Holocaust Abuse

Abstract

This essay reconsiders the category of "Holocaust denial" as the marked indicator of ethical transgression in Holocaust historiography within American civil religion. It maintains that the present category excludes and thereby enables other violations of responsible Holocaust historiography. To demonstrate the nature and gravity of such violations, the essay engages the widespread claim that Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the former mufti of Jerusalem, was an instigator, promoter, or "driving spirit" of the Nazi genocide against Jews, and the associated suggestions of wider Arab and Muslim complicity. The essay uncovers the history of the Husayni narrative in question, the dramatic circumstances in which it emerged, its role in the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann, and its rediscovery and misuse within American popular and political circles over the past two decades. Such misuse, it concludes, corrodes Holocaust recognition within American civil religion and demonstrates the need for a revision of the socially accepted ethical boundary for responsible Holocaust historiography.

The Ethics and Politics of Religious Ethics, 1973–2023

“…Yet another reason for work in the field is to show how religious and ethical thought can inform policy assessment and practical reasoning about vital issues of our time (see, for example, Childress 1982, 1997; Keown 1995; Lammers and Verhey 1998; Newman 1998; Zoloth 1999; Lauritzen 2001; James 2004; Brockopp 2008; Jenkins 2013; Kalbian 2014; Pedersen 2015; Hartman 2018; Gade 2019; and Stalnaker 2020). Relatedly, studying the ethical ideas of various religious traditions can help to dismantle cultural and religious stereotypes, especially the idea that religions are little more than monolithic dogmatic beliefs and regulations (Sells 2015; Raucher 2016; and Sheikh 2019). It is also the case that studying religious reasons for human behavior can help fill out how we understand the many sources of moral psychology and moral formation (see Lauritzen 1992; Antonaccio 2000, 2012; Stalnaker 2006; Cates 2009; Miller 2016; Fredericks 2021; and Dunn 2021).…”