Being Jewish in the New Germany

Preface

P r e f a c e As a Jewish American scholar who focuses on Germany, I have been repeatedly asked, or even reproached, by Americans, especially Jewish Americans, about my intellectual interests and academic career that has now lasted for over twenty years. Questions such as Why are you interested in Germany? or How can you live in that country? have pursued me as I studied the language, literature, and culture of the country that perpetrated crimes against the Jewish people. Once, after giving a public lecture on Jewish life in contemporary Germany, a particularly angry and aggressive audience member chastised me and later sent a postcard suggesting I leave the United States for Germany permanently. Such reactions, most of them less hostile and merely inquisitive, force a scholar and teacher to think about the relationship between what he studies and who he is: in short, about identity. I became keenly aware how identity and personal histories shape the stories scholars tell, even those who try to be as objective as possible. This attention to my personal investment in my work forced me to think more deeply about what I studied and what it meant. Thus, studying Jewish life in Germany became both a personal and professional project, a combination I welcomed for the satisfaction and knowledge it provided. It also encouraged me to share these perspectives in this book. However, it was only into the second half of my career that I focused on this German-Jewish subject. This happened when anthropologist John Borneman and I researched and published an ethnography, Sojourners: The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity (1995) and completed a video documentary about the Jews of East Germany who had returned from exile after the war. The book I present here continues, at least chronologically, where this one left off, while still addressing fundamental ix questions about Jewish identity in Germany from new social, cultural, political , and religious perspectives. These have, of course, emerged and intensi fied since 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, Germany was reunified, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Europe was fundamentally transformed . Why and how do Jews live in Germany today? Sixty years after the end of the Second World War and the liberation of the concentration camps, many Americans, especially Jews, are still preoccupied with what has come to be called “the Holocaust” and Germany’s responsibility for this crime. Some cynical critics call this victimology; more generous observers merely note the strong identification of American Jews with this single, historical overarching event. Such a reaction is in part understandable, especially for those who have been personally touched. Clearly, it should not cloud our memory nor allow us to forget those who died. But it should also not blind us from recognizing the complexity of postwar German and Jewish society nor that Jewish life in Germany is more than the sum of these twelve terrible years. The Federal Republic of Germany has taken responsibility for the horrible deeds of the Nazis. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the peaceful revolution that brought reunification in 1990 confirmed Germany’s commitment to liberal democracy that has flourished in the West since the end of the war. West Germany’s “special relationship” to Israel since its founding, of which Americans know little, has also grown stronger. West Germany did more to remember and rebuild relationships with its Jewish population than any other European country, and continues to do so now after reunification. Still, there remains a gap between external judgments and internal experience, between those outside of Germany who cannot understand or accept Jewish life there and those Jews who actually live in Germany today and have made it their home. Consequently, my goal in this book is to educate an unfamiliar American public to the real-life experience of Jews in Germany and to acquaint them with the differentiated picture that makes up Jewish life since 1989, without glossing over the many problems and uncertainties that remain. I believe that understanding the new Germany, precisely because of its complex history with the Jewish people, will enhance tolerance and understanding in the transatlantic sphere. In 1988, when my research on Jewish life in Germany began and just one year before political events would dramatically change the German PR E F A C E x and European political landscape, no one...