{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Jewish Studies","slug":"new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327","podcast_index_feed_id":313327,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT1748646590","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com/category/religion-faith/jewish-studies/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/39a56132-ef86-11e8-b21b-1b19c77002c7/image/60cca3664f8db6504a688566b559fc80.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":1494,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies","last_synced_at":"2026-07-13T16:20:23.309680+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327"},"episode":{"title":"Ruth Balint, \"Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe\" (Cornell UP, 2021)","slug":"ruth-balint-destination-elsewhere-displaced-persons-and-their-quest-to-leave-postwar-europe-cornell-up-2021","published_at":"2026-05-22T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327/ruth-balint-destination-elsewhere-displaced-persons-and-their-quest-to-leave-postwar-europe-cornell-up-2021","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3465019989.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3465019989.mp3","summary":"In this unique “history from below,\" Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe (Cornell University Press, 2021) chronicles encounters between displaced persons in Europe and the Allied agencies who were tasked with caring for them after the Second World War. The struggle to define who was a displaced person and who was not was a subject of intense debate and deliberation among humanitarians, international law experts, immigration planners, and governments. What has not adequately been recognized is that displaced persons also actively participated in this emerging refugee conversation. Displaced persons endured war, displacement, and resettlement, but these experiences were not defined by passivity and speechlessness. Instead, they spoke back, creating a dialogue that in turn helped shape the modern idea of the refugee.  As Ruth Balint shows, what made a good or convincing story at the time tells us much about the circulation of ideas about the war, the Holocaust, and the Jews. Those stories depict the emerging moral and legal distinction between economic migrants and political refugees. They tell us about the experiences of women and children in the face of new psychological and political interventions into the family. Stories from displaced persons also tell us something about the enduring myth of the new world for people who longed to leave the old.  Balint focuses on those persons whose storytelling skills became a major strategy for survival and escape out of the displaced persons’ camps and out of the Europe. Their stories are brought to life in Destination Elsewhere, alongside a new history of immigration, statelessness, and the institution of the postwar family.  Ruth Balint is Associate Professor of History at Unive…","meta_description":"In this unique “history from below,\" Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and Their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe (Cornell University Press, 2021) …","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3251,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327/episodes/ruth-balint-destination-elsewhere-displaced-persons-and-their-quest-to-leave-postwar-europe-cornell-up-2021/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-jewish-studies-313327/ruth-balint-destination-elsewhere-displaced-persons-and-their-quest-to-leave-postwar-europe-cornell-up-2021.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}