The Non-Jewish Individual
Jewish history is a study of a people in exile. Since the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, the experience of the Jewish individual in relation to non-Jewish society has often been that of an outsider looking in. In addition, the distinct Jewish culture, religion, and philosophy identifiably marked the Jews as a separate people. Although this demarcation exposed the Jews to many negative ideological trends, Isaac Deutscher’s “The Non-Jewish Jew” argues that this marginalization enabled the great thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries to revolutionize the European continent. As the title suggests, the non-Jewish Jews were individuals that abandoned Judaism. Deutscher argues that the historical exclusion imbued Jewish people with the innate perspective of the external critic. When the individuals liberated themselves from the ideological shackles of Judaism this now double marginalization provided the perspective of the extreme outsider. Once freed from both the restrictions of Jewish and Christian ideology they were then able to reinterpret society and develop the theories that would revolutionize the world. Deutscher asserts that the famous non-Jewish Jews such as Spinoza, Heine, Marx, and others were representatives of this perspective. In essence, their independence from society enabled them to criticize and fundamentally change the ideological landscape of Europe in ways that other thinkers bound by Christian or Jewish ideology could not. However, with an analysis of Deutscher’s argument through Franz Kafka’s “A Report to an Academy” it becomes clear that his “Non-Jewish Jews” were not only dependent upon society, but also more importantly they were not actually Jewish.
Initially, Kakfa’s “...
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...by the subjects of Deutscher’s “The Non-Jewish Jew” are reflected and exhibited in Deutscher’s work. His assertion that Jews have a special ability to critically analyze society because of their historical isolation supports the same race based ideology that the historical figures worked against. Additionally, the association of Marx, Heine, and the others to this racially decided independence from society fails to acknowledge their deep connection to their non-Jewish culture. Therefore, through an analysis of Deutscher’s work through the context of Kafka’s “A Report to an Academy” it becomes apparent that Deutscher undermines his argument by failing to appropriately state the relevance of the historical figures connection to society and most importantly, by allowing racial inflections to manipulate his perspective of his subject revolutionary individuals.
Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief (2005), and Steven Spielberg, director of Schindler’s List (1993), both use their works to portray the theme of racism in Nazi-era Germany. Racism today affects millions of people daily, with 4.6 million people being racial discrimination in Australia alone. However, in Nazi-era Germany, Jewish people were discrimination because they weren’t part of the ‘master race’, causing millions to suffer and be killed. To explore this theme, the setting, characters, conflicts and symbols in both The Book Thief and Schindler’s List will be analysed and compared.
Although she always denied claims of having a distinct Jewish calling, being a second generation German Jewish immigrant, she has always been associated with Jewish New York. Wald has never laid claim to being a crusader for the Jewish people, and yet most of the information published about her comes from the Jewish community trying to sell her as an activist for the Jewish cause. Marjorie N. Feld gives readers a critical look into the life and work of woman dedicated to revealing the similarities of people not their differences. Lillian Wald’s story is an important one because she spent her life working towards a universal vision that would group people together and yet remembered by her difference from other progressive reformers of the time, being Jewish. In this book Feld describes Wald not as person fighting for a particular group, but a person fighting for humanity's equality.
Upon analysis of Night, Elie Wiesel’s use of characterization and conflict in the memoir helps to illustrate how oppression and dehumanization can affect one’s identity by describing the actions of the Nazis and
Truthfully, it was inevitable that Wiesel would find himself connected so deeply to his religious beliefs. “‘By day I studied the Talmud and by night I would run to the synagogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple’” (Wiesel 3), the boy’s passion for Judaism so prominent at the beginning and
In 1844, Karl Marx published the piece “Estranged Labor,” which touched upon four forms of estrangement and alienation of the Capitalist worker including estrangement of man from man, estrangement of man from his humanity, estrangement of man from the product of his labor, and estrangement of man from the act of labor itself. Just under a century later, the “normality and uniqueness of the Holocaust,” as described by Zygmunt Bauman, modeled Marx’s four estrangements. Found in his novel “Survival in Auschwitz,” Primo Levi’s Holocaust experiences served as an example of these four estrangements, representing the Lager as a heightened version of capitalist modernity.
Elie Wiesel’s hope, as well as the rest of the hundreds of Jews’, diminishes tremendously. They originally suppress their
Jewish emancipation in Germany dates from 1867 and became law in Prussia on July 3, 1869. Despite the fact the prominence which Jews had succeeded in gaining in trade, finance, politics, and literature during the earlier decades of the century, it is from the brief rise of liberalism that one can trace the rise of the Jews in German social life. For it is with the rise of liberalism which the Jews truly flourished. They contributed to its establishment, benefited from its institutions, and were under fire when it was attacked. Liberal society provides social mobility, which led to distaste among those who had acquired some place in a sort of a hierarchy. Although many were, not all anti-Semites were anti-liberal, but most anti-Semites opposed Liberalism’s whole concept of human existence, which provides much equality.
Gordon, Sarah. Hitler, Germans and the "Jewish Question." Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, 1984.
For thousands of years, the Jewish People have endured negative stereotypes such as the "insects of humanity." As Sander Gilman pointed out, the Nazi Party labeled Jews as "insects like lice and cockroaches, that generate general disgust among all humanity" (Gilman 80).1 These derogative stereotypes, although championed by the Nazis, have their origins many centuries earlier and have appeared throughout Western culture for thousands of years. This fierce anti-Semitism specifically surfaced in Europe’s large cities in the early twentieth century, partially in conjunction with the growing tide of nationalism, patriotism, and xenophobia that sparked the First World War in 1914. Today, one often learns the history of this critical, pre-WWI era from the perspective of Europe’s anti-Semitic population, while the opposite perspective—that of the Jews in early twentieth-century European society—is largely ignored. Questions like: "How did the Jews view and respond to their mistreatment?" and "How were the Jews affected mentally and psychologically by the prejudices against them?" remain largely unanswered. Insight into these perplexing social questions, while not found in most history books, may be discovered in a complex and highly symbolic story of this era: "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. Through the use of an extended metaphor, "The Metamorphosis" provides both a basic summary of the common views held against Jews and offers an insight as to what may be the ultimate result of Europe’s anti-Semitism. This work serves as a social commentary and criticism of early twentieth-century Europe. It fulfills two main functions: first, it provides an outline of the s...
Throughout the Holocaust, the Jews were continuously dehumanized by the Nazis. However, these actions may not have only impacted the Jews, but they may have had the unintended effect of dehumanizing the Nazis as well. What does this say about humanity? Elie Wiesel and Art Spiegelman both acknowledge this commentary in their books, Night and Maus. The authors demonstrate that true dehumanization reveals that the nature of humanity is not quite as structured as one might think.
The delineation of human life is perceiving existence through resolute contrasts. The difference between day and night is defined by an absolute line of division. For the Jewish culture in the twentieth century, the dissimilarity between life and death is bisected by a definitive line - the Holocaust. Accounts of life during the genocide of the Jewish culture emerged from within the considerable array of Holocaust survivors, among of which are Elie Wiesel’s Night and Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower. Both accounts of the Holocaust diverge in the main concepts in each work; Wiesel and Wiesenthal focus on different aspects of their survivals. Aside from the themes, various aspects, including perception, structure, organization, and flow of arguments in each work, also contrast from one another. Although both Night and The Sunflower are recollections of the persistence of life during the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel and Simon Wiesenthal focus on different aspects of their existence during the atrocity in their corresponding works.
Sokel, Walter H. “From Marx to Myth: The Structure and Function Of Self-Alienation In Kafka’s Metamorphosis.” Critical Insights: The Metamorphosis (2011): 215-230. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
By stating, “racism itself is dreadful, but when it pretends to be legal, and therefore just, when a man like Nelson Mandela is imprisoned, it becomes even more repugnant” and “one cannot help but assign the two systems, in their supposed legality, to the same camp” (Wiesel, p.1), the Holocaust survivor is creating solidarity within two separate decades that are connected by the government’s tyranny. The rationale behind constructing a system of unity is to ensure the lives of the oppressed, regardless of their personal beliefs and cultures. Mandela is not affiliated with the Holocaust, nor is he a Jew – rather the former President of South Africa who stood up against anti-black movements – but he is still bound by a common
Unlike many modern writers, Franz Kafka was heavily influenced by his religion and the culture that accompanied it. This interest caused him to maintain a substantial interest in the Yiddish Theater for the rest of his life. Kafka’s parents were very minimalistic regarding Judaistic practice, so Kafka did not embrace his spiritual culture until he moved away from his parents (Beck xii). Once he realized that there was a new outlet for him in spirituality, he identified as a Jew, but was uncertain in his beliefs after living for such a long time without religion (Wilson 1). Being that he was in a mentally turbulent state, his ambivalence toward religion was reflected in the confusion of The Metamorphosis. After taking interest in his religion, he began attending plays put on by the Yiddish Theater Troupe. More than anything, Yiddish ...
On May 5th, 1818, in Trier, Karl Marx was born of Heinrich and Henrietta Marx in the German Rhineland. Studies say that Karl’s family was of a large size, consisting of about four children: Karl, Sophie, Emilie, and Luise. His mother, whom belonged to a family of Hungarian Jews, died in 1863,yet was always considered to be a lovely wife and mother. The Jewish blood that ran through the family ultimately impacted Karl’s fate. When Karl was six years old, he adopted Christianity because at the time it was considered as an act of civilized progress. His father, a highly educated lawyer whom admired eighteenth century literature (of the French Enlightenment), was a “Prussian patriot” and a Jewish believer. Karl and his father held a personal relationship, to which they enjoyed a close friendship. His father did indeed influence him greatly, but Karl “did not believe in the power of rational argument to influence action,” (2) as did his father.