Positionings of Jewish Self
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“SCHREIBEN WAS HIER WAR” BEYOND THE HOLOCAUST-PARADIGM: (RE)POSITIONINGS OF JEWISH SELF-IDENTITY IN GERMAN-JEWISH NARRATIVES PAST AND PRESENT by Martina Wells B.A equivalent, English and History, University of Mainz, Germany 1985 M.A., German Studies, University of Pittsburgh, 2008 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts & Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2015 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE KENNETH P. DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS & SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Martina Wells It was defended on March 31, 2015 and approved by Randall Halle, Klaus W. Jonas Professor of German Film and Cultural Studies, Department of German John B. Lyon, Associate Professor, Department of German Lina Insana, Associate Professor, Department of French & Italian Languages and Literatures Dissertation Advisor: Sabine von Dirke, Associate Professor, Department of German ii Copyright © by Martina Wells 2015 iii “SCHREIBEN WAS HIER WAR” BEYOND THE HOLOCAUST-PARADIGM: (RE)POSITIONINGS OF JEWISH SELF-IDENTITY IN GERMAN-JEWISH NARRATIVES PAST AND PRESENT Martina Wells, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2015 This dissertation examines the stakes of self-Orientalizing in literary and cinematographic texts of German-Jewish cultural producers in the context of Jewish emancipation and modernization. Positing Jewish emancipation as a trans-historical and cultural process, my study traces the poetic journey of a particular set of Orientalist tropes from 19th century ghetto stories to contemporary writings and film at the turn of the millennium to address a twofold question: what could this problematic method of representation accomplish for Germany’s Jewish minority in the past, and how do we understand its re-appropriation by Germany’s “new Jewry” today. To explore this nexus, I employ an analytical framework that draws on Orientalist discourse theory and postcolonial theories of cultural and ethnic identity. While the works under consideration execute the Orientalist aesthetic in distinctly different ways and under different historical conditions, they tap into the same representational archive when functionalizing the polarized East/West geography and inherited cultural stereotypes about Jews such as the “Oriental Jew”, the “ghetto”, and the “Oriental cult.” I argue that these tropes not only come with a long history in articulating Jewishness, but that they are reanimated by Jews themselves to write the Jewish narrative of the present. Their reintroduction into the realm of fiction after decades of absence signals a paradigm shift in representations of Jews in Germany, where the Holocaust has been the uncontested framing element in the discourse of Jews and the ultimate reference point for iv German-Jewish identity since the 1940s. As the shift accompanies generational and compositional change within Germany’s Jewish community, it comes with emancipatory consequences. Rather than having a trimming effect on the menu of identifications, I contend that strategies of self-Orientalizing are a resource to make newly meaningful the Jewish historical experience and challenge the constraints of a Holocaust-based identity for Jews living in Germany today. The changes in Jewish self-identity this dissertation expounds also provide a model for analyzing the struggle against normative ascriptions of identity of other minorities in contemporary Europe whether self-imposed or by others. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ X 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 WEST MEETS EAST: ORIENTALIST DISCOURSE AND 19TH CENTURY GERMAN-JEWISH WRITING ................................................................................................ 27 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 27 2.2 LEOPOLD KOMPERT’S “JUDENGASSE” ................................................. 35 2.2.1 Reinventing the Eastern Ghetto ................................................................... 35 2.2.2 The telescopic gaze of a Jewish Orientalist ................................................. 42 2.2.3 Kompert’s German-Jewish Orient .............................................................. 50 2.3 KARL EMIL FRANZOS .................................................................................. 61 2.3.1 A Jewish Missionary in the East .................................................................. 61 2.3.2 Building a Case for a Civilizing Mission ..................................................... 68 2.3.3 Maintaing, Shifting, and Transgressing the East-West Divide ................. 75 2.3.4 Of Models and Mimicry ................................................................................ 82 2.4 CONCLUSION .................................................................................................. 95 vi 3.0 “DER GEBRAUCHTE JUDE”: MAXIM BILLER AND GERMANY’S NEW JEWRY.........................................................................................................................................99 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 99 3.2 THE VOICE OF A POSTCOLONIAL WRITER: MAXIM BILLER AND THE CHALLENGE OF REPRESENTATION ............................................................ 107 3.2.1 The Location of Biller’s Language of Provocation ................................... 112 3.2.2 Biller’s Fall of the Ghetto Walls ................................................................. 117 3.2.3 Coming to Terms with the Present ............................................................ 135 3.3 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 155 4.0 ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST AFTER 1990 IN THE NEW GERMANY ............................................................................................................................... 158 4.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 158 4.2 DANY LEVY’S “ALLES AUF ZUCKER,” OR PLAYING WITH THE ORIENTALIST AESTHETIC ........................................................................................ 164 4.2.1 The Oriental Jew and his 21st Century Avatars ....................................... 169 4.2.2 Where’s the East and Where’s the West: Negotiating Jewish Place and Space...........................................................................................................................183 4.2.3 Discursive Shifts and a Different Kind of “Normality” ........................... 199 4.3 SO EIN SCHLAMASSEL: SCENES FROM “AUS DEM GHETTO” IN THE GERMANY OF 2009 .............................................................................................. 206 4.4 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 220 vii 5.0 CONCLUDING REMARKS .................................................................................. 224 APPENDIX A ............................................................................................................................ 234 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 237 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 239 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. “The Black Jew”, 1897 ............................................................................................... 234 Figure 2. “Yeshiva Boy”, 1915 .................................................................................................. 235 Figure 3. “Old Jew”, undated ..................................................................................................... 236 ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the support of a number of people. First of all, my thanks go to my committee and the expert help of each member at various milestones on my way to completing this project. I’m especially grateful to my advisor, Sabine Von Dirke, and her professional guidance and mentoring throughout the writing process. Her invaluable advice and encouragement gave me the self-confidence and motivation to pursue my ideas and bring this study to conclusion. Thanks are further owed to the faculty and staff of the Department of German and my cohort of fellow graduate students who, over the years, enriched our seminars with their intellectual vigor and camaraderie. On a personal level, my family deserves the biggest thank you: my husband Alan, my children Jakob, Albin, and Hanna, whose unconditional love and much-tried patience allowed me to spend long hours at my desk. Most of all, they’ve been the inspiration for my overarching research interest in what Jewishness is about in contemporary Germany. With much gratitude, it is to them that I dedicate this dissertation. x 1.0 INTRODUCTION With the words “schreiben was hier war”1 (“writing what’s going on here”) Maxim Biller, in his self-portrait Der gebrauchte Jude2 from 2009, tersely proclaims the tenor of his project as a Jewish writer in today’s Germany. The brevity of his statement, however, belies the complexity of the task. Long