Kathrin Wittler

“Good to Think”

(Re)Conceptualizing German-Jewish Orientalism

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw a perplexing variety of orientalizations of Jews and self-orientalizations by Jews which have lately received increasing scholarly attention204 and exhibition space.205 The most well-known – but by no means only – example in the German context is the fascination with the heyday of Jewish culture in al-Andalus, which found its most visible expression in Moorish-style synagogues from Budapest to Berlin206 and its most sophisticated literary articulation in Heinrich Heine’s poem “Jehuda ben Halevy,” published in 1851 as part of his Hebrew Melodies.207 Links such as these between the history of German orientalism and the ...

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