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Rating: 
Summary: If the advantage accrued by "competitive suffering" . . .
Review: . . . is what the (post) Holocaust situation is about, then Novick sticks to the task - he does not allow that this memory to the 6,000,000 dead is good enough. Far from it! The moral advantage that a group or organization can obtain by identifying itself with the suffering of the Jews - Novick leaves us in no uncertainty - is a disgrace to the memory of the dead, as such is exploited for whatever advantage it can get! Finkelstein's contemporary publication takes on a personal tone that it is a joy not to witness here: Novick couches his words in a dispassionate, and more reasoned tone. Yet, he too, like Finkelstein, fails to begin an investigation into the meaning of suffering - and how that meaning - in all of this (perhaps ineffable) tragedy - is that the Jews have not lost one iota of the recognition that they are the race by which God entered human time, human history, and human experience. Their suffering enduring the Holocaust, only makes this association all the deeper. In attempting to dislodge the Chosen Race (via the ghastly brutalities of Selection) the Nazis attempted to assert themselves - Man as Superman - in the place of God. The Jews were the human-representatives of God's place in the history of Western Civilization - the place which the Nazis wanted for themselves - and the Nazi mind turned to the brutalities of Selection! An attempt to unravel the history (in the face of God) of the Jews. It is a bitter irony that the more the Jews suffered, the more their place as God's representatives in human history was assured. The exploitation of their suffering - as concertedly detailed in Novick's book - is one more powerful voice that resounds clearly as a bell: Never again! this exploitation of Jewish suffering!
Rating: 
Summary: Propaganda varies with the times
Review: For an historian, Novick seems to be little interested in real history, but is rather fascinated by the ephemeral wish and wash of the propagandized masses. This book describes in exhausting detail how Americans, Jews and Gentile, have changed their perception over time of THE assumed genocide. Such a heterogeneous lot, needless to report, have reactions all over the ball-park. More interestingly, he shows how the shifts that have occurred over time have been driven mostly by the concerns of national Jewish organizations to present an image to the gentiles that is deemed suitable for their current purposes. Immediately after the war their concern was to present Jews as a successful heroic people, getting on with their lives, and turning the desert green. Later on it was used by them to justify Israel's aggressive wars of occupation. Then, in all the rage for identity politics, with its requisite displays of historical victimization, to out-victim every other ethnie. Finally, most despicably, to "draw lessons" for school-children, suitable for bumper-stickers. Novick's language describing all this is scholarly and temperate, but sometimes has a discernible edge. However, his talent as an historian and writer is lamentably wasted. He has produced, analogously speaking, a 400 page monograph on how the public's perception of alien abduction has changed since Goddard's invention of rockets. He describes how some have used their alien abduction to show how brave they are, surviving and going on with their lives. Some have used it in a campaign to accuse the government of a cover-up in which all of the uninvolved, un-abducted are complicit. And others have used it as a vehicle to go on the lecture circuit, write books of nonsense, and bring in some cash. Perhaps most interesting is his discussion of the trend of organized Jewry toward making the holocaust a theological event, beyond any rational historical discussion or revision, as an ineffable, unique, illustration of the Jews' special relation to God. He disapproves of this, of course, but recognizes its inevitability. A remarkable omission in the book is his almost total neglect of the story of how the holocaust is used in the eternal efforts of lawyers and other greedy organization men to successfully extract billions of dollars from the gentiles, mostly enriching themselves, and sullying the memories of the victims. Their essential argument: my suffering is unique and therefore greater than yours, so give me some money--you'll feel better. The silence around this phenomenon is thunderous. One cannot be but a little disappointed in this otherwise praiseworthy effort to examine a modern delusion and its effects on the public psyche and politic. It would have been interesting to read here an account of how the legend itself has changed over the years, mostly due to the diligent efforts of real historians, who have gradually approached the truth with its revisions in the number of victims, the recognition that Dachau and Buchenwald were not extermination camps, and the discrediting of Simon Wiesenthal's hyperbolic tales of soap manufacture.
Rating:
Summary: Chaff or Grain?
Review: I love Peter Novicks mind. The intellect revealed by his elegant reasoning and the cultured and exceedingly informative discourse makes reading this book a rare pleasure. Still I rate it only 4 stars because it is not entirely free of bias. Thus the book is especially useful for those who know from experience quite a bit about the subject matter discussed and are able to separate, albeit the not too plentiful, chaff from the grain. I'll give just one example. Novick states: "Throughout the 1980s, and particularly after the beginning of the Palestinian uprising (intifada) in 1987, the Holocaust framework for thinking about Israel's situation grew ever more implausible, Israel was by now clearly the dominant military power in the region." Did Professor Novick really miss the point, that if military dominance is the only thing that stands between Israel and a Holocaust it certainly cannot be expected not to worry about one. The Jewish population of Israel and before that of Palestine had been worrying , not without reason, about its security not just since the occupation of the Arab west bank but for the last 100 years. That kind of stress can easily lead to erroneous security policies. So even if one disagrees with Israel, one must understand that its occupation policy doesn't stem from a "bash-the-Arabs" ideology and even less from religious considerations but from very legitimate security concerns...
Rating: 
Summary: Fascinating Cultural History
Review: Novick has written a rarity: social history that is really gripping. He charts the response of America to the Holocaust--from the first shock of discovery, to the indifference of the '50's, to the reawakening in the '60's (thanks to the Six Days War), to the commercialization of the '70's, to the canonization in public discourse of the '80's and '90's. Novick's unsurprising conclusion: explorations of the Holocaust need objectivity and the utmost carefulness. This book owes a certain debt to Tom Segev's "The Seventh Million", an Israeli history of the same process. See also Tim Cole's excellent "Selling the Holocaust." Definitely skip Norman Finkelstein's bitter left-wing rant "The Holocaust Industry."
Rating:
Summary: Well-argued exposition of a deeply flawed thesis
Review: Novick's book has suffered by being considered in the same light as Norman Finkelstein's polemic The Holocaust Industry. That is an unfortunate comparison. Finkelstein's book is a crude work of conspiracist anti-Semitism, designed to bolster an overriding political agenda. Novick's book is a challenging work of sociology, attempting to identify how and why the Holocaust became a motif of American culture. He makes some good points and has a particularly sharp eye for the appropriation of the Holocaust as kitsch. Yet this is not a point unknown to scholars of the Holocaust. (Lucy Dawidowicz, in The Holocaust and the Historians, observed that there is always a temptation in expounding the Holocaust to resort to inappropriate analogy; Novick certianly doesn't improve on this observation.) What is problematic about Novick's work is his explanation. He identifies the needs of the state of Israel and in particular military victory in the Six-Day War as the start of a cultural fascination with the Holocaust. This is to confuse correlation with causation. It seems to me much more plausible to infer that Jewish communities after the war were so shattered and traumatised by the experience of Nazi tyranny that they simply had more urgent tasks than to reflect on the Holocaust at length: they had to pick up the shattered remnants of European Jewry and *survive*. Only a generation later would Jews reflect and act upon the need to ensure that future generations remembered and were educated about the Holocaust. Sometimes, as has happened with sentimental films (one particular Oscar winner, for example) or museum exhibits, the attempt at remembrance has failed or even come close to blasphemous frivolity. But that the task of remembrance is a vital one, for which occasional excesses are a price we should willingly pay, seems to me incontrovertible and a necessary corrective to Novick's thesis.
Rating:
Summary: A wholehearted attempt
Review: Peter Novicks book is the successfull attempt by a highly respected and esteemed intellectual to rationally discuss a topic which even today, in the all to fequentlly cited "age of reason", is to often shrouded in idiology and nonsensical whims. Reading through the pages one can not help but feel respect for the meticilous research and intellectual honesty the Proffesor applies to the "Hot Iron" which has caust many a freethinker his job.Putting the Holocaust where it belongs, History, is what Novick has attempted, excellently removing the blinders used by self profiting orginizations and states,rationally discussing away the term of "a sacred event" or "an unexplainable mystery" as Ellie Wiesel prefers to call it. His conclusion may not be favourable to all; since it names the Holocaust as a event,Horrible in itself, yet one
among many in the blood soaked History of mankind. He rationally and fairly questions the claims of uniqueness asking,even if the Holocaust was unique, from which perspective would that change anything about its actual Historical and rational dimensions? However, his conclusions as why the Holocaust has been revived nearly fifty years after, especially considering the lack of public interest in the fifties,are not as satisfying and thought provoking as the rest of his book. This is probably due to the fact that he was aware of the blood shed that naming greedy and hypocritical orginizations would have cost him, orginizations effectively using every effort to turn the Holocaust into a moral and political weapon. His statement that the memory of the Holocaust was revived among Jews after the 1967 war is not as satisfying as it may seem since we would have to apply the same reason to the war of 1948, in which Israel truly was in danger. It also would not explain the fact that if ceartain orginizations were not to constantly put all their efforts in to keeping a romantiziced versions of the Holocaust alive it would surely join the rank of other Historical atrocities, abhorred but mostly forgotten. We can conclude that the Holocaust is NOT rooted among the consciousnes of Jews and AmericaNs, rather that it is being constantly implanted there by propaganda and sentimental moral reminders. Another Author, causing far more controversy, who successfully managed to say what Novick did not dare is Norman Finkelstein. His highly debated and above all honest attempt to finally restore justice to the real victims is worth reading, alone for the sheer debate his thesis has caused, although not even making half the pages of Novicks book. However, Novick and Finkelstein both deserve high recognition for their provokative and frutifull attempt at historical and scientific honesty. Bravo.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-researched polemic
Review: Prof. Novick has produced an important book that challenges current nostrums. He demonstrates how the Holocaust has been used and, he implies, abused within the United States. Novick brings to light forgotten controversies, reminding us that the courageous Israeli capture of Adolf Eichmann was initially criticised. He correctly links the way in which American Jews have viewed themselves within American society and their changing perception and portrayal of the Holocaust. Like Arthur Hertzberg's "The Jews in America", Novick does not hesitate to contradict the consensus. Novick is, however, less effective than Hertzberg. Novick's style is too chatty, giving the impression that he is having a cup of coffee with some dim first year students. Some of the polemic is amusing but excessive. Many of the targets are too easy, such as the trite moralising or the picture postcard depiction of ever embattled Israel (which has long amused Israelis themselves). Still, Novick has a fine eye for the embarrassing quote and he makes many well regarded writers look less than wise. There are some caveats, however. This book is not about the Holocaust. Indeed, there is almost nothing in this book about the event itself nor indeed is there much on Holocaust historiography, aside from some sensible comments about the reaction of the Allies. There are few comparisons as to how other societies and other Jewish communities have understood the Holocaust. One has to ask if the political use of the Holocaust and the changing portrayal of the Holocuast is as shocking or surprising as Novick implies? One sometimes has the impression that Novick takes a "heads I win, tails you lose" approach, that any portrayal of the Holocaust by American Jews would be wrong or trite. Finally, Novick's book in many ways resembles Keith Richburg's "Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa." Both books are fundamentally inward looking and tell us much about how Americans misunderstand the world beyond their shores and little about what has actually happened. In that sense Novick is part of a worrying trend in history, where the study of how we think about the past and remember the past has replaced the study of the past. Knocking down misleading captions in the Holocaust Museum is important, but easy. Making use of the new archival sources that are now available in Eastern Europe, and which will greatly enhance our understanding of the Holocaust, is rather more difficult and far more important.
Rating:
Summary: A superb critique, rigorously empirically grounded
Review: Professor Novick has written a superb critique of the extent to which an preoccupation with the Holocaust dominates American-Jewish organizational agendas and priorities, along with a rigorous historical account of how we got here. This is really a book which should be read by all Jews who care at all about the activities of those organizations that purport to speak for the American Jewish community--and indeed, by all Jews who are concerned about American Jewish culture and society. I'm afraid that Jew haters will find a certain amount here that will be useful to their cause. A determination not to write anything that might potentially provide ammunition to Jew haters would only lead to a paralysis that prevented one from writing anything about Jews. Rest assured that Novick, a secularist Jew and University of Chicago historian, is the farthest thing one could imagine from a Holocaust denier. He quite properly dismisses them as "a tiny band of cranks, kooks, and misfits". Historians do not need to concern themselves with refuting Holocaust deniers any more than they would need to concern themselves with refuting Civil War deniers, slavery deniers, Roman Empire deniers, or flat-earthers.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating study
Review: This is a well written, well researched book that asks why did Americans pay relatively little attention to the Holocaust before 1967 and so much attention to it afterwards. This thoughtful book argues that before 1967 the genocide of Jews was underemphasized for a number of reasons, some good, some bad. One reason was the emphasis during the war on the fact that Hitler was the common enemy of humanity, a belief fully shared by most American Jews of the time. (The concentration camps liberated by Americans were not in fact largely Jewish, who were concentrated in the extermination camps in the east, liberated by the Russians) Another reason was the emphasis on totalitarianism which, by concentrating on Stalin's evil, tended to reduce attention on the uniqueness of Hitler's systematic extermination. Still yet another reason was the general complacency and prosperity of the fifties. After 1967 the Holocaust increased its influence in the American mind for a number of reasons. The Cold War atmosphere relaxed, Americans became less complacent, Zionism came under increasing criticism for its attitude towards Palestinians and naturally the Holocaust was its best argument. The Holocaust served as the ultimate crime and American discourse invoked it to launch a thousand bad analogies. Novick has an excellent eye for anecdote which illustrates his points. It is fascinating to hear Lucy Dawidowicz, who in the seventies became a prominent Conservative historian of the Holocaust, criticize Israel for accepting German reparations while doing nothing to help Arab refugees. It is also interesting to hear her argue that demanding mercy for the Rosenbergs would be like demanding it for Goering. In Novick's account we hear intellectuals arguing that the use of the term "ghetto" is a perfidious attempt by African-Americans to expropriate Jewish suffering when the term predates Hitler's rise to power by several decades. Contrary to many crocodile tears shed by the New Republic and other journals Jews were not particularly sympathetic to the civil rights movement. Jews were disproportionately represented among civil rights volunteers, but they were a minority of Jews. The two Jews murdered in Mississippi did not recieve religious funerals. In 1964 3/4 of New York Jews (and 9/10s of New York Catholics) thought the civil rights movement was going too fast, at a time when they had not even won the right to vote. Whether it consists of Americans mangling Pastor Martin Niemoller's famous quote ("First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, etc.,) so as to exclude leftists, or accounts of Zionists trying to bully post-war refugees into moving to Israel instead of elsewhere, Novick has provided a fascinating account. There are a few reservations about this book. Novick goes into detail about the Holocaust being ignored, and being manipulated too much. It is not clear what the golden mean should be. Moreover many bad invocations reflect less its inadequacy as a souce of morality then as the considerable ignorance many Americans have about any event in history. Although Novick is critical about arguments against the Holocaust's uniqueness, one can still defend the proposition for granting it a primary importance. Like it or not, the United States and the OECD are going to dominate the world for the forseeable future and they have much more in common with Nazi Germany than with the late Ottoman Empire, Democractic Kampuchea or the Rwanda of Hutu fanatics. These reservations aside however, Novick's book is one that everyone would benefit from reading.
Rating:
Summary: A thought-provoking intellectual history, well presented
Review: This is one of the most intellectually stimulating books I have ever encountered. While few people with probably agree with everything the author has to say, he has written a thoughtful, thoroughly researched examination of how the idea of the Holocaust--and popular thinking about that tragedy among both Jewish and Gentile Americans--has evolved over the 60 years since the outbreak of World War II. He also has the courage to challenge conventional thinking as well as the beliefs of generally revered leaders like David Ben Gurion and Elie Wiesel. The book does an excellent job of linking popular thinking about the Holocaust with concurrent historical trends and developments, including the more intense American focus on the Pacific as opposed to the European theatre for much of the war, the lack of appreciation during and immediately after the war for the immensity of the Jewish genocide, the emergence of the Cold War (together with the "discovery" of common totalitarian threads between Nazism and Stalinism), the "rehabilitation" of Germany after Stalin took over Eastern Europe, changing views about "victimization" in American popular culture, the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and Hannah Arendt's controversial analysis of it, the Arab-Israeli Wars of 1967 and 1973, as well as the decline in American anti-semitism in general at the same time that radical black activists were employing anti-Jewish rhetoric. One of the most important contributions of the book is its discussion of the alleged "uniqueness" of the Holocaust, which the author shows to be both historically inaccurate and dangerous in leading down the slippery slope where any other more recent catastrophes and disasters are minimized in comparison. Rich with example and documentation--the footnotes and endnotes should be read, too--the book is one I expect to return to in the future. Broad in its scope and well-written, it is generally quite persuasive in the arguments it advances. I would concur with those critics who fault the author's occasionally overly colloquial style, especially when he is discussing Holocaust deniers. His dismissal of them as "kooks" and "nut cases" detracts from the generally strong case he makes against them.
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