Stephen H. Norwood

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Stephen H. Norwood was a professor of history at the University of Oklahoma. He received his PhD at Columbia University in 1984. [1]

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Norwood's 2009 book The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses , drew attention even before publication. [2] [3] [4] [5] According to Norwood, "Harvard was involved in active steps that helped legitimate the Nazi regime in the West", [6] and was "indifferent to the prosecution of German Jews and indeed on numerous occasions assisted the Nazis in their efforts to gain acceptance in the West", welcoming one of Adolf Hitler's closest deputies to a reunion, hosting a reception for German naval officials and sending delegates to a celebration at a German university that had expelled Jews, while failing to condemn the policies of Hitler's regime. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Norwood's most recent book is Antisemitism and the American Far Left. This is the first systematic study of the American far-left's role in both promoting and combating antisemitism. The book covers both the Old Left and New Left, including the latter's black nationalist allies. It also examines antisemitism in the contemporary far-left, including its relationships with Islamists. [12] [13]

Books

Awards

See also

Related Research Articles

Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Though antisemitism is overwhelmingly perpetrated by non-Jews, it may occasionally be perpetrated by Jews in a phenomenon known as auto-antisemitism. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith — this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by anti-Judaism, though the concept itself is distinct from antisemitism.

Some Christian Churches, Christian groups, and ordinary Christians express religious antisemitism toward the Jewish religion and the Jewish people.

Holocaust denial is an antisemitic conspiracy theory that asserts that the Nazi genocide of Jews, known as the Holocaust, is a myth, fabrication, or exaggeration. Holocaust denial involves making one or more of the following false claims:

A number of organizations and academics consider the Nation of Islam (NOI) to be antisemitic. The NOI has engaged in Holocaust denial, and exaggerates the role of Jews in the African slave trade; mainstream historians, such as Saul S. Friedman, have said Jews had a negligible role. The NOI has repeatedly rejected charges made against it as false and politically motivated.

New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism which developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, tends to manifest itself as anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli government. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the Working Definition of Antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s, although the identification of anti-Zionism with antisemitism has "long been de rigueur in Jewish communal and broader pro-Israel circles".

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Lucy Dawidowicz was an American historian and writer. She wrote books about modern Jewish history, in particular, about the Holocaust.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Propaganda in Nazi Germany</span>

The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi policies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerhard Kittel</span> German Protestant theologian (1888-1948)

Gerhard Kittel was a German Lutheran theologian and lexicographer of biblical languages. He was an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazis and an open antisemite. He is known in the field of biblical studies for his Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament.

<i>Hitlers Willing Executioners</i> Book by Daniel Goldhagen

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust is a 1996 book by American writer Daniel Goldhagen, in which he argues that the vast majority of ordinary Germans were "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in German political culture which had developed in the preceding centuries. Goldhagen argues that eliminationist antisemitism was the cornerstone of German national identity, was unique to Germany, and because of it ordinary German conscripts killed Jews willingly. Goldhagen asserts that this mentality grew out of medieval attitudes rooted in religion and was later secularized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Racial antisemitism</span> Prejudice and discrimination against Jews based on race or ethnicity

Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from the traits or characteristics of the rest of a society. The abhorrence may find expression in the form of discrimination, stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as a threat in some way to the values or safety of a society. Racial antisemitism can seem deeper-rooted than religious antisemitism, because for religious antisemites conversion of Jews remains an option and once converted the "Jew" is gone. In the context of racial antisemitism Jews cannot get rid of their Jewishness.

Antisemitic tropes or antisemitic canards are "sensational reports, misrepresentations, or fabrications" that are defamatory towards Judaism as a religion or defamatory towards Jews as an ethnic or religious group. Since the Middle Ages, such reports have been a recurring motif of broader antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Holocaust trivialization refers to any comparison or analogy that diminishes the scale and severity of the atrocities that were carried out by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The Wiesel Commission defined trivialization as the abusive use of comparisons with the aim of minimizing the Holocaust and banalizing its atrocities. Originally, holocaust meant a type of sacrifice that is completely burnt to ashes; starting from the late 19th century, it started to denote extensive destruction of a group, usually people or animals. The 1915 Armenian genocide was described as a "holocaust" by contemporary observers.

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German professor of theology, priest and seminal leader of the Reformation. His positions on Judaism continue to be controversial. These changed dramatically from his early career, where he showed concern for the plight of European Jews, to his later years, when embittered by his failure to convert them to Christianity, he became outspokenly antisemitic in his statements and writings.

Gavriel David Rosenfeld is President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor of History at Fairfield University. His areas of academic specialization include the history of Nazi Germany, memory studies, and counterfactual history. He is an editor of The Journal of Holocaust Research and edits the blog, The Counterfactual History Review, which features news, analysis, and commentary from the world of counterfactual and alternate history.

African Americans and Jewish Americans have interacted throughout much of the history of the United States. This relationship has included widely publicized cooperation and conflict, and—since the 1970s—it has been an area of significant academic research. Cooperation during the Civil Rights Movement was strategic and significant, culminating in the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Themes in Nazi propaganda</span> Propaganda of the German Nazi regime

The propaganda of the Nazi regime that governed Germany from 1933 to 1945 promoted Nazi ideology by demonizing the enemies of the Nazi Party, notably Jews and communists, but also capitalists and intellectuals. It promoted the values asserted by the Nazis, including heroic death, Führerprinzip, Volksgemeinschaft, Blut und Boden and pride in the Germanic Herrenvolk. Propaganda was also used to maintain the cult of personality around Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, and to promote campaigns for eugenics and the annexation of German-speaking areas. After the outbreak of World War II, Nazi propaganda vilified Germany's enemies, notably the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States, and in 1943 exhorted the population to total war.

Alan E. Steinweis is an American historian and a professor at the University of Vermont.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bibliography of Nazi Germany</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Holocaust in Germany</span>

The Holocaust in Germany was the systematic persecution, deportation, imprisonment, and murder of Jews in Germany as part of the Europe-wide Holocaust perpetrated by Nazi Germany. The term typically refers only to the areas that were part of Germany prior to the Nazi regime coming to power and excludes some or all of the territories annexed by Nazi Germany, such as Austria or the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

The claim that there was a Jewish war against Nazi Germany is an antisemitic conspiracy theory promoted in Nazi propaganda which asserts that the Jews, framed within the theory as a single historical actor, started World War II and sought the destruction of Germany. Alleging that war was declared in 1939 by Chaim Weizmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, Nazis used this false notion to justify the persecution of Jews under German control on the grounds that the Holocaust was justified self-defense. Since the end of World War II, the conspiracy theory has been popular among neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers.

References

  1. "Stephen H. Norwood". University of Oklahoma Department of History. Archived from the original on 2008-11-25.
  2. Hodari, Jamie (December 7, 2000). "Few Show at Meeting to Protest 110th St. Building". Columbia Spectator.
  3. "AHA Calendar - Meetings and Seminars". American Historical Association.
  4. Norwood, Stephen H. (November 2004). "Harvard's Nazi Ties". David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies.
  5. Norwood, Stephen H. (November 16, 2004). "Harvard's Nazi Ties". B'nai Brith. Archived from the original on November 20, 2010.
  6. Bombardieri, Marcella (November 14, 2004). "Harvard's stance on Nazis questioned; Historian calls '30s record 'shameful'". The Boston Globe .
  7. "Historian: Harvard 'assisted' Nazi image efforts". Associated Press. November 14, 2004.
  8. Dladla, Tiisetso (November 22, 2004). "Harvard Accused of Helping Nazis". Black College View.
  9. Schlesinger, Andrew (November 18, 2004). "The real story of Nazi's Harvard visit". The Boston Globe .
  10. Norwood, Stephen H. "Harvard's Sorry Anti-Semitic Record", Boston Globe , 24 November 2004.
  11. Romano, Carlin. "The Shame of Academe and Fascism, Then and Now", Chronicle Review , 10 August 2009.
  12. "Interview with Stephen H. Norwood by Eunice G. Pollack" in H-ANTISEMITISM, September 22, 2013
  13. Edward Alexander, "Book Marks," Chicago Jewish Star, November 22-December 5, 2013