In Memory of Anson Rabinbach (1945–2025)

The idea for this special issue, "German Memory Politics at a Crossroads," emerged during my weekly walks in New York's Riverside Park with Anson Rabinbach, known to his friends as Andy.As former editors of NGC and teachers of German history and culture, we were deeply shocked by Hamas's massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7, realizing that something fundamental had occurred in the longtime hostile and violent relationship between Israelis and Palestinians.We were distressed by some people's instant justifications of Hamas's criminal acts as legitimate resistance to occupation and then, with growing horror, by Israel's all-out bombing attack on Gaza, the sheer number of Palestinian civilians dead, and the open statements of genocidal intent by members of the right-wing Israeli government.As the fronts of public opinion and media commentary hardened, the space for critical debate shrank to a minimum, both in Germany and in the United States.It was in those months that we felt compelled to address the repercussions of these events in German memory politics and the fundamental shift that seemed to be underway in Germany's celebrated Erinnerungskultur.Feeling overwhelmed by the maelstrom of events unleashed on October 7, we wanted to help articulate a historically informed response consistent with NGC's long-standing attention to antisemitism, identity politics, historical trauma, the Holocaust, and the ever-shifting politics of memory.Even though we are not historians of the Middle East, we wanted to confront the fact that the broadly held consensus about the need for a two-state solution is shattered