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ספרים

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics

book 6

1. Danny Orbach, “Japan: The Culture of Insubordination in the Army”, in
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
published online, 17.11.2020), 10,395 words, 22 pages.

2. Danny Orbach, “Valkyrie: The anti-Nazi Underground in the Wehrmacht,
1938-1944”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, published online: 27.10.2020), 14,354 words, 30 pages.

 

1. Japan: The Culture of Insubordination in the Army, 1868-1945 (Danny Orbach).

2. Valkyrie: The anti-Nazi Underground in the Wehrmacht,
1938-1944
(Danny Orbach).

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Former Nazis in German Intelligence Politics: The Exposure of Moles and Reckless Decision Making, 1959-1962

book 5

Danny Orbach, “Former Nazis in German Intelligence Politics: The Exposure of Moles and Reckless Decision Making, 1959-1962”, in Moles and Double Agents, special issue of The International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (published online, 31.8.2022).

 

The early history of the postwar West German foreign intelligence service is replete with accounts of former Nazi security officers who were recruited by the newly founded service thanks to their professional experience, connections, and anti-Soviet credentials, only to later be exposed as Soviet moles.

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Focusing on the case of Heinz Felfe, this article puts forward the argument that the reaction of a secret service to the impending exposure of moles can be even more harmful than their actual activity. Enemy moles in intelligence organizations are dangerous in more than one way. They cause damage, of course, when they operate in the dark, but also cause just as much, and even more, damage when exposed. The fear of public scandal incentivizes irrational behavior, aggravating rather than decreasing the dangers facing the service.

 

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Fugitives: Nazi Mercenaries in the Cold War

book 4

Danny Orbach, Fugitives: Nazi Mercenaries in the Cold War (New
York/London: Pegasus and Hurst, 2022). Forthcoming translations to Hebrew,
Hungarian and French.

 

In the aftermath of WWII, the victorious Allies vowed to hunt Nazi war criminals “to the ends of the earth.” Yet many slipped away to the four corners of the world or were shielded by the Western Allies in exchange for cooperation.

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Most prominently, Reinhard Gehlen, the founder of West Germany's foreign intelligence service, welcomed SS operatives into the fold. This shortsighted decision nearly brought his cherished service down, as the KGB found his Nazi operatives easy to turn, while judiciously exposing them to threaten the very legitimacy of the Bonn Government. However, Gehlen was hardly alone in the excessive importance he placed on the supposed capabilities of former Nazi agents; his American sponsors did much the same in the early years of the Cold War.

Other Nazi fugitives became freelance arms traffickers, spies, and covert operators, playing a crucial role in the clandestine struggle between the superpowers.  From posh German restaurants, smuggler-infested Yugoslav ports, Damascene safehouses, Egyptian country clubs, and fascist holdouts in Franco's Spain, Nazi spies created a chaotic network of influence and information. This network was tapped by both America and the USSR, as well as by the West German, French, and Israeli secret services. Indeed, just as Gehlen and his U.S sponsors attached excessive importance to Nazi agents, so too did almost all other state and non-state actors, adding a combustible ingredient to the Cold War covert struggle.

Shrouded in government secrecy, clouded by myths and propaganda, the tangled and often paradoxical tale of these Nazi fugitives and operatives has never been properly told—until now.

 

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An Eye to India

ספר 3

An Eye to India with David Shulman. Magnes and Yediot Sfarim: Jerusalem, Israel, 2019.

 

For the first time in Hebrew, "An Eye to India" presents a thorough introduction to the history and culture of the Indian sub-continent, from its prehistorical origins to the 21st century. 

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First Words, Last Words: New Ways of Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India

Book 2

Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea. First Words, Last Words: New Ways of Reading Old Texts in Sixteenth-Century India. New York, Oxford University Press, 2021.

 

First Words, Last Words charts an intense "pamphlet war" that took place in sixteenth-century South India. Yigal Bronner and Lawrence McCrea explore this controversy as a case study in the dynamics of innovation in early modern India, a time of great intellectual innovation. This debate took place within the traditional discourses of Vedic Hermeneutics, or Mīmāṃsā, and its increasingly influential sibling discipline of Vedānta, and its proponents among the leading intellectuals and public figures of the period.

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Bronner and McCrea examine the nature of theoretical innovation in scholastic traditions by focusing on a specific controversy regarding scriptural interpretation and the role of sequence-what comes first and what follows later-in determining our interpretation of a scriptural passage.
Vyāsatīrtha and his grand-pupil Vijayīndratīrtha, writers belonging to the camp of Dualist Vedānta, purported to uphold the radical view of their founding father, Madhva, who believed, against a long tradition of Mīmāṃsā interpreters, that the closing portion of a scriptural passage should govern the interpretation of its opening. By contrast, the Nondualist Appayya Dīkṣita ostensibly defended his tradition's preference for the opening. But, as this volume shows, the debaters gradually converged on a profoundly novel hermeneutic-cognitive theory in which sequence played little role, if any.

First Words, Last Words traces both the issue of sequence and the question of innovation through an in-depth study of this debate and through a comparative survey of similar problems in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, revealing that the disputants in this controversy often pretended to uphold traditional views, when they were in fact radically innovative.

 

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Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation

Book 1

Bronner, Yigal, and Charles Hallisey. 2022. Sensitive Reading: The Pleasures of South Asian Literature in Translation. California: University of California Press.

 

Edited By prof. Yigal Bronner & Dr. Charles Hallisey, and Translated by David Shulman. The book translates selected texts from various Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary.

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"What are the pleasures of reading translations of South Asian literature, and what does it take to enjoy a translated text? This volume provides opportunities to explore such questions by bringing together a whole set of new translations by David Shulman, noted scholar of South Asia. The translated selections come from a variety of Indian languages, genres, and periods, from the classical to the contemporary. The translations are accompanied by short essays written to help readers engage and enjoy them. Some of these essays provide background to enhance reading of the translation, whereas others model how to expand appreciation in comparative and broader ways. Together, the translations and the accompanying essays form an essential guide for people interested in literature and art from South Asia.

“The scholarly interpretations and commentary in this volume represent some of the most prominent voices in the philological and historical study of South Asia—a galaxy of experts in literary analysis and other subfields of South Asian cultural history. This volume beautifully illuminates the generative possibilities of the intimate, context-sensitive mode of reading that David Shulman has engaged in for decades.” DAVESH SONEJI, Department of South Asia Studies, University of Pennsylvania

YIGAL BRONNER is Professor in the Department of Asian Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. CHARLES HALLISEY is Yehan Numata Senior Lecturer on Buddhist Literatures at Harvard Divinity School. DAVID SHULMAN is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem."

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