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Stadt mit Jüdinnen: Jewish Women in H.K. Breslauer’s Die Stadt ohne Juden (1924)

Tue, December 18, 10:15 to 11:45am, Seaport Hotel & World Trade Center, Harborview 3 Ballroom

Abstract

Unlike the 1922 novel on which it is based, Austrian director H. K. Breslauer’s 1924 film Die Stadt ohne Juden features Jewish women as department store customers, mothers, wives, girlfriends, and synagogue congregants. Yet, they never engage in dialogue and, with one exception, they are always depicted together with men. Despite the film’s inclusion of Jewish women, it does little to disturb stereotypical representations of them. Although the film is intended to oppose antisemitism, its reliance upon stereotypical representations of Jewish women severely limits its ability to challenge the powerful social structures that govern their representation. This presentation explores how the representation of Jewish women in the recently restored film addressed contemporary anxieties about Jews’ appearance, behavior, and ability to pass as non-Jews. That a film intended as a critique of antisemitism ultimately cannot confront audiences with the absurdity of the system that creates it reveals the limits of interwar films intended for broad audiences in transmitting explicitly anti-antisemitic messages. Ironically, despite its inclusion of Jewish women, the film fails to critique the underlying social order that perpetuates antisemitism and inadvertently reinforces misogynist depictions of Jewish women as threats to society via their uncontrolled spending and uncensored demands and behavior.

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