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David Aberbach

David Aberbach

David Aberbach teaches at McGill University. Among his books is The European Jews, Patriotism and the Liberal State 1789-1939

Latest from David Aberbach

David Aberbach

TS Eliot’s masterpiece reflected darkness that led to the Shoah

Published a hundred years ago this month, ‘The Wasteland’ expressed an uncanny movement of literary bleakness

By David Aberbach

5 min read

TS Eliot’s masterpiece reflected darkness that led to the Shoah

The prophet Geremia. Mosaic work on the facade of papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the wall in Rome.â€¨http://www.massimomerlini.it/is/rome.jpgâ€¨http://www.massimomerlini.it/is/romebynight.jpgâ€¨http://www.massimomerlini.it/is/vatican.jpg

Salman Rushdie and the Jewish tradition of literary dissidents

5 min read

BERLIN, GERMANY - MARCH 08: Boy waits with his mom as people fleeing war-torn Ukraine arrive from Poland at Hauptbahnhof main railway station on March 08, 2022 in Berlin, Germany. Over one million people, mainly Ukrainian women and children as well as foreigners living or working in Ukraine, have fled Ukraine as the current Russian military invasion continues to inflict growing casualties on the civilian population. (Photo by Maja Hitij/Getty Images)

Kidnapping Ukraine’s children echoes darkest days of the tsars

4 min read

Woodcut of a war scene with chariots and one of paying tribute from the bronze plates on the Balawat Gates. Commissioned by the Assryian king Ashurnasirpal II. Presently in the Museum. In Springer, Anton, 1888, History of Art Picture Sheets, concise edition (new, completely reworked, systematically ordered edition) - Atlas of the basics of art history from antiquity to the end of the 18th century

Russia’s imperialist crimes are all foretold in the Hebrew Bible

5 min read

More from David Aberbach

The one place where Jews are not settlers is Israel

Until the French Revolution, and for much afterwards, the world was galut (exile) to Jews - except for the land of Israel.

7 min read

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May 10, 2022 09:53

Wailing Wall (Kotel) in Old city of Jerusalem. Ancient Holy Land landscape. Western Wall in Jerusalem is a major Jewish sacred place. Image was toned for inspiration of vintage style. Conceptual Image

Zelensky is the latest in a long line of proud Jewish patriots

His articulation of the Ukrainian struggle for recognition is based on the Eastern European Jewish experience

5 min read

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March 3, 2022 10:10

TOPSHOT - Kosovo artist Alkent Pozhegu works on the final touches of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's portrait made with grain and seed, in Gjakova, southwestern Kosovo, on March 1, 2022. - RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Photo by Armend NIMANI / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Photo by ARMEND NIMANI/AFP via Getty Images)

How Joyce’s Ulysses bloomed out of Austro-Hungary’s Jews

Modernist masterpiece published 100 years ago is a rare exception to the prevailing literary antisemitism of the era

5 min read

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February 11, 2022 10:43

Irish ten punt banknote depicting a sketch of the face of James Joyce (novelist). The bank note is stuffed into a tin can.

The Bible offered to the world a blueprint for blaming yourself

The Hebrew prophets railed against sinning Jews for the misfortunes suffered by the community, and many followed suit

5 min read

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September 29, 2021 09:43

Trnava - The neo-gothic fresco of big prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel by Leopold Bruckner from end of 19. cent. in Saint Nicholas church.

History offers many differing versions of Jewish identity

Our relationship to both national and cultural identities has changed according to time and place

5 min read

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August 5, 2021 14:19

History offers many differing versions of Jewish identity

Stefan Zweig never recovered from being humiliated as a Jew

The author only wrote one book based on a specific Jewish story, but the themes were present througout his oeuvre

6 min read

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July 1, 2021 15:01

Stefan Zweig never recovered from being humiliated as a Jew

It took two millennia for Jews  to learn they had to fight back

For most of Jewish history, Jews were pacifists and vulnerable to any attack.

6 min read

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April 8, 2021 12:51

It took two millennia for Jews  to learn they had to fight back

Left’s Jew-hate sown in French Revolution

Nineteenth-century liberalism made possible the modernisation of Jewish life, but also led to the rise of antisemitism, writes David Aberbach

6 min read

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March 31, 2021 13:29

Left’s Jew-hate sown in French Revolution

For Jews, paths to and away from secularism led to the same place

German Jews embraced non-religious education before those to the east, but this divergence mattered little in the Holocaust, writes David Aberbach

5 min read

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March 4, 2021 18:01

For Jews, paths to and away from secularism led to the same place

How centuries of Jew-hate shaped us

Jews have suffered legal oppression for hundreds of years

5 min read

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January 15, 2021 16:47

How centuries of Jew-hate shaped us

The tragic apparitions of The Dybbuk will continue to haunt us

The meaning of the most performed Yiddish play, which turned 100 last week, has been a matter of controversy

6 min read

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December 14, 2020 11:24

The tragic apparitions of The Dybbuk will continue to haunt us

Time for academia to come clean about its role in driving Jew-hate

There is a dark history of antisemitism in European universities going back to the Middle Ages

5 min read

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October 29, 2020 12:48

Time for academia to come clean about its role in driving Jew-hate

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