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Submitted by: Gulie Ne'eman Arad
guliea@post.tau.ac.il
In response to the post of Jeremiah Riemer
The FAZ should be very proud that its readers trust what it publishes
without a doubt, and furthermore accept it as the absolute truth. But,
surprise surprise....
In an article appearing in the FAZ 4 November 1997, entitled "Der Schutz
des allmaechtigen Autors -- Rechtsanwaelte lesen lassen: Wie Daniel Jonah
Goldhagen mit seinen Kritikern verfaehrt," there is a reference to me as
follows: "Sie analysierte die Goldhagen Kontroverse in kulturellen Kontext
der Vereingten Staaten und sah in ihr den Ausdruck einer tiefgreifenden
Verunsicherung der amerikanischen orthodoxen Juden." Nowhere have I
argued this, and in fact I make no reference at all to Orthodox American
Jews. Indeed, my contention is that -secular- American Jews have embraced
the Holocaust as their -surrogate religion-, as a form of -civil
religion-. Furthermore, had Mr. Riemer taken the time out to read what I
wrote, he would learn that in this specific article I did not attend to
Goldhagen's scholarship [which I did, in -HaAretz's book supplement
SEFARIM (Hebrew)], but specifically to the American reception of the book
within its present-day cultural context. If a cultural context does or
does not have an impact on scholarship is of course open to debate. I
happened to think that it does and have argued accordingly.
May I kindly suggest that those who take to criticize will not trust
blindly, even the FAZ and, would at least read the original, which
appeared under the title "Ein amerikanischer Alptraum: Zum kulturellen
Kontext von Daniel Goldhagens 'Hitler's Willing Executioners'," in the
following:
1) -Frankfurter Rundschau, May 14, 1996, p. 16.
2) a somewhat expanded version in Julius H. Schoeps (Hg.), -Ein Volk von
Moerdern" Die Dokumentation zur Goldhagen-Kontroverse um die Rolle der
Deutschen im Holocaust- (Hoffmann und Campe, 1996), pp. 176-186.
Dr. Gulie Ne'eman Arad
Tel Aviv University
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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