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Attention to the figure of the Muselmann in Holocaust studies is finally picking up steam, in what is a long overdue conversation. Recent studies of the concept and phenomenon are challenging long-held assumptions about to whom and what the term Muselmann refers, what it meant in the Nazi concentration camps, and what it means now. This essay responds to two pieces published here, "Did Jews Die as Muslims at Auschwitz? Spectres of the Muselmann," by Kathrin Wittler, and "Witnessing the Ghost, Letting the Ghost Witness," by Alexander Williams. Raising key questions about the term Muselmann, these essays together illustrate the ongoing problems it poses for Holocaust studies. While Wittler provides a historical excavation of the Orientalist and colonialist associations that cleave to the word Muselmann, one desperately needed in Holocaust studies, Williams approaches the subject theoretically, in effort to make the term perform sweeping conceptual work. Explaining "spectral" figures in Holocaust testimony remains fruitful, but doing so through inherited definitions of Muselmänner, based on a few iconic survivor testimonies, simplifies the ethical implications of the phenomenon, and perpetuates its problematic semantic history. I therefore argue that scholars would do well to use the term carefully and critically, lest we perpetuate these problems. Other recent studies on the topic that look at a wider variety of survivor perspectives prove the Muselmann to be an incoherent category and raise new ethical questions about concentration camp prisoner agency. As such work shows, it is time to demystify the specter haunting Holocaust studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, especially in Auschwitz, prisoners marked by utter physical and psychological exhaustion were called Muselmänner ("Mussulmen"). In recent years, based on a passing remark by Giorgio Agamben, many have taken this linguistic phenomenon to mean that Jews died as Muslims in the Holocaust. Quickly absorbed into current political theory, intellectual discourses, and discussion forums on the internet, this idea has become as widespread as widely misunderstood, all but turning Muselmann into a buzzword which may be (mis)used for anything from Jewish Islamophobia to US-American torture practices. The paper retraces the historical semantics of the German word Muselmann and discusses the possible reasons for its introduction into the language of the concentration camps. Based on the finding that the word's Orientalist implications do not sufficiently explain its use in the concentration camps and that neither guards nor prisoners employed it with the intention of turning Jews into Muslims, the paper cautions against the transfer of this word's historically specific use, developed under extreme conditions, into the heated political debates of the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within debates surrounding "Levi's Paradox"--the idea that through their survival, survivors are not necessarily the "complete witnesses" of the Holocaust--the Muselmann is frequently posited as able to reconcile this conundrum. Within testimonial literature, these emaciated prisoners were perceived as ghost-like entities who were neither alive nor dead but somehow between life and death. The observed absence left in witness narratives thereby appears to be testimony from inside the experience of these Muselmänner. What is ubiquitously overlooked in such analyses is that the Muselmann primarily functions as a metaphor--rendering the absent dead legible in language. Ignoring this risks instrumentalizing the Muselmann, which threatens to allow the metaphor to become shorthand for something more generic--obfuscating the reality that Muselmänner signify real Holocaust victims. However, all metaphors contain a potential for semantic flexibility. Cannot the Muselmann's ability to pollute rigid dichotomies therefore be approached productively and more ethically when refocalizing him as a ghostly entity in testimonial literature? By examining passages from Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and Charlotte Delbo's Auschwitz and After, this article asks: if the Muselmann is viewed as a ghostly or spectral metaphor--a haunting force within the Holocaust's literary corpus--how might this spectral witness be able to draw attention to erasure and historical blind spots? Constituting an ethical and an interpretive undertaking, this refocalization simultaneously allows one to speak with the Muselmann and enables these anonymous victims to manifest themselves anew as haunting forces through literary testimony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article concerns the Jewish community living in Bialystok, northeastern Poland's largest city. It used to be an important center of Jewish social and cultural life, with over forty thousand Jewish residents before World War II. As a consequence of the Holocaust, the population of the community decreased to a maximum of 1,500. The research, based mainly on statistical data from Jewish social institutions, reveals further changes, mainly caused by migratory movements and the processes of acculturation and assimilation, which led to the total disappearance of that community within less than thirty years. Another subject of the analysis is the demographic and professional structure of this population in the postwar years. The research shows that the unique demographic structure was the result of varied chances of survival during the war: higher in the case of men and people of working age. The professional activity of Bialystok Jews was characterized by a low rate of regular employment, especially in industry, and a relatively high rate of work in cooperatives and craft workshops. This professional structure differed significantly from the situation before the war and also from that typical in Polish society in general during this period, but with the passage of time, the uniqueness of the Jewish community decreased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Modern Jewess and Her Wondering Jewish Identity" argues that Margot Singer and Elisa Albert represent Jewish exile as women's stories. In their narratives, women's selfhood is historically and culturally inflected with both the imperative of Jewish women's obligation and exile within Jewish communal life. Their modern Jewesses wonder about the foundational urgency of sustaining and regenerating, even against all odds, Jewish identity and continuity. Albert and Margot Singer portray the modern Jewess as wandering and wondering—entering the fray of a perennially contested and changing Jewish American history and social and cultural site: the absent presence of the Holocaust, the Jewish home, family, and community, and the evolving nature of Jewish American literature and characterization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article unpicks the meanings of Zionist identification in postwar Britain, making a case study of the Jewish community of Glasgow. It questions how the existence of Israel, especially in times of crisis, impacted on British Jewish communities and individuals, and what these impacts may tell us about Jewish postwar lives. Focusing on material from the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre and oral history interviews with Jews that migrated to Israel from Glasgow, the article considers the role of Zionism in rearticulating and redefining Jewishness in the postwar period, notably in the context of evolving Holocaust consciousness, and declining religiosity across the country. It unpicks the workings and meanings of diasporic subjectivities, analyzing changing Jewish thinking about belonging and home. Ultimately, I argue, Glaswegian Zionism should be understood as a manifestation of postwar Britishness, which informed and underwrote evolving diasporic consciousness within Jewish communities. British Jews engaged with Israel with motivations and anxieties that reflected their lives in multicultural Britain more than Israeli culture or politics. This reality shaped the nature of British Zionism, explains why comparatively few British Jews made aliyah , and why the overwhelming majority supported Israel on their own terms from their British homes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to open a discursive space in which to reflect on issues of Holocaust historiography arising from emerging research on personal archives collected by "ordinary" people in relation to the Holocaust. The explorations, intended as a discussion piece, are anchored in a specific context, namely that of the Dorrith Sim Collection (DMSC) which is held in the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre (SJAC) in Glasgow. This collection offers a focus to concretize the historiographical discussion in a largely un-researched collection, while enabling consideration of a range of related collections and publications. The article investigates the historiographical practices of those involved in the collection, preservation, presentation, and publication processes, and considers the inherent ethical choices, choices that highlight the agency of the family, the archivist, and the scholar. Ethical choices, here, the investment of specific meanings and claims to significance, are amplified in this context because of their connection to genocide. I suggest that a "transparent historiography" that accounts for the research process within the published narrative could address the challenges arising from the necessity to be selective about what to collect, preserve, and write about, and how to do so. I borrow from other fields of research and professional practice to highlight possible avenues along which to advance historiographical discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This short essay presents an analytical update of how scholars, curators, and stewards are responding to the xenophobic climate and nationalist censorship being generated by the current Polish government under the rule of the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party. I focus on two new groundbreaking publications on the involvement of rural Poles and the Catholic Church in carrying out a rural Holocaust in World War II; the POLIN Museum's exhibit boldly representing the March 1968 antisemitic campaign that resulted in the exodus of thirteen thousand Polish Jews; and the activism of two educated, dedicated stewards of Jewish heritage preservation in small-town Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the experiences of German Jewish men who defied their deportations and instead tried to subsist in the underground in Nazi Germany during the years of the Holocaust. The author takes a gendered perspective analyzing some of the gender-specific challenges that German Jewish men faced, as well as coping strategies these men developed to overcome them. This article argues that German Jewish men, like women, used distinctly gendered survival strategies. These included the disguising of their Jewish identities through the forging of military papers and adapting military-male behaviors; the masquerading of their physical male constitution qua assuming a female appearance; and the endorsing of their male status in the men-deprived social landscape of wartime Germany, using German women as protective shields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include Finkel's book focusing on the experience of the Jews facing Holocaust and the differing patterns of behavior and tactics, including coping and resistance, they adopted in the face of such human brutality.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the memoir titled "Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered" by Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, the choice made by every Jew in response to persecution and death, and the authors view that the role of gender identity in the behavioral strategies adopted by Jews is missing.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the book portraying a depiction of Jewish behavior of compliance, collaboration and resistance during the Holocaust, focusing on Jews from the ghettos of Minsk, Białystok, and Kraków.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the authors view that the book makes a contribution to the social scientific turn in Holocaust studies, and the book tracing the choices of Jews living in ghettos of Kraków, Białystok, and Minsk around a set of behavior including cooperation, coping and resistance.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the book focusing on the survival strategies adopted by the Jews during the Holocaust, and the book attempting to understand the cause of different patterns of behavior adopted by the Jews facing Holocaust in three communities including Minsk, Kraków and Białystok.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the aim of the book being to provide a political science of the Holocaust, and the use of three specific Jewish ghettos including Kraków, Minsk, and Białystok that serve as a controlled comparison of Jewish behavior in the book.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the book analyzing the behavior of Jews from different places in response to Nazi rule, identifying collective patterns of Jewish behavior and how those patterns could have affected survival rates in various places.

A literary criticism of the book “Ordinary Jews: Choice and Survival during the Holocaust" by Evgeny Finkel is presented. Topics discussed include the book relating to both history and social science, and the situation Polish Jews faced in Soviet-controlled territory as opposed to the situation of Jews in German-controlled territory.

Richard L. Rubenstein, who initiated the American debate about theological consequences of the Holocaust with the publication of After Auschwitz in 1966, is best known for his claim that God was dead. This proclamation of God's demise is usually understood as a result of reasoning that includes the occurrence of the Holocaust among its premises. In the article, the author presents an alternative interpretation. Analyzing Rubenstein's early essays, the author argues that his rejection of theodicy as traditionally construed and of the notion of God as the Lord of History should rather be read as a part of Rubenstein's critique of "ghetto Judaism"--Judaism born in tragic and anomalous circumstances of exile, containing intrinsically problematic ideas of God, divine providence, and divine election. Heavily influenced by existentialism in general and by Paul Tillich's rejection of traditional theism in particular, Rubenstein believed that traditional Judaism had outlived its purpose. In Rubenstein's thought, Auschwitz--and those interpretations of the Holocaust that attempted to place it within the parameters of traditional vocabulary and the covenantal framework--the author submits, serves primarily as the most glaring example of the bankruptcy of "ghetto Judaism" and its God. It is not, however, the reason for this God's death and Rubenstein's argument is logically independent of the fact of the Holocaust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the topic of forced prostitution as a case of sexual violence against women in the Warsaw Ghetto. Despite a proliferation of studies on the ghetto experience, women who manipulated sex for their own and their families' survival remain an untold story of the Holocaust. This was brought about by the attitude of both those relating their experiences and those listening to them. Victims, motivated either by shame or perceived appropriate gender roles, were in general unwilling to return to these events in their testimonies. Their silence was further reinforced by the attitude of the researchers, who could not, or perhaps for various reasons did not want to, ask directly about sexual abuse. By examining the history of sex for survival in the Warsaw Ghetto, the article demonstrates how a vital part of women's Holocaust experience was marginalized and their memory silenced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article takes as its starting point the idea that as all disciplinary boundaries are constructs, the Introduction to Jewish Studies course is a useful place to begin thinking about moving beyond a multidisciplinary menu to an interdisciplinary way of thinking. Jewish Studies is a microcosm of the diversity within the humanities and social sciences and of the variety of subjects and approaches that characterize academic inquiry, and provides rich possibilities for cross-cultural and comparative inquiry. For the same reasons, the field of Jewish Studies is not easily delimited for the purposes of an introductory course. The authors examine approaches to teaching the introduction as a genuinely interdisciplinary course that could make Jewish Studies a model of inquiry for other multidisciplinary fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliezer Berkovits was the first Jewish thinker to make a sustained philosophical attempt at reconciling the magnitude and specific horror of the Holocaust with a traditional Jewish approach to history. To achieve this, he first establishes the position of the questioner as "Job's brother," who has neither the immediate exposure to events of the suffering Job, nor the luxury of distance to view them as just another case of unjust suffering. Second, he rejects the concept of the Holocaust as a religious "singularity," and shows that while it may pose unique questions about the nature of modernity, it does not, in its extremity, undermine religious categories per se. Finally he addresses the problem itself, which is not so much one of logic as recognition--can we recognize the Jewish God in the ashes of Auschwitz? His answer is a qualified yes, and though he has to bend some of the classic theological categories to do so, he nonetheless makes a serious argument for faith after the Holocaust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a post-Shoah world, theological exploration of Shoah issues and events questions the interrelationship between human and divine responsibility, often shaking and rendering radical reorientation to faith belief and living among ashes of evil. This paper summarizes and, to some extent, critiques the thought of early key thinkers of Shoah theology in America, including Eliezer Berkovits, who attempted to understand and explain religiously Shoadicy. It also argues for cooperative Jewish-Christian dialogue and activity in dealing with Shoah-related matters, a position neither engaged in nor supported by Berkovits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of philosophical positions about the meaning of Holocaust victim experience can be organized around three general stances identified by the moral implications that follow: the "redemptive," "nihilistic," and "narcissistic" positions. Further, each stance includes a distinct view of the muselmann--that category of Holocaust victim generally referred to as the "walking dead"--that serves to confirm its larger theoretical claims. These categories have served as a helpful pedagogical tool when teaching a wide variety of texts in the field of Holocaust studies, and students can identify the limitations of each position in terms of the caricature of the muselmann on which it rests. Lastly, organizing a syllabus around these three positions encourages a certain intellectual progression from moral judgment, to moral uncertainty, to renewed engagement with the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that Edmond Jabès's The Book of Questions, Volume I radically questions the presumably inherent authority of the witness in distinct yet interconnected ways. Heavily influenced by Derridian deconstruction, his text challenges conventional assumptions involving the witness, particularly the implied extra-textuality of horrific events (such as the Holocaust) and of those who provide testimony to them. Jabès's unique rethinking of the witness is made even more legible through the productive parallel he draws between the Jew and the writer. This parallel, for the author, is a reflection of the inescapable status of both as witnesses to the originary wound of language. Further, Jabès complicates the authority of the witness through his insertion of a rabbinical commentary throughout his text, a framework that fundamentally blurs distinctions between testimony and its interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the activist organization the Edith Stein House and its work in promoting multiculturalism and memorializing the Jewish Holocaust of 1939-1945 in Wrocław, Poland. It examines the organization's portrayal of the philosopher and nun Edith Stein, who converted from Judaism to Catholicism and was later canonized as a saint. According to the author, the organization's narrative does not address the problematic aspects of Stein's conversion and its implications for her representation of Jewish identity and experience in Poland. It is suggested that the Edith Stein House's memory activism obscures the ways in which Jews were marginalized in Wrocław and avoids the issue of accountability. Other topics include borderlands, tolerance, martyrdom, and exclusionary violence.

The essay examines the use of the graphic novel "The Search," drawn by Dutch artist Eric Heuvel and written by comic writers Lies Schippers and Ruud Van der Rol, as a means to teach teenage German students about the Holocaust. In order to do this, the author evaluates the design and structure of the work, emphasizing Heuvel's use of color. The ways in which various child characters from the narrative are depicted as surviving the Holocaust are also explained.

The article discusses hindrances to the process of Holocaust commemoration and memorialization in Slovakia, Hungary, and Poland following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The social conditions of Jews living in these three countries are examined, along with the relationship of Poland's Home Army with Jewish organizations during World War II. The creation of a post-Communist national identity in these countries is related to the ways in which these countries sought to, or did not seek, to commemorate the Holocaust. The memorials at the sites of the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Belzec concentration camps in Poland are analyzed. Anti-Semitism in these countries is discussed.

An essay is presented examining the thematic trends manifested in third-generation film makers depicting the Jewish Holocaust, focusing on their engagement with the historical memory of the genocide. Work by the film makers Marceline Loridan-Ivens and Robert Thalheim are highlighted, noting their shift in aesthetics which confront the event in an ethical paradigm without the "traumatization and commodification" elements of previous generations.

The article presents a film criticism of the 1980 motion picture "The Shining," directed by Stanley Kubrick. The author asserts that the film features a strong cinematic subtext linking it to the Jewish Holocaust. Kubrick's personal connection to the issue as a Jewish film maker is outlined, suggesting that while Kubrick rarely addressed the subject direct, it manifested itself subconsciously in many of his films. Several elements of the film are then highlighted and analyzed in this frame, such as its color scheme, its use of monsters and supernatural evil, and its metaphorical connections to older German literature of the grotesque.

A literary criticism of the book "Eve's Tattoo" by Emily Prager is presented. It outlines the character Eve Flick's hope to memorialize victims of the Jewish Holocaust by getting a tattoo based on a photograph of an unknown woman murdered at the Auschwitz concentration camp. It examines the Judeophobia that exists in many surroundings. The book's exemplification of the author's idea of a "Holocaust reader" that actively pursues an obsession with victims and survivors is discussed.

The article examines several Jewish children's books that have combined Hanukkah stories with Jewish Holocaust narratives. Through memory studies and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogical utterance, the themes of the interplay of trauma and nostalgia, the representation of intergenerational dialogue, and the use of literary artifacts to link time. The author believes that the literary combination of these two events results in an omission of the differences between the persecution of Hanukkah and the Holocaust. The children's books "The Christmas Menorahs: The Town That Fought Hate" by Janice Cohn, "All-Of-A-Kind Family" by Sydney Taylor, and "The Stone Lamp" by Karen Hesse are examined.

An essay is presented on a cultural prohibition in Jewish literature against rewriting history. The source of the prohibition is because of the historical seriousness of Jewish life after the Holocaust. The essay states that Jewish artists can't abandon history or condone historical revisionism but they can present alternatives within history to either redeem or critique it. The work of poets Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Charles Bernstein, and Benjamin Friedlander are examined for how they accomplish this.

The essay uses comparative cultural studies methods to analyze the film "Life is Beautiful," directed by Roberto Benigni, a children's book "The Sneetches," by Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss), and the Jewish Museum of Berlin. The author explores how these artifacts of popular culture pertain to the history of the Holocaust and public opinion of the Holocaust.

The article compares the September 30, 1997 apology made by the French Catholic Church with the March 16, 1998 Vatican Apology titled "We Remember." The comparison is relative to the context of public apologies made to Jews for any role of the Church in the Jewish Holocaust. In the author's view, the French apology appears heartfelt while the Vatican's apology avoids admitting to any failure of the Church during the period. The article also discusses the political and religious factors that delayed the French Catholic Church's apology.

The article examines the novel "Everything is Illuminated," by Jonathan Safran Foer. It presents the relationship between two grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators and how they deal on gaining post-Holocaust reconciliation. The novel discusses on how Alex, a grandchild of perpetrators, wants to win the friendship of Jonathan, a Holocaust survivor. In addition, it also analysis reconciliation between Jews and non-Jews as well as the impact of post-Holocaust.

The article discusses the harsh reception of the press people of London, England during the art exhibit of American painter R. B. Kitaj at the Tate Gallery in 1994 and the reaction of the latter regarding the bitter opinions of the former. It has been noted that Kitaj's history canvasses showed his intense attachment and concern for the plights of family members and close friends during the Holocaust. Several paintings of Kitaj are also presented.

The article examines the development of a Jewish culture in Germany since 1990. It is parallel to the Jewish culture appearing from the Russian Jewish community in the U.S. and Israel. Becoming Jewish means becoming German, or at least becoming Jewish in the sense of a German Jewish sensibility. For most Jews in Germany until the 1980's, German-Jewish identity is shaped by the Holocaust as involuntary exile and destruction as the formative historical experience.

Israeli documentary films of the 1940s and 1950s that deal with the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors point to the existence of a personal repressed Holocaust narrative in an era when such a narrative was stifled by the collective narrative of Holocaust and heroism. In these repressed narratives, remembrance of the Holocaust erupts in the present and disrupts the Zionist narrative that leads from the obliteration of the Diaspora past to the formation of the Israeli present and future. This is the narrative of people who remained foreign and "other" in Israeli society, who did not exchange their identities as Zionism expected of them. The films attempt to integrate these people into the Israeli collective, but their individuality, illuminated by the subversive reading, makes this integration difficult to achieve. The article analyzes the early documentary cinema in order to show that the survivors' personal narrative sabotages the national narrative from within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Holocaust-related films in Israeli cinema appear in several cycles. The 1980s cycle, which I call Shadow Cinema, expresses ambivalence and guilt and professes a perverse loyalty to a wound that will not heal and to the dead that have never been buried. The analysis of certain junctures in these films brings forth an unexpected analogy between the Sabra new Jew and the Nazi. I argue that these films echo a deeply ingrained recognition that the liquidation of the Diaspora sought by Zionism through immigration of millions of Jews to Palestine, was actually achieved by Nazi Germany through extermination of those same millions. Such inadvertent conflation must have elicited guilt feelings in the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine that had endorsed the "Negation of the Diaspora." The State of Israel, heir to the Yishuv, has inherited these guilt feelings. Israel has unwittingly engulfed itself in guilt for the destruction of the Jews by the Nazis. This tragic sense of Zionism has been in keeping long enough to have sunk in and made Israeli Jews carry indelible guilt vis-à-vis the victims of the Holocaust. Israel lives in a tangled "dead-end future," obsessed with endless bleeding and bloodletting to expiate the six million dead for whose death it innocently and unconsciously puts the blame on itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents the comments of the authors about the film "The Passion of the Christ." The Scholar's Conference on the Holocaust and the Churches has for more than 30 years now been a positive force for Jewish Christian dialogues in both North America and Europe. The results of these documents and dialogues have been far reaching, even in to the parish and local church level. Mel Gibson's film is based on a personal interpretation of the Gospel story of the last hours of Jesus Christ. That specific interpretation is part idiosyncratic to Mel Gibson and to the brand of Catholicism he and his father and others express.

This article focuses on Hebrew poetry related to the Jewish Holocaust. Many studies of the Jewish Holocaust focus exclusively on European Jewry. The fate of Near Eastern Jews would have been similar to the fate of their brothers in Europe had the Germans been successful on the North African front. Near Eastern Jews expressed deep feelings of brotherhood with the Jewish victims of the Holocaust both at the time and after. Poets from Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, and other countries wrote poetic responses to it at the time. Shelomo Zamir wrote a cycle of poems about the Holocaust. Mattityah ben Simhon from Morocco published a long poem "Qasida."

This article presents information about the poem "My Son, My Son, My Head, My Head," by Yehuda Amichai. Yehuda Amichai was born in Germany in 1924. Once the rise of the Nazi monster could neither be denied or ignored, he and his family escaped from there and arrived in Israel. Accordingly, one might expect that at least a significant cluster of poems by Amichai would address the Jewish Holocaust. One of the most noticeable aesthetic-rhetorical phenomena in this poem is the first line that commences each of the poem's three stanzas. The repetition of two metonyms for the Nazis' deadly means of transporting Jews to the gas chambers further emphasizes the somber sound of a lament in the poem.

This article presents information about David Grossman's novel "Ayen erekh: ahavah," and Yehudit Katzir's short story "Schlaffstunde." These works represent attempts by two younger Israeli writers with no direct experience of the Shoah to explore its impact on Israeli society. In each, the author presents a child's imaginings of the unspoken horrors that have traumatized his family. Both stories highlight the centrality of the Jewish Holocaust in formation of the young psyche, but they do so in divergent ways that reflect differences in the generation and gender of the protagonists, and perhaps the authors as well.