Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-09T08:25:34.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Holocaust in Israeli Textbooks

Death and Deliverance

from Part I - The Textbook of Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2021

Grace Wermenbol
Affiliation:
Middle East Institute
Get access

Summary

Chapter 2’s analysis of fifteen textbooks published since 1993 for Israeli middle and high-school students demonstrates that an exclusive presentation of the Holocaust in the curriculum has relied on the explicit portrayal of the Holocaust as a uniquely Jewish tragedy with universal relevance to the entire Jewish nation and, therefore, pertinent to every Israeli-Jewish youth. Simultaneously, the overt minimization of other groups’ suffering as a result of Nazi genocidal policies is deemphasized through the conveyance of anachronistic historical information and the usage of numerical aggregation practices. The chapter’s identified Zionist metanarrative lays the foundations for further exclusionary manifestations, namely the minimization of Palestinians’ fate in the 1948 War. Textbooks that illustrate a teleological movement from the center(s) of Jewish destruction, “there” in the galut (Hebrew: exile), to revival “here” in Israel, advocate a post-Holocaust justification for the Zionist enterprise and, consequently, necessitate an untainted recovery from the preceding crisis. By differentiating between Zionist, Zionist-critical, and revisionist narratives of the war, the chapter’s secondary analysis illustrates that while new historiographical writings on the 1948 War have emerged, the beneficial and practical effects of the mass Palestinian exodus are stressed in textbooks. In line with this narrative, a systematic policy of expulsion is firmly cast aside and, instead, overt reminders of traditional Zionist historiography formulating a miraculous rebirth remain.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Tale of Two Narratives
The Holocaust, the Nakba, and the Israeli-Palestinian Battle of Memories
, pp. 77 - 117
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×