"Holocaust Memory: Bad for the Jews?".

"Holocaust Memory: Bad for the Jews?". The Holocaust in American Life. By PETER NOVICK Peter Novick is an American historian, best known for writing and The Holocaust in American Life. . Boston: HoughtonMifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers , 1999. Imagine a well-meaning person-Jewish or non-Jewish--who has beenmoved by a visit to the Holocaust Memorial Museum, who has waded throughhistorical accounts and memoirs on the topic, and who then picks upPeter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life. How will he or shereact to the discovery that a prominent Jewish American historian nowcondemns the entire effort to remember and comprehend the Jewishcatastrophe of 1933-1945 as yet one more trend that is "bad for theJews"? Just when Jews and Gentiles seemed to have agreed thatknowledge of the Holocaust should be part of every modem citizen'smoral education, Novick comes along to announce that the event has nosignificant lessons to teach any of us, and that dwelling on it couldeven be construed as a "posthumous post��hu��mous?adj.1. Occurring or continuing after one's death: a posthumous award.2. Published after the writer's death: a posthumous book.3. victory for Hitler" (281).For those who have not kept up with the increasingly arcane ar��cane?adj.Known or understood by only a few: arcane economic theories.See Synonyms at mysterious.[Latin arc scholarlyarguments about how the Holocaust should be represented, the effect ofreading Novick's polemic po��lem��ic?n.1. A controversial argument, especially one refuting or attacking a specific opinion or doctrine.2. A person engaged in or inclined to controversy, argument, or refutation.adj. is likely to be bewilderment be��wil��der��ment?n.1. The condition of being confused or disoriented.2. A situation of perplexity or confusion; a tangle: a bewilderment of lies and half-truths.Noun 1. at best,shock and rese ntment at worst. To be sure, the appearance of a book like Novick's was almostinevitable. The enormous growth in interest in the Holocaust over thepast few decades has generated its share of unseemly side effects Side effectsEffects of a proposed project on other parts of the firm. ,epitomized in the often-cited phrase, "There's no businesslike Shoah business." The study of the Holocaust is now stronglyinstitutionalized in��sti��tu��tion��al��ize?tr.v. in��sti��tu��tion��al��ized, in��sti��tu��tion��al��iz��ing, in��sti��tu��tion��al��iz��es1. a. To make into, treat as, or give the character of an institution to.b. , even if Novick's reference to "thousands offulltime Holocaust professionals dedicated to keeping its memoryalive" (277) is surely exaggerated. Indeed, the study of howHolocaust memory has developed has become a growth industry in its ownright, inspiring books like James Young's The Texture of Memory:Holocaust Memorials A number of organizations, museums and monuments are intended to serve as memorials to the Holocaust and its millions of victims.They include: The Anne Frank House (Amsterdam, Netherlands) The Auschwitz Jewish Center (Oswiecim, Poland) and Meaning (1993) and Edward Linenthal'sPreserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's HolocaustMuseum The term Holocaust museum may refer to: Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum U.S. Holocaust Museum (Washington D.C.) Florida Holocaust Museum Virginia Holocaust Museum Holocaust Museum Houston See alsoHolocaust memorials (1995). The novelty of Novick's argument is his claim thatthe interest in the Holocaust is not just excessive and sometimesinappropriately expressed, but that the phenomenon is dangerous toAmerican Jews American Jews, or Jewish Americans, are American citizens or resident aliens who were born into the Jewish community or who have converted to Judaism. The United States is home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the world. and misguided for American society in general. Novickbegan his scholarly career thirty years ago with a study that noted howexaggerated claims about the number of victims claimed by the purgesthat followed France's liberation in 1944 had poisoned thatcountry's public life, and, although he does not dispute thefigures for Jewish losses during the war, The Holocaust in American Lifeoften reads as though Novick thinks he is dealing with a similarsituation in the United States United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Novick announces at the outset his doubt that "the prominentrole the Holocaust has come to play in both American Jewish and generalAmerican Gen��er��al American?n.The speech of native speakers of American English that many consider to be typical of the United States, noted for its exclusion of phonological forms readily recognized as regional or limited to particular social groups and for discourse is as desirable a development as most people seem tothink it is" (1) and concludes, almost 300 pages later, that"it would be an even greater posthumous victory for Hitler were weto tacitly endorse his definition of ourselves as despised de��spise?tr.v. de��spised, de��spis��ing, de��spis��es1. To regard with contempt or scorn: despised all cowards and flatterers.2. pariahs bymaking the Holocaust the emblematic em��blem��at��ic? or em��blem��at��i��caladj.Of, relating to, or serving as an emblem; symbolic.[French embl��matique, from Medieval Latin embl Jewish experience" (281), Alongthe way, he dismisses every justification that has been advanced forcommemorating or studying the Holocaust in the United States. He findsit "striking... how 'un-Jewish'--how Christian"recent Holocaust commemoration has become, with its emphasis on Jews asvictims (11). The events of the Holocaust were too extreme to teachuseful lessons for contemporary life. Rather than increasing sensitivityto oppression in the present, consciousness of the Holocaust "worksin precisely the opposite direction, trivializing crimes of lessermagnitude" (14). In any event, "contemplating the Holocaust isvirtually cost-free: a few cheap tears" (15). Those who blame theAmerican government for not having done enough to prevent the tragedyare a "prosecution team" whose writings "devalue thenotion of historical responsibility" and divert attention from"those responsibilities that do belong to Americans as theyconfront their past, their present, and their future" (48, 15). The Holocaust in American Life operates on two levels. On onelevel, it is an analysis of how the events which we now sum up under thelabel "The Holocaust" have been described and understood inAmerican culture over the past fifty years. On another, it is a jeremiad jer��e��mi��ad?n.A literary work or speech expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom.[French j��r��miade, after J��r��mie, Jeremiah, author of The Lamentations for the decline of a certain kind of American and Jewish liberalism anda warning of the fragility of a collective identity based onidentification with the victims of one of history's greatesttragedies. For the most part, Novick's review of how thepresent-day representation of the Holocaust developed follows what hasbecome the conventional scholarly wisdom. American Jews, and the generalAmerican public, were well aware of Nazi antisemitism in the 1930s.Reports about mass killings and death camps circulated during the war,but the details were often contradictory and hard to believe. Theliberation of German concentration camps in 1945 dramatized what hadhappened to the Jews, but the "Final Solution" was subsumed ina larger reaction agains t the Nazis' "crimes againsthumanity" and the term "Holocaust," used to distinguishthe killing of Jews from other atrocities, only appeared later.Israel's capture and trial of Adolf Eichmann Noun 1. Adolf Eichmann - Austrian who became the Nazi official who administered the concentration camps where millions of Jews were murdered during World War II (1906-1962)Eichmann, Karl Adolf Eichmann in the early 1960sgreatly increased awareness of the specificity of German crimes againstthe Jews, and the Israeli-Arab wars Israeli-Arab Wars:see Arab-Israeli Wars. of 1967 and 1973 createdcircumstances in which American Jewish leaders found it important tolink the two events. As the mood of the American Jewish communitychanged in the 1970s and 1980s, emphasis on the Holocaust served tomaintain a sense of Jewish identity Jewish identity is the subjective state of perceiving oneself as as a Jew and as relating to being Jewish. Jewish identity, by this definition, does not depend on whether or not a person is regarded as a Jew by others, or by an external set of religious, or legal, or sociological and to justify concern withexpressions of antisemitism. Novick notes the importance of the media inspreading interest in the Holocaust among the general American public,citing the examples of the 1978 "Holocaust" mini-series andSchindler's List, and discusses the institutionalization InstitutionalizationThe gradual domination of financial markets by institutional investors, as opposed to individual investors. This process has occurred throughout the industrialized world. ofHolocaust memory in school curricula and the Holocaust Memorial Museum. In telling this story, Novick rarely misses a chance to put theworst spin on the motives of those involved in the events he discusses.He describes the failure of American Jews to put rescue of Hitler'svictims at the top of their agenda, for example, as a "decision to'write off' European Jewry and concentrate on building for thefuture. . . based on a thoughtful, if chilling, appraisal of what wasand was not possible" (44). This characterization hardly doesjustice to the atmosphere of confusion--both about what was happening tothe European Jews and about what the actual possibilities for helpingthem were-- in which American Jewish leaders had to work. It ischaracteristic of Novick's tone that everyone involved in postwardiscussions of the Holocaust comes off looking manipulative ma��nip��u��la��tive?adj.Serving, tending, or having the power to manipulate.n.Any of various objects designed to be moved or arranged by hand as a means of developing motor skills or understanding abstractions, especially in ,self-interested, or misguided. Noting that, in the immediate aftermathof the war, there was a tendency to urge survivors not to dwell on to continue long on or in; to remain absorbed with; to stick to; to make much of; as, to dwell upon a subject; a singer dwells on a note s>.- Shak.See also: Dwell theirexperiences, he writes, "There is, in fact, an eerie symmetrybetween the messag es survivors received in the forties and fifties andthose of the eighties and nineties. Earlier, they were told that even ifthey wanted to speak of the Holocaust, they shouldn't--it was badfor them. Later they were told that even if they didn't want tospeak of it, they must--it was good for them. In both cases others knewwhat was best" (83- 84). American Jews who spontaneously boycottedGerman goods during the 1950s were wasting their time--the reparations reparations,payments or other compensation offered as an indemnity for loss or damage. Although the term is used to cover payments made to Holocaust survivors and to Japanese Americans interned during World War II in so-called relocation camps (and used as well to agreement with Germany meant that Israel was being flooded with Germanexports during the same years (109). If Holocaust scholarship after 1980began to give increased attention to the role "bystanders"played during the war, this was not an effort to better understand whathad happened, but a way of pointing the finger at all Gentiles, not justthe Germans (179). The point to Novick's book is not merely to trace the changingimage of the Holocaust, however, but to argue that the growing emphasison it since the 1960s has been a change for the worse. In his view,American Jews and American culture as a whole distanced themselves fromthe event during the 1940s and 1950s because they were focused on realissues that concerned the future, such as the threat of nuclear weapons,and because it was a period of optimism and "those whose outlook isbasically optimistic op��ti��mist?n.1. One who usually expects a favorable outcome.2. A believer in philosophical optimism.op and universalist--as Americans, including AmericanJews, were in the fifties--are not going to be inclined to center theHolocaust in their consciousness" (114). Even as he stresses thepositive tone of the postwar period, however, Novick does, somewhatcontradictorily, point out that Jews also hesitated to emphasize thesubject for fear of stirring up antisemitism, a phenomenon whosepersistence into the 1950s he documented in his well-received study ofAmerican university American University,at Washington, D.C.; United Methodist; founded by Bishop J. F. Hurst, chartered 1893, opened in 1914. It was at first a graduate school; an undergraduate college was opened in 1925. Programs provide for student research at many government institutions. historians, That Noble Dream: The Obj ectivityQuestion and the American Historical Profession (1988). Among otherthings, he provides a choice selection of press citations showing howforcefully charges of Jewish "vengefulness" surfaced after thecapture of Eichmann in 1960. Fears that the Eichmann affair wouldprovoke an antisemitic backlash proved unfounded and the trial did agreat deal to promote discussion of the Holocaust, but Novick sees theIsraeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1973 as more critical in this process,because appealing to the memory of the six million became "adeliberate strategy for mobilizing support for Israel among AmericanJews, among the general American public, and in the Americangovernment" (165). Ironically, in Novick's view, this effortwas too successful: by the mid-1980s, as doubts about Israel'spolicies grew, "the Holocaust offered a substitute symbol ofinfinitely greater moral clarity Moral clarity is a catch-phrase associated with American political conservatives. Popularized by William J. Bennett's Why We Fight: Moral Clarity and the War on Terrorism, the phrase moral clarity " that threatened to divert supportfrom the Jewish state (168). American Jews' increased interest in the Holocaust, inNovick's view, was a sign of unfortunate changes in the AmericanJewish community. "Formerly Jewish organizations had had an outwardorientation, had emphasized building bridges between Jews and gentiles,had stressed what Jews had in common with other Americans," hewrites. "Now there was an inward turn, an insistence on the defenseof separate Jewish interests... a shift away from the posture of theearlier period when American Jews rejected the status of 'victimcommunity'" (171). The Jewish community became morepolitically conservative and took up an unseemly form of "identitypolitics" (189). (Novick acknowledges that Jews in the 1980s and1990s continued to vote more heavily for liberal candidates than anyother ethnic group except blacks, and even cites a claim that"'Jewish money' comprises about hall the funding" ofthe Democratic Party (335), but dismisses this as a liberalism confined con��fine?v. con��fined, con��fin��ing, con��finesv.tr.1. To keep within bounds; restrict: Please confine your remarks to the issues at hand.See Synonyms at limit. to "questions of sexual morality, like abortion and gay rights" (183).) He finds it especially deplorable de��plor��a��ble?adj.1. Worthy of severe condemnation or reproach: a deplorable act of violence.2. that Jews used theHolocaust to "trump American crimes against what was, by an equallywide margin, the least advantaged group," namely, blacks (194).Novick insists that this evolution was "by no means a spontaneousdevelopment" and attributes it largely to conscious decisions by"communal leaders," although he admits that the end result-anunhealthy obsession with the Holocaust--was not their conscious aim. The result of all this, in Novick's view, has been anAmericanJewish community in which a shared identification with thevictims of the Holocaust has become the only common element. Beyondciting the familiar figures for intermarriage in��ter��mar��ry?intr.v. in��ter��mar��ried, in��ter��mar��ry��ing, in��ter��mar��ries1. To marry a member of another group.2. To be bound together by the marriages of members.3. , Novick's evidencefor this claim is impressionistic im��pres��sion��is��tic?adj.1. Of, relating to, or practicing impressionism.2. Of, relating to, or predicated on impression as opposed to reason or fact: impressionistic memories of early childhood. at best. He notes that there has beenlittle support for efforts to make commemoration of the Holocaust amajor element in Jewish religious ritual; he does not note that thesuccess of Schindler's List or of the drive to build the HolocaustMuseum in Washington, D.C., owed a great deal to non-Jewish interest.Even Novick's assertion that the leadership of the Amencanjewishcommunity continues to use the Holocaust as its main argument to winsupport for Israel is exaggerated. Whether their claims have beenjustifiable or not, Israel's advocates have tended to put morestress on the country's value as a strategic asset, its status as afunctioning democracy, and sometimes on its place in the hearts ofChristians. If it were really true that American Jews now overwhelminglyembraced a self-image of themselves as "pariahs" and were inthe process ofisolating themselves from their Gentile fellow citizens,there might he some basis for Novick's concerns. The verystatistics on intermarriage that Novick cites would seem to point to theopposite conclusion, however: the younger generation of Americanjewsseems, if anything, too comfortable with its place in American society.In recognizing the issue posed by rising rates of intermarriage, Novickparadoxically aligns himself with the professional community leaders heso often criticizes. The only difference is that, whereas the standardcomplaint about the danger of assimilation is made in the name of animagined community of shared and distinctivelyjewish values,Novick's nostalgia is for an equally imaginary past in whichallJews were dedicated to values of universal justice and willing toforego any claims on behalf of their own group. The question hangingoverNovick's book is whether he sees any value at all in themaintenance of a distincti vejewish identity. His argument questions theexistence of any real connection between AmericanJews and thoseelsewhere; he repeatedly points out that the events of the Holocausttook place on another continent and are therefore not a legitimate basisfor the formation of an American collective identity (2). Where Novickthinks this argument logically leads is, however, unclear. Is his answercomplete assimilation, or the reconstitution of AmericanJewish life onsome totally new and undefined basis? Aside from suggesting thatAmerican Jews recognize the superior moral claims of African-Americans,Novick provides no hint of an answer. Although Novick's book is addressed to a general audience, theheavy footnoting demonstrates that it is also intended as a contributionto Holocaust scholarship. Curiously, however, he says little about therole this scholarship has played in generating concern about theHolocaust, even though Holocaust studies is one area where academicpublication has reached an audience well beyond the bounds of thecampus. Raul Hilberg's name comes up in connection with the debateover Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, but his The Destructionof the European Jews, one of the fundamental building blocks of ourcurrent understanding of the Holocaust, is never referred to. OtherHolocaust scholars mentioned-Lucy Dawidowicz, David Wyman, StevenKatz-receive this honor only because Novick chooses to cite them asegregious e��gre��gious?adj.Conspicuously bad or offensive. See Synonyms at flagrant.[From Latin examples of tendencies he deplores. He is quick to pronounce pro��nounce?v. pro��nounced, pro��nounc��ing, pro��nounc��esv.tr.1. a. To use the organs of speech to make heard (a word or speech sound); utter.b. on involved historiographical debates, asserting, for example, thatAuschwitz could not have been successfully bombed and that the prisonersw ould have opposed such action because they "knew that liberationwas near at hand" (55), a statement that ignores the fact that theGermans actually succeeded in transferring most of their survivingprisoners to other camps or killing them en route. There are thus many grounds on which Novick's book can becriticized, but the essential question is whether his dire vision of theresults of Holocaust memorialization is appropriate. Novick'spolemic certainly throws the baby out with the bathwater. For him, thefact that the only incontrovertible in��con��tro��vert��i��ble?adj.Impossible to dispute; unquestionable: incontrovertible proof of the defendant's innocence.in��con lessons the Holocaust seems to teachare that no atrocities are beyond the realm of possibility and that"civilized" peoples can behave in barbaric ways means that itis not worth drawing attention to this catastrophe (262); others mayfeel that these lessons are by no means unimportant. Novick's deeppessimism, both about the condition of American Jewry and about the"decline in America of an integrationist ethos (which focused onwhat Americans have in common and what unites us)...(6) leads him to anessentially nihilist ni��hil��ism?n.1. Philosophya. An extreme form of skepticism that denies all existence.b. A doctrine holding that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or communicated.2. conclusion: since historical memory is alwayssubject to distortion and history's lessons are always uncertain,there seems to be no point in studying the past at all. Fellow historians may be tempted to link this argument to theconclusion of Novick's earlier volume on the American historicalprofession. There, too, Novick ended on a note of gloom, writing that"as a broad community of discourse, as a community of scholars Noun 1. community of scholars - the body of individuals holding advanced academic degreesprofession - the body of people in a learned occupation; "the news spread rapidly through the medical profession"; "they formed a community of scientists" united by common aims, common standards, and common purposes, thediscipline of history had ceased to exist" (Noble Dream, 628). Manyother historians saw the multiplicity of new perspectives on historythat Novick lamented la��ment��ed?adj.Mourned for: our late lamented president.la��mented��ly adv. as evidence that the discipline was in fact aliveand well. Similarly, it is possible to interpret the increasedconsciousness of the Holocaust that Novick documents quite differentlyfrom the way he does. Rather than leading most American Jews to fear anddistrust their Gentile neighbors, the current emphasis on the Holocaustseems to have reassured the Jewish community that their concerns aretaken seriously by the culture at large. The Holocaust Museum may notteach about the American past, but it does give Jews a presence in thiscountry's most important symbolic space, as Edward Linenthal haspointed out in Preserving Memory. Awareness of the Holocaust has nottotally transformed American life or American values, but it hasunquestionably un��ques��tion��a��ble?adj.Beyond question or doubt. See Synonyms at authentic.un��question��a��bil influenced debates about whether this country shouldintervene to protect endangered en��dan��ger?tr.v. en��dan��gered, en��dan��ger��ing, en��dan��gers1. To expose to harm or danger; imperil.2. To threaten with extinction. groups in other countries, and it hashad and continues to have a transformative effect on AmericanChristianity, forcing a re-examination of traditional theologicalattitudes toward Judaism. Rather than blotting blotting/blot��ting/ (blot��ing) soaking up with or transferring to absorbent material. blottinga technique used for the detection of DNA, RNA or protein. See northern blot, southern blot, western blot. Called also blot analysis. out attention to theinjustices suffered by other ethnic groups, it has often opened the wayfor greater recognition of them--Steven Spielberg, after all, followedup Schindler's List with Amistad. For all the paradoxes involved instressing the importance of a horrible catastrophe that took place ahalf century ago and half a world away, the impact of awareness aboutthe Holocaust in American life has been a good deal more constructivethan Novick's polemic would have us believe. JEREMY D. POPKIN is Professor of European history at the Universityof Kentucky Coordinates: The University of Kentucky, also referred to as UK, is a public, co-educational university located in Lexington, Kentucky. , where he has taught courses on the Holocaust since theearly 1980s.