Transcript PowerPoint: Jewish Identity - Part 2

Lesson 10
Lecture Notes
Review
Why did Jewish identity change after
emancipation?
 What are the three categories of Jewish
identity that develop after emancipation?
 What are some things that caused Jews to
feel estranged from their people?
 Why did some Jews convert to
Christianity?

Jewish Identity
Challenged and Redefined
Part II
“Hear, O Israel”

Primary Source Study
(p.267-268, from the
beginning to “German character and education” and from
“Look at Yourselves in the mirror” to “like a greyhoud.”
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Excerpt from article by Walter Rathenau
(1867-1922)
Additional Questions
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What is the title from? How does Rathenau use
it?
What about Jews doesn’t Rathenau like?
Why would we call Rathenau a self-hating Jew?
Jewishness as Unique Sensibility I

Gustav Landauer (18701919)
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Grew up in a Jewish family
Studied philosophy, worked
as journalist, translator and
novelist
Arrested and imprisoned for
civil disobedience
Outwardly, a German
intellectual
Jewishness as Unique Sensibility II
Estranged from religion, but not Judaism
 Inspired by Martin Buber
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Spiritual sensibility that is independent of
doctrine and ritual prescriptions
“Jewishness is an Inalienable Spiritual
Sensibility” (1913)
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Jewish and German – complex person
Not a religious connection
Jewish character
Jewish features
In Defiance of Anti-Semites I
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Arthur Koestler (19051983)
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Assimilated Jewish family
Zionist
Saw the need for a
homeland because of
anti-Semitism
In Defiance of Anti-Semites II
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“A Valedictory Message to the Jewish
People” (1949)
 Desire
to return to Zion is at core of
Judaism
 Dilemma – now can return
 Return to Israel or move on
 No longer abandoning a suffering people
Religious Faith I

Franz Rosenzweig
(1886-1929)
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Agnostic
Plans to convert
Has spiritual reawakening
in a synagogue
Study as important to
faith
Religious Faith II
 Lehrhaus
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Inspired assimilated Jews to rediscover their
roots
“Jewish Learning and the Return to Judaism”
(1920)
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An inner remembering
Study for connection and practice
Closed by Nazis
American schools based on Rosenzweig’s
model
“Holocaust Jew” I

Jean Amery (1912-1978)
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Child of Catholic
mother/Jewish father
Did not have a Jewish
upbringing
Defined racially as a Jew by
Nazis (Nuremberg Laws)
Survives Auschwitz
“Holocaust Jew” II

Reflections of a ‘Holocaust Jew’ (1966)
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“I cannot be one [a Jew]. And yet must be
one.”
Identity is developed early and his was not a
Jewish identity. But Nazis made him one.
Isolated, solitary Jew – not one with
connection to generations of Jews
Class Discussion
Do Asssimilationist and Affirmationist
responses to identity still exist today?
 How have you seen them exemplified?
 Have some disappeared or become
irrelevant?
 Are there any identities that you would
add to these categories?
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Next Class:
Read pages 302 - 371
 Special attention to documents #: 4, 8,
14, 15, 16, 19, 22, 23, 25, and 26
 Think about:
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Does Emancipation change anti-Semitism?
What is political anti-Semitism?
What is racial anti-Semitism?
Do either of these still exist today? If so, how?