How did the Ultraorthodox (Haredi) community chart a new path for its future after it lost the core of its future leaders, teachers, and rabbis in the Holocaust? How did the revival of this group come into being in the new Zionist state of Israel? In Holocaust Memory in Ultraorthodox Society in Israel, Michal Shaul highlights the special role that Holocaust survivors played as they rebuilt and consolidated Ultraorthodox society. Although many Haredi were initially theologically opposed to the creation of Israel, they have become a significant force in the contemporary life and politics of the country. Looking at personal and public experiences of Ultraorthodox survivors in the first years of emigration from liberated Europe and breaking down how their memories entered the public domain, Shaul documents how they were incorporated into the collective memories of the Ultraorthodox in Israel. Holocaust Memory in Ultraorthodox Society in Israel offers a rare mix of empathy and scholarly rigor to understandings of the role that the community's collective memories and survivor mentality have played in creating Israel's national identity.
Michal Shaul is Senior Lecturer in the History and Israel Studies Departments at Herzog Academic College. She is author of Holocaust Survivors and Holocaust Memory in the Haredi Community in Israel, 1945-1961 (in Hebrew).
IntroductionPart 1. Formative Memory1. The Ultraorthodox and the Holocaust: Catastrophe, Rupture, and Challenges2. The Paths and Circles of ReconstructionPart 2. Memory as Torture, Memory as Obligation3. Why Did We Survive?4. Starting New FamiliesPart 3. Memory as a Mobilizing Force5. The Restoration of the Torah World6. Du lebst mama [You live, Mother!]: Female Survivors and the Rebirth of an Educational Network7. Myths and the Rehabilitation of Ultraorthodox Society after the Holocaust8. "For us the past has not yet passed": Holocaust Commemoration in Ultraorthodox SocietyPart 4. Counter-Memory and Shared Memory9. Israeli Ultraorthodox Holocaust Memory a "Counter-Memory"?Conclusion: Holocaust Memory in Israeli Ultraorthodox Society: The Unique and the SharedAppendix A. The Expansion of the Yeshivot in Eretz Israel, 1944–1964Appendix B. The Growth of the Beit Ya'akov Educational Network in Eretz Israel, 1947/8–1952/3Appendix C. "The Melodious Train (on the History of the Melody of Ani Ma'amin)," from M. S. Geshuri, Neginah e-asidut be-vet uzmirAppendix D. Capsule Biographies BibliographyIndex
One of the book's great strengths is substantial quotation of those individuals dedic ted to rebuilding the prewar European Torah world. From their stirring words we are able to gl an the passion that was necessary to go forward in the wake of numbing losses.- Alan Rosen - Jerusalem, Israel
