Language:
English
Pages:
176 Seiten
,
Illustrationen
Year of publication:
2000
Keywords:
Identität
;
Selbstbild
;
Zionist
;
Juden
Abstract:
This book investigates modern Jewish iconography, especially pertaining to the Jewish experience with political movements in the United States, Britain and Western Europe from 1881 to 1939. In contrast to most works relating Jews and images its emphasis is not on anti-Semitism. I have attempted to look over the shoulder of previous generations of Western Jews, to appreciate how they perceived representations of themselves. Properly speaking this is not a sounding in 'Jewish art' or 'Jewish photography', but rather an interpretation of applications of art, graphics and photography, over time, which accompanied and fostered the ethnic mobilization of Western Jews in the realm of popular culture.Richly illustrated with both familiar and forgotten images, this book explores the ways in which Jews visualized themselves as a political entity between 1881 and 1939. Keen to assimilate into the Western societies of which they were a part, Jews also sought to preserve and re-invent forms of solidarity for themselves. Their efforts of self-assertion in the face of conflicting impulses came to be embodied in such notable personalities as Theodor Herzl, Rebecca Sieff, Leo Baeck and Albert Einstein. While Zionism took the lead in picturing the Jewish leadership of the future, other movements also lionized their champions, availing themselves of modern media to bolster their causes. The emergence of a relatively unified, politicized Western Jewry is best understood against the background not only of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and Zionism but also of the wider spectrum of Jewish politics, including Yiddishism, trade unionism, socialism, anarchism and feminism. The graphic representations of these diverse streams helped to animate Jews as advocates of both their local communities and their co-religionists worldwide. Michael Berkowitz's timely study sheds light on all these issues as well as on the origins of ethnic politics in general.
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