Melancholy Pride: Nation, Race, and Gender in the German Literature of Cultural Zionism

328 Pages·2000·19.437 MB·English

by  Mark H. Gelber

Conditio Judaica 23
Studien und Quellen zur deutsch-jüdischen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte
Herausgegeben von Hans Otto Horch
in Verbindung mit Alfred Bodenheimer, Mark H. Gelber und Jakob Hessing

Mark H. Gelber
Melancholy Pride
Nation, Race, and Gender
in the German Literature
of Cultural Zionism
Max Niemeyer Verlag
Tübingen 2 0 00
Gedruckt mit freundlicher Unterstützung der Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Bonn
Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufnahme
Gelber, Mark H.:
Melancholy pride : nation, race, and gender in the German literature of cultural Zionism / Mark
H. Gelber. - Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2000
(Conditio Judaica ; 23)
ISBN 3-484-65123-7 ISSN 0941 -5866
© Max Niemeyer Verlag GmbH, Tübingen 2000
Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außer-
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Druck: Guide Druck GmbH, Tübingen
Einband: Nädele Verlags- und Industriebuchbinderei, Nehren
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements vii
List of Illustrations xi
Introduction
The Parameters of German Cultural Zionism: The Possibility of a
Jewish-National Literature in German? 1
Chapter One
The Jewish Renaissance in Vienna and Berlin: A Literature and
Art for the Sake of Zion 17
Chapter Two
Satisfaktionsfähigkeit and Jewish Pride: The Literary and Cultural
Expressions of Jewish Students and Fraternity Life at the Turn-of-
the-Century 55
Chapter Three
Börries von Münchhausen and E.M. Lilien: The Genesis of Juda
and its Zionist Reception 87
Chapter Four
The Rhetoric of Race and Jewish-National Cultural Politics: From
Birnbaum and Buber to Brieger's René Richter 125
Chapter Five
Feminist-Zionist Expression: Ideology, Rhetoric, and Literature . 161
Chapter Six
Eroticism and Masochism in Cultural Zionism: Else Lasker-
Schüler and Dolorosa 203
vi Contents
Chapter Seven
"Strangers at Thy Gates": Anti-Semitism, Philo-Zionism, and the
Role of Non-Jews in Jewish-National Culture 247
Conclusion
German Cultural Zionism, Jewish Difference, Modern Jewish
Cultural Identity, and National Creativity 275
Selected Bibliography 291
Index 303
Preface and Acknowledgements
This study is the product of a long period of research and analysis of sa-
lient and problematical aspects regarding the literature in German pro-
duced within the framework of Cultural Zionism. Along the way, I have
published several essays concerned with issues discussed in the present
study, and I have lectured frequently on related topics over the last dec-
ade. I would like to thank the editors and publishers who printed my
work, and my several university hosts for inviting me to speak on diverse
aspects of this topic. I devoted significant portions of a lecture on "Jewish
Art and Austrian Literature" to E.M. Lilien and Cultural Zionism. Ver-
sions of this talk were delivered at Wesleyan University and at the
University of Graz. I would like to thank my hosts, Krishna Winston
(Wesleyan) and Dietmar Goltschnigg (Graz) for their invitations and
hospitality. Additionally, I profited from discussions with the Graz Re-
search Group on "The Image of the Jew and Alterity in Austrian Lit-
erature (1848-1914)," and I would like to mention here both Ingrid
Spork and Günther Höfler, members of that group, and to thank them
for their time and interest in my work. I lectured on "Else Lasker-
Schüler in the Context of Cultural Zionism," at an Else Lasker-Schüler
Symposium held at Pennsylvania State University, and a revised version
of my talk was given at UCLA. I would like to thank Ernst Schürer and
Sonja Hedgepeth for their invitation to the meeting at Penn State, as well
as Ehrhard Bahr and Sam Aroni for their hospitality at UCLA. I spoke
on the concept of "Jewish Satisfaktionsfähigkeit" at the international col-
loquium on Max Nordau held in Paris in 1992.1 would like to thank Del-
phine Bechtel, Dominique Bourel, and Jacques LeRider for the invita-
tion. A French version of my talk, translated by my colleague Georges
Slama, appeared in the conference volume. I lectured on "Theodor
Herzl's Aristocratic Pose and the Jewish-Zionist Aristocracy" at a sym-
posium entitled "Theodor Herzl and the Origins of Zionism," organized
at the University of London by Edward Timms, Director of the Centre
for German-Jewish Studies in Sussex. I am grateful to him for his hospi-
tality and response to my paper. A revised version of this paper was
presented in the Department of Germanic Languages at the University
viii Preface and Acknowledgements
of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. I wish to thank Clayton Koelb for his
kind invitation to speak there. Also, I presented some related ideas in
Bernhard Greiner's graduate seminar in the Germanics Institute at the
University of Tübingen on "Religiöse Orientierungen in Herzls Schrif-
ten." His students' memorably acute remarks have probably found their
way into the following study. Also, the conception of Chapter Seven
began to take shape, following a lecture on "Neo-Romanticism, Maso-
chism, and Zionism: Münchhausen, Dolorosa, and Lilien in Berlin,"
which I delivered at Ben-Gurion University at a conference organized
by my colleague Haim Finkelstein and myself, entitled "E.M.Lilien, Ju-
gendstil, and Cultural Zionism."
I would like to thank collectively the numerous institutions, several
sources of financial support, and those colleagues and individuals, with-
out whose kind aid and encouragement completion of this study would
have been duly encumbered. A few specific names deserve special men-
tion.
A research grant from the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture
provided me with the requisite time, as it turned out, to alter radically my
original conception of this study at an early stage in its development. At a
key moment in that process, I profited from pertinent comments and
suggestions by Sol Liptzin (Jerusalem), who has since passed away,
Noam Flinker (Haifa), and Jeffrey Sammons (New Haven) concerning
my essay, "The jungjüdische Bewegung: A Neglected Chapter in Ger-
man-Jewish Literary and Cultural History" (Yearbook of the Leo Baeck
Institute, Vol. 31,1986). That essay served as a preliminary, tentative out-
line and point of departure for this more ambitious study.
As the fundamental conception of the book began to coalesce, I was
aided by support from the German Academic Exchange Service
(DAAD) and by a guest professorship at the University of Pennsylvania,
sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania-Israel Exchange Program.
I would like to thank Horst and Ingrid Daemmrich, Frank Trommler,
and John McCarthey for their advice and encouragement during the
period I worked in Philadelphia. Additionally, I would like to thank
Frank Trommler and the DAAD for a subsequent invitation to partici-
pate in a cross-disciplinary seminar on "The Kaiserreich Recast: Culture,
Politics, Modernity," which was directed by Thomas Childers and Frank
Trommler at the University of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1990. The
seminar provided me with numerous methodological tools and critical
insights, which have helped shape this book.
I am indebted to numerous libraries and to their personnel, especially,
the archival, reference, and interlibrary loan staffs at the following:
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
Z.Aranne Central Library, Ben-Gurion University; The Jewish National
and University Library, Jerusalem; The Central Zionist Archives, Jerusa-
lem; Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach; Universitätsbibliothek, Tüb-
ingen; Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart; Germania-Judaica Sammlung/
Archiv, Cologne; Berliner Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz;
Institutsbibliothek des Fachbereichs Germanistik, Freie Universität,
Berlin; Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek, Berlin; Bibliothek der Jüdischen
Gemeinde Berlin (Fasanenstraße), and the Van Pelt Library, University
of Pennsylvania. I am especially grateful to the late Mattityahu Elat
(Beersheva), to whose memory I have dedicated this study; to Margot
Cohen (Archival and Manuscript Division, Jewish National and Univer-
sity Library); to Dr. Christian Büttrich, (Freie Universität, Berlin); and
to Dr. Arkady Fried (Bibliothek der Jüdischen Gemeinde, Berlin) for
their generous help and consideration, as well as for their individual bib-
liographical aid and bibliophilie competences.
Horst Daemmrich and Jeffrey Sammons have been unfailingly en-
couraging, and sometimes inspiringly enthusiastic, regarding this project
over many years. Before his death in 1995, Sol Liptzin regularly provided
me with insightful comments and encouragement. Otto and Lore Lilien
were very generous with their time and helpful in providing access to un-
published material at an early stage of my research. Otto passed away in
1991. Margarita Pazi discussed several of the chapters of this study with
me, before she died in February, 1997. Additionally, I would like to thank
Michael Berkowitz and David Brenner for sending me their unpublished
work, from which I have profited substantially. Inka Bertz and Jacques
Ehrenfreud gave me additional food for thought concerning some of my
ideas during stimulating conversations in Berlin.
I am most indebted to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
(Bonn-Bad Godesberg) for a research fellowship, which enabled me to
complete the research and to write the first draft of this study. I was also
awarded a publication grant by the Humboldt Foundation to facilitate
publishing the manuscript. I appreciated the encouragement of Wilhelm
Voßkamp (Köln) and Horst Turk (Göttingen), and I am very grateful to
my Humboldt hosts, Fritz Hackert (Tübingen) and Horst Denkler (Ber-
lin). I would like to thank Gisela Janetzke of the Humboldt Foundation
for her personal interest in my project and for her support. I owe friends
in Germany sincere gratitude for various kinds of aid. Let me mention
here Helmut and Doro Scholz, Analiese and Reimar Pienning, Dietmar
and Barbe Linke, Mechthild Günther, and Ulrike and Mario Offenberg.
Hans Otto Horch (Aachen) has been a constant source of professional
encouragement and assistance, for which I am truly grateful.
χ Preface and Acknowledgements
My son, Ilan, and my wife, Jody, have read portions of this study, and I
wish to thank them for their comments and encouragement over many
years. My daughter, Vered, helped me compile the index. In dedicating
this book to the memory of Mattityahu (Matti) Elat, I would like to
thank him posthumously for his unfailing bibliographical aid and related
advice over many years. Until his death, he was a source of true, dedi-
cated encouragement for virtually all of my scholarly research con-
ducted at my home institution. Also, by recalling his name, I wish to
honor specifically the spiritual and cultural legacy of Central European
Zionist humanism. In Matti's case, that legacy came to manifest itself,
even if paradoxically and in a relatively remote location, at the Zalman
Aranne Central Library of Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva.
Beersheva/Omer, 1997