A confrontational but always lucid view of Jewish identity and hatred of Jews.
Examining the “fragmentary and divisive antagonism against Jews, even by Jews.”
Gilman, a professor emeritus at Emory University, is one of America’s most prolific scholars of Jewish history and identity. Here, he posits that there is no single, historical hatred of Jews, irrespective of culture and context. Instead, he says, “antisemitisms” depend on moments in history and on the particular kinds of Jews addressed. He argues that the vast range of modern Judaism—from secular Americans and ultra-Orthodox Israelis to anti-Zionist political activists—makes it impossible to think of a single, unified object of prejudice. Furthermore, there may be no stable Jewish sense of self over the life of an individual. “I take seriously the claims of an individual’s identity as a Jew, understanding that such identity can shift over time and place,” he writes. The most recent catalyst for such shifts has been Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. After the 1950s, the author writes, “All Jews, no matter how defined, came to be enveloped in a new global community, demarcated now by the symbolic role that the State of Israel had taken in defining ‘Jewishness’.” For some, the 2023 attack has enabled a support of Palestinian rights that may echo a psychological “identification with the oppressor” and may even morph into “Jewish self-hatred.” But in the U.S., he writes, “The charge of antisemitisms during the period after 2023 became a cudgel, as in Imperial Germany, to attack any and all institutions or individuals seen…as the ‘foe’. The second Trump administration used it to suspend grants to medical research institutions, which had no relationship whatsoever to antisemitisms, as well as to demand the firing of members of academic Jewish studies departments whose views they found unacceptable.” We are all, now, Gilman writes, “caught in the web of our need to define those whom we feel as not only different but dangerous.” The line between the antisemite and the Jew, never truly sharp, is now, perhaps, irrevocably blurred.
A confrontational but always lucid view of Jewish identity and hatred of Jews.Pub Date: July 7, 2026
ISBN: 9781836391807
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Review Posted Online: June 1, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2026
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered...
The incredible true story of three Jewish women who survived the Holocaust.
Priska, Rachel, and Anka were married Jewish women in their early 20s when the Nazis took control of Europe. Like millions of other Jews, they were forced to give up their normal lives, all of their belongings, and their homes. Shuttled into ghettos and then off to one of the most notorious camps, Auschwitz II-Birkenau, they suffered through the Nazis’ increasing atrocities. But these three women all held a secret: they were pregnant. They were moved from Auschwitz and ended up in Mauthausen, another notorious death camp. With facing the most horrible conditions imaginable, all three gave birth right before the Allies accepted Germany’s surrender. In this meticulously detailed account, Holden (Haatchi & Little B: The Inspiring True Story of One Boy and His Dog, 2014, etc.) compiles an enormous amount of information from interviews, letters, historical records, and personal visits to the sites where this story unfolded. The graphic history places readers in the moment and provides a sense of the enduring power of love that Priska, Rachel, and Anka had for their unborn children and for the husbands they so desperately hoped to see after the war. Even though it occurred more than 70 years ago, the story’s truth is so chillingly portrayed that it seems as if it could have happened recently. These three women and their infants survived in the face of death, and, Holden writes, “their babies went on to have babies of their own and create a second and then a third generation, all of whom continue to live their lives in defiance of Hitler’s plan to erase them from history and from memory.”
An engrossing, intense, and highly descriptive narrative chronicling the ghastly conditions three pregnant women suffered through at the hands of the Nazis.Pub Date: May 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237025-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2015
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.
Antisemitism is alive and well and worth talking about.
Fersko, senior rabbi at the Village Temple in Manhattan and vice president of the Women’s Rabbinic Network, argues that Americans of all backgrounds must discuss antisemitism. The author notes that many people view antisemitism as a problem of the past, an issue that is rare and isolated in 21st-century America. She demonstrates convincingly that this mindset is misinformed and that antisemitism is on the rise. Early on Fersko provides a lengthy explanation of antisemitism as “the longest-held, farthest-reaching conspiracy theory in the world.” She explains that antisemitism is a belief in a variety of lies and stereotypes about Jews and Judaism, which manifests in everything from seemingly innocuous remarks to outright physical violence. Fersko points to seven points of dialogue that Jews and non-Jews need to address in order to help battle antisemitism, including race, Christianity, microaggressions, the Holocaust, and Israel. Throughout, she urges readers to educate themselves about the past and to learn to recognize the prejudices about Jews that many Americans inherit unknowingly. Though Fersko addresses such obvious sources of antisemitism as right-wing and racially based extremist groups, she makes it clear throughout the book that the American left is also a major source of antisemitism today. In some cases, this is seen in virulent anti-Israel stances, where left-wing activists portray Jews as racists and oppressors. In other cases, American liberals simply perpetrate tropes and stereotypes about their Jewish friends and neighbors, often through microaggressions, misplaced humor, miseducation about the Holocaust, etc. Though there are certainly points for debate, the text serves as a meaningful starting point for dialogue. If nothing else, she provides the important reminder that the age-old specter of antisemitism is not extinct; in many ways, it’s stronger and more dangerous than at any time since the Holocaust.
An eye-opening and thought-provoking read.Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2023
ISBN: 9781541601949
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Seal Press
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
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