Shirli Gilbert
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684900 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Shirli Gilbert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Shirli |
| FAMILY NAME | Gilbert |
| SIGNATURE | GILBERT S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southampton |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8471-4603 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Beyond politics? German Jewish refugees and racism in South Africa
Between 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War, around 6,000 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany landed on South Africa’s shores, becoming the largest group of Jewish refugees on the African continent. This article by Shirli Gilbert, which is part of a larger project, explores how German Jewish refugees’ historical experiences of antisemitism informed their engagement with South African racism before and during the early years of apartheid. While a …
A Cache of Family Letters and the Historiography of the Holocaust: Interpretive Reflections
Scholars of the Holocaust have long recognized that ordinary people’s accounts, by definition subjective and individual, can deepen our understanding of the experience and impact of the genocide. The distinctive value of personal letters, however, particularly collections of sustained correspondence among multiple writers, has not yet been fully appreciated or explored in Holocaust historiography. Over the past decade or so, more and more collect…
Israel, apartheid, and a South African Jewish dilemma
Like many diaspora Jewish communities, South African Jews are divided on the politics of Israel-Palestine. The majority, however, remain strongly Zionist and opposed to allegedly self-hating Jewish critiques of Israeli government policy and action. This article draws on a series of in-depth interviews with South Africans who identify as Jewish but situate themselves outside of what they regard as the communal mainstream. Focusing on their views a…
South African Jewish Responses to Covid-19
Although the death rate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has thus far been much lower than initially feared, the economic and social impact has been severe. The country’s Jewish community, constituting 0.1% of the population with a median age of 45 years, has not escaped its effects. Organizations and individuals have nonetheless been able to mobilize a rapid and wide-reaching series of responses directed towards those most in need…
Music in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps
After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence, ed. David Cesarani and Eric J. Sundquist
It is now widely acknowledged that the immediate post-war years were anything but silent when it came to the subject of the Holocaust. Of course, the concept of ‘the Holocaust’ as we understand it today did not yet exist, but that is partly the point in this fine new collection representing the most important current scholarship. From at least the early 1940s, testimonies were being given, archives established, books and plays written, films made…
Anne Frank in South Africa: Remembering the Holocaust During and After Apartheid
Over the past six decades, South Africans have drawn on the symbol of Anne Frank in diverse ways in order to make sense of their own history and politics. The portrayal of Anne underwent several dramatic shifts during the apartheid period and after the transition to a non-racial political system, from a 1950s play foregrounding the young diarist's Jewishness to a 2009 exhibition promoting tolerance and democracy. Below, the author considers what …
Nitzotz: The spark of resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp. Laura Weinrib
Nitzotz : the spark of resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp Laura Weinrib (Ed.), Trans. Estee Shafir Weinrib Syracuse University Press, 2009 232pp., $34.95, ISBN 978-0
Jews and the Racial State: Legacies of the Holocaust in Apartheid South Africa, 1945-60
Never Sang for Hitler: The Life and Times of Lotte Lehmann
Michael H. Kater's exhaustively researched and highly detailed new book explores the public career and private persona of Lotte Lehmann, one of the twentieth century's most celebrated sopranos. The first part of the book chronicles Lehmann's European years, beginning with her upbringing in a small town in northern Germany. Kater stresses that the singer always remained conscious of her lower-middle-class origins, to which he largely ascribes her …
Buried Monuments: Yiddish Songs and Holocaust Memory
This article explores the relationship between music and Holocaust memory, particularly the extent to which present-day conceptions of that relationship have shifted from those of the early postwar years, and considers the distinctive ways in which music might alternatively inform the process of memorialization. Music has from the outset been a key mediator of Holocaust memory, from the earliest commemorations amongst survivors until today; it is…
Singing Against Apartheid: ANC Cultural Groups and the International Anti-Apartheid Struggle
This article explores the ways in which music, together with cultural forms such as poetry, theatre and dance, was used to garner international support for the struggle against apartheid. It focuses on two of the African National Congress's most significant projects in this realm: Mayibuye, an agitprop group that achieved considerable success in Europe in the 1970s; and Amandla, which travelled widely as a party ambassador during the 1980s, offer…
Songs Confront the Past: Music in KZ Sachsenhausen, 1936–1945
This article considers the role of music among German, Polish and Jewish prisoners in Sachsenhausen, the Nazi concentration camp. It focuses primarily on the songs that were composed and sung in the camp, of which at least 350 are known. The article uses song as a lens through which to examine the diversity of the camp's social landscape, and places particular emphasis on the distinctive ways in which prisoner groups chose to interpret and respon…
Jews and the Racial State: Legacies of the Holocaust in Apartheid South Africa, 1945-60
Singing Against Apartheid: ANC Cultural Groups and the International Anti-Apartheid Struggle
This article explores the ways in which music, together with cultural forms such as poetry, theatre and dance, was used to garner international support for the struggle against apartheid. It focuses on two of the African National Congress's most significant projects in this realm: Mayibuye, an agitprop group that achieved considerable success in Europe in the 1970s; and Amandla, which travelled widely as a party ambassador during the 1980s, offer…
Israel, apartheid, and a South African Jewish dilemma
Like many diaspora Jewish communities, South African Jews are divided on the politics of Israel-Palestine. The majority, however, remain strongly Zionist and opposed to allegedly self-hating Jewish critiques of Israeli government policy and action. This article draws on a series of in-depth interviews with South Africans who identify as Jewish but situate themselves outside of what they regard as the communal mainstream. Focusing on their views a…
Anne Frank in South Africa: Remembering the Holocaust During and After Apartheid
Over the past six decades, South Africans have drawn on the symbol of Anne Frank in diverse ways in order to make sense of their own history and politics. The portrayal of Anne underwent several dramatic shifts during the apartheid period and after the transition to a non-racial political system, from a 1950s play foregrounding the young diarist's Jewishness to a 2009 exhibition promoting tolerance and democracy. Below, the author considers what …
Buried Monuments: Yiddish Songs and Holocaust Memory
This article explores the relationship between music and Holocaust memory, particularly the extent to which present-day conceptions of that relationship have shifted from those of the early postwar years, and considers the distinctive ways in which music might alternatively inform the process of memorialization. Music has from the outset been a key mediator of Holocaust memory, from the earliest commemorations amongst survivors until today; it is…
Songs Confront the Past: Music in KZ Sachsenhausen, 1936–1945
This article considers the role of music among German, Polish and Jewish prisoners in Sachsenhausen, the Nazi concentration camp. It focuses primarily on the songs that were composed and sung in the camp, of which at least 350 are known. The article uses song as a lens through which to examine the diversity of the camp's social landscape, and places particular emphasis on the distinctive ways in which prisoner groups chose to interpret and respon…
Singing Against Apartheid: ANC Cultural Groups and the International Anti-Apartheid Struggle
This article explores the ways in which music, together with cultural forms such as poetry, theatre and dance, was used to garner international support for the struggle against apartheid. It focuses on two of the African National Congress's most significant projects in this realm: Mayibuye, an agitprop group that achieved considerable success in Europe in the 1970s; and Amandla, which travelled widely as a party ambassador during the 1980s, offer…
Buried Monuments: Yiddish Songs and Holocaust Memory
This article explores the relationship between music and Holocaust memory, particularly the extent to which present-day conceptions of that relationship have shifted from those of the early postwar years, and considers the distinctive ways in which music might alternatively inform the process of memorialization. Music has from the outset been a key mediator of Holocaust memory, from the earliest commemorations amongst survivors until today; it is…
Never Sang for Hitler: The Life and Times of Lotte Lehmann
Michael H. Kater's exhaustively researched and highly detailed new book explores the public career and private persona of Lotte Lehmann, one of the twentieth century's most celebrated sopranos. The first part of the book chronicles Lehmann's European years, beginning with her upbringing in a small town in northern Germany. Kater stresses that the singer always remained conscious of her lower-middle-class origins, to which he largely ascribes her …
Jews and the Racial State: Legacies of the Holocaust in Apartheid South Africa, 1945-60
Anne Frank in South Africa: Remembering the Holocaust During and After Apartheid
Over the past six decades, South Africans have drawn on the symbol of Anne Frank in diverse ways in order to make sense of their own history and politics. The portrayal of Anne underwent several dramatic shifts during the apartheid period and after the transition to a non-racial political system, from a 1950s play foregrounding the young diarist's Jewishness to a 2009 exhibition promoting tolerance and democracy. Below, the author considers what …
Nitzotz: The spark of resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp. Laura Weinrib
Nitzotz : the spark of resistance in Kovno Ghetto and Dachau-Kaufering Concentration Camp Laura Weinrib (Ed.), Trans. Estee Shafir Weinrib Syracuse University Press, 2009 232pp., $34.95, ISBN 978-0
After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence, ed. David Cesarani and Eric J. Sundquist
It is now widely acknowledged that the immediate post-war years were anything but silent when it came to the subject of the Holocaust. Of course, the concept of ‘the Holocaust’ as we understand it today did not yet exist, but that is partly the point in this fine new collection representing the most important current scholarship. From at least the early 1940s, testimonies were being given, archives established, books and plays written, films made…
Music in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps
Israel, apartheid, and a South African Jewish dilemma
Like many diaspora Jewish communities, South African Jews are divided on the politics of Israel-Palestine. The majority, however, remain strongly Zionist and opposed to allegedly self-hating Jewish critiques of Israeli government policy and action. This article draws on a series of in-depth interviews with South Africans who identify as Jewish but situate themselves outside of what they regard as the communal mainstream. Focusing on their views a…
South African Jewish Responses to Covid-19
Although the death rate caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa has thus far been much lower than initially feared, the economic and social impact has been severe. The country’s Jewish community, constituting 0.1% of the population with a median age of 45 years, has not escaped its effects. Organizations and individuals have nonetheless been able to mobilize a rapid and wide-reaching series of responses directed towards those most in need…
A Cache of Family Letters and the Historiography of the Holocaust: Interpretive Reflections
Scholars of the Holocaust have long recognized that ordinary people’s accounts, by definition subjective and individual, can deepen our understanding of the experience and impact of the genocide. The distinctive value of personal letters, however, particularly collections of sustained correspondence among multiple writers, has not yet been fully appreciated or explored in Holocaust historiography. Over the past decade or so, more and more collect…
Beyond politics? German Jewish refugees and racism in South Africa
Between 1933 and the outbreak of the Second World War, around 6,000 Jews fleeing Nazi Germany landed on South Africa’s shores, becoming the largest group of Jewish refugees on the African continent. This article by Shirli Gilbert, which is part of a larger project, explores how German Jewish refugees’ historical experiences of antisemitism informed their engagement with South African racism before and during the early years of apartheid. While a …
Sociology (11 works) · History (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Art (9 works) · Law (8 works) · History (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Aesthetics (5 works) · German (5 works) · Judaism (5 works)