Ofer Ashkenazi
Biographic Data
| ID | 1108798 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Ofer Ashkenazi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Ofer |
| FAMILY NAME | Ashkenazi |
| SIGNATURE | ASHKENAZI O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2893-5484 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 2 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s – Introduction
This introduction offers the theoretical and historical framework of the volume's articles. In highlighting aspects of the German-Jewish experience during the 1930s, in Germany and in transit, it provides a starting point for the ensuing chapters' discussions of the relationships between 'place,' 'space,' history and identity. It underscores the significance of 'space' as a category for the study of Jewish life during National Socialist persecuti…
Reading Private Photography
Private photography is one of the types of source material most readily available to historians of the past century. Yet scholars rarely exploit this vast reservoir of visual documents. This article proposes a path toward a more systematic reading of private photography in historical inquiry, which highlights the modes of expression established in the photographs and in the albums. Regardless of the (undocumented) intentions of the photographers-…
Powell, Larson. The Films of Konrad Wolf
Ordinary Moments of Demise
Belonging in Auto|Biographical Comics
This article analyzes the negotiations of belonging in three current documentary comics that examine aspects of German history mostly from biographical or autobiographical perspectives. The authors argue that, using different narration strategies, these comics present intricate interactions between place and identity which shed new light on the contemporary identity discourse in and vis-à-vis Germany
Jewish Vacations in Nazi Germany
This essay considers the ways in which German Jews negotiated the new experiences of time and space during their vacations in the Third Reich. We argue that their reflections on vacations facilitated a rich discourse on the essence of Jewish bourgeois identity at a time of fundamental transitions. Our analysis utilizes three types of sources that encompass a variety of perspectives and sensibilities: personal diaries of Jewish vacationers, photo …
H arry T. C raver . Reluctant Skeptic
As Harry T. Craver’s Reluctant Skeptic: Siegfried Kracauer and the Crises of Weimar Culture makes clear, the life and work of Siegfried Kracauer comprised a variety of curious tensions. Publishing philosophical deliberations in newspaper feuilletons, Kracauer scrutinized modern visual culture in search of the essence of modernity. His essays and books reveal his simultaneous dread of both relativism and the presumption of absolute truths. He both…
Transnational Anti-war Activity in the Third Reich
Founded by Lord David Davies in 1932, the New Commonwealth Society (NCS) was an anti-war organization with members in thirty-eight countries around the globe. Its principles included the establishment of an international equity tribunal, which would arbitrate international disputes, and a world police to enforce the tribunal’s decisions. Essentially, the organization sought effective means to restrict national sovereignty in order to promise a su…
Richard Crockatt, Einstein & Twentieth-Century Politics
Introduction
The Non-Heimat Heimat
Both during the Weimar years and in the early decades of the Cold War, in the wake of national catastrophes, Heimat imagery had played a vital role in the German identity discourse. This article analyzes how German Jewish filmmakers appropriated conventional Heimat imagery to participate in and influence this discourse. The article argues that in manipulating and decontextualizing Heimat iconography, prominent Jewish filmmakers were able to intro…
Homecoming as a dead end
This article analyzes three recently produced documentaries that critically contemplate accepted Israeli self-perceptions, The Flat (2011), Blood Relation (2009), and Fragments (2011). The different themes of these films notwithstanding, they share a similar narrative structure and key visual metaphors in order to probe the boundaries of Zionist identity in a similar way. The films’ use of place – and transitions in-between places – as indication…
The future of history as film
In the past three decades, due to the work of some distinguished historians, the discussion of film is being slowly integrated into Western historiography. However, while relatively few academic historians would deny today film's ability to instigate awareness to and enrich the understanding of historical experiences, many fewer are willing – and able – to incorporate film analysis in their own research and teaching. This impasse is particularly …
Zionism and violence in Albert Einstein's political outlook
This article examines Albert Einstein's reaction to the violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1929. During the 1920s, Einstein had become a prominent advocate of two seemingly incompatible causes, pacifism and Zionism. A close reading of his writings following the 1929 riots shows that he perceived both Zionism and pacifism as practical methods to counter the lure of modern nationalism and the political structure it entails, the …
Homecoming as a National Founding Myth
Konrad Wolf was one of the most enigmatic intellectuals of East Germany. The son of the Jewish Communist playwright Friedrich Wolf and the brother of Markus Wolf-the head of the GDR's Foreign Intelligence Agency-Konrad Wolf was exiled in Moscow during the Nazi era and returned to Germany as a Red Army soldier by the end of World War Two. This article examines Wolf's 1968 autobiographical film I was Nineteen (Ich war Neunzehn), which narrates the …
Ridiculous Trauma
Reframing the Interwar Peace Movement
The diversity of transnational interrelations within the peace movement has been commonly overlooked in studies on the anti-war struggle in the interwar years. Consequently, these studies have often provided an over-simplified view of the formation of anti-war ideologies, worldviews, and objectives. Contrary to this tendency, this article examines Albert Einstein's engagement with the peace movement in a way that emphasizes its transnational face…
Rethinking the role of film in German history
This article provides an alternative interpretation for the roles of film in the ideological struggle that tore apart the Weimar Republic. Emphasizing the overlooked contribution of Jewish film-makers and critics to the development of the German ‘national film’ after World War I, I examine popular comedies that were associated with the ‘Jewish milieu’ by contemporaneous reviewers. My analysis suggests that ‘Jewish’ characteristics were frequently…
Transnational Anti-war Activity in the Third Reich
Founded by Lord David Davies in 1932, the New Commonwealth Society (NCS) was an anti-war organization with members in thirty-eight countries around the globe. Its principles included the establishment of an international equity tribunal, which would arbitrate international disputes, and a world police to enforce the tribunal’s decisions. Essentially, the organization sought effective means to restrict national sovereignty in order to promise a su…
Homecoming as a National Founding Myth
Konrad Wolf was one of the most enigmatic intellectuals of East Germany. The son of the Jewish Communist playwright Friedrich Wolf and the brother of Markus Wolf-the head of the GDR's Foreign Intelligence Agency-Konrad Wolf was exiled in Moscow during the Nazi era and returned to Germany as a Red Army soldier by the end of World War Two. This article examines Wolf's 1968 autobiographical film I was Nineteen (Ich war Neunzehn), which narrates the …
Rethinking the role of film in German history
This article provides an alternative interpretation for the roles of film in the ideological struggle that tore apart the Weimar Republic. Emphasizing the overlooked contribution of Jewish film-makers and critics to the development of the German ‘national film’ after World War I, I examine popular comedies that were associated with the ‘Jewish milieu’ by contemporaneous reviewers. My analysis suggests that ‘Jewish’ characteristics were frequently…
Ridiculous Trauma
Reframing the Interwar Peace Movement
The diversity of transnational interrelations within the peace movement has been commonly overlooked in studies on the anti-war struggle in the interwar years. Consequently, these studies have often provided an over-simplified view of the formation of anti-war ideologies, worldviews, and objectives. Contrary to this tendency, this article examines Albert Einstein's engagement with the peace movement in a way that emphasizes its transnational face…
Zionism and violence in Albert Einstein's political outlook
This article examines Albert Einstein's reaction to the violent clashes between Jews and Arabs in Palestine in 1929. During the 1920s, Einstein had become a prominent advocate of two seemingly incompatible causes, pacifism and Zionism. A close reading of his writings following the 1929 riots shows that he perceived both Zionism and pacifism as practical methods to counter the lure of modern nationalism and the political structure it entails, the …
Homecoming as a National Founding Myth
Konrad Wolf was one of the most enigmatic intellectuals of East Germany. The son of the Jewish Communist playwright Friedrich Wolf and the brother of Markus Wolf-the head of the GDR's Foreign Intelligence Agency-Konrad Wolf was exiled in Moscow during the Nazi era and returned to Germany as a Red Army soldier by the end of World War Two. This article examines Wolf's 1968 autobiographical film I was Nineteen (Ich war Neunzehn), which narrates the …
The future of history as film
In the past three decades, due to the work of some distinguished historians, the discussion of film is being slowly integrated into Western historiography. However, while relatively few academic historians would deny today film's ability to instigate awareness to and enrich the understanding of historical experiences, many fewer are willing – and able – to incorporate film analysis in their own research and teaching. This impasse is particularly …
Homecoming as a dead end
This article analyzes three recently produced documentaries that critically contemplate accepted Israeli self-perceptions, The Flat (2011), Blood Relation (2009), and Fragments (2011). The different themes of these films notwithstanding, they share a similar narrative structure and key visual metaphors in order to probe the boundaries of Zionist identity in a similar way. The films’ use of place – and transitions in-between places – as indication…
Introduction
The Non-Heimat Heimat
Both during the Weimar years and in the early decades of the Cold War, in the wake of national catastrophes, Heimat imagery had played a vital role in the German identity discourse. This article analyzes how German Jewish filmmakers appropriated conventional Heimat imagery to participate in and influence this discourse. The article argues that in manipulating and decontextualizing Heimat iconography, prominent Jewish filmmakers were able to intro…
Richard Crockatt, Einstein & Twentieth-Century Politics
Transnational Anti-war Activity in the Third Reich
Founded by Lord David Davies in 1932, the New Commonwealth Society (NCS) was an anti-war organization with members in thirty-eight countries around the globe. Its principles included the establishment of an international equity tribunal, which would arbitrate international disputes, and a world police to enforce the tribunal’s decisions. Essentially, the organization sought effective means to restrict national sovereignty in order to promise a su…
H arry T. C raver . Reluctant Skeptic
As Harry T. Craver’s Reluctant Skeptic: Siegfried Kracauer and the Crises of Weimar Culture makes clear, the life and work of Siegfried Kracauer comprised a variety of curious tensions. Publishing philosophical deliberations in newspaper feuilletons, Kracauer scrutinized modern visual culture in search of the essence of modernity. His essays and books reveal his simultaneous dread of both relativism and the presumption of absolute truths. He both…
Belonging in Auto|Biographical Comics
This article analyzes the negotiations of belonging in three current documentary comics that examine aspects of German history mostly from biographical or autobiographical perspectives. The authors argue that, using different narration strategies, these comics present intricate interactions between place and identity which shed new light on the contemporary identity discourse in and vis-à-vis Germany
Jewish Vacations in Nazi Germany
This essay considers the ways in which German Jews negotiated the new experiences of time and space during their vacations in the Third Reich. We argue that their reflections on vacations facilitated a rich discourse on the essence of Jewish bourgeois identity at a time of fundamental transitions. Our analysis utilizes three types of sources that encompass a variety of perspectives and sensibilities: personal diaries of Jewish vacationers, photo …
Powell, Larson. The Films of Konrad Wolf
Ordinary Moments of Demise
Reading Private Photography
Private photography is one of the types of source material most readily available to historians of the past century. Yet scholars rarely exploit this vast reservoir of visual documents. This article proposes a path toward a more systematic reading of private photography in historical inquiry, which highlights the modes of expression established in the photographs and in the albums. Regardless of the (undocumented) intentions of the photographers-…
Space and Place in the German-Jewish Experience of the 1930s – Introduction
This introduction offers the theoretical and historical framework of the volume's articles. In highlighting aspects of the German-Jewish experience during the 1930s, in Germany and in transit, it provides a starting point for the ensuing chapters' discussions of the relationships between 'place,' 'space,' history and identity. It underscores the significance of 'space' as a category for the study of Jewish life during National Socialist persecuti…
Law (14 works) · Political science (14 works) · History (13 works) · Art (12 works) · Politics (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · German (9 works) · Literature (9 works) · European history and politics (8 works) · Judaism (8 works)