Portable Homeland? German-Jewish Book Collections in Israel

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

The panel examines the history of book collections which were rescued from Germany in the 1930s and 40s to Mandate Palestine and Israel. The collection’s changing and conflicting meanings and functions are explored in three case studies: (1.) the German and Hebrew collections of Salman Schocken (Mahrer), (2.) the Nazi looted collections which were salvaged after the war by emissaries of the Hebrew University (Gallas), and (3.) private émigré collections (Jessen). Drawing upon a material culture’s approach the papers provide new insight into the ambivalent status of the so-called German-Jewish legacy in Israel.

The German-Jewish book collections brought to Mandate Palestine/Israel embodied European intellectual traditions and diasporic culture. From their owners and user’s perspective they signified the continuity and stability of these values, regardless of a changing environment. They functioned as “portable homeland”. But in a society, which had been confronted with the collapse of the ideals of Jewish acculturation, their function was subject to continuous negotiation. In the overall Zionist approach, which neglected Jewish past traditions, the cultural fragments from Germany were rather reduced to a commemorative function serving as relics of a catastrophic past. Thus, the German-language collections deliberately or involuntarily evoked the presence of former spiritual traditions and questioned a Zionist agenda that called for an autonomous, new Hebrew culture detached from European heritage.

The panelists will address perceptions of individual users as well as discussions within the heterogeneous public of the Yishuv/Israel in order to explore the different expectations, emotions, political functions, and commemorational purposes books were infused with. They could be regarded as sources of aesthetic pleasure and entertainment, vessels of family and collective memory, or even serve as foundation for new research in the young nation state. Thus, books encapsulated past, present, and future – and their conflicting claims. In the OLD-NEW HOMELAND the function of German-Jewish collections as a spiritual haven was strongly contested. Their fate is paradigmatic for the disputed role of German-Jewish traditions in Israel.

Sub Unit

• Modern Jewish History in Europe, Asia, Israel, and Other Communities

Chair

• Albert Lichtblau, Universität Salzburg

Individual Presentations

• Two Different Pasts − The German versus the Hebrew Book Collection of the Schocken Library - Stefanie Mahrer, Rosenzweig Minerva Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Past versus Future – The Salvage of German-Jewish Book Collections to Israel after 1945 - Elisabeth Gallas, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

• Too much Presence of the Past – the Dispersal of Émigré Book Collections in Israel - Caroline Jessen, Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach