Table of Contents

Preface Introduction: Deeds and Words1 Fitt ing Memorials2 Telling the World3 The Saving Remnant 4 Germany on Their Minds 5 Wrestling with the Postwar World 6 Facing the Jewish Future Conclusion: Th e Corruption of History, the Betrayal of Memory Notes Bibliography Index About the Author

Promotional Information

A major re-examination of postwar American Jewry that debunks the assumption of silence

About the Author

Hasia R. Diner is Professor Emerita at the Departments of History and the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, and Director of the Goldstein-Goren Center for American Jewish History. She is the former series editor for our Goldstein-Goren series in American Jewish History. Among her many books are Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration, The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000, We Remember With Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of Silence after the Holocaust, 1945–1962, and Immigration: An American History, with Carl Bon Tempo.

Reviews

"A startling and passionate work of history. No one has written about the early American Jewish response to the Holocaust with more insight, sophistication, and sensitivity." Gary Gerstle, author of American Crucible "A powerful book worthy of its important subject. Diner revises our understanding of the critical post-war decades when American Jews incorporated bitter memories of the murder of European Jews into their collective consciousness." Deborah Dash Moore, author of GI Jews "Diner hurls a passionate, well-delineated attack on the conventional view that postwar Jews and survivors wanted to forget the Holocaust rather than memorialize the tragedy...she uncovers a rich and varied history of how Jews have incorporated and made sense of the Holocaust...Diner is particularly compelling in her exploration of how the postwar Jewish liberal agenda-transformed by the experience of the Holocaust, immigration discrimination and anti-Semitism in America-boldly embraced the civil-rights crusade...A work of towering research and conviction that will surely enliven academic debates for years to come." Kirkus Review, 2nd Jan 09 "An important contribution to American Jewish historiography, this book is recommended for all libraries."-Library Journal, Feb 09 "Diner...sets out to refute what she contends is an accepted truth: that until the 1960s, American Jewry suffered from a "self-imposed collective amnesia" about the Holocaust. Diner marshals considerable evidence that American Jews were aware of the Holocaust and their culture was influenced by it...Diner's worthy, innovative, diligently researched work should spark controversy and meaningful dialogue among Holocaust scholars and in the Jewish community".-Publishers Weekly, 23rd Feb 2009 "Perhaps the 'myth of silence' was a necessary stage in American Jewry's ongoing struggle to make sense of its place in a post-Holocaust world. But even if that myth once served a need, thanks to Hasia Diner's work, it must now be retired for good." Adam Kirsch, Tablet, 23rd June 2009