The Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center (FRMRC) invites you to contribute to a volume which is supposed to be published in the Center’s new book series Studies in German-Jewish Cultural History and Literature (University of Chicago Press).
In her novel "Der blühende Busch – Wege nach Hause" (1964), the German-Jewish author Jenny Aloni, born in Paderborn, Germany, on September 07, 1917, and deceased in Ganei Yehuda, Israel, on September 30, 1993, creates the character of the farmer Jaakow-Gregor, a prototypical Zionist pioneer, who drained the swamps and grows oranges and other citrus fruit. Nevertheless, he is looking forward to the "Streuselkuchen" ("streusel cake"), a typical German cake, he will be honored with on the occasion of his his 65th birthday.
This blending of two symbolic spheres, the Israeli oranges and the German "Streuselkuchen," can be seen as one of the manifold ways German-Jewish writers relate(d) to Israel, and it leads to numerous questions:
- Which role does Israel play in female German-Jewish literature before the rise of virulent anti-Semitism and Zionism in the late 19th century?
- How did and do female German-Jewish writers relate to the land and state of Israel?
- How have their positions been influenced by the experience of the Shoa and exile respectively diaspora?
- What is the place of Israel in the texts of writers who found refuge from the Nazis in third countries and did not immigrate to Israel?
The volume with the title "Oranges and 'Streuselkuchen' – The State and Land of Israel in the Writing of Female German-Jewish Writers" intendes to discuss female views on Israel from the pre-state area of the Yishuv as well as from 1948 until today. Although a symposium in honor of Jenny Aloni, many other female German-Jewish writers from all ages and all places were subjects of this symposium.
Inspired by the fruitful discussions of a Jenny Aloni symposium which took place under the auspices of the FRMRC and the Leo Baeck Institute, Jerusalem in Fall 2005 in Jerusalem the focus should be widened for a volume on The State and Land of Israel in the Writing of Female German-Jewish Writers.
Topics for contributions to this volume include, but are not limited to:
- Zionism
- Israel as a metaphor
- Diaspora – Exile: Definitions of place
- Hebrew vs. German language
- Female Jewish identity
- Forms of autobiographic writing
- Shoa
- Judaism: Religion – Nation – Culture
The volume will be subject of a peer review process by Chicago U Press.
For preview, please send a short abstract of your article (200 to 300 words) before November 30, 2006 as RTF-file to:
rosenzweig@vms.huji.ac.il
attn. Corinna Kaiser and Michaela Wirtz
The deadline for accepted articles will be April 30, 2007.