The Return of Liberal Judaism to Germany

2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-48
Author(s):  
Jan Mühlstein ◽  
Lea Muehlstein ◽  
Jonathan Magonet
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Sunday School ◽  
State Funding ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
World War ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
German Cities

AbstractThe German Jewish community established after World War Two was shaped by refugees from Eastern Europe, so the congregations they established were Orthodox. However, in 1995 independent Liberal Jewish initiatives started in half a dozen German cities. The story of Beth Shalom in Munich illustrates the stages of such a development beginning with the need for a Sunday school for Jewish families and experiments with monthly Shabbat services. The establishment of a congregation was helped by the support of the European Region of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and ongoing input from visiting rabbis. The twenty years since the founding of the congregation have also seen the creation of the Union of Progressive Jews in Germany, the successful political struggle for a share of the state funding for Jewish communities and the establishment of the first Jewish theological faculty in Germany.

scholarly journals A Quick Glimpse into Communism and Anti-Nationalism in Kedah Before the World War Two

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohd Kasri bin Saidon ◽  
Zolkefli bin Bahador ◽  
Khaliza binti Saidin
Keyword(s):  
Social Influence ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Mainland China ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Equality ◽  
The World

This paper is a brief review on social situation in Tanah Melayu (Malaysia), specifically in the state of Kedah, prior to World War Two. Generally, the situation and social understanding in Kedah was influenced by the influx of immigrants especially the Chinese who came for economic reasons.  These immigrants brought with them the culture and the way of life in the Mainland China. This, in a way, affected people’s lives in Kedah. With the strong support from the Chinese, communism began to make its mark among other ethnic groups in the society. The Triads culture became strong and it lead to other anti-national activities. This, in turn, affected the economic, political, and social influence. All these aspects seemed to have become the foundation of a bigger influence after the surrender of Japan. They have also become the foundation for social equality and differences during   the Emergency period from 1948-1960.

John Lehmann’s War Effort: The Penguin New Writing (1940–1950)

2020 ◽  
pp. 250-272
Author(s):  
Tessa Thorniley
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Elizabeth Bowen ◽  
World War Two ◽  
World War ◽  
Graham Greene ◽  
Literary Periodicals ◽  
The World ◽  
War Effort ◽  
Rosamond Lehmann

John Lehmann’s The Penguin New Writing (1940-1950) is considered one of the finest literary periodicals of World War Two. The journal was committed to publishing writing about all aspects of wartime life, from the front lines to daily civilian struggles, by writers from around the world. It had an engaged readership and a high circulation. This chapter specifically considers Lehmann’s contribution to the wartime heyday for the short story form, through the example of The Penguin New Writing. By examining Lehmann’s editorial approach this chapter reveals the ways he actively engaged with his contributors, teasing and coaxing short stories out of them and contrasts this with the editorial style of Cyril Connolly at rival Horizon magazine. Stories by, and Lehmann’s interactions with, established writers such as Elizabeth Bowen, Henry Green and Rosamond Lehmann, the emerging writer William Sansom and working-class writers B.L Coombs and Jim Phelan, are the main focus of this chapter. The international outlook of the journal, which promoted satire from China alongside short, mocking works by Graham Greene, is also evaluated as an often overlooked aspect of Lehmann’s venture. Through the short stories and Lehmann’s editorials, this chapter traces how Lehmann sought to shape literature and to elevate the short story form. The chapter concludes by considering how the decline of the short story form in Britain from the 1950s onwards was closely linked to the demise of the magazines which had most actively supported it.

Opening Remarks on the History of Science in Yiddish

2007 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Métraux
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Jewish Identity ◽  
Scholarly Activity ◽  
World War ◽  
Daily Newspapers ◽  
Literary Research ◽  
European Languages ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of

When introducing a collection of essays on Yiddish, Joseph Sherman asserted, among other things, that: Although the Nazi Holocaust effectively destroyed Yiddish together with the Jews of Eastern Europe for whom it was a lingua franca, the Yiddish language, its literature and culture have proven remarkably resilient. Against all odds, Yiddish has survived to become a focus of serious intellectual, artistic and scholarly activity in the sixty-odd years that have passed since the end of World War II. From linguistic and literary research in the leading universities of the world to the dedicated creativity of contemporary novelists and poets in Israel and America, from the adaptation of Yiddish words and phrases to the uses of daily newspapers in English to the elevation of Yiddish as a new loshn koydesh by Hasidic sects, from the publication of new writing to the translation of its established canonical works into modern European languages, Yiddish is continually reminding the world of its vibrancy, relevance and importance as a marker of Jewish identity and survival. (Sherman 2004, 9)

Who Are to Be the Successors of European Jewry? The Restitution of German Jewish Communal and Cultural Property

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 519-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Lustig
Keyword(s):  
Jewish Life ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
Proportional Allocation ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Communal Property ◽  
The World ◽  
German Jewish ◽  
Archival Practices

Who are to be the successors of European Jewry? This question faced Jewish leaders after the Holocaust, in terms both legal – inheriting heirless property – as well as spiritual – carrying forward Jewish culture. Looted Jewish property was never merely a matter of inheritance. Instead, disputes revolved around the future of Jewish life. While Jewish restitution organizations sought control of former communal property to use around the world, some German-Jewish émigrés and survivors in Germany sought to establish themselves as direct successors to former Jewish communities and institutions. Such debates set the stage and the stakes for mass archival transfer to Israel/Palestine in the 1950s. The fate of the German Jewish communal archives highlights the nature of postwar restitution debates as proxy for the issue of the continuation of Jewish culture and history, calling into question the nature of restitution itself. As opposed to policies of proportional allocation to meet the needs of radically diminished Jewish communities, wholesale transfer of archives reflected a belief in a radical rupture in German Jewish existence as well as Israel’s position as successor to European Jewry. The fate of the archives, which broke with archival practices of provenance, concretized and validated the historical rupture represented by the Holocaust.

scholarly journals Making the Call: Art and Politics in Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides

Humanities ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 118
Author(s):  
Ann C. Hall
Keyword(s):  
Classical Music ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Insurance Claims ◽  
World War ◽  
Old World ◽  
Art And Politics ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
Totalitarian State

Set in Germany during the denazification processes following World War Two, Ronald Harwood’s Taking Sides (1995 play, 2001 film) pits German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler against a relatively uncultured American interrogator, Steve Arnold, to, as Harwood says, examine the role of an artist under a totalitarian state and an American’s mistreatment of the world-renowned maestro. While there is certainly a contrast between the old world, represented by the classical music of Furtwängler, and the new, represented by Arnold’s affinity for jazz, there is much more at stake in both the play and the film. As the interrogation progresses, Arnold, who worked as an insurance claims adjuster during his civilian days, senses Furtwängler’s arguments about art as apolitical, are what he calls “airy-fairy” excuses. Arnold knows Hitler favored Furtwängler, used his music to inspire his atrocities, and gave Furtwangler access to almost anything he wanted. Critics frequently praise the play and film for its balanced presentation of the two sides. However, by examining the play and the film in terms of Aristotelian tragedy, this essay makes clear that Furtwängler’s refusal to take sides has grave consequences, consequences that only the crude, “ugly American” Arnold is willing to discuss.

Confrontation over Kenya: the Colonial Office and its Critics 1918–1940

1977 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Wylie
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Direct Impact ◽  
World War Two ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Pressure ◽  
Social Democratic ◽  
Responsible Government ◽  
The World ◽  
Colonial Office

Between the world wars, Colonial Office decisions regarding Kenya were subject to two opposed pressures: while the settlers wrestled with officials for greater control of their own affairs, a body of pro-African reformers loudly protested every concession and lobbied for equal rights and an end to the colour bar. This humanitarian lobby was largely the creation of two former colonial servants, Dr Norman Leys and W. McGregor Ross. Working mainly through the Labour Party, these men broadcast their social democratic ethics and demonstrated that the colony's political economy was badly weighted against African progress. They were the precursors of a more full-bodied socialist approach to colonial reform which during World War Two began to permeate the imperial bureaucracy. Until African initiative became a major determinant of Colonial Office policy in the early 1950s, these critics, with their colleagues in religious and humanitarian groups, were able to hold the front against settler self-government in a few indirect ways. Their allegations that Africans had been unjustly deprived of land and that they received far less in services than they paid in taxes were officially corroborated by command papers in the thirties. By creating a body of pro-African opinion which could exert political pressure on the Colonial Office they discouraged official plans to surrender responsible government to the settlers. Their direct impact on the Colonial Office was simply to alienate officials. Records of the confrontations between these reformers and Whitehall reveal that during this period Colonial Office officials were not only powerless to initiate reform. They were also, with few exceptions, uninterested in reforming the colony's political economy.

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