Die Ghettogeschichte: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung by Kenneth H. Ober (review)

Abstract

1052 Reviews Die Ghettogeschichte: Entstehung und Entwicklung einer Gattung. By Kenneth H. Ober. (Kleine Schriften zur Aufklarung, n) Gottingen: Wallstein. 2001. 160 pp. ?19. ISBN 3-89244-480-3 (pbk). In the second half of the nineteenth century,ghetto fictionenjoyed great popularity in Germany. Stories depicting traditional Jewish life were not only published in Jewish periodicals and by Jewish publishers, but also made it onto the pages of such mainstream family magazines as Die Gartenlaube. This in itselfwould warrant a closer look at this all-but-forgotten genre; but ghetto fictionalso represents a unique opportunity to study how a minority group in Central European society presented and represented itself to readers from the minority group itself and to contemporary society at large. Kenneth H. Ober's book provides a survey of the genre from its beginnings in the late 1840s down to its late blossoms in the twentieth century. Ober follows the develop? ment of the ghetto story from the early pioneers (Leopold Kompert and Aaron Bernstein ), their immediate disciples (Michael Klapp, Leo Herzberg-Frankel, and Eduard Kulke), and the 'Meister der Gattung' in the 1870s (Karl Emil Franzos and Nathan Samuely) to the latecomers around the turn ofthe century and beyond. While some of the earlier writers are already known to experts, Ober draws attention to some names that were hitherto virtually unknown, such as Bernhard Auerbach, Max Griinfeld, Ida Oppenheim, Ulla Hirschfeld-Wolf, Moritz Steinhardt, Arthur Kahn, Hermann Blumenthal, Selig Schachnowitz, and others. All the major stories of these writers are introduced by way of plot summaries which highlight the predominant themes of this genre and hence illustrate pertinently the writers' preoccupations and concerns. This efforthas the makings of a thematic history of the ghetto genre which differsfrom , and hence complements, the geographic approach adopted by Gabriele von Glasenapp in the only other comprehensive modern monograph on the genre, Aus der Judengasse: Zur Entstehung und Ausprdgung deutschsprachiger Ghettoliteratur im ig. Jahrhundert (Tubingen: Niemeyer, 1996). Unfortunately, Ober does not take issue with Glasenapp by presenting arguments to show why his chronological approach offersinsights distinct from Glasenapp's differentiation between, for example, Galician and Bohemian ghetto literature. Very useful, however, is Ober's comprehensive listing of his primary sources (complete with their shelfmarks in the Polish, Danish, American, and German libraries where copies of some of these rare books are still available). Regrettably, the bibliography of secondary titles omits some of the more recent contributions on this genre. The appendix also includes a reprint of Nathan Samuely's obituary of the ghetto painter Moritz Gottlieb, whose masterpiece Betende Juden in der Synagoge am Versohnungstageadorns the cover of Ober's book. Further visual depictions of Jewish home life by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim are to be found inside. The introductory chapter draws attention to the Danish origins of ghetto fiction. Meir Goldschmidt, author of EnJ&de (1845), was known to both German pioneers of the genre, Kompert and Bernstein, as Ober proves convincingly. Thus Ober's book is welcome and useful, but it does not take the discussion of its topic far enough. It is hampered by a very restrictive definition of Ghettogeschichte which leads to the exclusion of ghetto novels such as Karl Emil Franzos's Der Pojaz {1905). Furthermore, it uses the criterion of authenticity ('echt' is the word Ober prefers in his evaluation of the quality of any individual story), which begs the question: how can one know today which depictions of traditional Jewish lifeare indeed accurate and true to life? Ober does not discuss the reasons for the emergence of this genre at this very time (whether in Denmark, Germany, or Habsburg Austria), the reasons for the apparent need to remember Jewish roots, and hence the function of these texts in the process of modern Jewish identity formation. He does not make a clear distinction between those authors who take issue with rabbinical fanaticism in Poland and Gali? cia, and those who depict the difficulties of modernization in the communities of the MLRy 98.4, 2003 1053 Western Land- and Kleinstadtjuden (e.g. Mosenthal and Arthur Kahn?the latter,by the way,a real discovery). He uses Oppenheim'spictures as illustrations of ghetto customs when the clothes of his figures...