This article aims at tracing the contours of the long and ambivalent history of the integration and assimilation of Jews to Austro-German Culture, by means of some literary renderings of this phenomenon. The beginnings of this process are to be found in the late 18th century, but its literary reflections shine well into the 21st century. The contraposition between an essentialist understanding of culture and a ...
In the Hebrew Bible, the phenomenon of war is portrayed as having a direct connection to God. The divine protection of the people of Israel is at the root of biblical theology. In David Grossman’s A Woman Flees (Isha borachat min ha-bessora), as in Homeric poetry, the realities of war and warriors are contrasted with the realities of common people, and the narrative creates a vast abyss, separating these two sp...