'Regarding the official Jewish Community in Berlin (top), the only thing to do is probably cry '
Photo: AP
The blue cloak of Judaism
One of Germany’s leading Jewish authors, Esther Dischereit, has definite ideas about Judaism, writing, Germany and Zionism
Esther Dischereit, the 55 year-old mother of two, is one of Germany’s most outstanding Jewish writers. Her better known works are contemporary, surreal, and down to earth and, to a great extent, even autobiographical.
Michal Bodemann, sociology professor at the University of Toronto and acclaimed writer for Germany’s prestigious weekly, Die Zeit, mentions Dischereit’s name in the same breath as that of intellectuals Hanno Lewy and Daniel Cohn-Bendit.
With titles such as “With Eichmann at the Stock Exchange”, “Joemis Table – A Jewish Story”, “Practicing at Being Jewish” and “Merryn” all published by the prestigious Suhrkamp Verlag – Dischereit has lectured around the world about her books and about being a Jewish woman in Germany.
Dischereit speaks in the same way that she writes. It is not always easy to make a distinction between her true beliefs and sarcasm or to know where her thoughts might be aimed at. Although Dischereit apologizes in advance for her “confusing style”, readers can count this interview as a one of her literary works in progress.
Your books, plays, poems, essays and work have covered a wide range of themes – including Korean student protests, prostitution, pedagogy, injustices committed by the East Germany regime as well as human trade and rights. However, you seem constantly drawn back to writing about your Jewish roots, which include elements of your mother and eldest sister’s survival. With this context in mind, what does being Jewish and a writer mean to you and why have you been drawn to writing about it?
Children of Holocaust survivors have a hard time with that. In any case, being Jewish is the description of a condition that shrouds all other conditions like thick fog.
Someone once described me as a “writer of our time.” Maybe that’s true. And maybe I write in the time of the Greek tragedies too. And maybe I also move around in the heavy, dark chambers of the turn-of-the-century, patriotic bourgeoisie, and stand in front of doors, which turn heavy and ponderous on their hinges to open up for literary salons and to allow the shedding of one’s Jewishness like a bulky shoe that has gone out of fashion.
Some people find it pathological - writing texts about something that affects me that has to do with me. As if being affected had a clearly unfavorable influence on the text. Being affected might have an unfavorable influence on my soul, but that isn’t anybody else’s business. The accusatory tone, how unpleasant. I am a complainant, a plaintiff, that is true. And a mourner.
Someone has to do it, right? Like Antigone mourns her brother. A blackness that hovers over the ripped open earth. She covers the body with dust. Crows and ravens peck at the furrows. Someone should be there and report to the world what could not be seen. And indeed everything could be seen.
I am a poet, always, even at breakfast, when dusty light shines down on my plate.
Being Jewish means nothing to me, absolutely nothing, and it means everything. I don’t seem to have the freedom to choose. The condition chooses me. My Jewishness, it is the blue cloak wrapped around me, which moves with me wherever I go. Invisible. A burden and light flowing gown.
I don’t take anything back—yes, the blue cloak—I can place the fabric on the ground, I can sit on it, I can fly away with it.
In Germany there is nothing to fly with. There the ground is heavy and the air drenched with history. I am just stating a fact, not criticizing it. Where else should history take its place? The debates that take place in Germany about us and our dead … I do not want to be ungrateful. Nowhere in Europe is such a great attempt made not to offend me, and I am nonetheless offended. But an attempt is being made, at least.
You have often been accused of being an anti-Zionist – in particular from Jewish community leaders. They equate your thoughts about a bi-national state as well as defense of Palestinian rights as being a bit traitorous. You would prefer not to be categorized as anything other than yourself. However, how do you deal with this issue and what does Israel mean to you?
Not being a Zionist is totally unacceptable these days. It has a clandestine terrorist touch to it. It is a position like standing outside of decent, reputable society—both Jewish and non-Jewish—in Germany today. It is macabre the way the discourse has changed. The critical self-reflection by the Left in Germany, to the extent that it took place, plays an important role here. Their discovery of their anti-Semitic or anti-American references has led in part to a total reversal of their beliefs.
Israel, what should I keep saying about Israel? This pressure to label myself is annoying. I think it would be really good if the fence would vanish and the Israelis would leave the West Bank—oh yes, and if the State of Israel could become a bit more secular, maybe that would be good. To be honest, I still subscribe to Martin Buber’s idea of a single Israeli-Palestinian national state.
But I am far away, I cannot know everything. And besides, I have no relatives in Israel. Oh yes, and I have never gone on vacation to Eilat’s beaches while the Israeli army goes around searching for olive trees and terrorists.
I know too little about Israel—other than that I could go there if I had to. They would even force citizenship on me, but then I would have to shed my anti-Zionist attitudes. I do not underestimate it, the fact that I could live there and go to the army, although I am probably too old for that. But my children! I couldn’t go to the Palestinians—that much I know. Despite all the love, I could hardly find a place there.
My friend tells me, Israel is the only country that would take in persecuted Jews without a question. And she asks, how many states take in persecuted Muslims? Many, she answers rhetorically. But who takes in Jews? Just Israel!
She’s right. And Israel also took in persecuted Bosnian Muslims. Hardly anyone knows that. Not many of them wanted to go there. But my dressmaker’s family was there. They did well; they even have Israeli passports now. I would prefer asking as a human being... Nowadays it is ridiculous to ask as a human being if anyone would take you in. And anyway, I want to say, I am not persecuted in Germany. That’s good.
Where is the best place for a Jew to live today?
Inside your body, and besides that, maybe in the States—I don’t know.
What are for you the advantages or disadvantages living in Germany as a Jew?
Those are the things that you don’t talk about publicly. I have certainly experienced losing a job because I am a Jew. On the other hand, being Jewish has also kept me from losing a job. People don’t talk about that. All in all, I have lost more jobs than I kept, but that may be for other reasons. My compatibility with systems appears to be rather low.
What spurred you to write?
A lack of word and an overflowing sense of self-esteem. I try to find the words and be proud of the result of my work.
How do you view the current state of affairs of the Berlin Jewish community?
Regarding the official Jewish Community in Berlin, the only thing to do is probably cry - I mean, who wants to be controlled by the Mafia? Liberal German Judaism, well, it is not there, it is simply no longer there - not a chance. Maybe the Jewish Museum should also run the Community for a while. Blumenthal, the former American Secretary of the Treasury at his best. Or the German Association of Trade Unions, they are also good administrators. And besides, they know how to work with members from the rank and file… as a kind of protectorate.
Reprinted by permission of European Jewish Press
