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Submitted by: Gulie Ne'eman Arad guliea@post.tau.ac.il In response to the post of Jeremiah Riemer The FAZ should be very proud that its readers trust what it publishes without a doubt, and furthermore accept it as the absolute truth. But, surprise surprise.... In an article appearing in the FAZ 4 November 1997, entitled "Der Schutz des allmaechtigen Autors -- Rechtsanwaelte lesen lassen: Wie Daniel Jonah Goldhagen mit seinen Kritikern verfaehrt," there is a reference to me as follows: "Sie analysierte die Goldhagen Kontroverse in kulturellen Kontext der Vereingten Staaten und sah in ihr den Ausdruck einer tiefgreifenden Verunsicherung der amerikanischen orthodoxen Juden." Nowhere have I argued this, and in fact I make no reference at all to Orthodox American Jews. Indeed, my contention is that -secular- American Jews have embraced the Holocaust as their -surrogate religion-, as a form of -civil religion-. Furthermore, had Mr. Riemer taken the time out to read what I wrote, he would learn that in this specific article I did not attend to Goldhagen's scholarship [which I did, in -HaAretz's book supplement SEFARIM (Hebrew)], but specifically to the American reception of the book within its present-day cultural context. If a cultural context does or does not have an impact on scholarship is of course open to debate. I happened to think that it does and have argued accordingly. May I kindly suggest that those who take to criticize will not trust blindly, even the FAZ and, would at least read the original, which appeared under the title "Ein amerikanischer Alptraum: Zum kulturellen Kontext von Daniel Goldhagens 'Hitler's Willing Executioners'," in the following: 1) -Frankfurter Rundschau, May 14, 1996, p. 16. 2) a somewhat expanded version in Julius H. Schoeps (Hg.), -Ein Volk von Moerdern" Die Dokumentation zur Goldhagen-Kontroverse um die Rolle der Deutschen im Holocaust- (Hoffmann und Campe, 1996), pp. 176-186. Dr. Gulie Ne'eman Arad Tel Aviv University
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