Description
Book SynopsisA Jewish weapons manufacturer during the American Civil War, a Jewish-Canadian chair of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Board, and Jewish-Argentine guerrilla fighters—these are some of the individuals discussed in this first-of-its-kind volume. It brings together some of the best new works on armed Jews in the Americas. Links between Jews and their ties to weapons are addressed through multiple cultural, political, social, and ideological contexts, thus breaking down longstanding, stilted myths in many societies about Jews and weaponry. Anti-Semitism and Jewish self-defense, Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War and in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and Jewish-American gangsters as ethnic heroes form part of the little-researched topic of Jews and arms in the Americas.
Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors 1 Introduction: A Curious Mix of Jews and Weapons David M.K. Sheinin and Raanan Rein 2 “If I Can See One … I Can Build Them”: David Lopez Jr. and Weapons Manufacturing during the American Civil War Barry L. Stiefel 3 American Jewish Gangsters Larry D. Gragg 4 “Our Fight Is Not Yet Over”: Jewish-Canadians in the Spanish Civil War Michael Petrou 5 Mika, mi Guerra de España: Ideology and Commitment Gabriela Jonas Aharoni 6 The Spirit of 1776 in 1948: American Machalnikim and Israel’s War of Independence Amy Weiss 7 “To Get a Conviction a Morality Officer Has to Practically Crawl into Bed with a Hooker”: Phil Givens, the Police, and the Battle for Toronto’s Yonge Street David M.K. Sheinin 8 “We Had Our Own Problems and So We Had Our Own Bitachon”: Jewish Self-Defense in Uruguay, 1960–1987 Raanan Rein 9 From Zionist Movements to Guerrilla Groups: David Armando Laniado, Raúl Milberg, and Political Radicalization in Argentina Adrián Krupnik 10 Revolutionary Eschatology: The Argentine Ejército Guerrillero del Pueblo and the Secularization of Religious Traditions Lukas Böckmann 11 The Montoneros and the Jewish Question in Argentine Fiction Stephanie M. Pridgeon Index
