The Political Consequences of Trauma: Holocaust Exposure and Emotional Attachment to Israel Among American Jews
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The Political Consequences of Trauma: Holocaust Exposure and Emotional Attachment to Israel Among American Jews A. Diana Forster1 · Ira M. Sheskin2 · Kenneth D. Wald3 Received: 2 January 2019 / Accepted: 20 March 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract Building on research about the long-term consequences of political violence, this case study examines the degree to which American Jews with direct and/or familial exposure to the Holocaust differ from other American Jews in their emotional attachment to Israel. Recent studies from other countries suggest that survivors of politically-induced traumas develop strong social identification with other members of their group and transmit these identities to their descendants. Jews who experienced the Holocaust are likely to manifest this identity by developing strong emotional attachment to Israel. Keywords Holocaust · Israel · Trauma · Emotional attachment Zion offered hope for the future—and a way to deflect attention from their own grievous losses and to keep the ghosts at bay. That was certainly the case in my own family, where nearly all of my parents’ political loyalties were refracted through the lens of Zionism. — (Stein Stein 2014, 170) I am the child of a Holocaust survivor, so Israel has been, you know, important, an emotional sanctuary for me, growing up. — Focus group participant quoted in Sasson (2014, 115)
* Kenneth D. Wald [email protected] A. Diana Forster [email protected] Ira M. Sheskin [email protected] 1
American Institutes for Research, Arlington, VA, USA
2
Department of Geography, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA
3
Department of Political Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA
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A. D. Forster et al. Israel is imbued with meaning for the Jewish people in general and for Holocaust survivors and their offspring in particular. [It] … materialized continuity for them. — (Danieli and Norris 2016) When you grow up ravaged with the knowledge that there was an attempt to annihilate the people you love most, that notion of hatred stays in your bones. — (Kaminski 2016)
The estimated six million Jews murdered during the Nazi Holocaust (or Shoah)—the event for which the term “genocide” was coined—constituted a third of the world Jewish population and approximately two-thirds of the Jewish residents of Europe at the time (https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/remaining-jewish-popul ation-of-europe-in-1945).1 The murder of six million Jews along with the deaths and forced removals of millions more Jews and non-Jews surely qualifies the Holocaust as a politically-induced trauma by any standard. Building on research about the long-term effects of politically-induced trauma on subsequent political behavior, this case study examines the degree to which American Jews with direct and/or familial exposure to the Holocaust differ from other American Jews in their emotional attachment to Israel.2 The epigraphs above suggest that Israel has provided particular succor to Holocaust survivors
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