Only in Germany
May 17, 2021 9:39 AM Subscribe
The protection of Jewish life is a tenet of German culture. Meanwhile Jewish plurality and values are under constant attack: from the people who claim to be our friends.
You may need to click the red button to proceed to the article in English.
Given the potential for a high-conflict conversation with the mention of Israel, perhaps folks can consider limiting their comments if their point has already been made once.
You may need to click the red button to proceed to the article in English.
Given the potential for a high-conflict conversation with the mention of Israel, perhaps folks can consider limiting their comments if their point has already been made once.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Hey, this seems like an interesting read but this is also a sufficiently fraught moment in the world that trying to have a discussion about this specific reflection on Jewish life in Germany etc. that stays at all on topic is going to be unnecessarily difficult. Go ahead and revisit this at some point down the line. -- cortex
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I don’t enjoy writing this in German, a language I often experience as a burden. That sounds grandiose, like some declaration of principle from a character in a Cynthia Ozick story; some German-Jewish assyriologist from Freiburg, maybe, languishing in exile at a small college in the midwest. A bit pretentious, then, for someone like me, someone born right here in East Berlin just before the wall fell. I’ve never lived anywhere else, but I did spend seven days in the United States last February, and briefly, in the parking lot of an Olive Garden, felt as though I was free.
The reason for this grandiosity and the alienation that fuels it, the reason for the doubt, the feeling of being permanently trapped between screaming and hesitant silence, is simple (and of course, complicated): I am a Jew in Germany. To quote that tough guy Maxim Biller: people like me aren’t – or still aren’t, depending on the situation – supposed to be in this country.
consider me hooked ...
And here's a direct link to the English version.
posted by philip-random at 9:46 AM on May 17, 2021 [1 favorite]