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Between Ghetto and Zion: Margarete Susman's Mediations on Germany, Jewishness, and Culture, 1906-1916

Date Published:

9 Jan, 2012

Abstract:

The article discusses the German-Jewish author and philosopher Margarete Susman (1872-1966) and her interpretation of cultural Zionism around the First World War. Susman has largely disappeared from our cultural canvas in spite of the fact that she is one of the rare thinkers in German philosophical tradition for whom the challenge of idealism lies in its potential conversion into reality, and the force of beauty in its undeniable ethical appeal. In 1916 Margarete Susman wrote an extensive article in the Frankfurter Zeitung on the Zionist philosophy of Ahad Ha'am and Martin Bubber. Although the cultural journalist and former poet from the wider circle around Stefan George had already reflected on the question of Jewish identity in Germany in previous years, her strong interest in Zionism cannot just be explained by a sudden awareness of her Jewish descent. The 1916 article reveals a remarkable interpretation of cultural Zionism as a spiritual movement that is the real foundation of all political thought and any state. It has its roots in her belief in the meaning of spirit and art as truly regenerating forces, a belief she did not lose in spite of fact that she never turned a blind eye to the brutal reality of her time.

 

January 2012: Anke Gilleir is currently associate professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Leuven (Belgium). She has published on German women’s literature (18th--20th centuries), minority literature in Germany and Europe, gender and literature/literary theory, literature and politics, and historiography of literature. Some recent publications are: Women Writing Back/Writing Women Back: Transnational Perspectives from the late Middle Ages to the Dawn of the Modern Era. Leiden-Boston: Brill 2010 (with Alicia Montoya  and Suzan van Dijk); Textmaschinenkörper. Genderorientierte Lektüren des Androiden. Amsterdam: Rodopi 2006 (with Eva Kormann and Angelika Schlimmer). With Barbara Hahn (Vanderbilt University) she has co-edited a volume on the work of the German-Jewish author and philosopher Margarete Susman: Margarete Susma: Grenzgänge zwischen Dichtung, Philosophie und Kulturpolitik (Göttingen: Wallstein 2012).

 

Publisher's Version

Volume 10, Issue 2
Last updated on 04/16/2020