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Recovering the past, renewing the present: Martin Buber, Gershom Scholem and the history of historical consciousness in German-Jewish thought.
No full textAfter a century-long struggle, the German-Jewish community achieved emancipation in 1871 only to face new polemics: racial antisemitism from without and charges of "assimilationism" from within. Polemicists from within condemned their fellow Jews for abandoning Judaism on the altar of social-political expedience. And many charged Wissenschaft des Judentums (the scholarly study of Judaism)---the idiom of nineteenth century German-Jewish intellectual life---with facilitating the abandonment: scholars had proved Judaism's congruence with German values and Jews' fitness for citizenship by squandering their rich and vital Jewish heritage. In addition, many critics of Wissenschaft suspected that historical consciousness may be inherently destructive---that taking critical distance from inherited tradition and reconstructing what actually happened in the past may necessarily undermine allegiance to Judaism.Martin Buber (1878--1965) and Gershom Scholem (1897--1982) came of age during this crisis in rebellion against "assimilationist" scholarship. While Buber eschewed historical criticism, pursuing renewal by ahistorically retrieving the essential truths of Hasidism from the past, Scholem eschewed merely the "assimilationism" of Wissenschaft ; binding historical scholarship to Zionism, Scholem studied Jewish mysticism in order to reveal the secret of Judaism's historical vitality. Yet, both had misgivings about their approaches to Jewish renewal. Buber did not pursue ahistorical retrieval exclusively; in fact, in his biblical writings, he bases his retrieval of biblical faith on historical reconstruction. And although Scholem never strayed from his historical-critical path, he worried that scholarship might be incapable of illuminating religious truth and meaning. Also, he often suppressed his constructive interests in and beliefs about Kabbalah, suggesting that he found it difficult to hold these together with his historical-critical approach.Buber and Scholem thus continued to work in the shadow of the crisis of their youth; both continued to struggle with the suspicion that historical consciousness may be inherently destructive. Yet neither could escape historical consciousness. Their different paths were sustained by the same paradox: historical-critical knowledge of the past threatened present-day renewal yet seemed unavoidable. Scholem's and Buber's writings reflect their overlapping and unresolved struggles to negotiate between critical knowledge of the past and retrieval of the past as the basis for present-day renewal.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2004.School code: 0024
Gay-valt: Queer performance and identity in twentieth-century Jewish-American literature, theater, and film.
No full textThis dissertation is the first major study of queer sexuality in Jewish American cultural production. This work complements the work of gender and racial theorists in Jewish Studies by considering the role that sexuality has played in the formation of the twentieth-century Jewish American subject. The dissertation is a comparative study of Yiddish and English texts, examining the ways in which each language system has engaged with and addressed the topic of sexuality. By comparing texts from both Yiddish and English, I argue that different paradigms for understanding homosexuality existed within the Jewish community, depending on which language was utilized.In order for Jews to become American and counter the perceived stereotypes that frequently conflated Jewish identity with homosexuality, all notions and references to queerness had to be repudiated by Jewish American cultural discourses. At the same time, I chart a parallel yet alternative trajectory for the Yiddish-speaking world in America, a community that engaged with sexuality in more fluid terms as it grappled with modernity. In approaching the multiple intersections between queer and Jewish identity, I primarily engage the topics of performance and language. I chart the relationship between performance and performativity, categories that despite attempts to keep them separate continue to reinforce each other. In particular, I look at how certain gender performances in Jewish texts signal queer sexuality.This project engages with a variety of genres and texts. In terms of Yiddish texts, I look at the 1907 play Got fun nekome, the cross-dressing films of Yiddish actress Molly Picon, and five short stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer, examining the sexual epistemologies of these Yiddish works. I then turn to Abraham Cahan's The Rise of David Levinsky (1917) and Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint (1969) to examine how both texts construct Jewish masculinity and heterosexuality in an English-speaking context. This study thematically traces how issues such as performance, homoeroticism, masculinity, and queerness register in different historical moments and in different languages. The result is not just Jewish texts that are queered, but a rethinking of queerness itself, which is altered via its engagement with Judaism and Yiddish culture.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of California, Santa Cruz, 2004.School code: 0036
A stage for a bima: American Jewish theater and the politics of representation.
No full textThis dissertation examines how contemporary American Jewish playwrights and performers have presented Jewish identities in light of multiculturalism. Although American Jews have by large been supporters of the multicultural movement, in practice multiculturalism has been problematic for Jews because of its privileging of race and gender: are Jews different enough to be included in a multicultural portrait? Jews see themselves as outsiders to an American establishment, but are viewed as insiders. I investigate how contemporary Jewish voices in American theater have portrayed "Jewishness" as a permanent attribute of Jewish identity. In doing so, they articulate Jewish difference through the rhetoric of multiculturalism so that Jews are clearly positioned as distinct from an American mainstream. Contemporary Jewish playwrights have responded to popular culture's schizophrenic representation of Jews, questioning its portrayal of Jews as everymen figures while revisiting its stereotypical representations of Jews that were intended to mark Jews as different from mainstream America. Though Jewish American culture has sought to escape stereotypes, Jewish playwrights continue to evoke them, even as they debate the value of such tropes. If stereotypes disappear, does an articulated Jewish difference disappear with them? In chapter one, I discuss my theoretical approach and the difficulties in defining stereotypical "Jewishness." In chapter two, I discuss how Jewish playwrights and performers have responded to the shifting definitions of race in their presentations of Jewish identity by portraying contemporary Jewish identity through the model of the African-American experience. In chapter three, I look at how Wendy Wasserstein has presented complicated female Jewish characters by rooting them, ironically enough, in the gender-based stereotypes that have surrounded Jewish women, stereotypes initially designed to differentiate Jewish women from idealized genteel American women. In chapter four, I discuss how playwrights Larry Kramer and Tony Kushner have linked Jewish and gay stereotypes and experiences in order to complicate contemporary political paradigms that tend to lump all traditionally disenfranchised groups under the same umbrella. Finally, in chapter five, I discuss how stage portrayals of Judaism have been associated with the body, a connection that denotes the problematic nature of defining Jews solely as a religious group.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Maryland, College Park, 2004.School code: 0117
The French internment camp Le Vernet d'Ariege: Local administration, collaboration, and public opinion in Vichy France.
No full textFrom late 1938 to mid-1939, the French Third Republic held an estimated 350,000 Spanish civilian and military refugees in camps located across France and its North African territories. After the outbreak of war with Germany, the Third Republic detained approximately 40,000 enemy nationals (including Jewish refugees) and political suspects in the camps. The Vichy regime which came to power in the wake of France's defeat continued the Third Republic's internment of political suspects and expanded the repressive character of internment, explicitly targeting foreign nationals, Jewish civilians, and "undesirables." Vichy detained approximately 120,000 individuals between the summers of 1940 and 1944, and its camps played an important role in domestic repression, collaboration with the German occupation authorities, and French participation in the Holocaust.Recent historical studies of wartime France have examined the relationship between the Vichy regime's repression and that of the late Third Republic which preceded it. To determine Vichy's correct place in France's modern history, they ask whether the late Third Republic paved the way for Vichy's crimes or whether Vichy broke with democratic precedents. As French camps were continuously administered by both governments, the history of internment provides a field of analysis for this continuity question. Part One presents a comparative history of French camps between 1939 and 1945, arguing that despite certain continuities the nature and national function of internment during the late Third Republic and Vichy were distinct.Part Two uses the daily activities of the camp Le Vernet d'Ariege (Ariege) as a window into local administration, collaboration, and public opinion in Vichy France. Known as Vichy's most repressive camp, Le Vernet detained thousands of "dangerous" foreign males, offered economic resources to local communities, facilitated German labor recruitment, and participated in the deportation of Jewish persons from France. Part Two shows that despite widespread apathy government repression, regional involvement in camp activities, and ground-level collaboration with the German occupation authorities proceeded relatively smoothly at Le Vernet until late 1943, when the facade of French sovereignty crumbled. This local history adds a new perspective to the growing literature on the Vichy regime as seen from below.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Princeton University, 2004.School code: 0181
Le feld-marechal Erich von Manstein: Un officier prussien a l'ombre de l'image de la Wehrmacht. Etude critique de l'homme et du soldat.
No full textThe political and moral responsibility of the Wehrmacht during the Nazi period has systematically been overshadowed by the Cold War and by German rearmament in compliance with NATO requirements, which led to the reactivation of veterans of Hitler's army. More than any of his Wehrmacht comrades, Field Marshall Erich von Manstein---considered by most experts as the greatest tactical genius of the Second World War---contributed, through his post-war accounts and memoirs, to the myths that the German army was but a victim of Nazi expansionist policy, that officers were only obeying orders, as was their duty, that Hitler alone was responsible for the military defeat of the Reich and that the Wehrmacht never participated in the criminal activity of the Nazi regime.Yet Manstein, more than most of his colleagues in the officer corps, was an accomplice to Hitler's enterprise of aggression and destruction in Europe. Indeed, not only was he a fully willing participant in the planning and execution of wars of aggression against Poland, France and the Soviet Union, but he also supported Wehrmacht war crimes in Eastern Europe at the expense of Jews, supporters and citizens of the occupied territories, Polish and Soviet prisoners of war and the political commissaries of the Red Army.Manstein, however, was not a true Nazi, but rather a great soldier who lacked political instincts. In this sense, he is very representative of the Prussian military class of his era. Through him, one can therefore map out the fate of other high-ranking officers who fought during the Second World War, particularly on the Eastern front. It is for this reason that it is important to study this man who served his Fuhrer until the end. An analysis of Manstein's indulgence, both during and after the war, of Nazi atrocities, allows us to more fully understand why the German army allowed itself to be the instrument of Hitler's expansionist policy.This thesis fills a great void in German military historiography: a critical study of this complex persona, probably of Jewish and Slavic descent, whose diverse facets have often led to differing interpretations. Such a study is important not only for military history and for the understanding of an exceptionally talented strategist, but also affords entry into the thoughts, conceptions and psychology of a high-ranking officer who played a leading role in the planning and execution of wars of aggression and violations of the rules of war committed by the Wehrmacht for the benefit of the Nazi regime.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Universite de Montreal (Canada), 2004.School code: 0992
Painting the town red: Jewish visual artists, Yiddish culture, and Progressive politics in New York, 1917--1939.
No full textThis dissertation explores the links between Yiddish culture, fine art, and political activism in the modern world. It follows a core group of artist-activists in New York from the 1910s to the late 1930s, which was a period of revolutionary change in the art world and of increased polarization in the American political landscape. At the same time, American Jewish immigrants were developing a greater sense of comfort in their adopted land, which, paradoxically, sometimes inspired them to be more openly critical as well. This confluence of factors provided the background for Yiddish-speaking artists in New York to develop a vibrant subculture within prevailing Jewish immigrant and fine arts circles. Secular, bilingual, cosmopolitan, and idealistic, from the early 1910s to the eve of World War II these artists formed organizations that questioned their role in society and challenged the status quo in America.This study is partly institutional history and partly a group portrait. The subjects begin here as neophyte artists, still immersed in their immigrant Jewish community. They then depart, sometimes physically and sometimes ideologically, to forge aesthetic and social ties with other interest groups. Finally, they return as mature artists and activists to address the concerns of a more acculturated but still uniquely Jewish public. Organizational records, personal papers, and contemporaneous periodicals in Yiddish and English are used to describe the educational, cultural, and political institutions in which the artists participated. These materials, combined with personal interviews, also highlight the intricate personal connections that transformed this professional cohort into a dynamic and tight-knit subculture. Lessons drawn from this investigation may also be applied to other ethnic and political fringe groups in 20 th century America, making it a useful case study as well. Although this is not a work of art history, some of the artists' visual work is analyzed, since their subject matter and aesthetic style often reflect the ideological convictions that drew them together. Ultimately, the dissertation argues that this colorful and profoundly involved group provided an alternative route to acculturation within American society for Jews who did not wish to follow more establishment models.Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2004.School code: 0315
African Refugee Camp (Box 114, Folder 14)
No full textThis folder of material was located in Box 114. Folder originally titled: Africa Refugee Camp - 2004.Digital ImageDigital finding aid
[Irma Reich biographical notes].
No full textBiographical notes on Irma Reich née Hamburger, including her family; experiences of discrimination in Germany; immigration to the United States via England and South America; marriage to Martin Reich; and their child and grandchildren.digitizedIrma Reich née Hamburger was born on January 26, 1920, in Fürstenau to Alfred Hamburger and Henny Hamburger née Bachrach. Irma fled to England at age 19. Her brother Siegmund, who had immigrated to South America, helped her obtain a visa to South America, and she was reunited with him there. In 1948, whe Siegmund moved to New York, Irma went with him. On December 22, 1938, she married Martin Reich, who had also emigrated from Germany to the United States. On September 12, 1949, Suzanne Evelyn Reich, their only child, was born. Irma Reich died in 2003
The Brafmann/Bravmann family of Unteraltertheim (Bavaria).
No full textNotes on the Brafmann (Bravmann) family of Unteraltertheim, including birth, death, and marriage dates for Benjamin/Baruch Brafmann and his father, wife, and children from 1733 to 1901.digitize
Registre des Tombes au cimetière isr. de Grussenheim /
No full textCemetery register of the Jewish cemetery in Grussenheim. The register includes names, dates of death, and gravesite locations. Burial dates are from the early 19th to late 20th century. Also included is a list of gravestones without surnames.digitizedGrussenheim is a commune in the Haut-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France. The first synagogue was built in Grussenheim in 1850, and a Jewish school was established in 1869. The Jewish cemetery dates from the beginning of the 19th century. The synagogue was completely destroyed during World War II