Language:
English
Year of publication:
1990
Titel der Quelle:
Society
Angaben zur Quelle:
27, 6 (1990) 71-81
Keywords:
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Jews Cultural assimilation
Abstract:
Discusses the German Jew as prototypical of the Jewish assimilatory drive in the 19th-20th centuries. States that he had to submit to constant scrutiny which was accompanied by humiliation. His desire to assimilate was branded as a sign of Jewish arrogance and pushiness. The constant rejection led to loneliness, which became the fate to which German Jews had to adjust. There was practically no intercourse with non-Jews. Jewish enthusiasts of Enlightenment and of Germany set out to fight German political backwardness, cultural parochialism, and ethical philistinism, and to promote universal values as the as the essence of Germanhood. The real Germany was disavowed in the name of Germany as it ought to be. But their efforts came to nought. The era of nationalism was characterized by intolerance of all that was different. Even the fact that Jews achieved cultural similarity made them different and suspect of duplicity or ill intentions. Most of the assimilants refused to admit the futility of their dream, which turned into the grotesque and ended in tragedy.
Note:
On German Jewish assimilation and its failure.
,
Unseen.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
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