Agents of memory in the post-witness era: Memory in the Living Room and changing forms of Holocaust remembrance in Israel

Abstract

With the passing of the survivors of the Holocaust and the aging of the second generation, new agents and initiatives are transforming the commemorative landscape of Holocaust remembrance. This article examines the impact of this generational transition on the production of collective memory of the Holocaust with focus on a new remembrance project in Israel, known as Memory in the Living Room. While some attention has been paid to its innovative structure and anti-paradigmatic components, none has focused on its agents and their mnemonic agenda. This paper argues that an examination of this agenda and an exploration of the wider structural contexts within which it developed are crucial to a deeper understanding of its overall significance. Based on 20 in-depth interviews the article argues that the emergent commemorative agenda is a hybrid version of transnational memory informed by concepts and practices drawn from a global digitalized culture.

The Mizrahi Pillar of Fire: memory policy-actors’ perceptions of the role of media and memory

“…Interestingly, interviews with committee members revealed that as part of their role as memory policy-actors, they were actually promoting what we can define as the ‘Mizrahi right to memory’ in Israel. According to Kook, the right to memory is the ‘idea that remembrance should be made accessible and available to everyone’ (Kook, 2020: 9). For Biton Committee members, the right to memory is about creating ‘historical justice’ (committee member M.) that will ‘change the direction of the boat’ (committee member A.).…”

“…While the discussion of memory in relation to rights is relatively marginalized in the field of memory studies (Tirosh, 2017), it is clear that for those actively engaging in an ongoing memory debate, the notion of memory in relation to rights and justice and its translation into concrete policies are important aspects of their work. As mentioned in this study, Kook (2020) defines the right to memory as an idea that seeks to promote memory and remembrance as ‘accessible and available to everyone’ (Kook, 2020: 9). Others noted that a right to memory is an individual’s right to record memories through the use of media (Worcman and Garde-Hansen, 2016), and that media ‘should play a political, social, and cultural role that guarantees the right to memory and — equally important — the right to communicate that memory in public’ (Lee and Thomas, 2012: 206).…”

In search of consent: Agency, audience and identity in memory activism

“…The Herstories and CMP archives contain over 600 (primarily) self-authored accounts. The documentation methodology was intentionally weighted towards auto-ethnographic narratives, to ensure women’s agentive authority over the structure and form of their own narrative (Kook, 2021: 4). To reduce authorial intrusion, the women could choose to express themselves through art, audio/visual recording and/or write their own stories (if they couldn’t write, they would ask their children, a neighbour or a community leader to write for them).…”

“Don't cry, it doesn't belong to us”; critical thoughts on commemoration as a means of inclusion: Mizrahi Jews and Holocaust memory in Israel

“…With the rise of economic privatisation, the decline of social welfare advocacy, and the overall shift to a neo‐liberal political economy, the hegemonic grip of the State on cultural and symbolic activity weakened (Gutwein, 2009). In parallel, commemorative spaces opened to a plethora of individual and community‐based remembrance initiatives that challenged dominant official memory narratives (Kook, 2021; Steir‐Livny, 2017). In this context, critique was voiced by intellectuals of the Mizrahi communities expressing deep‐seated resentment against what they called the Ashkenazi hegemonic appropriation of the memory of the Holocaust (Tirosh, 2022).…”