We Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence After the Holocaust, 1945-1962 - Couverture rigide

Diner, Hasia R.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0814719937 ISBN 13 : 9780814719930

Editeur : New York University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Book by Diner Hasia

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

It has become an accepted truth: after World War II, American Jews chose to be silent about the mass murder of millions of their European brothers and sisters at the hands of the Nazis. Whether motivated by fear, shame, or the desire to assimilate, the Jewish community in the United States simply did not memorialize the Holocaust until the Eichmann trial and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War made it socially acceptable for them to do so. In a compelling work sure to draw fire from academics and pundits alike, Hasia R. Diner shows this assumption of silence to be categorically false. Uncovering a rich and incredibly varied trove of remembrances - in song, literature, liturgy, public display, political activism, and hundreds of other forms - "We Remember with Reverence and Love" shows that publicly memorializing those who died in the Holocaust arose from a deep and powerful element of Jewish life in post-war America. Not only does she marshal enough evidence to dismantle the idea of American Jewish 'forgetfulness,' she brings to life the moving and manifold ways that this widely diverse group paid tribute to the tragedy. Uncovering a wonderfully rich and incredibly varied trove of remembrances - in song, literature, liturgy, public display, and hundreds of other forms - the NYU professor shows that publicly memorializing those who died in the Holocaust was a deep and powerful element of Jewish life in post-war America. Not only does she marshal enough evidence to utterly destroy the idea of American Jewish 'forgetfulness,' she brings to life the moving and manifold ways that this widely diverse group paid tribute to the tragedy. Diner also offers a compelling new perspective on the 1960s and its potent legacy, by revealing how our typical understanding of the post-war years emerged from the cauldron of cultural divisions and campus battles a generation later. The student activists and 'new Jews' of the 1960s who, in rebelling against the American Jewish world they had grown up in 'a world of remarkable affluence and broadening cultural possibilities' created a flawed portrait of what their parents had, or rather, had not, done in the post-war years. This distorted legacy has been transformed by two generations of scholars, writers, rabbis, and Jewish community leaders into a taken-for-granted truth. Diner has at last recovered these vital years in American Jewish history, and radically alters our understanding not only of post-war America Jewry, but of the ways that the Holocaust and the 1960s alike continue to reverberate in our lives.

Revue de presse :

"A startling and passionate work of history. No one has written about the early American Jewish response to the Holocaust with more insight, sophistication, and sensitivity." --Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible

"A powerful book worthy of its important subject. Diner revises our understanding of the critical post-war decades when American Jews incorporated bitter memories of the murder of European Jews into their collective consciousness." --Deborah Dash Moore, author of GI Jews

"Diner hurls a passionate, well-delineated attack on the conventional view that postwar Jews and survivors wanted to forget the Holocaust rather than memorialize the tragedy...she uncovers a rich and varied history of how Jews have incorporated and made sense of the Holocaust...Diner is particularly compelling in her exploration of how the postwar Jewish liberal agenda-transformed by the experience of the Holocaust, immigration discrimination and anti-Semitism in America-boldly embraced the civil-rights crusade...A work of towering research and conviction that will surely enliven academic debates for years to come." Kirkus Review, 2nd Jan 09 "An important contribution to American Jewish historiography, this book is recommended for all libraries."- --Library Journal, Feb 09

"Perhaps the 'myth of silence' was a necessary stage in American Jewry s ongoing struggle to make sense of its place in a post-Holocaust world. But even if that myth once served a need, thanks to Hasia Diner s work, it must now be retired for good." --Adam Kirsch, Tablet, 23rd June 2009

"Diner hurls a passionate, well-delineated attack on the conventional view that postwar Jews and survivors wanted to forget the Holocaust rather than memorialize the tragedy...she uncovers a rich and varied history of how Jews have incorporated and made sense of the Holocaust...Diner is particularly compelling in her exploration of how the postwar Jewish liberal agenda-transformed by the experience of the Holocaust, immigration discrimination and anti-Semitism in America-boldly embraced the civil-rights crusade...A work of towering research and conviction that will surely enliven academic debates for years to come." Kirkus Review, 2nd Jan 09 "An important contribution to American Jewish historiography, this book is recommended for all libraries."- --Library Journal, Feb 09

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: New York University Press
• Date d'édition: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0814719937
• ISBN 13: 9780814719930
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 540