Synopses & Reviews
A Promise at Sobibandoacute;r is the story of Fiszel Bialowitz, a teenaged Polish Jew who escaped the Nazi gas chambers. Between April 1942 and October 1943, about 250,000 Jews from European countries and the Soviet Union were sent to the Nazi death camp at Sobibandoacute;r in occupied Poland. Sobibandoacute;r was not a transit camp or work camp: its sole purpose was efficient mass murder. On October 14, 1943, approximately half of the 650 or so prisoners still alive at Sobibandoacute;r undertook a daring and precisely planned revolt, killing SS officers and fleeing through minefields and machine-gun fire into the surrounding forests, farms, and towns. Only about forty-two of them, including Fiszel, are known to have survived to the end of the war.
and#160;and#160; and#160;Philip (Fiszel) Bialowitz, now an American citizen, tells his eyewitness story here in the real-time perspective of his own boyhood, from his childhood before the war and his internment in the brutal Izbica ghetto to his harrowing six months at Sobibandoacute;randmdash;including his involvement in the revolt and desperate mass escapeandmdash;and his rescue by courageous Polish farmers. He also recounts the challenges of life following the war as a teenaged displaced person, and his eventual efforts as a witness to the truth of the Holocaust.
and#160;and#160; and#160;In 1943 the heroic leaders of the revolt at Sobibandoacute;r, Sasha Perchersky and Leon Feldhendler, implored fellow prisoners to promise that anyone who survived would tell the story of Sobibandoacute;r: not just of the horrific atrocities committed there, but of the courage and humanity of those who fought back. Bialowitz has kept that promise.
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Review
andldquo;An invaluable resource to anyone interested in the history of Zionism, the development of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine, and the transformation of what was initially a small and marginal Jewish community into the State of Israel. For teachers of history, this collection of documents will be an invaluable and essential resource.andrdquo;andmdash;Arieh Saposnik, author of Becoming Hebrew: The Creation of a Hebrew National Culture in Ottoman Palestine
Review
andldquo;There is no comparable volume available today that allows English readers direct access to such an array of primary sources.andrdquo;andmdash;David Engel, author of Zionism: A Short History of a Big Idea
Review
andldquo;This collection of 62 original source documents, many of them translated from Hebrew, represents a marvelous array of materials that allow the reader to develop an historical and social appreciation of the early Zionist efforts to create a Jewish state.andrdquo;andmdash;Sanford R. Silverburg, Association of Jewish Libraries Reviews
Review
andldquo;The intention of the editors of this indispensable collection of documents is for use as a classroom resource that might accompany a textbook, or as a stand alone source. I recommend this volume to faculty who teach university and graduate courses dealing with the history of Israel as well as the Zionist movement.andrdquo;andmdash;Jack Fischel, Jewish Book Council
Review
andldquo;This testimony of a survivor of the Sobibandoacute;r extermination camp is extraordinarily important because of the circumstances that it recounts. But it is really the personality of the author and his narrative talent that make it very special.andrdquo;andmdash;Jan T. Gross,and#160; Princeton University
Review
andquot;When a prisoner uprising freed hundreds of Jews from the Nazi death camp at Sobibandoacute;r, Poland, in 1943, Bialowitz heard the leader call out, 'If you survive, bear witness to what happened here! Tell the world about this place!' In this harrowing first-person account, the author fulfills the promise he made then. . . . chilling, sobering and memorable.andquot;andmdash;Kirkus
Review
andldquo;A searing memoir of his boyhood in Poland and survival in a death camp.andrdquo;andmdash;
Sheldon Kirshner JournalSynopsis
In 1880 the Jewish community in Palestine encompassed some 20,000 Orthodox Jews; within sixty-five years it was transformed into a secular proto-state with well-developed political, military, and economic institutions, a vigorous Hebrew-language culture, and some 600,000 inhabitants. The Origins of Israel, 1882andndash;1948: A Documentary History chronicles the making of modern Israel before statehood, providing in English the texts of original sources (many translated from Hebrew and other languages) accompanied by extensive introductions and commentaries from the volume editors.
and#160;and#160;and#160; This sourcebook assembles a diverse array of 62 documents, many of them unabridged, to convey the ferment, dissent, energy, and anxiety that permeated the Zionist project from its inception to the creation of the modern nation of Israel. Focusing primarily on social, economic, and cultural history rather than Zionist thought and diplomacy, the texts are organized in themed chapters. They present the views of Zionists from many political and religious camps, factory workers, farm women, militants, intellectuals promoting the Hebrew language and artsandmdash;as well as views of ultra-Orthodox anti-Zionists. The volume includes important unabridged documents from the origins of the Arab-Israeli conflict that are often cited but are rarely read in full. The editors, Eran Kaplan and Derek J. Penslar, provide both primary texts and informative notes and commentary, giving readers the opportunity to encounter voices from history and make judgments for themselves about matters of world-historical significance.
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Synopsis
This work argues that the core of a college education should be learning to write a reasoned argument. The author challenges his readers - teachers of writing and communication, philosophers, critical theorists and educational administrators - to reestablish the importance of rhetoric in education.
About the Author
Eran Kaplan is the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Professor in Israel Studies at San Francisco State University and author of The Jewish Radical Right, also published by the University of Wisconsin Press. Derek J. Penslar is the Samuel Zacks Professor of Jewish history at the University of Toronto. His most recent book is Israel in History: The Jewish State in Comparative Perspective.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Joseph Bialowitz
Introduction
Chapter 1: Before the War
Chapter 2: War Begins
Chapter 3: The Rosenbergers
Chaper 4: Fritz
Chapter 5: Summer 1942
Chapter 6: Fall 1942
Chapter 7: November 1942andndash;April 1943
Chapter 8: Life in Sobibandoacute;r
Chapter 9: Planning Revenge
Chapter 10: Escape from Sobibandoacute;r
Chapter 11:New Dangers
Chapter 12: Liberation and Victory
Chapter 13: Life as a Displaced Person
Chapter 14: Resettling in America
Epilogue: Life after Sobibandoacute;r