Jews and Power

Jews and Power PDF Author: Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0307533131
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Jews and Power

Jews and Power PDF Author: Ruth R. Wisse
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0307533131
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Get Book Here

Book Description
Part of the Jewish Encounter series Taking in everything from the Kingdom of David to the Oslo Accords, Ruth Wisse offers a radical new way to think about the Jewish relationship to power. Traditional Jews believed that upholding the covenant with God constituted a treaty with the most powerful force in the universe; this later transformed itself into a belief that, unburdened by a military, Jews could pursue their religious mission on a purely moral plain. Wisse, an eminent professor of comparative literature at Harvard, demonstrates how Jewish political weakness both increased Jewish vulnerability to scapegoating and violence, and unwittingly goaded power-seeking nations to cast Jews as perpetual targets. Although she sees hope in the State of Israel, Wisse questions the way the strategies of the Diaspora continue to drive the Jewish state, echoing Abba Eban's observation that Israel was the only nation to win a war and then sue for peace. And then she draws a persuasive parallel to the United States today, as it struggles to figure out how a liberal democracy can face off against enemies who view Western morality as weakness. This deeply provocative book is sure to stir debate both inside and outside the Jewish world. Wisse's narrative offers a compelling argument that is rich with history and bristling with contemporary urgency.

Jews Without Power

Jews Without Power PDF Author: Ariel Hurwitz
Publisher: Israel Academic Press
ISBN: 1885881444
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 357

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Book Description
“Jews Without Power” is sure to raise some eyebrows among historians and within the Jewish community. It is commonly accepted today that the United States did little to aid or resscue European Jewry during the Holocaust. Many also blame the American Jewish community for not pressuring the Administration to act for recue. Almost without exception, Jews interviewed today criticize the United States' passive role and express the sentiment that they would not have “stood idly by” while 6 million of their brethren died. In “Jews Without Power,” Ariel Hurwitz, an historian and expert on the Holocaust, examines the role played by the American Jewish leadership during this crucial period. The social and political environment in which Jews existed was so extraordinarily different from the milieu of today, says Hurwitz, that it is difficult to understand the constraints under which the leadership operated. Relying on the vast archival information from the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Library, the National Archives, the Lehman Library at Columbia University and the archives of many Jewish organizations, Hurwitz methodically reviews the events and decisions of the war-time years, seeking to shed light on why the American Jewish leadership did not exert more pressure on President Roosevelt and the political leadership of the time. He presents the information in a readable manner, drawing conclusions about the Jews' failure to act without sounding accusing or apologetic. For those who blame Roosevelt or the Jewish leadership for not doing enough, this book sheds new light on the issues and the challenges they faced and why one could argue that their hands were tied. Our hindsight and the graphic knowledge of what befell European Jewry may not make us any more comfortable accepting America's passivity, but the facts provided by Hurwitz offer plausible explanations within the world of realpolitik.

Jews Without Money

Jews Without Money PDF Author: Michael Gold
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9781412812719
Category : Jewish fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This landmark work presaged the so-called literature of the proletarian thirties, and is the quintessential novel of poor Jews. Michael Gold's Jews Without Money tells the story of Jewish poverty in one ghetto, that of New York. The same story could have been told in hundreds of other ghettoes scattered all over the world, especially in Europe, prior to the rise of Nazism. The book went through fifteen printings upon its publication in 1930 and was translated into every major language in the western world. The appearance of the book at this time is ironic as well as timely. In his introduction to the 1935 printing, Gold himself offers the reason why: "It has become necessary now in America to fight against fascist lies. Recently, groups of anti-Semitic demagogies have appeared in this country. They are like Hitler, telling the hungry American people that capitalism is Jewish and that an attack on the Jews is the best way of restoring prosperity. What folly. What criminal deception and bloody fraud. And there are signs that this oldest of swindles will grow in America." Sixty years after this utterance one can say that Gold was indeed prophetic. But the politics of the age--this or any other--dissolve in the face of a brilliant set of vignettes about growing up on the Lower East Side during the heyday of Jewish life there in the 1920s. Here we find a world of struggle--Jews against Gentiles, Jews against each other, a universe of gangsters and rabbis, men and women, children and adults--all told in the first person vernacular of a boy growing to manhood dedicated to making clear his love of a long-suffering mother. The races and religions may differ, but the themes are universal.

Jewish Power

Jewish Power PDF Author: J. J. Goldberg
Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

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Book Description
an independent force on the national and world scene in the last quarter-century. Goldberg offers an insider's portrait of the people, the institutions, the money, and the ideas that make up organized Jewish political influence in the U.S.

Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History

Power & Powerlessness in Jewish History PDF Author: David Biale
Publisher: Schocken
ISBN: 0307772535
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
To shed light on the tensions he observed between Jewish perceptions of power versus political realitieswhich "are often the cause of misguided political decisions," like Israel's Lebanese WarBiale analyzes Jewish history from the point of view of politics and power. The author of Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History here challenges the conventions of what he terms the Jewish "mythical past": the anachronistic interpretation that the Diaspora, which occurred between the fall of an independent Jewish commonwealth in A.D. 70 and the rebirth of the State of Israel in 1948, was politically impotent, and, conversely, that the First and Second Temple periods were eras of full Jewish national sovereignty.

Black Power, Jewish Politics

Black Power, Jewish Politics PDF Author: Marc Dollinger
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 147982688X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
"Black Power, Jewish Politics expands with this revised edition that includes the controversial new preface, an additional chapter connecting the book's themes to the national reckoning on race, and a foreword by Jews of Color Initiative founder Ilana Kaufman that all reflect on Blacks, Jews, race, white supremacy, and the civil rights movement"--

The City Without Jews

The City Without Jews PDF Author: Hugo Bettauer
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Antisemitism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Story about the removal of Jews from Vienna.

Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948

Land and Power: The Zionist Resort to Force, 1881-1948 PDF Author: Anita Shapira
Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 646

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Book Description
The book traces the history of attitudes toward power and the use of armed force within the Zionist movement from an early period in which most leaders espoused an ideal of peaceful settlement in Palestine, to the acceptance of force as a legitimate tool for achieving a sovereign Jewish state. “[A] classic... This brilliant intellectual history by a distinguished Tel Aviv University scholar shows how the exilic Jewish aversion to Machtpolitik shriveled in the crucible of state-building. Mainstream Zionism, which never saw itself as a movement of European usurpers, evolved what Shapira calls a ‘defensive ethos’ under British rule that skirted both compromise and confrontation with the Arabs. It hoped to dull enmity by offering Palestine's Arabs everything as individuals but nothing as a people. But when the proto-intifada of the Arab Revolt erupted in 1936, a new ‘offensive ethos’ recognizing the inevitability of an Arab-Jewish clash and the legitimacy of the sword gained ground among Mandate Palestine's Jews. Shapira's lucid, searching book — a model of historical curiosity and craft — is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand modern Israel, whose sense of its own power coexists painfully alongside a sense of fearful victimhood.” — Foreign Affairs “Shapira succeeds... in presenting more than a one-dimensional intellectual history of the Zionist movement... Displaying her skills as a serious historian and a fine writer, Shapira offers a nuanced and even-handed examination of a variety of elements within the Jewish community based on a rich selection of original sources.” — The Historical Journal “A rich and sophisticated work that nicely complements more conventional political-historical studies of the Arab-Israeli conflict... Shapira sifts through a vast body of material, ranging from essays, poems, and memoir literature to the unpublished minutes of political party and youth group meetings. Shapira interprets these sources with sensitivity and insight. Shapira writes with power, compassion, and warmth... a landmark book that is an outstanding contribution to the history of Zionist political thought and culture.” — American Historical Review “This is a superb book. It is a well-researched, detailed, and scholarly account that provides new and valuable insights into the dilemma posed by the formation and elaboration of a more forceful Israeli military posture.” — The Historian “Shapira’s powerful, well-written... lucid intellectual history of a segment of the Zionist movement... is fascinating and easy to read... highly educational.” — Journal of Economic History “Anita Shapira provides an excellent analysis of the different debates within Zionism during the pre-state period... Altogether, this is an intellectual history of the Zionist Movement well worth reading. It is meticulously researched and analysed, incomparable in terms of depth, and essential for anyone with an interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Zionism and contemporary Jewish history.” — The English Historical Review “[A] comprehensive political history of pre-1948 Palestine... The book is lucidly written, well researched, based on extensive primary and secondary resources. The translation from the Hebrew edition by William Templer is outstanding... this is perhaps the most conceptually sophisticated and thematically integrated work on the Yishuv recently written... Land and Power is a significant and an excellent contribution to our understanding of Zionism and the Yishuv.” — Shofar

Jews Don’t Count

Jews Don’t Count PDF Author: David Baddiel
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0008490767
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
How identity politics failed one particular identity. ‘A must read and if you think YOU don’t need to read it, that’s just the clue to know you do’ SARAH SILVERMAN ‘A masterpiece' STEPHEN FRY

To Heal the World?

To Heal the World? PDF Author: Jonathan Neumann
Publisher: All Points Books
ISBN: 1250160871
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Offers a critique of Jewish left wing activism and its use of the concept of tikkun olam, or 0́healing the world, 0́+ to justify its agenda of transformative change, arguing that the concept has no real Biblical basis and is harmful to Judaism.