Between culture and family: Jewish-Israeli young adults' relation to the Holocaust as a cultural trauma.

Abstract

This study assessed how Jewish Israeli young adults perceive the impacts of the Holocaust on themselves, their family and Israel society. The written responses of 180 respondents, 90 of which were grandchildren of Holocaust survivors (GHSs) and 90 which are not grandchildren of survivors (NGHSs), connected the Holocaust with issues of security, education and culture, and the impact, or lack of it, on family and self. These responses also suggest that NGHS relate to the Holocaust only through sociocultural mechanisms and that GHSs are influenced by the same sociocultural mechanisms, yet are also divided by the perceived impact of intergenerational processes on their personal and family lives. The overall results of the study suggest that regardless of family connection to the Holocaust, in Israel there are sociocultural mechanisms at work that impact the perception of the Holocaust on the third generation of Holocaust survivors as a cultural trauma.

Cultural Trauma as a Potential Symbolic Boundary

“…On the one hand, there are those who claim that only those living within the geographical boundaries of the sovereign state of the collective are fully aware of the full implications and meanings of the cultural trauma, unlike those living in the Diaspora. This stance is anchored in the perceived unique sociocultural codes held by the members of Jewish-Israeli society, which are to a large degree influenced by the memory of the traumatic past (Lazar et al 2008).…”

“…In the Jewish-Israeli case, the findings by Lazar et al (2008) suggest that a considerable number of young Jewish-Israelis, both grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and those unaffiliated with Holocaust survivors, view the Holocaust mainly as a cultural trauma. Also according to Lazar et al, young Jewish-Israelis anchor the Holocaust as a cultural trauma by a unique socio-cultural code.…”

“…Building upon the case of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma in the Jewish-Israeli context (Lazar et al 2008), we aim to suggest some insights into the ways younger members of collectives, who continue to bear the scars of a traumatic past, view cultural trauma as a symbolic boundary. We first discuss the meaning and impact of symbolic boundaries, then turn to evaluate the status of the Holocaust as a cultural trauma among members of present day generations of Jews and, finally, discuss findings obtained from young Jewish-Israelis on their views of the Holocaust and its symbols as a symbolic boundary.…”

Generation 3.0: Popularity of the national German team among Israeli soccer fans

“…Diplomatic relations, Germany’s changed image in the world, and a change in Israeli thinking led Israelis to open up to Germany in other areas including tourism, the use of German products and attitudes toward the German soccer team following the team’s victories in international tournaments (Gertler, 2003). Studies nonetheless show that many social and cultural mechanisms operating in Israel affect people’s perception of the Holocaust and instill the memory of the Holocaust in younger generations, irrespective of their family connections to the Holocaust (Lazar et al, 2008). It was therefore interesting to explore the intersection of these two developments and their manifestations on the soccer field.…”

‘The Russians are back’: Symbolic boundaries and cultural trauma in immigration from the former Soviet Union to the Czech Republic

“…While scholarly work on collective memory and cultural trauma has been a quickly growing field in recent years, studying the (trans)formation of narratives on historical events (e.g., Alexander et al, 2004; Eyerman, 2002), relatively little attention has been paid to how cultural trauma resonates in the everyday life of social actors. Several authors adopting this perspective have addressed the intergenerational aspects of cultural trauma, examining Jewish–Israeli young adults’ relation to the Holocaust (Lazar et al, 2008), therapeutic treatment of third-generation survivors of the Holocaust (Winship and Knowles, 1996) and trauma processing among Japanese American survivors of incarceration and their offspring (Nagata et al, 2015). A few studies have also used the framework of cultural trauma in the US immigration context to study ambivalent national identification among undocumented young adults (Aranda et al, 2015) and the formation of Iranian ethnic identities after the hostage crisis in, 1979 and the Iranian revolution (Mobasher, 2006).…”