Michael Berenbaum – författare

"This learned volume is about as chilling as historiography gets." —Walter Laqueur, The New Republic" . . . a one-volume study of Auschwitz without peer in Holocaust literature." —Kirkus Reviews" . . . a comprehensive portrait of the largest and most lethal of the Nazi death camps . . . serves as a vital contribution to Holocaust studies and a bulwark against forgetting." —Publishers WeeklyMore than a million people were murdered at Auschwitz, of whom 90 percent were Jews. Here leading scholars from around the world provide the first comprehensive account of what took place at Auschwitz.

"A huge and hugely significant collection of much of the best Holocaust scholarship to appear in the last half-century." —Kirkus Reviews". . . magnificent . . . surely among [the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's] greatest achievements to date. . . . The range of the essays is nothing short of breathtaking." —Jerusalem PostFifty-four chapters by the world's most eminent Holocaust researchers probe topics such as Nazi politics, racial ideology, leadership, and bureaucracy; the phases of the Holocaust from definition to expropriation, ghettoization, deportation, and the death camps; Jewish leadership and resistance; the role of the Allies, the Axis, and neutral countries; the deeds of the rescuers; and the impact of the Holocaust on survivors.

The story of American Jewry is inextricably entwined with the awesome defeat of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the state of Israel. However, for Michael Berenbaum, and others of his generation, whose adult consciousness included the war in Lebanon and the Palestinian Uprisings, the tale is more anguished, for the Jewish people is now divided, uncertain about the implications of the past and the direction of its future. Berenbaum explores the Jewish identity of this generation, the first to mature after tragedy and triumph. He probes the Holocaust's impact on Jewish consciousness and the imprint of American culture on Jewish identity. While demonstrating that the security of victory is one step from the anguish of victims, even when the victors have recently emerged from the fire, Berenbaum holds out the hope of liberation for Judaism, maintaining that five thousand years of history, with its chapter of Holocaust and empowerment, provide a unique foundation upon which to build a future.

The story of American Jewry is inextricably entwined with the awesome defeat of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the state of Israel. However, for Michael Berenbaum, and others of his generation, whose adult consciousness included the war in Lebanon and the Palestinian Uprisings, the tale is more anguished, for the Jewish people is now divided, uncertain about the implications of the past and the direction of its future. Berenbaum explores the Jewish identity of this generation, the first to mature after tragedy and triumph. He probes the Holocaust's impact on Jewish consciousness and the imprint of American culture on Jewish identity. While demonstrating that the security of victory is one step from the anguish of victims, even when the victors have recently emerged from the fire, Berenbaum holds out the hope of liberation for Judaism, maintaining that five thousand years of history, with its chapter of Holocaust and empowerment, provide a unique foundation upon which to build a future.

Did we ""know"" the gas chambers were there? Could we have destroyed them? Why didn't we bomb? For decades, debate has raged over whether the Allies should have bombed the gas chambers at Auschwitz and the railroads leading to the camp, thereby saving thousands of lives and disrupting Nazi efforts to exterminate European Jews. Was it truly feasible to do so? Did failure to do so simply reflect a callous indifference to the plight of the Jews of was it a realistic assessment of a plan that could not succeed? In this volume, a number of historians address and debate these questions. Published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this is designed as a resource for understanding this deeply troubling episode in the 20th century's greatest horror. Prominent scholars such as Sir Martin Gilbert, Walter Laqueur, Michael Berenbaum, Gerhard Weinberg and Williamson Murray offer a diverse array of mutually supporting and competing perspectives on the subject. In the process they shed light on how much knowledge of Auschwitz Allied intelligence actually had and on what measures the Allies might have taken to halt the killing. The book is also rich in documentary evidence - including the correspondence of Churchill, Roosevelt, Cordell Hull, Anthony Eden and John McCloy - that reveals just how much these men knew about the situation and what they thought about its potential resolution. It also includes a selection of the most important documents and aerial reconnaissance photographs from 1944 exploring the feasibility of an air strike. Ultimately, these contributions show that the dilemma over Auschwitz was far more complex than criticisms of inaction would suggest. ""The Bombing of Auschwitz"" is an unusual volume that confronts life-and-death questions and addresses a matter of enduring interest for all readers of World War II and Holocaust history.

A beautiful memorial to the brave women who defied Hitler by preserving a part of their hertiage and a part of themselves in this handwritten collection of recipes, proving that the Nazis could not break the spirit of the Jewish people.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ topped box office charts and changed the American religious conversation. The controversies it raised remain unsettled. In After The Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences, leading scholars of religion and theology ask what Gibson's film and the resulting controversy reveal about Christians, Jews, and the possibilities of interreligious dialogue in the United States. Landres and Berenbaum's collection moves beyond questions of whether or not the film was faithful to the gospels, too violent, or antisemitic and explores why the debate focused on these issues but not others. The public discussion of The Passion shed light on a wide range of American attitudes—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish—about media and faith, politics and history, Jesus and Judaism, fundamentalism and victimhood. After The Passion Is Gone takes a unique view of vital points in Christian-Jewish relations and contemporary American religion.

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ topped box office charts and changed the American religious conversation. The controversies it raised remain unsettled. In After The Passion Is Gone: American Religious Consequences, leading scholars of religion and theology ask what Gibson's film and the resulting controversy reveal about Christians, Jews, and the possibilities of interreligious dialogue in the United States. Landres and Berenbaum's collection moves beyond questions of whether or not the film was faithful to the gospels, too violent, or antisemitic and explores why the debate focused on these issues but not others. The public discussion of The Passion shed light on a wide range of American attitudes—evangelical Protestant, mainline Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Jewish—about media and faith, politics and history, Jesus and Judaism, fundamentalism and victimhood. After The Passion Is Gone takes a unique view of vital points in Christian-Jewish relations and contemporary American religion.

Murder Most Merciful is a collection of insightful essays that consider Sigi Ziering's play, The Judgment of Herbert Bierhoff. In the play, Ziering tells the story of a loving father and his decision during the Holocaust to take the life of his beloved daughter to avoid her deportation. Scholars who have thought long and hard about the ethical implications of the Holocaust continue to grapple with the poignant questions Ziering raised. Commentary from the book's diverse contributors, including Holocaust survivors, scholars, rabbis, philosophers, and historians, results in an insightful and provocative moral and theological exchange. Murder Most Merciful will stimulate further debate on the crucial issues of martyrdom, euthanasia, and the guilt of the innocent. Ultimately, the judgment of Herbert Bierhoff is for the reader to make. The book appears in the Studies in the Shoah series as volume 28.

"The World Must Know by Michael Berenbaum is a skillfully organized and clearly told account of the German Holocaust that consumed, with unparalleled malevolence, six million Jews and millions of innocent others-Protestants, Catholics, Poles, Russians, Gypsies, the handicapped, and so many others, adults and children. This important book, a vital guide through the unique corridors of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., merits the widest of audiences."-Chaim Potok, author of The Chosen and The Promise The World Must Know documents the compelling human stories of the Holocaust as told in the renowned permanent exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. Drawing on the museum's extensive collection of artifacts, archives, and eyewitness testimonies, and augmented with more than two hundred period photographs, this book serves as an enduring reminder of the moral obligations of societies and individuals.This revised edition is enhanced with new insights and updates based on archival information that had been inaccessible to researchers until after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Communist regimes of Eastern and Central Europe. It includes new photographs, redrawn charts, a new section on the Holocaust in Greece, an updated bibliography, and a new foreword by the museum director. Published on behalf of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

October 7, 2023, was a watershed event in contemporary Jewish history. What took place on that date challenged the two most basic assumptions of post-Holocaust Jewish life: that the future security of the Jewish people would be assured by an independent Jewish state backed by an army, and that the freedom for Jews in the Diaspora to live as Jews would be secured by democratic rights and liberties. The pogroms of October 7 and the worldwide explosion of antisemitism that followed—even preceding Israel taking military action against Hamas—challenged both assumptions. The Israel Defense Forces could not prevent a slaughter from occurring even in the independent State of Israel, and throughout the world democracies seem less secure than at any time in the post-World War II era.The editors have turned to leading Jewish thinkers in the United States, Israel, and Europe to grapple with the implications of October 7 with respect to the Jewish future, the State of Israel, the relationship of Jews with Israel, and the character of Israel's relationships in the world. A Shattered World is one of the first scholarly collections of essays to address the hard question of what the nature of the Jewish future should be.

October 7, 2023, was a watershed event in contemporary Jewish history. What took place on that date challenged the two most basic assumptions of post-Holocaust Jewish life: that the future security of the Jewish people would be assured by an independent Jewish state backed by an army, and that the freedom for Jews in the Diaspora to live as Jews would be secured by democratic rights and liberties. The pogroms of October 7 and the worldwide explosion of antisemitism that followed—even preceding Israel taking military action against Hamas—challenged both assumptions. The Israel Defense Forces could not prevent a slaughter from occurring even in the independent State of Israel, and throughout the world democracies seem less secure than at any time in the post-World War II era.The editors have turned to leading Jewish thinkers in the United States, Israel, and Europe to grapple with the implications of October 7 with respect to the Jewish future, the State of Israel, the relationship of Jews with Israel, and the character of Israel's relationships in the world. A Shattered World is one of the first scholarly collections of essays to address the hard question of what the nature of the Jewish future should be.

AJL 2024 Judaica Reference & Bibliography Awards Honorable MentionThe late Steven Lowenstein was a brilliant social historian who, after retiring from his academic position at the University of Judaism, toiled for years—and up to his final days—to complete this monumental book, which is the definitive demographic history of German Jewry. Lowenstein took the research of Hebrew University demographer Professor Osiel Oscar Schmelz and brought it to life in the daily lived experiences of German Jews. The book is organized chronologically from Napoleon to German Unification (1815-1871), Imperial Germany and then the post- World War I era through the Nazi period. Later chapters are regional and topical studies.  Lowenstein’s calling as a social historian required him to examines “every leaf on every tree in the forest;” but he never lost sight of the trees and the forest – larger context. We know the ending of the story of German Jewry. Lowenstein’s great achievement is to document the extraordinary demographic resources that bespoke a vibrant German Jewish culture—and made that ending especially tragic.