Antisemitism and Holocaust Remembrance
Juliane Wetzel examines the relationship between antisemitism and Holocaust remembrance. She offers an explanation for the persistence of antisemitism after 1945. Wetzel discusses that despite a taboo against open antisemitism, precisely because of Auschwitz, feelings of guilt led to the phenomenon of antisemitism – so called secondary antisemitism – exposing a failure to come to terms with the past and resulting in Holocaust denial and the minimisation of the Holocaust. The trivialisation of the Holocaust by comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and antisemitic tropes such as “Jews talk too much about the Holocaust”, as well as the reversal of perpetrators and victims in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have become a widespread phenomenon across Europe. The Middle East conflict has become a backdrop for the projection of antisemitic sentiments, often related to the Holocaust. These feelings can be expressed even by those who present themselves as anti-antisemites and anti-racists. This leads to challenges in Holocaust education, even more so in classrooms with a significant number of students with migrant backgrounds whose parents came to Europe after 1945. Myths about the Holocaust are prominent not only in Arab media but also in the Internet. Wetzel highlights the difficulty of respecting the singularity of the Holocaust with regard to other atrocities and totalitarian regimes.
Ahmadinejad: The Secret History of Iran’s Radical Leader
As Iran's nuclear program accelerates, all eyes are on the blacksmith's son who could have his finger on the trigger. Who is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? What drives him? To whom, if anyone, does he answer? Internationally acclaimed Iranian journalist Kasra Naji has spent years interviewing Ahmadinejad's friends, family, and colleagues to tell for the first time the true story of how he came to power. What emerges in this riveting account, featuring never before published color photographs, is a picture of a man who is much more of a force to be reckoned with than the caricatures offered up so far suggest.While Naji documents Ahmadinejad's often strange behavior, he also shows him to be full of complex contradictions: a man gripped by apocalyptic beliefs, yet capable of switching spiritual allegiance in the quest for power. A man tough enough to fight street battles in the name of Ayatollah Khomeini, crude enough to invite the German chancellor to join him in an anti-Jewish alliance, yet sophisticated enough to win the support of the all-powerful Revolutionary Guard. Kasra Naji takes us inside the shadowy council chambers of Tehran, and shows us the plots, passions, and personalities that will influence Ahmadinejad's next move, while the world waits with bated breath.
The Need For A Sacred Science
The meaning of a science rooted in the sacred, its contrast to modern science and its pertinence to us today.