Archives
Johann Nicolai: „Seid mutig und aufrecht!“. Das Ende des Centralvereins deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens 1933–1938
Frank Schlöffel: Heinrich Loewe. Zionistische Netzwerke und Räume
Hannah Maischein: Augenzeugenschaft, Visualität, Politik. Polnische Erinnerungen an die deutsche Judenvernichtung
Jane Wegewitz/Tom Pürschel: Broder, Cerf & Löbl – Nachbarn auf Zeit. Neighbours for Some Time
Historicizing the settler-colonial paradigm
While a long line of Zionist thinkers have recognized the colonial dimension of the Jewish resettling of the Land of Israel/Palestine, this essay argues that the settler-colonial paradigm in Israel Studies is characterized by a reductionist understanding of modern Jewish history, Israeli society, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead of perpetuating the Cold War narrative of Israel as the “internal Occident” of the Middle East, both Jewish nationalism and Israeli statehood should be studied as integral elements of Middle Eastern state formation. In contrast, the settler-colonial paradigm deserves to be historicized as a crucial element of the intellectual history of Arab nationalism and Jewish anti-nationalism.
Issue 12 (2018), 22
Dear readers and friends of Medaon,
Without it being planned initially, this issue features several contributions with reference to Israel. Beate Klostermann-Reimers and Ulrike Pilarczyk analyze photographs and letters from the Zionist emigration project ‘Cherut’ near Hameln in the 1920s. Cordula Gdaniec attends to Russian remembrances of the Second World War in today’s Israel. And Johannes Becke questions the reductionist description of the Zionist project as ‘settler colonialism’.
Becke’s text thereby also refers critically to an article in the 20th issue published last spring (Ran Greenstein, „Settler colonialism and indigeneity“). We pointed out one year ago that Greenstein’s text caused controversy within the editorial board. Those of the editors who explicitly did not support the text criticized Greenstein’s scientifically debatable dogmatism and political one-sidedness as well as his essentialist affirmation of Palestinian “indigeneity”.
Klaus Hödl also reacts to an earlier contribution to Medaon. He takes up the debate about the relation of Jewish to “general” historiography, also in issue 20, and argues for abandoning the analytical distinction in favor of a discussion of ‘similarities’. Dieter Langwiesches’ article on the relation of German Jews to educated liberalism also deals with this, in a broad sense, history of relations.
Regional aspects of Jewish history are examined in contributions by Marc Oliver Rieger and Steffen Heidrich: the synagogue at Stavenhagen as a place of remembrance and the demographic development of the Jewish community in Dresden. Marina Sassenberg dignifies the historian Selma Stern. Other contributions and reviews top off the issue.
We could not have made this issue without the support of our reviewers. This time, corrections and translations were made by Cathleen Bürgelt, Dan Davies, Maria Diemling, Christian Kurmann, Phillip Roth, Marcus Schaub, Patricia C. Sutcliffe and Steffen Schröter from text plus form – we want to thank them very much!
The editors’ office of Medaon, spring 2018.
‘Jewish history’ as part of ‘general history’: A comment
Neue Handbücher zur jüdischen Literatur in Deutschland und den USA
Rote-Armee-Wald und weiße Flügel am Kliff. Ein Spaziergang durch russische Erinnerungslandschaften in Israel
This article provides insight into Israeli memoryscapes produced by, or connected to, (post-) Soviet immigrants, focussing on three aspects: The popular new performative initiative Immortal Regiment, which is spreading internationally, new commemorative spaces in the urban landscape, and the planned Museum of the Jewish Soldier in World War II. With a special reference to the city of Beer Sheva, the author outlines the changing position of Russian places and practices within Israeli cities and society, from a marginal position towards acceptance into a national narrative.