Michael Brenner, “In the Shadow of the Holocaust: The Changing Image of German Jewry after 1945 (Washington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2010), 1-22 (original) (raw)
Related papers
This article deals with the public perception in Israel of German-Jewish remigration to West Germany during the 1950s. The migrants’ Israeli-born children were a particularly sensitive issue in the media. While the parents were represented in contemporary press reports in largely negative terms of immoral materialism, their children were depicted as victims that had to be rescued. Following recent research that emphasises the importance of children for nationalist projects, this article argues that this generationally differentiated approach has to be understood first and foremost in terms of Israeli nation-building: the re-Germanisation and re-entanglement with the diaspora of this first generation of Israelis went against the ongoing attempts of delineating the as yet blurry borders of the new Hebrew nation. The attempts to “rescue” the children from the diaspora, in turn, contributed to the increased engagement of Israeli and Zionist institutions with Jews in Germany and the gradual normalisation and legitimisation of this originally unacceptable diaspora. The article thus fundamentally argues for overcoming the one-sided focus in studies of Israeli-German-Jewish postwar relations on Shoah-related “policies for the past”, and for placing greater emphasis on the nation-building-related “policies for the future” that decisively shaped the Israeli-Zionist approach to this relationship.
Some German Jewish Orthodox Attitudes Toward the Land of Israel and the Zionist Movement
2016
German Orthodoxy in the Wilhelmine and Weimar periods pre sents an interesting case study in Jewish attitudes toward Israel and the diaspora. The German Orthodox minority, no more than ten to twenty percent of German Jewry after World War I, participated with the majority of German Jews in a whole-hearted affirmation of German culture (in German Zionist parlance: Galutbejahung). As with all German Jews, German culture had become definitive of their very identity as Jews. Despite their commitment to Jewish observance, the German Orthodox had more in common with their less observant or non-observant brethren than with the historic Jewish traditional culture of Eastern Europe. Yet for all that, the Orthodox, as followers of traditional Jewish behavior patterns and their corresponding value commitments, affirmed their Jewish identities in a more full-orbed way than their Reform-oriented co-religionists. They validated Ger man culture no less than other Jews, but did so with their own in...
Jewish Social Studies, 2018
The new Jewish presence in Palestine brought about by Zionism and consolidated politically by the Balfour Declaration reintroduced into the German and German Jewish consciousness the idea of the proximity of Jews to the Orient while challenging their image as “orientals.” It was photography that showed such new Jewish appearances especially palpably and that confronted viewers with a changing Holy Land. This article discusses three photo books on Palestine published in 1925, using them as markers for the contested presences and absences of Jews and Judaism in Germany. The books discuss the status of Palestine and the role of Jews as its new, old colonizers, allowing for a plethora of opinions on the political meaning of Zionism, many of which would be attacked soon thereafter.
Germans or Jews? German-Speaking Jews in Post-War Europe: An Introduction
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, 2017
Historians have devoted increasing attention in the past decade to the aftermath of the Shoah, focusing in particular on the Displaced Persons (DP) camps in the occupation zones of Germany and Austria. A number of important studies have brought the crucial topic of migration to the fore, examining the flight of Jewish DPs and their frustration at being denied entry to their chosen destinations—mostly to Palestine, but also to the United States and elsewhere. For the most part these studies deal with Yiddish-speaking eastern European (primarily Polish) Jews who saw no future in a Europe awash with antisemitism; the overwhelming majority dreamt of joining the ranks of the Jewish state-in-the-making in Palestine. In this reading the DP camps constitute an important part both of European and Israeli history, and slot comfortably into Zionist and cold war narratives on Europe—and especially on eastern Europe—that rejected any future for Jews in post-war Europe and instead valorized Palestine as the appropriate national project. The following articles complicate this perspective in a number of ways. Many German-speaking Jews experienced discrimination and feared violence in the post-war months and years not because they were Jewish, but rather because they were German. Some became Zionists after the war, but this did not necessarily entail a loss of emotional ties to German culture and language. Moreover, even though many eventually settled in the United States and Israel, a considerable number opted to remain in Europe. Some even settled in Germany and endeavoured to re-establish Jewish communities in the face of stinging criticism from the new centres of the Jewish world in Israel and the United States.
Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany
De Gruyter eBooks, 2015
Preface in Germany and Israel. Sticking to food habit, concludes Bernstein "in the migration process obviously contribute to 'living memories,' yet they do much more: They also 'make a place' for a virtual home that preserves social status and stabilizes the self-esteem of customers […] Food consumption in the migration process seems to promote contouring collective 'we'-identities." Elke-Vera Kotowski compares in her article Moving from the Present via the Past to Look toward the Future: Jewish Life in Germany Today between the Jewish populations in Germany in the 1930s and today, and asks whether with all the obvious differences between the two periods "there are any links connecting those Jews who lost their homes during the Nazi period in Germany, and those Jews who are searching for a new beginning in Germany today?" Kotowski shows that "exiled German Jews of the 1930s who were religious or strongly connected to Jewish tradition, often were eager to join or even to establish Liberal (i.e. Reform) Jewish communities." They influenced the receiving societies and helped to shape their destiny, but many felt alienated to the majority society. But Kotowski also concludes that "not only the German-Jewish émigrés from the 1930s but also Russian-Jewish newcomers from the 1990s have unpacked their suitcases." However, it "seems that the second generation of immigrants will be able to participate in Germany's society with great success." Fania Oz-Salzberger deals in her article Israelis and Germany: A Personal Perspective with a phenomenon that for many Israelis (and maybe even to many "bio-Germans")-not to speak of the Jewish communities in Germany-is difficult to digest. It means, the almost mystical attraction of Germany (and Berlin in particular) to Sabras (young native Israelis), that pushes so many to visit, to live for different periods of times among Germans and even to emigrate to Germany. Oz-Salzberger studied the various social networks of Israelis in Berlin (either in real life or virtual networks) in order to find the common characteristics that bond all Israelis in Germany in general and Berlin in particular. Although she found that "many of the current Hebrew-speaking residents of Berlin whom I have met in recent years, Jews as well as Arabs, are enchanted, fascinated, and sometimes even obsessed with the dark past." Yet, according to Oz-Salzberger, "Berlin remains problematic for them, and they live their problematic life in it as a matter of choice; because life is not meant to be simple, and because this urban, highly cultured, intense global-polis is not offering its newcomers either harmony or simplicity. It is not part of the deal." Hanni Mittelmann deals in her article Reconceptualization of Jewish Identity as Reflected in Contemporary German-Jewish Humorist Literature with the question Legacy, Trauma, New Beginning after '45 German Jewry Revisited Michael Wolffsohn Jews in Divided Germany (1945-1990) and Beyond Scrutinized in Retrospect Reconstruction of history is more than just adding more or less impressive stories. This is true of the history of Jews in postWar Germany, as well. Therefore, I prefer empirical facts instead of wishful thinking one way or the other. All subchapters presented here are based on my decade-long research on the issue.1 Jewish history after 1945 in the 'Two Germanies' is thrilling and touching. Nevertheless, one should keep in mind that at least until 1990 Jews in Germany consisted of tiny, little communities. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) in East Germany had become almost "judenrein"-mainly for all-German (Nazi) historical reasons, but also due to self-inflicted anti-Jewish and even more so for anti-Israeli policies of the GDR. From 1945 to 1990, West German Jewry was the prime player, although this as well carries its own reservations: From a global Jewish and, of course, a global non-Jewish perspective, German Jewry after 1945 has been almost a nonentity in general, including West Germany. So is this "much ado about nothing"-or something? If the measure is not quantity but rather historical importance-Germany is still relevant. We are involved. Our story is being told. Nostra res agitur ('It's our case, it matters to us').