David Weinberg

Website: www.judaicstudies.wayne.edu
Residence : Toledo,Ohio

Biographical information

David Weinberg is Director of the Cohn-Haddow Center for Judaic Studies and Professor of History at Wayne State University in Detroit.  He has been a visiting professor in modern Jewish history at the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin, the University of Pennsylvania, the Institute for Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University, and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Dr. Weinberg earned his MA and PhD from the University of Wisconsin.  He is former editor of Shoah and is presently a member of the Academic Advisory Board of Shofar.  Dr. Weinberg also serves on the Academic Advisory boards of the Wayne State University Press and the Holocaust Memorial Center of Detroit.  He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Loewenstein-Wiener Fellowship from the Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives of Hebrew Union College, and a Wayne State University Distinguished Faculty Fellowship and Faculty Recognition Award.

Dr. Weinberg is the author of Community on Trial: The Jews of Paris in the 1930s and Between Tradition and Modernity: Haim Zhitlowski, Simon Dubnow, Ahad Ha-Am, and the Shaping of Modern Jewish Identity.  He has published and lectured extensively in America, Europe, and Israel on Modern European Jewish History and the Holocaust.  Dr. Weinberg is presently preparing a study of the reconstruction of European Jewish life after World War II.

Discussion topics

From Conversion to the Final Solution: The Development of Antisemitism in Europe: An Audio-Visual Presentation - The "Jewish Question" has existed in Europe for almost two thousand years, yet it is only in the twentieth century that antisemites sought to "solve" it through the implementation of a policy of genocide.  This slide presentation traces the development of anti-Jewish attitudes and policies from its early beginnings in Christian doctrine to the ideology of Nazi Germany. In examining the different ways in which Jews were defined as enemies and the programs that antisemitic leaders devised to deal with them, it also discusses how and why Nazi racism led inevitably to the positing of a "Final Solution."  

How We Differ: The Historical Origins of Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox Judaism - Most Jews today view the three major denominations in American Jewish life as differing radically according to their degree of religious practice, from the least observant Reform to the strictly Orthodox, with Conservatism standing somewhere in between.  The presentation discusses the historical origins of the three movements in 19th-century Europe to understand how they were all actually movements of "reform." As such, they represented – and continue to represent – equally authentic responses to the ongoing challenge of balancing the commitment to Jewish life and to the larger society in which Jews in the Diaspora live. The presentation can be offered either as one lecture or as a three-part series.

From “Griner” to “Yenkee”: The Fate of East European Jewish Immigrants and  their Descendants in America - The story of the integration of Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants into American life is often described as an unmitigated success.  In reality, the transition from the Old World to the New often was quite difficult and required numerous sacrifices.  Through an analysis of selected letters in English from the Bintel Brief, the famous advice column published for over fifty years in the Jewish Daily Forward, the presentation traces the challenges and opportunities faced by East European Jewish immigrants and their descendants over three generations – from the arrival at Ellis Island to the present day.

Zionist Dreams and Israeli Realities: An Assessment in 2006 - The year 2006 marks the fifty-eighth anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel.  The time has come to objectively assess the Jewish State's successes - and its failures.  The talk discusses the degree to which the ideals of classical Zionism have been achieved.  In discussing Israel's many accomplishments, the talk also examines what still remains to be done - and what early ideals may never be realized.

The Shattering of Taboos: Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in European Political Life and in the Media - Until quite recently, the prevailing wisdom among observers of contemporary Europe and European Jews themselves was that antisemitism in England and on the Continent was in decline. The recent increase in violent attacks upon Jewish religious and communal institutions, schools, monuments, and individuals has challenged this assumption.  Equally disturbing has been the resurgence of anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist rhetoric in European political discourse and in the media.  The presentation examines the upsurge of antisemitic violence and propaganda in Europe over the past four years and its attack upon two central ideals of Jewish life - the Holocaust and Israel.  It also discusses the Jewish reaction to these developments and raises the question as to whether there is a future for the Jews in Europe.

A "Third Way": The Jews of Contemporary Europe - There is a tendency to assume that European Jewry disappeared during the Holocaust, with its scattered remnants fleeing to either America or Israel.  The reality is far more complicated.  Despite numerous material and psychological obstacles in the post-war period and continuing threats of antisemitism, a number of communities have managed to revive themselves. The presentation discusses the challenges and opportunities facing the Jews of Europe today as they attempt to find their own distinctive path, separate from that of both American and Israeli Jewry. (Note: The talk can also be geared to emphasize developments in the most populous and dynamic contemporary European Jewish community - that of France.)

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