Abstract: A mentally healthy human being can go insane if suddenly diagnosed with leprosy. Eugen Ionescu finds out that even the “Ionescu” name, an indisputable Romanian father, and the fact of being born Christian can do nothing, nothing, nothing to cover the curse of having Jewish blood in his veins. With resignation and sometimes with I don't know what sad and discouraged pride, we got used to this dear leprosy a long time ago.
With these words, the Romanian–Jewish writer Mihail Sebastian expresses within his private diary some of the darkest moments of a World War II “transfigured” Romania, populated as they are by the gothic characters of legionaries, Nazis, and antisemitism. His death soon followed in 1945, when Romania was at the threshold of fascism and communism. However, with the discovery and the subsequent publishing of Sebastian's diary in 1996, and following 50 years of communist mystification of the Jewish Holocaust, the entire chaotic war atmosphere with the fascist affections of the Romanian intellectual elite was once again brought to light with all the flavor and scent of the dark past. In this entry from Sebastian's diary he speaks of his friend, Eugen Ionescu who, born of a French-related mother and a Romanian father, was living in Bucharest at that time. He would later become known to the world as Eugène Ionesco, the famous French playwright and author of the well-known plays The Bald Soprano and The Rhinoceros. The above quote from Sebastian's journal, predating the international fame of Ionesco, but already marking the end of Sebastian's career under fascism, remains a traumatizing testimony of the Jewish Kafkian torment as “guilt,” a deeply claustrophobic identity that many Eastern European Jewish intellectuals have learned to internalize. Beyond this symbolism, the publishing of Sebastian's diary in Romania unintentionally challenged an existent post-communist tendency of legitimizing inter-war fascist personalities within the framework of a general lack of knowledge about the Jewish Holocaust in both the communist and post-communist periods.
Abstract: How effective is religious activity believed to be in coping with depression? This study assessed the perceived effectiveness of different religious activities — previously identified as important in coping — among 282 people in the UK. The mean age was 25 years, and participants were either Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, other religion, or no religion. Relative to other kinds of help for depression, religious activity was not seen as particularly helpful for depression. Religious activity was seen as less helpful by the ever‐depressed than by the never‐depressed and as less helpful by women than by men. Among religious activities, faith and prayer were seen as the most helpful. Muslims believed more strongly than other groups in the efficacy of religious coping methods for depression, were most likely to say they would use religious coping behaviour, and were least likely to say they would seek social support or professional help for depression. Other differences between groups were also observed, and comparisons with qualitative material obtained in an earlier study were made. The implications of these findings for help‐seeking are considered.
Abstract: Although the Holocaust ended more than fifty years ago, its impact continues to be an enduring trauma in the 21st century. Most of the survivors have passed away, but the second and third generations continue to carry this dark inheritance within their lives. Historians have reflected upon the destruction visited upon the European landscape, and we have come to see that even in America significant changes have taken place within that community. Germany continues to be a puzzle. Immediately after the war, the prevailing attitude saw all Germans as evil, and the occupying forces were forbidden to fraternize. Yet it is not in the nature of soldiers to remain distant from the people around them, and that wall disappeared far quicker than the ‘Wall’ built by the Communists to separate East and West Germany. Later, distinctions began to be made between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Germans, partially through the ‘denazification’ courts and later by the general public. Once business ties were re-established the attitude towards the Germans began to change. Eventually, wealthy German tourists were accepted, even though sly jokes about them continued. But Germany itself had to undergo dramatic changes, which continue to be played out in a country which now holds a commanding position in the European Community.
Abstract: In 1995 the German federal centre for political education published a collection of essays on the problems arising from public representations of the Holocaust. Angela Genger, director of the Dusseldorf Memorial Centre, expressed her worries about developments at the major memorial centres following the unification of Germany. Under the heading ‘Are we facing a roll back?’, she laments that ‘the discursive and process-orientated practice adopted since the early eighties’ has been playing ‘non-principal role’2 in the memorials’ quest for renewal. As president of the working group for memorials in North Rhine-Westfalia, she particularly regrets that the discourse has since become ‘state-based’. In the old federal republic, the protagonists had often met with solid political opposition from the various municipalities, regions and federal states. Passionate and lengthy debates were carried on between so-called ‘barefoot historians’ and history workshops, trade union and church groups (especially ‘Aktion Sühnezeichen’), engaged activists and local politicians, but most of all former inmates and other victims of National Socialism. They eventually succeeded in bringing about a range of vastly different, decentralized memorials. These are seen in strong contrast to the centralized memorials, which are funded by the federal government and the relevant states, were conceived by historians and other experts, and are headed by academics and administrators enjoying a superior level of social security, with pension benefits and even the provision of housing.
Abstract: Soviet historiography ignored the Jewish role in World War II, for reasons shall explore. Yet the topic is very important to Soviet and post-Soviet Jews (as well as to others), in part precisely because it was ignored by the Soviets. This is manifested in the number of articles and books published on the subject in the former Soviet Union (FSU) and the Soviet Jewish diaspora, few of them by professional historians. One way of supplementing amateur historiography and filling in gaps in our knowledge is by taking oral testimonies from participants in the war. This has been done successfully by some popular historians in the United States. Oral history has serious limitations, of course. It should probably not be used to establish facts, especially at a distance of more than fifty years and in regard to events fraught with great meanings and emotions. Oral history allows for embellishment, cover-ups, falsifications and distortions. However, it can be most useful in establishing perceptions, that is, not so much what happened — though that should not be dismissed — but what people think happened, or think now happened then.
Abstract: In march 1998, the Vatican released a long-awaited statement on the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. In a preface to the document, entitled We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, Pope John Paul II expressed his hope that it would ‘help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices’. Eighteen months after the publication of the document, it seems now possible to conclude that, however sincere the Vatican’s intentions, the pope’s hopes will almost certainly not be realized. Indeed, far from healing, the document has succeeded largely in re-opening, if not actually deepening, old wounds. Not only did it divide the Catholic intellectual and journalistic communities. More importantly, I think, it bewildered and frustrated many Jewish readers and bitterly disappointed others. It also called forth a literary response from Jewish intellectuals and organizations that, while especially vigorous in the immediate wake of the document’s publication, had force and feeling to last more than a year. Since the energy driving these responses appears to have subsided, it seems possible now to undertake a comprehensive survey of Jewish reaction to We Remember and to attempt to account for its intensity and duration.
Abstract: Recently, the old anti-Semitic myths, both the Aryan and the Khazar, have been revived in Russia and have begun to spread. The Aryan myth, which is rooted in the Nazi propaganda of the 1920s and 1930s, was picked up and developed by the contemporary Russian radical nationalists. It restores to general history the Manichaean and Messianic approaches that reduce all complex historic processes to a struggle between two agents — the ‘Aryans’ (i.e. the ‘Slavic-Russes’) and the ‘World Evil’ (i.e. the Jews). It describes the ‘Slavic-Aryans’, the first humans, who mysteriously appeared at the Northern continent, ‘Hyperborea-Arctida’, and dispersed to become the ancestors of most of the peoples of the world and founders of the principal ancient civilizations. Later, they were forced out from their former lands by an evil agent represented by the ‘savage nomads of Arabia’.1
Abstract: Informal Jewish educational settings are places that both affect Jewish Identity and transmit Jewish knowledge (Chazan, 1991). For instance, Jewish youth movements provide young people with social, cultural, and informal educational Jewish experiences outside of the classroom setting (Reisman, 1991). Chazan (1991) explained informal education as ‘an activity that is freely chosen by a person and that is very dependent on that person’s active involvement and positive motivation. It is not effected in any special place, but may happen in a variety of settings and venues’. Hence, informal education is not based on the fixed curriculum or grading systems which are characteristic of schools, although, it should reflect a well-defined set of goals, contents, and programmes (Chazan, 1991).
Abstract: In this article I investigate ritual life at the Moscow Choral Synagogue, the largest and longest running Orthodox synagogue in the Russian capital. Unlike many Eastern European synagogues, this synagogue is a thriving prayer community due to its unique congregation of Russian, Georgian, Bukharan, Mountain, and visiting Western Jews. I focus on a fistfight that took place between an Israeli and a Georgian Jew during prayer. I detail how Russian and Georgian Jews interpreted the incident to be a result of their different ethnicities, Russian and Georgian respectively. The fight elucidates how ritual in post-Soviet society provides the means for the production of ethnicity and Jewish identity. Arguing for localism within Judaism's transnational ideology, I suggest that Jewish identity, like ritual, is performative and contextual. I also show how the shifting power relations in post-Soviet society have reshaped ethnicity, making state-endorsed market reform a reference point of ethnic differentiation.
Abstract: Op grond van het overzicht 2000 ten opzichte van 1999 kan echter worden geconstateerd dat niet alleen het aantal antisemitische incidenten is toegenomen, maar ook de aard ervan ernstiger is. In 2000 vonden er 32 scheldpartijen plaats, werden 6 synagogen beklad of waren een doelwit, werden er twee begraafplaatsen beklad en waren er 6 incidenten met fysiek geweld of dreiging met geweld.
In 1999 was dat resp. 17, 0, 1, 1. Het aantal antisemitische brieven en de bekladdingen namen toe. Van de 550 meldingen die het Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet ontving werd bijna de helft (203) als antisemitisch beoordeeld.
Veel uitingen zijn direct op Joodse doelen gericht, zoals de bekladding van synagogen, het zenden van brieven en faxen naar Joodse instellingen, het besmeuren van ramen met eieren van een Joodse familie en een gezin met een Hebreeuwse tekst op de voordeur en het zenden van een antisemitische fax naar een Joodse firma.
Dit in tegenstelling tot antisemitische spreekkoren bij voetbalwedstrijden, het roepen van leuzen op willekeurige plaatsen, het roepen van “vuile Jood” naar een willekeurig persoon en het brengen van de Hitlergroet.
Verband uitingen en actualiteiten
Er bestaat klaarblijkelijk een duidelijk verband tussen antisemitische uitingen en actuele gebeurtenissen, zoals de restitutie van Joodse tegoeden en het geweld tussen Israel en de Palestijnen. Voorbeeld daarvan is de brief aan CIDI met de woorden “…Het is graaien, graaien, graaien… De Joden maken het er zo zelf naar, dat mensen antisemitische gevoelens gaan krijgen.” Het aantal antisemitische uitingen bij synagogen in het begin van de tweede intifada (eind september) en de brieven waarin aan het Israelische optreden worden gerefereerd, zoals de e-mail aan het Centraal Joods Overleg: “Het is toch eigenaardig om te zien hoe sommige groepen erin slagen zogenaamde vooroordelen te bevestigen… Gezien het gedrag van de kolonist in Israel is er blijkbaar ook wat geleerd in de oorlog van de Duitser.”
Marokkaanse gemeenschap in Nederland
Opmerkelijk is het aantal antisemitische uitingen, waarbij vooral leden van de Marokkaanse gemeenschap in Nederland betrokken zijn. In dit kader werden 13 incidenten gemeld en er vonden mede vanuit deze gemeenschap drie demonstraties plaats, waarbij antisemitische leuzen werden geroepen of antisemitische symbolen werden meegevoerd. Oorzaak van dit fenomeen lijkt op de eerste plaats het uitbreken van de intifada te zijn, die vanzelfsprekend in deze gemeenschap solidariteitsgevoelens met de Palestijnen oproept. De meeste incidenten vinden inderdaad na die datum plaats. Niettemin is het opmerkelijk dat in deze mate Joden het doelwit vormen. Vermoedelijk is er meer aan de hand. In interviews in Vrij Nederland (24 maart 2001) wordt gewezen op de invloed van ophitsende Arabische zenders, het feit dat het mogelijkerwijs veelal om probleemjongeren gaat die provoceren en de invloed van het religieus-antisemitisme in Marokko. Soms hanteren Marokkanen bij hun antisemitische uitingen methoden, die zijn afgekeken van extreem-rechts. Het is duidelijk dat extreem rechts vaak even weinig van allochtonen als van Joden moet hebben. Het gedogen in stadions van de leus ‘Hamas, Hamas, Joden aan het gas’ heeft uiteindelijk ook op Marokkaanse jongeren zijn invloed gehad. Hoe het ook zij, het stemt treurig dat antisemitisme wordt aangetroffen bij mensen die zelf het mikpunt van xenofoob gedrag zijn.
Gewenningsproces
Er lijkt sprake te zijn van een gewenningsproces, dat verband zou kunnen houden met de mate waarin de politie optreedt en grenzen legt van hetgeen maatschappelijk aanvaardbaar wordt gevonden. Uitgezonderd het opmaken van proces-verbaal bij het brengen van de Hitlergroet is de politie soms niet genegen om aangifte op te nemen. Dat kan zelfs zo ver gaan, dat een politiebeambte een slachtoffer van een antisemitische scheldpartij meedeelt, dat pas aangifte gedaan kan worden indien de dader bekend is. Een gebrek aan informatie over de historische achtergronden van antisemitisme lijkt een mogelijke oorzaak van deze houding te zijn. Een aanwijzing hiervoor is de stelligheid, waarmee de politie een rechtszaak startte tegen de persoon die een agent voor ‘Jood’ had uitgescholden.
