Center for Jewish History

Sports fans’ devotion and commitment to their team is well documented in the literature. Sports fanhood is described as a dominant component of fans’ identity, which is possibly why it is considered a comprehensive unqualified practice whose stability is undisputed. The current study examines whether and to what extent it is possible to identify fluctuations and changes in the nature and intensity of sports fanhood throughout fans’ lives. On the basis of variables taken from relevant models and interviews with soccer fans of various ages, the current study proposes an overarching view of the sports fan life cycle. As the heading for this model, the use of the life cycle concept is intentional: By tapping into various stages of this process, this study identifies an evolving reality that repeatedly reproduces itself in cyclic fashion over specific stages in a fan’s lifetime. Theoretically and practically, fanhood neither begins nor does it end at a specific point in time: Its dynamic nature encompasses processes that recur over a fan’s life and are passed down from one generation to the next. The proposed model enhances our understanding of the deep significance of sports fanhood and its role in fans’ lives as individuals, and as members of a family and members of a team or club.

This essay examines the study of Jewish history in Israel at the juncture of two currents: the ongoing expansion of an international community of Jewish studies scholars and the waning interest in the field in Israel itself. Mindful of the latter trend, it is easy to adopt a declensionist narrative, according to which the “Jerusalem School,” with its monolithic and Palestinocentric view of the past, has run its course. And yet, that framing occludes a number of novel tendencies in Israel, arising in the present “post-post-Zionist” moment, that expand the contours of Jewish historical scholarship in productive ways. They include: the well-known and controversial work of the “New Historians;” the work of a succeeding generation of scholars who have brought new intellectual and methodological openness to the study of Zionism; the work of Israeli scholars who have introduced a new measure of reflexivity through careful examination of the history of Jewish historiography; and the work of Israeli scholars who have eschewed the once-regnant view of an “immanent causality” in Jewish history. In conclusion, the article suggests that kernels of these trends were present in the founding generation of scholars at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, though the current generation of scholars is both more critical toward the Zionist nationalist narrative and more global in its orientation.

Purpose – This paper aims to report the results of a study that examined the ways in which graduate-level library and information science students make use of e-books and e-readers at an institution that does not offer e-books through its library. The paper can be used as a case study in the adoption of emerging technology. Design/methodology/approach – The study used three research methods – a survey, focus groups and interviews – to investigate library and information science students’ reading habits and preferences. Findings – The findings suggest that despite the barriers of access and usability, the students have generally incorporated e-books into their academic routines. The results also suggest the factors that contribute to reader preferences for e-book technology. Research limitations/implications – The study sample was limited to one academic institution without e-book collection. Originality/value – The article presents one of the very few studies that examine e-book reading of an academic population that does not currently have access to e-books through their academic library. Understanding the ways in which such a population accesses, uses and values e-books would help many academic libraries make decisions with regard to the selection, integration and marketing of e-books. Additionally, such a study could serve as the basis of a case study that seeks to understand the ways in which people who do not have ready access to technology through their institutions find ways to work around that obstacle.

Has fascism arrived in America? In this pioneering book, Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward have gathered experts to survey the history of fascism in the United States. Although the US established a staunch anti-fascist reputation by defeating the Axis powers in World War II, the unsettling truth is that fascist ideas have long been present within American society. Since the election of Donald Trump as President in 2016, scholars have debated whether Trumpism should be seen as an outgrowth of American conservatism or of a darker – and potentially fascist – tradition. Fascism in America contributes to this debate by examining the activities of interwar right-wing groups like the Silver Shirts, the KKK, and the America First movement, as well as the post-war rise of Black antifascism and white vigilantism, the representation of American Nazis in popular culture, and policy options for combating right-wing extremism.

The digitization of the Freimann Collection, unique works belonging to the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Academic Study of Judaism), was a collaborative, international initiative to virtually reconstruct a cultural Jewish heritage collection that suffered losses during World War II. These works comprised the first engagement with pre-modern Jewish religious texts using modern research methods of academia. Building off a pre-war published catalog, the project brought together remnants of the original library collection in Germany and collections that were gathered in one of the main exile locations of German-speaking Jews in the United States. The freely accessible texts ensure the enhancement of scholarship by providing long-term discovery to an unlimited audience. Digitization and virtual reconstruction are not only crucial from a digital preservation standpoint, but also allow researchers to envision the works in the context of their intellectual and historical significance. The project also generated models for international collaboration and large-scale digitization workflows.

In early twentieth-century public discourse, ‘Jewishness’ was a taboo topic in polite conversation, and so it remained, albeit for different reasons, in the post-World War II period. When ‘Jewishness’, normally ‘below the threshold of articulation’ occasionally exploded through comedy, it offered a revealing glimpse of the ways ‘Jewishness’ shaped society. The article argues that examples of ‘Jewish’ comedy, concerned as they were with taboos and boundaries, offer insight into how ‘Jewishness’ functioned as a cultural code that structured everyday experience.

In this essay, I argue that despite the Vatican’s condemnation of Nazi racism as an anti-Christian ideology, some Catholic sectors in Fascist Italy were not impervious to anti-semitic and racial prejudices. Looking at the discussion on race and anti-semitism in the propaganda of clerical Fascism and its simultaneous echo in Church discourses, this research delves deeper into the formation of a specific Catholic trend of racial anti-semitism that excluded Jews from a religiously and ethnically homogeneous definition of the Italian nation. A significant part of the propagandists of clerical Fascism attempted to define a racial and anti-semitic narrative that could be suitable for both Fascist racism and Italian Catholic culture. I examine the Catholic appropriation of racial anti-semitism on a broad spectrum of positions, ranging from Catholics who only flirted with racialist rhetoric to those who dismissed the transformative value of conversion because of alleged racial barriers. Challenging the traditional distinction between Christian anti-Judaism and modern anti-semitism, the examples under examination demonstrate the entanglement of religious and racial arguments in the shaping of a ‘Jewish race’ that was considered foreign to the italianità celebrated by the regime.

These three papers investigate the establishment and trajectories of three institutions devoted to the documentation of women's history: the World Center for Women's Archives in New York, the International Archives of the Women's Movement (now known as the Aletta Institute for Women's History) in Amsterdam, and the International Museum of Women in San Francisco. The panelists detail the challenges faced by each institution and discuss the key founding personalities.

The presence of minorities and immigrants in national sports settings specifically in football, is well documented in many places around the world. The growing presence of Arab ethnic minorities on Israel’s national football team reflects this trend, and, as I will argue, it shows how sports in Israeli society is a gateway for the integration of minorities into Israeli society, yet at the same time, it also exposes the unique and complex tensions between diverse identity groups in Israeli society. The current study examined Jewish-Israeli football fans’ attitudes to the significant presence of Arab-Muslim players on the national team (whose starting eleven includes 4–6 Arab-Muslim players, including its captain since 2018). Based upon an analysis of fan comments posted to social media, related to the 2018–2019 UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) Nations League campaign, this study reveals Jewish hegemonic attitudes toward Arab footballers, as well as Arab footballers’ relative autonomy. Admiration and empathy toward minority members are expressed after victories, but in the absence of these well-defined conditions for empathy, as in the cases of team defeats or manifestations of minority pride, Jewish football fans shifted immediately to blatant, derogatory, and patronizing comments that focused on Arab players’ loyalty and expressed patronizing superiority over the Arab players.

Published in 1948, Jesus and Israel is Jules Isaac’s first book devoted to the Christian roots of antisemitism. Often interpreted through the retrospective prism of Jewish-Christian dialogue and the Second Vatican Council, this article rather links the book to its starting point: the Shoah. A work of history, Jesus and Israel is also the work of a survivor and a witness to persecution. Isaac’s scientific and commemorative approach is an early example of a link between historical consciousness and memory of the Shoah. Punctuated with analogies to Auschwitz, the book provoked a debate about the persistence of antisemitism in France, proving that the immediate post-war period was far from being a silent one in regard to genocide.

Between 1940 and 1944, thousands of persecuted Jews fled Europe via the Iberian Peninsula. For men, a defining feature of this escape was feeling hungry for several months in a Spanish detention camp, the “campo de concentración de Miranda de Ebro.” There, the men developed coping strategies for acquiring additional food, and tactics for coping psychologically with the hunger. These strategies created bonds and stable groups; conferred a sense of agency; and made the men feel useful, valued, and cared for. In parallel, Allied country diplomatic representatives, Red Cross organizations, and American relief agencies provided food parcels.

If nihilism is a largely misunderstood concept, it is on account of both its ambivalence and its affirmative horizon. Drawing on these aspects, this article reactivates the concept of nihilism in rereading one of the most influential moments in the history of modern Hebrew literature: Y.H. Brenner's novel From Here and There and his subsequent essay on ‘the genre of Eretz Israel.’ Indeed, in a central episode in the novel the limits of legitimate political critique are traced along the lines of nihilism; but, as Nietzschean-inspired theories of nihilism emphasize, nihilism, taken to the point of its own overcoming, can be completed into a moment of creative affirmation. Following the philosophy of ‘weak thought,’ I read this moment in Brenner as a moment of weak affirmation. Through it, I argue, Brenner proposes a weak political and literary paradigm as an affirmative continuation of the nihilistic, post-Zionist critique. Surprisingly, then, Brenner, one of the central figures in Zionist history, turns out to be a weak thinker: he thus allows for a rethinking of the relations between nationalism, literature, and historiography. Or, in other words, for a weakening of national politics, literature, and literary historiography.

Tracking the Mobility of Carceral Logics Jennifer Turner and Kimberley Peters, eds., Carceral Mobilities: Interrogating Movement in Incarceration (New York: Routledge, 2017), 256 pp., 9 illustrations, $49.95 (paperback) An Exciting Invitation to Rethink Knowledge Mobilities Ludovic Tournès and Giles Scott-Smith, eds., Global Exchanges: Scholarships and Transnational Circulations in the Modern World (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018), 356 pp., 9 illustrations, $130 (hardback) Theorizing Mobilities between Disability Studies and Palestine Jasbir Puar, Th e Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017), 296 pp., $26.95 (paperback) Beyond Borders: Mobility in Australia’s Northern Maritime Network Julia Martínez and Adrian Vickers, Th e Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labor and Indigenous Encounters in Australia’s Northern Trading Network (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), 227 pp., $28 (paperback) Backpacking toward European Integration Richard Ivan Jobs, Backpack Ambassadors: How Youth Travel Integrated Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 352 pp., 32 illustrations, $35 (paperback) Recovering Mobility in American Jewish History Shari Rabin, Jews on the Frontier: Religion and Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 208 pp., $40 (hardback) Which Mobilities? Critical Perspectives on Mobility, Norms, and Knowledge Marcel Endres, Katharina Manderscheid, and Christophe Mincke, eds., Th e Mobilities Paradigm: Discourses and Ideologies (London: Routledge, 2016), 235 pp., £36.99 (paperback) What Makes a Trail? Robert Moor, On Trails: An Exploration (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016), 340 pp., $16 (paperback) Airports: Cathedrals of Unsustainable Dreams? Alain de Botton, A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (London: Profi le Books, 2009), 112 pp., £8.99 (paperback)

The mission of this chapter is to demonstrate one research/cultural institution’s discovery solution journey. This includes information about the Center for Jewish History, its history and development as an organization, how these factors affect implementation at the Center, and the Center’s selection and implementation of Primo. This chapter delves into the challenges faced by smaller cultural and research institutions with special collections that wish to stay ahead of the curve in what some consider a “library-centric” environment and the challenges inherent in the search and implementation process. It discusses how digital, archival, and museum data, in conjunction with library data, shaped the development and needs of this project from its inception. Other topics described include phased implementation, authentication, customization of data sources, and evaluating impact of a discovery tool. Most importantly, this chapter shows how usability concerns have been resolved for the Center’s researchers and staff alike.

This work aims to portray the effects of Freud’s anxiety about anti-Semitic violence on his political theory and metapsychology. Taking as its entry point Freud’s reorientation of anti-Semitism as aggressive action, I argue that Freud’s fear of the violent mob can be located in three interconnected dimensions of his work, all deeply informed by Hobbesian imagination. First, Freud accepted a Hobbesian vision of social antagonism into his political theory; second, he formulated a deeper, more efficient defence mechanism against mob violence with his notion of psychical guilt; third, Freud’s fears penetrated his metapsychology. Suffering from anti-Semitism, Freud was not only quick to accept a Hobbesian perspective – he also reconstructed it to a degree that radically changed its meaning. Freud’s third and most pervasive manoeuvre destabilized one of Hobbes’s fundamental theoretical tenets by suggesting that the Hobbesian State of Nature is inherently a non-human reality.

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In recent scholarship on the violent history of twentieth-century Europe, the focus is slowly shifting to in-depth analyses of the viewpoints and responses of those who experienced the destruction ...

This paper examines the political life of Malcolm X in the context of the Black Prophetic Tradition. By exploring historical, literary, and theological considerations of political violence and divine warnings, “Catch on Fire” evaluates Malcolm X’s legacy as one of the iconic figures within more contemporary prophetic politics.

Pius XI's negotiations with Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, and Adolph Hitler in the era between the two world wars.An expansion of the series of papers opened by John Paul II in 2003, this release made possible the scholarly study of the papacy of Pius XI from the viewpoint of the Vatican.In Pope and Devil, Hubert Wolf, professor of church history at the University of Mnster, presents early findings from his research in these archives.Wolf is well versed in the history of the Catholic Church in Germany, and in the introduction and first chapter provides a detailed context for the worldview of the church in relation to the German political situation.Wolf notes that the tenure of Pius XI from 1922 to his death in 1939 put him in the position of dealing directly with Italian fascism, Russian communism, and Germany's National Socialist Party.His first major success was establishing Vatican City as a sovereign nation independent of Italy in 1929, before which his predecessors had considered themselves captives within their own city due to the distrust of Italian authorities.Wolf early on emphasizes that, in dealing with such authoritarian regimes, the position of the Roman Catholic Church was to renounce engaging in politics and public affairs in exchange for the promise of spiritual freedom for church members.He describes a dualistic worldview in which the church versus the state was seen as a contest of good versus evil.States asserting their right to totally control the lives of individuals were equated with devils always trying to seduce people into evil.However, this put the church in the position of negotiating with devils to save people's immortal souls rather than working to save the actual lives of the living.Eugenio Pacelli, cardinal secretary of state for Pius XI, is the focus of much of this book, as it is his paper trail that can be followed in documenting many of the actions of the church.Pacelli served as papal nuncio to Bavaria from 1917 through 1929, in effect being the Holy See's representative for all of Germany.Pacelli and the Roman Church held a disdainful view of German Catholicism that was heavily influenced by the complex history of the German states and the rise of Protestantism.Wolf argues that this time period is critical for understanding the actions of the papacy during the coming world war, in that Pacelli came to the conclusion that the proper role of the church "included no political involvement, no unnecessary battles with the state, and, if need be, complete withdrawal from society into sacristy-as long as the state guaranteed the Church's right to administer the sacraments and pastoral care" (p.78).Hence, Pacelli's influence on Pius XI can be seen.Chapter 2 deals directly with the Catholic Church and Judaism.Issues discussed include whether the church ignored the anti-Semitic movement to save itself, whether modern racial anti-Semitism and the older Christian anti-Judaism are separate concepts, and whether anti-Semitism is a basic structural feature of Catholicism.Wolf observes that Pius XI, though publicly calling in 1928 for a condemnation of racial religious hatred, wasted his chance to remove anti-Semitic elements from his own church's liturgy (p.121).

Nie wieder Auschwitz! (Never again Auschwitz!) is postulated by Imke Hansen as a lieu de mémoire intrinsically connected with, and symbolic of, the emergence of the former concentration camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau as a contested site of memory in the Polish physical, memorial and political landscape after the end of the Second World War. Hansen draws on the multifarious developments in the field of memory studies in recent years, coupled with the worldwide recognition of ‘Auschwitz’ as a metonym for the crimes of National Socialism in general and the Holocaust in particular, to present this detailed Gedenkstättengeschichte (‘history of a memorial site’, p. 24). Thereby Hansen offers a novel approach to ‘Auschwitz’ as both a physical site and a conceptual construct of memory, examining the interplay of agencies in the instrumentalisation of the site in the first ten years after the end of the war, in the context of the re-establishment of the Polish state and its political history in the early years of socialism. Through her meticulous analysis of eclectic documentary sources, Hansen unpacks the construction of various, and often conflicted, narratives of memory at Auschwitz-Birkenau, focusing especially on the contestation of memory between Polish political elites and Jewish survivors of the Shoah, among others, that have shaped the site into the present day.