Shifting the Borders of Culture and Identity: German Jewish Intellectuals as cultural mediators between Germany and France (original) (raw)
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'Languishing from a Distance'. Louis Meyer and the Demise of the German-Jewish Ideal
Louis Meyer (1796-1869), a Jewish merchant in the provincial town of Wloclawek, spent a few years of apprenticeship in Berlin. His nostalghia of the time spent in the Prussian capital inspired him to write poetry, essays, letters and other texts in German for the rest of his life. This chapter investigates this 'musée sentimental' of a Jew loathing the provinciality of his existence, assessing the value of tradition and the appeal of reform. Meyer later in life recognized that Prussia morphed from a beacon of enlightenment and education to the torchbearer of militarized chauvinism.