Cite: Silverstein, Genderings of Diasporic Zionism and Jewish Holocaust Education

Silverstein, Jordana. “ ‘From the Utter Depth of Degradation to the Apogee of Bliss’: The Genderings of Diasporic Zionism and Jewish Holocaust Education.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 11.3 (2012): 377-398.

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URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14725886.2012.720512

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Abstract

This article examines some of the memories of the Holocaust produced in Holocaust education in a selection of Jewish high schools in Melbourne and New York at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It is being suggested here that the narratives about the Holocaust being taught in these schools are in part shaped by a gendered Zionist outlook. This article takes up the question of why this is, and in doing so provides an explanation of these types of narratives. In particular, this article explores the ways that this pedagogy places the story of the creation of the sovereign Jewish State of Israel at the end of a unit of study on the Holocaust, thus linking these two “events” in an important way. This article also explores what it is that makes these narratives gendered, and what work such narratives, and collective memories, do in the formulation of particular notions of diasporic Zionist thinking.