Richard L. Rubenstein

Genocide and the modern age : etiology and case studies of mass death

Acknowledgments Introduction by Isidor Walliman and Michael N. Dobkowski Part I--Conceptualizing, Classifying, Defining and Explaining Genocide: Some Macro Perspectives A Typology of Genocide and Some Implications for the Human Rights Agenda by Kurt Jonassohn and Frank Chalk Human Destructiveness and Politics: The Twentieth Century as an Age of Genocide by Roger W. Smith The Etiology of Genocides by Barbara Harff Genocide and the Reconstruction of Social Theory: Observations on the Exclusivity of Collective Death by Irving Louis Horowitz Genocide, The Holocaust, and Triage by John K. Roth Genocide and Total War: A Preliminary Comparison by Eric Markusen Social Madness by Ronald Aronson Part II--Understanding Occurrences of Genocide: Some Case Studies and Investigations of Related Social Processes Was the Holocaust Unique? A Peculiar Question? by Alan Rosenberg The Holocaust and Historical Explanation by Robert G.L. Waite Discrimination, Persecution, Theft, and Murder under Color of Law: The Totalitarian Corruption of the German Legal System, 1933-1945 by Gunter W. Remmling Relations of Genocide: Land and Lives in the Colonization of Australia by Tony Barta Middleman Minorities and Genocide by Walter P. Zenner Afterword: Genocide and Civilization by Richard Rubenstein Bibliographical Essay About the Contributors

Religion and the Uniqueness of the Holocaust

Few events of the 20th century have been the object of as much continuing popular interest as the Holocaust. When the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum opened its doors in April 1993, museum officials estimated that one million people would visit the museum during its first year. In reality, approximately two million people visited the museum during that period, two-thirds of whom were non-Jews. As of 1 June 2000, a total of 14.2 million people had visited the museum. It is difficult to account for this interest simply in terms of the number of Holocaust victims or the fact that the Shoah was perpetrated by the government of one of the best educated and technologically proficient nations in the world, although that fact cannot be discounted. There have been many other large-scale, demographic catastrophes perpetrated by human beings in the 20th century. Nevertheless, it is unlikely that a museum devoted to Stalin’s murders, the Armenian genocide of 1915 or the massacres in former Yugoslavia or Rwanda would consistently draw so large a number of visitors as Washington’s Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Holocaust and Holy War

The anti-Christian elements in Nazi ideology obfuscate a view of the Holocaust as a modern holy war. That view is not linked with the concept of apocalyptic messianism or the notion that holy war attempts to enforce religious beliefs. This wars objective was the elimination of those who did not share the majoritys symbolic universe, an objective wherein religion played a major role—as is the case in Bosnia today. European history is replete with attempts to reduce those who do not share the common religious or cultural identity in the heart of Christendom, attempts to defame, baptize, or expel the disconfirming other. Although systematic extermination constitutes a discontinuity with the past, and although the Nazi state was hostile to Christianity, the Holocaust was a holy war that benefited those for whom the guarding of the Christian symbolic universe as the cornerstone of civilization depended on the elimination of Jews and the defeat of bolshevism.

What Was At Stake in the Parting of the Ways between Judaism and Christianity

Sacrificial religion, especially the sacrifice of the first born, is crucial for understanding the continuities and discontinuities between Judaism and Christianity. Human sacrifice was prevalent in the ancient Middle East, even among the Hebrews as late as 500 B.C.E. In the Aqedah (Gen. 22: 1-19), Gods command that Abraham sacrifice Isaac is only averted when Abraham demonstrates unquestioning obedience. Because of that obedience, God accepts an animal surrogate and bestows His election on Abraham and his progeny.The sequence is reversed in Christianity. Jesus is first identified with the surrogate, the Passover lamb that redeems Israels first born, and later becomes himself the sacrifice. By his unquestioning obedience on the cross, Jesus becomes the perfect Isaac. Early Christianity regarded Jesus as the only perfectly obedient human being and also the perfect human sacrifice. As such, Christ brings to manifest expression much that remained latent in Judaism. The author believes that this spells out the difference between the two traditions.