Against All Odds (review)

Book Reviews 133 The tension surrounding the fate of the Jews in Europe provided the geopolitical context for Canadian antisemitism from the nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. The tensions surrounding the fate of the Jews in the Middle East provides the geopolitical context for the current concern over antisemitism. The linkage between anti-Zionism and antisemitism is made by the articles in Antisemitism in Canada which are concerned with the contemporary racist right in Canada, but there is no article, or even a reference, to the sometimes pronounced antisemitic images and allusions in the anti-Zionism of those who use Third World and leftist rhetoric. The changing population characteristics of Canada are also changing the research agenda on antisemitism. The Ukrainian-Jewish tensions which are the focus of the last article in the book reflect the salience of European origins for Canadian multiculturalism. Canadian multiculturalism has been changing because of substantial immigration from the Third World. Canadian Jews are fearful that a crude anti-Jewish anti-Zionism will establish itselfamongArab and Moslem Canadians; antisemitic publications directed towards these groups are available in Canada. This is a difficult area in which to do research, as it means probing the insecurities and psychological scars of Jewish, Arab, and Moslem minorities, but it is undoubtedly better acknowledged than suppressed. Similarly, Canadian Jews are concerned that the hostility towards Jews promoted by some Blacks in the U.S. may spill over the border. Researching antisemitism among Black Canadians has the same risks as researching its presence among Arab and Moslem Canadians, but it is equally necessary. Perhaps a conflict-incident analysis, which focuses on mutual perceptions, strategies of confrontation, and strategies of mutual accommodation might provide an appropriate methodology. In Antisemitism in Canada Davies has carefully assembled examples of important recent scholarship. Unfortunately there is still much to do. Stuart Schoenfeld York University (Toronto) Against All Odds, by William Helmreich. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. 278 pp. $23.00. Primo Levi, the gentle survivor of Auschwitz, wrote that during his ordeal "the future stood in front of us, grey and inarticulate, like an invincible barrier.... For us, history had stopped." So too, he knew, had the rules of civilization and morality. How were the people who were able 134 SHOFAR Winter 1994 Vol. 12, No.2 to live through this nightmare ever to resume normal lives? How were they ever to adjust themselves back to a world that had been totally overturned on them? In his new book, Against All Odds, William Helmreich argues that not only have Holocaust survivors emerged from the Nazi inferno and built new lives for themselves, but they have done so with a vigor and determination that is truly remarkable. We have learned before about the successful adjustment of Holocaust survivors in individual accounts or in assorted monographs (including my own After the Holocaust: The Migration ofPolishJews and Christians to Pittsburgh). But this is unquestionably the most comprehensive study of the lives that victims of the Holocaust have made for themselves in America. Helmreich, a professor of Sociology and Judaic Studies at CUNY Graduate Center and City College of New York, has spent six years interviewing 170 survivors for this book. Moreover, he has talked with many others who interacted with survivors, including social workers, employers, teachers, neighbors, and friends. He also has combed through an extensive collection of published material (his source notes total some 50 pages) and has compiled the data from the responses of 211 random survivors. Out of an estimated 500,000 Holocaust survivors in occupied Europe, about 140,000 came to this country in the aftermath of World War II. The difficulty they had early on in this country has been no secret. As I found in my research, there was a great deal of misunderstanding and ignorance on the part of American Jews. While an economic safety net might have been provided by the organized Jewish community, survivors were sorely in need of emotional support and understanding. The lack of such support led to a "conspiracy of silence" on the part of the survivors which lasted for many years. They did not talk to American Jews about their past; they also...