stands in tlie way of understandingrncontemporim responses.rnSince tlic 197(l’s, the fashion has been torncondemn tlic British and American warrngoxernnients for “abandoning” and “writingrnoft^’ tlic Jews of Europe — even forrn”compUcih'” in murdering them. At therntime, a delegation of American Jewishrnleaders meeting with Franklin Rooseveltrnapparenth thought it unreasonable to askrnthe President for anything more thanrna formal warning that those responsiblernfor murdering Jews would be held accountablernafter the war, while ZionistsrnthemscKcs considered their Europeanrncoreligionists doomed by unalterable circumstance.rnWhat the liberating armies foundrnas they swept across enemy territoryrnended all speculation concerningrnthe fate of the Jews by confirmingrnthe worst Allied intelligence reports.rnEven so, once the first internationalrnshock had subsided, postwar politicalrnectors worked against invoking—muchrnless exploiting —the holocaust as a separaternand distinct enormity. With thernucarK’ immediate onset of the Cold War,rnthe West needed Germany’s help in confrontingrnits former ally, the Soviet Union.rnThe enemy was now “totalitarianism,”rnunderstood as a system of political repressionrnrather dian genocide; consequently,rnthe liquidation of the Jews was presentedrnas a crime committed not by the Germanrnpeople but rather by a totalitarian regime:rn”The constant iteration of this theme,”rnNoN’ick explains, “reinforced the alreadyexistingrntendency to define the victims ofrnNazism in political rather than ethnicrnterms.” Yet there was more to it than this.rnThe holocaust of Eliroshima made arngreater impression on Americans thanrndid the European holocaust, as a catastrophernthat—quite imaginably—mightrnbefall them. The aftermath of the Alliedrnictor- was an era that celebrated victors,rnnot N’ichms. Contemporary Jewish theologiansrnfound no religious significancernin the holocaust. Finallv, as antisemitismrn(parth’ in response to the holocaust)rnwaned in America, American Jews feltrnmore secure, although Jewish leaders feltrnconstrained throughout the 1950’s to distancernthe American Jewish communityrnfrom the Communist Part}’. It was in thern50’s that Nathan Glazer wrote of thernholocaust having little effect on the “innerrnlife of American Jewry,” while NormanrnPodhorctz, in an article titled “ThernIntellcchial and Jewish Fate,” failed evenrnto mention the event. On three separaternoccasions in the late 40*s, a number ofrnimportant Jewish organizations —includingrnthe American Jewish Coinniittee, thern.Anti-Defiimation League, and the AmericanrnJewish Congress —were asked tornsponsor a proposed holocaust memorialrnin New York Cit’. Three times tiie answerrnwas no, the reason given that “a perpetualrnmemorial to the weakness and defenselessncssrnof tiie Jewish people” wouldrn”not be ill the best interests of Jewn.”rnWhile “private sorrow” lingered,rnNoick suggests, it required “officialrnsanction” in order to become a “publicrncommvinal emblem.” Official cncourciiJementrnwas what followed after the mid-rn60’s, the catalyst having been tiie trial ofrnAdolf Eichmann, which presented thernholocaust for tire first fime as a distinctrnatroeit’ to the American public and freedrnAmerican Jews of many of their inhibitionsrnso far as speaking publicly about itrnwent. (Norman Podhorctz, reacting furiouslvrnto Elannah Areiidf s Eichmann inrnjewsaleni for the book’s banality-of-eilrnthesis, insisted that “No person couldrnhave joined the Nazi partv, let alone thernS.S., who was not at tiie ver least a viciomrnanti-Semite; to believe otherwise isrnto learn nothing about the nature of anti-rnSemifism . . . [or] tiie nature of evil.”) IfrnEachmann was the catalyst, however, thernproximate cause of the sea change wasrnthe Six Day War in the late spring ofrn1967. Before the war, Israel had not beenrnof particular importance to AmericanrnJews; after it the holocaust, in j-‘eterrnNoiek’s words, “was suddenh’ transformedrnfrom ‘mere,’ albeit tragic, historyrnto imminent and terrif}’ing prospect.”rnOn the heels of war, what Novick callsrntiie “Israelization” of American Jews occurred.rnIsrael’s victory presented Jews asrnvictors rather than victims and, b’ balancingrndie holocaust of a quarter-centur)’rnbefore, became a functional part of w hatrnRabbi Jacob Neusner has described as arnsaKation myth. Reciprocally, the YoinrnKippur War of 1973, which began w itii arnseries of stunning Israeli reverses, had tiiernopposite effect. Bj- then, Israel hadrnenough enemies in the internationalrncommunity to make American Jewsrnquestion whether the United Statesrnwould continue to stand fast as that country’srnguarantor; to many of these, Israelrnbegan to seem comparable to the EuropeanrnJewish community before WorldrnWar II. Regarding with trepidation therndech’ne of Israel’s standing in tiie world.rn.American Jewish leaders concluded thatrnforgetfulness of the holocaust was significanthrnat fault. The result was the constantrninvocation, after 1973, of Hitler’srnpogrom to stifle criticism of Israel (MartinrnPeretz, the owner of the New Republic,rnaccused the United States of “complieih'”rnin tiie butchery of tiie Jews). Thisrnmisuse of histor- peaked in the late 70’srnbefore becoming increasingly implausiblernthroughout tiie 80’s as Israel achievedrna conimanding position in the MiddlernEast, its security problems attributablernless to antisemitism than to its prolongedrnmilitarv rule over a million-and-a-halfrnPalestinians. As Israel’s strength increasedrnin the 80’s and 9(l’s, the holocaustrn—tiiat other twin pillar of secularrnJudaism—became more “centering,” asrnNovick puts it. “[A]s larger numbers ofrnAmerican Jews no longer saw tiie Israeli-rnPalestinian conflict in black-and-whiternterms, the Holocaust offered a substituternsymbol of infinitely greater moral clarity.”rnAs the 70’s got under wa, the Jew ish-rnAmerican leadership had somethingrnmore on its collective mind than thernriireat to Israel: It perceied a “new autisemifism”rnhere in the Lhiited States. Thern”golden age” of the Jews in America,rnNorman Podhorctz claimed, was over.rnJews were no longer accepted as equalsrnin American society, where even theirrnphysical safet’ could not be assumed; tornEarl Raab, America seemed “inhospitable”rnand indeed “hostile” toward JewishrnAmericans. These charges restedrnsubstantially on a process of defining de-rn iance upward, bv which “antisemitism”rnbecame “callous indifference to Jewishrnconcerns” and apprehensions. The proximaternoccasion for such concern wasrnI— RECEIVED WISDOM—1rnCarolina Scots: An Historicalrnand Cenealogical Study of Over 100rnYears of Immigrationrnh Douglas F. Kellyrn(I^illoii, SC: 1739 Publications)rnA carefully researched and affectionaternlook at the experience of thernScots in the Carolinas b a (/aelicspeakiiigrnCarolinian, who has wonrnfame as a Reformed theologian.rnAnyone interested in citiier thernScots or in tiie Carolinas shouldrnhave this book on his shelf.rnMAY 2000/27rnrnrn