A Hebrew writer in Berlin: On a healing disintegration process

On Hebrew literature, multilingualism, diaspora and cultural identity in Berlin

Author: Mati Shemoelof

Original publication: Stadtsprachen magazine, Issue 24 — Non-Fiction

I recently met a friend, a Berlin expat, who is visiting Berlin after moving to Paris a few years ago. He has a good job there managing a cultural institution, he’s learned the language and to some extent has integrated into the French cultural world without giving up on his Jewish and Hebrew roots and diasporic worldview. As we sat at a Kreuzberg cafe, the conversation drifted to the differences between Berlin and other cities when it comes to cultural identity as artists. He said that Paris demanded of him complete cultural and linguistic assimilation, with all that that entailed. But Berlin, his former place of residence, does not require such a process. Berlin allows him, as a Yiddish activist and diasporic intellectual, to preserve the variety of identities that are already a part of him as well as new ones he wishes to explore. He pointed out that in Paris, I for instance, would not have been able to produce the “Poetic Hafla” evenings, an artistic group that creates multilingual literary events and performances without translation. In Paris, he added, they would have told you to start by learning the language, since in Paris you can only perform in French. The demand for full assimilation has always scared me. I’ve never had the talent for mastering other languages, my writing talent has been my saving grace by allowing me to invent my own syntax in different forms of the art of writing. When I emigrated to Berlin, I knew that I wouldn’t abandon my beloved Hebrew language, and in 2019 I published my first bi-lingual poetry book Baghdad | Haifa | Berlin. As it turned out, it was one of the first books ever published after the holocaust, written by a non- Ashkenazi Hebrew writer living in Berlin.

I often wondered what would happen if I would have switched to writing in “broken” German like the author Tomer Gardi, or even “broken” English. I experimented with bi-lingual poetry and with a radio play that I wrote in English that was translated to German. And yet, I love the Hebrew language, where every word can date as far back as the ancient times. I’ve thought a lot about what my Parisian friend told me. Indeed, Berlin allows me to live in-between languages, in-between worlds, without asking for full assimilation or full integration. It receives me openly with my broken German, my broken English and even my strange Hebrew, which also changes and accepts into it the other two languages (English and German) that accompany me.

Writing Hebrew in Berlin is not a standard category such as writing English, French or Arabic in Berlin. Hebrew has an entirely different tradition here. In between the two world wars, Berlin encompassed a rich Hebrew literary center with publishing houses, magazines, and many Hebrew writers who lived in Berlin while dreaming in Hebrew. Some of these writers were Zionists, others from the Bund Socialist party, some communists, liberals, anarchists, and others. After world war II this rich Hebrew literary scene got erased off the face of the earth and to this day there is not a single Hebrew publishing house in Berlin. Alongside the emigration of Israelis to Berlin, however, Hebrew returned to be heard along the city’s sidewalks. Writers, poets, musicians, artists, and others create their works in Hebrew, often combined with German and English as well as other languages. It is hard to ignore the fact that Hebrew is now part of life in Berlin.

Hebrew also has its own unique cultural system, which is also connected to the city’s historical past. The slang for example is constantly being recreated in Berlin, as well as backwards. As a language within Hebrew, the slang symbolizes the unique cultural and linguistic space of Hebrew speakers in Berlin. Let’s look at a few examples. There is a bar in Berlin called “Südblock” (meaning “Southern Block”). A friend of mine started calling it “Jydblock,” replacing the German Süd (south) with “Jyd,” which in many Slavic languages means Jew, often in a derogatory manner. This is one way in which new slang is being created while referencing the Jewish past but also to the present, and in doing so it is unique to the place and community that uses it. Another fascinating example is the slang word “Todanke” which refers to “Toda” in Hebrew and “Danke” in German, both meaning “Thank You”. Thus, in Berlin, a local Hebrew is created with and between languages, and it is unique to the place but also to its users. This language has a strong correspondence with Hebrew but also with the place in which it is spoken and the German language. One could claim that Jews who emigrated back to the Diaspora are returning to the former situation in which many Jews have lived, and are now using three languages: German, a local language (Yiddish or Slang, Berlin’s English, and/or the combination of those three) and Hebrew. The national mono-lingual norm is being abandoned and there is a return to multilingualism.

Writing Hebrew in Berlin is a turn towards a, borrowing from the french scholars Deleuze’s and Guattari’s well known term, “minor literature”. A Hebrew writer can play with the German language of Berlin and even write a German novel but he or she will always be perceived as an outsider, one who enters the temple of German in disguise. In addition, abandoning writing in Hebrew can come at a price of potentially alienating the readership in Israel.

With that said, I do think that German culture is not to be solely defined by the German language. Those who live in a place acquire knowledge of and experience the local climate, architecture, festivals, clubs, streets, holidays, tv, cinema, leisure and so on. There are many things that grant them access to the local culture and life, and their presence is also a part of that culture.

In 2017, I joined a special conference at the Literary Colloquium of Berlin (LCB) that discussed expat writers creating in different languages in the heart of the city. No one has ever taken on the mission of re-creating the Hebrew center as it was between the two world wars. Perhaps there is no need for one. Maybe there is just no real linguistic, cultural, or political person to lead the Hebrew community of Berlin. This unfortunate fact may also be related to the lack of knowledge and direction of this community. An Israeli playwright recently came to Berlin and asked me where the Hebrew community resides, and I smiled and replied that there is no such thing, everyone is scattered in many neighborhoods, and there is not one place you can point to as a Hebrew center.

There is however one journal: “Mikan Ve’eylakh: Journal for Diasporic Hebrew,” a diasporic Hebrew magazine, and an online magazine in Hebrew called “Spitz” (A name that has parallel meanings both in German and Hebrew meaning). Beyond that, the Berlin municipality recently established an award of 7 scholarships per year, for non-German writers in Berlin. Sometimes one of the winners of this scholarship is Jewish or Israeli but there isn’t any specific literary scholarship for Hebrew writing in Berlin. Since there aren’t any Hebrew publishers in Berlin, Hebrew writers are left without any real Hebrew publishing industry to help them grow and progress. Some, like the poets Zehava Khalfa, Hila Lahav or the fiction writer Hila Amit, are publishing their books in Israel but no one knows their work in Germany.

The far right in Germany is gaining strength, and a series of events prove this as a dangerous proposition, among them are the murder near the synagogue in the city of Halle, the murder of German citizens of Turkish descent in the city of Hanau, the assassination of German immigration politician Lübke, the latest connection between the extreme far right and police officers and other instances of that kind. Together with the extreme right, the perception of loaded terms in German political culture such as homeland (Heimat), a people (Volk) as well as the attitude towards the German language are intensified (many times in response to what is perceived by the far right as the threat of the arrival of Muslim refugees and others into German territory). This image of some imaginary homeland occupied by “German” white people who speak only German, a language they perceive themselves to be its owners, becomes clear through the re-penetration of the concepts of Heimat and Volk into the German discourse. Less extremist parties are already embracing the discourse of Heimat without realizing the danger involved. Going back to the topic I opened with at the beginning of the article, writing Hebrew in Berlin is not the same as writing Hebrew in Germany. Just recently a collection of Hebrew poetry in Germany, “Was es bedeuten soll. Neue hebräische Dichtung in Deutschland” (What is that supposed to mean. New Hebrew poetry in Germany, edited by Adrian Kasnitz and Gundula Schiffer), was published by a small publishing house in Cologne. But what is the meaning of writing Hebrew poetry in Germany while far-right parties are poisoning the atmosphere? Is it the same as living in the more pluralistic Ausländer-welcoming city of Berlin? I think the answer is no. Berlin is not a representative for the rest of Germany. Not by accident most of the writers of that anthology were Berlin based writers.

The AfD party fights to be portrayed as philosemitic by waving Israel flags at its demonstrations, as if to say “I am chasing the Muslim refugees out of Germany and not the Jews” but the truth is that there are quite a few of anti-Semites and neo-Nazis in the AfD. One example is Björn Höcke, the leader of the AfD Party in the state of Thuringia, who in a speech he gave in Dresden January 2017, referring to the Holocaust memorial in Berlin, stated that “We Germans are the only people in the world who have planted a memorial of shame in the heart of their capital”. There was also a chance that Höcke’s party would have been part of the coalition to form a government in Thuringia due to its high popularity in the ballots. Can the German far right tolerate the existence of non-German speaking foreigners who instead of mastering German as an exclusive language speak a mix of a little German, a little English and a lot of Hebrew? Will the multiplicity of languages not create anxiety in those who dream of a purity of race, culture, and language?

A few years ago, I participated in a Jewish panel to mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the famous Berliner Ensemble Theater in Berlin. The moderator accompanied the discussion with jokes about us being Jews. He wasn’t alone and in the middle of the discussion I realized I can no longer continue with the humorous panel. I noted that when the AfD comes to power, they will not ask me if I am an Arab or a Jew but will recognize me through my middle eastern appearance and broken language and it will not take long for me to suffer the consequences of being defined as their enemy. From my perspective, a hate towards the other that elicits Islamophobia should not be ignored by those who constantly fear the rise of antisemitism in Germany on the pretext that it is not anti-Semitism. As I see it, there is no Islamophobia that does not lead to anti-Semitism in the context of the local extreme right of Pegida, AfD, NPD, Grey Wolves, and other antisemitic grassroots movements. But what does writing in Hebrew have to do with right wing movements? Well, writing Hebrew, is directly opposing the monoculture of the far-right wing who wishes, in Germany as well as in other parts of the world, to have one language for one people in one land. Hebrew writing in Berlin as well as writing in other foreign languages is in direct opposition to the idea of total assimilation since it promotes a Berlin with a revival of new hybrid and lingual syntax.

When a person arrives at a city and refuses to write in the language of the place, but rather chooses to preserve their own language, an ancient language which belonged to a community that became extinct in that city, it is both an act of rebellion and an attempt at healing. Therefore, the call to produce a Hebrew literary scene must come from the German literary establishments of Berlin, not only as support to the existing culture, but as an encouragement to rebel against assimilation, which could mean the re-erasure of Hebrew from Berlin.

I grew up in the state of Israel where my mother-tongue, as a Bagdadi Jew from Iraq, was made extinct in order to create a monolingual, mono-cultural society. That’s why I am cut off from my mother’s language and the only language I have is modern Hebrew. There are many other residents of Berlin who write in their original language while at the same time maintain a dialogue with the local society and German culture. The rejection of the idea of “one place, one language,” is both cultural and political. What we need is a society that rejects the concepts of integration and assimilation as the only option to enter its gates. It is true of the special culture of Berlin, also in the Jewish context, where one Hebrew literary center has been extinct and another is currently arising, but also in regard to the multicultural context of Berlin, where a multiplicity of cultures can communicate using English or German while creating a new syncretic and in betweenness – hybrid language. Where the meeting points of different cultures create in a syncretic alchemy a new element which we did not know before. This element, however, is by no means a new power capable of tackling the racist notion of a Heimat, but it does create spaces in which this racist notion is irrelevant and brought out of the shadows.

“A Hebrew Writer in Berlin: On a Healing Disintegration Process”
Mantis: A Journal of Poetry, Criticism & Translation, Issue 19, 2021.

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Mati Shemoelof