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Article: Estranged brothers: reconsidering Jewish history.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Harper's Magazine
- Article date:
- April 1, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Harper's Magazine Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Discussed in this essay:
The Pity of It All: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933, by Amos Elon. Henry Holt, 2002.446 pages. $30.
The Tragedy of Zionism: How Its Revolutionary Past Haunts Israeli Democracy, by Bernard Avishai. Helios Press, 2002. 389 pages. $16.95.
Given the enormity of the event, it is perhaps unsurprising that the tendency since Auschwitz has been to view the history of the Jews through the lens of the Holocaust--to depict two thousand years of the Diaspora as little more than a prelude to catastrophe, and to see events since 1945 as a tale of renewal and democratic progress via the state of Israel. Two Israeli writers, ...