Language:
German
Year of publication:
1991
Titel der Quelle:
Das Jüdische Museum in Prag
Angaben zur Quelle:
(1991) 60-85
Keywords:
Kafka, Franz,
Abstract:
Discusses Jewish self-hatred reflected in Kafka's writings. The young Jews of Prague, two generations removed from the ghetto and growing up in a Gentile society, absorbed that society's attitude to Jews. Kafka was never able to shake off the fear of rejection of himself as a Jew. He hated the assimilated, materialistic Jewish bourgeois world personified by his father; he hated himself - what he saw as his puny, repulsive body, his neuroticism, all in conformity with antisemitic stereotypes. He questioned his own right to exist and above all his right to write in a language not his own, exactly as did antisemitic literary critics. He was drawn to Zionism because it analyzed these ills and strove to heal them, but he was unable to identify with its nationalistic ideology.
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