Language:
English
Year of publication:
2005
Titel der Quelle:
The Cambridge Companion to American Judaism
Angaben zur Quelle:
(2005) 187-208
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
Abstract:
During World War II, President Roosevelt was reluctant to respond to the Jewish plight, and American Jewish organizations, partly due to fear of American antisemitism, failed to mobilize rescue efforts until 1943-44. After the war, the Holocaust was conceptualized as a discrete "event" only gradually. American Jews, like Israelis, tended to decalamatize the catastrophe, emphasizing Jewish resistance. In the 1960s, with the Eichmann trial, Holocaust consciousness grew and survivors began to be appreciated as witnesses. The Six-Day War led to a myth of redemption after the Holocaust, with Israel being the positive outcome. However, the Yom Kippur War recalled feelings of Jews as still being vulnerable to destruction. The Holocaust then began to become part of American mainstream culture, e.g. in the media and via the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. In general, the Holocaust came to be seen as a moral paradigm for evil while, among American Jews, it was often central in constructing Jewish identity.
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