List of illustrations
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Preface: Seeking a personal past in the deathscapes of Poland
Chapter 1. Introduction and Methodology
The Shoah, Jewish-Israeli identity and the voyages to Poland Identifying the voyage as a rite of pilgrimage
- The voyage as model and mirror
Commemoration and collective memory
- Jewish memory paradigms and their Zionist transformations
- Territorializing Jewish history in Zionist practice
Israeli social research on Shoah memory
- From personal trauma to social constructivism
- Previous research on the Poland voyages
From process to product: The ethnography of the voyage
- Context, Structure, and Performance in the Voyages to Poland
- Organization of the Book
Chapter 2. The historical and social context of Iraeli Shoah commemoration
The history of Shoah memory in Israel
- Early reactions to the Shoah
- From the Six Day War to the Yom Kippur War
- Begin's rise to power: The use and abuse of Shoah memory
- Generational time, the search for roots, and Israeli ethnicity
The Shoah in Israeli education - school textbooks and curricula
Spaces and times of Israeli Shoah Commemoration
- Yad Vashem: monument and memory
- Holocaust Memorial Day: calendar and commemoration
Chapter 3. The structure of the Poland voyages
Origins, history, and proclaimed aim of the voyage
The title of the voyage: seeking my brothers - the masa to Poland
- The voyage group as substitute family
- The Poland voyage as a masa
Administration and voyage staff
- Voyage staff
- The delegation leader
- The guides
- The accompanying teachers
- The doctor and nurse
- The Polish guide and driver
- The survivor - witnesses Security personnel
Logistic arrangements: Food, clothing, and flags
The preparatory program
- Selection of participants
- The content of the preparatory program
The itinerary and its implicit messages
- Exterior and interior space
- Classification of places in exterior space: death, life, and Polish ventilation sites
- Allotment of time at sites
The rhythms of time in the voyage itinerary
Student expectations, Polish landscape, and guiding narratives
- Guides' narrative techniques
- From structure to performance
Chapter 4. Performing the Poland voyages
On the road: Walking through the Poland Voyage
Recruitment and voyage preparations at Sulam High School
The threshold of Poland
- - day one The road to Treblinka
- - day two This is Treblinka Station
- Tykocin: Synagogues of the past and the survivor as sheriff
- See, there are no birds in this forest
- Evening discussion: when do we get to the Shoah?
Bus travel, ventilation and prayer
- - day three Kabbalat Shabbat: Orthodox Judaism as safe Zionist heritage
Shabbat rest, Shabbat shopping
- - day four Slouching through Cracow
- (Non-)encounter with a Polish school
- Singing for home
- After Midnight: the staff meeting
The heart of the Shoah: Auschwitz-Birkenau
- - day five Auschwitz I - Approaching the contested site of memory
- Manifesting Israel at Auschwitz
- Visiting the exhibition in Auschwitz I Birkenau - the Heart of the Death Camp Honoring the Righteous Gentile and the witnesses
Ventilazia: on the road again
- - day six Touching the icons of death: Majdanek
- - day seven The visit to Majdanek
- Entering the site
- The gas chambers
- Shoes as relics: odour and authenticity
- We're the same children who were there at the end
- Closing the circle: the final evening discussion
Going home: From Warsaw to Tel Aviv
- - day eight Confronting the not-yet-dead Diaspora
- The route of victory
- Final ceremony: the little guy sends us on our way!
Chapter 5. The ceremonies of the Poland voyages
Introduction: What makes ceremonies different?
Contexts of voyage ceremonies
- School ceremonies in Poland and Israel
- Sites, times, and configurations of ceremonies
Representative examples of ceremony types
- Delegation-wide ceremonies
- Above the death pits, beneath the flag of Israel: the ceremony at Birkenau
- Warsaw: a ceremony that failed
- Bus-group ceremonies: Every person has a name
- Individual ritual acts
- Honoring ceremonies for Righteous Gentiles and witnesses
Religious texts and the commemorative ceremonies
The close of the ceremony: Hatikvah and the flag
Ceremonies as triggers: group crying and consolation
- The ceremonies: Conclusions
Chapter 6. Homecoming - the transmission of Holocaust memory and Jewish-Israeli Identity
Becoming a witness - the aftermath of the voyage
- Transmitting the voyage experience
- Talking about the voyage: Conversations with classmates, family, and survivors
- Presentations: Albums, videos, ceremonies, and the future of witnessing
Subsequent effects of the voyage on participants
- Changes in attitudes towards Jewish tradition and the Diaspora
- The voyage and Polish others
- The voyage and dedication to the nation
- Dedication to the flag and students' political opinions
- Survival by proxy and service in the Israeli army
The future of the Israeli voyages to Poland
Chapter 7. Holocaust memory, national identity, and transformative ritual
Conclusions: Poland voyages as national pilgrimages
Cosmopolitan and nationalist memories of the Shoah in the ages of representations
The Poland voyages and modern state ritual: An event that models promoted by a bureaucracy
- Models and mirrors, bodies and texts
- The risks of transformatory events in bureaucracies
Afterword
Appendix: The orthodox delegations to Poland
Bibliography
Index