AJR inj Volume UII No. 7 July 1998 £3 (to non-members) 1 Don't m/ss... RePections on the neo-Nazi success in Saxony-Anlialt The Jew of Venice Sharon Eytan p4 Third Age University The bitch is still on heat' Maurice Soffa p8 Vicarious suffering ccording to the soothing adage there's no own racLst past. Jews were a taboo subject - except Ronald Channing p 13 gain without pain'. Western Europe's troubled for ritual denunciations of Israel - and the guilt for A progress towards monetary union and the Nazi genocide was 'offloaded' on to West Germany. 'Global' drama East's switch from a command economy to private Foreigners, such as 'Vietnamese, employed in the enterpri.se are both engendering stresses and strains. DDR, lived in special compounds and had minimal ll theatre In quite a few countries these stresses provide a involves contact with Germans. (The ethnically far more disguises. It breeding ground for neo-Fascist parties. heterogeneous Soviet Union similarly ghettoised A African students at its Lumumba Liniversity). was even more so Somehow or other democratic Europe has learnt in Shakespeare's to live with the Le Pens and other throwbacks to the West Germans meanwhile evolved a far less eth­ time, when boys age of the dictators - but when neo-Nazis march on nocentric outlook. Millions of foreigners - Turks, were cast in female German soil, loud alarm bells begin to ring. Yugoslavs, Spaniards, even Britons - found work in roles. Around l600, With massive unemployment (particularly among the Bundesrepublik; worldwide travel broadened the actor playing the young), Saxony-Anhalt is an especially dis­ minds; pop music gave young Germans a taste for Rosalind in advantaged Land, but throughout the length and Afro-American culture. La.st, but not lea.st, the Jewish As You Like It had breadth of the erstwhile DDR disenchantment with •question' received an airing both via the media and to be a multiple the fruits of reunification persists. This disenchant­ in the .schools. 'transvestite': a boy ment spawned the PDS, a party of former That is not to say that the battle again.st racism has disguised as a girl Communists who, throughout the nineties, consti­ been conclusively won in the eleven Western who for the tuted the specifically local opposition to the Lander. However, it is the East, whose rulers loudly purposes of the plot absorption of the East on West German terms. proclaimed their internationalism, which today still disguises herself as a Now a new forum for disaffected Ossies has mate­ offers a fertile breeding ground for racism. In boy before revealing rialised: the neo-Nazi Deutsche Volks Union. A first Saxony-Anhalt the two and half percent of foreign­ her true girihood. time election contestant, the DW garnered an ers in the workforce are routinely blamed for 15% The Globe are astonishing thirteen per cent of the vote in Saxony- unemployment (as well as for rising crime). currendy staging this play alongside a Anhalt. The predominantly young D'VU supporters Bertolt Brecht - paradoxically the top cultural Merchant of Venice could, of course, have voted for the extreme Left, luminary of the East German regime - put it suc­ also characterised but opted instead for the Far Right. cinctly at the end of The Irresistible Rise of Arturo Ui: by multiple Paving the way, as it were, for this vertical take­ Der Schoss ist fnichthar noch, aus dem das kroch! disguises - with a off by the DVU, Saxony-Anhalt has long been the We and democratic Europe ignore this warning at German playing scene of vicious skinhead assaults on foreigners: our peril D Shylock, the by now many of its smaller towns are archetypal Jew. On ausldnderrein. several occasions A mild form of xenophobia is, of course, endemic this actor had to in Germany. If anyone doubts this let them look at endure the jeers of the law making citizenship dependent on ancestry the English and not residence - a law .still operative fully half a groundlings who centur>' after the founding of the democratic Bundes­ may - or may not - republik. Even so the hatred of foreigners is more have been imitating widespread in the Ea.st than the West. his compatriots of The reason for this is a function both of geo­ 60 years ago. Here graphy and history. The Eastern provinces border indeed is 'confusion on Poland and the Slavs have long appeared Worse inferior in German eyes. More importantly, during confounded'! D the 44-year long existence of the DDR, its 18 million See rewew on p4. inhabitants were spared a confrontation with their 'roiiuiincing the dealt) sentence on Jetv Suss Oppenheimer, 173S. AJR INFORMATION JULy 1998 erstwhile rival Woolworths. Profile In 1942 Alice married Walter Schwab. The newlyweds went to live in Hamp­ stead, in the apartment block she still On the bright side lives in today. After distinguished war lice (Liesel) Rosenthal was born service her husband worked at the Minis­ in Heilbronn in 1915 the daughter try of Town Planning. Their daughter, A of a newly-married wine later to achieve fame as Rabbi Julia merchant. Her father was called up in Neuberger, was born in 1950. 1916 and returned from a French PoW Six months after the birth Alice helped camp four years later. to run a new employment agency for Drs The family were integrated both into Reichmann, Rosenstock and Adele Levy German and Jewish culture. When Alice at the AJR and later commenced produc­ left school in 1932 she wanted to train as ing Art Notes for AJR Information. From an artist, but with her father's business 1953 she commissioned Youth Aliyah's boycotted, she had to settle for working artwork greetings cards and took a lead­ in a bookshop and qualified as a book­ ing role in the Ben Uri Art Society- seller. After two-and-a-half years she Retiring officially in 1975, she promptly came to the conclusion that it was neces­ set up an over-60s employment bureau in sary to emigrate to Palestine, America or the City of London. England and enrolled in a Jewish school Alice Schwab Walter died only two years ago, by of housekeeping in Stuttgart to receive a which time Alice was diagnosed as more practical training. to do likewise. Alice left Germany for having a rare debilitating condition, In 1935 she went to Frankfurt where England in May 1937 and, after six Wegener's disease. But although unable new works of literature were snapped up months in Birmingham, moved to Lon­ to get out and about very much, she en­ by a large, intellectual Jewish clientele, don. joys the company of her friends and culture being of great importance at a time At Woburn House she helped to cope family (including her two adorable grand­ of deprivation. (The nascent Palestine with the influx of refugees asking for children). Symphony Orchestra under Bronislaw help. Later, at Bloomsbury House, she Alice collects German and English Hubermann gave a concert at the Salz- was befriended by Anna Schwab, des­ prints, engravings, etchings and litho­ burger Synagogue). tined to be her mother-in-law. Joining graphs of the 1920s and 1930s, which By now life had become increasingly Marks & Spencer as a management gives her great pleasure. With gratitude difficult and some people had already trainee, she was promoted to branch and infectious enthusiasm for her adop­ disappeared. The visiting headmistress of manager of, among others, the Hackney ted country and so much to do, she a Birmingham girls' school warned Alice store in Mare Street - which when continues always to look on the bright it was time to leave and she persuaded bombed out, carried on trading thanks to side of life. her reluctant parents and younger brother the loyalty of its staff and the help of its n Ronald Channing the North Circular. the 1936/37 season. Living too far away My Cup overfloweth After a steady build-up in the number of from the 'Island of Unleavened Bread' I beribboned car aerials, one Saturday never actually saw them play, but avidly live some way beyond Highgate, sev­ morning flag-bearers and wavers appeared followed their progress in the papers. eral miles north of Highbury. As I in the streets. Their red-white-red banners The Anschluss spelt the end 01 I wandered about my habitat in early suggested Austrian affiliations, but they Hakoah, yet the club lives on in literature May I noticed car aerials sprouting rib­ wore no lederhosen; studying the symbols and legend. Friedrich Torberg's novel Di^' ands in two colours: white and red. on the flags I at last realised they were Mannschaft features its waterball team, 01 What, I wondered, did this signify? I Arsenal supporters 'up' for the Cup. which the author was a member. As to happen to be something of a connoisseur Why am I so ignorant of football? After the legend, it is of the nought-for-our- of national flags and two possibilities all, it has links to two of my major inter­ comfort variety. The whole unachieved suggested themselves: Poland (white-red) ests: literature and politics. The literary Austro-Jewish symbiosis .seems summed and Indonesia (red-white). connection is Shakespeare's Hotspur up in the quip: 'How do you know the Indonesia was at the time edging into (Henry IV), who gave his name to Hakoah match is over?' 'I can hear the the international spotlight, but I could Tottenham football club. Politically there ambulance sirens!" not imagine thousands of North London­ was the incident of David Mellor 'playing This sad joke in turn spawned the say' ers demonstrating their solidarity with the away' in his Chelsea strip and contribut­ ing 'A Jew belongs inside a Kaffeehaus, students in Jakarta.