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AHC Interview with Adolf Singer
No full textAdolf Singer was born on September 3, 1924 in Vienna. He and his family lived in a wealthy home in the 18th district of Vienna. His father owned a factory for chemicals and his mother worked as a secretary and bookkeeper. The Singers had to flee from Vienna on September 1, 1938. They went to England, where Mr. Singer’s parents and his brother stayed for the rest of their lives. Adolf Singer immigrated in 1961 to the United States and worked there as a physician. Today he is retired and lives in Southampton, New York
AHC Interview with Eric Pleskow
No full textEric Pleskow was born as Erich Pleskoff in Vienna on April 24, 1924. He lived with his family at Porzellangasse 56 in the ninth Viennese district. He went to high school in Vienna at the "Paedagogische Institut" from 1930 until 1934, from then on to "Realgymnasium Unterbergergasse" until 1938. He fled from Vienna in August 1939 and went via Paris and Rotterdam to New York. There he attended George Washington High School and, from 1941-1943, City University of New York. He worked in the film industry as president of Orion Pictures and United Artists
AHC Interview with Margaret G. Margulies
No full textMargaret Margulies, nee Wolf, was born in Vienna, on October 24, 1929. She lived in the second district at Venediger Au 4 and Taborstrasse 24, together with her parents and brother. She went to an elementary school located at Wolfgang Schmezlgasse 15. Her father was sent to Dachau concentration camp on November 10, 1938, but was released a couple of months later in early 1939. They fled from Vienna on February 10, 1940 to New York, via ship from Genova, Italy. Margaret Margulies then worked as a legal secretary in New York
AHC interview with Paul Peter Porges.
No full textOctober 27, 2005The cartoonist and illustrator Paul Peter Porges was born in Vienna, Austria on Feb. 7, 1927. One year after ‘Anschluss’ he was sent away to France, where he spent a year at La Guette camp for children, which was sponsored by the Rothschild family. After the German invasion of France, Porges stayed with family in southern France, but was interned at the camp in Rivesaltes. He eventually managed to cross the border illegally to Switzerland and to reach the United States. Porges served in the US Army 1950-1952.Austrian Heritage CollectionSee also the book by Lucie & Paul Peter Porges : Style and humor, which includes interviews that had been conducted by the Jewish Museum of Vienna, June 1998-December 1999 (LBI Library call number q 51)
Spatial relationality: Urban space and ethnic relations in Jewish-Arab mixed towns, 1948--2004.
No full textThis dissertation examines how urban space, Jewish Arab sociality and local/national identities are both represented and produced in ethnically mixed cities since the establishment of the state of Israel to the present. Against the background of a century-long conflict between the Jewish and Palestinian national movements, this research studies the relations between the Jewish and Palestinian "projects of nativization" and community building efforts in a politically and culturally contested urban setting. While most scholars conceptualize both Palestinian and Jewish national collective identities as separate and antagonistic projects---indeed as respectively independent ideologies of autochthony defined only by the negation and exclusion of the other---I focus instead precisely on the dialectic process of mutual determination between these communities often rendered invisible in Palestinian-Israeli studies. Within a critique of what Ulrich Beck has termed "methodological nationalism," I deconstruct this unidimensional segregation/integration paradigm in an ethnographic site that is itself considered from a nationalistic perspective to be a historical and political anomaly. Thus, the study posits mixed towns as a challenge to the hegemonic ethno-nationalist guiding principles of the Israeli state, which ultimately fails to maintain homogeneous, segregated and ethnically stable spaces. This failure, I argue, results in the parallel existence of heteronomous spaces in these cities---operating through multiple, often contradictory, logics of space, class, nation and governance. Analyzed relationally, these spaces produce a peculiar form of quotidian social relations between Arabs and Jews as well as new forms of local identities, political coalitions and hybrid cultures that challenge both Palestinian and Jewish nationalisms.Focusing on cities like Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, Lydda and Ramla, I historicize the particular place they have occupied in the Israeli and Palestinian popular, political and sociological imagination. A bi-national borderland in which Arabs and Jews live together, these cities bring to the fore, on the one hand, the paradox of Palestinian citizens in a fundamentally Jewish state, while simultaneously suggesting, by the mere spatial and social realization of "mixed-ness," the potential imaginary of its solution. Through ethnographic and historical research centered in Jaffa this project investigates the contradictory process of "inter-permeation" between the two populations taking place in mixed towns. On the one hand, the accelerated gentrification process brings affluent Jews into poor mixed neighborhoods, thus provoking violent dispute and bitter frustration among lower-class Arab and some veteran Jewish inhabitants. Simultaneously, however, as many lower-class Jewish families move out of mixed towns, growing numbers of mixed-income Palestinians purchase apartments in the now cheaper and formerly "Jewish" neighborhoods. Analyzing life stories, urban "riots," planning policies and the history of community organizing, I show how Jewish and Palestinian Jaffans, implicated in economic, social and cultural relations of interdependence within the larger context of Israeli society and state, strive to define their respective collective identity and communal distinction. These latter processes as well as their ensuing complex bi-national form of sociality and spatiality, serve as a lens through which the research engages a wider set of questions in urban anthropology regarding ethnicity, citizenship, and identity-making as embedded in practices of "making place."Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Chicago, 2005.School code: 0330
Rescue and survival of Jews in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), 1941--1945.
No full textThis dissertation focuses on the rescue of the Jews in the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during World War II. The central thesis is that, despite the brutalities of the Nazis and the Ustashe (Croatian Fascists), assistance came from all strata of the society: from officials in the NDH government, the Catholic Church, from national and international humanitarian organizations, the Italian 2nd Army, as well as thousands of ordinary citizens, family friends, neighbors, strangers and even individual Ustashe. The reasons, the means, and the ways of offering rescue and assistance varied, but most of those that reached out to help took great risks and put themselves in harm's way. They offered shelter, provided food, obtained forged exit visas, transported Jews across enemy lines and rescued children whose parents either had joined the Partisans or had been deported to concentration camps. However, due to the hostile and complicated political, religious and social environment in NDH, 30,000 Jews (77%) lost their lives. Thus, it is not surprising that contemporary historiographic literature focuses for the most part on the annihilation of the Jews. But there is a second side to this story: 9,500 Jews were rescued and survived.In this dissertation, I attempt to answer the following questions: (1) how did 9,500 Jews survive? (2) Who were the rescuers? (3) Was rescue the result of random acts or deliberate and purposeful actions? (4) Who was rescued and for what purpose? (5) Which territories of occupation had the highest rate of survival and why? The answers to these questions provide enough information to understand how rescue took place in NDH and in the territories under German and Italian occupation.Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of New York, 2005.School code: 0046
Tara House, Maputo, Mozambique, Exterior View
No full textDigital imageJay Waronker is an architect and a professor of architecture in the United States, educated at Cornell, Harvard, and the University of Michigan. His paintings and scholarship focus on the synagogues and Jewish architecture of the Indian subcontinent and sub-Saharan Africa, including synagogues found in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Kenya, and Ethiopia
Orthodox Yiddish literature in interwar Poland.
No full textIn Poland between the two world wars Yiddish literary works in modern forms appeared in the periodicals of the major Orthodox political party Agudes Yisroel. This study situates this Orthodox literature---which has been all but overlooked in Yiddish literary history---in its historical, social and literary contexts, and analyses a representative sample of its works.The study begins by tracing developments in the nineteenth century that prepared the ground for Orthodox writing in modern literary forms. Only in the interwar period, however, did a group of writers crystallize who consciously strove to create what they themselves termed "Orthodox literature." Besides the founding of the Aguda in 1916 and with it an Orthodox Yiddish press, a major factor in the emergence of Orthodox Yiddish literature at this time was Jewish youth culture in interwar Poland that placed much importance on reading and writing. Indeed, articles published in Aguda youth journals make it clear that Orthodox literature was regarded primarily as a tool with which to combat secular Yiddish literature that was blamed for the defection of large numbers of young people from the traditional way of life. The didactic orientation of Orthodox literature is borne out by analysis of a selection of Orthodox prose and poetry, in which ideological concerns generally trump aesthetic value. On subjects ranging from the shtetl to the lyric self, Orthodox writers were constantly limited by what was considered suitable in the Orthodox context; some topics, such as male-female relationships and criticism of parents or teachers, were effectively taboo. Exceptional is the writer V. Laykhter who achieved remarkable aesthetic sophistication within these limitations.In addition to opening up a little known chapter in Yiddish literary history, this study contributes to current scholarship on the transformation of traditional Jewish life in the modern period. Like the political party and the press, Orthodox Yiddish literature exemplifies the way in which the Orthodox establishment adopted and adapted modern forms in the name of preserving tradition---and thereby, often unconsciously, initiated a process of change in what "tradition" is understood to be.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Columbia University, 2005.School code: 0054
The question of Heimat: Identity and alterity in contemporary German literature and film.
No full textThe German Heimat, so profoundly evocative of serenity and a sense of intimate belonging, could be said to come into its 'own' only when it threatens to become 'other,' that is, only when it is poised in opposition to the unprecedented threat of alienation and fragmentation brought by rapid social changes. Referring at once to family, childhood, native place, and/or homeland, the word Heimat may not hold the same significance for any two Germans, or from one German home to another. Nor has its meaning remained the same over time. A 'fiction' whose reality can be measured in the emotionally and ideologically charged battles of recent German cultural history, this ubiquitous idea of Heimat will be closely examined in the present dissertation from three different but interrelated perspectives on contemporary German film and literature.After an introduction which offers an overview of the concept and history of Heimat, the first chapter examines the (re)emergence of the Heimatfilme in postwar Germany and its counter-reaction with the rise of New German Cinema, focusing on Edgar Reitz's sixteen-hour film called, appropriately enough, Heimat. The second chapter examines the issues of identity and alienation in contemporary German-Jewish literature with a focus on Roman von einem Kinde of Barbara Honigmann, a German Jewish writer who makes her home in Strasbourg, France today, at the very border of Germany in both space and time, a fact that figures not incidentally in her work. Finally, the third chapter examines the so-called migrant literature that emerged with the influx of guest workers into the Federal Republic. With Bitte nix Polizei, Turkish born writer Aras Oren suggests how what was once called Germany's Gastarbeiterliteratur belongs essentially and simply to German literature itself. In all three works the question of Heimat presents a network of identity and alterity, belonging and alienation, as one negotiates present realities and future possibilities, while exposing the Heimat as a construction that is openly contested.Thesis (Ph.D.)--Yale University, 2005.School code: 0265
Waging peace in the Holy Land: A qualitative study of Seeds of Peace, 1993--2004.
No full textThis study focuses on Seeds of Peace, a peace education program whose purpose is to bring together teenagers from conflict regions, train them to be future leaders, and promote conflict resolution, reconciliation, and coexistence. The experiences of the Palestinian, Israeli-Jewish, and Israeli-Palestinian participants at the summer camp, during re-entry, and in subsequent years, particularly during the second intifada, are portrayed using qualitative methods. The study also describes and analyzes the Seeds of Peace program from 1993--2004, highlighting the implementation of the follow-up program in the home region. Theories from the field of social psychology, including social identity theory and the contact hypothesis, and literature on peace education interventions conducted in the context of the Israeli - Palestinian conflict, are employed to explain sources of intergroup conflict and models of how they can best be addressed and overcome. Data collection consisted of interviews of participants and staff members, observations of the camp and follow-up program, and written documentation produced by the participants. The participants' journeys were fraught with difficulties, particularly during re-entry and periods of violent conflict. Following the onset of the second intifada, external asymmetric power relations had a greater impact on the functioning of the program and tendencies to revert to previously-held negative attitudes became more pronounced as each group faced increasingly negative messages from their communities regarding the other side. Furthermore, participants grappled with what they referred to as the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) dilemma' as Israeli-Jews approached the age of mandatory military service. However, despite these challenges, according to many of the participants interviewed for this study, contact with the 'enemy' group promoted greater understanding of the conflict and its various narratives, humanization of the other side, increased self-concept, and enhanced communication and leadership skills. The use of a mixed model with multiple categorization strategies and a follow-up program enhanced positive outcomes. The findings of this study, presented through a narrative format, should provide many insights into designing and implementing peace education programs between teenagers from groups involved in intractable conflict, particularly during a period characterized by acute violence and a lack of top-down peacemaking initiatives.Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University, 2005.School code: 0017