Jews, Germans, Memory: Reconstructions of Jewish Life in Germany

by Y. Michal Bodemann (Editor)

How was it possible that a new and sizeable Jewish community developed after the Holocaust in Germany of all places? Jews, Germans, Memory undertakes to assess the past, present, and future of German-Jewish relations in the light of recent political changes and the opening up of historical resources. This welcome new volume investigates how the groundwork was laid for the new Jewish community in the post-war period, with different objectives by Jewish leaders and German politicians. Its contributors touch upon history, literature, the media, ethnicity, politics, and social movements, and attempt to answer the question of how Jews are sociallyconstructed and how the glorious German Jewish past and the Holocaust have been remembered in the course of recent decades.
In recent years, German Jewry has seen fundamental transformations with the influx from Eastern Europe and a new leadership in the community. A new self-definition, even self-assurance and reappraisal in Israel and elsewhere, has evolved. Historians, scholars of cultural studies, and those interested in debates on memory and ethnicity will all find something of interest in this diverse volume.
Jews, Germans, Memory joins in debate Michael Brenner, Micha Brumlik, Dan Diner, Cilly Kugelmann, and Martin Löw-Beer, among the most prominent younger Jewish intellectuals in Germany today, with others who have long observed Germany from both inside and Y. Michal Bodemann, John Borneman, Andrei Markovits, Robin Ostrow, Moishe Postone, Frank Stern, and Jack Zipes.
Y. Michal Bodemann is Professor of Sociology, University of Toronto.

300 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 1996

About the author

Y. Michal Bodemann was professor emeritus, University of Toronto, sociologist, best known for his work on German Jewry, the concept of ideological labor and "memory theater" (1991) and his contributions to sociological praxis, interventive field work, in particular, his interventive observation method in qualitative field work. In the approach to interventive observation, Bodemann advocated the reciprocal nature of researcher and the people in a setting, as active participation, against the notion of the passive or neutral role of the observer. Bodemann's theoretical foundation continue to be influential against positivist notions of objectivity, which still persist in the field of sociology and in the approach to qualitative methods. His methodological approach is close to that of Michael Burawoy and notions of public sociology. Bodemann is best known for his contributions to Jewish studies, and Holocaust memory, and his concept of "ideological labour": where especially ethnic minorities are cast as representing values contrasting those of the larger society. He authored and edited numerous books, newspaper and academic articles, spanning the entirety of his academic career, in English, German and Italian.

Reviews

[Ksenija]

Read it for a paper I'm working on. I'd say it's a good piece, even though I didn't read through the entire thing.