| Description |
xi, 206 pages ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction : memory, resistance, and reclaiming the self -- 1. The moral justification for killing -- 2. Collective trauma : the disintegration of ethics -- 3. The moral position of violence : Bielski survivors -- 4. The moral goodness of violence : necessity in the forests -- 5. Spiritual resistance : understanding its meaning -- 6. Condemned spirit and the moral arguments of faith -- 7. The silence of faith facing the emptied-out self -- 8. Law and spirit in terrible times |
| Summary |
"The effectiveness of both political and spiritual resistance by Jews during the Holocaust is little understood. The general belief is that Jews did little to resist but the evidence shows just the opposite. The Jews resisted in considerable numbers and resisted against a regime and collaborators that dedicated themselves to their death. This book tells the story of Jewish violent and spiritual resistance; how powerful violent resistance was in sustaining personal and collective identity and how violent resistance saved lives, punished collaborators and threw roadblocks into the German policy of mass murder. Jews in the undergrounds and partisan communities demonstrated enormous courage under almost impossible odds. And their actions were often fierce and uncompromising. Yet the very fierceness of resistance raised moral issues that survivors even now find troubling |
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Spiritual resistance, as well, tells a story of unarmed, defenseless Jews unwilling to give up their faith, refusing to allow their will to be broken by German aggression. While spiritual resistance saved few lives, it still enabled Jews to sustain an identity and courage in the midst of the horror of mass shootings, gas chambers and crematoria."--BOOK JACKET |
| Notes |
Formerly CIP. Uk |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-197) and index |
| Subject |
World War, 1939-1945 -- Jewish resistance -- Moral and ethical aspects.
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Violence -- Moral and ethical aspects.
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Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) -- Moral and ethical aspects.
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| LC no. |
2004044372 |
| ISBN |
1403939071 cloth |
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