Pap Károly feltámadása

Author(s): János Kőbányai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2011

„Már az éjszaka volt valami jel: három órakor fel kellett kelnem, s írtam egy kis cikket a Pap Károly új novellás könyvérôl. (A könyv elragadott, s Pap Károlyt a legkülönb magyar zsidó írónak tekintem. Már régen, de ez az új könyve megerôsített ebben a hitemben. Ez egy igen nagy író, s csodálatos, mennyire nem bír érvényesülni. A fajtája nem akar nagy írót, hanem nagy hízelgôt. De meg vagyok gyôzôdve felôle, hogy ha összeköttetést tud kapni a világirodalom nagy zsidóival, akkor világszerte híres író és gazdag ember lesz belôle. A zsidóságnak a mazochista rétege fogja felfedezni.)” Ezeket a sorokat Móricz Zsigmond írta a naplójába 1936-ban. Az odavetett feljegyzés minden szava lényegbevágó. Kora és az egyetemes magyar irodalom egyik legnagyobb prózaírója egyszerre minôsítette Pap Károlyt nagy írónak és zsidó írónak – s ez nála nem esztétikai vagy szociológiai különbségtevés, hanem magától értetôdô, természetes megállapítás: a jelenség hangsúlyos néven nevezése. Hátterében az áll, hogy ô már egy másik zsidó író, Komor András Fischmann S. utódai címû regénye kapcsán írt egy szintén lelkesen befogadó cikket, amelyben kifejtette, hogy a zsidó íróknak nem a keresztény társadalomábrázolás utánzásával kellene foglalkozniuk – amelyet nem vagy csak felületesen ismernek –, hanem épp ellenkezôleg: a zsidó világot lenne tanácsos az irodalom közegébe be- és felemelniük – éppen azért, mert azt ismerik anyanyelvi szinten, hiszen az a sajátjuk. A keresztény társadalmat pedig zsidó szemszögükbôl lenne érdemes ábrázolniuk – ahogy ôk látják azt, illetve magát a viszonyt, amit a velük való együttélés jelent.

1967 (kornovella)

Author(s): János Kőbányai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2011

„Néha furcsa hangulatban / Az utcát járom egymagamban, / Nincsen semmihez se kedvem, / De érzem azt, hogy nincs ez rendben így” – énekel benne, már tôle függetlenedve a furcsa, szomorkás, de ugyanakkor vigasztalóan elringató dalocska, amit aznapi dúdolgatásra munkába indulás elôtt a rádióból csípett fel s a délelôtti tánczenei koktélban is megismételtek. Az Adócsôgyár mûszakirajz-szerkesztôirodájában többszöri tiltás, fômérnöki dörgedelmek, a tiszta, világos munkahelyrôl eltávolítás kilátásba helyezése ellenére is, lázadó makacssággal megszólal minden szerdán délelôtt tíz negyvenötkor Komjáthy György mûsora a bejárati ajtó szárnyai felett elhelyezett hangszóróból, amely a gyár összes dolgozóját érintô közleményeket teszi közhírré, vagy az olyan országos érdeklôdésre számot tartó eseményeket, mint a Szovjetunió Kommunista Pártja vagy a Magyar Szocialista Munkáspárt kongresszusainak záró nyilatkozatai, avagy, alig egy hónapja – nem minden meghökkentô hatás nélkül, hiszen olyan távol történt, s miért éppen ezt, hiszen annyi dúl belôle – a késôbb hatnaposnak nevezett háború elsô napjainak hadijelentéseit. A tizenöt rajzasztal jó részén fiatal, technikumból frissen kikerült szerkesztôk dolgoznak, többségükben fiúk, akik – mintegy az iskolai és a munkahelyi fegyelem közötti mezsgye lépésrôl lépésre történô kiszélesítéseként – óvatosan nyakba ereszkedô hajat s szintén lefelé merészkedô-szélesedô barkót viselnek, a mûsor szignáljának fölhangzásakor összeesküvô mosollyal a bajszuk alatt, szemükkel a hasonló korú lányokat keresve, a lemezlovas kötelezô szószát követô isteni muzsika ritmusait megelôlegezendô, kezdik jobbra-balra dobálni a fejüket.

Régi-új antiszemitizmus Magyarországon a második intifáda tükrében (esszé)

Author(s): János Kőbányai / Language(s): Hungarian Issue: 4/2011

Minden országnak ahogyan megvan a maga sajátos nyelve, története, kultúrája, úgy a mindezekhez szervesen hozzátartozó, szintén csak a rá jellemzôen sajátos viszonya a zsidókhoz, s így az antiszemitizmushoz is. Minden újabb, a zsidósággal kapcsolatos esemény e régi hagyományra épül rá, s ebbôl vált ki friss reakciókat. Az úgynevezett európai „új antiszemitizmus” feltámadását nem a jelenlegi izraeli–palesztin konfliktus eseményei idézik elô, hanem az a mélyebb (a holokausztban már egyszer igazi arcát leleplezô), ezeréves európai– zsidó konfliktus – ama régi – talált benne alkalmat és ürügyet, hogy ismét feltámadjon. Alig leplezett vágy, hogy az izraelieket (a zsidókat) ugyanolyannak lássák, mint az európaiak kénytelen- kelletlen saját magukat: a holokauszt elkövetôinek. Hiszen az a narratíva is egyre nehezebben tartható tovább, hogy holokauszthoz csak a németeknek lenne közük – épp ellenkezôleg: világosodik ki lassan a kép – szinte az egész Nyugatés Kelet-Európát egyesítô közös tett volt.

One in Four

Author(s): Tibor Péter Nagy / Language(s): English Issue: 01-02/2000

A comprehensive review on András Kovács' A különbség köztünk van (The Difference is between Us: Anti-Semitism and the Yound Elite).

Recensioni – Reviews – Rezensionen

Author(s): Author Not Specified / Language(s): German Issue: 3/2005

Gretel Adorno: Walter Benjamin. Briefwechsel 1930-1940. Herausgegeben von Christoph Gödde und Henri Lonitz. Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag 2005, 434 S. Hans Keilson: Romane und Erzählungen, Gedichte und Essays. Hg. Von Heinrich Detering und Gerhard Kurz. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, 2 Bände, 587 u. 511 S. Jews in the bulgarian lands. Ancestral Memory and Historical Destiny, Emmy Barouh (ed.), Judaica Bulgarica, International Center for Minority Studies and Intercultural Relations, Sofia 2001 (ISBN 954-8872-35-8) Moshe Zimmermann, Deutsch-jüdische Vergangenheit: Der Judenhaß als Herausforderung. Paderborn, München, Wien, Zürich, Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag 2005, 308 S.

Isolation or Symbiosis? Social and cultural relationships between Jews and Non-Jews in Medieval Europe

Author(s): Edith Wenzel / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2005

Well into the 1990s, the scholarly discourse on the relationship between Jews and Christians in the Middle Ages was generally approached from two directions, both heavily infl uenced by ideology and largely mutually exclusive: One position can be characterized somewhat simplistically by the term of ”symbiosis”. It presupposes a more or less undisturbed co-existence of Jews and Christians and a Jewish participation in Christian culture. This position was generally favoured by the representatives of the ”Wissenschaft des Judentums” in the late 19th and early 20th century. The other position is opposed to this concept. Representatives of this position stress the total isolation of the Jews in the context of a Christian culture. Some scholars maintain that this isolation resulted from the hostility of the Christian world; others also emphasize a self-imposed isolation. An example is the statement of Michael TOCH in his introduction to the history of the Jews in medieval Germany (1998): “For the a very long time two opposing and mutually exclusive positions, each infl uenced by a different world view, have dominated the way in which we view the relationship between Christians and Jews in the Middle Ages. The fi rst position is characterized by the concept of confl ict and holds that Jews were largely, if not completely, isolated - an isolation that, depending upon the observer’s starting point, was either self infl icted or seen to have been imposed by an antagonistic environment. (...)

Dello scrivere oscuro: Paul Celan e Primo Levi

Author(s): Ulisse Dogà / Language(s): Italian Issue: 3/2005

Memoria smisurata, memoria insuffi ciente. Un seminario a Urbino

Author(s): Paola Di Cori / Language(s): Italian Issue: 3/2005

Die Grauzone des Menschlichen - Zur Problematik der Zeugenschaft in Giorgio Agambens "Quel che resta di Auschwitz"

Author(s): Silke Segler-Messner / Language(s): German Issue: 3/2005

La « belle Juive », avatars d’une figure de l’Autre en littérature française

Author(s): Ewa Maczka / Language(s): French Issue: 8/2010

La littérature française est prodigue en figures de femmes juives. Au fil du temps, l’image de « la Juive » se fixe dans la mentalité occidentale, mythe reflétant de grandes tendances politiques, historiques, sociales et intellectuelles et évoluant avec elles. Elle émerge au Moyen Âge et au XIXe siècle et connaît l’épanouissement comme la « belle Juive ». Ce personnage fictif et polymorphe porte certains traits constants qui constituent l’essence même de sa figure exemplaire et traduisent le rapport ambivalent de l’Occident à l’Autre. Car « chaque époque et chaque société recréent ses propres “autres” » (Said 2005: 358) et le Juif est l’Autre par excellence. Sa marginalisation s’opère par l’exclusion religieuse, par la juridiction antijuive, par une certaine imperméabilité culturelle, qui obère les échanges. Dans ce contexte, la « belle Juive » révèle le degré d’interdépendances et d’interactions entre les sociétés non juive et juive. Parallèlement, cet archétype traduit aussi, dans une sphère plus individuelle, le fantasme de l’Autre comme objet du désir et de l’interdit, d’autant plus troublant que le Juif, bien que socialement identifié, se (con)fond physiquement

To Learn and to Remember from Others: Persians Visiting the Dura-Europos Synagogue

Author(s): Touraj Daryaee / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

The city of Dura-Europos1 in modern day Syria provides a microcosm of multi-ethnic and multi-religious life in the late ancient Near East. Although there are debates as to the exact date of the conquest of the city, the year 256 CE appears to be the most plausible date in which the King of Kings, Šāpur I took Dura.2 In the third century, the city was abandoned and so the life of Dura came to an end after more than half a millennium of existence.3 Its apparent sudden abandonment has made it a wonderful archaeological playground for studying life in the third century CE on the border of the Irano-Hellenic world of antiquity. The city had changed hands several times since its creation in the fourth century BCE by the Seleucids to when Mithradates II (113 BCE) conquered it and brought it into the Arsacid imperial orbit, where it emained for three centuries. The Arsacid control of a trading town or as it was once called a caravan town, works well with the story that Mithradates II, several years before the takeover of Dura-Europos, had concluded an agreement with the Chinese Emperor Wudi for trade cooperation. In the larger scheme of things, these activities, no matter how accurate the dating is, suggest the idea that the Arsacids may have been thinking of the creation of a large trade network as part of what modern historians have called the “Silk Road.” Dura was subsequently conquered in the second century CE by Emperor Trajan (115–117 CE) and later, in 165 CE, by Avidius Cassius, after which it stayed in Roman hands for almost a century. The Sasanians in turn conquered the city in 256 CE.

The Statute Organizing the Followers of the Law of the Old Testament in the Free City of Kraków and its Environs: Origins,History, Regulations

Author(s): Anna Jakimyszyn / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

The year 1815 saw the emergence of a new State on the map of Europe – the Free City of Kraków, which, because of its affiliation to the small group of European Republics, was also referred to as the Republic of Kraków. The Free City of Kraków stretched along the left bank of the River Vistula, bordering to the west with the Kingdom of Prussia, to the north and east with the Kingdom of Poland and to the south with the Austrian Empire. Its total surface area was 1150 km², which – apart from Kraków which became the capital – also contained three small private towns, Chrzanów, Nowa Góra and Trzebinia, as well as 244 villages

The Hasmoneans and the Religious Homogeneity of Their State

Author(s): Edward Dąbrowa / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

The conquest of the Near East by Alexander of Macedon began a new era in the history of this region. This pregnant event was quite differently perceived and judged by contemporaries in conquered lands, Palestine among them. To those, the Macedonian’s victory over the Persians meant little more than one hegemonist replacing another. It must have been with concern, or perhaps with hope, that they awaited possible changes under the new political arrangement. We know little about Alexander’s direct rule over Palestine, but the historical evidence we have suggests that the behavior of local populations in the area did not always meet the expectations of Macedonian conquerors. One example may be seen in the attitude of the Jerusalem Temple’s high priest, who, despite Alexander’s superiority at arms, firmly declared his loyalty to the Persian king (Jos. AJ 11, 317–319), while some in Samaria’s elites chose to follow their self-interest and did not hesitate to join the conqueror (Jos. AJ 11, 321–324; 340–345). Although local elites and communities declared their willingness to cooperate with the Macedonian monarch, there were no avoiding tensions and conflicts between locals and newcomers. One such instance was a mutiny in Samaria city against the Macedonians, during which the Syrian governor Andromachus was killed. In retaliation, the rebellion was quenched in blood and Macedonian settlers were brought into Samaria. Stability in the new political arrangement was helped by the religious tolerance the Macedonian conquerors showed to the local population. Interested mainly in exploiting the conquered territory, they did not intend to interfere with the inhabitants’ life or impose their own practices. Such a state of affairs was in effect during the life of Alexander of Macedon and throughout the rule of the Ptolemies, who overran southern Palestine in the late 4th century BCE. Great changes in Palestine, and especially in Judea, did not occur until the Seleucid rule, which came about following Antiochus III’s victory over Egyptian forces in the battle of Panion (198 BCE).

The Image of Non-Jews in a Text by Abramovitch: A Close Reading of The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third

Author(s): Agata Kroh / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

In the nineteenth-century European literary tradition the Jew is represented as “the Other”. The general image is a stereotypical description of the Jew as a parasite, a sorcerer or a villain. Even when one can specify and set down the linguistic, geographical and historical circumstances in which particular novels and stories were written, many of them incorporate the figure of “the Jew” as a construct that plays a particular role in the narrative.1 Alongside the development of the European fiction, within the Jewish literary context, the new-Hebrew and Yiddish literatures are born and mature. The writers simultaneously bring in distinct features characteristic of the Jewish background, languages and context, while they also look towards European literary models and pattern their prose, to some extent, on the European style.

The Relations between Jews and Christians as Reflected in the Yiddish Songs by Mordechaj Gebirtig

Author(s): Elvira Grözinger / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

I just want to make an introductory note: I – like Marcin Kula in his book on the “Stubborn question. Jewish? Polish? Humane?” – am very well aware of the fact that the definitions “Jew” and “Christian” are not satisfactory. But as Gebirtig was a Pole and at the same time a traditionally raised and educated religious Jew, I decided to use this terminology in this article, which deals with Polish-Jewish relations before the Second World War and includes the relations with the Germans after the invasion of Poland in September 1939. As far as I can see, the topic of the relations between Jews and Christians has now shifted into the centre of academic interest in Poland, judging by the significant number of books and articles published on the subject. These relations, having, as I mentioned, also included the Germans, thus created a triangle full of tensions which are also a topic of research and discussion within the Polish literature of the last twenty years.

David M. Jacobson & Nikos Kokkinos (eds.), Herod and Augustus. Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st–23rd June 2005

Author(s): Edward Dąbrowa / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

REVIEW - David M. Jacobson & Nikos Kokkinos (eds.), Herod and Augustus. Papers Presented at the IJS Conference, 21st–23rd June 2005 (IJS Studies in Judaica – 6), Brill, Leiden–Boston 2009, pp. 502, b/w ill. ISSN 1570-1581, ISBN 978-90-04-16546-5

Julius Cassianus, Pseudo-Thallus, and the Identity of ‘Cassius Longinus’ in the Chronogaraphia of Eusebius

Author(s): Nikos Kokkinos / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

Eusebius’ Chronika was a remarkable achievement in the field of ancient chronography, not least as the conclusion of extensive research running since the beginning of the Hellenistic period. It was a double work, composed some time before AD 311 and expanded shortly after AD 325. The first part, now usually called Chronographia, was a detailed introduction, aiming at collecting the raw material from all sources then available, and setting out the plan of the project. The second part, known as Kanones (Chronikoi Kanones), which carried its own preface, was a grand exposition (utilising the data of the first part) in the form of a table consisting of up to nine parallel columns to be read across, thus presenting a synchronistic universal history at a glance.1 Only fragments survive of the Greek original, primarily in George the Syncellus (ca. AD 800) and an anonymous excerptor (known as ‘Excerpta Eusebiana’ from a MS of the 15th century AD). But we have a nearly complete Armenian translation (earliest copy ca. 13th century AD), a Latin translation of the second part by Jerome (with his own preface and extended to AD 380/1), as well as two Syriac epitomes, one of which is believed to have been compiled by Joshua the Stylite (8th century AD), and other witnesses including two very early Arab chroniclers, one being Agapius of Hierapolis, ca. AD 942.

Familiarization with the Polish Diaspora. Selected Legends of the Mediaeval Jews

Author(s): Stefan Gąsiorowski / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

There is no need to prove the significant role played by legends, myths and stereotypes in the history of the world. Also in the Polish lands, we can find many stories connected with the history of the Jews. There is still no comprehensive study on legends concerning Jews in mediaeval Poland, but we already have the book by Haya Bar-Itzhak, a professor of Comparative Hebrew Literature at the Haifa University. An exception here may be the well-known legend about the love affair between King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great) and the Jewish girl Esther, which has been widely described in many works. Of special importance is the book written by the eminent literary historian and linguist, Chone Shmeruk, entitled “Legenda o Esterce w literaturze jidysz i polskiej” (The Legend of Esther in Yiddish and Polish Literature)

Jewish Legends from Kraków

Author(s): Karl E. Grözinger / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

When I came to Kraków for the first time several years ago and tried to get some information about the Jewish Kraków, among the first-hand information I was offered in the bookshops were a few small booklets with legends about the Jews in this town. This is nothing special, for wherever one goes as a tourist one gets the same genre of literature: local legends and tales. It seems, therefore, that the popular legends indeed offer the first-hand information about the specific climate and the self-estimation of the inhabitants at a specific place. It is obviously the tales of a city that infuse life to its stones and places more than all exact historical data one can gather. The legend gives, so to speak, a short-hand résumé of the most typical and central features as well as the spirit of a place.

Review - Anna Jakimyszyn, Żydzi krakowscy w dobie Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej. Status prawny – przeobrażenia gminy – system edukacyjny

Author(s): Łukasz T. Sroka / Language(s): English Issue: 8/2010

REVIEW - Anna Jakimyszyn, Żydzi krakowscy w dobie Rzeczypospolitej Krakowskiej. Status prawny – przeobrażenia gminy – system edukacyjny [The Jews of Kraków in the Times of the Republic of Kraków], Austeria Publishing House, Kraków–Budapest 2008, pp. 368; ISBN 978-83-89129-67-3