2008 Woodie Awards
Holocaust and Curriculum
Comments on Prof. Zimmerman
Shalom Carmy
Issue date: 8/27/07 Section: Opinion
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Editorial Note: The following is a response to Dr. Joshua Zimmerman's article entitled "Is the Holocaust part of Jewish history?" published in the March 26, 2007 issue of The Commentator. In his article, Dr. Zimmerman argued for why Yeshiva College's Holocaust history course should be listed as Jewish History course like it is at Stern College for Women. The following is Rabbi Carmy's response.
Professor Joshua Zimmerman deserves thanks for the cultural and curricular questions he raises about studying the Holocaust in YC's Jewish History department. While academic departmental divisions are all artificial to some degree, they are not without validity and examining them is sometimes instructive. Let me comment on three of his points:
1) Prof. Zimmerman refers to several Biblical passages stating our obligation to understand great events in Jewish history from a religious perspective, both redemptive acts of G-d like the exodus from Egypt and disasters like the hurban. He infers rightly that understanding the Holocaust from a religious perspective is a valuable activity. Therefore what the Germans and their allies did to us should be studied as Jewish history rather than as European history.
Prof. Zimmerman's pesukim imply that Jewish theological reflection on the Holocaust would belong to the discipline of Jewish philosophy or theology. Knowing the history of anti-Semitism, persecutions, the mechanisms of extermination and so on may contribute to our religious understanding, but that doesn't make it Jewish history. Jewish theological reflection on cancer belongs to Jewish philosophy. Knowing about cancer is essential to such reflection. The study of cancer, however, or Tay-Sachs disease (which affects Jews in particular), is not a branch of Jewish theology. Cancer itself belongs to biology. Hitler belongs to the Germans.
2) Prof. Zimmerman cites me as having said that Jewish history focuses primarily on what Jews do rather than what is done to them. He identifies this idea with the once popular, ideologically driven view, that Jews did nothing during the Holocaust, or that they went like sheep to slaughter, and refutes it by listing great acts of resistance and endeavors of rescue.
Professor Joshua Zimmerman deserves thanks for the cultural and curricular questions he raises about studying the Holocaust in YC's Jewish History department. While academic departmental divisions are all artificial to some degree, they are not without validity and examining them is sometimes instructive. Let me comment on three of his points:
1) Prof. Zimmerman refers to several Biblical passages stating our obligation to understand great events in Jewish history from a religious perspective, both redemptive acts of G-d like the exodus from Egypt and disasters like the hurban. He infers rightly that understanding the Holocaust from a religious perspective is a valuable activity. Therefore what the Germans and their allies did to us should be studied as Jewish history rather than as European history.
Prof. Zimmerman's pesukim imply that Jewish theological reflection on the Holocaust would belong to the discipline of Jewish philosophy or theology. Knowing the history of anti-Semitism, persecutions, the mechanisms of extermination and so on may contribute to our religious understanding, but that doesn't make it Jewish history. Jewish theological reflection on cancer belongs to Jewish philosophy. Knowing about cancer is essential to such reflection. The study of cancer, however, or Tay-Sachs disease (which affects Jews in particular), is not a branch of Jewish theology. Cancer itself belongs to biology. Hitler belongs to the Germans.
2) Prof. Zimmerman cites me as having said that Jewish history focuses primarily on what Jews do rather than what is done to them. He identifies this idea with the once popular, ideologically driven view, that Jews did nothing during the Holocaust, or that they went like sheep to slaughter, and refutes it by listing great acts of resistance and endeavors of rescue.