Das Ich der Stadt : Debatten über Judentum und Urbanität, 1822-1938

Joachim Schlör. Habilitationschrift--universität, Potsdam. Includes Bibliographical (p. [466-]-501) References And Indexes. Referring to the Jewish journalist Moritz Goldstein, who in 1938, in exile from his beloved Berlin, wrote a work called "Die Sache der Juden" (unpublished) in which he proposed the foundation of a large city which would serve as a refuge for Jews, because Jews are natural city dwellers, explains, on the basis of a range of disciplines, why this was the case. Discusses the urban life style and the character of urbanites, focusing on Berlin. Though even in Berlin Jews never formed more than a small percentage of the population, they were an integral and influential part of the city's culture. Antisemites, who tended to be anti-urbanites, identified urbanism with Jews, attributing to life in the "asphalt jungle" the supposed Jewish characteristics of rootlessness, restlessness, hunger for sensation, diseased bodies and nerves, and moral depravity. Many Jewish thinkers, especially Zionists, held similar views. After 1933, the Nazis systematically severed the Jews' ties to the German city and the German landscape in order to force them to emigrate, and exterminated those who remained. Describes present-day trends in Jewish relations with the city, and notes that anti-urban antisemitic propaganda still occurs. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) 1938 plant der Berliner Journalist Moritz Goldstein im Exil die Rettung der Juden Europas. Weil die Not groß ist und die Errichtung eines Staates "lange, lange Zeit" erfordert, schlägt er die Gründung einer "Stadt Israel" vor - ein utopisches, ein chancenloses Projekt. Um Moritz Goldstein zu verstehen, analysiert Schlör Debatten über Judentum und Urbanität. Er untersucht die Geschichte modernen jüdischen Lebens in der Stadt, namentlich in Berlin, sowie die Geschichte einer Imagination: der des jüdischen "Stadtbewohners par excellence". Nicht nur durch die Thematik, sondern auch durch die Einführung von Methoden und Fragestellungen der kulturwissenschaftlichen Stadtforschung bereichert Schlör das Feld der wissenschaftlichen Jüdischen Studien