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ABSTRACT
While some of the founders of American cultural anthropology and British social anthropology were part of the transregional Jewish and non-Jewish German speaking community, Jewish anthropology, and anthropology by or on Jews in German-speaking countries, was seriously impacted by the Shoah. Some sources in the area of historical anthropology engage with Jews, who were anthropologists, and who were murdered or who fled, others focus on the appropriation of Jewish cultural heritage and zoom in on discourses about Jews. Living Jews are oftentimes covered in dissertations, after which the nascent ethnologist/anthropologist vanishes from academia, or leaves the country: research on living Jews seems an unsustainable career move. This paper is a first attempt to sketch out the developments of Jewish anthropology – in the broadest sense – in Germany post-1945. It will pay due attention to structures, societal, social, and academic; the place of anthropology within these structures; and Jews, as an ethno-religious group being researched by anthropologists (and other ethnographers); and the anthropologists/ethnographers who research them. By paying close attention to the anthropologists and ethnographers themselves, it is possible to “map the margins” (Crenshaw 1991) of anthropological and ethnographic work in an emotionalized, ideologized, and politicized field, a field that is indicative of post-genocidal intergroup relations in situ.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Behar, An Island Called Home; Brink-Danan, “Anthropological Perspectives on Judaism”; Ciment, Ashkenazi Jews in Mexico; Dominguez, People as Subject, People as Object; Frank, “Jews, Multiculturalism and Boasian Anthropology”; Konner, Unsettled; Kugelmass, Between Two Worlds.
2 Cole, Ruth Landes; Schneider & Handler, Schneider on Schneider.
3 Geisenhainer, “Jüdische Lebenslinien in der Wiener Völkerkunde vor 1938: Das Beispiel Marianne Schmidl”; Geisenhainer, “Verfolgung, Deportation und Ermordung – Die letzten Lebensjahre von Marianne Schmidl.”
4 Neller, “Robert Heine-Gelderns Exilzeit in den USA (1938–1949)”; van Loyen, Franz Baermann Steiner.
5 Gromova, Generation “koscher light”; Jungmann, Jüdisches Leben in Berlin; Kranz, Shades of Jewishness.
6 Personal email to author, May 5, 2021.
7 Hochschild, “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure”; Hochschild, The Managed Heart.
8 Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins.”
9 Becker, Ankommen in Deutschland; Jungmann, Jüdisches Leben in Berlin.
10 Bodemann, “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor.”
11 Hochschild, “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure”; Hochschild, The Managed Heart; Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins.”
12 Baumann, “Allosemitism. Premodern, Modern, Postmodern.”
13 Hauschild, “Christians, Jews, and the Other in German Anthropology.”
14 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
15 Bodemann, Gedächtnistheater, 16.
16 Ibid., 21.
17 Scheller, Die ZWST.
18 Kranz, “Navigating Mythical Time.”
19 DellaPergola and Staetsky, Jews in Europe at the turn of the Millennium.
20 Kranz, “Gegenwartstheater, oder mehr als eines Menschen Zeit.”
21 Maor, Über den Wiederaufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945.
22 Bodemann, “Introduction: The Return of the European Jewish Diaspora.”
23 Maor, Über den Wiederaufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945.
24 Geis, “Gehen oder Bleiben?”; Geller, Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1945–1953.
25 Geller, Jews in Post-Holocaust Germany, 1945–1953.
26 Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat.
27 Grabowsky, ‘Meine Identität ist die Zerrissenheit’.
28 Bodemann, “Introduction: The Return of the European Jewish Diaspora.”
29 Grünberg, “Folgen des Holocaust bei Kindern von Überlebenden in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.”
30 Grünberg, “Contaminated Generativity.”
31 Löw-Baer, “From Nowhere to Israel and Back.”
32 Kauders, Unmögliche Heimat.
33 Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!”
34 Geis, “Gehen oder Bleiben?”
35 Kranz, “(Friendly) Strangers in Their Own Land No More.”
36 Almog, “Illusory Diasporas.”
37 Dekel and Özyürek, “What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany?”; Kranz, “The Politics of Hospitality.”
38 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
39 Ibid.
40 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
41 Bodemann, “In den Wogen der Erinnerung.”
42 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
43 Nikou, Besuche in der alten Heimat.
44 Kuschner, Die jüdische Minderheit in der Bundesrepublik.
45 Grünberg, “Folgen des Holocaust bei Kindern von Überlebenden in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland”; Grünberg, “Bedrohung durch Normalität”; Grünberg, Liebe nach Auschwitz; Grünberg, “Contaminated Generativity.”
46 Bornemann and Peck, The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity.
47 Frerker, Junge Juden in Deutschland.
48 Inowlocki, “Normalität als Kunstgriff”; Inowlocki, Traditionalität als reflexiver Prozeß.
49 Peck, Being Jewish in the New Germany.
50 Interestingly, Jeffrey M. Peck evidences this issue for East and West Germany. His collaborative research with John Borneman concerned East Germany, while his single authored publication was published sixteen years after reunification. Peck also described how his work, as an American Jew in Germany, triggered other American Jews (Peck 2006).
51 Kranz, Shades of Jewishness.
52 Frerker, Junge Juden in Deutschland; Inowlocki, Traditionalität als reflexiver Prozeß; Kranz, Shades of Jewishness; Kranz, “Where to Stay and Where to Go?”
53 Gromova, “Jewish Dating or Niche-Making?”
54 Kuschner, Die jüdische Minderheit in der Bundesrepublik.
55 Frerker, Junge Juden in Deutschland.
56 Becker, Ankommen in Deutschland.
57 Weissberg, “Jewish Studies or Gentile Studies.”
58 van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman.”
59 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History.”
60 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
61 These three sources are written in English, bearing further evidence to the continuing fraught situation in Germany. Dirk Rupnow’s (2010) chapter on the relation of Nazi studies of Jews, and post-war Judaic studies is written in German but concerning Austria, and was published in a volume on the humanities and Nazism at University of Vienna. German and Austrian memorial cultures are markedly different. While they are relational, they remain mutually exclusive.
62 Hauschild, “Christians, Jews, and the Other in German Anthropology.”
63 O’Dochartaigh, “Philo-Zionism as a German Political Code”; O’Dochartaigh, Germans and Jews since the Holocaust.
64 Hagemann and Nathanson, Deutschland und Israel heute.
65 Kranz, “Ein Plädoyer für den Alloismus.”
66 Arnold and König, Flucht und Antisemitismus.
67 Czollek, Desintegriert Euch!; Kranz, “Where to Stay and Where to Go?”; Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft”; O’Dochartaigh, Germans and Jews since the Holocaust.
68 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
69 van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman,” 171–2.
70 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History”; van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman.”
71 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History,” 202.
72 Platt, Bezweifelte Erinnerung, verweigerte Glaubhaftigkeit.
73 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History.”
74 Jilovsky; Silverstein and Slucki (eds), In the Shadows of the Shadows of the Holocaust.
75 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
76 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History,” 201.
77 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft”; Wierling 2003, quoted in Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History,” 201.
78 Hymes, Reinventing Anthropology.
79 Bishop Kendzia, “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice.”
80 Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
81 Bodemann, “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor.”
82 Hochschild, The Managed Heart.
83 Geis, “Gehen oder Bleiben?” 68.
84 Bodemann, “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor.”
85 Frank, “Jews, Multiculturalism and Boasian Anthropology.”
86 Lowie, Towards Understanding Germany, 269–327.
87 Bauman, “Allosemitism. Premodern, Modern, Postmodern.”
88 Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab.
89 Ellis, The Ethnographic I.
90 Lowie, Towards Understanding Germany.
91 Hauschild, “Christians, Jews, and the Other in German Anthropology.”
92 Borneman and Peck, The Return of German Jews and the Question of Identity.
93 Bishop Kendzia, “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice”; Bishop Kendzia, Visitors to the House of Memory; Dekel, Mediation in the Holocaust Memorial, Dekel, “Jews and Other Others at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin”; Dekel, “Subjects of Memory?”; Kranz, “Ein Plädoyer für den Alloismus”; Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
94 Heilman, “Jewish Sociologist.”
95 Bishop Kendzia, “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice,” 61.
96 Thurn, Falsche Juden.
97 Collins, The Sense of the Meeting.
98 Bishop Kendzia, “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice.”
99 Weissberg, “Reflecting the Past, Envisioning the Future.”
100 Kranz, “Ein Plädoyer für den Alloismus”; Peck, Being Jewish in the New Germany.
101 van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman”; Weissberg, “Jewish Studies or Gentile Studies.”
102 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
103 Cronin 2018; van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman.”
104 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
105 Weissberg, “Reflecting the Past, Envisioning the Future.”
106 Weissberg, “Jewish Studies or Gentile Studies.”
107 Kranz, “Ein Plädoyer für den Alloismus”; Kranz and Ross, “Jüdische Selbstermächtigung in der deutschen Wissenschaftslandschaft.”
108 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
109 Bodemann 1988; Bodemann; “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor”; Bodemann; Gedächtnistheater; Czollek, Desintegriert Euch!; Kranz, “Ein Plädoyer für den Alloismus”; Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
110 Bodemann 1988; Bodemann, “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor.”
111 Cohen and Kranz, “Israeli Jews in the New Berlin”; Peck, Being Jewish in the New Germany.
112 Nail, The Figure of the Migrant.
113 Bodemann; “The State in the Construction of Ethnicity and Ideological Labor.”
114 Hochschild, “Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure”; Hochschild, The Managed Heart.
115 Becker, Ankommen in Deutschland.
116 Kranz, “Gegenwartstheater, oder mehr als eines Menschen Zeit.”
117 Vesper, Migrationsmotive und Selbstverständnis russischer Juden und ihrer Familien in Köln; Vesper, “Das Ringen und Selbstverständnis und Identität.”
118 My translations are literal in regard to the terms used to describe the immigrants.
119 Spülbeck, Ordnung und Angst.
120 Bodemann, Gedächtnistheater.
121 Dekel, Mediation in the Holocaust Memorial, Dekel, “Jews and Other Others at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin”; Dekel, “Subjects of Memory?”
122 Bishop Kendzia, “‘Jewish’ Ethnic Options in Germany between Attribution and Choice”; Bishop Kendzia, Visitors to the House of Memory.
123 Feldman and Paleikis, “Performing the Hyphen.”
124 Becker, Ankommen in Deutschland.
125 Bernstein, “Russian Food Stores as Transnational Enclave?”
126 Bernstein, Food For Thought.
127 Hegner, Gelebte Selbstbilder.
128 Gromova, Generation “koscher light”; Gromova, “Jewish Dating or Niche-making?”
129 Gromova, “Jewish Dating or Niche-making?” 15.
130 Schütze, “Warum Deutschland und nicht Israel?”
131 Inowlocki, “Normalität als Kunstgriff”; Inowlocki, Traditionalität als reflexiver Prozeß.
132 Kranz, Shades of Jewishness.
133 Kranz, “Where to Stay and Where to Go.”
134 Kranz, “Navigating Mythical Time”; Kranz, “Gegenwartstheater, oder mehr als eines Menschen Zeit.”
135 Fogel, Sag es mir; Grossmann, Schonzeit vorbei; Kranz, “Where to Stay and Where to Go?” 2015; Mounk, Stranger in My Own Country; Trzebiner, Die Enkelin.
136 First, Second, Third Generations, FSU and post-Soviet Jews as well as Israelis offer unmitigated insights by way of autofiction. These are beyond the scope of this paper, but they certainly deserve a paper of their own.
137 Glaser and Strauss, Awareness of Dying.
138 Konsortium Bundesbericht Wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs, Bundesbericht Wissenschaftlicher Nachwuchs; Ohm, “Exzellente Entqualifizierung”; UNESCO, “Women in Science.”
139 Glaser and Strauss, Awareness of Dying.
140 Schüler-Springorum, “Non-Jewish Perspectives on German-Jewish History,” 198.
141 Frank, “Jews, Multiculturalism and Boasian Anthropology.”
142 Anonymous.,“Wie heißen Deutschlands Professorinnen und Professoren?”
143 Portal Kleine Fächer. Europäische Ethnologie/Volkskunde 2018.
144 Portal Kleine Fächer. Europäische Ethnologie/Volkskunde 2021.
145 StudyCheck, Geschichte 2019.
146 StudyCheck, Geschichte 2021.
147 Crenshaw, “Mapping the Margins,” 1249.
148 van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman,” 183.
149 Lavie, Wrapped in the Flag of Israel.
150 Mizrahiut is constructed in opposition to Ashkenaziut, European Jewishness, in Israel. It is indicative of the historical power relationship between European, and non-European Jews, and defines Mizrahim as “other.” Some defined as Mizrahi Jews have themselves been arguing against this concept (Lavie 2012; Shohat 1999), albeit confirming that it is located within unequal, colonially, and post-colonially shaped power relations, including the Israel/Palestinian conflict. As a side issue, both Smadar Lavie and Ella Shohat are female academics.
151 Hauschild, “Christians, Jews, and the Other in German Anthropology.”
152 van Rahden, “History in the House of the Hangman.”
153 Kranz, “Thinking Big.”
154 Bauman, “Allosemitism. Premodern, Modern, Postmodern.”
155 Lowie, Towards Understanding Germany.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Dani Kranz
Dani Kranz is DAAD visiting professor at Ben Gurion University, Israel, and the director of Two Foxes Consulting, Germany and Israel. She has been conducting long-term fieldwork in Europe and the Middle East, and published on Jews and Israelis in Germany, and on non-Jewish migrants from the Global North in Israel. Together with Sarah M. Ross, HMTM Hanover, she is heading the DFG funded project “Knowledge Architectures: Mapping structures of Jewish heritagization processes on communal, organizational and academic levels in post-1945 Europe.”