"The evolution of home-state positions towards diaspora formation: Israel and its two diasporas" by Jonathan Grossman
Global Networks, 20.03.2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/glob.12481
How do home-state elites react to emigrants who form diaspora communities abroad, and how do these attitudes change over time?
The article explores these questions through an analysis of the discourse and policies of Israeli elites towards emigrants who created distinct diaspora communities and established ties with local Jewish diaspora communities between 1977 and 2023.
The article highlights the influence of ethnic and national identities, as well as emigrants' potential return, on attitude shifts.
Initially viewed negatively, diaspora formation may deter repatriation and ethnic immigration. However, with low return rates, home-state elites may endorse new diaspora communities to prevent assimilation and boost attachment to the home state.
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“Photography between Empire and Nation: German-Jewish Displacement and the Global Camera,” by Rebekka Grossmann, in Contemporary Europe in the Historical Imagination, eds. Skye Doney and Darcy Buerkle (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), 234-252.
27.06.2023
In this article Rebekka Grossmann examines German-Jewish photographer Tim Gidal's 1940 travels between India and Palestine. Gidal, a stateless refugee, captured both colonial and anticolonial contexts, shaping Western views of the "Global South." His photos aimed to portray colonized societies from the perspective of their inhabitants, yet also reflected a naive Western gaze.
"'Aryanization' in Central and Eastern Europe and the Equalization of Burdens Files: The Case of the Sudetenland" by Iris Nachum
Journal of Modern European History, Vol. 21, 15.06.2023
This article deals with compensation files created under the 1952 West German Equalization of Burdens Law [Lastenausgleichsgesetz, (LAG]) which was meant to indemnify ethnic Germans for property they lost when they were expelled from Central and Eastern Europe after WWII. The article demonstrates that LAG files can provide new insights into the Holocaust in Central and Eastern Europe. They can be especially illuminating of the interaction between Nazi profiteers and Jewish victims of Aryanisation in the Sudetenland.
"A Prisoner, Legislator, and Jurist: Joseph Lamm’s Legal Legacy in Relation to the Nazis and Nazi Collaborators (Punishment) Law, 1950" by Yehudit Dori Deston and Dan Porat
Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 37, 23.03.2023
Most of the recent studies point out how these trials blurred the lines between criminal law and moral judgment, focusing on either the legislators, the defendants, or the court. In contrast, the present article examines the trials through the lens of one individual who was central to shaping and implementing the law: Joseph Lamm. The article argues that Lamm’s personal experiences shaped his perceptions of the dual function of the law as both practical and declarative. This, in turn, affected his understanding of the law’s content (as a legislator) and how it should be interpreted (as a judge).
“Gabriel Bach and the Holocaust Trials – Four Affairs and One Memory” by Yehudit Dori Deston
Tel Aviv University Law Review (Iyunei Mishpat), 03.31.2022
The essay discusses the part taken by Gabriel Bach, a former Israel Supreme Court justice and a former state attorney who passed away last year, in the prosecution of Nazi criminals in Israel. While Bach's part in the Eichmann trial is well known, the essay spotlights his role in other cases. Some of these cases are well known, though Bach's part in them is hidden, while other cases have been relegated to the margins of collective memory. Analyzing Bach's part in these four affairs, the essay points out how collective memory is formed and suggests ways that the law helps to shape it.
"'Coming to Terms with the Nazi Past'?: The West German Compensation Policy in the Long 1950s" by Iris Nachum
Studies in Jewish History and Culture, Vol. 70, 29.09.2021
This article questions the dichotomous discourse about West Germany’s coming to terms with the Nazi past in the long 1950s. By focusing on West German indemnification payments to both persecutees of Nazism and ethnic German expellees, it suggests a composite approach to this scholarly debate.