205-518: Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust . Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding father of Holocaust studies and his three-volume, 1,273-page magnum opus , The Destruction of the European Jews , is regarded as seminal for research into
410-454: A "perpetrator". Hilberg made it clear that such functionaries were quite aware of their involvement in what was a process of destruction. Hilberg's minute documentation constructed a functional analysis of the machinery of genocide, while leaving unaddressed any questions of historical antisemitism, and possible structural elements in Germany's historical-social tradition which might have conduced to
615-523: A Jew, that certain themes sketched there were unbearably painful. In particular he had asked that the section on Jewish cooperation be removed, to no avail. Neumann nonetheless relented, warning his student, however, that such a dissertation was professionally imprudent and might well prove to be his academic funeral. Undeterred by the prospect, Hilberg pressed on without regard for the possible consequences. Neumann himself contacted Nuremberg prosecutor Telford Taylor directly, to facilitate Hilberg's access to
820-612: A combatant during World War I . One year later on April 1, 1939, at age 13, Hilberg fled Austria with his family; after reaching France, they embarked on a ship bound for Cuba . Following a four-month stay in Cuba, his family arrived in Miami, Florida, on September 1, 1939, the day the Second World War broke out in Europe. During the ensuing war in Europe, 26 members of Hilberg's family were murdered in
1025-502: A crucial step in the formation of the Holocaust as part of historical consciousness." At the time, most historians of the phenomenon subscribed to what would today be called the extreme intentionalist position, where sometime early in his career, Hitler developed a master plan for the genocide of the Jewish people and that everything that happened was the unfolding of the plan. This clashed with
1230-403: A direct command. In a 1999 interview with D.D. Guttenplan, Hilberg commented that he "made this change in the interest of precision about the evidence ...". Notwithstanding Hilberg's focus on bureaucratic momentum as an indispensable force behind the Holocaust, he maintained that extermination of Jews was one of Hitler's aims: "The primary notion in Germany is that Hitler did it. As it happens, this
1435-460: A form of genocide. Pioneers of research into settler colonialism such as Patrick Wolfe spelled out the genocidal logic of settler projects, prompting a rethinking of colonialism. Many genocide scholars are concerned both with objective study of the topic, and obtaining insights that will help prevent future genocides. The definition of genocide generates controversy whenever a new case arises and debate erupts as to whether or not it qualifies as
1640-421: A functionalist position. At the time, this approach raised a few eyebrows but only later did it actually attract pointed academic discussion. A further move towards a functionalist interpretation occurred in the revised 1985 edition, in which Hitler is portrayed as a remote figure hardly involved in the machinery of destruction. The terms functionalist and intentionalist were coined in 1981 by Timothy Mason but
1845-524: A genocide. Sociologist Martin Shaw writes, “Few ideas are as important in public debate, but in few cases are the meaning and scope of a key idea less clearly agreed.” Some scholars and activists use the Genocide Convention definition. Others prefer narrower definitions that indicate genocide is rare in human history, reducing genocide to mass killing or distinguishing it from other types of violence by
2050-520: A good feeling about our joint venture. I am glad that you are my publisher in Germany." He spoke about a "second edition" of his work, "solid enough for the next century". The Destruction of the European Jews provided "the first clear description of (the) incredibly complicated machinery of destruction" (Hannah Arendt) set up under Nazism. For Hilberg there was deep irony in the judgement since Arendt, asked to give an opinion of his manuscript in 1959, had advised against publication. Her judgement influenced
2255-449: A group can be targeted before triggering the Genocide Convention. The two main approaches to intent are the purposive approach, where the perpetrator expressly wants to destroy the group, and the knowledge-based approach, where the perpetrator understands that destruction of the protected group will result from his actions. Intent is the most difficult aspect for prosecutors to prove; the perpetrators often claim that they merely sought
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#17328592400152460-409: A group's language, culture, or way of life —was part of Raphael Lemkin 's original concept, and its proponents in the 1940s argued that it, along with physical genocide, were two mechanisms aiming at the same goal: destruction of the targeted group. Because cultural genocide clearly applied to some colonial and assimilationist policies, several states with overseas colonies threatened to refuse to ratify
2665-584: A lesser or greater extent from the convention. The convention's definition of genocide was adopted verbatim by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and by the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The crime of genocide also exists in customary international law and is therefore prohibited for non-signatories. During the Cold War , genocide remained at
2870-452: A multilingual group to a monolingual one (or nearly so), speaking French in Algeria , Morocco , and the city of Tunis , while most North Africans continue to use Arabic or Berber as their mother tongue. There is no single governing body for the Jewish community, nor a single authority with responsibility for religious doctrine. Instead, a variety of secular and religious institutions at
3075-529: A not fully acknowledged but pervasive influence on the far better-known work of Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem , in turn aroused considerable controversy, not least because of its details concerning the cooperation of Jewish councils in the procedures of evacuation to the camps. Hilberg responded graciously to Isaiah Trunk 's pathfinding research on the Judenräte , which was critical of Hilberg's assessment of
3280-702: A people by the name of Israel appears in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to around 1200 BCE. The majority of scholars agree that this text refers to the Israelites , a group that inhabited the central highlands of Canaan , where archaeological evidence shows that hundreds of small settlements were constructed between the 12th and 10th centuries BCE. The Israelites differentiated themselves from neighboring peoples through various distinct characteristics including religious practices , prohibition on intermarriage , and an emphasis on genealogy and family history. In
3485-721: A place of refuge for the Jews of Syria Palaestina . A number of significant Talmudic academies , such as the Nehardea , Pumbedita , and Sura academies, were established in Mesopotamia, and many important Amoraim were active there. The Babylonian Talmud , a centerpiece of Jewish religious law, was compiled in Babylonia in the 3rd to 6th centuries. Jewish diaspora communities are generally described to have coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:
3690-507: A political or military enemy, thus excluding them from consideration. Most civilian killings in the twentieth century were not from genocide, which only applies to select cases. Alternative terms have been coined to describe processes left outside narrower definitions of genocide. Ethnic cleansing —the forced expulsion of a population from a given territory—has achieved widespread currency, although many scholars recognize that it frequently overlaps with genocide, even where Lemkin's definition
3895-503: A religious component in national memories and culture is common even in the modern era. This view is echoed by political scientist Tom Garvin , who writes that "something strangely like modern nationalism is documented for many peoples in medieval times and in classical times as well," citing the ancient Jews as one of several "obvious examples", alongside the classical Greeks and the Gaulish and British Celts . Genocide Genocide
4100-534: A religious interpretation of the traditions and early history of the Jews, established the first of the Abrahamic religions , which are now practiced by 54 percent of the world. Judaism guides its adherents in both practice and belief, and has been called not only a religion, but also a "way of life," which has made drawing a clear distinction between Judaism, Jewish culture , and Jewish identity rather difficult. Throughout history, in eras and places as diverse as
4305-482: A religious or national approach to identity is used. Generally, in modern secular usage, Jews include three groups: people who were born to a Jewish family regardless of whether or not they follow the religion, those who have some Jewish ancestral background or lineage (sometimes including those who do not have strictly matrilineal descent ), and people without any Jewish ancestral background or lineage who have formally converted to Judaism and therefore are followers of
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#17328592400154510-588: A result, Ashkenazi Jews were gradually pushed eastwards to Poland , Lithuania and Russia . During the same period, Jewish communities in the Middle East thrived under Islamic rule, especially in cities like Baghdad , Cairo , and Damascus . In Babylonia, from the 7th to 11th centuries the Pumbedita and Sura academies led the Arab and to an extant the entire Jewish world. The deans and students of said academies defined
4715-618: A result, around 200,000 Jews were expelled from Spain , seeking refuge in places such as the Ottoman Empire , North Africa , Italy , the Netherlands and India . A similar fate awaited the Jews of Portugal a few years later. Some Jews chose to remain, and pretended to practice Catholicism . These Jews would form the members of Crypto-Judaism . In the 19th century, when Jews in Western Europe were increasingly granted equality before
4920-671: A significant population growth. This prosperity continued until the Neo-Assyrian king Sennacherib devastated the region of Judah in response to a rebellion in the area, ultimately halting at Jerusalem . Later in the same century, the Assyrians were defeated by the rising Neo-Babylonian Empire , and Judah became its vassal. In 587 BCE, following a revolt in Judah , the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II besieged and destroyed Jerusalem and
5125-476: A similar fate as they inflict on their victims. Despite perpetrators' utilitarian goals, ideological factors are necessary to explain why genocide seems to be a desirable solution to the identified security problem. Noncombatants are harmed because of the collective guilt ascribed to an entire people—defined according to race but targeted because of its supposed security threat. Other motives for genocide have included theft, land grabbing , and revenge. War
5330-521: A single person being killed. Forced displacement is a common feature of many genocides, with the victims often transported to another location where their destruction is easier for the perpetrators. In some cases, victims are transported to sites where they are killed or deprived of the necessities of life. People are often killed by the displacement itself, as was the case for many Armenian genocide victims. Cultural destruction, such as that practised at Canadian boarding schools for indigenous children ,
5535-478: A temporary appointment to work on the War Documentation Project under the direction of Fritz T. Epstein . Hilberg was undecided under whom he should carry out his doctoral research. Having attended a course on international law , he was also attracted to the lectures of Salo Baron , the leading authority on Jewish historiography at the time, with particular expertise in the field of laws pertaining to
5740-499: A trivial characteristic. He saw genocide as an inherently colonial process, and in his later writings analyzed what he described as the colonial genocides occurring within European overseas territories as well as the Soviet and Nazi empires. Furthermore, his definition of genocidal acts, which was to replace the national pattern of the victim with that of the perpetrator, was much broader than
5945-413: A value judgement as it is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil . In the past, violence that could be labeled genocide was sometimes celebrated —although it always had its critics. The idea that genocide sits on top of a hierarchy of atrocity crimes —that it is worse than crimes against humanity or war crimes —is controversial among scholars and it suggests that the protection of groups
6150-496: A variety of fields, making an impact on their communities' economy and societies. In Francia , for example, figures like Isaac Judaeus and Armentarius occupied prominent social and economic positions. However, Jews were frequently the subjects of discriminatory laws, segregation , blood libels and pogroms , which culminated in events like the Rhineland Massacres (1066) and the expulsion of Jews from England (1290). As
6355-405: A warning against intermarriage between Jews and gentiles. Leviticus 24:10 says that the son in a marriage between a Hebrew woman and an Egyptian man is "of the community of Israel." This is complemented by Ezra 10:2–3 , where Israelites returning from Babylon vow to put aside their gentile wives and their children. A popular theory is that the rape of Jewish women in captivity brought about
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6560-483: A wealthy patron, Frank Petschek , a German-Czech Jew whose family coal business had suffered from the Nazi Aryanization program, laid out $ 15,000, a substantial sum at the time, to cover the costs of a print run of 5,500 volumes, of which some 1,300 copies were set aside for distribution to libraries. Resistance to Hilberg's work, the difficulties he encountered in finding a US editor, and subsequent delays with
6765-561: Is a doctrine that emerged around 2000, in the aftermath of several genocides around the world, that seeks to balance state sovereignty with the need for international intervention to prevent genocide. However, disagreements in the United Nations Security Council and lack of political will have hampered the implementation of this doctrine. Although military intervention to halt genocide has been credited with reducing violence in some cases, it remains deeply controversial and
6970-535: Is also my notion, but I'm not wedded to it" (qtd. in — Guttenplan 2002 , p. 303). This contradicts the thesis advanced by Daniel Goldhagen that the ferocity of German anti-Semitism is sufficient as an explanation for the Holocaust; Hilberg noted that anti-Semitism was more vicious in Eastern Europe than in Nazi Germany. Hilberg criticized Goldhagen's scholarship, which he called poor ("his scholarly standard
7175-413: Is at the level of 1946") and he was even harsher concerning the lack of primary sources or secondary literature competence at Harvard by those who oversaw the research for Goldhagen's book. Hilberg said, "This is the only reason why Goldhagen could obtain a PhD in political science at Harvard. There was nobody on the faculty who could have checked his work." This remark has been echoed by Yehuda Bauer. What
7380-471: Is considered likely to occur, the accuracy of these predictions are not known and there is no scholarly consensus over evidence-based genocide prevention strategies. Intervention to prevent genocide has often been considered a failure because most countries prioritize business, trade, and diplomatic relationships: as a consequence, "the usual powerful actors continue to use violence against vulnerable populations with impunity". Responsibility to protect
7585-523: Is considered the father of political Zionism, offered his vision of a future Jewish state in his 1896 book Der Judenstaat ( The Jewish State ); a year later, he presided over the First Zionist Congress . The antisemitism that inflicted Jewish communities in Europe also triggered a mass exodus of more than two million Jews to the United States between 1881 and 1924. The Jews of Europe and
7790-401: Is dependent on their position early in the demographic transition . Because genocide is often perceived as the "crime of crimes", it grabs attention more effectively than other violations of international law. Consequently, victims of atrocities often label their suffering genocide as an attempt to gain attention to their plight and attract foreign intervention. Although remembering genocide
7995-804: Is far less used today following the Holocaust and the adoption of Modern Hebrew by the Zionist movement and the State of Israel . In some places, the mother language of the Jewish community differs from that of the general population or the dominant group. For example, in Quebec , the Ashkenazic majority has adopted English, while the Sephardic minority uses French as its primary language. Similarly, South African Jews adopted English rather than Afrikaans . Due to both Czarist and Soviet policies, Russian has superseded Yiddish as
8200-631: Is further disagreement about the earliest existence of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and their extent and power. Historians agree that a Kingdom of Israel existed by c. 900 BCE , there is a consensus that a Kingdom of Judah existed by c. 700 BCE at least, and recent excavations in Khirbet Qeiyafa have provided strong evidence for dating the Kingdom of Judah to the 10th century BCE. In 587 BCE, Nebuchadnezzar II , King of
8405-406: Is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted because of racism rather than for any political reason. Genocide is not an end of itself, but a means to another end—often chosen by perpetrators after other options failed. Most are ultimately caused by its perpetrators perceiving an existential threat to their own existence, although this belief
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8610-456: Is inherently connected to the modern state—thus to the rise of the West in the early modern era and its expansion outside Europe—and earlier conflicts cannot be described as genocide. Although all empires rely on violence, often extreme violence, to perpetuate their own existence, they also seek to preserve and rule the conquered rather than eradicate them. Although the desire to exploit populations
8815-497: Is more important than of individuals. We have been reproached for making no distinction between the innocent Armenians and the guilty : but that was utterly impossible in view of the fact that those who are innocent today might be guilty tomorrow. The concern for the safety of Turkey simply had to silence all other concerns. — Talaat Pasha in Berliner Tageblatt , 4 May 1916 The colloquial understanding of genocide
9020-523: Is most contentious about Hilberg's work, the controversial implications of which influenced the decision by Israeli authorities to deny him access to the Yad Vashem's archives, was his assessment that elements of Jewish society, such as the Judenräte (Jewish Councils), were complicit in the genocide. and that this was partly rooted in long-standing attitudes of European Jews, rather than attempts at survival or exploitation. In his own words: I had to examine
9225-504: Is not effective in inducing people to commit genocide and that for some perpetrators, the dehumanization of victims, and adoption of nationalist or other ideologies that justify the violence occurs after they begin to perpetrate atrocities often coinciding with escalation. Although genocide perpetrators have often been assumed to be male, the role of women in perpetrating genocide—although they were historically excluded from leadership—has also been explored. People's behavior changes under
9430-424: Is not used. Other terms ending in -cide have proliferated for the destruction of particular types of groupings: democide (people by a government), eliticide (the elite of a targeted group), ethnocide (ethnic groups), gendercide (gendered groupings), politicide (political groups), classicide (social classes), and urbicide (the destruction of a particular locality). The word genocide inherently carries
9635-729: Is often dependent on controlling the victims at a specific location. Destruction of cultural objects, such as religious buildings, is common even when the primary method of genocide is not cultural. Cultural genocide, such as residential schools , is particularly common during settler-colonial consolidation. Men, particularly young adults, are disproportionately targeted for killing before other victims in order to stem resistance. Although diverse forms of sexual violence—ranging from rape, forced pregnancy, forced marriage, sexual slavery, mutilation, forced sterilization—can affect either males or females, women are more likely to face it. The combination of killing of men and sexual violence against women
9840-401: Is often described as the single most important enabler of genocide providing the weaponry, ideological justification, polarization between allies and enemies, and cover for carrying out extreme violence. A large proportion of genocides occurred under the course of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Although genocide is typically organized around pre-existing identity boundaries, it has
10045-460: Is often intended to disrupt reproduction of the targeted group. Almost all genocides are brought to an end either by the military defeat of the perpetrators or the accomplishment of their aims. According to rational choice theory , it should be possible to intervene to prevent genocide by raising the costs of engaging in such violence relative to alternatives. Although there are a number of organizations that compile lists of states where genocide
10250-472: Is particularly likely in situations of imperial expansion and power consolidation. Therefore, it is usually associated with colonial empires and settler colonies , as well as with both world wars and repressive governments in the twentieth century. The colloquial understanding of genocide is heavily influenced by the Holocaust as its archetype and is conceived as innocent victims targeted for their ethnic identity rather than for any political reason. Genocide
10455-433: Is poorly understood. The foot soldiers of genocide (as opposed to its organizers) are not demographically or psychologically aberrant. People who commit crimes during genocide are rarely true believers in the ideology behind genocide, although they are affected by it to some extent alongside other factors such as obedience, diffusion of responsibility , and conformity. Other evidence suggests that ideological propaganda
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#173285924001510660-583: Is that Intentionalists see "the Holocaust as Hitler's determined and premeditated plan, which he implemented as the opportunity arose", while functionalists see "the Final Solution as an evolution that occurred when other plans proved untenable". Intentionalists argue that the initiative for the Holocaust came from above, while functionalists contend it came from lower ranks within the bureaucracy. It has often been observed that Hilberg's magnum opus begins with an intentionalist thesis but gradually shifts towards
10865-705: Is the Judaeo-Spanish language developed by Sephardic Jews who migrated to the Iberian peninsula . Due to many factors, including the impact of the Holocaust on European Jewry, the Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries , and widespread emigration from other Jewish communities around the world, ancient and distinct Jewish languages of several communities, including Judaeo-Georgian , Judaeo-Arabic , Judaeo-Berber , Krymchak , Judaeo-Malayalam and many others, have largely fallen out of use. For over sixteen centuries Hebrew
11070-615: Is the governing body for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum . Following his death, the Museum established the Raul Hilberg Fellowship, intended to support the development of new generations of Holocaust scholars. For his seminal and profound services to the historiography of the Holocaust, he was honored with Germany's Order of Merit , the highest recognition that can be paid to a non-German. In 2002, he
11275-534: Is usually exaggerated and can be entirely imagined. Particular threats to existing elites that have been correlated to genocide include both successful and attempted regime change via assassination, coups, revolutions, and civil wars . Most genocides were not planned long in advance, but emerged through a process of gradual radicalization , often escalating to genocide following resistance by those targeted. Genocide perpetrators often fear—usually irrationally—that if they do not commit atrocities, they will suffer
11480-427: Is usually illegal. Researcher Gregory H. Stanton found that calling crimes genocide rather than something else, such as ethnic cleansing, increased the chance of effective intervention. Perhaps for this reason, states are often reluctant to recognize crimes as genocide while they are taking place. Lemkin applied the concept of genocide to a wide variety of events throughout human history . He and other scholars date
11685-421: Is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin , who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture , language , national feelings, religion , and [its] economic existence". During
11890-503: Is widely considered to be the epitome of human evil and often referred to as the "crime of crimes"; consequently, events are often denounced as genocide . Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the term genocide between 1941 and 1943. Lemkin's coinage combined the Greek word γένος ( genos , "race, people") with the Latin suffix -caedo ("act of killing"). He submitted
12095-436: Is widely recognized that the attributive use of the noun Jew , in phrases such as Jew lawyer or Jew ethics , is both vulgar and highly offensive. In such contexts Jewish is the only acceptable possibility. Some people, however, have become so wary of this construction that they have extended the stigma to any use of Jew as a noun, a practice that carries risks of its own. In a sentence such as There are now several Jews on
12300-562: The Ashkenazim ( Central and Eastern Europe ), the Sephardim ( Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). While these three major divisions account for most of the world's Jews, there are other smaller Jewish groups outside of the three. Prior to World War II , the global Jewish population reached a peak of 16.7 million, representing around 0.7% of
12505-632: The Ashkenazim (initially in the Rhineland and France), the Sephardim (initially in the Iberian Peninsula ), and the Mizrahim ( Middle East and North Africa ). Romaniote Jews , Tunisian Jews , Yemenite Jews , Egyptian Jews , Ethiopian Jews , Bukharan Jews , Mountain Jews , and other groups also predated the arrival of the Sephardic diaspora. Despite experiencing repeated waves of persecution, Ashkenazi Jews in Western Europe worked in
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#173285924001512710-496: The Final Solution . It was enough to find each intricate strand of communication over how to conduct the operation efficiently through the enormous archival paper trail to show how this took place. Thus his discourse probed the bureaucratic means for implementing genocide, to let the implicit horror of the process speak for itself. In this he differed radically from those who had focused on final responsibilities, as for example in
12915-557: The Braunes Haus , he stumbled upon Hitler's crated private library in Munich. This discovery, together with learning that 26 close members of his family had been exterminated, prompted Hilberg's research into the Holocaust, a term which he personally disliked, though in later years he himself used it. After returning to civilian life, Hilberg chose to study political science , earning his Bachelor of Arts degree at Brooklyn College in 1948. He
13120-556: The Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatristic —and later monotheistic —religion of Yahwism centered on Yahweh , one of the gods of the Canaanite pantheon. The growth of Yahweh-centric belief, along with a number of cultic practices, gradually gave rise to a distinct Israelite ethnic group , setting them apart from other Canaanites. According to Dever , modern archaeologists have largely discarded
13325-554: The Canaanite population to establish the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Judaism emerged from the Israelite religion of Yahwism by the late 6th century BCE, with a theology considered by religious Jews to be the expression of a covenant with God established with the Israelites, their ancestors. The Babylonian captivity of Judahites following their kingdom's destruction,
13530-706: The First Temple , putting an end to the kingdom. The majority of Jerusalem's residents, including the kingdom's elite, were exiled to Babylon . According to the Book of Ezra , the Persian Cyrus the Great ended the Babylonian exile in 538 BCE, the year after he captured Babylon. The exile ended with the return under Zerubbabel the Prince (so called because he was a descendant of
13735-679: The Geonic period in Jewish history. Following this period were the Rishonim who lived from the 11th to 15th centuries. Like their European counterparts, Jews in the Middle East and North Africa also faced periods of persecution and discriminatory policies, with the Almohad Caliphate in North Africa and Iberia issuing forced conversion decrees, causing Jews such as Maimonides to seek safety in other regions. Initially, under Visigoth rule , Jews in
13940-541: The Herodian dynasty as vassal kings . However, Judea eventually came directly under Roman control and was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the province of Judaea . The Jewish–Roman wars , a series of unsuccessful revolts against Roman rule during the first and second centuries CE, had significant and disastrous consequences for the Jewish population of Judaea . The First Jewish-Roman War (66–73 CE) culminated in
14145-561: The Hitler Youth and then to say that their work was an apologia for National Socialism. Hilberg was Jewish and an Austrian who had fled to the United States to escape the Nazis and had no Nazi sympathies, which helps to explain the vehemence of the attacks by intentionalist historians that greeted the revised edition of The Destruction of the European Jews in 1985. Hilberg's understanding of
14350-525: The Holocaust . The Hilbergs settled in Brooklyn , New York, where Raul attended Abraham Lincoln High School and Brooklyn College . He intended to make a career in chemistry but found that it did not suit him, and he left his studies to work in a factory. He served in the United States Army from 1944 to 1946. As early as 1942, Hilberg, after reading scattered reports of what would later become known as
14555-403: The Israelites of the historical kingdoms of Israel and Judah , and whose traditional religion is Judaism . Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion , but not all ethnic Jews practice Judaism. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as Jews. The Israelites emerged from within
14760-779: The Nazi Final Solution . Hilberg was born in Vienna , Austria , to a Polish-speaking Jewish family. His father, a small-goods salesman, was born in a Galician village, moved to Vienna in his teens, was decorated for bravery on the Russian front in World War I , and married Hilberg's mother who was from Buczacz , now in Ukraine . The young Hilberg was a loner, pursuing solitary hobbies such as geography, music and train spotting . Though his parents attended synagogue on occasion, he personally found
14965-598: The Neo-Babylonian Empire , besieged Jerusalem , destroyed the First Temple and deported parts of the Judahite population. Scholars disagree regarding the extent to which the Bible should be accepted as a historical source for early Israelite history. Rendsburg states that there are two approximately equal groups of scholars who debate the historicity of the biblical narrative , the minimalists who largely reject it, and
15170-503: The Tannaim may have been influenced by Roman law , which dictated that when a parent could not contract a legal marriage, offspring would follow the mother . Rabbi Rivon Krygier follows a similar reasoning, arguing that Jewish descent had formerly passed through the patrilineal descent and the law of matrilineal descent had its roots in the Roman legal system. The prehistory and ethnogenesis of
15375-621: The Torah , is made explicit in the Book of Esther (4th century BCE) of the Tanakh . Some modern scholars disagree with the conflation, based on the works of Josephus , Philo and Apostle Paul . The English word "Jew" is a derivation of Middle English Gyw, Iewe . The latter was loaned from the Old French giu , which itself evolved from the earlier juieu , which in turn derived from judieu/iudieu which through elision had dropped
15580-519: The United States . Israel, whose population is 73.9% Jewish, is the only country where Jews comprise more than 2.5% of the population. Jews have significantly influenced and contributed to the development and growth of human progress in many fields, both historically and in modern times, including in science and technology , philosophy , ethics , literature , governance , business , art , music , comedy , theatre , cinema , architecture , food , medicine , and religion . Jews wrote
15785-577: The Yiddish ייִד Yid (plural ייִדן Yidn ). Originally, in ancient times, Yehudi (Jew) was used to describe the inhabitants of the Israelite kingdom of Judah . It is also used to distinguish their descendants from the gentiles and the Samaritans . According to the Hebrew Bible , these inhabitants predominately descend from the tribe of Judah from Judah , the fourth son of Jacob . Together
15990-690: The destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple . The severely reduced Jewish population of Judaea was denied any kind of political self-government. A few generations later, the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) erupted, and its brutal suppression by the Romans led to the depopulation of Judea . Following the revolt, Jews were forbidden from residing in the vicinity of Jerusalem, and the Jewish demographic center in Judaea shifted to Galilee . Similar upheavals impacted
16195-472: The how of the Holocaust rather than the why . According to Bauer, Hilberg "did not ask the big questions for fear that the answers would be too little" or, as Hilberg says in Claude Lanzmann 's film Shoah , "I have never begun by asking the big questions, because I was always afraid that I would come up with small answers". Hilberg's empirical, descriptive approach to the Holocaust, though it exercised
16400-536: The legal instrument used to prosecute defeated German leaders at the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, atrocity crimes were only prosecutable by international justice if they were committed as part of an illegal war of aggression . The powers prosecuting the trial were unwilling to restrict a government's actions against its own citizens. In order to criminalize peacetime genocide, Lemkin brought his proposal to criminalize genocide to
16605-533: The religion of Judaism are strongly interrelated. Converts to Judaism typically have a status within the Jewish ethnos equal to those born into it. However, several converts to Judaism, as well as ex-Jews, have claimed that converts are treated as second-class Jews by many born Jews. Conversion is not encouraged by mainstream Judaism, and it is considered a difficult task. A significant portion of conversions are undertaken by children of mixed marriages, or would-be or current spouses of Jews. The Hebrew Bible ,
16810-536: The 10th century BCE, two neighboring Israelite kingdoms—the northern Kingdom of Israel and the southern Kingdom of Judah —emerged. Since their inception, they shared ethnic, cultural, linguistic and religious characteristics despite a complicated relationship. Israel, with its capital mostly in Samaria , was larger and wealthier, and soon developed into a regional power. In contrast, Judah, with its capital in Jerusalem ,
17015-753: The 1970s and 1980s, as social science began to consider the phenomenon of genocide. Due to the occurrence of the Bosnian genocide , Rwandan genocide , and the Kosovo crisis , genocide studies exploded in the 1990s. In contrast to earlier researchers who took for granted the idea that liberal and democratic societies were less likely to commit genocide, revisionists associated with the International Network of Genocide Scholars emphasized how Western ideas led to genocide. The genocides of indigenous peoples as part of European colonialism were initially not recognized as
17220-481: The Americans classifying the huge amount of Nazi documents used, precisely, the categories his future mentor Neumann had employed in his Behemoth study. Hilberg came to be considered as the foremost representative of what a later generation has called the functionalist school of Holocaust historiography, of which Christopher Browning , whose life was changed by reading Hilberg's book, is a prominent member. The debate
17425-777: The Babylonians. Genetic studies on Jews show that most Jews worldwide bear a common genetic heritage which originates in the Middle East , and that they share certain genetic traits with other Gentile peoples of the Fertile Crescent . The genetic composition of different Jewish groups shows that Jews share a common gene pool dating back four millennia, as a marker of their common ancestral origin. Despite their long-term separation, Jewish communities maintained their unique commonalities, propensities, and sensibilities in culture, tradition, and language. The earliest recorded evidence of
17630-531: The Bible , founded Christianity , and had an indirect but profound influence on Islam . In these ways, Jews have also played a significant role in the development of Western culture . The term "Jew" is derived from the Hebrew word יְהוּדִי Yehudi , with the plural יְהוּדִים Yehudim . Endonyms in other Jewish languages include the Ladino ג׳ודיו Djudio (plural ג׳ודיוס , Djudios ) and
17835-522: The Exile, the term Yehudi (Jew) was used for all followers of Judaism because the survivors of the Exile (who were the former residents of the Kingdom of Judah) were the only Israelites that had kept their distinct identity as the ten tribes from the northern Kingdom of Israel had been scattered and assimilated into other populations. The gradual ethnonymic shift from " Israelites " to "Jews", regardless of their descent from Judah, although not contained in
18040-454: The Genocide Convention. Despite the promise of never again and the international effort to outlaw genocide, it has continued to occur repeatedly into the twenty-first century. In the aftermath of genocide, common occurrences are the attempt to prosecute perpetrators through the legal system and obtain recognition and reparations for survivors, as well as reflection of the events in scholarship and culture, such as genocide museums . Except in
18245-563: The German edition, owed much to the Cold War atmosphere of the times, according to Norman Finkelstein . Finkelstein observed in a 2007 article for CounterPunch : It is hard now to remember that the Nazi holocaust was once a taboo subject. During the early years of the Cold War, mention of the Nazi holocaust was seen as undermining the critical U.S.–West German alliance. It was airing the dirty laundry of
18450-431: The Holocaust was a vast, single event, but I am never going to use the word unique , because I recognize that when one starts breaking it into pieces, which is my trade, one finds completely recognizable, ordinary ingredients. His final doctoral supervisor, Professor Fox, worried that the original study was far too long. Hilberg therefore suggested submitting a mere quarter of the research he had written up, and his proposal
18655-459: The Holocaust, involved such large-scale logistics that it reinforced the impression that genocide was the result of civilization drifting off course and required both the "weapons and infrastructure of the modern state and the radical ambitions of the modern man". Scientific racism and nationalism were common ideological drivers of many twentieth century genocides. After the horrors of World War II , world leaders attempted to proscribe genocide via
18860-566: The Holocaust, when the subject was finally introduced into his university's curriculum in 1974. Hilberg obtained his first academic position at the University of Vermont in 1955, and took up residence there in January 1956. Most of his teaching career was spent there, where he was a member of the Department of Political Science. He was appointed emeritus professor upon his retirement in 1991. In 2006,
19065-463: The Iberian Peninsula faced persecutions, but their circumstances changed dramatically under Islamic rule . During this period, they thrived in a golden age , marked by significant intellectual and cultural contributions in fields such as philosophy, medicine, and literature by figures such as Samuel ibn Naghrillah , Judah Halevi and Solomon ibn Gabirol . However, in the 12th to 15th centuries,
19270-653: The Iberian Peninsula witnessed a rise in antisemitism, leading to persecutions, anti-Jewish laws, massacres and forced conversions ( peaking in 1391 ), and the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition that same year. After the completion of the Reconquista and the issuance of the Alhambra Decree by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, the Jews of Spain were forced to choose: convert to Christianity or be expelled. As
19475-803: The Jewish communities in the empire's eastern provinces during the Diaspora Revolt (115–117 CE), leading to the near-total destruction of Jewish diaspora communities in Libya , Cyprus and Egypt , including the highly influential community in Alexandria . The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE brought profound changes to Judaism. With the Temple's central place in Jewish worship gone, religious practices shifted towards prayer , Torah study (including Oral Torah ), and communal gatherings in synagogues . Judaism also lost much of its sectarian nature. Two of
19680-401: The Jewish identity of Biblical characters such as Jesus . Daniel R. Schwartz distinguishes "Judean" and "Jew". Here, "Judean" refers to the inhabitants of Judea, which encompassed southern Palestine . Meanwhile, "Jew" refers to the descendants of Israelites that adhere to Judaism . Converts are included in the definition. But Shaye J.D. Cohen argues that "Judean" should include believers of
19885-440: The Jewish people. According to Hilberg, to attend Baron's lectures was to enjoy the rare opportunity of observing "a walking library, a monument of incredible erudition", active before his classroom of students. Baron asked Hilberg whether he was interested in working under him on the annihilation of Europe's Jewish population. Hilberg demurred on the grounds that his interest lay in the perpetrators , and thus he would not begin with
20090-475: The Jewish tradition of trusting God, princes, laws and contracts ... Ultimately I had to ponder the Jewish calculation that the persecutor would not destroy what he could economically exploit. It was precisely this Jewish strategy that dictated accommodation and precluded resistance. This part of his work was criticized harshly by many Jews as impious, and a defamation of the dead. His master's thesis sponsor persuaded him to remove this idea from his thesis, though he
20295-401: The Jews are closely intertwined with archaeology, biology, historical textual records, mythology, and religious literature. The ethnic stock to which Jews originally trace their ancestry was a confederation of Iron Age Semitic -speaking tribes known as the Israelites that inhabited a part of Canaan during the tribal and monarchic periods . Modern Jews are named after and also descended from
20500-470: The Jews who were their victims, but rather with what was done to them. Hilberg decided to write the greater part of his PhD under the supervision of Franz Neumann , the author of an influential wartime analysis of the German totalitarian state . Neumann was initially reluctant to take Hilberg on as his doctoral student. He had already read Hilberg's master's thesis, and found, as both a deeply patriotic German and
20705-991: The Judean God and allies of the Judean state. Troy W. Martin similarly argues that biblical Jewishness is not dependent on ancestry but instead, is based on adherence to 'covenantal circumcision' ( Genesis 17:9–14 ). The etymological equivalent is in use in other languages, e.g., يَهُودِيّ yahūdī (sg.), al-yahūd (pl.), in Arabic , "Jude" in German , "judeu" in Portuguese , "Juif" (m.)/"Juive" (f.) in French , "jøde" in Danish and Norwegian , "judío/a" in Spanish , "jood" in Dutch , "żyd" in Polish etc., but derivations of
20910-536: The Nazi genocide, went so far as to ring Stephen Samuel Wise and ask him what he planned to do with regard to "the complete annihilation of European Jewry". According to Hilberg, Wise hung up. Hilberg served first in the 45th Infantry Division during World War II , but, given his native fluency in German and academic interests, he was soon attached to the War Documentation Department, charged with examining archives throughout Europe. While quartered in
21115-498: The Soviet Union) secured changes in an attempt to make the convention unenforceable and applicable to their geopolitical rivals ' actions but not their own. Few formerly colonized countries were represented and "most states had no interest in empowering their victims– past, present, and future". The result severely diluted Lemkin's original concept; he privately considered it a failure. Lemkin's anti-colonial conception of genocide
21320-503: The U.S. Holocaust Museum). According to Guy Austin Hilberg was "a key influence on Lanzmann" in depicting the logistics of the genocide. He was a strong supporter of the research of Norman Finkelstein during the latter's unsuccessful attempt to secure tenure; of Finkelstein's book The Holocaust Industry , which Hilberg endorsed "with specific regard" to his demonstration that the money claimed to be owed by Swiss banks to Holocaust survivors
21525-525: The United States gained success in the fields of science, culture and the economy. Among those generally considered the most famous were Albert Einstein and Ludwig Wittgenstein . Many Nobel Prize winners at this time were Jewish, as is still the case. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the situation for Jews deteriorated rapidly. Many Jews fled from Europe to Mandatory Palestine ,
21730-597: The United States, and the Soviet Union as a result of racial anti-Semitic laws, economic difficulties, and the fear of an impending war. World War II started in 1939, and by 1941, Hitler occupied almost all of Europe. Following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the Final Solution —an extensive, organized effort with an unprecedented scope intended to annihilate the Jewish people—began, and resulted in
21935-543: The ancient Hellenic world, in Europe before and after The Age of Enlightenment (see Haskalah ), in Islamic Spain and Portugal , in North Africa and the Middle East , India , China , or the contemporary United States and Israel , cultural phenomena have developed that are in some sense characteristically Jewish without being at all specifically religious. Some factors in this come from within Judaism, others from
22140-625: The anonymous clerks whose unquestioning dedication to their duties was central to the efficacy of the industrial project of genocide. Hilberg refrained from laying emphasis on the suffering of the victims of the Holocaust or their lives in concentration camps. The Nazi program entailed the destruction of all peoples whose existence was deemed incompatible with the world-historical destiny of a pure master race – and to accomplish this project, they had to develop techniques, muster resources, make bureaucratic decisions, organize fields and camps of extermination and recruit cadres capable of executing
22345-412: The appropriate archives. After Neumann's death in a traffic accident in 1954, Hilberg completed his doctoral requirement under the supervision of William T. R. Fox . His dissertation won him the university's prestigious Clark F. Ansley Award in 1955, which carried with it the right to have his thesis published by his alma mater. He taught the first college-level course in the United States dedicated to
22550-515: The barely de-Nazified West German elites and thereby playing into the hands of the Soviet Union, which didn't tire of remembering the crimes of the West German "revanchists." The German rights to the book were acquired by the German publishing firm Droemer Knaur in 1963. Droemer Knaur, however, after dithering over it for two years, decided against publication, due to the work's documentation of certain episodes of cooperation by Jewish authorities with
22755-441: The case of his predecessor Gerald Reitlinger 's groundbreaking history of the subject. Because of this layered, departmentalized structure of the bureaucracy overseeing the intricate policies of classifying, mustering and deporting victims, individual functionaries saw their roles as distinct from the actual "perpetration" of the Holocaust. Thus, for these reasons, an administrator, clerk or uniformed guard never referred to himself as
22960-487: The case of the Holocaust , few genocide victims receive any reparations despite the trend of requiring such reparations in international and municipal law. The perpetrators and their supporters often deny the genocide and reject responsibility for the harms suffered by victims. Efforts to achieve justice and reconciliation are common in postgenocide situations, but are necessarily incomplete and inadequate. The effects of genocide on societies are under-researched. Much of
23165-506: The city in the 4th century BCE by Alexander the Great . By 200 BCE, there were well established Jewish communities both in Egypt and Mesopotamia (" Babylonia " in Jewish sources) and in the two centuries that followed, Jewish populations were also present in Asia Minor , Greece , Macedonia , Cyrene , and, beginning in the middle of the first century BCE, in the city of Rome . Later, in
23370-612: The confines of the Roman Empire, became an important center of Jewish study as Judea's Jewish population declined. Estimates often place the Babylonian Jewish community of the 3rd to 7th centuries at around one million, making it the largest Jewish diaspora community of that period. Under the political leadership of the exilarch , who was regarded as a royal heir of the House of David, this community had an autonomous status and served as
23575-496: The conscience of the world. They are the father figures, stern, critical, and forbidding." Though a non-smoker, Hilberg died following a recurrence of lung cancer on August 4, 2007, aged 81, in Williston, Vermont . Jewish The Jews ( Hebrew : יְהוּדִים , ISO 259-2 : Yehudim , Israeli pronunciation : [jehuˈdim] ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from
23780-516: The convention unless it was excluded. Most genocide scholars believe that both cultural genocide and structural violence should be included in the definition of genocide, if committed with intent to destroy the targeted group. Although included in Lemkin's original concept and by some scholars, political groups were also excluded from the Genocide Convention. The result of this exclusion was that perpetrators of genocide could redefine their targets as being
23985-429: The council , which is unobjectionable, the substitution of a circumlocution like Jewish people or persons of Jewish background may in itself cause offense for seeming to imply that Jew has a negative connotation when used as a noun. Judaism shares some of the characteristics of a nation , an ethnicity , a religion , and a culture , making the definition of who is a Jew vary slightly depending on whether
24190-459: The course of events, and someone might choose to kill one genocide victim while saving another. Anthropologist Richard Rechtman writes that in circumstances where atrocities such as genocides are perpetrated, many people refuse to become perpetrators, which often entails great sacrifices such as risking their lives and fleeing their country. It is a common misconception that genocide necessarily involves mass killing; indeed, it may occur without
24395-451: The debate goes back to 1969 with the publication of Martin Broszat 's The Hitler State in 1969 and Karl Schleunes 's The Twisted Road to Auschwitz in 1970. Since most of the early functionalist historians were West German, it was often enough for intentionalist historians, especially for those outside Germany, to note that men such as Broszat and Hans Mommsen had spent their adolescence in
24600-428: The desert and settled on the central mountain range of the land of Canaan, in simple semi-nomadic settlements in which pig bones are notably absent. This population gradually shifted from a tribal lifestyle to a monarchy. While the archaeological record of the ninth century BCE provides evidence for two monarchies, one in the south under a dynasty founded by a figure named David with its capital in Jerusalem , and one in
24805-460: The destruction of the First Temple , though there is ample evidence for the presence of Jews in Babylonia even from 626 BCE. In Egypt, the documents from Elephantine reveal the trials of a community founded by a Persian Jewish garrison at two fortresses on the frontier during the 5th–4th centuries BCE, and according to Josephus the Jewish community in Alexandria existed since the founding of
25010-523: The dispersal driven by both forced expulsions and voluntary migrations. In Mesopotamia, a testimony to the beginnings of the Jewish community can be found in Joachin's ration tablets , listing provisions allotted to the exiled Judean king and his family by Nebuchadnezzar II , and further evidence are the Al-Yahudu tablets , dated to the 6th–5th centuries BCE and related to the exiles from Judea arriving after
25215-414: The enslavement or forced assimilation of women and children—often limited to a particular town or city rather than applied to a larger group—is a common feature of ancient warfare as described in written sources. The events that some scholars consider genocide in ancient and medieval times had more pragmatic than ideological motivations. As a result, some scholars such as Mark Levene argue that genocide
25420-478: The entire world. A number of modern scholars of nationalism support the existence of Jewish national identity in antiquity. One of them is David Goodblatt, who generally believes in the existence of nationalism before the modern period. In his view, the Bible, the parabiblical literature and the Jewish national history provide the base for a Jewish collective identity. Although many of the ancient Jews were illiterate (as were their neighbors), their national narrative
25625-533: The executors of the Holocaust ;– material which the editors said would only play into the hands of the antisemitic right wing in Germany. Hilberg dismissed this fear as "nonsense". Some two decades were to pass before it finally came out in a German edition in 1982, under the imprint of a Berlin publishing house. Hilberg – a lifelong Republican voter, according to both Norman Finkelstein and Michael Neumann – seemed to be somewhat bemused by
25830-506: The extra-biblical record, the Israelites become visible as a people between 1200 and 1000 BCE. There is well accepted archeological evidence referring to "Israel" in the Merneptah Stele , which dates to about 1200 BCE, and in the Mesha stele from 840 BCE. It is debated whether a period like that of the Biblical judges occurred and if there ever was a United Monarchy . There
26035-541: The fall of their empire in c. 333 BCE to Alexander the Great . After several centuries under foreign imperial rule, the Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire resulted in an independent Hasmonean kingdom , under which the Jews once again enjoyed political independence for a period spanning from 110 to 63 BCE. Under Hasmonean rule the boundaries of their kingdom were expanded to include not only
26240-560: The first centuries CE, as a result of the Jewish-Roman Wars , a large number of Jews were taken as captives, sold into slavery, or compelled to flee from the regions affected by the wars, contributing to the formation and expansion of Jewish communities across the Roman Empire as well as in Arabia and Mesopotamia. After the Bar Kokhba revolt , the Jewish population in Judaea , now significantly reduced in size, made efforts to recover from
26445-488: The first genocides to prehistoric times . Prior to the advent of civilizations consisting of sedentary farmers , humans lived in tribal societies, with intertribal warfare often ending with the obliteration of the defeated tribe, killing of adult males and integration of women and children into the victorious tribe. Genocide is mentioned in various ancient sources including the Hebrew Bible . The massacre of men and
26650-498: The five types enumerated in the Genocide Convention. Lemkin considered genocide to have occurred since the beginning of human history and dated the efforts to criminalize it to the Spanish critics of colonial excesses Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas . The 1946 judgement against Arthur Greiser issued by a Polish court was the first legal verdict that mentioned the term, using Lemkin's original definition. According to
26855-412: The following acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national , ethnical , racial or religious group, as such: A specific " intent to destroy " is the mens rea requirement of genocide. The issue of what it means to destroy a group "as such" and how to prove the required intent has been difficult for courts to resolve. The legal system has also struggled with how much of
27060-415: The group. The objectives of genocide "would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups". These were not separate crimes but different aspects of the same genocidal process. Lemkin's definition of nation was sufficiently broad to apply to nearly any type of human collectivity, even one based on
27265-441: The ideal type of the nation [...] than perhaps anywhere else in the ancient world." He adds that this observation "must make us wary of pronouncing too readily against the possibility of the nation, and even a form of religious nationalism , before the onset of modernity." Agreeing with Smith, Goodblatt suggests omitting the qualifier "religious" from Smith's definition of ancient Jewish nationalism, noting that, according to Smith,
27470-497: The initiatives fed an understanding in the bureaucracy that radical goals were attainable, progressively reducing the need for direction. As Hilberg put it, As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, "There shall be no laws." Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there
27675-426: The innocence, helplessness, or defencelessness of its victims. Most genocides occur during wartime, and distinguishing genocide or genocidal war from non-genocidal warfare can be difficult. Likewise, genocide is distinguished from violent and coercive forms of rule that aim to change behavior rather than destroy groups. Some definitions include political or social groups as potential victims of genocide. Many of
27880-400: The interaction of Jews or specific communities of Jews with their surroundings, and still others from the inner social and cultural dynamics of the community, as opposed to from the religion itself. This phenomenon has led to considerably different Jewish cultures unique to their own communities. Hebrew is the liturgical language of Judaism (termed lashon ha-kodesh , "the holy tongue"),
28085-547: The irrationality of religion repellent and developed an aversion to it. He did however attend a Zionist school in Vienna, which inculcated in him the necessity of defending against, rather than surrendering to, the rising menace of Nazism . Following the March 1938 German annexation of Austria , his family was evicted from their home at gunpoint and his father was arrested by the Nazis; he was later released because of his service record as
28290-496: The issue. Hilberg's study was praised by scholars and the American press. His findings that all of German society was involved in the "destruction process" drew attention. Some scholars argued that Hilberg overlooked Nazi ideology and the nature of the regime. Hilberg's claim that Jews abetted their own persecutors sparked a debate among Jewish scholars and in Jewish press. According to a 2021 study, "the reception of Hilberg's work marks
28495-508: The land of the historical kingdom of Judah , but also the Galilee and Transjordan . In the beginning of this process the Idumeans , who had infiltrated southern Judea after the destruction of the First Temple , were converted en masse. In 63 BCE, Judea was conquered by the Romans. From 37 BCE to 6 CE, the Romans allowed the Jews to maintain some degree of independence by installing
28700-537: The language in which most of the Hebrew scriptures ( Tanakh ) were composed, and the daily speech of the Jewish people for centuries. By the 5th century BCE, Aramaic , a closely related tongue, joined Hebrew as the spoken language in Judea . By the 3rd century BCE, some Jews of the diaspora were speaking Greek . Others, such as in the Jewish communities of Asoristan , known to Jews as Babylonia, were speaking Hebrew and Aramaic ,
28905-469: The language of Russian Jews , but these policies have also affected neighboring communities. Today, Russian is the first language for many Jewish communities in a number of Post-Soviet states , such as Ukraine and Uzbekistan , as well as for Ashkenazic Jews in Azerbaijan , Georgia, and Tajikistan . Although communities in North Africa today are small and dwindling, Jews there had shifted from
29110-568: The languages of the Babylonian Talmud . Dialects of these same languages were also used by the Jews of Syria Palaestina at that time. For centuries, Jews worldwide have spoken the local or dominant languages of the regions they migrated to, often developing distinctive dialectal forms or branches that became independent languages. Yiddish is the Judaeo-German language developed by Ashkenazi Jews who migrated to Central Europe . Ladino
29315-531: The law , Jews in the Pale of Settlement faced growing persecution, legal restrictions and widespread pogroms . Zionism emerged in the late 19th century in Central and Eastern Europe as a national revival movement, aiming to re-establish a Jewish polity in the Land of Israel, an endeavor to restore the Jewish people back to their ancestral homeland in order to stop the exoduses and persecutions that have plagued their history. This led to waves of Jewish migration to Ottoman-controlled Palestine . Theodor Herzl , who
29520-542: The law of Jewish identity being inherited through the maternal line, although scholars challenge this theory citing the Talmudic establishment of the law from the pre-exile period. Another argument is that the rabbis changed the law of patrilineal descent to matrilineal descent due to the widespread rape of Jewish women by Roman soldiers. Since the anti-religious Haskalah movement of the late 18th and 19th centuries, halakhic interpretations of Jewish identity have been challenged. According to historian Shaye J. D. Cohen ,
29725-490: The leading agents when the genocide takes places in remote frontier areas. A common strategy is for state-sponsored atrocities to be carried out in secrecy by paramilitary groups, offering the benefit of plausible deniability while widening complicity in the atrocities. The leaders who organize genocide usually believe that their actions were justified and regret nothing. How ordinary people can become involved in extraordinary violence under circumstances of acute conflict
29930-421: The lecture to ask why the recent murder of 6 million Jews did not figure in Rosenberg's assessment. Rosenberg replied that it was a complicated matter, but that the lectures dealt only with history down to 1930, adding, "History doesn't reach down into the present age." Hilberg was amazed by this highly educated, German-Jewish emigrant passing over the genocide of European Jews in order to expound on Napoleon and
30135-442: The lesson Hilberg had absorbed under Neumann, whose Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism (1942/1944) described the Nazi regime as a virtually stateless political order characterized by chronic bureaucratic infighting and turf disputes. The task Hilberg set for himself was to analyze the way the overall policies of genocide were engineered within the otherwise conflicting politics of Nazi factions. It helped that
30340-501: The letter "d" from the Medieval Latin Iudaeus , which, like the New Testament Greek term Ioudaios , meant both "Jew" and " Judean " / "of Judea ". The Greek term was a loan from Aramaic *yahūdāy , corresponding to Hebrew יְהוּדִי Yehudi . Some scholars prefer translating Ioudaios as "Judean" in the Bible since it is more precise, denotes the community's origins and prevents readers from engaging in antisemitic eisegesis . Others disagree, believing that it erases
30545-577: The level of rhetoric because both superpowers (the United States and the Soviet Union) felt vulnerable to accusations of genocide, and were therefore unwilling to press charges against the other party. Despite political pressure to charge "Soviet genocide", the United States government refused to ratify the convention fearing countercharges . Authorities have been reluctant to prosecute the perpetrators of many genocides, although non-judicial commissions of inquiry have also been created by some states. The first conviction for genocide in an international court
30750-427: The local, national, and international levels lead various parts of the Jewish community on a variety of issues. Today, many countries have a Chief Rabbi who serves as a representative of that country's Jewry. Although many Hasidic Jews follow a certain hereditary Hasidic dynasty , there is no one commonly accepted leader of all Hasidic Jews. Many Jews believe that the Messiah will act a unifying leader for Jews and
30955-402: The manuscript for his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe to the publisher in early 1942, and it was published in 1944 as the Holocaust was coming to light outside Europe. Lemkin's proposal was more ambitious than simply outlawing this type of mass slaughter. He also thought that the law against genocide could promote more tolerant and pluralistic societies. His response to Nazi criminality
31160-438: The manuscript, on Hannah Arendt 's advice, after quickly vetting it in a mere two weeks. After successive rejections from five prominent publishers, it finally went to press in 1961 under a minor imprint, the Chicago-based publisher, Quadrangle Books . Yad Vashem also reneged on an initial agreement to publish the manuscript, since it treated as marginal the armed Jewish resistance central to the Zionist narrative. By good fortune,
31365-470: The matter of a [historical] record." After his second wife's autonomous decision, 12 years into their marriage, to convert from Episcopalianism to Judaism , in 1993, Hilberg began quietly to attend services at Ohavi Zedek , a Conservative synagogue in Burlington. What he most esteemed, and identified with in his own tradition, was the ideal of the Jew as "pariah". As he put it in a 1965 essay, "Jews are iconoclasts. They will not worship idols... The Jews are
31570-406: The maximalists who largely accept it, with the minimalists being the more vocal of the two. Some of the leading minimalists reframe the biblical account as constituting the Israelites ' inspiring national myth narrative, suggesting that according to the modern archaeological and historical account, the Israelites and their culture did not overtake the region by force, but instead branched out of
31775-430: The mediation of Samuel became subject to a king, Saul , who was succeeded by David and then Solomon , after whom the United Monarchy ended and was split into a separate Kingdom of Israel and a Kingdom of Judah . The Kingdom of Judah is described as comprising the tribes of Judah , Benjamin , partially Levi , and later adding remnants of other tribes who migrated there from the northern Kingdom of Israel. In
31980-401: The more sociologically oriented definitions of genocide overlap that of the crime against humanity of extermination , which refers to large-scale killing or induced death as part of a systematic attack on a civilian population. Isolated or short-lived phenomena that resemble genocide can be termed genocidal violence . Cultural genocide or ethnocide—actions targeted at the reproduction of
32185-525: The movement of Jewish groups around the Mediterranean in the Hellenistic period , and subsequent periods of conflict and violent dispersion, such as the Jewish–Roman wars , gave rise to the Jewish diaspora . The Jewish diaspora is a wide dispersion of Jewish communities across the world that have maintained their sense of Jewish history , identity and culture . In the following millennia, Jewish diaspora communities coalesced into three major ethnic subdivisions according to where their ancestors settled:
32390-754: The national language of the Jewish people, knowledge of the language is not commonly possessed by Jews worldwide and English has emerged as the lingua franca of the Jewish diaspora. Although many Jews once had sufficient knowledge of Hebrew to study the classic literature, and Jewish languages like Yiddish and Ladino were commonly used as recently as the early 20th century, most Jews lack such knowledge today and English has by and large superseded most Jewish vernaculars. The three most commonly spoken languages among Jews today are Hebrew, English, and Russian . Some Romance languages , particularly French and Spanish , are also widely used. Yiddish has been spoken by more Jews in history than any other language, but it
32595-424: The newly established United Nations in 1946. Opposition to the convention was greater than Lemkin expected due to states' concerns that it would lead their own policies - including treatment of indigenous peoples , European colonialism , racial segregation in the United States , and Soviet nationalities policy - to be labeled genocide. Before the convention was passed, powerful countries (both Western powers and
32800-409: The north under a dynasty founded by a figure named Omri with its capital in Samaria . It also points to an early monarchic period in which these regions shared material culture and religion, suggesting a common origin. Archaeological finds also provide evidence for the later cooperation of these two kingdoms in their coalition against Aram , and for their destructions by the Assyrians and later by
33005-436: The occasion of the publication of the Hebrew translation of The Destruction of the European Jews , in 2012. Hilberg was not religious, and he considered himself an atheist . In his autobiographical reflections he stated, "The fact is that I have had no God." In a 2001 interview that addressed the issue of Holocaust denial , he said, "I am an atheist. But there is ultimately, if you don't want to surrender to nihilism entirely,
33210-402: The occupation of Spain. Hilberg recalled, it was an almost taboo topic in the Jewish community, and he pursued his research as a kind of "protest against silence". Hilberg went on to first complete a Master of Arts degree (1950) and then a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree (1955) at Columbia University , where he entered the graduate program in public law and government. In 1951, he obtained
33415-409: The outcome of strengthening them. Although many scholars have emphasized the role of ideology in genocide, there is little agreement in how ideology contributes to violent outcomes; others have cited rational explanations for atrocities. Genocides are usually driven by states and their agents, such as elites, political parties, bureaucracies, armed forces, and paramilitaries. Civilians are often
33620-464: The past was like "picking up a few pebbles from the past and throwing them at windows." Hilberg had two children, David and Deborah, by his first wife, Christine Hemenway. After his divorce, in 1980 he married Gwendolyn Montgomery. Deborah moved to Israel when she was 18, acquired dual citizenship, and became a specialist teacher of children with learning disabilities . She has written memorably of her father's approach to rearing in an article composed on
33825-438: The persecution and murder of Jews in Europe and North Africa . In Poland, three million were murdered in gas chambers in all concentration camps combined, with one million at the Auschwitz camp complex alone. The Holocaust is the name given to this genocide, in which six million Jews were systematically murdered. Before and during the Holocaust, enormous numbers of Jews immigrated to Mandatory Palestine. On 14 May 1948, upon
34030-498: The prospect of being published under such an imprint, and asked its director, Ulf Wolter, what on earth his massive treatise on the Holocaust had in common with some of the firm's staple themes, socialism and women's rights . Wolter replied succinctly: "Injustice!". In a letter of July 14, 1982, Hilberg had written to director Ulf Wolter the partner of Werner Olle in the firm Olle & Wolter , "Everything you said to me during this brief visit has impressed me very much and has given me
34235-562: The qualitative research on genocide has focused on the testimonies of victims, survivors, and other eyewitnesses. Studies of genocide survivors have examined rates of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia , suicide, post-traumatic stress disorder , and post-traumatic growth . While some have found negative results, others find no association with genocide survival. There are no consistent findings that children of genocide survivors have worse health than comparable individuals. Most societies are able to recover demographically from genocide, but this
34440-434: The rejection slip he received from Princeton University Press following its submission, thus denying him a mainstream academic publishing house. With a terse lucidity that ranged, with unsparing meticulousness, over the huge archives of Nazism, Hilberg delineated the history of the mechanisms, political, legal, administrative and organizational, whereby the Holocaust was perpetrated, as it was seen through German eyes, often by
34645-580: The relationship between the leadership of Nazi Germany and the implementers of the genocide evolved from an interpretation based on orders to the RSHA originating with Adolf Hitler and proclaimed by Hermann Göring , to a thesis consistent with Christopher Browning's The Origins of the Final Solution , an account in which initiatives were undertaken by mid-level officials in response to general orders from senior ones. Such initiatives were broadened by mandates from senior officials and propagated by increasingly informal channels. The experience gained in fulfilling
34850-671: The religion. Historical definitions of Jewish identity have traditionally been based on halakhic definitions of matrilineal descent, and halakhic conversions. These definitions of who is a Jew date back to the codification of the Oral Torah into the Babylonian Talmud , around 200 CE . Interpretations by Jewish sages of sections of the Tanakh – such as Deuteronomy 7:1–5 , which forbade intermarriage between their Israelite ancestors and seven non-Israelite nations: "for that [i.e. giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons,] would turn away your children from following me, to serve other gods" – are used as
35055-556: The removal of the group from a given territory, instead of destruction as such, or that the genocidal actions were collateral damage of military activity. Attempted genocide , conspiracy to commit genocide, incitement to genocide , and complicity in genocide are criminalized. The convention does not allow the retroactive prosecution of events that took place prior to 1951. Signatories are also required to prevent genocide and prosecute its perpetrators. Many countries have incorporated genocide into their municipal law , varying to
35260-404: The revolt's devastating effects, but never fully regained its previous strength. In the second to fourth centuries CE, the region of Galilee emerged as the new center of Jewish life in Syria Palaestina , experiencing a cultural and demographic flourishing. It was in this period that two central rabbinic texts, the Mishnah and the Jerusalem Talmud , were composed. However, as the Roman Empire
35465-403: The royal line of David ) and Joshua the Priest (a descendant of the line of the former High Priests of the Temple ) and their construction of the Second Temple circa 521–516 BCE. As part of the Persian Empire , the former Kingdom of Judah became the province of Judah ( Yehud Medinata ), with a smaller territory and a reduced population. Judea was under control of the Achaemenids until
35670-408: The search for evidence of the biblical narrative surrounding the patriarchs and the exodus. According to the maximalist position, the modern archaeological record independently points to a narrative which largely agrees with the biblical account. This narrative provides a testimony of the Israelites as a nomadic people known to the Egyptians as belonging to the Shasu . Over time these nomads left
35875-407: The settlers want to acquire land from indigenous people making genocide more likely than with classical colonialism. While the lack of law enforcement on the frontier ensured impunity for settler violence, the advance of state authority enabled settlers to consolidate their gains using the legal system. Genocide was committed on a large scale during both world wars . The prototypical genocide,
36080-507: The southern Israelite Kingdom of Judah . Gary A. Rendsburg links the early Canaanite nomadic pastoralists confederation to the Shasu known to the Egyptians around the 15th century BCE. According to the Hebrew Bible narrative, Jewish ancestry is traced back to the Biblical patriarchs such as Abraham , his son Isaac , Isaac's son Jacob , and the Biblical matriarchs Sarah , Rebecca , Leah , and Rachel , who lived in Canaan . The Twelve Tribes are described as descending from
36285-438: The status of the offspring of mixed marriages was determined patrilineally in the Bible. He brings two likely explanations for the change in Mishnaic times: first, the Mishnah may have been applying the same logic to mixed marriages as it had applied to other mixtures ( Kil'ayim ). Thus, a mixed marriage is forbidden as is the union of a horse and a donkey , and in both unions the offspring are judged matrilineally. Second,
36490-404: The struggle to ratify the Genocide Convention , powerful countries restricted Lemkin's definition to exclude their own actions from being classified as genocide, ultimately limiting it to any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy , in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Genocide has occurred throughout human history , even during prehistoric times , but
36695-403: The termination of the mandate, David Ben-Gurion declared the creation of the State of Israel , a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel. Immediately afterwards, all neighboring Arab states invaded, yet the newly formed IDF resisted. In 1949, the war ended and Israel started building the state and absorbing massive waves of Aliyah from all over the world. The Jewish people and
36900-446: The three main sects that flourished during the late Second Temple period, namely the Sadducees and Essenes , eventually disappeared, while Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis of Rabbinic Judaism , which emerged as the prevailing form of Judaism since late antiquity. The Jewish diaspora existed well before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and had been ongoing for centuries, with
37105-423: The tribe of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin made up the Kingdom of Judah. Though Genesis 29:35 and 49:8 connect "Judah" with the verb yada , meaning "praise", scholars generally agree that "Judah" most likely derives from the name of a Levantine geographic region dominated by gorges and ravines. In ancient times, Jewish people as a whole were called Hebrews or Israelites until the Babylonian Exile . After
37310-403: The twelve sons of Jacob. Jacob and his family migrated to Ancient Egypt after being invited to live with Jacob's son Joseph by the Pharaoh himself. The patriarchs' descendants were later enslaved until the Exodus led by Moses , after which the Israelites conquered Canaan under Moses' successor Joshua , went through the period of the Biblical judges after the death of Joshua, then through
37515-425: The university established the Raul Hilberg Distinguished Professorship of Holocaust Studies. Each year the University of Vermont's Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies hosts the Raul Hilberg Memorial Lecture. Hilberg was appointed to the President's Commission on the Holocaust by Jimmy Carter in 1979. He later served for many years on its successor, the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which
37720-498: The unparalleled industrialization of the European Jewish catastrophe by that country. Yehuda Bauer , a lifelong adversary and friend of Hilberg, – he had assisted him in finally getting access to Yad Vashem's archives – who often clashed polemically with the man he considered "without fault" over what Bauer saw as the latter's failure to deal with the complex dilemmas of Jews caught up in this machinery, recalls often prodding Hilberg on his exclusive focus on
37925-445: The word "Hebrew" are also in use to describe a Jew, e.g., in Italian ( Ebreo ), in Persian ("Ebri/Ebrani" ( Persian : عبری/عبرانی )) and Russian ( Еврей, Yevrey ). The German word "Jude" is pronounced [ˈjuːdə] , the corresponding adjective "jüdisch" [ˈjyːdɪʃ] (Jewish) is the origin of the word "Yiddish". According to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language , fourth edition (2000), It
38130-460: The world's population at that time. During World War II, approximately 6 million Jews throughout Europe were systematically murdered by Nazi Germany in a genocide known as the Holocaust . Since then, the population has slowly risen again, and as of 2021 , was estimated to be at 15.2 million by the demographer Sergio Della Pergola or less than 0.2% of the total world population in 2012. Today, over 85% of Jews live in Israel or
38335-530: Was the forced migration of populations —which had been carried out by the Soviet Union and its satellites, condoned by the Western Allies, against millions of Germans from central and Eastern Europe . Two years after passing a resolution affirming the criminalization of genocide , the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Genocide Convention on 9 December 1948. It came into effect on 12 January 1951 after 20 countries ratified it without reservations . The convention defines genocide as: ... any of
38540-433: Was a disincentive to extermination, imperial rule could lead to genocide when resistance emerged. Ancient and medieval genocides were often committed by empires. Unlike traditional empires, settler colonialism —particularly associated with the settlement of Europeans outside of Europe—is characterized by militarized populations of settlers in remote areas beyond effective state control. Rather than labor or economic surplus,
38745-503: Was accepted. His PhD dissertation was awarded the prestigious Clark F. Ansley prize, which entitled it to be published by Columbia University Press in a print run of 850 copies. However, Hilberg was firm in desiring that the whole work be published, not just the doctoral version. To obtain this, two opinions in favor of full publication were required. Yad Vashem as early as 1958, declined to participate in its projected publication, fearing that it would encounter "hostile criticism". The work
38950-404: Was awarded the Geschwister-Scholl-Preis for Die Quellen des Holocaust (Sources of the Holocaust). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005 ( AAAS ). Hilberg is best known for his influential study of the Holocaust, The Destruction of the European Jews . His approach assumed that the event of the Shoah was not "unique". He said in a late interview: For me
39155-432: Was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire , which came to dominate the ancient Near East. Under the Assyrian resettlement policy , a significant portion of the northern Israelite population was exiled to Mesopotamia and replaced by immigrants from the same region. During the same period, and throughout the 7th century BCE, the Kingdom of Judah, now under Assyrian vassalage , experienced a period of prosperity and witnessed
39360-418: Was deeply impressed by the importance of elites and bureaucracies while attending Hans Rosenberg 's lectures on the Prussian civil service. In 1947, at one particular point in Rosenberg's course, Hilberg was taken aback when his teacher remarked: "The most wicked atrocities perpetrated on a civilian population in modern times occurred during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain ." The young Hilberg interrupted
39565-465: Was determined to restore it. Even his father, on reading his manuscript, was disconcerted. The result of his approach, and the sharp criticism it aroused in certain quarters, was such, as he records in the same book, that: It has taken me some time to absorb what I should always have known, that in my whole approach to the study of the destruction of the Jews I was pitting myself against the main current of Jewish thought, that in my research and writing I
39770-404: Was duly submitted to two additional academic authorities in the field, but both judgments were negative, viewing Hilberg's work as polemical : one rejected it as anti-German, the other rejected it as anti-Jewish. Hilberg, unwilling to compromise, submitted the complete manuscript to several major publishing houses over the following six years, without luck. Princeton University Press turned down
39975-411: Was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. Finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do. In earlier editions of Destruction , in fact, Hilberg discussed an "order" given by Hitler to have Jews killed, while more recent editions do not refer to
40180-416: Was greatly exaggerated; and of his critique of Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners . Hilberg also made a posthumous appearance in the 2009 film, American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein . In regard to claims that a New anti-Semitism was emerging, Hilberg, speaking in 2007, was dismissive. Comparing incidents in recent times with the socially entrenched structural anti-Semitism of
40385-402: Was in 1998 for a perpetrator of the Rwandan genocide . The first head of state to be convicted of genocide was in 2018 for the Cambodian genocide . Although it is widely recognized that punishment of the perpetrators cannot be of an order with their crimes, the trials often serve other purposes such as attempting to shape public perception of the past. The field of genocide studies emerged in
40590-399: Was less prosperous and covered a smaller, mostly mountainous territory. However, while in Israel the royal succession was often decided by a military coup d'état, resulting in several dynasty changes, political stability in Judah was much greater, as it was ruled by the House of David for the whole four centuries of its existence. Around 720 BCE, Kingdom of Israel was destroyed when it
40795-478: Was pursuing not merely another direction but one which was the exact opposite of a signal that pulsated endlessly through the Jewish community... The philistines in my field are everywhere. I am surrounded by the commonplace, platitudes, and clichés. Hilberg was the only scholar interviewed for Claude Lanzmann's Shoah that actually made it into the film (interviews of other scholars, such as theologian Richard L. Rubenstein, remained as outtakes; they can be viewed at
41000-425: Was reinforced through public readings. The Hebrew language also constructed and preserved national identity. Although it was not widely spoken after the 5th century BCE, Goodblatt states: the mere presence of the language in spoken or written form could invoke the concept of a Jewish national identity. Even if one knew no Hebrew or was illiterate, one could recognize that a group of signs was in Hebrew script. ... It
41205-429: Was replaced by the Christianized Byzantine Empire under Constantine , Jews came to be persecuted by the church and the authorities, and many immigrated to communities in the diaspora. In the fourth century CE, Jews are believed to have lost their position as the majority in Syria Palaestina . The long-established Jewish community of Mesopotamia, which had been living under Parthian and later Sasanian rule, beyond
41410-416: Was sharply different from that of another international law scholar, Hersch Lauterpacht , who argued that it was essential to protect individuals from atrocities, whether or not they were targeted as members of a group. According to Lemkin, the central definition of genocide was "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" in which its members were not targeted as individuals, but rather as members of
41615-455: Was the language of the Israelite ancestors, the national literature, and the national religion. As such it was inseparable from the national identity. Indeed its mere presence in visual or aural medium could invoke that identity. Anthony D. Smith , an historical sociologist considered one of the founders of the interdisciplinary field of nationalism studies , wrote that the Jews of the late Second Temple period provide "a closer approximation to
41820-401: Was transformed into one that favored colonial powers. Among the violence freed from the stigma of genocide included the destruction of political groups, which the Soviet Union is particularly blamed for blocking. Although Lemkin credited women's NGOs with securing the passage of the convention, the gendered violence of forced pregnancy, marriage, and divorce was left out. Additionally omitted
42025-444: Was used almost exclusively as a liturgical language, and as the language in which most books had been written on Judaism, with a few speaking only Hebrew on the Sabbath . Hebrew was revived as a spoken language by Eliezer ben Yehuda , who arrived in Palestine in 1881. It had not been used as a mother tongue since Tannaic times. Modern Hebrew is designated as the "State language" of Israel. Despite efforts to revive Hebrew as
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