Language:
French
Year of publication:
2001
Titel der Quelle:
Tsafon; revue d'études juives du Nord
Angaben zur Quelle:
42 (2001-2002) 39-53
Keywords:
Wassermann, Jakob,
;
Toller, Ernst,
;
Jews History 1800-2000
Abstract:
Compares the description of the German-Jewish condition in the interwar period in the autobiographies of Jakob Wassermann and Ernst Toller, published in 1921 and 1934 respectively. Although very different in their worldviews, Wassermann and Toller, both yearning for recognition by German gentile society, attested to the pain of being rejected by a society that never really accepted the cultural integration of the Jews. Toller saw the solution in a socialist revolution, while Wassermann's views, far more complex and penetrating, led to a dead-end, where he saw no way of achieving a bearable Jewish identity. Wassermann condemned both Jewish assimilation and Zionism; for him, being Jewish was equivalent to a prison sentence. Concludes that Wassermann and Toller failed to liberate themselves from a stigmatizing Jewish identity because they could not escape the definition of a society that viewed the Jews as outcasts.
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