Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Antisemitism. A very short introduction by Steven Beller

(Oxford University Press, 2007)

Antisemitism is a hatred of Jews that has stretched across millennia; it is a modern political movement developed in Central Europe in the late 19th century; it is an irrational version of an anti-Judaism that came from Christianity's conflict with its Jewish roots; it is all of the above.

In this short volume, Steven Beller has chosen to focus on the political and ideological aspects of modern antisemitism and how it became integrated into the social, intellectual and cultural life of Central Europe.
Beller, who has written widely on Jewish and Central European history (Vienna and the Jews, 1867-1938; A Cultural History; A Concise History of Austria) has been able to address the incredibly complex phenomenon of antisemitism with a combination of great sensitivity and serious scholarship. With his profound understanding of the past, he is also able to track new forms of antisemitism that are emerging around the world.

Monday, June 2, 2008

The pariah. A staged reading of a new play written and produced by Paul Grossman

(An equity approved staged reading)

Hannah Arendt’s book on the trial of Addolf Eichmann sparked a storm of outrage. Explosive questions about the nature of Nazi guilt, the extent of Jewish collaboration, and the ability to judge the Holocaust were debated by some of the world’s top intellects. Set in a present-day ivy-league university, The Pariah presents four doctoral candidates arguing over the historical accuracy of that 1963 debate.

Hannah Arendt was provocative, controversial, extremely clever and often wrong. Her brilliant writing often masked flaws in her thinking, including historical inaccuracies and ideological inconsistencies. Paul Grossman fearlessly explores Hannah Arendt’s views from a contemporary perspective in this superb new drama.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

From Dachau to D-Day. A memoir by Werner Kleeman with Elizabeth Uhlig

(Marble House Editions, 2006)

Lecture and book signing  

Werner Kleeman was a teenager in a small town in Germany when the Nazis came to power. The attempt to emigrate began almost immediately, as did the harassment that he and his family endured after Kristallnacht, 1938. But Werner was lucky - his earlier visa application to the U.S. had been approved and he left first for England, and in 1940 for America, in time to be drafted into the U.S. Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

His unit landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, then went into France and Germany. In the spring of 1945 Kleeman was back where he started, Gaukönigshofen, and as a young American officer was able to arrest the Nazi who arrested him in November 1938.

These are only the outlines of an extraordinary story that goes literally from Dachau to D-Day.

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 1618-1945, Edited by Professor Marion Kaplan

German (C.H. Beck Verlag, 2003), English (Oxford University Press, 2005), and Hebrew (The Zalman Shazar Center, 2008)

Book presentation with lectures by the four contributing authors:

Robert Liberles, Ben Gurion University, Beersheva, Israel, Overlapping Spheres: A Reevaluation of Jewish-Christian Daily Relations in Early Modern Germany.

Steven Lowenstein, University of Judaism, Los Angeles, Changes in the Jewish Family in Germany 1780-1870.

Marion Kaplan, New York University, Friendship on the Margins: Social Relations between Jews and other Germans in Imperial Germany.

Trude Maurer, Universität Göttingen, Germany, Interactions between Jews and non-Jews in Weimar and Nazi Germany.

This book portrays the drama of German-Jewish history by examining the everyday lives of ordinary Jews. It traces the gradual ascent of Jews scattered throughout Germany, in rural areas as well as in more urban ghettos, from impoverished outcasts to comfortable bourgeois citizens, and their dramatic descent during the Nazi era. Using a wide variety of original sources, the authors focus on the qualitative aspects of ordinary life – emotions, impressions, and perceptions that provide insights easily overlooked in more traditional studies.