Mimi Gladstein, who provided critical guidance from the very beginning
and throughout the entire process up to and including supporting my
work on this book.

The third major institute that contributed support was the El Paso Holo-
caust Museum and Study Center. Besides directly providing over one-
third of the entire funding needed to stage the conference, the museum, in
conjunction with the College of Liberal Arts, provided me with a generous
grant that enabled me to travel to Jerusalem, Israel, during the winter of
1997-98 to attend an International Holocaust Conference at Hebrew Uni-
versity. That visit served as the occasion for personal meetings with
Yehudah Bauer at Yad Vashem and Gilbert Kahn, a fellow participant at
that conference, both of whom have contributed essays to this collection.
That personal and professional experience also served as one of the
sources for this particular book, since I more clearly recognized that my re-
flections as an American on both Israel and the Holocaust have their own
peculiar and therefore importantly different significations. Special thanks
are likewise due to particular members of the El Paso Holocaust Museum:
Steven Silver, who was involved in the planning and fund raising of the El
Paso Conference from the very beginning; Henry Kellen, himself a Holo-
caust survivor, the founder of the museum and one of its most important
living treasures; Sylvia Cohen, the director of the museum; and David
Marcus, the president of the museum.

Finally, my greatest thanks go to my family for their patience and under-
standing while I was away from them and involved in such engaging ac-
tivities, but especially for my wife, Kate, who not only read this entire
manuscript and provided many helpful editorial suggestions, but who
continues to provide support and love for all that I do.

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