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Editorial
One determining element in the history of the Jewish people
is life in the Diaspora, the dispersal or the exile. "How much Diaspora can
a human being bear?" is the question asked by the sociologists Daniel Levy
and Natan Sznaider, in one of the articles in this issue. They understand
Diaspora as an identity-building, positive term, nowadays corresponding to
the experiences of the broadest variety of ethnic or religious minorities.
Diaspora as a counter-concept to an exclusive, ethnic nationalism. –
Paradiso Diaspora?
The first dispersal the Bible tells us about is the expulsion from Paradise.
After the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish history
definitely turned into a history of Diaspora, which also reached Europe. The
first European Jewish communities were founded in the Roman Empire, where
almost 50.000 Jews lived in the ancient city of Rome.
In Italian, the words "Paradiso" and "Diaspora" consist of exactly the same
letters. The relationship between exile and paradise was also the starting
point for the exhibition Paradiso@Diaspora, which was designed in November
2000 by Meshulash, in cooperation with Jewish artists from Italy, and
presented in this issue. The small town Pitigliano, located in Southern
Toscany, is a recurring theme in this exhibition. Once upon a time, it was
also called "Little Jerusalem", when almost half the population was Jewish.
These days, only one Jewish woman, Elena Servi, lives there. But the
"Jewish" Pitigliano is enthusiastically commercialized by the tourism
industry. For the artists of the group Meshulash, Pitigliano turned into a
metaphor for artificial, putative Jewish tourist-paradises, full of kitsch
and commerce, but without any relation to the actual Jewish presence. In her
article "Jewish Disneyland – the Appropriation and Dispossession of
Jewishness", Iris Weiss demonstrates that many "Pitiglianos" exist all over
Europe.
Diana Pinto, on the other hand, shows how "modern" and "contemporary" the
heritage of the Italian Jews from the Renaissance times is: Their successful
balance between integrating with the outside world and the keeping their
Jewish identity — even though it only lasted for a short period of time —
can be an inspiration for Jews currently living in the Diaspora. We should
not forget: despite the existence of the state of Israel, the majority of
Jews voluntarily live in the Diaspora.
Even though, after 1939, the focus has shifted to the USA — without the
development of the Jewish Diaspora in Europe, Judaism as we know it today
would hardly be imaginable: Jewish religious philosophy, important branches
of Jewish music, the form of Jewish liturgy, masterpieces of Hebrew poetry,
Yiddish culture or the science of Judaism are examples for the great
heritage of European Jews. The openness towards other cultures, the
productive, often painful interaction with other peoples, have created an
enormous variety of regional and local Jewish cultural traditions, a theme
exceptionally well illustrated in this issue: Igor Chalmiev describes the
language of the "Mountain Jews" beyond the Caucasus, while Rudolf Németh
elucidates the point of intersection between Ashkenasi, Sephardic and
Hungarian music.
Judaism in Europe before the Emancipation derived its power and creativity
from the tense relationship between the place where people lived and the
lost, intensely desired and imagined place — Diaspora and Paradiso. European
Judaism presented a unity until the 18th century, despite local differences:
even without the existence of an institutionalised, hierarchic frame, it was
firmly tied up in economic, religious and social networks. Where does
Judaism in Europe stand today? After the profound rupture of the Shoah, is
it once again possible to speak about European Judaism in a formally united
Europe in the 21st century?
Despite globalisation, many Jewish communities in Europe are still bound to a
national context; Y. Michael Bodemann illustrates this in his article by
using the Berlin Jewish Community as an example. Members of the largest
European Jewish community, in France, seem particularly reluctant to open up
to new possibilities of European Jewish dialogue that transcend national
borders. The Jewish Diaspora in today’s Europe may be far from its
cosmopolitan traditions — still, all over Europe a lively Jewish culture is
resurging, seeking dialogue and exchange. The important thing is that Jewish
life can grow in all its variety, in Israel as well as in the Diaspora;
according to Jewish tradition, the "Shechina", the divine presence, can be
found everywhere.
Michael Frajman
For
Meshulash Berlin
Translated by Meike Wöhlert and Richard Tarasofsky
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