Jewish history

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• 9/25/2022
  

  Anne Frank's Next Diary Entries

  by Bernice Lerner

  When I was a teenager, I imagined that Anne Frank was at my mother’s 15th birthday party. After all, they were the same age and they were both in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. How did I arrive at such a phantastic conflation?

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• SOURCE: Jerusalem Post
  9/13/2022
  

  Ken Burns's Holocaust History Has a Palestine Problem

  by Rafael Medoff and Monty Noam Penkower

  Although there was no sovereign government in Palestine between 1933 and 1945, British authorities there admitted a quarter million Jewish refugees. The filmmaker's focus on "sovereign" countries' record admitting refugees burnishes the Roosevelt administration's record. 

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• SOURCE: Thirteen
  9/6/2022
  

  Burns Revisits American Holocaust Role

  The new documentary examines the nation's response to Jewish refugees in the context of Southern Jim Crow policies and global racism and antisemitism. 

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• 8/28/2022
  

  How I Helped a Private Man Share His Story of Escaping the Nazis

  by David Tabatsky

  For me, the son of a cantor and WWII veteran, who grew up seeing numbers tattooed on numerous arms, sharing Salomon Kool's story has reminded me of a collective mission to always remember.

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• SOURCE: Forward
  8/16/2022
  

  An Honest Conversation about Jews for Racial and Economic Justice

  by Jacob Remes

  The president of the Antidefamation League recently said the progressive Jewish group was out of line with "mainstream Jewish values." A member and historian begs to differ. 

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• SOURCE: Forward
  8/8/2022
  

  Julius Klein Helped German Companies Hide Nazi Links. Why Does a Jewish Museum Honor Him?

  Julius Klein's work as a lobbyist for the West German government involved rehabbing the reputations of former Nazis, and led to his expulsion from the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, the organization whose museum now honors him with a permanent exhibit. 

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• SOURCE: Tablet
  6/28/2022
  

  A Legend of Innocence

  by Daniel Solomon

  Both the French left and right are impeding the teaching of how 75,000 French Jews were turned over to the Nazis. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  4/13/2022
  

  Is "Passover" a Mistranslation?

  "Jews will begin celebrating this holiday, which commemorates the exodus of the enslaved Israelites from ancient Egypt, on Friday night. In the Hebrew Bible, this festival is called “Pesach.” In English, it is known as “Passover.” But what if that’s a mistake?"

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• SOURCE: LitHub
  4/9/2022
  

  James Baldwin's Essay "Negroes are Anti-Semitic Because they're Anti-White" 55 Years Later

  by Jacques Berlinerblau and Terrence L. Johnson

  "He appears to be attacking one thing (i.e., the Jews), yet his true targets lie elsewhere."

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• SOURCE: Public Books
  3/29/2022
  

  Can the Past be Repaired?

  by Sophie Gonick

  Menachem Kaiser's memoir of attempts to reclaim a Polish building lost by his Jewish grandfather during World War II raises questions about the right to property as parts of historical memory, and the problematic aspects of seeking reparation through restoration of ownership.

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• SOURCE: WNYC
  3/25/2022
  

  One American Family's Debt to Ukrainians

  The writer Franklin Foer heard echoes of a family history in Putin's claims to "denazify" Ukraine. He went to Ukraine to investigate the story. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  3/28/2022
  

  "We Need New Stories of Post-Soviet Jews"

  A team of historians and Jewish and Russian Studies scholars introduce a project to examine the more recent history of Jews in the former Soviet Union. 

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• SOURCE: The Metropole
  3/28/2022
  

  From Religious Separatism to Political Mobilization: "American Shtetl" Reviewed

  by Bob Carey

  A new book examines the growth of the Kiryas Joel community of Hasidic Jews in rural New York State, and the tension between religious community and secular power. 

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• SOURCE: CBN
  3/22/2022
  

  Dutch Publisher Recalls Anne Frank Book after Report Challenges Findings

  A panel of historians and other experts in the Netherlands concluded that the investigators had relied on poor readings of sources and fabrication to name a fellow Amsterdam Jew as the person who betrayed the Franks' hiding place to the Nazis.

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  3/22/2022
  

  Does Zelensky's Image Upend Stereotypes about Jewish Masculinity?

  by Miriam Eve Mora

  The emergence of Ukraine's Jewish president as an exemplar of wartime valor challenges longstanding stereotypes about Jewish men. 

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• SOURCE: Jewish Currents
  3/3/2022
  

  Our Oligarch? Do Roman Abramovich's Donations Link Major Jewish Philanthropies to Putin?

  by David Klion

  Abramovich was one of a number of Soviet Jews, excluded from the Communist Party, who moved aggressively into the post-Soviet economy, amassed great fortunes, and either held or fell from favor with Vladimir Putin. Are his enormous donations to global Jewish charities reputation laundering? 

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• SOURCE: Salon
  2/7/2022
  

  "Blacks and Jews" Authors: Whoopi Not the Enemy, but Gaps of Understanding are Real

  Attributing either the Holocaust or anti-Black racism to "man's inhumanity to man" ignores the specific roles of ideology and politics in creating systemic racism. The authors of a new book on Black-Jewish relations in America discuss how discourse goes astray between the general and the specific. 

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• SOURCE: Mother Jones
  2/1/2022
  

  The Banning of Maus: Even Dumber Than You Think

  David Corn says that for the students of McMinn County, "their intellectual development is being held hostage by board members who are stuck in another era, who find vulgarity in an old pop song, and who cannot be bothered to do their own homework."

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• SOURCE: CNN
  

  Child Holocaust Survivor: Whoopi Goldberg's Remarks "Careless" and "Saddening"

  Survivor and Holocaust educator Joan Salter says that the TV host's remarks grossly miss the nature of antisemitic ideology, oppression and genocide under Nazism. 

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• SOURCE: USA Today
  2/2/2022
  

  Whoopi Goldberg's Confusion about Racism and the Holocaust Matters Because it's Common

  by Jonathan Zimmerman

  The TV host's remarks about the Holocaust illustrate the pervasive hold of the idea that race is a biological fact instead of a set of social categories that have changed across time and place. Historians should take this moment to educate rather than condemn.