Terms of Survival: The Jewish World Since 1945

by Wistrich,Robert

• ISBN13: 9780415100564
• ISBN10: 0415100569
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1995-03-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

InTerms of SurvivalRobert Wistrich brings together research from a range of outstanding contributors focussed on the Jewish experience in the post-War world. The result is a panoramic overview of Jewish life since 1945, covering demographics, social and religious trends in Israel and the Diaspora, Jewish political behavior and cultural creativity. Essays provide unique insight into such issues as the impact of the communities in Western Europe and the USA, the challenge facing Jews in the former USSR, the persistence of anti-semitism, and responses to new currents of ethnic identity. As we approach the end of the 20th century, the need for such stock-taking of the Jewish world as it has emerged from the catastrophe of the Holocaust and rejuvenated itself against considerable odds, is more pressing than ever. On the one hand, post-war Jewry, both in Israel and in the Diaspora, has become more self-assertive and politicized in the defense of its interests, and more militant inmanifesting its Jewishness; on the other hand, the process of assimilation, the persistence of antisemitism and the hostility to Israel, as well as the terrible losses during the Holocaust which can never be compensated, feed continuing anxieties and uncertainties. This collection is of value to all those interested in contemporary Jewish affairs, ethnicity in the modern world, religion and Israeli history. The extensive bibliographical material will nourish future research, while general readers will find the essays a window into the diverse, complex and fascinating saga of Jewish existence since the Holocaust.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: The Post-War Jewish World	p. 1
Changing Cores and Peripheries: Fifty Years in Socio-Demographic Perspective	p. 13
The Demographic Impact of the Holocaust	p. 44
Emigration and Aliyah: A Reassessment of Israeli and Jewish Policies	p. 59
The New Jewish Politics in America	p. 86
The Skills and Economic Status of American Jewry	p. 115
Modernization, Ethnicity and the Post-War Jewish World	p. 130
The Political Profile of American Jewry	p. 147
American Jews and United States Foreign Policy (1945-90)	p. 168
Soviet Jewry - A Community in Turmoil	p. 195
Ethnicity and the Jewish Vote: The French Case	p. 231
Jewish Political Attitudes and Voting Patterns in England 1945-87	p. 249
Anti-Semitism in Europe After 1945	p. 269
Religious Trends Among American and Israeli Jews	p. 299
Change and Continuity in American Judaism: The Case of Nathan Glazer	p. 320
Protestant Attitudes to Jews and Judaism During the Last Fifty Years	p. 332
Catholic Perceptions of the Jewish People Since the Second World War	p. 349
The Spanish-Speaking World and the Jews: The Last Half-Century	p. 358
Breaking the Mould: The Maturing of Hebrew Literature	p. 385
The Jewish Writer and the Problem of Evil	p. 412
State and Real Estate: Territoriality and the Modern Jewish Imagination	p. 428
Index	p. 449
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