Jewish-German Identity in the Orientalist Literature of Else Lasker-Schüler, Friedrich Wolf, and Franz Werfel (review)

100 SHOFAR Summer 1997 Vol. 15, No.4 Book Reviews Jewish-German Identity in the Orientalist Literature of Else Lasker-SchUler, Friedrich Wolf, and Franz Werfel, by Donna K. Heizer. Columbia, SC: Camden House 1996. 116 pp. $54.95. Using a methodology informed by the work of Edward Said, Heizer analyzes through close textual readings how Lasker-Schuler, Wolf, and Werfel examine in their Orientalist works their own identities as Germans and Jews. As Heizer observes, many German authors who wrote Orientalist fiction between 1900 and 1933 were JewishGermans . She focuses on these three writers because they represent to her the various attempts by Jewish-German writers in this period to construct a cultural identity. These widely read authors played an active role in shaping German culture, but, as Heizer points out, many non-Jewish Germans thought of them as outsiders because they were Jewish. Between 1900 and 1933 it was difficult for Jewish-German authors to write about being Jewish. To do so, Heizer observes, would be to acknowledge that they were different from other Germans and would, therefore, reinforce those who accused them ofnot being truly German. She argues that for Jewish-Germans, whom Germans often saw as Orientals, writing about what they considered to be Oriental culture enabled them to examine not only the exotic Other but also themselves. Through' their Orientalist works they could thus explore their own cultural identities. Coming to terms with their own identities became a pressing concern for Jewish-Germans at this time because ofthe rise of volkisch ideology, which, with its stress on national uniqueness, asserted that they did not belon~ in German society. Heizer points out that in their works these authors did not depict the Orient accurately but rather reflected JewishGerman and German values and concerns. Heizer shows that by using the Orient as setting in Die Niichte Tino von Bagdads (The Nights of Tino of Baghdad, 1907) and Der Prinz von Theben (The Prince of Thebes, 1912), Lasker-SchUler could distance herself from her identity as a Jew and gain a more detached perspective on Jewish culture while still maintaining a link with her Jewish heritage. Through the Oriental setting, she could explore her role as a Jewish artist in German society and also reveal how foreign she felt in German culture. LaskerSchiiler was fascinated with what she saw as the exotic, the mythical and the mystical in Oriental culture. It was a culture filled, she thought, with visionary artists like herself. In her Orientalist works, she hoped to bridge the gulfboth between East and West and between herselfand German society, but here she failed because she reproduced in them many German stereotypes about the Orient. By depicting the Orient as a place of Book Reviews 101 violence and lascivious sensuality, for example, she made it difficult for Germans to accept its culture. Rather than breaking down the boundaries between East and West, ,Lasker-Schuler reinforced them through using such stereotypes. Wolfalso turned to the East in his play Mohammed: Ein Oratorium (Mohammed: An Oratorium, 1922) for answers to his own personal and cultural problems and to redefine himself through an exploration of the Other, but he did not reproduce the stereotypes of the Orient current in Germany at that time. Instead, his attitude toward the Orient was remarkably unbiased and reveals, in Heizer's opinion, his deep respect for Islamicate culture and his genuine desire to learn from the Other. Wolf found in Mohammed an Oriental Other, whose message of nonviolence had much to teach his own society, caught at the time he began to write his play in the throes of the First World War. Mohammed was an individual, he thought, who transcended ethnic, racial, and religious boundaries, and who could help him understand the crisis of meaning caused by the war. Although Wolfacknowledged the cultural differences between East and West, he also emphasized those aspects ofMohammed's character and message that had universal relevance. In Heizer's view, Wolf's stress in Mohammed on human similarities and common problems makes his play unique in German Orientalist literature ofthis period. In his novel Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh, (The Forty Days of Musa Dagh, 1933...