel, far from being the primal sin alleged by its accusers, was one of the few redeeming events in a century of blood and shame.
The Jewish Economic Elite: Making Modern Europe (German Jewish Cultures)
by Cornelia AustIn this rich transnational history, Cornelia Aust traces Jewish Ashkenazi families as they moved across Europe and established new commercial and entrepreneurial networks as they went. Aust balances economic history with elaborate discussions of Jewish marriage patterns, women's economic activity, and intimate family life. Following their travels from Amsterdam to Warsaw, Aust opens a multifaceted window into the lives, relationships, and changing conditions of economic activity of a new Jewish mercantile elite.
Jewish Education (Key Words in Jewish Studies)
by Ari Y KelmanMost writing about Jewish education has been preoccupied with two questions: What ought to be taught? And what is the best way to teach it? Ari Y Kelman upends these conventional approaches by asking a different question: How do people learn to engage in Jewish life? This book, by centering learning, provides an innovative way of approaching the questions that are central to Jewish education specifically and to religious education more generally. At the heart of Jewish Education is an innovative alphabetical primer of Jewish educational values, qualities, frameworks, catalysts, and technologies which explore the historical ways in which Jewish communities have produced and transmitted knowledge. The book examines the tension between Jewish education and Jewish Studies to argue that shifting the locus of inquiry from “what people ought to know” to “how do people learn” can provide an understanding of Jewish education that both draws on historical precedent and points to the future of Jewish knowledge.
Jewish Education and History: Continuity, crisis and change (Routledge Jewish Studies Series)
by Moshe AberbachMoshe Aberbach (1924-2007) was a leading educator and scholar in Jewish studies, specialising in the field of Jewish education in the talmudic period. This book draws on a representative selection of his writings over a fifty year period, and includes essays on Saadia Gaon and Maimonides, coverage of biblical and talmudic studies, and discussions of the roots of religious anti-Zionism and of the Lubavitch messianic movement in the context of similar movements in Jewish history. Focusing on the history of Jewish education and linking the Roman destruction of the Jewish state in 70 CE with Jewish survival after the Holocaust, and how survival of both depended on a strong system of education and the moral example set by teachers, the book explores the vital importance of education to Jewish survival from biblical times to the present. The book includes an autobiographical memoir of Moshe Aberbach’s childhood in Vienna, as well as a biographical Foreword by his son, David. It will be of great interest to Bible scholars and students of Jewish Studies, History, the Holocaust and Jewish social psychology.
The Jewish Eighteenth Century: A European Biography, 1700–1750 (Olamot Series in Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Shmuel FeinerThe eighteenth century was the Jews' first modern century. The deep changes that took place during its course shaped the following generations, and its most prominent voices still reverberate today. In this first volume of his magisterial work, Shmuel Feiner charts the twisting and fascinating world of the first half of the 18th century from the viewpoint of the Jews of Europe. Paying careful attention to life stories, to bright and dark experiences, to voices of protest, to aspirations of reform, and to strivings for personal and general happiness, Feiner identifies the tectonic changes that were taking place in Europe and their unprecedented effects on and among Jews. From the religious and cultural revolution of the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment) to the question of whether Jews could be citizens of any nation, Feiner presents a broad view of how this century of upheaval altered the map of Europe and the Jews who called it home.
The Jewish Eighteenth Century, Volume 2: A European Biography, 1750–1800 (Olamot Series in Humanities and Social Sciences)
by Shmuel FeinerThe second volume of Shmuel Feiner's The Jewish Eighteenth Century covers the period from 1750 to 1800, a time of even greater upheavals, tensions, and challenges. The changes that began to emerge at the beginning of the eighteenth century matured in the second half.Feiner explores how political considerations of the Jewish minority throughout Europe began to expand. From the "Jew Bill" of 1753 in Britain, to the surprising series of decrees issued by Joseph II of Austria that expanded tolerance in Austria, to the debate over emancipation in revolutionary France, the lives of the Jews of Europe became ever more intertwined with the political, social, economic, and cultural fabric of the continent.The Jewish Eighteenth Century, Volume 2: A European Biography, 1750–1800 concludes Feiner's landmark study of the history of Jewish populations in the period. By combining an examination of the broad and profound processes that changed the familiar world from the ground up with personal experiences of those who lived through them, it allows for a unique explanation of these momentous events.
Jewish Emancipation: A History Across Five Centuries
by David SorkinThe first comprehensive history of how Jews became citizens in the modern worldFor all their unquestionable importance, the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel now loom so large in modern Jewish history that we have mostly lost sight of the fact that they are only part of—and indeed reactions to—the central event of that history: emancipation. In this book, David Sorkin seeks to reorient Jewish history by offering the first comprehensive account in any language of the process by which Jews became citizens with civil and political rights in the modern world. Ranging from the mid-sixteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, Jewish Emancipation tells the ongoing story of how Jews have gained, kept, lost, and recovered rights in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, the United States, and Israel.Emancipation, Sorkin shows, was not a one-time or linear event that began with the Enlightenment or French Revolution and culminated with Jews' acquisition of rights in Central Europe in 1867–71 or Russia in 1917. Rather, emancipation was and is a complex, multidirectional, and ambiguous process characterized by deflections and reversals, defeats and successes, triumphs and tragedies. For example, American Jews mobilized twice for emancipation: in the nineteenth century for political rights, and in the twentieth for lost civil rights. Similarly, Israel itself has struggled from the start to institute equality among its heterogeneous citizens.By telling the story of this foundational but neglected event, Jewish Emancipation reveals the lost contours of Jewish history over the past half millennium.
The Jewish Emergence from Powerlessness
by Yehuda BauerThe theme of this book is the gradual emergence of the Jewish people from total political powerlessness - a development stretching over nearly 100 years and culminating in the consolidation in the State of Israel. Ironically, Professor Bauer demonstrates, events during this period stemmed in part from a belief in the power of the international Jewish community that never existed - but that motivated both the Germans and, after the war, the British.This is a brief but absorbing study by one of the world's great experts on the Holocaust, who has drawn on a huge body of material to depict one of the unforgettable events in recent history from an arresting and unfamiliar point of view.
Jewish Encounters with Buddhism in German Culture: Between Moses and Buddha, 1890–1940 (Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies)
by Sebastian MuschIn Germany at the turn of the century, Buddhism transformed from an obscure topic, of interest to only a few misfit scholars, into a cultural phenomenon. Many of the foremost authors of the period were profoundly influenced by this rapid rise of Buddhism—among them, some of the best-known names in the German-Jewish canon. Sebastian Musch excavates this neglected dimension of German-Jewish identity, drawing on philosophical treatises, novels, essays, diaries, and letters to trace the history of Jewish-Buddhist encounters up to the start of the Second World War. Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, Leo Baeck, Theodor Lessing, Jakob Wassermann, Walter Hasenclever, and Lion Feuchtwanger are featured alongside other, lesser known figures like Paul Cohen-Portheim and Walter Tausk. As Musch shows, when these thinkers wrote about Buddhism, they were also negotiating their own Jewishness.
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust
by Jeffrey Herf<p>The sheer magnitude of the Holocaust has commanded our attention for the past sixty years. The extent of atrocities, however, has overshadowed the calculus Nazis used to justify their deeds. <p>According to German wartime media, it was German citizens who were targeted for extinction by a vast international conspiracy. Leading the assault was an insidious, belligerent Jewish clique, so crafty and powerful that it managed to manipulate the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler portrayed the Holocaust as a defensive act, a necessary move to destroy the Jews before they destroyed Germany. <p>Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, and Otto Dietrich’s Press Office translated this fanatical vision into a coherent cautionary narrative, which the Nazi propaganda machine disseminated into the recesses of everyday life. Calling on impressive archival research, Jeffrey Herf recreates the wall posters that Germans saw while waiting for the streetcar, the radio speeches they heard at home or on the street, the headlines that blared from newsstands. The Jewish Enemy is the first extensive study of how anti-Semitism pervaded and shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, and how it pulled together the diverse elements of a delusionary Nazi worldview. Here we find an original and haunting exposition of the ways in which Hitler legitimized war and genocide to his own people, as necessary to destroy an allegedly omnipotent Jewish foe. In an era when both anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories continue to influence world politics, Herf offers a timely reminder of their dangers along with a fresh interpretation of the paranoia underlying the ideology of the Third Reich.</p>
The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust
by Jeffrey HerfThe sheer magnitude of the Holocaust has commanded our attention for the past sixty years. The extent of atrocities, however, has overshadowed the calculus Nazis used to justify their deeds. According to German wartime media, it was German citizens who were targeted for extinction by a vast international conspiracy. Leading the assault was an insidious, belligerent Jewish clique, so crafty and powerful that it managed to manipulate the actions of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin. Hitler portrayed the Holocaust as a defensive act, a necessary move to destroy the Jews before they destroyed Germany. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, and Otto Dietrich’s Press Office translated this fanatical vision into a coherent cautionary narrative, which the Nazi propaganda machine disseminated into the recesses of everyday life. Calling on impressive archival research, Jeffrey Herf recreates the wall posters that Germans saw while waiting for the streetcar, the radio speeches they heard at home or on the street, the headlines that blared from newsstands. The Jewish Enemy is the first extensive study of how anti-Semitism pervaded and shaped Nazi propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, and how it pulled together the diverse elements of a delusionary Nazi worldview. Here we find an original and haunting exposition of the ways in which Hitler legitimized war and genocide to his own people, as necessary to destroy an allegedly omnipotent Jewish foe. In an era when both anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories continue to influence world politics, Herf offers a timely reminder of their dangers along with a fresh interpretation of the paranoia underlying the ideology of the Third Reich.
The Jewish Enlightenment
by Chaya Naor Shmuel FeinerAt the beginning of the eighteenth century most European Jews lived in restricted settlements and urban ghettos, isolated from the surrounding dominant Christian cultures not only by law but also by language, custom, and dress. By the end of the century urban, upwardly mobile Jews had shaved their beards and abandoned Yiddish in favor of the languages of the countries in which they lived. They began to participate in secular culture and they embraced rationalism and non-Jewish education as supplements to traditional Talmudic studies. The full participation of Jews in modern Europe and America would be unthinkable without the intellectual and social revolution that was the Haskalah, or Jewish Enlightenment.Unparalleled in scale and comprehensiveness, The Jewish Enlightenment reconstructs the intellectual and social revolution of the Haskalah as it gradually gathered momentum throughout the eighteenth century. Relying on a huge range of previously unexplored sources, Shmuel Feiner fully views the Haskalah as the Jewish version of the European Enlightenment and, as such, a movement that cannot be isolated from broader eighteenth-century European traditions. Critically, he views the Haskalah as a truly European phenomenon and not one simply centered in Germany. He also shows how the republic of letters in European Jewry provided an avenue of secularization for Jewish society and culture, sowing the seeds of Jewish liberalism and modern ideology and sparking the Orthodox counterreaction that culminated in a clash of cultures within the Jewish community. The Haskalah's confrontations with its opponents within Jewry constitute one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of the dramatic and traumatic encounter between the Jews and modernity.The Haskalah is one of the central topics in modern Jewish historiography. With its scope, erudition, and new analysis, The Jewish Enlightenment now provides the most comprehensive treatment of this major cultural movement.
Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria
by Maren R. NiehoffSystematically reading Jewish exegesis in light of Homeric scholarship, this book argues that more than 2000 years ago Alexandrian Jews developed critical and literary methods of Bible interpretation which are still extremely relevant today. Maren Niehoff provides a detailed analysis of Alexandrian Bible interpretation, from the second century BCE through newly discovered fragments to the exegetical work done by Philo. Niehoff shows that Alexandrian Jews responded in a great variety of ways to the Homeric scholarship developed at the Museum. Some Jewish scholars used the methods of their Greek colleagues to investigate whether their Scripture contained myths shared by other nations, while others insisted that significant differences existed between Judaism and other cultures. This book is vital for any student of ancient Judaism, early Christianity and Hellenistic culture.
Jewish Exiles and European Thought in the Shadow of the Third Reich: Baron, Popper, Strauss, Auerbach
by Avihu Zakai David WeinsteinHans Baron, Karl Popper, Leo Strauss and Erich Auerbach were among the many German-speaking Jewish intellectuals who fled Continental Europe with the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. Their scholarship, though not normally considered together, is studied here to demonstrate how, despite their different disciplines and distinctive modes of working, they responded polemically in the guise of traditional scholarship to their shared trauma. For each, the political calamity of European fascism was a profound intellectual crisis, requiring an intellectual response which Weinstein and Zakai now contextualize, ideologically and politically. They exemplify just how extensively, and sometimes how subtly, 1930s and 1940s scholarship was used not only to explain, but to fight the political evils that had infected modernity, victimizing so many. An original perspective on a popular area of research, this book draws upon a mass of secondary literature to provide an innovative and valuable contribution to twentieth-century intellectual history.
Jewish Exiles’ Psychological Interpretations of Nazism
by Avihu ZakaiThis book examines works of four German-Jewish scholars who, in their places of exile, sought to probe the pathology of the Nazi mind: Wilhelm Reich’s The Mass Psychology of Fascism (1933), Erich Fromm’s Escape from Freedom (1941), Siegfried Kracauer’s From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of the German Film (1947), and Erich Neumann’s Depth Psychology and a New Ethic (1949). While scholars have examined these authors’ individual legacies, no comparative analysis of their shared concerns has yet been undertaken, nor have the content and form of their psychological inquiries into Nazism been seriously and systematically analyzed. Yet, the sense of urgency in their works calls for attention. They all took up their pens to counter Nazi barbarism, believing, like the English jurist and judge Sir William Blackstone, who wrote in 1753 - scribere est agere ("to write is to act").
The Jewish Exodus from Iraq, 1948-1951
by Moshe GatIn this study, Moshe Gat details how the immigration of the Jews from Iraq in effect marked the eradication of one of the oldest and most deeply-rooted Diaspora communities. He provides a background to these events and argues that both Iraqi discrimination and the actions of the Zionist underground in previous years played a part in the flight. The Denaturalization law of 1950 saw tens of thousands of Jews registering for emigration, and a bomb thrown at a synagogue in 1951 accelerated the exodus.
The Jewish Experience of the First World War
by Edward Madigan Gideon ReuveniThis book explores the variety of social and political phenomena that combined to the make the First World War a key turning point in the Jewish experience of the twentieth century. Just decades after the experience of intense persecution and struggle for recognition that marked the end of the nineteenth century, Jewish men and women across the globe found themselves drawn into a conflict of unprecedented violence and destruction. The frenzied military, social, and cultural mobilisation of European societies between 1914 and 1918, along with the outbreak of revolution in Russia and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East had a profound impact on Jewish communities worldwide. The First World War thus constitutes a seminal but surprisingly under-researched moment in the evolution of modern Jewish history. The essays gathered together in this ground-breaking volume explore the ways in which Jewish communities across Europe and the wider world experienced, interpreted and remembered the ‘war to end all wars’.
Jewish Experiences across the Americas: Local Histories through Global Lenses
by Katalin Franciska Rac Lenny A. Ureña ValerioLatin American Jewish Studies Association Best Edited VolumeThis volume explores the local specificities and global forces that shaped Jewish experiences in the Americas across five centuries. Featuring a range of case studies by scholars from the United States, Brazil, Europe, and Israel, it explores the culturally, religiously, and politically diverse lives of Jewish minorities in the Western Hemisphere.The chapters are organized chronologically and trace four global forces: the western expansion of early modern European empires, Jewish networks across and beyond empires, migration, and Jewish activism and participation in international ideological movements. The volume weaves together into one narrative the histories of communities and individuals separated by time and space, such as the descendants of Portuguese converts, Moroccan immigrants to Brazil, and U.S.-based creators of Yiddish movies.Through its transnational focus and close attention paid to local circumstances, this volume offers new insights into the multicultural pasts of the Americas’ Jewish populations and of the different regions that make up North, Central, and South America.Contributors: Lenny A. Ureña Valerio | Elisa Kriza | Raanan Rein | Adriana M. Brodsky | Lucas de Mattos Moura Fernandes | Katalin Franciska Rac | Zachary M Baker | Neil Weijer | Hilit Surowitz-Israel | Isabel Rosa Gritti | Tamar Herzog | Jose C Moya | Sandra McGee Deutsch | Dana RabinPublication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Jewish Fairy Tales (Dover Children's Thrift Classics)
by Sheilah Beckett Gerald FriedlanderNine tales from antiquity will enthrall children with the exploits of kings and beggars in a spellbinding world of demons, angels, and other supernatural creatures. Drawn from authentic sources, the captivating stories are enlivened by numerous imaginative illustrations.
Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia (Images of America)
by Allen MeyersJewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia (JFCS) resulted from the merger of two important human service organizations in 1983: the Association for Jewish Children of Philadelphia and Jewish Family Service of Philadelphia. Helping one in four Jewish households in crisis and in need as well as thousands of others, JFCS plays a primary role in the Greater Philadelphia community. The earliest predecessor of JFCS, the Jewish Foster Home, opened in 1855 with five children in its care. Established through the leadership of Rebecca Gratz, the foremost American Jewish female leader of her day, it was the nation's first Jewish orphanage and heralded a record of compassion, skill, and innovation in community services. Today, JFCS reaches out to more than 41,000 individuals and families each year with a wide array of programs from adoption to senior services. Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Philadelphia is the first illustrated history of this organization. With numerous historic photographs, including images from the 150th anniversary celebration in 2005, this book touches on all aspects of the organization's history: services, programs, staff, and fund-raising.
The Jewish Family Ethics Textbook (JPS Essential Judaism)
by Rabbi Neal ScheindlinJudaism offers us unique—and often divergent—insights into contemporary moral quandaries. How can we use social media without hurting others? Should people become parents through cloning? Should doctors help us die? The first ethics book to address social media and technology ethics through a Jewish lens, along with teaching the additional skills of analyzing classical Jewish texts, The Jewish Family Ethics Textbook guides teachers and students of all ages in mining classical and modern Jewish texts to inform ethical decision-making. Both sophisticated and accessible, the book tackles challenges in parent-child relationships, personal and academic integrity, social media, sexual intimacy, conception, abortion, and end of life. Case studies, largely drawn from real life, concretize the dilemmas. Multifaceted texts from tradition (translated from Hebrew and Aramaic) to modernity build on one another to shed light on the deliberations. Questions for inquiry, commentary, and a summation of the texts&’ implications for the case studies deepen and open up the dialogue. In keeping with the tradition of maḥloket, preserving multiple points of view, &“We need not accept any of our forebears&’ ideas uncritically,&” Rabbi Neal Scheindlin explains. &“The texts provide opportunities to discover ideas that help us think through ethical dilemmas, while leaving room for us to discuss and draw our own conclusions.&”
A Jewish Family in Germany Today: An Intimate Portrait
by Y. Michal BodemannImmediately after the Holocaust, it seemed inconceivable that a Jewish community would rebuild in Germany. What was once unimaginable has now come to pass: Germany is home to one of Europe's most vibrant Jewish communities, and it has the fastest growing Jewish immigrant population of any country in the world outside Israel. By sharing the life stories of members of one Jewish family--the Kalmans--Y. Michal Bodemann provides an intimate look at what it is like to live as a Jew in Germany today. Having survived concentration camps in Poland, four Kalman siblings--three brothers and a sister--were left stranded in Germany after the war. They built new lives and a major enterprise; they each married and had children. Over the past fifteen years Bodemann conducted extensive interviews with the Kalmans, mostly with the survivors' ten children, who were born between 1948 and 1964. In these oral histories, he shares their thoughts on Judaism, work, family, and community. Staying in Germany is not a given; four of the ten cousins live in Israel and the United States. Among the Kalman cousins are an art gallery owner, a body builder, a radio personality, a former chief financial officer of a prominent U. S. bank, and a sculptor. They discuss Zionism, anti-Semitism, what it means to root for the German soccer team, Schindler's List, money, success, marriage and intermarriage, and family history. They reveal their different levels of engagement with Judaism and involvement with local Jewish communities. Kalman is a pseudonym, and their anonymity allows the family members to talk with passion and candor about their relationships and their lives as Jews.
The Jewish Festivals: A Guide to Their History and Observance
by Hayyim SchaussWhy is the Jewish New Year designated on the Jewish calendar as the first day of the seventh month, and not of the first month? Why do women cover their eyes when reciting the blessing over the Sabbath candles? How did the Seder originate? Does the Book of Esther, read on Purim, mirror any real historical events?Long considered a classic, The Jewish Festivals provides a rich and charming account of the origins, development, and symbolism of the Jewish holidays, and of the diverse rituals, prayers, ceremonial objects, and special foods that have been used throughout history and around the world to celebrate them. Drawing upon a wealth of knowledge of Jewish folkways and customs, Hayyim Schauss shows how these holidays evolved in meaning and importance, depending on the contemporary needs of those who observed them. Written with passion and warmth, this book will infuse your own experience of the holidays with extra meaning and delight.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Jewish Forced Labor in Romania, 1940–1944 (Framing The Global Ser.)
by Dallas MichelbacherThis study of the Antonescu regime&’s forced-labor system &“offers precious insights to historians and social scientists alike&” (Dennis Deletant, author of Ion Antonescu: Hitler&’s Forgotten Ally). Between Romania&’s entry into World War II in 1941 and the ouster of dictator Ion Antonescu three years later, over 105,000 Jews were forced to work in internment and labor camps, labor battalions, government institutions, and private industry. Particularly for those in the labor battalions, this period was characterized by extraordinary physical and psychological suffering, hunger, inadequate shelter, and dangerous or even deadly working conditions. And yet the situation that arose from the combination of Antonescu&’s paranoias and the peculiarities of the Romanian system of forced-labor organization meant that most Jewish laborers survived.Jewish Forced Labor in Romania explores the ideological and legal background of this system of forced labor, its purpose, and its evolution. Author Dallas Michelbacher examines the relationship between the system of forced labor and the Romanian government&’s plans for the &“solution to the Jewish question.&” In doing so, Michelbacher highlights the key differences between the Romanian system of forced labor and the well-documented use of forced labor in Nazi Germany and neighboring Hungary. Jewish Forced Labor in Romania explores the internal logic of the Antonescu regime and how it balanced its ideological imperative for antisemitic persecution with the economic needs of a state engaged in total war whose economy was still heavily dependent on the skills of its Jewish population.
The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice
by Katz Dana E.Dana E. Katz examines the Jewish ghetto of Venice as a paradox of urban space. In 1516, the Senate established the ghetto on the periphery of the city and legislated nocturnal curfews to reduce the Jews' visibility in Venice. Katz argues that it was precisely this practice of marginalization that put the ghetto on display for Christian and Jewish eyes. According to her research, early modern Venetians grounded their conceptions of the ghetto in discourses of sight. Katz's unique approach demonstrates how Venice's Jewish ghetto engaged the sensory imagination of its inhabitants in complex and contradictory ways that both shaped urban space and reshaped Christian-Jewish relations.