The Holocaust and the war of ideas1994
by Alexander, Edward
The Holocaust and the War of Ideas begins with an analysis of ancient and modern antisemitism as the primary cause of the destruction of European Jewry. Alexander proceeds to interpret representative works from the three main bodies of Holocaust literature - Yiddish, American, Hebrew - in relation to the war of ideas that surrounds the historical catastrophe that is their subject.
The chapter on Yiddish writers explores religious ideas and the claim that Yiddish, having become the language of martyrdom, has replaced Hebrew as the Jews' sacred tongue. The discussion of American writers centers on the attempts to Americanize Anne Frank, and criticizes the personalization of the Holocaust by literary latecomers to the subject who knew little of the Jewish past other than the...