Abstract This paper refers to treatment of Jews by most Poles during WWII as assisting the Germans locate and kill Jews. The author points out that, although the survival rate for Jews in Poland was only 1 percent, hostility and violence against them marked the post WWII period, including the 1946 Kiel pogrom. The paper cites official anti-Semitic campaigns against Jews in the 1960s.
From the Paper "Polish-Jewish relations still remain strained after a turbulent relationship during the ... century. During WWII, the survival rate for Jews in Poland was percent 1 percent. During WWII, Poland was partitioned by Germany and Russia. Stalin .."
Tags: Polish, Jewish, Jews, Poles, society, racism, prejudice, violence, pogroms, ideology, Catholic church, law enforcement, anti-Semitic, fascism, Soviet Russia
An analysis of the ongoing question of identity as it relates to Jews living in Russia and whether they see themselves first as Russians or first as Jews.
2,250 words (approx. 9 pages), 9 sources, 2006, $ 89.95
Abstract This paper refers to problem of 'who is a Russian?' and the special problems associated with a varied Russian Jewish community, anti-Semitism, and assumptions concerning Jewish versus Russian identity. Jews in tsarist and Soviet Russia, and in the present, are outlined to indicate similar thematic problems. High emigration has reduced the Russian Jewish community, but many remained uncounted, as some are determined to remain who view themselves as first and foremost Russian as opposed to Jewish.
Abstract In this paper, the writer examines the book 'The Gifts of the Jews' by Thomas Cahill. The writer looks at the underlying values of Judaism. In this article, the importance of monotheism is also discussed. In addition, the writer looks at the covenant between God and man.
From the Paper "Thomas Cahill states in the first page of 'The Gifts of the Jews' that the Jews started it all and by 'it', I mean so many of the things we care about the underlying values that make all of us Jew and Gentile believer and atheist tick. Throughout his text, Cahill identifies a number of gifts given to Western civilization by the Jews including the very idea of vocation of a personal destiny as well as what may well be the most ... "
This paper examines three excerpts from the "Hasidic Tales of the Holocaust" by Yaffa Eliach to determine the impact of the Holocaust on the spiritual survival and modern consciousness of the Jewish people.
Abstract This paper explains that addressing the events of the Holocaust from both an imaginative and realistic perspective allows for a better understanding of the experience from the people who were most affected: The six million Jews who were murdered, the survivors and the legacy of the Jewish heritage in the State of Israel. The author points out that the religious legacy of devotion to God and the sacrifices of the Jewish people, from a time-oriented, linear perspective, are described by Yaffa Eliach in the chapter, "Who Will Win This War?" in which she narrates the sufferings of Jewish prisoners doomed to Nazi labor battalions in Poland. The paper relates that the value of a religious education for the devout Jews at Bergen Belsen is reflected in the chapter, "What I Learned at My Father's Home," in which the author describes the sacrifices of one mother in an attempt to educate her children in Jewish law and tradition, even under these deprived circumstances.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Review and Discussion
Time Orientation of Narratives
Concepts and Treatment of Death
The Value of a Religious Education for the Devout Jews at Bergen Belsen
Primo Levi's Reaction to the Concept of Time during the Holocaust
The Survival of Primo Levi in Auschwitz
A Blessing on the Moon
Conclusion
From the Paper "When the group of Jews refused the commandant's alternative of breaking their observance of Yom Kippur by repeatedly sliding down the mountain on the stomachs, the scene was described as, "At midnight, as the rains abated, the performance was stopped. The men were given food and drink. They lit small campfires, trying to dry their clothes and warm their shivering bodies. Their faces shone with a strange glow as they sat around the small campfires at the foot of Bornemissza. It seemed as if the campfires reflected the glow of their shining faces and burning eyes" (p. 105). This observance of an ancient religious ceremony in the face of such brutality prompted one young Nazi officer to tell the group of exhausted Jews: "I don't know who will win this war, but one thing I am sure of -- people like you, a nation like yours, will never be defeated, never!" '
Tags: observance, education, narrative, time, surviva
Abstract This paper takes a look at the Haskalah or "Jewish Enlightenment" and the Hasidic movement that prevailed in Europe during the late 1700s and most of the 1800s. This paper also takes a look at the life and thoughts of Moses Mendelssohn, one of the major revolutionary thinkers of the Haskalah and at that of Dov Ber, one of the great leaders of the Hasidic movement.
From the Paper "As a result of Mendelssohn's arguments, the Haskalah movement reduced the Judaic faith to a collection of ceremonial laws while also expanding the movement into a universal religion based on reason and logic. The characteristics of the followers of the Haskalah movement thus influenced a great deal of modern Jewish thought, for in contrast to earlier Jewish philosophies, that of the Haskalah movement sought to bring together revelation and reason as one body of truth and endeavored to show the importance of Judaism as part of the framework of human reason, logic and culture. One other aspect of the Haskalah movement was Zionism which aimed to establish Jewish nationalism in Palestine in order to support the existence of Israel, something that Mendelssohn viewed as being a mission for all Haskalah members in order to justify the continued presence of Judaism and Jewish religious thought.
In contrast to the Haskalah movement, the Hasidic movement was not based on the higher echelons of philosophical thought nor on the ideas of intellectuals like Mendelssohn. The first adherents of the Hasidic movement were teachers that were part of a popular group of evangelists who wandered from one to community to another, usually among the lower classes of poor Jews in Podolia and the surrounding countryside. Some observers at the time thought that these teachers held Shabbatean viewpoints, due to socializing with lesser merchants and the poor, a view that later influenced the development of the Hasidic movement in the 19th century."
A discussion regarding the religious and psychological dimensions of the practice of mystical piety in Hasidism, focusing on Maurice Friedman's text, "Religion and Psychology: A Dialogical Approach".
Abstract This paper reviews Maurice Friedman's discussion and analysis of Hasidism in the text, "Religion and Psychology: A Dialogical Approach".
The paper reports that the author looks into the religious beliefs and practices that characterize Hasidism as a mystical religion.
From the Paper "Looking into Hasidism from a psychological, specifically psychoanalytical, point of view, it provides a good example of how the individual makes sense of his/her realities as a Hasid. Unlike other religions, Hasidism and its practices and traditions does not bring forth problems of self-deprivation in order to achieve the state of otherworldliness, since it already advocates for the individual's establishment of being in sync with the material world. However, Hasidism is unique in that it tries to balance both the individual's needs and community's requirements in the practice of Hasidist religious experiences."
Abstract This paper discusses the controversial question of "who is a Jew?". It provides Rabbinic and cultural sources for arguments of each side and concludes with the statement that there is no one way of defining who a Jew is.
From the paper:
"This at first may seem like a simple question. Let us examine some different ways that we could answer this in modern times. We could say ?Jews are those born of Jewish Mothers or any person who has gone through the formal process of conversion in full compliance with Jewish law.? This gives a purely biological aspect to the question. We could also say, ?those who practice the Jewish faith and prescribe to the doctrines of that faith.? This seems like a reasonable answer and fairly clear to define. But it may not be as easy as it seems, for the practice of the Jewish Faith has many variations, which have been the arguments of many rabbis over the years. The emergence of the Orthodox, Conservative and Reformed movements are just the beginning of the problem of defining who is a Jew by specific practices. A third possibility to answering the question of who is a Jew would be to make a statement such as, ?A Jew is descended from one of the twelve tribes of Israel.? That puts us back to the original answer about genetics and biology. In this paper I will demonstrate actions or beliefs cannot define that who is a Jew. "
Abstract This paper examines Thomas Cahill's "The Gifts of the Jews: How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone Thinks and Feels," a radical reinterpretation of what Jews have brought to western civilization and a retelling of Biblical stories. It discusses how the theme of the books seems to be revisioning the history of the Jews, who are usually thought of as a beleaguered wandering tribe of peoples who were the victims of unthinkable horror and unbelievable hatred. It sets out to show that we owe the Jews the shape of western civilization. It looks at how the Jews gave us freedom, a day of rest and the concept of monotheism.
From the Paper "Cahill makes many interesting points. One of them is that the reason the Bible has those long, incantatory, and often narcoleptic genealogies, is that by listing individual's names, even women's names, the Jews are saying that every individual counts. Their history and contribution counts. he Bible is remarkable for how often it tells the stories of ?ordinary people.? In a way, this is reminiscent of the meaning and success of Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. Each name has meaning, and that meaning builds as the list of names builds. As the Jewish saying goes, ?If you save one life, you save the world entire.?"
Abstract This paper focuses on the mass murder of the Jews in U.S.S.R. during World War II at the hands of the Nazis. It provides a chronological list of events in the U.S.S.R. from 1939-1945. It describes how the task of dealing with the Jews was entrusted to the shock groups (Einsatzgruppen) that accompanied the army assisted by local groups of collaborationists and how the Germans generally used one of four methods and in some cases, a combination of these methods to exterminate the Jews in the occupied localities in the Soviet Union: mass murders in ravines and quarries, rounding up and immediate extermination, concentration camps and ghettos. It concludes by telling the story of ghettoes of Vilna, Minsk, Riga.
From the Paper "A few days later an announcement was made ordering the Jews to register with the Judenrat, on pain of death. After a few more days"or weeks, at the most"the Jews were ordered to report at a certain spot in the town, from which they were going to be sent to a labor camp or ?moved to Palestine.? These announcements usually included a threat that any Jew who failed to report, and any person who helped Jews to hide, would be executed. The Jews were told to take along only a few items, and no food at all, since it would be provided for them by the authorities. The assembled Jews were escorted by Germans and locally recruited armed units who beat them, harassed them, and shot anyone who lagged behind or voiced any kind of protest."
Abstract This paper will examine several issues in the hope of understanding how the pursuit of war criminals directly affected (and continues to affect), Canadians and Canadian Jews as Canadians, as well as Canadian Jews as Jews. In addressing these concerns, the historical relationship between government and Jewish groups in the period under discussion, will be referenced as well.
Abstract This paper explains that Hitler believed that to achieve his dream of a pure racial state in Germany, he had to totally eliminate the Jews from the face of the earth. The author points out that the first working session of the Reichszentrale began the process of concentrating all matters concerning Jewish emigration into the hands of the police. The paper relates that in the concentration camps German doctors practiced "medical experiments", known as eugenics, on the Jews in which experiments were made regarding the purity of German blood as opposed to that of the Jews.
From the Paper "Hitler's first stage of this act toward racial purity and a racial state was aimed at accomplishing two ends?first, Germany had to purge itself of its internal enemies, and second, Germany had to make itself strong. The first step in this process was purgation, which had been achieved with the promulgation of the laws of 1933 and the Nuremberg Laws. At the end of August of 1936, Hitler went to Berchtesgaden, where he prepared his memorandum on the Four Year Plan. A portion of this document provided for the expropriation of all Jews when Germany went to war, for the Reichstag was to pass a law "making the whole of Jewry liable for all damages inflicted by individual specimens . . . upon the German economy and thus upon the German people"."
Abstract This paper examines how Jewish historian Lucy S. Davidowicz wrote "The War Against the Jews 1933-1945" to explain the annihilation of six million Jews during the Second World War by the German state under Adolf Hitler. It looks at how she sets out to prove the Second World War was in fact caused by the desire of Hitler and the German state he built, to exterminate the European Jews.
From the Paper "Considering the term "Jewish question" Davidowicz cites the "solution" offered by Constantine Pobyedonostsev, chief adviser to Czar Alexander III, in 1881: one-third of the Jews were to emigrate, one-third to convert, and one-third to die of hunger. She observes the National Socialists adopted this concept. She then considers what was a new element adopted by the National Socialists, embodied in the word "final." The main thrust of her argument is the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question" in the National Socialist conception was not just another anti-Semitic undertaking, but a "metahistorical" program of judgment and death."
Abstract This paper explains that, while Aquinas' work may be remembered by many for its original thought, his arguments in the case of Jews lost their credibility because of frequent dualities. The author points out that, while, on the one hand, Aquinas tried to be sympathetic and tolerant; on the other hand, he created an undesirable duality when he refused to resist some stereotypical images of Jews as usurers and murderers of Christ. The paper states that, when he had the opportunity to dispel some old beliefs and add a new and refreshing angle to the age-old prejudice held against Jews, Aquinas failed miserably. Many quotations.
From the Paper "The works of Saint Augustine were one of the major sources for Aquinas' writings. His views on Jews are largely a response to Augustine's arguments. Thus, we must not deny the influence of other thinkers and philosophers on Aquinas' work but we must also admit that his work bore a distinctive mark that indicated originality and independent thinking. Aquinas was particularly interested in Pharisaic Judaism. This sect was responsible for calling Jesus a Samaritan- a term they used for someone who was seen as unclean. Samaritans were usually classed with the Philistines and Edomites as Mishna declares: "He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine.""
Abstract The paper explains that in "The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust", David Wyman argues that the United States abandoned the Jews because of a combination of anti-Semitism and indifference. In this paper, the writer contends that Wyman ignores the economic distress caused by the Great Depression and the fact that the US rarely makes military interventions for humanitarian purposes. The writer therefore believes that it is an overly simplistic and historically uninformed argument to propose that the US is responsible for the Jews and abandoned them to the Nazis.
From the Paper "In his book, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, David Wyman argues that the political and military leadership of the United States could have saved thousands - even millions - of European Jews by taking early steps of intervention against the Nazis. For Wyman, America's inaction is tantamount to complicity in these horrific crimes against humanity. He argues that the United States abandoned the Jews because of a combination of anti-Semitism and indifference to anything that was not considered to be of strategic importance to the United States. The fact is that the United States of the 1930s and early 1940s was a much different country than the world power it is today. It was an isolationist country that had just struggled through the Great Depression."
Abstract A look at the arrival of Jews in America from the early settlers to the main wave of immigration at the beginning of the 20th century. It discusses how the Jews have always been welcomed in the United States and how the country has become a place of great cultural and religious development recently for Judaism. It examines the trend of Jewish immigration parallel to the arrival of other religions to the United States.
From the Paper "America is a long way from the ancestral homes of the Jews, but this does not in any way mean that it is not been a welcoming place for the Jewish people who have, in many ways, thrived in the New World. But the story of the Jews in America is not entirely a successful one, or at least not a traditionally successful one, for much of the sense of Jewish identity has been lost in our semi-Melting Pot, and if Jews have not had in this nation to face the terrible persecutions that they have met in other nations then they have also intermarried at high rates and left the teachings and communities of their ancestors."
Tags:Jew, Judaism, United, States, freedom, immigration
