Björn Krondorfer

Remembrance and reconciliation : encounters between young Jews and Germans

While much has been written about the impact of the Holocaust on survivors and their children, little is known about how the Holocaust has affected the third generation of Jews and Germans-the grandchildren of those who lived during the Shoah. When these young people try to get to know one another, they find they must struggle against a heritage of hard truths and half-truths, varying family histories, and community-fostered pride and prejudices. In this book Bjorn Krondorfer, who grew up in Germany and now lives in the United States, analyzes the guilt, anger, embarrassment, shame, and anxiety experienced by third-generation Jews and Germans-emotions that often act as barriers to attempts to reconcile. He then describes the processes by which some of these young people have moved toward an affirmative and dynamic relationship. Krondorfer points out that relations between Jews and Germans since the war have consisted of an uneasy truce that does not address the deeply felt pain and anger of each group. He then shows how new relationships can be forged, providing detailed accounts of the group encounters he arranged between post-Shoah American Jews and Germans. He describes how the participants reacted to oral Holocaust testimonies and to public memorials to the Holocaust, the creative work of a Jewish-German modern dance group to which Krondorfer belonged, and finally the students responses to a trip to Auschwitz, where they developed the courage necessary to trust and comfort one another. Krondorfer argues that friendships between young Jews and Germans can be fostered through creative models of communication and conflict-solving and that their road to reconciliation may become a model for other groups in conflict.

Men's bodies, men's gods : male identities in a (post-) Christian culture

Mens Bodies, Mens Gods explores the intersection of body, religion, and culture from the specific perspective of male identities. How are male bodies constructed in different historical periods and contexts? How do race, ethnicity, and sexual preference impact on the intersection of male bodies and religious identity? Does Christianity provide models to cope with the aging and ailing male body? Does it provide models for intimacy between men and women? Between men and men? And, how do men reflect the carnal dimensions of power, abuse, and justice?

Who's Afraid of Gay Theology? Men's Studies, Gay Scholars, and Heterosexual Silence

Abstract Despite the growing body of gay scholarship in religious studies, there is a dearth of responses by heterosexual scholars in the field of mens studies in religion. Gay theology can still count more predictably on the ire of a conservative public than on a nuanced, non-homophobic critique by their heterosexual colleagues. What contributes to disregarding gay scholarly voices? Paradoxically, their voices are marginalized to the point of invisibility and yet are also in the center of public discourse. This article sifts through some reasons of why heterosexual men shy away from a public debate of the merits of gay scholarship. Besides methodological reservations, heterosexual male anxieties cause such weariness. Autobiographical insertions by gay scholars combined with discipline-transgressions may lead to ‘homosexual panic’ even among non-homophobic scholars. The article argues that heterosexual mens studies in religion need to overcome their silence and engage the scholarship of gay theology.

Theological Innocence and Family History in the Land of Perpetrators: German Theologians after the Shoah

Questions about theological dilemmas in the face of the Shoah have been addressed by Jews and Christians alike in the wake of the genocidal anti-Semitism perpetrated by Nazi Germany and its collaborators. In Germany, theologians have also picked up the issue of the credibility of Christian faith after Auschwitz, and their writings are usually subsumed under the heading of Theologie nach Auschwitz (theology after Auschwitz). Almost all of the answers provided by German after Auschwitz theologians were written from within theological categories; these writers thus claim to speak generally as Christian theologians but neglect to contextualize themselves as German theologians. But what would happen if we broadened this field of theological inquiry beyond the limits of the internal logic of theological reasoning? What if we approached those theologies through the lens of cultural criticism and asked about the positioning of German theological discourse in a country that wrought genocidal devastation across Europe? What if we brought to bear upon German theologies after Auschwitz an interpretive perspective that included the impact of family history, of generational differences, and of narrative strategies on the construction of theological positions? In one word, what does it mean to do theology in the land of perpetrators?

Rejoinder: Navigating through Troubled Language

Abstract In response to the constructive criticism of four male scholars of religious studies, this piece clarifies some of the arguments of my earlier essay, ‘Whos Afraid of Gay Theology?’. It argues for a cautious approach to identify ones gendered and sexed identity as an author within mens studies since such self-revelation may narrow the range of possible textual readings. The unintended consequence may be lesser rather than the wished-for greater transparency of both text and author. This essay makes a few suggestions of how to navigate the difficult terrain of language, gender, social privilege, and male intimacy.

Wehrmacht priests: Catholicism and the Nazi war of annihilation / Priest, politician, collaborator: Josef Tiso and the making of fascist Slovakia

Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory. Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press, 2012. Kerner, Aaron. Film and the Holocaust. New Perspectives on Dramas, Documentaries, and Experimental Films. London: Continuum, 2011. Levy, Daniel and Natan Sznaider. The Holocaust and Memory in the Global Age. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2006. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory. Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Stiglegger, Marcus. SadicoNazista. Faschismus und Sexualität im Film. St. Augustin: Gardez!, 1999. Stiglegger, Marcus. Auschwitz-TV: Reflexionen des Holocaust in Fernsehserien. New York: Springer, 2014.

Notes From a Field of Conflict: Trilateral Dialogical Engagement in Israel/Palestine

Reconciliation, self-awareness, and finally the humility that makes peace possible come only when culture no longer serves a cause or a myth but the most precious and elusive of all human narratives--truth. Chris Hedges (1) When Leonard Swidler published his Dialogue Decalogue in 1983, the world was a different place. In light of the severe moral rupture caused by Nazi Germanys genocidal Antisemitism, Christian faith communities had begun a serious reevaluation of their own anti-Jewish traditions, and an honest and sincere dialogue evolved between Jews and Christians. There was hope that dialogical engagement would not only heal centuries of religious discrimination and exclusion, but that Jewish-Christian dialogue might also serve as an exemplar for other religions--or even become operative in political and social arenas. The Cold War was just about to end, the international community pushed the human-rights agenda, and armed conflicts seemed regionally limited. Indeed, post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian dialogue created frameworks for constructive conversation and practical cooperation applicable to other environments. Then the tragedy of September 11, 2001, happened, and religiously motivated violence put to a halt what suddenly looked like lofty ideals of dialogical commitment. Tough talk about them and us and the gloves are off, as well as military interventions, ruled public debates and policies. Religious and ideological entrenchment, not reconciliatory dialogue, marked new ethnoreligious boundaries that became increasingly radicalized. To be sure, renewed efforts of an inclusive Abrahamic dialogue flourished after 9/11, but a certain cultural pessimism and a politics of fear persisted. As chronic low-intensity warfare and full-fledged battlefields spread around the globe, what vanished were the values of humility, self-critical awareness, trust, and truth. Self-criticism, sincerity, honesty, trust, and mutual recognition are keywords in Swidlers Dialogue Decalogue. In light of a changed political landscape, have these moral emotions become obsolete? I would argue, to the contrary, that they are needed more than ever. What has changed, perhaps, is that dialogical commitment has lost its hopeful innocence of earlier times. Today, what need to be practiced are difficult dialogues in zones of conflict. In this essay in honor of Swidlers work, I want to report on one of these conflict zones that require a certain amount of risk-taking when engaging in dialogical reconciliation. My essay will take us to Israel and the West Bank in the summer of 2014, at the height of the military conflict between Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), as well as daily confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli security forces in the West Bank. Summer, 2014 In past years, the organization, Friendship Across Borders (FAB), (2) has invited me to conduct and facilitate trilateral encounters among Israelis, Germans, and Palestinians. FABs overall mission is to train peace-carriers among all three peoples. When I work with FAB groups in dialogical settings, I focus on improving communication (beyond iterations of political master narratives) and on building bridges of trust. FAB does not offer explicitly interreligious meetings, but religious identifications are part and parcel of FABs intergenerational and intercultural seminars and workshops. Participants identify variously as Muslim or Christian Palestinians, as Jewish or secular Israelis, as agnostic or Christian Germans. It took some persuasion and persistence in getting Israelis, Germans, and Palestinians to agree to meet in Israel/West Bank in early August of 2014. The political tension and military conflict that had begun weeks earlier--first with the abduction and killing of Israeli youths, then, in an act of revenge, the burning alive of a Palestinian teenager--continued unabated. Rockets and artillery caused real death, harm, and fear. …

Kuefler, Mathew (ed.). 2006. The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality

John Boswell, professor of history, who died of AIDS-related causes in 1994, gained instant recognition (and criticism) for his book Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality: Gay People in Western Europe from the Beginning of the Christian Era to the Fourteenth Century (1980). Because of the commotion that his work stirred in the scholarly world and the popular press, Mathew Kuefler’s edited volume is an important reminder of Boswell’s impact “on the different directions the study of sexuality in Antiquity and the Middle Ages has taken” (p. 1). Twenty-five years after its publication, Kuefler seeks to appraise the “strength of some of its arguments” through a collection of essays written by leading scholars in the fields of history, classics, and religious studies. Distinguished by their own publication record in late antiquity and medieval ages, these scholars demonstrate that Boswell’s “scholary revolution” (p. 302) continues to inspire—if not in letter then in spirit—further research: a “revolution,” because Boswell, in Catherine Mooney’s words, brought to religious history a “positive attitude about eroticism, sexuality, and homosexuality” (p. 302). Kuefler, known for his historical study on The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (2001), distills for the reader the core of Boswell’s argumentation, something he calls the “Boswell thesis.” Kuefler situates the publication of Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality in the postStonewall and dawning AIDS era, when the gay rights movement had taken strident steps toward the recognition and acceptance of gay men within the social fabric of America. Kuefler suggests that the paradigm of social toleration, through which Boswell chose to study the history of homosexuality in Christianity, parallels the increasingly more tolerant attitudes toward gay people in the 1980s. Homosexuality was no longer simply dismissed or treated as an arcane subject. Instead, it became “a legitimate field of historical study” that was as “useful as a modern gauge of social tolerance as studies of past attitudes toward women or religious minorities” (p. 2). Kuefler sums up succinctly the overall argument of Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality:

Of Fire and Water

In the context of reflecting on the Holocaust, or Shoah, certain biblical texts lose their innocence. Passages like the prophetic words of Deutero-Isaiah quoted above have the power to evoke images which we — as a post-Holocaust generation — connect with what we know about Nazi Germany’s systematic attempt to annihilate European Jews. The Shoah seems to have turned words of solace into a mockery: the fire that shall not burn has burned the innumerable.

Book Reviews: The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity, Redeeming Men: Religion and MasculinityThe Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity. By MosseGeorge L.. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 232 pp.Redeeming Men: Religion and Masculinity. Edited by BoydStephen B., LongwoodW. Merle, and MuesseMark W.. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1996, xxii + 302 pp.

The Image of M a n explores men’s history by filtering cultural history through a gendered critique. George L. Mosse examines how males looked at the world because of masculinity and, conversely, how the world saw males because they were masculine. Although such an approach certainly has some limitations in historical causality, it “can give us an insight into the social and political significance of one of the most important and lasting symbols of modern life” (p. 194). In particular, Mosse believes that a normative masculine stereotype has been a constant aspect in Western Civilization: a “motor that drove ... society at large” (p. 6). The result is a well-written study that makes a significant contribution to the existing literature. Mosse traces the rise of modern masculinity from the late eighteenth century into the post-World War 11 era. As the Medieval ideal of the noble male warrior declined, a new “masculine ideal” emerged. It embraced middle-class values, enlightened thought, and nationalistic feelings. The masculine ideal’s best pattern can be found in the soldierly spirit: willingness to sacrifice and die for a cause greater than himself. Like good soldiers, “manly” men possessed qualities like discipline, modesty, perseverance, courage, compassion, and balance. To cultivate such qualities, boys were encouraged to participate in sports and exercise in gymnasia. As the nineteenth century slipped into the twentieth, Europeans also became fascinated with the male body as a symbol for their civilization’s progress and virility. In this context, “unmanly” men like Jews, gypsies, cowards, homosexuals, the ugly, the sick, and the insane represented “countertypes” or “foils” for normal men; they were painted as effeminate cowards. Far from weakening the masculine ideal, these gender outcasts strengthened the accepted notion of manliness. Modern masculinity faced a serious challenge at the beginning of the twentieth century, because women increased their visibility in society and