Thursday, November 29, 2007
An appraisal of the Blog System
As opposed to the Blog central, individual research blogs help one organize their thoughts for the RAE research paper. Posting on our blog was a constant in the research process. For example, we had to write annotations and explanations of our sources and post them to the blog. We also had access to each other's blogs so we were able to view the research progress of our classmates. Overall, I felt the RAE blog was a superfluous aspect of class. I found the most helpful assignments did not involve the blog. Aesthtically, writing my thoughts into a text entry box was not the best way to foster ideas. I actually thought the most effective assignment was the outline which truly helped me organize my ideas. The blog itself did not help me acheive any insight, it was basically a personal message board. As a matter of communication then, the blog was effective. Besides creating an arena for dialogue between the teacher and student, the blog did little else. Yet for this purpose, it may be a worthwhile addition to the class. However, it should not be added to a curriculum for helping students with research. Reading a blog is significantly more cumbersome than simply keeping a hard copy of the assignments.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Post Script to Synthesis Essay (Late)
After reading the comments on my synthesis essay, I realized that I was on the path to writing a research paper about the Holocaust, not my primary source. When I wrote my outline, I had a reinvigorated approach to the RAE paper, one where I focused on explicating my primary source through secondary sources. Previously, I had been using my cultural text as a platform upon which to pile facts; I saw it as the literary manifestation of my secondary sources. Now, I am viewing the assignment with an inverse outlook: my secondary sources are the factual manifestation of my primary source.
Specifically, I have focused more on the story itself in addition to the allegories and symbols within it. I feel that the innocently observational tone of the story is significant to its overall meaning. I had not even explored this idea in my Rhetorical analysis essay, but after much research it is relevant. As an account of Holocaust commemoration in Israel, "Shoes" presents the perspective of an Israeli youth who is somewhat removed from the Holocaust. His discoveries are analogous to the development of many Israeli pre-adolescents as they enter adult society. As the story progresses, the boy assumes a more intimate connection with his family's past and gains a greater awareness of the relationship between his heritage and the Holocaust. As the study of Israeli students' attitudes toward the Holocaust shows, Israeli teens share the same opinions as the narrator. The tone of the boys narration indicates that he is seeking reconciliation between the Holocaust and modern Israeli society. As a vibrant, socially-conscious society, Israel has reached a certain stasis in her commemoration of Holocaust victims, a state that the boys reaches at the end of the story.
Specifically, I have focused more on the story itself in addition to the allegories and symbols within it. I feel that the innocently observational tone of the story is significant to its overall meaning. I had not even explored this idea in my Rhetorical analysis essay, but after much research it is relevant. As an account of Holocaust commemoration in Israel, "Shoes" presents the perspective of an Israeli youth who is somewhat removed from the Holocaust. His discoveries are analogous to the development of many Israeli pre-adolescents as they enter adult society. As the story progresses, the boy assumes a more intimate connection with his family's past and gains a greater awareness of the relationship between his heritage and the Holocaust. As the study of Israeli students' attitudes toward the Holocaust shows, Israeli teens share the same opinions as the narrator. The tone of the boys narration indicates that he is seeking reconciliation between the Holocaust and modern Israeli society. As a vibrant, socially-conscious society, Israel has reached a certain stasis in her commemoration of Holocaust victims, a state that the boys reaches at the end of the story.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
RAE Checklist
1) I need to meet with Ms. Bates to discuss the viability of my thesis--does it conform to the parameters of the assignment?
2) I need to find a secondary source--if it exists--that discusses the process of writing about the Holocaust.
3) I need to finish reading my sources and contemplating their place in my thesis.
2) I need to find a secondary source--if it exists--that discusses the process of writing about the Holocaust.
3) I need to finish reading my sources and contemplating their place in my thesis.
What's On my plate? How about some Primary Source a al mode.
Alex Greenberg
1) Working Thesis:
Shoes by Etgar Keret presents an allegorical paradigm of Holocaust observance in Israel. The young narrator reaches an ultimate equilibrium between honoring the past and adapting to the future—a state that is universal across Israeli society. Keret explores the societal components of this phenomenon, regarding relationships between social groups and factions in Israel.
2) Sub-claims:
a) In his story, Keret implicitly forwards a secularist agenda. He exhibits the “fighting-culture” of secular Israel through the old man’s militancy. The time and setting of the story also allude to the secular-religious debate that shapes Israel’s commemoration of the Holocaust.
b) In Djerby, the student who doubts the old man, Keret creates a paradigm of the sabra—the Israeli who lived in Israel before the immigration of Holocaust survivors. This character represents the tension between the Gahal (new immigrants) and the sabras.
c) As the boy grapples with the decision to wear his German-made shoes, the old man’s warnings reverberate in his conscience. Here, Keret symbolizes how the Holocaust survivor mentality has affected Israeli society. As direct descendents of survivors, many Israelis have lived with their parent or grandparent’s experience their entire life. This close proximity has affected their outlook on nationalism and religion.
3) More than my secondary sources, I want to focus partially on how the memory of the Holocaust has influenced the voracious nationalism of the Israeli army. I believe that at least subconsciously, Israeli soldiers dedicate their fighting to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Since the army itself is an enormous institution of Israeli society, the pain of the Holocaust is actively present in many Israelis. I haven’t found a secondary source that primarily discusses this topic. It will not be my singular focus, but definitely an important part of my greater thesis.
1) Working Thesis:
Shoes by Etgar Keret presents an allegorical paradigm of Holocaust observance in Israel. The young narrator reaches an ultimate equilibrium between honoring the past and adapting to the future—a state that is universal across Israeli society. Keret explores the societal components of this phenomenon, regarding relationships between social groups and factions in Israel.
2) Sub-claims:
a) In his story, Keret implicitly forwards a secularist agenda. He exhibits the “fighting-culture” of secular Israel through the old man’s militancy. The time and setting of the story also allude to the secular-religious debate that shapes Israel’s commemoration of the Holocaust.
b) In Djerby, the student who doubts the old man, Keret creates a paradigm of the sabra—the Israeli who lived in Israel before the immigration of Holocaust survivors. This character represents the tension between the Gahal (new immigrants) and the sabras.
c) As the boy grapples with the decision to wear his German-made shoes, the old man’s warnings reverberate in his conscience. Here, Keret symbolizes how the Holocaust survivor mentality has affected Israeli society. As direct descendents of survivors, many Israelis have lived with their parent or grandparent’s experience their entire life. This close proximity has affected their outlook on nationalism and religion.
3) More than my secondary sources, I want to focus partially on how the memory of the Holocaust has influenced the voracious nationalism of the Israeli army. I believe that at least subconsciously, Israeli soldiers dedicate their fighting to the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. Since the army itself is an enormous institution of Israeli society, the pain of the Holocaust is actively present in many Israelis. I haven’t found a secondary source that primarily discusses this topic. It will not be my singular focus, but definitely an important part of my greater thesis.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Research Findings...
In the book "The Seventh Million," by Tom Segev, I found some interesting information about Israeli prejudices against Germany. Segev tells how at the outset of the Gulf War, a wave of rumor and controversy spread around Israel, that the Germans were providing Saddam Hussein with technology and chemical weapons. Forty-five years after the Holocaust, Israelis were reluctant to forget the German atrocities of WWII, and extrapolated them to the Germany of their present time. The old man in my primary source epitomizes this mindset because he urges the children to avoid buying German goods and to actively seek revenge against them. In the greater scope of my paper, this information demonstrates how the Holocaust has so deeply permeated Israeli society, that its memory reveals itself in many national matters. As a side note, today's Israel is more welcoming of German goods. When I got off the plane in Tel-Aviv last year, I saw an enormous Volkswagen (a German brand) advertisement in the airport. Still there are some Israelis who refuse to buy anything German.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Strategy I: Making Sources Speak (other strategy is below)
Part D/Strategy Analyze as you go along…
In reading most of my secondary sources, I have created “journal entries” that evolve has I read more. Essentially, I make an outline of key details or ideas/epiphanies I have while reading that source. Specifically, I took notes on a critical chapter of Survivors of the Holocaust by Hanna Yablonka. This chapter, entitled Sabras and Gahalniks in the IDF, contains perfect information for my interest in the stressed relationships between sabras (native Israelis) and the Gahal (new immigrants). As I read, I wrote down the page numbers of key passages. One passage inspired me to examine the affect the immigrants had on the entire morale of the army. Psychologically destroyed by the Holocaust, the Gahal were simply not suited to fight in a stressful war (the War of Independence, 1948-49). Their inability to summon the fortitude to fight was a burden on the Israelis that had already been fighting. One soldier remarked “Caring for these immigrants demands nerves of steel” (Yablonka 131). I took testimony like this and interpreted it to show that the relationships between the sabras and Gahalniks were strained from the beginning.
One aspect of my primary source that greatly interested me was the author’s omission of any religious allusion throughout the entire story. His subject matter, the Holocaust, has had extreme religious implications in Israel, and I believe his omission is purposeful. In the book The Seventh Million by Tom Segev, I found some interesting material relating to this issue. Segev discusses in great detail the bureaucratic quibbling of building Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum, Yad Vashem. Specifically, Segev describes the arguments over religious symbols in the museum between the secular and religious communities. One memorial structure received the name “Ohel Yizkor” or Memorial Tabernacle. This name is an allusion to the biblical “Ohel Moed” or Holy Tabernacle, where Moses received instructions from God while the Jews were in the desert. In this example, the religious community successfully instilled religious significance in a part of the museum. Yet Yad Vashem, which is an entire campus comprised of the museum and Holocaust archives, does not have a synagogue, nor does it employ a rabbi. This is especially shocking because with an on-campus place of worship, Yad Vashem could have been a meaningful place for Jewish prayer. The inconsistency of the religious presence at Yad Vashem encapsulates the secular-religious debate over how to memorialize the Holocaust. The two groups clash over many issues, but Holocaust remembrance is especially explosive because of its central position in Israeli society. Etgar Keret, the author of Shoes, is a noted secular Jew, though his brother is a member of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. I feel that Keret’s unique, secular point of view had an impact in his writing of Shoes. He describes the boy’s quandary with wearing the Shoes in terms of his personal ethics, not religious ethics. He questions if he is “hurting” his grandfather while wearing the shoes, not if he is dishonoring God. The underlying secularism beneath Shoes implies Keret’s view that the Holocaust should remain a cultural, not religious, matter.
In reading most of my secondary sources, I have created “journal entries” that evolve has I read more. Essentially, I make an outline of key details or ideas/epiphanies I have while reading that source. Specifically, I took notes on a critical chapter of Survivors of the Holocaust by Hanna Yablonka. This chapter, entitled Sabras and Gahalniks in the IDF, contains perfect information for my interest in the stressed relationships between sabras (native Israelis) and the Gahal (new immigrants). As I read, I wrote down the page numbers of key passages. One passage inspired me to examine the affect the immigrants had on the entire morale of the army. Psychologically destroyed by the Holocaust, the Gahal were simply not suited to fight in a stressful war (the War of Independence, 1948-49). Their inability to summon the fortitude to fight was a burden on the Israelis that had already been fighting. One soldier remarked “Caring for these immigrants demands nerves of steel” (Yablonka 131). I took testimony like this and interpreted it to show that the relationships between the sabras and Gahalniks were strained from the beginning.
One aspect of my primary source that greatly interested me was the author’s omission of any religious allusion throughout the entire story. His subject matter, the Holocaust, has had extreme religious implications in Israel, and I believe his omission is purposeful. In the book The Seventh Million by Tom Segev, I found some interesting material relating to this issue. Segev discusses in great detail the bureaucratic quibbling of building Israel’s Holocaust memorial museum, Yad Vashem. Specifically, Segev describes the arguments over religious symbols in the museum between the secular and religious communities. One memorial structure received the name “Ohel Yizkor” or Memorial Tabernacle. This name is an allusion to the biblical “Ohel Moed” or Holy Tabernacle, where Moses received instructions from God while the Jews were in the desert. In this example, the religious community successfully instilled religious significance in a part of the museum. Yet Yad Vashem, which is an entire campus comprised of the museum and Holocaust archives, does not have a synagogue, nor does it employ a rabbi. This is especially shocking because with an on-campus place of worship, Yad Vashem could have been a meaningful place for Jewish prayer. The inconsistency of the religious presence at Yad Vashem encapsulates the secular-religious debate over how to memorialize the Holocaust. The two groups clash over many issues, but Holocaust remembrance is especially explosive because of its central position in Israeli society. Etgar Keret, the author of Shoes, is a noted secular Jew, though his brother is a member of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. I feel that Keret’s unique, secular point of view had an impact in his writing of Shoes. He describes the boy’s quandary with wearing the Shoes in terms of his personal ethics, not religious ethics. He questions if he is “hurting” his grandfather while wearing the shoes, not if he is dishonoring God. The underlying secularism beneath Shoes implies Keret’s view that the Holocaust should remain a cultural, not religious, matter.
Strategy III: Put Your sources into conversation with one another
Strategy III: Put your sources into conversation with one another
Two of my sources, Survivors of the Holocaust by Hanna Yablonka and Attitudes Toward the Holocaust Among Israeli High School Students by Uri Farago, use statistical analysis to prove their respective points. Yablonka cites a 1949 study that surveyed the general sentiments of Holocaust survivors fighting in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Farago’s article explores the results of a questionnaire given to Israeli high school about their opinions of Holocaust commemoration. These studies were conducted forty-two years apart, they both shed light on the experience of the Holocaust survivor in Israel and the relationship between survivors and sabras (Israeli-born natives). The statistics in Yablonka’s work focus on the experience of the Gahal (new immigrant) soldiers compared to the sabras. By 1948-49, many Holocaust survivors had emigrated to Israel and within weeks were drafted into the Israeli army. Immediately, most of the Gahal had a “deleterious effect on the army” (Yablonka 131). Still recovering from the wounds of WWII, the survivors were not psychologically equipped to handle the strain of the War of Independence. A January study reported that 43% of the of the immigrants experienced low morale. 88% percent of the Gahal soldiers reported “they had been given insufficient information on opportunities in Israel” (Yablonka 131). 14% of Gahal soldiers versus 81% of sabras and army veterans reported having made “lots of friends” (Yablonka 132). Yablonka’s article also discusses the subordination of Holocaust survivors and their inabilities to assimilate into the army culture.
Farago’s 1991 study of Israeli high school students illustrates a greater level of acceptance in Israeli society. He describes the Holocaust’s position as the center of national consciousness and the crux of Israeli “civil religion.” Farago asked the students various questions relating to their identification with Holocaust survivors. He asked them to rank their responses, and he organized the results by ethnicity (Israeli, European/American, Asian/African). To the question “Sense of identification with Jews who suffered in the Holocaust,” 85.5% of Israel answered either “Considerably Yes” or “Yes.” Clearly, the Holocaust is, at least subconsciously, on the minds of most Israelis. Yet the Israeli youth had a more difficult time relating to the actual experience of the Jew in the Holocaust. Only 44.6% of Israelis agreed with the statement “Every Jew in the world should regard himself as if he were a survivor of the Holocaust.” Only 24.1% felt as if “he himself were a Holocaust survivor.” Only forty years removed from the event itself, Israelis had lost the immediate sense of the trauma from the Holocaust. In Israel, the consensus opinion is that this removal is a positive, healthy development in society. Many of the students who answered the survey probably had relatives who were involved in the Holocaust. Still, they have undergone the innately human process of healing. Forty years earlier, survivors were unable to assimilate, unable to behave as functioning members of society. They were simply paralyzed with grief. But as Farago’s study indicates, one or two generations of separation helped absorb the horrible memories into the status quo. These two sources show the grieving process’s progression in Israeli society.
Two of my sources, Survivors of the Holocaust by Hanna Yablonka and Attitudes Toward the Holocaust Among Israeli High School Students by Uri Farago, use statistical analysis to prove their respective points. Yablonka cites a 1949 study that surveyed the general sentiments of Holocaust survivors fighting in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Farago’s article explores the results of a questionnaire given to Israeli high school about their opinions of Holocaust commemoration. These studies were conducted forty-two years apart, they both shed light on the experience of the Holocaust survivor in Israel and the relationship between survivors and sabras (Israeli-born natives). The statistics in Yablonka’s work focus on the experience of the Gahal (new immigrant) soldiers compared to the sabras. By 1948-49, many Holocaust survivors had emigrated to Israel and within weeks were drafted into the Israeli army. Immediately, most of the Gahal had a “deleterious effect on the army” (Yablonka 131). Still recovering from the wounds of WWII, the survivors were not psychologically equipped to handle the strain of the War of Independence. A January study reported that 43% of the of the immigrants experienced low morale. 88% percent of the Gahal soldiers reported “they had been given insufficient information on opportunities in Israel” (Yablonka 131). 14% of Gahal soldiers versus 81% of sabras and army veterans reported having made “lots of friends” (Yablonka 132). Yablonka’s article also discusses the subordination of Holocaust survivors and their inabilities to assimilate into the army culture.
Farago’s 1991 study of Israeli high school students illustrates a greater level of acceptance in Israeli society. He describes the Holocaust’s position as the center of national consciousness and the crux of Israeli “civil religion.” Farago asked the students various questions relating to their identification with Holocaust survivors. He asked them to rank their responses, and he organized the results by ethnicity (Israeli, European/American, Asian/African). To the question “Sense of identification with Jews who suffered in the Holocaust,” 85.5% of Israel answered either “Considerably Yes” or “Yes.” Clearly, the Holocaust is, at least subconsciously, on the minds of most Israelis. Yet the Israeli youth had a more difficult time relating to the actual experience of the Jew in the Holocaust. Only 44.6% of Israelis agreed with the statement “Every Jew in the world should regard himself as if he were a survivor of the Holocaust.” Only 24.1% felt as if “he himself were a Holocaust survivor.” Only forty years removed from the event itself, Israelis had lost the immediate sense of the trauma from the Holocaust. In Israel, the consensus opinion is that this removal is a positive, healthy development in society. Many of the students who answered the survey probably had relatives who were involved in the Holocaust. Still, they have undergone the innately human process of healing. Forty years earlier, survivors were unable to assimilate, unable to behave as functioning members of society. They were simply paralyzed with grief. But as Farago’s study indicates, one or two generations of separation helped absorb the horrible memories into the status quo. These two sources show the grieving process’s progression in Israeli society.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Halt, Harken to this correction:
This is the actual citation for Jose Brunner's essay:
Jose Brunner. “Contentious Origins: Psychoanalytic Comments on the Debate over
Israel’s Creation.” Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology: Critical Essays on the
Israel/Palestinian Case. Ed. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and John Bunzl.
Massechusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. 107-129.
Jose Brunner. “Contentious Origins: Psychoanalytic Comments on the Debate over
Israel’s Creation.” Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology: Critical Essays on the
Israel/Palestinian Case. Ed. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and John Bunzl.
Massechusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. 107-129.
3 Secondary Sources with swell interpretations
Segev, Tom. The Seventh Million: The Israeli’s and the Holocaust. Trans. Haim Watzman. New York: Domino Press Ltd.: 1991.
This source gives an account of the Holocaust from the Israeli point of view, from 1939 to the present day. In the chapter “What does it do to me?,” author Tom Segev takes the reader on a tour of the Israeli National Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. Every construction in this museum bears a specific symbolism to the Holocaust—a symbolism that implies the Israeli perception of the Holocaust. In one passage, Segev recounts the history of the rift between the Holocaust survivors and the Sabras (residents of the kibbutzes that immigrated to Israel in the early 20th century). My primary source alludes to this exact relationship and I plan to expound on it in my paper.
Dalia Ofer. “The Holocaust, the establishment of Israel, and the shaping of Israeli
society.” Shared Histories. Ed. Pogrund, Benjamin, Walid Salem, and Paul
Scham. California: Left Coast Press, 2005. 135-147.
One aspect of this essay by Dalia Ofer examines the absorption of Holocaust survivors into Israeli military culture. Ofer discusses how Holocaust survivors arrived in Israel and quickly joined the ranks of the underfed, under-trained, and under-armed Israel army. Based on empirical evidence, she proves that survivors suffered the same hardships in the war for Independence as their Sabra brethren. In Shoes by Etgar Keret, the belligerent old man expresses his desires to commit acts of violence against the Nazis. In my analysis, I will consider how Holocaust such as the old man have embraced (or rejected) military service in Israel.
Jose Brunner. “Contentious Origins: Psychoanalytic Comments on the Debate over
Israel’s Creation.” Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology: Critical Essays on the
Israel/Palestinian Case. Ed. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and John Bunzl.
Massechusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. 107-129.
Brunner’s essay primarily discusses Israeli-Palestinian relations, but it also sheds light on the creation of Israel as a result of the Holocaust. He speaks of the “divide” in Israeli academia over the “uniqueness of the Zionist project.” Specifically, this divide refers to the ambivalence in an Israeli society that owes its existence to the Holocaust. Brunner raises the question, was the creation of Israel heroic or selfish? Did it benevolently provide a home for displaced survivors, or did it engender the loss of homeland for thousands of displaced Palestinians. This is the core of all arguments over the legitimacy of Zionism and Israel’s statehood. In Shoes, the boy’s vacillations in deciding to wear his shoes allegorize this ambiguity of the Zionist question.
This source gives an account of the Holocaust from the Israeli point of view, from 1939 to the present day. In the chapter “What does it do to me?,” author Tom Segev takes the reader on a tour of the Israeli National Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem. Every construction in this museum bears a specific symbolism to the Holocaust—a symbolism that implies the Israeli perception of the Holocaust. In one passage, Segev recounts the history of the rift between the Holocaust survivors and the Sabras (residents of the kibbutzes that immigrated to Israel in the early 20th century). My primary source alludes to this exact relationship and I plan to expound on it in my paper.
Dalia Ofer. “The Holocaust, the establishment of Israel, and the shaping of Israeli
society.” Shared Histories. Ed. Pogrund, Benjamin, Walid Salem, and Paul
Scham. California: Left Coast Press, 2005. 135-147.
One aspect of this essay by Dalia Ofer examines the absorption of Holocaust survivors into Israeli military culture. Ofer discusses how Holocaust survivors arrived in Israel and quickly joined the ranks of the underfed, under-trained, and under-armed Israel army. Based on empirical evidence, she proves that survivors suffered the same hardships in the war for Independence as their Sabra brethren. In Shoes by Etgar Keret, the belligerent old man expresses his desires to commit acts of violence against the Nazis. In my analysis, I will consider how Holocaust such as the old man have embraced (or rejected) military service in Israel.
Jose Brunner. “Contentious Origins: Psychoanalytic Comments on the Debate over
Israel’s Creation.” Psychoanalysis, Identity, and Ideology: Critical Essays on the
Israel/Palestinian Case. Ed. Beit-Hallahmi, Benjamin, and John Bunzl.
Massechusetts: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2002. 107-129.
Brunner’s essay primarily discusses Israeli-Palestinian relations, but it also sheds light on the creation of Israel as a result of the Holocaust. He speaks of the “divide” in Israeli academia over the “uniqueness of the Zionist project.” Specifically, this divide refers to the ambivalence in an Israeli society that owes its existence to the Holocaust. Brunner raises the question, was the creation of Israel heroic or selfish? Did it benevolently provide a home for displaced survivors, or did it engender the loss of homeland for thousands of displaced Palestinians. This is the core of all arguments over the legitimacy of Zionism and Israel’s statehood. In Shoes, the boy’s vacillations in deciding to wear his shoes allegorize this ambiguity of the Zionist question.
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