Sprache:
Englisch
Erscheinungsjahr:
1994
Titel der Quelle:
Centennial Review
Angaben zur Quelle:
38,2 (1994) 361-385
Schlagwort(e):
Jews History 1800-2000
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
Kurzfassung:
In post-emancipation Europe, when many Jews emerged on the cultural scene, antisemitic writers (especially in Germany and Austria, e.g. Wagner and Weininger) produced two closely related motifs: first, that the Jews lack any creative capacity, and therefore can only either repeat and imitate, or corrupt what was created by others; and second, that the Jews have a talent for imitation, that they strive to imitate non-Jews, but remain Jews nevertheless. Some Jewish thinkers of this period also adopted these stereotypes. Both the motifs found their expression in two of Kafka's short stories: "A Report to an Academy" (1917), where an ape (i.e. an imitator of human beings) serves as a symbol of the Jew, and his last story", Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk", where Jews are depicted as mice. However, Kafka did not present his symbolic Jews as monstrous animals but as individuals or groups whose identities are shaped by exile within a hostile society.
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