The Holocaust, Second-Generation Witness, and the Voluntary Covenant in American Judaism

Widespread discourse about the Holocaust entered American popular culture in the seventies in two main ways: a series of television shows that purportedly focused on the destruction of European Judaism and two books that dealt specifically with the children of survivors. The television miniseries, G...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Berger, Alan L. 1939- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Cambridge University Press 1995
In: Religion and American culture
Year: 1995, Volume: 5, Issue: 1, Pages: 23-47
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Summary:Widespread discourse about the Holocaust entered American popular culture in the seventies in two main ways: a series of television shows that purportedly focused on the destruction of European Judaism and two books that dealt specifically with the children of survivors. The television miniseries, Gerald Green's Holocaust (1978), suited the national need for simplified history and melodrama. Moreover, given the American penchant for ethnic identifiers, Holocaust became known as the Jewish Roots. The networks soon aired other Holocaust programs, including Herman Wouk's far less commercially successful The Winds of War. The resultant Holocaust discourse was frequently poorly informed and historically naive. On the one hand, it reflected a tendency in Western culture to think that the Holocaust ended definitively in 1945. On the other hand, this discourse frequently neutralized the evil of nazism.
ISSN:1533-8568
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion and American culture
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1525/rac.1995.5.1.03a00020