History

Poland systematically denies any Polish responsibility for the extermination of the Jews. In this article, Elżbieta Janicka, a specialist in the Shoah and antisemitism, denounces the way in which, at Treblinka, this deceptive memorial policy multiplies historical fabrications.

Daniel Szeftel continues his investigation into the origins of the discourse that portrays Israel as an intrinsically genocidal entity. In this second part, he describes the post-war efforts of Arab nationalism to reformulate its discourse for Western audiences. This highlights a fundamental phenomenon in the accusations that characterize the discourse of settler colonialism: the concealment of racist and fascist elements at home and the projection of these onto the Jewish state.

What are the origins of the discourse that portrays Israel as an intrinsically genocidal entity, bent on the destruction of the indigenous Palestinian people? In the first part of his historical investigation, Daniel Szeftel examines the revival of Arab nationalism from the 20s to the 40s, highlighting the influence of fascism and European antisemitism on its structuring. The second part of his text will show how, from these ideological coordinates, the discourse of settler colonialism and the accusation of genocide against Israel developed in the second half of the twentieth century.

How can we explain the disarray of the European conscience in the face of the rise of antisemitism it promised itself it would “never again” tolerate? In this text, historians Henriette Asséo and Claudia Moatti examine the paradoxes of a Europe faced with the temptation of identity.

The Jews, “ Happy as God in France ”? In this lecture, given at the CRIF symposium “ The Jews in the Republic”, historian Pierre Birnbaum looks back at the history of Jewish emancipation in France, and the dangers it faces today.

In Last Words, Philip Schlesinger weaves a deeply personal narrative about the final moments of his parents’ lives, Béla and Martha Schlesinger, Jewish refugees who escaped Nazi persecution. Their poignant last words recount their early lives in pre-war Europe, marked by war, displacement, and resilience. As Schlesinger reflects on their stories, his own identity emerges—torn between his British upbringing and deep-rooted European heritage.

What if anti-Judaism were not just an irrational prejudice against Jews, but a fundamental structure of Western thought? This is the thesis defended by David Nirenberg in Anti-Judaism, which the Collège de France conference presented in June 2023 on the occasion of its translation into French. In it, we discover a vertiginous problem: the dependence of our moral, philosophical and critical systems on a repulsive figure of the imaginary Jew.

How can we escape the sterile confrontation between messianic Zionism and obsessive anti-Zionism? In this diagnostic text, Noémie Issan-Benchimol and Gabriel Abensour suggest a way out of this fatal alternative. What is at stake? Reinscribing the State of Israel in the exilic condition, and thus stripping it of its exceptional character that inflames radical passions.

Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, and have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K. ‘s work about the realities of and stories to be told from life in Eastern Europe. With texts by Benny Ziffer, Gabriel Rom, Romano Bolkovic, Yeshaya Dalsace, Emmy Barouh and János Gadó.