Else Lasker-Schüler:"Antisemitism, I consider it an inheritance from the father to the son.”

Else Lasker-Schüler's short text "Der Antisemitismus", which exists in four versions, was probably written in 1944 and is thus one of the last surviving texts by the poet who died in January 1945. In this text, she reflects on the theme of antisemitism, but interweaves it in a highly complex way with autobiographical motifs from her childhood, primarily her encounter with Christianity and the figure of Christ. In two of the four versions of the text, this motif culminates in a "Death Song."
In this way, antisemitism, as heritage of the Occident from which she comes, is accounted for as a subliminal existential theme. In her own retrospective, her poetic work is thus also dedicated to a struggle against antisemitism. In view of the news of the annihilation of European Jewry, she reflects on the events and, at the same time looks ahead, oscillating between utopia and scepticism about Palestine as a Jewish place of the future.

Prof. Alfred Bodenheimer's lecture attempts to situate the text “Der Antisemitismus” and its different versions in Else Lasker-Schüler's poetics as a whole.

The lecture is a collaboration of the Leo Baeck Institut Jerusalem in cooperation with Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, HUJI Institute of Jewish Studies (University of Antwerp) and the German Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.


Respondents:
Sabrina Habel, Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Prof. Benjamin Pollock, Franz Rosenzweig Minerva Research Center, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem