When the “Ostjuden” Returned: Linguistic Continuities in German-Language Writing about Eastern European Jews
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Mariusz Kałczewiak
Abstract
This article examines the dynamics that allowed the derogatory term “Ostjuden” to reappear in academic writing in post-Holocaust Germany. This article focuses on the period between 1980’s and 2000’s, complementing earlier studies that focused on the emergence of the term “Ostjuden” and on the complex representations of Eastern European Jews in Imperial and later Weimar Germany. It shows that, despite its well-evidenced discriminatory history, the term “Ostjuden” re-appeared in the scholarly writing in German and has also found its way into German-speaking public history and journalism. This article calls for applying the adjectival term “osteuropäische Juden” (Eastern European Jews), using a term that neither essentializes Eastern European Jews nor presents them in an oversimplified and uniform manner.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Special Section: Bildung and Therapy: German-Jewish Self-formation
- Dogmatism, Criticism, Divine Ideals: Rav A. I. Kook’s Concept of God in Light of H. Cohen
- Selbst-Bildungen. The Tradition of Comedy and the Emancipation of German Jews in Carl Sternheim’s The Snob
- “To Love the Rest of His Thoughts as Myself” – Translating Mendelssohn’s Singular Bildung
- Simon Szántó, Nineteenth Century Viennese Writer and Educator: A Study on Integration, Particularism, and the Ideal of Bildung
- „Ein modernes Verdeutschungs-Unternehmen“. Über die historische Semantik der Buber-Rosenzweig-Bibel
- Other Contributions
- Marx and Rosenzweig on Community and Redemption
- When the “Ostjuden” Returned: Linguistic Continuities in German-Language Writing about Eastern European Jews
- The Unsung Buber-Leibowitz Coda to the German Jewish Swan Song
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- Introduction
- Special Section: Bildung and Therapy: German-Jewish Self-formation
- Dogmatism, Criticism, Divine Ideals: Rav A. I. Kook’s Concept of God in Light of H. Cohen
- Selbst-Bildungen. The Tradition of Comedy and the Emancipation of German Jews in Carl Sternheim’s The Snob
- “To Love the Rest of His Thoughts as Myself” – Translating Mendelssohn’s Singular Bildung
- Simon Szántó, Nineteenth Century Viennese Writer and Educator: A Study on Integration, Particularism, and the Ideal of Bildung
- „Ein modernes Verdeutschungs-Unternehmen“. Über die historische Semantik der Buber-Rosenzweig-Bibel
- Other Contributions
- Marx and Rosenzweig on Community and Redemption
- When the “Ostjuden” Returned: Linguistic Continuities in German-Language Writing about Eastern European Jews
- The Unsung Buber-Leibowitz Coda to the German Jewish Swan Song
