Morgenländischer Glanz. Eine deutsche jüdische Literaturgeschichte (1750–1850) by Kathrin Wittler

Abstract

Reviewed by: Morgenländischer Glanz. Eine deutsche jüdische Literaturgeschichte (1750–1850) by Kathrin Wittler Carsten Schapkow Kathrin Wittler. Morgenländischer Glanz. Eine deutsche jüdische Literaturgeschichte (1750–1850). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019. xii + 620 pp. This ambitious, innovative, and highly readable book of 620 pages—one does not want to miss a single page—is a "German Jewish literary history" based on Kathrin Wittler's 2016 dissertation deciphering the trope of Orientalism among Jewish writers—male and female, well-known and less known today—between 1750 and 1850 in the context of their own literary productions. In doing so, this study goes beyond existing works by Hans Otto Horch, Sander Gilman, Jack Zipes, and Andreas Kilcher. As has been well researched, within this time frame, a modern Jewish identity responding to the challenges of the era of emancipation (see, e.g., Michael A. Meyer's 1996 Deutsch-jüdische Geschichte in der Neuzeit) [End Page 202] and a distinct modern German national culture was developing, as well as the emergence of the academic field of (German) Orientalism. By not focusing on the last third of the nineteenth century and beyond, with its unique debates on German Jewish identities, Wittler urges us to pay attention to these eminent earlier debates. Thus, it is the goal of this book to emphasize the connectedness between academic subjects such as Germanistik, Jewish studies, and Orientalism by also applying current discussions on postcolonialism to it. As Wittler argues, Jewish writers did not express an affiliation with the Orient but rather a connection to particular "time spaces of the Orient," which were not exclusively attached to biblical topics. This thorough book is organized into five chapters and a conclusion covering these 100 years of literary history. This is the time frame when ideas and concepts on the emancipation of the Jews in Germany were debated—decisively well before Jews eventually became citizens in 1871. Treatises like the "Civic Betterment of the Jews" (1781) by Dohm led to wide-ranging responses amongst Jews and non-Jews in the belles lettres as well. The introductory chapter, "Orientalism in German Jewish literature," not only describes the scope and goal of the study but also provides a coherent analysis regarding the existing terminology and meaning of a "German Jewish literary history" with an emphasis on German Jewish as a nonhyphenated term. Wittler opens this chapter by raising the question of who (Jewish and non-Jewish authors) and what topics belong to this literature? According to her account, it makes a difference whether one is writing about a nonhyphenated "German Jewish" literature or the hyphenated variant. Instead of asking about the "contribution" of Jewish authors to German literature and looking for traces of "Jewish identity," Wittler "analyzes the literary procedures that were used around 1800 to (self-) attribute Jewish authorship and origin." Without doubt, the relation Jews had with German literature was an intimate one, arguably finding its first peak with Mendelssohn. A central category of analysis throughout her book is what Wittler terms self- or external Orientalism (Selbst und Fremdorientalisierung). Most strikingly, the author convincingly conveys and strengthens the Jewish voice in this regard by not renarrating the multiple existing accounts of Jews' passive modes of adaption. Instead, Jewish authors cultivated an "Oriental splendor" and thus expressed their own Jewish voice. This can be seen in Chapter 2, titled "On the Oriental Spirit of Hebrew Poetry: Jewish Traditions in the Competitive Field of Antiquities." The focus here is on Hebrew poetry as the central point of reference in the intellectual discourses mainly before 1800, which, as Wittler rightly points out, has thus far been widely neglected in scholarship. In these debates, Jewish writers like Mendelssohn, Ephraim, Behr, Kuh, and Ascher helped to establish a literary discourse with a distinct Jewish voice that was built on models of antiquity and that did not perceive Jewish literary traditions as Oriental and foreign to the Western canon but rather as an integral part of it. This Jewish voice has been denied by non-Jewish writers such as Breitenbach, Gleim, and Herder who did not recognize Hebrew writings mainly those of the Bible as part of the classical canon of the Western...