Language:
German
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
PaRDeS; Zeitschrift der Vereinigung für Jüdische Studien
Angaben zur Quelle:
8 (2004) 3-13
Keywords:
Heine, Heinrich,
;
Blood accusation
;
Jews
Abstract:
Based on a lecture held at the University of Potsdam, March 2006. States that there was a change in Heine's relationship to his Jewish identity beginning with the Damascus Affair of 1840. Heine reported on the affair to the Augsburg "Allgemeine Zeitung", criticizing the incitement against the Jews by the French consul in Damascus, backed by Heine's former revolutionary hero Adolphe Thiers. But even the "Allgemeine Zeitung" betrayed him: parallel to Heine's articles it published one by another, allegedly unprejudiced writer, affirming the truth of the blood libel. Heine had a personal stake in the enlightenment of the society of which he wished to be part and which he had hoped had left medieval superstitions behind it. He now returned to the unfinished manuscript of "Der Rabbi von Bacherach", the novel he had begun before his conversion and which had suddenly become a frightening new reality. But he was unable to complete it. Suggests that Heine had intended that the rabbi would escape from medieval Bacherach to an enlightened Frankfurt, a reflection of the author's ideal vision of German-Jewish history. But such a happy ending was impossible.
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