Language:
English
Year of publication:
1994
Titel der Quelle:
Journal of Israeli History
Angaben zur Quelle:
15,2 (1994) 193-212
Keywords:
Jews History 1945-
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Israel
Abstract:
An expanded version of a lecture presented at the 9th International Scientific Congress of Yad Vashem, Jerusalem, June 1993. Examines the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel as the two main components of Jewish collective identity today, apart from the Jewish religion. The State of Israel and the memory of the Holocaust form a kind of "civil religion". The role of the Holocaust has grown during the last decade, overshadowing Israel. Discusses a dialectic tension which is expressed publicly in two areas, the ideological and the political. A dialectic of two opposing forces forms the image of the Jew: the centrifugal, leading to a condition accepted as normal, and the centripetal, viewing the Jewish experience as abnormal. The dual tension between the mythic ethoi of the Holocaust and the State is expressed in a feeling of impotence of the Jewish collective will as opposed to the power of this proven will. The Jewish experience at the end of the 20th century can be characterized as a pluralism with many contradictions.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink
