American Religious Responses to Kristallnacht [Hardcover]

Maria Mazzenga (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 21, 2009

Based on work conducted by scholars as part of a Summer Research Workshop organized by the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies/United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. in 2007, this book takes a fresh look at how American Protestants, Catholics, and Jews responded to the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany and German-occupied territory in the 1930s. The essays focus specifically on American religious responses to the November 9-10, 1938 anti-Jewish pogrom known as Kristallnacht. Today understood as the first act of the Holocaust because of its systematized brutality against Germany’s Jews, Kristallnacht, generated a dramatic response among mainline Protestants, Catholic clerical and lay leaders, Orthodox Jews, Protestant fundamentalists, and Jewish War Veterans. Together, the essays represent the first examination of multi-religious group responses to the beginnings of one of the pivotal moral events of the twentieth century, the Holocaust. They possess implications for the history of anti-Semitism globally and in the U.S., the history of interfaith cooperation and religious belief in America, the influence of American ideals on religious thought, and the impact of historical events on Jewish and Christian theology.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This volume is one of the first in decades to explore the impact of religion on American responses to the Holocaust. The book's greatest strength lies in new evidence from U.S. religious periodicals and archives typically not consulted by Holocaust scholars; for example, the archives of the Catholic University of America, the Center for Migration Studies, Union Theological Seminary, and the Presbyterian Historical Archive. American Religious Responses to Kristallnacht demonstrates the promise that heretofore untouched primary source material generated by U.S. religious groups and institutions holds for scholarship on American responses to Nazism. For this, Dr. Mazzenga and the volume's contributors are to be congratulated.”--Suzanne Brown-Fleming, Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

About the Author

Maria Mazzenga has served as Education Archivist at the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives since 2005. After graduating with a Ph.D. in history from Catholic University in 2000, she taught U.S. history at Virginia Commonwealth University, George Mason University, and Catholic University. She has written several articles on American Catholicism and on the U.S. home front during the Second World War and is currently working on a book on American Catholic responses to the Holocaust.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (July 21, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0230618065
• ISBN-13: 978-0230618060
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,881,334 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great editing with wide ranging contributions about a seminal event of the 20th century, September 3, 2009

By 

William J. Shepherd (Crofton, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: American Religious Responses to Kristallnacht (Hardcover)

Editor Maria Mazzenga has put together a wide ranging work containing important recent scholarship from Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish historians about religious responses to one of the seminal events in the 20th century, the first major shot in the Nazi war against the Jews. Written by scholars for scholars, the collected essays, for the most part, especially those by Mazzenga and Mathew Bowman, are also accessible for more general readers as well.