Language:
English
Year of publication:
1994
Titel der Quelle:
Representations
Angaben zur Quelle:
45 (1994) 72-100
Keywords:
National characteristics, Israeli
;
State, The Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Influence
;
Zionism Philosophy
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Commemoration
;
Collective memory
;
Masada Site (Israel) History
Abstract:
Challenges the "declinist approach" to the study of collective memory, which posits that group memory is a vanishing form of knowledge which has been superseded by historical narrative. Examines the Israeli (both pre-state and after, up to the present) commemorative narratives of the events at Masada in 73 CE (when 960 Jews besieged by the Romans committed mass suicide) and of the Holocaust, showing how these narratives have changed in recent decades in response to developments - i.e. there is a constant need to mediate between the past and the present that accounts for the continuing vitality of collective memory. Describes how in the 1940s-60s, Masada and the Holocaust were seen as opposite historical metaphors, whereas since the Yom Kippur War (1973) the two are viewed as part of a continuum of major tragic events in Jewish history. This fundamental change in Israeli memory underscores a new sense of historical continuity focusing on the persistence of a great threat to Jewish survival throughout history and now applying to Israel.
Note:
In Hebrew: "Alpayim" 10, 1994.
,
Appeared also in Russian as "Смерть памяти и память смерти: Масада и Холокост как исторические метафоры" in "История и коллективная память" (2008) 193-231.
URL:
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