After October 7, 2023

In Germany too, news emerged of spontaneous celebrations of the Hamas attack, especially in sections of the Muslim community.1See Angelos, “Israel-Hamas.” Jews reported that they felt unsafe, as antisemitic slogans, harassment, and even physical attacks increased dramatically.2See Nöstlinger, “Antisemitic Incidents.” The German authorities clamped down hard—citing Holocaust memory and Germany’s historical responsibility to defend Israel3In a widely watched video posted to the social media platform X on November 2, 2023, vice-chancellor and Green Party Leader Robert Habeck spoke of the historical imperative for Germany to stand with Israel.—arresting protesters, banning Muslim groups considered to be extremist, and withdrawing invitations to prominent artists and intellectuals deemed to be skeptical about Israel’s actions in Gaza. At the same time, Muslim organizations reported a steep rise in Islamophobia, just like following the Al Qaeda terror attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001—or 9/11—and during the Western “war on terror” that ensued.4See Strack, “Muslims in Germany.”

How October 7 and its aftermath will impact on the Jewish community in Germany cannot yet be known, of course. Equally, the novels that might reflect on actual and potential rearticulations of Jewish identity after 10/7 are still to be written. So, what can be speculated about how Jews might position themselves in future, vis-à-vis each other, the non-Jewish majority, and, in the postmigrant society, Germany’s large Muslim minority? Can solidarity be sustained? Will Jews in Germany retreat inward or continue to engage in a worldly way?

Authors’ essays and interviews in the months after 10/7 offer some insight here, albeit limited. First, and perhaps contrary to expectations, Jewish writers remained largely silent about events in the Middle East, suggesting shock, uncertainty about what stance to adopt, a reluctance to be co-opted as a voice for all Jews, or for Israel, or possibly a feeling that their identity is not in any case closely tied to the Jewish state. (Soviet-born authors Katja Petrowskaja and Sasha Marianna Salzmann had been vocal about the Russian invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.) Second, as will be evident from the examples that follow, authors generally reiterate their previous preoccupations but with different emphases and a greater or lesser evolution of their emotional and intellectual positions. Third, the potential for Jewish writers to shape public discourse on matters touching on their identity seems—once again—to have become restricted, as louder voices dominate in perhaps predictable ways.

For Mirna Funk, then, October 7 and the surge in antisemitic incidents in Germany definitively resolves the question of where she stands in relation to her Jewish identity and to Israel. These were the issues that animated her protagonist Lola in Winternähe, as discussed in chapter 2. In essays and interviews published since late 2023, the author berates German antisemitism, recounts Hamas’s depravity, asserts Israel’s right to defend itself, rails against the “Islamisierung auf der ganzen Welt” (Islamicization of the whole world), and commits to making aliyah.5See Funk, “‘Wir brauchen Israel.’” (It should be noted that Funk has moved to Israel several times, only to return, just like Lola in Winternähe.) This authorial self-positioning is less nuanced—and more strident, even polemical—than Lola’s probing of what it means to be a Jew without a Jewish mother and a diaspora Jew caught between loyalty to Israel and discomfort with its treatment of the Palestinians. It might be speculated, therefore, that—for at least some Jews in Germany—the Hamas attack and Israel’s invasion of Gaza have in some way resolved the doubts, whether their own or imposed by others, about where they belong. At the same time, there may arguably be a performative dimension to Funk’s uncompromising defense of Israel and her pledge to move there. Certainly, her sharply expressed criticism of the prominence of Deborah Feldman in the media after 10/7 may suggest an urge to prove her own credentials. Funk decries the American Jewish author of Unorthodox (2012), now resident in Germany, as anti-Zionist (anti-Israel) and ignorant of the postwar history of the Jewish community.6See Funk, “Beänstigend.”

In a public reading in February 2024, Altaras was reminded by the moderator that her novel titos brille, published in 2011, opens with the words: “Meistens bin ich unbekümmert” (mostly, I’m unworried).7Altaras, titos brille, 5. Does she still feel that way, after 10/7, she was asked? Her reply that she is now more cautious than before and disappointed by her fellow Germans’ seeming lack of immediate empathy then leads to a reframing of her position in relation to the non-Jewish majority. Whereas previously, she had focused on the Nazi past and reconciliation, she says, now she is more concerned to engage in the present. This means asking about the surging electoral support in recent years for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland.8Altaras, “Das Lachen, das im Hals stecken bleibt,” 21. In another article, however, the author emphasizes that life goes on and humor is still permitted, as are holidays.9See Altaras, “Zwischen den Welten.” On a roundtable discussion with other Jewish writers and intellectuals, she also forcefully rejected—like Funk—Deborah Feldman’s self-positioning as a representative voice for Jews in Germany. Her objection was that Feldman’s assertion that the German police was not prepared to defend Jews demanding an end to the war was completely untrue. Here, she joined fellow panelist, the historian Michael Wolffsohn, in insisting that Jews could be safe in Germany, and that the country was fundamentally committed to a just peace.10See Luz, “Bei Lanz bringt Deborah Feldman alle gegen sich auf.” For all her reservations, it seems, Altaras remains confident about the future of Jews in Germany.

Finally, there is Sasha Marianna Salzmann’s exchange of letters with the Israeli musician, journalist, and author Ofer Waldman, which was published in mid-2024 with the title Gleichzeit (Real Time; 2024). (Waldman moved to Berlin in 1999 as one of the first members of the West-East Divan orchestra, founded by Argentinian-Israeli composer Daniel Barenboim and Palestinian-American academic Edward Said to promote artistic collaboration among musicians from across the Middle East. Waldman reports on Israel for German radio and writes radio plays and short stories.) In their correspondence between mid-October 2023 and late January 2024—roughly a letter a week from each, sent by email, and also a transcript of an online conversation conducted in real time—the two writers discuss their emotional responses to the Hamas attack, protests and counter-protests in Germany, and the situation in Israel, where friends and relatives are being mourned, hostages remain unaccounted for, and anger at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government is rising. They also comment, briefly, on the suffering endured by Palestinians as a result of Israeli military action. In sum, Gleichzeit expresses Salzmann’s (and Waldman’s) immediate but also relatively expansive reflections on 10/7, including the challenge the massacre and the global response to Israel’s subsequent devastation of Gaza present for a progressive and universalistic Jewish identity.

In Salzmann’s first few letters to Waldman, what is striking is the extent to which the author emphasizes Jewish family history, Holocaust memory, and anxiety about the surge in antisemitism in Europe, including violent incidents. Sasha recounts for Ofer the story of a grandfather who managed to escape the Germans by hiding in the forests of Ukraine; a visit just after 10/7 to the Shoes memorial in Budapest (commemorating the murder of 20,000 Jews by Hungarian fascists from December 1944 to January 1945); and how a friend, in a café in Vienna, refused to retract his assertion that all Jews deserved to be killed because of what Israel was doing to Palestinians in Gaza.11Salzmann, Gleichzeit, 36; 12–14; 45–48. Hereafter G. Indeed, the refrain throughout is the author’s wish to sit shiva for the Jewish victims of 10/7 and their upset that it is too early, because it is not yet over. With rockets raining down on Israel and friends and relatives engaged in military action, there will be more deaths to mourn (G, 20).

Salzmann’s letter to Waldman of December 15, written just over two months after 10/7, relates how, as a child, the author heard her great-grandparents speaking Yiddish. Also included are accounts of how Salzmann’s family fled the Nazis, antisemitic persecution under Stalin, hate speech following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and how immigrants to Germany became “the Russians” for the existing Jewish community (G, 74–78). In this letter, then, the author seems to align with Soviet-born writers such Himmelfarb, Kaufmann, and Petrowskaja in articulating the specificity of Russian Jewish identity. In addition, Salzmann may even regret their rejection of Israel in younger years, recalling arguments with their great-grandfather Shura (who appears in Außer sich, of course)12Elsewhere, Salzmann mentions a Turkish friend, E., who took part in demonstrations against the Erdoğan regime, became the “face” of the queer movement, and wrote plays, pamphlets, and flyers (G, 117–18). The character Aglaja in Außer sich is most likely based on E. on the subject of the Jewish state (G, 77). After 10/7, might it be that Salzmann has retreated from worldliness—and from solidarity with others, including Muslims—into a more particularistic Jewish identity?

Yet mentions throughout Salzmann’s letters of the indispensability of friendship—substantiated by a reference on January 15 to German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt and her thinking on friendship, sociability, and dialogue (G, 115)—hint that engagement with others remains a key value for the author, notwithstanding the particular(istic) hurt felt in the immediate aftermath of 10/7. In every letter, Salzmann reports that a friend has called to enquire about the author’s well-being; Salzmann responds to Waldman’s allusions to caring for others in mental or physical distress; or they imagine comforting others: “Eine hinter der anderen. Wir sind eine unendliche Kette.” (One behind the other. We are an endless chain; G, 12.) Indeed, friends—especially including Muslims such as Salzmann’s friend Mehmet—are the promised land. “Wir alle haben einen Morgen,” the author writes to Waldman, “und meine Zukunft, mein Eretz Israel, seid ihr.” (We all have a tomorrow [. . .] and you are my future, my Land of Israel; G, 21.) Friendship, it is suggested, is more important than nation, and more important even than ethnic belonging. It is what Ali experiences with their Muslim friend Elyas in Außer sich—a pragmatic acceptance of difference, a commitment to dialogue, and a demonstration of solidarity.

Initially, Salzmann feels pressure from outside, from the non-Jewish German majority, to justify their focus on Jewish suffering. “Warum habe ich das Gefühl,” the author asks, “dass die Veranschaulichung jüdischer Realität immer auch unter einer Art Rechtfertigungsdruck steht: Ja, ich weiß, wir sind nicht die Einzigen, die leiden.” (Why do I have the feeling that making vivid Jewish reality always needs to be justified: Yes, I know, we are not the only ones that are suffering; G, 65.) Soon enough, though, empathy with Palestinians (re-)emerges spontaneously, and from within. On December 20, seven weeks after the Hamas atrocities and as the ferocity of Israel’s military response was beginning to become apparent, Salzmann reports a dream in which they found themselves in Gaza, confronted by a young girl. The author continues: “Ofer, es gibt keinen Tag, an dem ich nicht über Gaza nachdenke, die Menschen dort in den Trümmern, ohne Lebensmittel, ohne Versorgung.” (Ofer, not a single day passes that I don’t think about Gaza, the people in the ruins, without food, without care; G, 86.) Significantly, Salzmann immediately associates the plight of Palestinians in Gaza with two Syrian refugees they shared an apartment with in 2015 and with Ukrainian women who had fled the Russian invasion in early 2022 (G, 86–87). The fortitude of these strangers inspires Salzmann to overcome hopelessness and to reengage on behalf of others. This letter of December 20, moreover, is the very next missive the author sends following their account of family history. Identifying as a Jew predicts Salzmann’s empathy with Israelis killed and kidnapped on 10/7. It also underpins their empathy globally, for those in Gaza, Syria, and Ukraine, and wherever injustice and suffering reign.

The atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023, Israel’s overwhelming and violent response, and protests around the world—some tainted by antisemitism—do not yet seem to have prompted dramatic shifts in Jewish writers’ self-positioning vis-à-vis other Jews, the non-Jewish majority, or other minorities, even Muslims. Rather, what is noticeable is a restatement, and perhaps even solidifying, of core beliefs. Funk reaffirms her attachment to Israel, setting aside previous doubts, at least for now. Altaras expresses greater caution about the surge in antisemitism but remains fundamentally committed to Germany, though with a greater emphasis on fighting the far right. Salzmann defines Jewishness as a basis for worldly engagement while asserting a right to care about Jews as Jews. These positions may not be representative of the wider community, of course. But they are at least suggestive.

The response of the German government, regional authorities, and cultural institutions to the atrocities of 10/7, on the other hand, frequently appears less nuanced. Senior politicians quickly reaffirmed their solidarity with Jewish victims and reiterated that Germany’s Staatsräson—very purpose as a state—includes ensuring the security of Israel. On the one hand, official support most likely reassured Jews unnerved by reports of celebrations by some Muslims and of antisemitic slogans and even harassment in some of the protests taking place against Israel’s military actions. On the other hand, German enthusiasm for protecting Jews may also have had the perverse effect of establishing non-Jews as the arbiters of what Jews themselves could and could not say. In mid-February 2024, the Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham was denounced as anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish by German politicians following an acceptance speech he had given on receipt of a prize at the Berlinale for his documentary No Other Land (2024). In his remarks, Abraham—whose grandmother was born in a concentration camp and whose father lost most of his family—had condemned the “situation of apartheid” existing in his country and called for a ceasefire in Gaza.13See Oltermann, “Israeli Director.” Abraham’s comments were provocative, to be sure, but he was not alone among progressive Israeli and diaspora Jews in expressing such opinions. The desire of the German state to propagate its overcoming of the Nazi past may enforce a stifling homogeneity—even on Jews—with regard to Holocaust memory, the fight against antisemitism, and discussion of Israel.

Chapters 1–3 of this book demonstrated that the New German Jewish Literature illuminates debates on Jewish identity in Germany, and indeed globally, and explores a range of possible—and potential—articulations of what it means, today, to live as a Jew in the country responsible for the Holocaust but also, in a large proportion of recent novels, “in the world.” Following the caesura of October 7, 2023, Jews in Germany and across the diaspora more generally will no doubt evolve new understandings of Jewishness and new ways of engaging with others, though most likely still drawing on the past. The future is always open. What is just as certain, regrettably, is that other people—the German state, well-meaning sympathizers as much as overt antisemites, non-Jews everywhere—will believe that they have a right, even an obligation, to define the meaning of what happened on that horrific day and in the aftermath, for Jews, for Israelis, and for Palestinians and an entire region where war and suffering constitute everyday reality.