Tracking the Jews: Ecumenical Protestants, Conversion, and the Holocaust - Hardcover

by Carolyn Sanzenbacher (Author)

Tracking the Jews analyses the beliefs, ideas, concepts, arguments and policies of an unprecedented conversionary initiative during the years immediately before, during and after the Holocaust.

From the rubbles of World War I to the ashes of World War II, it reconstructs previously unknown relations between a Protestant framework for global evangelisation of Jews, the network of international bodies that constituted the ecumenical movement of the early twentieth century, and the streams of thought on the Jewish question that flowed through its networking channels.

Based on more than twenty thousand pages of archival documents, it forces from the shadows the conversionary issues in which nineteen centuries of negative Church teachings on Jews were rooted, bringing to light a field of transnationally shared beliefs about the place, role and destiny of Jews in world society. It sets into sobering relief the paradoxical ways in which a broad international toleration of traditional anti-Judaism allowed, under a banner of Christian benevolence, a transnational public discourse of antisemitic ideas masked in conversionary language.

Back Jacket

Tracking the Jews analyses the beliefs, ideas, concepts, arguments and policies of the people who tracked the Jews in an unprecedented conversionary initiative during the years immediately before, during and after the Holocaust.

From the rubbles of World War I to the ashes of World War II, this book reconstructs previously unknown relations between an ecumenical Protestant framework for global evangelization of Jews, the network of international bodies that constituted the ecumenical Protestant movement of the early twentieth century, and the streams of thought on antisemitism and the Jewish question that flowed through its networking channels. Based on more than twenty thousand pages of archival documents from European, British and North American archives, it forces from the shadows the conversionary issues in which nineteen centuries of negative Church teachings on Jews were rooted, bringing to light a field of ardently held transnational beliefs about the place, role, and destiny of Jews in world society. It sets into sobering relief the paradoxical ways in which a broad international toleration of traditional anti-Judaism allowed, under a banner of intended Christian benevolence, an incendiary public discourse of antisemitic ideas, concepts, images and claims masked in theological conversionary language.

Author Biography

Carolyn Sanzenbacher is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Southampton's Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/Non-Jewish Relations