The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering - Softcover

Finkelstein, Norman G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1859843239 ISBN 13: 9781859843239

Publisher: Verso, 2001

Synopsis

This iconoclastic study was one of the most widely debated books of 2000. Finkelstein indicts with both vigor and honesty those who exploit the tragedy of the Holocaust for their own personal political and financial gain. This new edition includes updated material discussing the initial reception to the book’s publication. In an iconoclastic and controversial new study, Norman G. Finkelstein moves from an interrogation of the place the Holocaust has come to occupy in American culture to a disturbing examination of recent Holocaust compensation agreements. It was not until the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, when Israel’s evident strength brought it into line with US foreign policy, that memory of the Holocaust began to acquire the exceptional prominence it enjoys today. Leaders of America’s Jewish community were delighted that Israel was now deemed a major strategic asset and, Finkelstein contends, exploited the Holocaust to enhance this newfound status. Their subsequent interpretations of the tragedy are often at variance with actual historical events and are employed to deflect any criticism of Israel and its supporters. Recalling Holocaust fraudsters such as Jerzy Kosinski and Binjamin Wilkomirski, as well as the demagogic constructions of writers like Daniel Goldhagen, Finkelstein contends that the main danger posed to the memory of Nazism’s victims comes not from the distortions of Holocaust deniers but from prominent, self-proclaimed guardians of Holocaust memory. Drawing on a wealth of untapped sources, he exposes the double shakedown of European countries as well as legitimate Jewish claimants, and concludes that the Holocaust industry has become an outright extortion racket. Thoroughly researched and closely argued, The Holocaust Industry is all the more disturbing and powerful because the issues it deals with are so rarely discussed.

About this title

About the Author

Norman G. Finkelstein is the author of A Nation on Trial (with Ruth Bettina Birn), named a notable book for 1998 by the New York Times Book Review, and Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict.

Review

“Finkelstein’s downright pugilistic book delivers a wallop.”—LA Weekly

“The most explosive book of the year.”—The Guardian

“A lucid, provocative and passionate book.”—New Statesman

“His basic argument that memories of the Holocaust are being debased is serious and should be given its due.”—The Economist

“[S]cathing in his denunciation of the institutions and individuals who have cropped up around the issue of reparations.”—New York Press

“Finkelstein has raised some important and uncomfortable issues.”—The Jewish Quarterly

Edition details

• Publisher: Verso
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1859843239
• ISBN 13: 9781859843239
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 160