Acknowledgments  ix

Part 1: Reconsidering Holocaust Study  

Introduction: Why the Holocaust? Why Sociology? Why Now? / Judith M. Gerson and Diane L. Wolf  3

Sociology and Holocaust Study / Judith M. Gerson and Diane L. Wolf  11

Part 2: Jewish Identities in the Diaspora  

Post-memory and Post-Holocaust Jewish Identity Narratives / Debra Renee Kaufman  39

The Holocaust, Orthodox Jewry, and the American Jewish Community / Chaim I. Waxman  55

Traveling Jews, Creating Memory: Eastern Europe, Israel, and the Diaspora Business / Caryn Aviv and David Shneer  67

Trauma Stories, Identity Work, and the Politics of Recognition / Arlene Stein  84

Responses to the Holocaust: Discussing Jewish Identity Through the Perspective of Social Construction / Richard Williams  92

Part 3: Memory, Memoirs, and Post-Memory  

In Cuba I was a German Shepherd: Questions of Comparison and Generalizability in Holocaust Memoirs / Judith M. Gerson  115

Collective Memory and Cultural Politics: Narrating and Commemorating the Rescue of Jewish Children by Belgian Convents during the Holocaust / Suzanne Vromen  134

Holocaust Testimony: Producing Post-memories, Producing Identities / Diane L. Wolf  154

Survivor Testimonies, Holocaust Memoirs: Violence in Latin America / Irina Carlota Silber  176

Historicizing and Locating Testimonies / Ethel Brooks  185

Part 4: Immigration and Transnational Practices  

In the Land of Milk and Cows: Rural German Jewish Refugees and Post-Holocaust Adaptation / Rhonda F. Levine  197

Post-Holocaust Jewish migration: From Refugees to Transnationals / Steven J. Gold  215

On Halloween We Dressed Up Like KGB Agents: Reimagining Soviet Jewish Refugee Identities in the United States / Kathie Friedman  236

The Paradigmatic Status of Jewish Immigration / Richard Alba  260

Circuits and Networks: The Case of the Jewish Diaspora / Yen Le Espiritu  266

Part 5: Collective Action, Collective Guilt, Collective Memory  

Availability, Proximity, and Identity in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Adding a Sociological Lens to Studies of Jewish Resistance / Rachel L. Einwohner  277

The Agonies of Defeat: Other Germanies and the Problem of Collective Guilt / Jeffrey K. Olick  291

The Cosmpolitanization of Holocaust Memory: From Jewish to Human Experience / Daniel Levy and Natan Sznaider  313

The Sociology of Knowledge and the Holocaust: A Critique / Martin Oppenheimer  331

Violence, Representation, and the Nation / Leela Fernandes  337

Bibliography  345

Contributors  385

Index  391

Judith M. Gerson

Debra Renee Kaufman

Chaim I. Waxman

Caryn Aviv

David Shneer

Arlene Stein

Richard Williams

Suzan Vromen

Diane L. Wolf

Irina Carlota Silber

Ethel Brooks

Rhonda F. Levine

Steven J. Gold

Kathie Friedman

Richard Alba

Yen Le Espiritu

Rachel L. Einwohner

Jeffrey K. Olick

Daniel Levy

Natan Schnaider

Martin Oppenheimer

Leela Fernandes

“This book makes a valuable contribution to the area of Holocaust Studies, and also to Migration, Diasporic, Gender, and modern Jewish Studies. . . . I found all of the articles, the major essays and the commentaries, informative and insightful.”—Morton Weinfeld, Canadian Journal of Sociology

“The collection is particularly significant because the editors and contributors have sought to bring Holocaust studies from its ‘academic ghetto,’ by which they mean the lack of cross-fertilization with other academic disciplines. . . . The essays, although varied in content and focus, are lucid and thought-provoking. Any could stand alone, but together they create a cohesive conversation that represents a variety of viewpoints and disciplines. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.”—S. E. Imhoff, Choice

“Gerson and Wolf’s book is essential reading for anyone, sociologists and non-sociologists alike, who wishes to enhance his or her understanding of this paradigmatic historical event.”—Ronald J. Berger, Shofar

“This volume is a welcome addition to the field of Holocaust studies. In seeking to address the gap in the sociological study of ethnic and religious genocide, the book brings together a diverse group of social thinkers, each of whom offers a unique and important sociological approach to the study of the Holocaust.”—Janet Jacobs, Contemporary Sociology

“[G]roundbreaking.”—Ronit Lentin, International Sociology

“Ethnicity is now regarded in a much more positive light, and the younger generation of scholars, less influenced by the above considerations, is unself-conscious about engaging in research on the Holocaust or Judaism. This volume is proof of the shift.” —William Helmreich, Studies in Contemporary Jewry

“This book makes a valuable contribution to the area of Holocaust Studies, and also to Migration, Diasporic, Gender, and modern Jewish Studies. . . . I found all of the articles, the major essays and the commentaries, informative and insightful.”—Morton Weinfeld, Canadian Journal of Sociology

“The collection is particularly significant because the editors and contributors have sought to bring Holocaust studies from its ‘academic ghetto,’ by which they mean the lack of cross-fertilization with other academic disciplines. . . . The essays, although varied in content and focus, are lucid and thought-provoking. Any could stand alone, but together they create a cohesive conversation that represents a variety of viewpoints and disciplines. Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.”—S. E. Imhoff, Choice

“Gerson and Wolf’s book is essential reading for anyone, sociologists and non-sociologists alike, who wishes to enhance his or her understanding of this paradigmatic historical event.”—Ronald J. Berger, Shofar

“This volume is a welcome addition to the field of Holocaust studies. In seeking to address the gap in the sociological study of ethnic and religious genocide, the book brings together a diverse group of social thinkers, each of whom offers a unique and important sociological approach to the study of the Holocaust.”—Janet Jacobs, Contemporary Sociology

“[G]roundbreaking.”—Ronit Lentin, International Sociology

“Ethnicity is now regarded in a much more positive light, and the younger generation of scholars, less influenced by the above considerations, is unself-conscious about engaging in research on the Holocaust or Judaism. This volume is proof of the shift.” —William Helmreich, Studies in Contemporary Jewry

“While research on the Holocaust exists in a variety of disciplines, a sociology of the Holocaust has yet to be fully developed and articulated. This book therefore fills a significant gap in Holocaust studies, bringing a much needed theoretical and empirical perspective to the field.”—Janet Liebman Jacobs, author of Hidden Heritage: The Legacy of the Crypto-Jews

“Sociology Confronts the Holocaust does not simply reflect a field: It creates one. The productive movement back and forth between the particular case of the Holocaust and general conceptual concerns of sociology is a substantial intellectual achievement.”—Robert Zussman, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

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