Fatal Attraction: Four Constructions of the Holocaust in Israeli Society

• In Event: 167 - Section on Comparative-Historical Sociology Paper Session. Can Comparative Historical Sociology Save the World? (1) Israel/Palestine

Abstract

The collective memory of the Holocaust among Israeli Jews has featured competition among four related but distinct constructions: a Zionist object lesson; a wasting asset; an inspiration for safeguarding human rights; and a template for understanding Jewish life. This paper will analyze this competition and the implications of the victory of the version I label as "template for understanding Jewish life." While there is a sequence to the changing prominence of these different versions of the Holocaust, each version has, in every period since World War II, been to some extent been identifiable. But overtime competition among them has resulted in the victory of the Holocaust as a template for understanding Jewish life. This competition was driven in short-term ways by parochial and temporary political interests and by the unintended consequences of dissatisfactions associated with any one collective memory. My analysis will explain the result as a deeply institutionalized schema for understanding the world that is an extreme, but now powerfully naturalized, set of hegemonic beliefs. The paper concludes with an assessment of the implications of the victory of this version of the Holocaust over its competitors for appreciating Israel's contemporary political predicament.

Author

• Ian Steven Lustick, University of Pennsylvania