Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth CenturyA stunningly original look at the forgotten Jewish political roots of contemporary international human rights, told through the moving stories of five key activists The year 2018 marks the seventieth anniversary of two momentous events in twentieth-century history: the birth of the State of Israel and the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both remain tied together in the ongoing debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, global antisemitism, and American foreign policy. Yet the surprising connections between Zionism and the origins of international human rights are completely unknown today. In this riveting account, James Loeffler explores this controversial history through the stories of five remarkable Jewish founders of international human rights, following them from the prewar shtetls of eastern Europe to the postwar United Nations, a journey that includes the Nuremberg and Eichmann trials, the founding of Amnesty International, and the UN resolution of 1975 labeling Zionism as racism. The result is a book that challenges long-held assumptions about the history of human rights and offers a startlingly new perspective on the roots of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. |
Contents
emergenCe | 1 |
A Jewish Magna Carta | 3 |
The Cry of the Peoples | 32 |
Golden Shackles | 58 |
ConvergenCe | 83 |
Jewish Human Rights | 85 |
Unfinished Victory | 113 |
The Failed Partitions | 143 |
divergenCe | 169 |
The Limits of Neutrality | 171 |
The Road to the Kingdom | 202 |
The Swastika Epidemic | 230 |
Prisoners of Zion | 261 |
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Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century James Loeffler Limited preview - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
activists American Jewish Amnesty antisemitism Arab Archives Bill of Rights Blaustein British campaign Cold War colleagues Commission on Human crimes delegation diplomats draft Eichmann Ennals Europe European Folder foreign genocide German global Halpern Hersch Hersch Lauterpacht Holocaust human rights idea International Bill international human rights international law Israel Israeli Jacob Robinson Jerusalem Jewish Chronicle Jewish human rights Jewish national Jewish politics Jewish rights justice Lauterpacht lawyers League of Nations Letter from JR liberal Lithuanian London mandate Memo Middle East minority rights moral Nahum Goldmann national minorities Nazi official organization Palestine Palestinian Paris Paris Peace Conference Peter Benenson petition Poland Polish postwar president prisoners protection Rabbi racial refugees religious Report Sept Shabtai Rosenne Solomon sovereignty Soviet speech Swastika tion tional trial Truman University Press Weizmann World Jewish Congress wrote York Zionist