Suchergebnisse

This book is a reflection on the Jewish presence in two European capitals, Warsaw and Berlin, in the first half of the 20th century. It was inspired by the works of Polish-Jewish, Yiddish and German-Jewish authors, as well as by the connections between urban spaces and the formation of different varieties of modern Jewish identity. The spotlight is cast on images preserved in literary works, namely those concerning separate Jewish neighborhoods and the sphere of cultural interethnic contacts. By attempting to restore the presence of Jewish inhabitants of both cities, destroyed by the Holocaust, it may become possible to see how the imagined communities of the time were created and preserved in the texts, even if, in reality, the metropolises were transformed into necropolises.

One of the influential figures among Polish-Jewish writers in the first half of the twentieth century was Jakub Appenszlak (1894–1950)—an editor, author, essayist, theatre critic, translator, and community worker. I would like to focus on three of his texts in different genres. What such different forms as verse, novel, and manifesto have in common is the issue of identity—the complicated relation between Polish identity and Jewishness. Appenszlak, though deeply involved in Zionism, claimed that Polish culture was naturally dear to Polish Jews since the Polish language was also the language of Jewish literature and daily life as well as a being a system of signs and symbols which constituted the imagined Polish-Jewish community, so close to Polish Jews' hearts. Those signs and symbols can also be the models for shaping the modern Jewish national awareness.