David Weinberg’s multi-national study focuses on the efforts by the Jews of France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to reconstruct their lives after the Second World War. These efforts have largely been ignored, perhaps because the emphasis on assisting survivors in displaced persons camps in occupied Germany, Austria, and Italy and in developing Israel as the center of the Jewish world after the Holocaust diverted attention from the struggle by Jews in western Europe to recover their voice and sense of purpose. Weinberg attempts to set the record straight, presenting the challenges that were faced both in the national context and in the world Jewish arena and examining how they were dealt with. Weinberg begins his study by reviewing the action taken to revive Jewish communities in the three countries materially and institutionally, remodeling them as efficient, self-sustaining, and assertive bodies that could meet new challenges. With the creation of the State of Israel, Jews who stayed in western Europe had to defend their decision to do so while nevertheless showing public support for the new nation. There was also a felt need to respond quickly and effectively to any sign of antisemitism. In addition, tensions arose between Jews and non-Jews concerning wartime collaboration in deportations, and the need to memorialize Jewish victims of Nazism. The Cold War offered challenges of its own: the perceived need to exclude communist elements from communal affairs was countered by a resistance to pressures from American Jewish leaders to sever links with Jews in eastern Europe. Yet beneath the show of assertiveness Jewish life was fragile, not only because of the physical depletion of the population and of its leadership but because the Holocaust had shaken religious beliefs and affiliations and had raised questions about the value of preserving ethnic and religious identity. At the same time, new forms of Jewish consciousness had evolved, meaning that Jewish leaders had to provide for diverse educational, religious, and cultural needs. This book's comprehensive approach offers a broad and valuable addition to existing studies on the regeneration of Jewish life in individual European countries. Underscoring the similar political, cultural, social, and economic issues facing Jewish survivors in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands after the Holocaust, David Weinberg demonstrates how, with the aid of international Jewish organizations, they used unprecedented means to meet unprecedented challenges. It is a story worth telling that adds much to our understanding of postwar European Jewish life.

From Empathy to Denial is the first comprehensive study of the broad range of Arab responses to the Holocaust based on years of painstaking historical research. The book explores how Holocaust representations developed after the Second World War by analyzing themes, and case studies, spanning a period of almost seventy years. It shows how these perceptions evolved in the shadow of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

This extraordinary book by Egyptian-born author Ada Aharoni relates and conceptualizes the remarkable story of the Jewish Hospital in Alexandria, and A WOMAN OF PEACE, its Head Nurse, Sister Thea Wolf, a German Jewish Nurse who came to work in Egypt before the outbreak of World War 2 and thus survived the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. However it is much more than this, for it also shows that it is possible for Jews and Muslims, and Arabs and Europeans, to co-operate in what is the most important project known to us as human beings - the saving of life, especially under duress. As such, the book has a resonance for today's tumultuous world where peace is so difficult to bring about, especially in the context of the terror attacks whether in Jerusalem, Paris or New York. It is a book of hope and courage.

The Jewish Community of Cuba: Memory and History combines the fruits of academic research with the personal reminiscences of protagonists, creating a collective narrative of Cuban Jews, particularly those who migrated to Miami, on their historical experience prior to the Castro revolution. Through childhood memories in small towns in Poland and Turkey, the reader discovers the circumstances that motivated the migration of Jews to Cuba, and is acquainted with the difficult trajectory of their adaptation to a new environment. The book recounts the version of Cuban Jews to the tragic voyage of the SS St. Louis, but at the same time it points out the destiny of thousands of Jewish refugees who had found in Cuba a shelter from the Nazi inferno. The book describes the rich and colorful Jewish institutional life that covered all the social and cultural aspects. Protagonists, however, were not part of a uniform and homogenous community, as reflected in their testimonies on social and cultural life, political divisions and internal conflicts. The reader will find new oral documentation on the attitude of Cuban politicians towards the establishment of the State of Israel, and on the participation of young Cuban Jews in its War of Independence. The last chapter brings the memory of the lost Cuban paradise. Oral histories reflect the communal flourishing of the 1950s, the economic prosperity, the professional and social achievements but also the trauma of the Castro revolution, that motivated their second exodus. Though interviewees tend to idealize the pre-Castro era, their testimonies reflect the problematic of their marginality in the Cuban society, and the dilemma of dual identity that confronted the second generation.

This book focuses on a perspective that relatively has been neglected from of study on the history of Polish Jewry: The aspect of coexistence between Jews and Poles, their common history and multicultural influences. The articles in this collection present the complexity of the Polish-Jewish encounter throughout the ages. They examine the various directions that have developed in the study of Polish-Jewish relations since the renewed dialogue between Polish researchers and scholars from the West restarted in the 1990's.

The historian Willy Cohn kept a diary from his youth till his death in 1941. The book contains the entries written from 1933 till 1941, which had been hidden in Berlin by family members. This is a comprehensive document containing deep, serious descriptions. The diary was written from a subjective point of view, but also from the point of view of a professional historian. Cohn described the initial shock felt when the Nazis came into power, and the deep disappointment with the disappearance of the humanistic and democratic values he believed in which collapsed right in front of his eyes, as well as the move of many acquaintances to ‘the other side’. This reality created an ongoing conflict with the German patriotism which was part of his personality and became empowered even more during his military service in World War I . The diary includes much documentation of the Jewish community’s life: the efforts made and actions taken in dealing with the economic collapse which resulted from Nazi policy; the serious debate between the Orthodox and the Liberals, between Zionists and non-Zionists, regarding the objectives of the community youth's education; the cultural renaissance which took place within German-Jewish society in the first years of the Nazi regime, which Cohn was a part of by lecturing in his town and in many other communities on topics of Jewish history and Zionism. The stronghold which tightened around the Jewish community after the November 1938 pogrom (Kristallnacht), the isolation which was even more hurtful than the life-threatening economic hardship, the relationships between Jews and non-Jews during these times of crisis, the hope that the German people still has positive forces which will overcome evil, and the desperate efforts to leave Germany and immigrate to Israel – all these are expressed in a unique manner in the diary .

The Holocaust is an unsolved problem for humanity. We are still trying to explain the causes and the origins of the hell of Nazi Europe and its impact on our understanding humanity and concept of Western civilization. For Jewish thinkers, the problem is even more urgent as it brings forward difficult questions about Jewish identity. The book In the Beginning There was the Holocaust brings a panoramic picture of the responses of Jewish Philosophy to the Holocaust, Theodicy, the meaning of Jewish existence after the Holocaust, struggle with nihilism and despair, and questions concerning Holocaust education and the culture of remembrance. The major claim in the book is the Holocaust is a major crossroad in our world; if we want to understand ourselves we have to explore the roads that go out of it.

In this provocative work, Alvin H. Rosenfeld contends that the proliferation of books, films, television programs, museums, and public commemorations related to the Holocaust has, perversely, brought about a diminution of its meaning and a denigration of its memory. Investigating a wide range of events and cultural phenomena, such as Ronald Reagan's 1985 visit to the German cemetery at Bitburg, the distortions of Anne Frank's story, and the ways in which the Holocaust has been depicted by such artists and filmmakers as Judy Chicago and Steven Spielberg, Rosenfeld charts the cultural forces that have minimized the Holocaust in popular perceptions. He contrasts these with sobering representations by Holocaust witnesses such as Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Elie Wiesel, and Imre Kertész. The book concludes with a powerful warning about the possible consequences of "the end of the Holocaust" in public consciousness.