Institutional Scholarship :: Browsing by Author "Gerstein, Linda"

Browsing by Author "Gerstein, Linda"

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A Battle for the Neighborhood: The 1917 Philadelphia Sugar Strike and Food Boycott
(2023) Israel, Jessie; Friedman, Andrew, 1974-; Gerstein, Linda
On February 21, 1917, a group of 40 Eastern European housewives marched in protest down to the Franklin sugar refinery in South Philadelphia. Shouting, “We want food!” the women had come to join the picket line where their husbands and sons stood, on strike from the city’s three sugar refineries. Demanding a living wage and shorter hours, thousands of Polish and Lithuanian workers had walked out three weeks prior and joined the ranks of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a radical socialist union. The spirit of protest soon rippled out into the surrounding neighborhood, when a group of working-class Jewish women announced the start of their own “strike”: a boycott on basic foodstuffs, whose prices had begun to rise since the beginning of World War I. For the following weeks, they rioted in the market streets of their immigrant neighborhood, toppling pushcarts, breaking shop windows, and pouring kerosene over boycotted foods. This thesis uses the 1917 South Philadelphia sugar strike and food boycott as a lens to understand the theories and techniques of urban immigrant organizing in World War I era Philadelphia. I argue that immigrant sugar strikers and food boycotters based their protest on a broad theory of labor which bridged every realm of life, in which both the domestic and industrial spheres afforded the laborer workplace rights. The protestors practiced a hybrid form of protest which was based in a place-based familiarity with the local geography of their neighborhood, ethnic social networks, and American socialist labor organizing traditions. Central to their community ties was food, which held importance in immigrant culture and the local economy, but also whose production (particularly in the case of sugar refining) was rooted in an extractive relationship between the refineries and their surrounding community. The strike and boycott represented a battle for control of the neighborhood, one combatant fighting for localized economic and social reproduction, and the other for international wartime and Progressive-era capitalist interests.
A Historical Analysis of the Films of Andrei Tarkovsky in Relation to the Post-Thaw Soviet Moment
(2017) Helbock, Gus; Gerstein, Linda; Krippner, James
During the latter half of the twentieth century, Andrei Tarkovsky received arguably more critical admiration for his films than any Soviet director. During his filmmaking career, the Soviet Union experienced a tumultuous socio-cultural, as well as political, moment. After the death of Stalin, the Khrushchev Thaw of the late 1950s and early 1960s allowed for significantly more freedom of expression. It was at this time that Tarkovsky’s career began. However, through the 1960s and 1970s, a reactionary period in Soviet politics led to a return of stringent censorship, making Tarkovsky’s filmmaking process difficult. In the early 1980s, Tarkovsky emigrated to Western Europe, where he completed his final two films before his death in 1986. Due to his contentious relationship with the Soviet state, this thesis will attempt to analyze Tarkovsky and assess his relationship to the Russian intelligentsia and the dissident movements of the late twentieth century, as well as his relationship with spirituality and religion. In order to contextualize Tarkovsky’s place in Russian cultural history, this project will first examine the history of the Russian intelligentsia from the early nineteenth century. Next, it will examine Tarkovsky’s early life, film school career, and various influences on his approach to filmmaking. His filmography proper, consisting of seven completed feature films (five in the USSR, two in Western Europe), will then be analyzed for their relationship to the Russian intelligentsia. His theoretical writings, diaries, and interviews will be used as supplementary materials in order to gain further access to his personal opinions and artistic philosophy.
Art and the shaping of society: Russian posters and constructivism, 1917-1924
(2003) Ruder, Adam; Gerstein, Linda
The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 brought optimism for social and political change to Russia. Visual artists turned this optimism into art both by glorifying the proletarian revolution and the ideology accompanying it and by challenging the artistic traditions to create a new type of art and expression. In the wake of the Revolution, these two ideas of revolutionary art merged in a variety of styles and forms. Two groups that exemplify what I would call Bolshevik revolutionary art were the poster artists of the Civil War era and the Constructivists, an avant-garde group from the era of NEP. They created art based on a theoretical belief that art can bring about a fundamental change in society and individuals in a collective socialist system. Poster art and Constructivism both envisioned a new society where the new worker reigns supreme in a land of industrialization and depicted this idea in their artwork and writings. To establish this future they found it necessary to create a new vision of the past, one that demonized bourgeoisie, priests, and "bourgeois" art styles. However, they were clearly different groups of artists with different results. Their distinct training backgrounds and historical contexts help explain their different results from similar goals.
Art, Revolution, and Social Reform: The Relationship between Artistic Vision and Reality in the work of Diego Rivera
(2018) Villines, John-Francis; Krippner, James; Gerstein, Linda
Diego Rivera’s murals explicitly called for political action on the part of the spectator, and his vision accelerated the formulation of a class conscious proletariat in Mexico which wished to advocate for its own interests over and above those of the bourgeoisie. Rivera’s understanding of muralism began in Italy with his appreciation of frescoes, but it grew when he was tasked by José Vasconcelos to create a new revolutionary art. He and other artists were inspired by the Mexican Revolution, and they wished to capture the spirit of a new mexicanidad, a spirit of the people of Mexico. Porfirio Díaz, who was an avowed positivist and President of Mexico in the latter nineteenth century, had reshaped Mexico by transforming the economy from a quasi-feudal system to a more centralized market economy. Just as the project of modernization had begun before the Revolution, so had the efforts of artists to capture modernity on canvas. After the Revolution, however, Rivera’s and other artists’ conceptions of modernity became infused, as the decade went on, with an overtly political character. Rivera’s in particular built his own ‘epic modernist’ aesthetic which, like the epic theater of Bertolt Brecht, challenged viewers to question how they might play a role in the political change going on all around them. Rivera’s message of class-consciousness and action took root in Mexico in ways that it did not in the United States. In the 1930s Leon Trotsky found himself in Mexico, reeling from the Terror, and the ways that the U.S.S.R. had compromised the values of the October, compromised art, and created a leader cult; in contrast, Mexico’s artistic freedom, made manifest in reality the dynamic, democratic political action that Rivera called for in his murals and, in combination with the political advocacy of Lazaro Cárdenas, allowed for the enactment of broad, sweeping reforms.
Books of Hours: The Democratizing Vehicles of Medieval Women's Subversive Counter-Culture
(2008) Merikas, Lindsey; Gerstein, Linda
Concealed Criticism: The Uses of History in Anglo-Norman Literature, 1130-1210
(2016) Ristow, William; Gerstein, Linda
The twelfth century in western Europe was marked by tensions and negotiations between Church, aristocracy, and monarchies, each of which vied with the others for power and influence. At the same time, a developing literary culture discovered new ways to provide social commentary, including commentary on the power-negotiations among the ruling elite. This thesis examines the the functions of history in four works by authors writing in England and Normandy during the twelfth century to argue that historians used their work as commentary on the policies of Kings Stephen, Henry II, and John between 1130 and 1210. The four works, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Master Wace’s Roman de Brut, John of Salisbury’s Policraticus, and Gerald of Wales’ Expugnatio Hibernica, each use descriptions of the past to criticize the monarchy by implying that the reigning king is not as good as rulers from history. Three of these works, the Historia, the Roman, and the Expugnatio, take the form of narrative histories of a variety of subjects both imaginary and within the author’s living memory, while the fourth, the Policraticus, is a guidebook for princes that uses historical examples to prove the truth of its points. By examining the way that the authors, despite the differences between their works, all use the past to condemn royal policies by implication, this thesis will argue that Anglo-Norman writers in the twelfth century found history-writing a means to criticize reigning kings without facing royal retribution.
Converging Identities: The Creation of Argentine Sephardim in the Early Twentieth Century
(2019) Gold, Micaela Leah; Krippner, James; Gerstein, Linda
This thesis discusses the formation of Sephardic Jewish identity in Argentina in the first decades of the twentieth century. Jews began migrating to Argentina in large waves beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, and between these initial years and the early 1930s the Jewish population grew exponentially. Although only 13% of Argentine Jews, the Sephardic Jews who left Morocco and the (former) Ottoman Empire in search of economic opportunity and refuge from growing tensions in their home communities emerged as a visible migrant community. The Argentine Sephardic newspaper Israel and the memoirs of Sephardic migrants to Argentina demonstrate the process of adjustment to life in Argentina and the daily experiences that led to the formation of identity. They settled in Argentina, established new communities, yet also retained affinities to the places from which they migrated. As a result, this Sephardic community represented a heterogeneous mix of cultural and linguistic practices. They all referred to themselves as Sephardim, but had lived in distinct communities for centuries. Upon their convergence in Argentina, Sephardim needed to redefine their community identity to fit with their new surroundings, including other Sephardim, Ashkenazim, and non-Jewish Argentines. While not homogenous, the community formed by the Sephardim in Argentina developed out of common experiences of diaspora and migration, and a desire to ensure the survival of Sephardic traditions. They negotiated a balance between their Sephardic and Argentine identities, resisted impositions of unity by external organizations, and formed their own transnational relationships between their homelands and Argentina. In doing so they formed an Argentine Sephardic identity specific to their surroundings. Therefore, the Sephardic community that emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century in Argentina fulfilled both the necessity of survival and the desire to unify around common experiences of migration and settlement in new surroundings. The formation of an Argentine Sephardic community demonstrates that new identities develop out of migration and the specific conditions of the sending and receiving communities.
“Cultivating their Russianness”: Russian-Americans in Philadelphia, 1876-1976
(2024) O'Connell, Michael; Gerstein, Linda
On July 4, 1976, Americans celebrated the nation’s 200th birthday, enjoying familiar Independence Day motifs including parades, barbecues and, of course, fireworks. However, owing to the special Bicentennial occasion Americans also participated in a variety of locally sponsored events, including an exhibit about Russian-American history organized by the parishioners of St. Andrew’s Russian Orthodox Church, Philadelphia. Using St. Andrew’s as a case study my project examines the history of Russian immigrants and their descendants in Philadelphia. I argue that the emergence of a Russian-American identity in 1976 was contingent upon an earlier process whereby a diverse group of Slavic immigrants became Russian in the United States. I follow immigrants from the borderlands between the Russian and Austro- Hungarian Empires to the United States where, spurned by the Catholic Church, they entered Russian Orthodox churches undergoing a national and religious conversion. I examine the various influences which shaped this Russian identity in the United States during the 20th century including Palmer’s Raids in 1919 and 1920, White-emigre Russophile activism, and the Cold War. Of particular interest is ROVA Farms, a 1400-acre resort property in central New Jersey opened by the Russian Consolidated Mutual Aid Society in America. ROVA Farms was a site for Russians in America to disown Russia’s communist present and embrace the Tsarist Christian past. Russian-Americans developed their identity at ROVA Farms and ceremonially introduced themselves to the American public at the Bicentennial. Not necessarily the descendants of immigrants from Russia, Russian-Americans’ connection to Russia is a complicated matter. Indeed, the Russian-American identity debuted at the Bicentennial represented the remnants of a Russian identity that would have been mostly unfamiliar to the exhibit planners’ ancestors before they immigrated to the United States. Yet, the exhibit demonstrated that this identity persisted across generations, defying expected patterns of assimilation and Americanization.
Depravity at Sea: Das Boot and the Challenge of Coming to Terms with the Past
(2011) Holloway, Dustin; Schönherr, Ulrich; Gerstein, Linda
At the end of World War II Germany was faced with an identity crisis that would permeate the succeeding decades and strongly influence the question of what it means to be German. This crisis revolved around the Germans' collaboration with the National Socialist regime between 1933 and 1945. Despite attempts by the Allies to institute a top-down formula of denazification, no program was able to impose Vergangenheitsbewaltigung(the process of coming to terms with the past), and Germany experienced years of collective amnesia, in which the Second World War was a taboo topic, and avoided at all costs. The impetus for such a process would have to come from within Germany, however, and did so in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, as German youth began questioning their parents about the war and their roles in it. I argue that Das Boot, a novelization of a submarine's patrol at sea, was a symptom of the gradual conservative shift that occurred over the course of the 1970s, and contributed to the collective denial of guilt and re-definition of the German soldier as a victim that reappeared in the 1970s after a period of submersion. Both the novel (Lothar-Gunther Buchheim 1973) and the movie (Dir. Wolfgang Petersen 1981) versions contrasted sharply with the assertions of veterans who extolled their heroism and the glory of war. In opposition to this myth of heroism, Das Boot depicted the German submariner as a victim of both the Allies, against whom he hardly stood a chance, and of the Nazi High Command, which sent them to war without consideration for their lives. I examine how both versions of the story disassociate their protagonists from the Nazi ideology in order to define them as separate entities and avoid having to come to terms with the full measure of their guilt. Both works additionally display their conservative, militaristic roots through their interpretations of masculinity and its relation to technology and violence. Petersen's film employs a militaristic interpretation of masculinity, but only in his objectification of the male body, and the subordination of the individual to work as a small cog in the machine and carry out one's duty. Buchheim's text, on the other hand, exhibits a violently sexual masculinity that predominated in fascist Germany. His descriptions of masculine symbols are accompanied by graphic scenes of sex and rape, indicating his abiding need for his masculinity to subjugate the feminine in order to assert his dominance and achieve the sexual pleasure that he cannot acquire anywhere outside of combat. This form of masculinity that Buchheim displays indicates a disturbing attraction to violent sexuality, and betrays an ideological connection to the Third Reich that drastically alters the context of his novel. In light of his history as a Nazi propagandist, Buchheim's vehement denigration of the National Socialist government begins to appear more to assuage his nagging guilt, than to honestly depict the traumatic lives of the men who served in the "iron wolves." Das Boot is a story that attempts to address the German issue of Vergangenheitsbewaltigung, but ultimately falls short, settling for a rewriting of history, rather than a true confrontation of German guilt.
Dignity is Everything: Isaiah Berlin and His Jewish Identity.
(2005) Chappel, James; Gerstein, Linda
This essay represents my attempt to grapple with the meaning of Isaiah Berlin’s life and work. It is not a dispassionate consideration of his thought; those seeking that are directed to George Crowder’s excellent Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism. Nor is it a biography, as Michael Ignatieff has already written a very fine one. It is rather my attempt to answer the following personal question: why is it that Berlin is such a wildly attractive figure to me? I had dabbled in philosophy and intellectual history before encountering Berlin. But when I read him for the first time, I felt like the Piltdown Man stumbling upon New York City. Ideas came to life, and the history of thought became exciting and important. But the army that sprang from the dragon’s teeth was not staid and dull. Berlin delights in ideas that flash instead of plod, coming from thinkers more like the warriors of the Old Testament than the benevolent preachers of the New. And when I began to read Berlin’s purely philosophical works, it struck me that these terrifying but fascinating ideas were not absent from his own thought: modified, surely, but not entirely ignored as they were by other liberals, then and now. This essay is my attempt to ascertain how and why Berlin’s ideas “flash” like those of de Maistre, instead of seeming limp and dull like those of John Dewey and Karl Popper, two of the most estimable liberals of the 20th century. Berlin’s wit, which has ever remained his most attractive feature to me, is much closer to the aristocratic hauteur of the conservative Waugh than the bitter acerbity of Bertrand Russell. As the Queen Mother once reputedly said of Isaiah Berlin: he is “such fun!”
“Discriminate, but Do Not Persecute”: Mussolini’s Urban Plan for the Jews of Rome
(2015) Sanchez, Meghan; Friedman, Andrew, 1974-; Gerstein, Linda
During the early 1930s, Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini began his urban plan to reconstruct and rebuild Rome to its former ancient glory. Black-and-white photographs were taken to mark each momentous, groundbreaking occasion. These images depict Mussolini and his squads of Fascist youth and political goons traipsing across the ruins and remains of classical Rome. Through reconstruction, he wanted to uncover the great city that was once the capital of the leading empire of Western civilization and graft this legacy onto Fascist Rome. This urban project would create a nation that would be envied by all. While Mussolini sought to use these sites from ancient Rome as a bridge between classical antiquity and the modern capital of Italy, he also reemphasized a relationship between the Romans and Jews that had lain dormant among these ruins, in which Roman Jews from antiquity were not seen as Roman, but as “others” living in a land amongst true Roman citizens. The three sites that I focus on, Largo Argentina, the Roman Forum, and the Theater of Marcellus, are all within a mile of the Roman Jewish ghetto. Mussolini’s urban renewal project uses these sites to separate the revitalized center of Rome from the Jews, and attempts to marginalize them from Italian Fascist history. My thesis uses photographs of the three sites to demonstrate the revival of these ancient spaces and how they separate the Jews from the Roman architectural landscape, which acts as a precursor to the 1938 racial laws implemented to discriminate against the Jews of Italy. Many historians suspect that Mussolini enforced these laws to appease and follow the lead of Nazi Germany, but I claim that anti-Semitism has always been a part of Italian history and this relationship resurfaced in 1930 as a way to align Fascist Italy with its forefathers of classical Rome.
Dubcek's Balancing Act: The Struggle to Preserve Reform and Revolution in Czechoslovakia, 1968-1969
(2012) Cohen, Matthew D.; Kitroeff, Alexander; Gerstein, Linda
When Alexander Dubcek took over the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1968, he embarked on an ambitious reform program meant to create a better relationship between the Party and the people of Czechoslovakia. The reform program guaranteed liberties and freedoms that had been denied by the previous Communist regimes, the country embraced Dubcek and his reforms as a symbol of hope. The Soviet Union leadership, drawing upon their previous experience with Hungary in 1956, felt threatened by the reforms in what they considered a "satellite state", as non-Communist parties formed and the press used their new freedoms to criticize the Soviet Union. The Soviets sought to ensure that the Communist Party would retain its leading role in governing the state, and demanded that the Soviet Union retain its influence with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party. The conflict between Dubcek's reforms and Soviet pressure resulted in the August 21st Invasion of Czechoslovakia by its Warsaw Pact allies, in order to prevent what they saw as counter-revolution from going any further. The invasion failed to depose the reformist leadership due to the outpouring of popular support they received from the nation. The Soviet leadership then opted to instead slowly erode Dubcek's political position, so that months after the Invasion Dubcek was the only reformer left among the Party leadership. Dubcek struggled against the Soviet pressure to "normalize" the situation and abandon the reform program, by using his personal authority among the people to maintain calm and order without restricting their freedoms. Eight months after the Invasion though, in April 1969, it became apparent that Dubcek would be unable to hold his political position against the more opportunistic members of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. Dubcek resigned and his successor, Gustav Husak, immediately reduced the reforms to a distant dream, not to be realized for two more decades.
Dust Bowl Meets Great Depression: Environmental Tools & Tales of the Dust Bowl
(2011) Williams, Eliza; Gerstein, Linda
In the 1930s the Great Depression and a severe drought and dust storms rocked the U.S. A decade and a half before, the First World War marked a period of rising global wheat demand, and the Great Plains became an international breadbasket. American farmers met the demand and turned the region into a one-crop resource. The droughts of the early 1930s would further devastate the Plains topsoil, as farmers continued to break the sod and strove to top the yields of the war years. High winds took hold of the dry, overworked soil, now reduced to a fine powder, whipping up dangerous dust storms that transformed farmland into desert, and left thousands homeless and desperate. Inhabitants of the Plains, now termed the Dust Bowl, reacted to harsh conditions by attempting to combat nature, for the land ethic at the time was such that humans thought themselves stronger than and able to defeat the environment, rather than being part of it. At the same time, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 created domestic turmoil and international calamity, and the nation had to confront two unrelated crises simultaneously. With more than 15 million Americans unemployed, President Franklin Roosevelt sought to bolster American morale and unity through his ambitious New Deal, which enacted sweeping social and economic changes. The New Deal offered the American public a chance to combat its predicament and rise above its current circumstances, and the government and the populace united to boost morale by cultivating an attitude of toughness. That the Great Depression occurred at the same time as the Dust Bowl made it so that the environmental disaster was fought in the same manner as the economic crisis—with determination, perseverance, and grit, rather than understanding and moderation. Thus in the public consciousness the Great Depression was linked to an agricultural and environmental crisis, both of which had to be met with fierce resolve. As a result, there would be few opportunities to change the nation's land ethic. The Dust Bowl in and of itself could have presented a teachable moment, to even create a national environmental consciousness. Instead, the concurrence of the Great Depression postponed the start of the modern environmental movement, which would not emerge until the 1960s.
Einführung in die Weltstadt: Guiding Berliners to Cosmopolitanism, Imperialism, and Race, 1896-1900
(2014) Gavigan, Ian Noah; Gerstein, Linda
After the founding of the German nation-state in 1871, millions of people from the German countryside moved to Berlin, ethnologists articulated a global geography of race through their studies of "native" people, and new cultures of print, advertising, and consumption positioned the city and its residents at the center of the globe. Together, these developments helped produce a Weltstadtgefühl, a sense or sensibility of the "global city" that was defined by its technological modernity, imperial centralization, and scientific categorization. In this period, race began to take on new cultural and scientific meanings; through popular media and mass exhibitions, it became a category that inflected the ways the city itself was conceived and portrayed. Grounded by a discussion of urban consumption, this thesis' two case studies examine how the 1896 Colonial Exhibition's Exhibition of Natives and the popular Berliner Morgenpost newspaper's reporting on race used multiple strategies to guide new Berliners through the city. They were offered visions of Berlin that defined itself in terms of race, science, and empire. This thesis traces some of the linkages between imperialism, the world expansion of German capital, human scientific networks, ethnological/ anthropological ideas about race, educational institutions, and representations of the modern city. By examining narratives of Berlin, stories about ownership over the city and participation in its cosmopolitan grandeur, these analyses show some of the ways working class and white-collar Berliners were guided through the city and enlisted in the imperialist project. Both archives present real sites of popular interaction with ideas about race and imperialism; examining them offers an exciting opportunity to understand the actual circulation of racial ideas, intimately linked to nationalism and imperialism, as it occurred at the close of the nineteenth century in Germany's capital. They help show that the spread of racial ideas happened not necessarily through didactic explanations of race, but rather, in and through stories and feelings about the exciting spectacle of Berlin and the wonders of being and becoming Berliner.
Enemies of the State: Political Violence and the fall of the Weimar Republic
(2007) Munson, Geddes; Gerstein, Linda
What relationship did the sharp increase in political violence in Germany from 1929 to 1932 have with Hitler's rise to power? Why were there so many paramilitary groups and politically motivated fights in the final years of the Weimar Republic? Why was the German Communist Party unable to use political violence as effectively as the National Socialists? This is an examination of one attribute that the two most extreme political parties of the Weimar Republic, the German Communist Party (KPD) and the National Socialists (NSDAP) shared: Both had large and established paramilitary organizations that clashed with each other regularly. I trace the roots of this violence to the First World War, and then use the literature, plays, and visual art of the day to examine both the place that violence had in the German psyche and the public reaction to it. I will conclude that though the public generally approved of a high degree of violence, there were limits to what it could stomach. The challenge for political parties that wanted to use violence effectively then was in keeping their paramilitary formations obedient to the political leadership. This was a very difficult task, and one that Hitler was able to do with much more success than the KPD. I will then argue that in particular National Socialist violence was a key part of their growth strategy: it got the NSDAP the attention it needed to become part of the national conversation. Indeed it was political violence that propelled the NSDAP to electoral success, culminating in Hitler's appointment as chancellor.
Engaging elegance: the politicization of the New Yorker, 1934-1946
(2003) Scribner, Campbell; Krippner, James; Gerstein, Linda
My thesis discusses political and ethical changes in the editorial policy of the New Yorker magazine during the 1930s and 1940s. Specifically, it examines the impact of Communist literary criticism, the United Front, and class struggle on the editorial copy of what began as an aloof, humorous publication. Why, by 1946, was the New Yorker printing serious political material, such as John Hersey's famous article "Hiroshima," and to what extent did the change result from the leftward shift of the Great Depression? This thesis is an appropriate supplement to studies of art and Communism, as well as studies of American politics vis-a-vis humor, mass culture, and publishing.
Enlightened Darkness?: The Court of Versailles and the Enlightenment (1723-1764)
(2003) Tottenham, Blaise L.; Gerstein, Linda
Etched in Metal and Stone: The Local Contexts of Holocaust Remembrance at Three Memorials
(2022) Stern, Trevor; Gerstein, Linda
Holocaust memorials' physical structures and interpretations are necessarily mediated and shaped by local contexts, including place and the particular time of construction. Three monuments from across a wide geographic and temporal range show the broad influence of local contexts on physical and rhetorical manifestations of Holocaust commemoration. The planners of the 1964 Monument to the Six Million Jewish Martyrs in Philadelphia made frequent references to Jewish history and religious principles, the triumphant establishment of Israel, and American patriotism. The 1990 Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial is seen by its architect, monument planners, and visitors as a place especially of mourning for those lost in the Holocaust, as well as a conduit for education, resonant with the vigorous focus on the Holocaust in academia during the 1980s. The 2005 Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin is considered by many to be an expression of German guilt for the Nazis' attempted genocide of the Jewish people, or even a tool for overcoming the nation's shame, after a West German historical reexamination of its Nazi past during the Historikerstreit and reunification. The memorials discussed demonstrate the extent to which the past takes a back seat to the present when events are being commemorated through physical structures.
Experimenting with Rescue: Understanding the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Approach to the Jewish Refugee Crisis from 1938 to 1940
(2017) Medina Del Toro, Victor; Gerstein, Linda; Kitroeff, Alexander
Efforts to solve the Jewish refugee crisis created by the expansion of the Nazi empire have largely been examined with the hindsight that those efforts failed to rescue the millions of Jews who perished during the Holocaust. Historical literature has focused on explaining why governments and organizations did not do more—especially those of the United States. These social and political narratives, however, have largely ignored the considerations that govern the relocation of millions of people. Beginning with the premise that resettlement is inherently complicated, this investigation seeks to highlight the understanding of and approach to solving the refugee crisis by those directly facilitating rescue. Given that the burden of humanitarian efforts in the early 19th century fell on nongovernmental organizations, the approach taken by Jewish organizations has been underexamined. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s predominance among other Jewish organizations makes them ideal for exploring the considerations behind rescue efforts. Analyzing their approach to solving the refugee crisis reveals how the avenues of rescue chosen to rescue Jews changed as the situation progressed. Exploring the experience of an organization directly engaged in resettlement illustrates both that efforts were conducted with highly nuanced understandings of the situation and that impediments to rescue were just as complex. The importance of understanding the multitude of limitations that existed is that refugee resettlement was not simply a matter of will, but a matter of means. With limited avenues for rescue available to the JDC, even their best efforts could not solve the refugee crisis.
From Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan: How the Religious Right Formed to Elect the First Born-Again Christian and Then Turned on Him For Ronald Reagan and the Political Right.
(2010) Crabtree, Robbie; Gerstein, Linda; Friedman, Andrew, 1974-
The Religious Right shifted from an organization that backed a candidate who shared their beliefs to one who would take action on social issues. This group that has become such a strong supporter of the political Right once helped elect a liberal progressive Democrat from Georgia. But Ronald Reagan offered them the legislative action they wanted and the group seized the opportunity to form a type of alliance with the political right. This powerful group of Evangelicals looking to change America became known as the Religious Right.

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