ideologies of political life: diaspora, antisemitism, and the holocaust relig 210: lecture 17 march...
TRANSCRIPT
![Page 1: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/1.jpg)
Ideologies of Political Life:Diaspora, Antisemitism, and
the HolocaustRELIG 210: Lecture 17
March 10, 2008
![Page 2: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/2.jpg)
Lifecycle 101: From Cradle to the Grave
• Brit Milah/Baby Naming
• Bar/Bat Mitzvah
• Marriage
• Conversion
• Death and Mourning
![Page 3: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/3.jpg)
Lecture Goals
• Conclude Jewish Lifecycle Review
• Price and Promise of Emancipation
• Antisemitism and the Holocaust
![Page 4: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/4.jpg)
Why is Conversion so Important Today?
• http://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=279
![Page 5: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/5.jpg)
Religious Affiliation on the Move
• http://religions.pewforum.org/reports
![Page 6: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/6.jpg)
Conversion
• Judaism is not a proselytizing faith• Non-Jews discouraged from converting
– Sense of obligation, burden– Only convert “for the sake of heaven”
• Religious tradition does allow for entry– Identify with Jewish people– Religious practices– Relationship with God
• Converts treated favorably-Ruth– “Your people are my people…”
![Page 7: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/7.jpg)
Conversion and Covenant
• Period of intense study• Circumcision
– Acceptance of Jewish fate and destiny– National covenant-all Jews circumcised in
preparation for leaving Sinai
• Immersion– Before Sinai-Jews told to wash– Newborn Jew-New Hebrew Name
![Page 8: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/8.jpg)
Death and Mourning Rituals
• Death seen as tragic and inevitable– Focus on mortality and sacredness of life on earth– Teachings on life after death vary
• Tradition emphasize comforting mourners• Body is treated with great dignity
– Burial society cares for body– Body is accompanied from death to burial
![Page 9: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/9.jpg)
Burial and Funeral
• Simple Burial– No Cremation– Plain shrouds, wooden coffin– No physical wealth to grave
• Funeral ritual– Special mourner’s prayer
![Page 10: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/10.jpg)
Mourning Rituals
• Shiva period-7 days– Family remains at home– Community visit, comfort, and celebrate life of deceased
• Shloshim- 30 days– Mourners return to normal routine– Refrain from pleasurable activities
• Immediate relatives- Year mourning period
![Page 11: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/11.jpg)
Judaism and the Political Order
• Judaism develops in the Diaspora• Various degrees of autonomy and
persecution– Late Antiquity - Self-government under Patriarch
and Exilarch– Christendom and Islam– Jews and the Modern State
• Dina d’malkuta dina-Law of Empire is is legitimate law (if compatible with halakah)
![Page 12: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/12.jpg)
The Jews and the Modern State
• Emancipation– Process by which Jews gain citizenship– Not uniform across Europe
• Expectations– 1789 Count of Clermont-Tonnerre Speech– How does he justify allowing Jews
citizenship
![Page 13: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/13.jpg)
Jewish Response to Emancipation
• 1806 Napoleon convenes Assembly of Jewish Notables
• How does this group respond?
![Page 14: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/14.jpg)
Spread of Emancipation1789-1933
• Fits and starts
• Debate about citizenship– Jews can change– Integration-->Assimilation
• The Jewish Question Then and Now
![Page 17: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/17.jpg)
The New Antisemitism
• Traditional Christian anti-Judaism– Theology– Conversion is a possibility
• 1879-New Term: “Antisemitism”– Wilhelm Marr and Karl Duehring– Racial terminology– Biological and unchangeable
• 1894 Alfred Dreyfus Affair
![Page 18: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/18.jpg)
Why Antisemitism?
![Page 19: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/19.jpg)
Rise of Antisemitism?• Economic
– Lower class resentment– Dislocation of capitalism, industrialization– Blame Jews for competition of capitalism
• Political – Resent democracy, equality, anticlericalism– Antisemitism as tool for illiberal forces– Yearn for a pre-modern utopia
• Psychopolitical Terms– Glorification of German people– Need common enemy
![Page 20: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/20.jpg)
Antisemitic Themes
1. Jews conspiring to destroy Western Civilization
• Control politics, culture, press, and economics• Protocols of the Elders of Zion (Russia, 1903)
2. Racial distinction between good and evil groups
• Aryan vs. Semite• Jews are strangers, parasites
![Page 21: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/21.jpg)
The Protocols Today
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAncuwwUbj0
![Page 22: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/22.jpg)
The Protocols Today
![Page 23: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/23.jpg)
The Holocaust
• Systematic, state-sponsored persecution and annihilation of approximately 6 million Jews by Nazis and collaborators between 1933 and 1945
• Jews are less than 1% of German population (500,000)
• Final Solution to Jewish Question
![Page 24: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/24.jpg)
![Page 25: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/25.jpg)
![Page 26: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/26.jpg)
![Page 27: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/27.jpg)
![Page 28: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/28.jpg)
Questions Raised by Holocaust
• Why did the Nazis want to exterminate the Jews?– Hitler’s plan from the beginning?– Response to failure of other efforts to solve Jewish
problem
• How did Hitler and the Nazis succeed in imposing view on millions of Germans?– Germans wanted change after WWI– Nazis implemented totalitarian dictatorship– Bureaucratic proccess
![Page 29: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/29.jpg)
More Questions…
• How did Nazis manage to kill Jews outside of Germany?– Had support of local governments– Exterminate nearly all Jews living in
Poland, Czechoslovakia, Western Russia– Most Jews in Hungary, Holland and
Greece
• How did America remain silent?
![Page 30: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/30.jpg)
Impact of the Holocaust on Judaism
• Demographic– Wipes out center of Jewish life– Émigrés have huge impact on American Jewish
community
• Theological– Is covenant broken?– Unprecedented destruction– Where is God?– 614th commandment
![Page 31: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/31.jpg)
Impact, continued
• Centrality of Holocaust narrative– Silence in 1950s and 1960s– Gains centrality in recent decades– Connection with Israel– Today: Is there too much victimization?
• Political Question– Will Jews always be persecuted?– Recent rise in antisemitsim
![Page 33: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/33.jpg)
Is America an Exception?• No fight for emancipation in US
– Separation of Church and State– Jews get vote in all states by 1840
• Anti-Jewish antagonism muted – Founded as place for religious dissidents– Strong strain of civil nationalism– Also racial and religious notions of American identity
• American society profoundly religious– Strong belief in denominations– Ideal citizen is connected to religious community
![Page 34: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/34.jpg)
![Page 35: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/35.jpg)
![Page 36: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/36.jpg)
![Page 37: Ideologies of Political Life: Diaspora, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust RELIG 210: Lecture 17 March 10, 2008](https://reader035.vdocuments.mx/reader035/viewer/2022062407/56649d8e5503460f94a77b7e/html5/thumbnails/37.jpg)