Rebirth of a Culture: Jewish Identity and Jewish Writing in Germany and Austria Today

Description

After 1945, Jewish writing in German was almost unimaginable-and then only in reference to the Shoah. Only in the 1980s, after a period of mourning, silence, and processing of the trauma, did a new Jewish literature evolve in Germany and Austria. This volume focuses on the re-emergence of a lively Jewish cultural scene in the German-speaking countries and the various cultural forms of expression that have developed around it. Topics include current debates such as the emergence of a post-Waldheim Jewish discourse in Austria and Jewish responses to German unification and the Gulf wars. Other significant themes addressed are the memorialization of the Holocaust in Berlin and Vienna, the uses of Kafka in contemporary German literature, and the German and American-Jewish dialogue as representative of both the history of exile and the globalization of postmodern civilization. The volume is enhanced by contributions from some of the most significant representatives of German-Jewish writing today such as Esther Dischereit, Barbara Honigmann, Jeanette Lander, and Doron Rabinovici. The result is a lively dialogue between European and North American scholars and writers that captures the complexity and dynamism of Jewish culture in Germany and Austria at the turn of the twenty-first century. Contents Introduction Part I. German-Jewish Writing and Culture today 1 The Monster Returns: Golem Figures in the Writings of Benjamin Stein, Esther Dischereit, and Doron Rabinovici 2 Hybridity, Intermarriage, and the (Negative) German-Jewish Symbiosis 3 A Political Tevye: Yiddish Literature and the Novels of Stefan Heym 4 Anti-Semitism because of Auschwitz: An Introduction to the Works of Henryk M. Broder Part II. The Case of Austria 5 “What once was, will always be possible”: The Echoes of History in Robert Menasse’s Die Vertreibung aus der Hölle 6 The Global and the Local in Ruth Beckermann’s Films and Writings Part III. Transatlantic Relationships 7 The Holocaust Survivor as Germanist: Marcel Reich-Ranicki and Ruth Kluger 8 Transatlantic Solitudes: Canadian-Jewish and German-Jewish Writers in Dialogue with Kafka 9 A German-Jewish-American Dialogue?: Literary Encounters between German Jews and Americans in the 1990s Part IV. Jewish Writers in Germany and Austria 10 “Attempts to Read the World”: An Interview with Writer Barbara Honigmann 11 Behind the Tränenpalast 12 Germans Are Least Willing to Forgive Those Who Forgive Them: A Case Study of Myself 13 Mischmasch or Mélange List of Contributors Index