Politics of Israel

Adolf Hitler, the Jews, and Mimetic Theory Although raised in a Catholic home, Adolf Hitler may be more of a charismatic opportunist than a religious zealot. However, his strong persona allowed him to employ a quasi-Christian view to set in motion the atrocities of the Holocaust. His tactic centered on turning the people against their Jewish brothers and sisters. The German Jews were contributing citizens in Germany, many of whom were educated and business owners. Hitler viewed the "chosen…

In Shakespeares, The Merchant Of Venice, a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, was in trial over a contract. This contract was between Shylock and Antonio, another main character who was a Christian, which stated that Antonio must pay back the 3000 ducats that he borrowed in 3 months, in failure to do so Antonio must give Shylock one pound of his own flesh. Antonio failed to pay him back so a trial was held and the contract was presented so that Shylock could and would be allowed to collect “his” pound…

The Jews of Anatevka experienced both the threats of annihilation and assimilation in their Russian community. Outside of Anatevka, the world was changing and experiencing modernization. Liberal ideas began to take speed. The changing values that individuals tried to spread throughout Russia posed a threat to the traditional, long-established ideals of Judaism. On the other hand, Russian, violent attacks against the Jews also seemed to be a perceived threat. Russian pogroms threatened the safety…

The Struggle to Stay Faithful What if people were taken to a place where they could not speak or act on their own due to their religion? A place where people were tortured and even died because of what they believed. Would that affect the way the people lived and how much they believed in their religion? If people are exposed to this harsh environment for too long, they will begin to lose the faith that they had built up for so long. This is what the Jewish population had to endure during…

The book of Nehemiah was authored by Ezra between 445 and 420 B.C. It records the events of the Jews returning to Jerusalem and rebuilding the wall that once stood strong and protected them from their enemies. Nehemiah started out as the king of Persia’s cup bearer and was eventually commissioned as a governor. Before entering into the leadership of Nehemiah the Jewish people had been exiled for over seventy years, Jerusalem had been completely destroyed, and the temple had been burned in 586 B…

Sowing Crisis explains how the Cold war and policies taken by the U.S. have spilled over into today and how it has affected modern U.S. relations with the Middle East. Rashid Khalidi feels that wartime and postwar moves in North Africa and Iran, as well as U.S. air bases in Saudi Arabia, Libya, Morocco, and Turkey, marked the beginning of “an American role as the major Middle Eastern Power, a reality that was masked for a time by the power and proximity to the region of the USSR (Page 9).”…

For some, the Arab spring (whether is understood to be successfully or not) certainly represent the turning point in relations in the Middle East. A hundred years since the creation of borders between the countries of the Levant, the Maghreb and the Middle East, there was their collapse. When one mentions the Middle East, it is seen as a huge area where ancient civilizations were, some of the oldest cities in the world, but also the young states of today. A hundred years after rendering the…

Like many people across the world, I am a visual person. When I flip through the pages of a newspaper or magazine, the very first thing I notice on the pages are the pictures. From there, my eyes wander to the caption, the title of the article, and finally the article itself. While reading the passage, I go back and forth between the text and the picture or pictures that go with it. I try to imagine myself being a part of the whole, standing somewhere in the background where I will most likely…

It is now more than fifty years since the State of Israel was established. It has passed the initial stages of nation-building and is today, in many respects, a Western, technological society. It was built on the experience of ideologically driven Jewish settlement which began in the nineteenth century. Israel has a background of the Holocaust, ongoing military struggle with neighboring countries, and the necessity of absorbing unprecedented numbers of new immigrants from very different culture.…

The medieval narratives created about Jews and foreigners succeeded at exemplifying their otherness. Very distinct language was used to create a powerful binaries between the purity of Christianity and the danger of otherness. But narratives are only stories, stories only words, and words only…well words or are they? Can narratives transcend from only words and into actions? According to Miri Rubin “people act through narratives” and she implores us to “think of narrative as a mode of organizing…