Holocaust

Christopher Hitchens’s Jewish Problem

In another highlight from our archives, Benjamin Kerstein inquires into a revered writer's virulent hostility toward Judaism (December 13, 2010).

The Riddle of the Satmar

In this review of an adulatory biography of the Satmar rebbe, first published February 17, 2011, Allan Nadler considers Judaism's most traditional—and most alienated—community. 

Menachem Begin: A New Life

Ensuring that another Holocaust would never take place was Menachem Begin's paramount concern, even when he was Prime Minister of Israel, pursuing Yasir Arafat in his Beirut bunker.

“They All Could Have Been Saved”

Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus personally rescued 50 Jewish children from Nazi-era Vienna and brought them home to Philadelphia.  A new documentary tells their story—and contrasts it with the apathy shown by their community.

Not-So-Young Adult

With remarkable sensitivity and clarity, Israeli novelist Nava Semel portrays children in Mandate Palestine working as hard as they can to make sense of a post-Holocaust, pre-state limbo.

The Betrayal of Salonika’s Jews

When the Germans entered Salonika on April 6, 1941, they found a willing cadre of collaborators and a broad section of Greek Christian opinion hostile to the Jews.

The Challenge of Sovereignty

On the eve of Israel's independence, David Ben-Gurion sat alone, questioning whether a people so long accustomed to being the victims of sovereign power could take responsibility for themselves.

On Silence

Eschewing Jewish expressions of mourning, Israel's founding generations shaped a national ethos of silence and self-restraint, which found expression in the words of poet David Shimoni: “Don’t mourn, don’t cry/ at a time like this./ Don’t lower your head,/ Work! Work!”

Marking the Day–But Which Day?

If it's the 27th of the month, it must be Holocaust Remembrance Day.  But what are we remembering, and why?  Differences in memorializing the Holocaust reflect fundamentally differing perspectives on Jewish history.

Shani Boianjiu and the Past and Present of Jewish Literature

Israeli writer Shani Boianjiu's first novel, composed in English, is a rare contemporary addition to the Jewish tradition of transnational literature.