Language:
German
Year of publication:
1994
Titel der Quelle:
Jüdischer Almanach
Angaben zur Quelle:
1995 (1994) 150-159
Keywords:
Antisemitism History 1945-
;
Jewish theater
;
Motion pictures
;
Jews in motion pictures
;
Antisemitism in motion pictures
;
Antisemitism in the theater
Abstract:
In 1949 the screening of the film "Oliver Twist" in the British zone of West Germany and in Berlin aroused Jewish protests. Jewish demonstrators in front of the movie theater in Berlin where the film was showing fought with the German police. The "Berliner Zeitung" expressed the reaction of a large part of the German population when it called the demonstration a provocation by foreign Jews. During the same period, in an effort to dissociate themselves from Nazism and to demonstrate their philosemitism, German theaters everywhere were staging Lessing's "Nathan der Weise", which portrays an ideally virtuous and wise Jew. Points out that this image had nothing to do with real Jews, the victims of the Holocaust, but rather with German repression of the recent past. Argues that philosemitism easily turns to antisemitism, and that every representation of Jews in the theater must be judged in the context of the predisposition of the audience.
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