Language:
German
Year of publication:
1995
Titel der Quelle:
Babylon; Beiträge zur jüdischen Gegenwart
Angaben zur Quelle:
15 (1995) 5-27
Keywords:
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Historiography
;
Israel Historiography
Abstract:
Discusses Israel's "new historians" as symptomatic of a change in the Israeli mentality away from collectivism and toward individualism, which implies a departure from the traditional Zionist teleological view of history to a "post-Zionist" contingent view. This affects the historiography of two subjects considered basic to the legitimization of the Zionist state: the Holocaust and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Holocaust as an industrialized mass process does not lend itself to narrative; therefore, traditional Zionist historians extended the narrative into the past, the long history of antisemitism of which the Holocaust was the culmination. The extermination of European Jewry while the Yishuv remained secure was seen as confirming Zionist predictions. The history of the Yishuv took place in a different time frame from that of the Diaspora; 1948, the establishment of the state, and 1945, the Holocaust, are unconnected. The contingent view leads to the realization that the Yishuv was saved through the chances of world history and not thanks to Zionist foresight. Moreover, this view of history recognizes that 1948 depends on 1945: the Holocaust legitimized the state in the eyes of the Western world (but not for the non-Western world, certainly not for the Arabs).
Note:
Appeared also in his "Gedächtniszeiten" (2003).
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink