America Abandoned: German-Jewish Visions of American Poverty in Serialized Novels by Joseph Roth, Sholem Asch, and Michael Gold

In 1930, Hungarian- born Jewish author Arthur Holitscher’s book Wiedersehn mit Amerika: Die Verwandlung der U.S.A. (Reunion with America: The Trans-formation of the U.S.A.) was reviewed by one J. Raphael in the German- Jewish Orthodox weekly newspaper, Der Israelit. This reviewer concluded: “Despite its good reputation, America is a strange country. And Holitscher, whose relationship to Judaism is not explicit, but direct, has determined that to be the case for American Jews as well.” The reviewer’s use of the word “strange” (komisch) offers powerful insight into the complex perceptions of America held by many German- speaking Jews, which in 1930 were at best mixed and ambivalent. An earlier travel book by Arthur Holitscher (1869– 1941) from 1912 depicts America more favorably, though it is widely believed to have provided inspiration for Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel, Amerika: Der Verschollene (Amerika or The Man who Disappeared, published posthumously in 1927), which famously opens with a description of the Statue of Liberty holding aloft a sword rather than a torch. [excerpt

Front-Page Jews: Doris Wittner\u27s (1880-1937) Berlin Feuilletons

In ‘Die jüdische Frau und das jüdische Buch’ (The Jewish woman and the Jewish book), an article published 18 March 1931 on the front page of the Jüdisch-liberale Zeitung, Doris Wittner included the following lines that concisely sum up her pioneering ideological and political agendas: ‘Aber bis der endgültige Rechtspruch über des Weibes Ruf und Berufung erfolgt, werden wir jedem Frauengeist, der “strebend sich bemüht”, Anerkennung und Ehrerbietung zollen. […] Insbesondere unsere Glaubensgenossinnen, die gewohnt sind, Menschenlose nur nach Jahrtausenden zu messen.’ With such feuilleton articles, Wittner worked to validate women’s contributions to professional spheres, particularly literature and journalism; to offer both Jewish women and men due credit for their achievements in light of growing antisemitism; and to advocate for the special talents of Jews due to their historical and cultural connections. That this article appeared on the front page of this liberal Berlin Jewish newspaper is no less telling, as Wittner was a regular contributor whose pieces often earned prominent display. Indeed, part of what makes Wittner a journalist of note is the fact that her work appeared with surprising frequency on front pages or in other prominent positions in both general and Jewish publications. [excerpt

Kosher Seductions: Jewish Women as Employees and Consumers in German Department Stores

Department stores have long been associated with the trope of seducing female consumers, at least since the publication of Emile Zola’s novel Au bonheur des dames in 1883. This fictionalized portrayal of the Parisian department store Bon Marche, which has exerted considerable influence among early chroniclers of department store culture, identifies store owners as men who build ‘temples’ for prospective customers, and who use inebriating tactics to encourage them to enter and spend money. The consumer is gendered female in this and in many other literary works on the department store of the time; she is depicted as reluctant, yet sometimes eager to be tempted by male-driven consumer worlds

Gr1+IL-4-producing innate cells are induced in response to Th2 stimuli and suppress Th1-dependent antibody responses

Alum is used as a vaccine adjuvant and induces T<sub>h</sub>2 responses and T<sub>h</sub>2-driven antibody isotype production against co-injected antigens. Alum also promotes the appearance in the spleen of Gr1+IL-4+ innate cells that, via IL-4 production, induce MHC II-mediated signaling in B cells. To investigate whether these Gr1+ cells accumulate in the spleen in response to other T<sub>h</sub>2-inducing stimuli and to understand some of their functions, the effects of injection of alum and eggs from the helminth, Schistosoma mansoni, were compared. Like alum, schistosome eggs induced the appearance of Gr1+IL-4+ cells in spleen and promoted MHC II-mediated signaling in B cells. Unlike alum, however, schistosome eggs did not promote CD4 T cell responses against co-injected antigens, suggesting that the effects of alum or schistosome eggs on splenic B cells cannot by themselves explain the T cell adjuvant properties of alum. Accordingly, depletion of IL-4 or Gr1+ cells in alum-injected mice had no effect on the ability of alum to improve expansion of primary CD4 T cells. However, Gr1+ cells and IL-4 played some role in the effects of alum, since depletion of either resulted in antibody responses to antigen that included not only the normal T<sub>h</sub>2-driven isotypes, like IgG1, but also a T<sub>h</sub>1-driven isotype, IgG2c. These data suggest that alum affects the immune response in at least two ways: one, independent of Gr1+ cells and IL-4, that promotes CD4 T cell proliferation and another, via Gr1+IL-4+ cells, that participates in the polarization of the response

The role of visual appearance in Punch’s early-Victorian satires on religion

Satires on various aspects of contemporary religion can frequently be found in the early Victorian editions of Punch. The more strident forms of Protestant evangelicalism, in the earlier 1840s, and Roman Catholic revivalism, around 1850, came in for particular attack. This pattern was partly the result of a drift in the editorial policy of the publication towards a less radical social and political position. However, Catholicism, in both its Roman and Anglican varieties, was particularly vulnerable to the combination of visual and verbal parody employed by Punch because of that denomination’s stress on visual aspects of worship. Evangelicals, by contrast, employed modes of dress and architecture that were similar to those of the secular world of their time and were, thereby, harder to depict as strange and peculiar. The pages of Punch can, therefore, tell us not only about how various Christian groups were viewed in early Victorian England but also about the ways in which they attempted, with varying success, to parry and pre-empt critique in the print media

Weimar Jewish Chic: Jewish Women and Fashion in 1920s Germany

This volume presents papers delivered at the 24th Annual Klutznick-Harris Symposium, held at Creighton University in October 2011. The contributors look at all aspects of the intimate relationship between Jews and clothing, through case studies from ancient, medieval, recent, and contemporary history. Papers explore topics ranging from Jewish leadership in the textile industry, through the art of fashion in nineteenth century Vienna, to the use of clothing as a badge of ethnic identity, in both secular and religious contexts. Dr. Kerry Wallach\u27s chapter examines the uniquely Jewish engagement with fashion and attire in Weimar, Germany

Bible Localization and the Politics of Memory and Oblivion

For centuries the Bible and its teaching have been used to construct identities in the Western world. Today the range of ‘legitimate’ identities is much larger than several decades ago. Facing issues of ethnicity, religion, gender-role identity and sexual orientation, people are confronted with restated contemporary questions of ‘Who am I? and ‘What is the meaning of my life?’ These questions are often hard to answer and many people struggle with them throughout their whole lives. What we are witnessing today is an extreme case of what the author calls ‘groupcentric Bible translation’ or ‘Bible localization’, also referred to as ‘niche Bibles’. Groupcentric translation is a logical continuation of ethnocentric translation that distorts the other culture to suit the views of a new audience. Another way to describe this phenomenon is to use the term ‘localization’ taken from the software industry that describes any changes required to adapt a product to the needs of a particular ‘locale’, i.e. a group of people united by their common language and cultural conventions

Response to Conditions Abroad

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