The Eichmann Trial, The Jewish Question, and the American-Jewish Intelligentsia

Authors

Pnina Lahav, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-1992

ISSN

0006-8047

Publisher

Boston University School of Law

Language

en-US

Abstract

The abduction, trial, and execution of Adolf Karl Eichmann by the state of Israel, fifteen years after the shutdown of the crematoria at Auschwitz, challenged the American Jewish intelligentsia to confront the Jewish question.4 What does it mean to be a Jew in America and who is an American Jew? Is the Jewish history of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust also a part of American-Jewish history? Is there a lesson in the destruction of European Jewry-the triumph of anti-Semitism, the failure of assimilation-relevant to American Jews? Is there a national component to being Jewish? Are Jews a people? If so, is there a sovereign state, outside of America, which might claim affinity with American Jews, a state which speaks for the Jewish people?

Recommended Citation

Pnina Lahav, The Eichmann Trial, The Jewish Question, and the American-Jewish Intelligentsia , in 72 Boston University Law Review 555 (1992).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/747