The Jewish Struggle In The 21st Century

The Jewish Struggle in the 21st Century: Conflict, Positionality, and Multiculturalism is about the needs of the Jewish community in the United States, and it addresses the lack of representation in the diversity and multicultural education classroom at the university level.

"Jews and the study of antisemitism are often disregarded in multiculturalism in the United States. This "brushing aside" of the Jewish community places Jews in a very difficult situation because, due to continued discrimination and prejudice, Jews need recognition and acceptance in the multicultural community. While light-skinned American Jews are often perceived as White, they are positioned between being considered White and somehow less than when they are found to be Jewish. Therefore, Jews find themselves in this nebulous "space between" the Black/White binary. This text takes a personal approach to the study of Jewish people, antisemitism, and the inclusion of the Jewish experience into university multicultural discourse. It also introduces a new Jewish critical race framework that develops from Critical Race Theory and has similarities in the fight against racism and injustice in U.S. society. The Jewish Struggle in the 21st Century: Conflict, Positionality, and Multiculturalism addresses the needs of the Jewish community in the United States as it pertains to its tenuous position in the fields of multiculturalism and critical race studies. It addresses the lack of representation in the diversity and multicultural education classroom as well as issues of antisemitism at the university level"--

Jewish life in Europe has undergone dramatic changes and transformations within the 20th century and also the last two decades. The phenomenon of the dual position of the Jewish minority in relation to the majority, not entirely unusual for Jewish Diaspora communities, manifested itself most distinctly on the European continent. This unique Jewish experience of the ambiguous position of insider and outsider may provide valuable views on contemporary European reality and identity crisis. The book focuses inter alia on the main common denominators of contemporary Jewish life in Central Europe, such as an intense confrontation with the heritage of the Holocaust and unrelenting antisemitism on the one hand and on the other hand, huge appreciation of traditional Jewish learning and culture by a considerable part of non-Jewish Europeans. The volume includes contributions on Jewish life in central European countries like Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Germany.

"There's a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." These words by the poet Leonard Cohen could aptly describe this book, which takes history as a witness to the exceptional nature of Zionism in Jewish history. It explains many points of discord between the political ideology of Zionism and what most people consider Judaism. It also shows how Jewish traditional conscience offers a hope for the solution of the Middle East crisis. The conflicts in Israel/Palestine acquire a different meaning when seen in the context of Jewish opposition to Zionism. This book has attracted Jewish and non-Jewish readers alike who find this story inspiring in today's world of mobile identities.

This volume represents the most comprehensive collection ever produced of empirical research on Holocaust education around the world. It comes at a critical time, as the world observes the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We are now at a turning point, as the generations that witnessed and survived the Shoah are slowly passing on. Governments are charged with ensuring that this defining event of the 20th century takes its rightful place in the schooling and the historical consciousness of their peoples. The policies and practices of Holocaust education around the world are as diverse as the countries that grapple with its history and its meaning. Educators around the globe struggle to reconcile national histories and memories with the international realities of the Holocaust and its implications for the present. These efforts take place at a time when scholarship about the Holocaust itself has made great strides. In this book, these issues are framed by some of the leading voices in the field, including Elie Wiesel and Yehuda Bauer, and then explored by many distinguished scholars who represent a wide range of expertise. Holocaust education is of such significance, so rich in meaning, so powerful in content, and so diverse in practice that the need for extensive, high-quality empirical research is critical. Th is book provides exactly that.

Maristella Botticini and Zvi Eckstein show that, contrary to previous explanations, this transformation was driven not by anti-Jewish persecution and legal restrictions, but rather by changes within Judaism itself after 70 CE--most importantly, the rise of a new norm that required every Jewish male to read and study the Torah and to send his sons to school. Over the next six centuries, those Jews who found the norms of Judaism too costly to obey converted to other religions, making world Jewry shrink. Later, when urbanization and commercial expansion in the newly established Muslim Caliphates increased the demand for occupations in which literacy was an advantage, the Jews found themselves literate in a world of almost universal illiteracy. From then forward, almost all Jews entered crafts and trade, and many of them began moving in search of business opportunities, creating a worldwide Diaspora in the process.

With attacks by Muslims against Jews in Western Europe reaching all-time highs, Jews are now facing levels of genocidal anti-Semitism not seen since World War II. Rickman, the United States' first Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, provides this first-person account and in-depth examination of the rise of anti-Semitism in the 21st century.

What is a homeland and when does it become a national territory? Why have so many people been willing to die for such places throughout the twentieth century? What is the essence of the Promised Land? Following the acclaimed and controversial The Invention of the Jewish People, Shlomo Sand examines the mysterious sacred land that has become the site of the longest-running national struggle of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Invention of the Land of Israel deconstructs the age-old legends surrounding the Holy Land and the prejudices that continue to suffocate it. Sand’s account dissects the concept of “historical right” and tracks the creation of the modern concept of the “Land of Israel” by nineteenth-century Evangelical Protestants and Jewish Zionists. This invention, he argues, not only facilitated the colonization of the Middle East and the establishment of the State of Israel; it is also threatening the existence of the Jewish state today.