Customer Reviews:
Polish Heroism Amidst Unspeakable German Terror.......2006-11-04
This book provides much detail about the sacrificial life of Catholic nuns and their actions during the war on behalf of the needy children in general and Jewish ones in particular. It also gives the reader a good slice of Polish history during that tragic time.
There are widely divergent estimates on the total number of Polish Jews saved by Poles, ranging from 40,000-50,000 (Philip Friedman) to 100,000-200,000 (Joseph Kermisz). Kurek herself assesses the contribution of the Polish Catholic nuns as follows: "Two hundred rescuing convents and more than 1,200 saved Jewish children is tragically few when compared with the extermination of tens of thousands of Jewish children in Poland. Yet when it is taken into account that the rescuers were twenty thousand Polish nuns struggling against similar difficulties and subjected to the same inhuman occupation, the number becomes more significant." (pp. 103-104).
Some erstwhile Jewish children recall being subject to traditional church teachings about Jews being responsible for the Crucifixion of Christ. Others strongly repudiate any hints of such an experience (e. g., p. 187).
Kurek addresses hurtful accusations, made by some Jewish individuals and groups, that the nuns' motive for sheltering Jewish children was to convert them. She finds no support for this claim, and the testimonies of the Jews themselves do not indicate any pressure or enticement to convert. Of course, Jewish parents and clergy had to individually decide whether death was preferable to the chance that a Jewish child would eventually prefer Christianity solely as the passive outcome of his/her experiences with Catholic "substitute parents".
Kurek reminds us that, unlike in most German-occupied countries, the Germans had imposed an automatic death penalty for the slightest assistance to a Jew. In recent years, the nonsensical argument has been advanced, that owing to the fact that Poles commonly risked the death penalty anyway (through such things as engaging in Underground activities) the death penalty could not have been the real reason for more Poles not hiding Jews. To begin with, a Pole was far less likely to be caught for being in the Underground than for hiding a Jew. In addition, as pointed out by Kurek, the Germans, in practice, did not impose the death penalty consistently: "For Poles to fight the Germans in the rank of the underground army, in clandestine activities or in partisan squads, was a sort of ennoblement. It was dangerous. If someone was caught by the Germans, he could be sentenced to death. Yet there was always a chance of survival. One could be taken to prison or a concentration camp, and, once there, escape or survive. But if a Pole was caught helping a Jew, death was certain." (p. 33).
In his memoirs, Yitzhak Zuckerman pointed out that he was as often accosted by Jewish szmalcowniks (szmalcowniki), or blackmailers, as Polish ones. In a similar vein, Kurek writes: "And the nuns also knew that among the szmalcowniks and Gestapo agents there were Jews. This is why the Semitic features of a person asking to admit a child was not sufficient." (p. 58).
The back of the book has Appendices that include testimonies of the nuns and testimonies of the rescued Jews. In one of the latter, Irit, R., having personally experienced both bad and good from Poles, makes the following thoughtful comments: "So I can say that I saw various types of people. But now, forty years later, how can one judge the Polish people? Our youth also judges the Jews as cowards who did not fight. Who has a right to judge those people? Those Jews and those Poles? One cannot judge Poles. Here they say that I like the Polish people, and that's why I take this view. But it is not so. There is no black and white. In between here are other colors, and one has to be aware of this." (p. 197).
Although this work's main topic is the martyrdom and rescue of Jews, Kurek also discusses the Germans' genocidal murder of the Poles. She elaborates on the mass killings of Christian clergy and the destruction of church property (pp. 41-44). She also quotes estimates that the Germans murdered Polish gentiles and Polish Jews in a ratio of 10:1 during 1939-1941 and in a ratio of 2:3 during 1942-1944 (p. 17, 227). She cites entries from Emanuel Ringelblum's diary that state that, ironically, Poles had tried to save their lives by pretending to be Jews during the first indicated interval of time (p. 17, 224). Clearly, the genocidal priorities of the Germans had switched dramatically during the war. But they could have just as easily, and dramatically, switched again. Indeed, Kurek includes the testimony of Franciszka A., one of the rescued children currently living in Israel, who at least tentatively recognized the fact that, had the war lasted longer, the fate of the Poles would have eventually been the same as that of the Jews (p. 177).
Very Interesting - memories of nuns & children.......2006-06-26
This is a great book. The author did a very comphrehensive research, every argument is supported by numerous sources. I enjoyed it a lot! But for a person who is not a scholar or not familiar with the aspects of war in Poland the best it to start reading the book from appendix - with real memories of nuns about children and children about being hidden in the monastery. After that read the chapters. In this way you would have a better understanding of the author's arguments.
I was crying while reading some fragments. The book is wonderful, very touchy. It is a comprehensive historical outlook into many aspects of war in Poland.
A Good Read.......2004-12-20
This book brings to mind the unsung heroes under Hitler's Nazi Regime. Poles were under strict command by German forces not to abet anyone of Jewish origin. The threat of death to anyone found harboring or aiding the Jewish population put many who wished to help in deep jeporady. Polish Nuns with no leadership from Rome took it upon themselves to save as many Jewish children as they possible could without endangering the children already in their care. The book mentions many different congregations who offered "aid" under penalty of death. The book left me wanting to know even more about these wonderful women.
Book Description
During the crusades, Ethiopians, Jews, Muslims, and Mongols were branded enemies of the Christian majority. Illustrated with strikingly imaginative and still disturbing images, this book reveals the outrageously pejorative ways these rejected social groups were represented--often as monsters, demons, or freaks of nature. Such monstrous images of non-Christians were not rare displays but a routine aspect of medieval public and private life. These images, which reached a broad and socially varied audience across western Europe, appeared in virtually all artistic media, including illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, sculpture, metalwork, and tapestry.
Debra Higgs Strickland introduces and decodes images of the "monstrous races," from demonlike Jews and man-eating Tartars to Saracens with dog heads or animal bodies. Strickland traces the origins of the negative pictorial code used to portray monsters, demons, and non-Christian peoples to pseudoscientific theories of astrology, climate, and physiognomy, some dating back to classical times. She also considers the code in light of contemporary Christian eschatological beliefs and concepts of monstrosity and rejection.
This is the first study to situate representations of the enemies of medieval Christendom within the broader cultural context of literature, theology, and politics. It is also the first to explore the elements of that imagery as a code and to elucidate the artistic means by which boundaries were effectively blurred between imaginary monsters and rejected social groups.
Book Description
How old is prejudice against black people? Were the racist attitudes that fueled the Atlantic slave trade firmly in place 700 years before the European discovery of sub-Saharan Africa? In this groundbreaking book, David Goldenberg seeks to discover how dark-skinned peoples, especially black Africans, were portrayed in the Bible and by those who interpreted the Bible--Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Unprecedented in rigor and breadth, his investigation covers a 1,500-year period, from ancient Israel (around 800 B.C.E.) to the eighth century C.E., after the birth of Islam. By tracing the development of anti-Black sentiment during this time, Goldenberg uncovers views about race, color, and slavery that took shape over the centuries--most centrally, the belief that the biblical Ham and his descendants, the black Africans, had been cursed by God with eternal slavery.
Goldenberg begins by examining a host of references to black Africans in biblical and postbiblical Jewish literature. From there he moves the inquiry from Black as an ethnic group to black as color, and early Jewish attitudes toward dark skin color. He goes on to ask when the black African first became identified as slave in the Near East, and, in a powerful culmination, discusses the resounding influence of this identification on Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinking, noting each tradition's exegetical treatment of pertinent biblical passages.
Authoritative, fluidly written, and situated at a richly illuminating nexus of images, attitudes, and history, The Curse of Ham is sure to have a profound and lasting impact on the perennial debate over the roots of racism and slavery, and on the study of early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Customer Reviews:
Race Bible and slavery.......2004-12-13
Was Ham African? This book tries to divinate the truth and the origin of the 'curse of Ham' since over the generations many have perverted the bible to show that the descendants of Ham were African and were also meant to be slaves. The truth is a little different. Just as Atalantic slavers used the exuse that africans were not human to enslave them thus Muslims likewise used the excuse that africans could be enslaved as pagans. But the Bible was simply used as an easy way to not feel guilty about slavery. The reality was that slavery was practiced not just against Africans and that the race of Africans had little to do with slavery. Rather the slave trade seems to have been so long and prosperous in Africa due to the Africans being active participants, the lack of a unified empire in Africa to oppose slavery and the lack of other sources of humans to serve as slaves. After all we know that Rome enslaved the Gauls and other europeans. But when Europe developed a strong state the only europeans open to being enslaved where those colonized by the Ottomans. Likewise the depopulation that followed the Islamic conquest of the middle east meant that slaves could not come from thos eregions. Slaves certainyl couldnt be transported out of China. Thus Africa became the meat market for human cruelty, the sickness of slavery that eventually consumed and destroyed african soceity. But among the warrior tribes such as the Zulu we do not see enslavement, why? Because they dared to raise the sword against the Perverts who came to buy their daughters into slavery. The 'curse of Ham' had little to do with Africa rather it had more to do with Humans and the weakness of the state.
Seth J. Frantzman
Book Description
This study of contemporary crypto-Jews--descendants of European Jews forced to convert to Christianity during the Spanish Inquisition--traces the group's history of clandestinely conducting their faith and their present-day efforts to reclaim their past. Janet Liebman Jacobs masterfully combines historical and social scientific theory to fashion a brilliant analysis of hidden ancestry and the transformation of religious and ethnic identity.
Customer Reviews:
Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews.......2005-09-27
Book arrived on time and in good shape.
Book Description
In the summer and fall of 1998, ultranationalist Polish Catholics erected hundreds of crosses outside Auschwitz, setting off a fierce debate that pitted Catholics and Jews against one another. While this controversy had ramifications that extended well beyond Poland’s borders, Geneviève Zubrzycki sees it as a particularly crucial moment in the development of post-Communist Poland’s statehood and its changing relationship to Catholicism.
In The Crosses of Auschwitz, Zubrzycki skillfully demonstrates how this episode crystallized latent social conflicts regarding the significance of Catholicism in defining “Polishness” and the role of anti-Semitism in the construction of a new Polish identity. Since the fall of Communism, the binding that has held Polish identity and Catholicism together has begun to erode, creating unease among ultranationalists. Within their construction of Polish identity also exists pride in the Polish people’s long history of suffering. For the ultranationalists, then, the crosses at Auschwitz were not only symbols of their ethno-Catholic vision, but also an attempt to lay claim to what they perceived was a Jewish monopoly over martyrdom.
This gripping account of the emotional and aesthetic aspects of the scene of the crosses at Auschwitz offers profound insights into what Polishness is today and what it may become.
Customer Reviews:
Another Chabad book.......2007-06-04
Lis Harris did for Chabad in the 80's what Sue Fishkoff has done in the early 21st century. Also excellent for information about the group, but with the typical anti-Orthodox slant (feminism, etc.). My feeling was that she didn't get much out of the whole experience, except perhaps a best-seller. Pity.
Interesting.......2006-06-12
Very interesting to see how the author views the home of a Chasidic family. Though I personally know Chassidim, not everything thing here is fact, rather opinnion. However, it is still quite interesting to read.
A definite read.......2002-10-03
Whether or not you already know about the ultra-Orthodox world, this book gives you a good look inside. There are parts that are inspiring. I didn't really like the part "rebels" part. I think it was too brief to be of use to anybody.
Not for everyone.......2002-09-09
This book might be a fun and interesting read for the general buyer, but if you truly want to learn about what Hasidic life is like, it won't help you much. The author is not an Orthodox Jew, and the finished book just doesn't have much insight into the reality of the life. I do give it credit for including lots of extra basic information to educate the non-Jewish reader.
Strong book with strange lapses.......2000-12-09
This is a lyrical look at a world that is not accessible to most people on a daily basis. Lis Harris felt a strong attraction to the Hasidic Jews she saw around her from time to time, so she found a way to learn more about the people who live this life. Her book is respectful and informative.
A weakness of the book is that her level of personal involvement in the writing seems uneven. This book is an unabashed memoir, where she describes how she got involved with the project (a longing to know more about what she saw in her own family pictures and felt drawn to, in the face of a quite secular upbringing). However, having described how she got involved in this project, she then fails to tell us how she resolved her longing. What did she learn about these people that enables her to look at the photographs without feeling the same drawing-in?
I say this despite the fact that the individual parts of the book are highly personal -- her descriptions of the mikveh and of the lives of unmarried girls are lyrical and moving.
The book is well worth reading, but the author's nearly completely assimilated background does make it hard for her to distinguish between "ultra-orthodox" religious practices, and more common practices of observant Jews (say the modern Orthodox, for example). Many things she encountered elicited a "gee whiz -- how odd!" response from her, and it was strange that she couldn't distinguish between the practices she encountered which are unique to Hasidic life and the practices which are common to practicing Jews of many stripes. The book would have been stronger had she spent less time looking for academic explanations of what she encountered and spent more time understanding the context -- how do these people fit into the context of observant Jewish practice?
On the whole, however, it is an excellent book, well-written and worth reading.
Book Description
"A refreshing and stimulating look at Jewish vaudeville, theater, and movies sure to revise our understanding of the Jazz Age."
--Deborah Dash Moore, author of GI Jews: How World War II Changed a Generation
"In this engaging and accessible book, Merwin describes a much more empowered generation of Jewish show business than is suggested by previous work. A fresh and provocative perspective on familiar material."
-Harley Erdman, author of Staging the Jew: The Performance of an American Ethnicity, 1860-1920
"Clearly written, carefully researched, and thoughtfully argued, In Their Own Image fills important gaps in existing scholarship. This book will appeal to anyone interested in American Jewish culture, American theater and film history, and American popular culture."
-Joel Berkowitz, author of Shakespeare on the American Yiddish Stage
The Jazz Age of the 1920s is an era remembered for illegal liquor, innovative music and dance styles, and burgeoning ideas of social equality. It was also the period during which second-generation Jews began to emerge as a significant demographic in New York City. In Their Own Image examines the growing cultural visibility of Jewish life amid this vibrant scene.
From the vaudeville routines of Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, George Jessel, and Sophie Tucker, to the slew of Broadway comedies about Jewish life and the silent films that showed immigrant families struggling to leave the ghetto, images and representations of Jews became staples of interwar popular culture. Through the performing arts, Jews expressed highly ambivalent feelings about their identification with Jewish and American cultures. Ted Merwin shows how they became American by producing and consuming not images of another group, but images of themselves. As a result, they humanized Jewish stereotypes, softened anti-Semitic attitudes, and laid the groundwork for today's Jewish comedians.
An entertaining look at the role popular culture plays in promoting the acculturation of an ethnic group, In Their Own Image enhances our understanding of American Jewish history and provides a model for the study of other groups and their integration into mainstream society.
Average customer rating:
- Original and Poetic comparison of Chinese & Jewish memory
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Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory
Vera Schwarcz
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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ASIN: 0300066147 |
Book Description
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, China scholar Vera Schwarcz explores the meaning of cultural memory in the vastly different Chinese and Jewish traditions. She finds a bridge between the two civilizations-a shared commitment to the transmission of remembrance and to witnessing to the significance of the past-and brings to life the struggles of Chinese and Jewish survivors who managed to preserve the continuity of their long traditions.
Customer Reviews:
Original and Poetic comparison of Chinese & Jewish memory.......1998-09-08
No, this is not about the strength of Chinese cuisine in the American Jewish community. It is about memory and metaphor. How do Jews and Chinese preserve and transmit their cultures. Should we begin to speak of Judeo-Confucian values rather than Judeo-Christian? What did Chinese culture do without the wrath of the god-inspired prophets? This is an original, thoughtful, poetic study from Wesleyan Professor of East Asian Studies Vera Schwarcz. In October 1979, Schwarcz, the daughter of Transylvanian Holocaust survivors, was studying in Beijing. It was Yom Kippur. Inside her dorm room, she was fasting and reading Wiesel's Les Chants des Morte." Outside, the authorities were closing the Democracy Wall. She was struck by the way both Jewish and Chinese cultures act to preserve and transmit fragments of cultural memories, in light of the powers that attempt to eradicate them, namely the Shoah and the Cultural Revolution. Amnesia is a relief from recollection. But both Jewish (if I forget thee..) and Chinese (If you lose the past, the will easily crumbles) cultures reward people for remembrance. This book enlightened me to the Judeo-Confucian tradition; the rabbi and the scholar; Halakha and Li; Rabbi Hillel and Confucius' disciple Mencius; the role of the Jewish prophets; and the lack of the socially just god in China with which one could fight imperial power. Did you know that the metaphoric poetry of Yehudah Amichai is used in China to remember Tiananmen Square? How do the concept of gesher (bridge) and kesher (tying knot) in the Midrash and Bratslaver-Hasidism compare to qiaoliang (bridge) and ren (endurance) and the writings of Yeng Shen? What can be learned from the midrash on god blessing Adam and Eve with the gift of amnesia and the Chinese tale of Old Lady Meng's Soup, which is a broth of amnesia? These are just a few of the questions she explores. I found this book fascinating.
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Social and Religious History of the Jews, Volume 16 (Late Middle Ages and Era of European Expansion, 1200-1650; Poland-Lithuania, 1500-1650) (Social & Religious History of the Jews)
Salo Wittmayer Baron
Manufacturer: Columbia University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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Book Description
In recent years, the high rate of intermarriage and other demographic factors have created a challenge for American Jewry: How can rabbis, policy planners, educators, and parents transmit most effectively Jewish religion, culture, and values to their children? Prior research shows that Jewish education is the one area in which communal leaders and lay people can act to make a positive difference in the future cultural transmission of Judaism. Family Matters offers groundbreaking essays on Jewish education by scholars drawn from anthropology, education, history, and sociology. Essays by Steven M. Cohen, Sylvia Barack Fishman, Shaul Kelner, Jeffrey S. Kress, Alex Pomson, Riv-Ellen Prell, and Jack Wertheimer range from interviews about educational decisions with families, teenagers, and Jewish educators to sweeping new statistical data about the actual state of Jewish education in American cities. Making new links among parents, community, and Jewish schools, Family Matters is a vital study in the sociology of the contemporaryAmerican Jewish community.
Books:
- 1984 (Signet Classics)
- A Sourcebook on the Roman Games (Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History) (Blackwell Sourcebooks in Ancient History)
- Adaptation, Acculturation and Transnational Ties Among Asian Americans (Asians in America: The Peoples of East, Southeast, and South Asia in American Life and Culture)
- Alice Waters and Chez Panisse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution
- All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
- American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
- Ancient Mesopotamia: The Sumerians, Babylonians, And Assyrians (People of the Ancient World)
- And I Haven't Had a Bad Day Since: From the Streets of Harlem to the Halls of Congress
- Appalachian Odyssey: Historical Perspectives on the Great Migration
- Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide, Sixth Edition
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