This clear-eyed and comprehensive history of the significant Jewish involvement in international human rights breaks new scholarly ground. Galchinsky carefully delineates how external and internal pressures have shaped and transformed Jewish human rights agendas in Israel and on the worldwide stage.
Judith R. Baskin, University of Oregon Michael Galchinsky has given us an intricate picture of the personalities, ... Read morepolitics, and practices that make up Jewish human rights activities in the contemporary world. He presents a nuanced view of the post-modern struggle to articulate a Jewish approach to human rights that is pulled in a variety of directions by often opposing forces.
Peter J. Haas, Case Western Reserve University This book offers an original analysis of the crucial role that Jews have played in the rise of modern international human rights movements. It is strongest in its ability to understand the tensions that Jewish human rights activists face in trying to foster global human rights and human rights in Israel in the face of a pronounced bias against Israel in the so-called 'international human rights community.' A major contribution to the sociology of human rights in the modern worldddd
Thomas Cushman, Wellesley College This is an important work. In his meticulous examination of three major instances of Jewish and Israeli human rights advocacy since World War II, Michael Galchinsky has elucidated the political and practical limits of this activism as well as the undoubted accomplishments. Highly recommended for students of contemporary history as well as for the general reader.
Carole Fink, The Ohio State University Michael Galchinsky's boundary-shattering analysis in Jews and Human Rights looks at all of the roles in the evolving world of 'human rights' assumed by Jews—Jews as victims and claimants, as organizers and theoreticians, as activists and critics. Galchinsky explores this complex and often contradictory and controversial relationship in a way to merge legal, cultural, and intellectual history into a readable narrative of the history of the Jews in the modern world. A brilliant book!
Sander L. Gilman, Emory University This book offers an original analysis of the crucial role that Jews have played in the rise of modern international human rights movements. It is strongest in its ability to understand the tensions that Jewish human rights activists face in trying to foster global human rights and human rights in Israel in the face of a pronounced bias against Israel in the so-called 'international human rights community.' A major contribution to the sociology of human rights in the modern world
Thomas Cushman, Wellesley College This is an important, timely and well-researched scholarly work. It presents a unique perspective of looking at the issue of human rights from the particular to the universal in the global age. An essential work for understanding the inter-related issues of human rights, Jewish activists, and Israel.
Fred A. Lazin, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel This book is informative and readable. Recommended.
CHOICE
More studies are needed that take what we know of complex transnational Jewish identities and examine their rich relationships with the state, including intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations. In Dancing at Three Weddings, Michael Galchinsky marries the two. While many traditional histories examine genocide in graphic detail, Galchinsky's contribution is a catalog of the motivations and responses by a diverse community of Jews to deal with postwar tragedies.
American Jewish History
Since World War II, Jews, working alone or through NGOs, have been active in the international human rights movement. While many books have been written on the biblical and rabbinic context for Jewish involvement in social action, Galchinsky focuses instead on sociological and political motvies. The book includes extensive notes, bibliography, and index. Recommended for academic libraries.
AJL Newsletter, November/December 2009
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