About the Book
Today, more than 80 years after the Holocaust/Shoah, the events surrounding Hitler’s campaign of murder have not receded into the distance, but remain memorialized in multiple venues, both scholarly and popular. This volume is an anthological collection of essays and creative pieces showcasing the pedagogical issues related to the Nazi genocide. It addresses the field of Shoah education, featuring new and novel ways to promote awareness of the reality of the genocide, as well as an understanding of the instrumentalities (both philosophical and physical) which drove and concretized it. In addition to serious academic contributions, this volume features a play, a short story, and a discussion of the use of educational video in an online environment. It provides insight into the overarching question: how can and should the Shoah be taught, and what approaches can be utilized in sharing the most important lessons of this most unspeakable example of ethnic cleansing in human history?
About the Author :
Zev Garber is Emeritus Professor and Chair of Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Los Angeles Valley College. He has served as Rosenthal Professor of Judaic Studies at Case Western Reserve University, USA, and as President of the National Association of Professors of Hebrew. He has authored hundreds of articles and reviews, and his publications include 16 scholarly books, including Judaism and Jesus (2020) and The Annotated Passover Haggadah (2021).Kenneth L. Hanson is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program. He earned a PhD in Hebrew Studies from the University of Texas at Austin, in 1991. His many scholarly articles, his monograph, Hebraic Luke, and his co-written Judaism and Jesus focus on the Second Jewish Commonwealth, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the historical Jesus and Jewish Christianity. He has also published several books of popular scholarship, including Dead Sea Scrolls: The Untold Story and Secrets from the Lost Bible.
Review :
"How can we even begin to weigh the extent to which one can and should parse an odious worldview in the classroom or assess unspeakable horrors? This volume brings together a highly varied group of authors who offer multiple responses to this question, with varied perspectives on how to shape the educational endeavor, the uniqueness of the Holocaust, and techniques for formulating the questions a course must address. Although teaching about the Holocaust on the college level often comes from Jewish Studies or History, the book addresses approaches from disciplines such as Literature, Philosophy, Politics, Religious Studies, and more.This book is a careful and thoughtful examination of multiple ways in which a complicated subject may be approached with both rigor and creativity in the third decade of the 21st century. And much is at stake: issues of antisemitism, racism, genocide, inter-group violence and debate, and an attack on human values are very much a part of our world. The mandate to teach the Shoah remains crucial, and the present volume should add momentum to the very best teaching."Seth WardSenior Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Wyoming, USA"Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson have both long been involved in writing books and essays on Judaism, Jewish history and Jewish-Christian relations over the centuries. Their reflections, and those of the contributors to this excellent collection do put the Shoah in its larger context of history. The essays will help those, whether Jewish or Christian, to prepare and teach courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels which seek to inform their students not only of the dire reality of the Shoah itself but how Christian approaches to and attacks on Jews and Judaism over the centuries prepared the way and laid the groundwork for the ultimate horror of the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people."Eugene J. FisherDistinguished Professor of Theology, Saint Leo University, USA"Teaching the Shoah: Mandate and Momentum is the latest collection of academic essays to emerge from the fertile collaboration of Zev Garber and Kenneth Hanson which currently include Judaism and Jesus (2020); The Annotated Passover Haggadah (2021) and the present volume. All three present the creative and somewhat idiosyncratic perspectives of their various contributors; all three form the basis for stimulating reflection, conversation, and argument; and all three are part of the modern academic experience of religion. Readers of the current volume will find much here that satisfies in Hanson’s freshly-analyzed and investigated pedagogical methods regarding the Shoah. Though small, the volume is, like the Jordan, both deep and wide. The volume is idiosyncratic and engaging, and belongs on all Holocaust instructors’ shelves and bedside tables."Peter S. ZaasProfessor of Religious Studies, Siena College, USA"The articles represent a variety of voices, those of the scholar, educator, playwright, and historical fiction author. The editors represent a synergetic pair. Zev Garber, Emeritus Professor and chair of Jewish Studies and Philosophy at Los Angeles Valley College, enlists his lifetime of classroom and scholarly experience to provide contemporary and diverse pedagogical strategies. Ken Hanson, Associate Professor and Coordinator of the University of Central Florida Judaic Studies Program, brings his scholarly work to pedagogical film making. Both men spring from traditional academic contexts in the Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Talmud, second temple Judaism, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Jewish-Christian relations that inform their quest to keep the memory of the Shoah alive through education. The collection is framed, not by the focus of the Jewish people as victims, but as those who survive, thrive, and celebrate life.All in all, the collection reflects the best practices commonly accepted for Shoah education both in the classroom and for community outreach."Dr Roberta Sabbath University on Nevada, Las Vegas, USA, in Hebrew Higher Education 25 (2023) 143-145
