THE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES AT UC SANTA CRUZ
An intellectual and programming hub for public events, research projects,
and collaborations devoted to the exploration of Jewish culture and history
Harriet Murav: “Poetry After Kerch: Representing Jewish Mass Death in the Soviet Union”
Why was there no Holocaust in Soviet Russia? There were killings, but the killings did not take on the same meaning as in the West, where the Holocaust emerged as a unique and paradigmatic set of events. Official Soviet history is part of the reason for the absence of the Holocaust in the former Soviet Union. The term “Holocaust” itself did not have broad currency in the West during the 40s and it was not used in Russian until the Soviet Union collapsed in the 1990s. Nonetheless, Soviet literature, almost completely neglected by scholars and critics, confronts the impossible history of the destruction of the Jews, but not in the same terms as Holocaust literature in the West.
Inventing America’s Worst Family Awarded Honorable Mention
Nathaniel Deutsch’s book Inventing America’s Worst Family: Eugenics, Islam, and the Fall and Rise of the Tribe of Ishmael, (UC Press) received an Honorable Mention by the 2010 Merle Curti Award, Organization of American Historians.
Benjamin Lapp: “Jews in Germany or German Jews?”
May 3, 2010, 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM, Humanities 1, Room 210 | This talk will deal with a number of issues related to the theme of Jews in Germany after the Holocaust.