Israel Charny | The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (original) (raw)
Papers by Israel Charny
Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2024
Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epis... more Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epistemology and knowledge, but also in generating respect and empathy for all victims of human cruelty.
Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2024
Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epis... more Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging
principles of objective epistemology and knowledge, but also in generating respect and empathy for all victims of human cruelty.
Journal Genocide Research, 2003
This is an update to the detailed formal classification of many types of denials of the tragedy a... more This is an update to the detailed formal classification of many types of denials of the tragedy and evil of genocides. The original draft of this classification was published in the Journal of Genocide Research in 2003.
In Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century, 2023
Denials of known genocidal acts are attacks on the dignity and life spirit of the survivors – and... more Denials of known genocidal acts are attacks on the dignity and life spirit of the survivors – and indeed on all human beings who get the message that they too could be victims. Denials of known genocidal acts are brutal anti-human behaviors that reveal a person’s – and also a regime’s – ugliest insensitivity and rottenness. It is also critical to know that denials are cardinal predictions that more violence and murder are wished for, being planned or are on the way. Denials of known genocidal acts are ‘Mafia promises’ of grotesque and vicious violence yet to come once again. It behooves those of us who are genocide scholars to study denials of genocide as the incubators and signals of renewed murders to come – beginning internally with the murder of everything that is decent in the human spirit, and continuing with actual bloodletting murders that render human beings lifeless.
Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, 2016
In recent years there are many articles in which there have been minimizations of the significanc... more In recent years there are many articles in which there have been minimizations of the significance of the Holocaust, statements delegitimizing the State of Israel, and by implication possibly an aura of antisemitism. To better examine such observations, seventy-six (N=76), genocide scholars and graduate students were asked to read selected statements from recently published JGR articles and judge them as to negative, positive or neutral bias. The statements were rated on a Likert-type scale as to conveying any minimization of the significance of the Holocaust, anti-Israel motifs, or anti-Semitic meanings. Approximately one third of the respondents judged the Journal to be promoting anti-Semitic themes, while more than half-59%-felt that references to the Holocaust had been minimized, and another 59% noted an anti-Israel bias. The results are discussed in terms of bias in scientific and academic publications.
Journal of Jewish Education, 1968
Child Psychol. Psychiatry, 1963
A VARIETY of Studies have demonstrated a consistently disorganizing trend in individuals exposed ... more A VARIETY of Studies have demonstrated a consistently disorganizing trend in individuals exposed to significant sensory deprivation and/or social isolation.
Psychological Reports, 1962
That the emotionally "sick" child is a spokesman of a family problem is increasingly recognized i... more That the emotionally "sick" child is a spokesman of a family problem is
increasingly recognized in child guidance. However much the child himself
is now seriously impaired in his functioning, and however much he himself
now contributes to perpetuating the roles that have evolved around him, the larger problem indicated by his disturbance is in the network of family relationships, as indeed are the larger resources for significant change.
PSYCHOTHERAPY: THEORY, RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 1972
Why are people cruel and why are they nice? Evil people are rare, but you find evil behavior in t... more Why are people cruel and why are they nice? Evil people are rare, but you find evil behavior in the majority of people. Maslow (1968)
Politique Internacionale, 2015
Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 1986
PSYCHOLOGY and psychiatry lose much of their common-sense credibility so long as they offer no wa... more PSYCHOLOGY and psychiatry lose much of their common-sense credibility so long as they offer no way of defining execution of and participation in mass
murder and genocide as pathological. This paper proposes an expansion of the standard classification system in psychopathology to include abuses and
destruction of other people, so that persons. who terminate the lives of others are defined as "disturbed."
Social Sciences, 2016
A new tool is presented for facilitating greater objectivity in the chaotic field of genocide stu... more A new tool is presented for facilitating greater objectivity in the chaotic field of genocide studies: first, assembling the available factual data about any event of mass murder systematically; second, contextualizing each of our judgments of the nature of the crime as a choice being made by a given scholar or institution (e.g., a specific court), but not as "God's word." The Worksheet for Describing and Categorizing a Genocidal Event is believed to be innovative in several ways: (1) This model presents researchers with a methodology for developing systematic, extensive and objective information about many different aspects of an event of mass killing; (2) Emphasis is placed on identifying each researcher's guiding concept of genocide; (3) The proposed methodology purposely postpones any effort at classification-including whether an event constitutes "genocide"-until after factual data have been assembled; (4) Categorization of an event is also to be understood as an act of judgment by each researcher, not as scientifically established truth; (5) It is also to be understood that classification in the language of social sciences is different than legal classifications that in turn also are to be understood as based on whatever specific code of law.
Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions edited by George J. Andreopoulos, 1994
The definition of genocide adopted in law and by professional social scientists must match the re... more The definition of genocide adopted in law and by professional social
scientists must match the realities of life. so that there should be no
situation in which thousands and even millions of defenseless victims
of mass murder do not "qualify" as victims of genocide. Insofar as there
is ever a major discrepancy between the reality of masses of dead
people and our legal-scholarly definitions. it is the latter which must
yield and change.
The definition of genocide must also be consistent with the everyday
usage of the word by reasonable people when they stand and face a
mass of murdered people and naturally apply to such an event the only
word there is in the human language for such occurrences. Thus, the.
mass murders of twenty million Soviet citizens by Stalin, 1 the massacre
of one hundred thousand or more of the communist opposition by
Indonesia, the murders of one to two million Cambodians by the
Khmer Rouge are all instances of clear-cut genocide. And instances of
mass murders of a lesser magnitude by governments-five thousand
Tamils in Sri Lanka and fiye thousand students in Tiananmen Square
in China, for example-are also, in common sense and understanding.
genocidal events, although there may be a consensus to characterize
these numerically smaller events as genocidal massacres, as Leo Kuper, the doyen of genocide scholars, has proposed.
This chapter in Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions edited by George J. Andreopoulos proposes a generic definition of genocide. which at the same time is supplemented by a series of subcategories of different types of genocide. I shall also propose at least two new categories of genocide: first , accomplices to genocide, and second. genocide as a result of ecological destruction and abuse.
The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks: Studies on the State–Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor, 1912-1922 and Its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory, 2011
Family Process, 1966
This paper advances the concept of a psychotherapy where individual and family interviews are uti... more This paper advances the concept of a psychotherapy where individual and family interviews are utilized concurrently in a flexible, unfolding sequence that grows out of the flow or movement of each particular case.
Archives of General Psychiatry, 1961
-9 motivation in seeking treahnent, however, . The focus of this study is to underscore this offe... more -9 motivation in seeking treahnent, however, . The focus of this study is to underscore this offer may have to be rescinded many the need for attention to the covert strivings months later when the contradictory nature
Social Science Record, 1987
This is a thoughtful satire about how perpetrators of genocide such as Hitler and Stalin and othe... more This is a thoughtful satire about how perpetrators of genocide such as Hitler and Stalin and others could shape their genocidal projects in ways that could reduce the risk of their being brought to trial. The scenario takes place in the legal offices of “Satan, Whore & Conformist, Specialists in International Criminal Law,” at the request of Turkey’s Minister of the Interior during the Armenian Genocide, Tallat, Germany’s Hitler, the Soviet’s Stalin, Uganda’s Idi Amin and Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
GROUP AND FAMILY THERAPY, 1982
The author takes the position that openness to multiple theory systems makes it more possible to ... more The author takes the position that openness to multiple theory systems makes it more possible to develop therapies that are really appropriate to individual patient family needs. Over commitment to a single system of treatment often leads, he maintains, to more concern for one's own system than for one's patients. The limitations of structural family techniques, paradoxical interventions, and various existential approaches are discussed in detail.
Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2024
Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epis... more Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epistemology and knowledge, but also in generating respect and empathy for all victims of human cruelty.
Genocide Studies and Prevention, 2024
Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging principles of objective epis... more Genocide Studies should be an outstanding leader not only in forging
principles of objective epistemology and knowledge, but also in generating respect and empathy for all victims of human cruelty.
Journal Genocide Research, 2003
This is an update to the detailed formal classification of many types of denials of the tragedy a... more This is an update to the detailed formal classification of many types of denials of the tragedy and evil of genocides. The original draft of this classification was published in the Journal of Genocide Research in 2003.
In Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century, 2023
Denials of known genocidal acts are attacks on the dignity and life spirit of the survivors – and... more Denials of known genocidal acts are attacks on the dignity and life spirit of the survivors – and indeed on all human beings who get the message that they too could be victims. Denials of known genocidal acts are brutal anti-human behaviors that reveal a person’s – and also a regime’s – ugliest insensitivity and rottenness. It is also critical to know that denials are cardinal predictions that more violence and murder are wished for, being planned or are on the way. Denials of known genocidal acts are ‘Mafia promises’ of grotesque and vicious violence yet to come once again. It behooves those of us who are genocide scholars to study denials of genocide as the incubators and signals of renewed murders to come – beginning internally with the murder of everything that is decent in the human spirit, and continuing with actual bloodletting murders that render human beings lifeless.
Journal for the Study of Antisemitism, 2016
In recent years there are many articles in which there have been minimizations of the significanc... more In recent years there are many articles in which there have been minimizations of the significance of the Holocaust, statements delegitimizing the State of Israel, and by implication possibly an aura of antisemitism. To better examine such observations, seventy-six (N=76), genocide scholars and graduate students were asked to read selected statements from recently published JGR articles and judge them as to negative, positive or neutral bias. The statements were rated on a Likert-type scale as to conveying any minimization of the significance of the Holocaust, anti-Israel motifs, or anti-Semitic meanings. Approximately one third of the respondents judged the Journal to be promoting anti-Semitic themes, while more than half-59%-felt that references to the Holocaust had been minimized, and another 59% noted an anti-Israel bias. The results are discussed in terms of bias in scientific and academic publications.
Journal of Jewish Education, 1968
Child Psychol. Psychiatry, 1963
A VARIETY of Studies have demonstrated a consistently disorganizing trend in individuals exposed ... more A VARIETY of Studies have demonstrated a consistently disorganizing trend in individuals exposed to significant sensory deprivation and/or social isolation.
Psychological Reports, 1962
That the emotionally "sick" child is a spokesman of a family problem is increasingly recognized i... more That the emotionally "sick" child is a spokesman of a family problem is
increasingly recognized in child guidance. However much the child himself
is now seriously impaired in his functioning, and however much he himself
now contributes to perpetuating the roles that have evolved around him, the larger problem indicated by his disturbance is in the network of family relationships, as indeed are the larger resources for significant change.
PSYCHOTHERAPY: THEORY, RESEARCH AND PRACTICE, 1972
Why are people cruel and why are they nice? Evil people are rare, but you find evil behavior in t... more Why are people cruel and why are they nice? Evil people are rare, but you find evil behavior in the majority of people. Maslow (1968)
Politique Internacionale, 2015
Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 1986
PSYCHOLOGY and psychiatry lose much of their common-sense credibility so long as they offer no wa... more PSYCHOLOGY and psychiatry lose much of their common-sense credibility so long as they offer no way of defining execution of and participation in mass
murder and genocide as pathological. This paper proposes an expansion of the standard classification system in psychopathology to include abuses and
destruction of other people, so that persons. who terminate the lives of others are defined as "disturbed."
Social Sciences, 2016
A new tool is presented for facilitating greater objectivity in the chaotic field of genocide stu... more A new tool is presented for facilitating greater objectivity in the chaotic field of genocide studies: first, assembling the available factual data about any event of mass murder systematically; second, contextualizing each of our judgments of the nature of the crime as a choice being made by a given scholar or institution (e.g., a specific court), but not as "God's word." The Worksheet for Describing and Categorizing a Genocidal Event is believed to be innovative in several ways: (1) This model presents researchers with a methodology for developing systematic, extensive and objective information about many different aspects of an event of mass killing; (2) Emphasis is placed on identifying each researcher's guiding concept of genocide; (3) The proposed methodology purposely postpones any effort at classification-including whether an event constitutes "genocide"-until after factual data have been assembled; (4) Categorization of an event is also to be understood as an act of judgment by each researcher, not as scientifically established truth; (5) It is also to be understood that classification in the language of social sciences is different than legal classifications that in turn also are to be understood as based on whatever specific code of law.
Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions edited by George J. Andreopoulos, 1994
The definition of genocide adopted in law and by professional social scientists must match the re... more The definition of genocide adopted in law and by professional social
scientists must match the realities of life. so that there should be no
situation in which thousands and even millions of defenseless victims
of mass murder do not "qualify" as victims of genocide. Insofar as there
is ever a major discrepancy between the reality of masses of dead
people and our legal-scholarly definitions. it is the latter which must
yield and change.
The definition of genocide must also be consistent with the everyday
usage of the word by reasonable people when they stand and face a
mass of murdered people and naturally apply to such an event the only
word there is in the human language for such occurrences. Thus, the.
mass murders of twenty million Soviet citizens by Stalin, 1 the massacre
of one hundred thousand or more of the communist opposition by
Indonesia, the murders of one to two million Cambodians by the
Khmer Rouge are all instances of clear-cut genocide. And instances of
mass murders of a lesser magnitude by governments-five thousand
Tamils in Sri Lanka and fiye thousand students in Tiananmen Square
in China, for example-are also, in common sense and understanding.
genocidal events, although there may be a consensus to characterize
these numerically smaller events as genocidal massacres, as Leo Kuper, the doyen of genocide scholars, has proposed.
This chapter in Genocide: Conceptual and Historical Dimensions edited by George J. Andreopoulos proposes a generic definition of genocide. which at the same time is supplemented by a series of subcategories of different types of genocide. I shall also propose at least two new categories of genocide: first , accomplices to genocide, and second. genocide as a result of ecological destruction and abuse.
The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks: Studies on the State–Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor, 1912-1922 and Its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory, 2011
Family Process, 1966
This paper advances the concept of a psychotherapy where individual and family interviews are uti... more This paper advances the concept of a psychotherapy where individual and family interviews are utilized concurrently in a flexible, unfolding sequence that grows out of the flow or movement of each particular case.
Archives of General Psychiatry, 1961
-9 motivation in seeking treahnent, however, . The focus of this study is to underscore this offe... more -9 motivation in seeking treahnent, however, . The focus of this study is to underscore this offer may have to be rescinded many the need for attention to the covert strivings months later when the contradictory nature
Social Science Record, 1987
This is a thoughtful satire about how perpetrators of genocide such as Hitler and Stalin and othe... more This is a thoughtful satire about how perpetrators of genocide such as Hitler and Stalin and others could shape their genocidal projects in ways that could reduce the risk of their being brought to trial. The scenario takes place in the legal offices of “Satan, Whore & Conformist, Specialists in International Criminal Law,” at the request of Turkey’s Minister of the Interior during the Armenian Genocide, Tallat, Germany’s Hitler, the Soviet’s Stalin, Uganda’s Idi Amin and Cambodia’s Pol Pot.
GROUP AND FAMILY THERAPY, 1982
The author takes the position that openness to multiple theory systems makes it more possible to ... more The author takes the position that openness to multiple theory systems makes it more possible to develop therapies that are really appropriate to individual patient family needs. Over commitment to a single system of treatment often leads, he maintains, to more concern for one's own system than for one's patients. The limitations of structural family techniques, paradoxical interventions, and various existential approaches are discussed in detail.
I-IANDBOOK OF RELATIONAL DIAGNOSIS AND DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY PATTERNS, 1996
The science and profession of psychology (and all mental health disciplines) has to choose betwee... more The science and profession of psychology (and all mental health disciplines) has to choose between adopting a philosophical value that honors adjustment to any and all forms of societal organization as the sine qua non of psychological health versus a standard of mental health based on how well persons organize themselves for maximum protection and fulfillment both of their own and other people's lives. The first definition will condone psychological health as successful adjustment to and performance of state-mandated roles in Nazi, Stalinist, or Cambodian Killing Field societies. The second standard will call for a combination of maximum efforts to stay alive and also keep others alive under all conditions, including a murderous totalitarian society, and also will include a readiness to engage in acts of protest, resistance, and rescue or human life.