German Zionist Counter Narratives of Authenticity

This lecture sets for itself the task of critically presenting the German Zionist discourse on an “authentic Jewish self,” and an “authentic Judaism” in the first decades of the 20^th century. It will be based on the writings of personalities of the first and the second generations of Zionist thinkers such as Martin Buber, Franz Oppenheimer, Richard Lichtheim, and Gershom Scholem.

Zionist thinkers in the first decades of the 20^th century were confronted with the indications of the German nationalism, which was connected to the idea of an original or authentic German nation and to a concept of authenticity which excluded Jews. Against that background, German-Jewish authenticities were constructed in Jewish-national and Zionist discourse using counter narratives (Bamberg 2004), a model that will be applied to explain the dynamics inherent in German-Jewish national and Zionist construction of authenticity. It becomes obvious how the discourse of Jewish authenticity evolved in the tension between emancipation, recognition, self-assertion, anti-Semitism, and cultural self-fulfillment.

As I will show in my lecture, the various ideas of authenticity were interpreted individually. Even if there existed theoretical ideas or ideals, Zionist thinkers defined their authenticity quite flexibly and according to their own situation. Additionally, the Jewish-national and Zionist construction of authenticities was highly gendered. Next to gender-specificity, there were confrontations with other understandings of Zionist authenticity. Authenticity is constructed, fought over, and politicized and therefore often closely connected to "politics of authenticity."