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Jewish Culture and History

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“Of the two the Jew is – (Curtain falls.)” SammyGronemann’s dramaturgy of the German–Jewishencounter in Palestine/Israel (1936–1952)

Jan Kühne

To cite this article: Jan Kühne (2015) “Of the two the Jew is – (Curtain falls.)” SammyGronemann’s dramaturgy of the German–Jewish encounter in Palestine/Israel (1936–1952),Jewish Culture and History, 16:3, 254-274

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2016.1138589

Published online: 17 Feb 2016.

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“Of the two the Jew is – (Curtain falls.)” Sammy Gronemann’sdramaturgy of the German–Jewish encounter in Palestine/Israel

(1936–1952)

Jan Kühne*

Center for German Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

(Received 7 November 2015; accepted 28 December 2015)

This paper presents the latest research on Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952), a keyfigure of early German Zionism and Hebrew Theatre. His transition from Germanyto the Mandate of Palestine in 1936 influenced his literary oeuvre and transformedits technique of inter-cultural mediation and its satirical humour. In Palestine/IsraelGronemann became a successful playwright, contributing to the emerging modernHebrew culture by writing its first milestone in comedy, King Solomon and Shalmai,the Cobbler (1942). My reading focuses on its dramaturgical strategy, whose roots Ianalyse and describe as ‘dialectical empathy’ in a comedy of errors between thestock-characters of a Jew and a Nazi from 1937 (Jacob and Christian).

Keywords: Comedy; drama; empathy; German–Jewish literature; Hebrew theatre;humour; identity; Zionism

1. Introduction

Zionism was, for Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952), the punchline to that joke whichJudaism appeared to be in the eyes of the German world. As a German–Jewish Zionisthe wrote in German and this precondition defines most research conducted on him.Hitherto only one, albeit seminal English article by Dorit Yerushalmi has been availableto the English reader.1 Yerushalmi discusses his groundbreaking play Der Weise undder Narr (The King and the Cobbler)2 on account of its Hebrew translation and pro-ductions in terms of a theatrical ‘palimpsest’.3 It is symptomatic of Israeli research thatGronemann is approached exclusively through this, canonical play in Hebrew theatre.4

The play should, however, not only be considered the ‘mother of Hebrew musicals’5,but also the first milestone of comedy-drama in modern Hebrew theatre. As such, forthe serious historian of theatre its status is as remarkable as Ansky’s The Dybbuk.6 Butwhereas Ansky’s authorship of this paradigmatic Jewish tragedy withstood the fame ofits translator, Hayim Nahman Bialik,7 Gronemann disappeared almost completelybehind the name of his translator, Nathan Alterman.8 Gronemann’s his legacy wasappropriated and overwritten in that very Altneuland whose realisation he had deci-sively influenced as chief judge of the Zionist Congress-Court, a position he held forover two and a half decades until 1947.

Also available for the English reader is the as yet unpublished doctoral dissertationby César Merchán-Hamann.9 Along with Hanni Mittelmann’s seminal German

*Email: jan.kuehne@mail.huji.ac.il

© 2016 Taylor & Francis

Jewish Culture and History, 2015Vol. 16, No. 3, 254–274, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1462169X.2016.1138589

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monograph,10 Merchán-Hamann’s pioneering study shares a biographical focus.Both works are confronted with the problem that Gronemann’s autobiography(Erinnerungen)11 stops short in 1918 with his return from the Eastern Front to hishome in Berlin, even though it was published in Tel Aviv in 1946. Reading its intro-duction, one might gain the impression of a Zionist happy ending: Gronemann cele-brates on Jaffa beach with a bottle of wine (Carmel Doc) the fulfilment of Herzl’s andthe Jewish people’s dream of a final return from the Exile. However, following thisopening, which is informed both by the ending of the Pessach Haggadah and by theBook of Genesis (‘So, das war gut.’), he undermines his own literary enterprise ofdescribing the metamorphosis of German Jewry by calling into question the distinctionsbetween memory and fantasy, dream and reality. How then, is one to read the anecdoteof his first visit to Palestine in 1929, when, on the occasion of a public reception byTel Aviv’s mayor Meir Dizengoff, Gronemann had remarked: ‘Now that I have seencity and land, to my surprise I am to discover that everything I have swindled aboutthroughout decades is, in fact, nothing but the truth.’?12 Later documents, discussedhere, strengthen the satirical, rather than ironic reading of this statement. Gronemannwas far from being satisfied with the course that the Zionist movement had taken, beingdenied his cultural rights as a German author in the Jewish settlement (Yishuv) prior toand after 1948 in the Jewish State (Israel). As a Jew who had escaped the Final Solu-tion, Gronemann suffered, like German-speaking and – writing Jewish immigrants(Yekkes) in general,13 from discrimination both in general against matters of non-Hebrew nature and in particular against German language and culture, and he could nothelp but compare this with the discrimination from which he had tried to flee.14 Asearly as 1937 – one year after his immigration – Gronemann interpolated in his comedyof errors Jakob und Christian, his first internationally successful play, the characters ofa Jew and a Nazi.15 Written in the period of transition from Germany to Palestine/Israel(1933–36), and inspired by Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, this satire precedesKing and Cobbler, which continues its theme in both content and structure. King andCobbler is a dramatic act of exegesis on a popular Midrash, which renders legendaryKing Solomon replaced by his doppelgänger Ashmedai, the prince of demons.16 Thestudy at hand is, therefore, a preliminary study of Gronemann’s Hebrew palimpsest, aswell as a critical supplementary to his biography and to Ruth Wisse’s investigation ofthe ‘darkening colours of Jewish humour’ in Palestine/Israel.17

2. Biography

Sammy (Samuel) Gronemann should be seen as the most important satirist in GermanZionism, whose artistic success is, despite the complications elaborated upon later,unprecedented among the Yekkes (this is also true of his Erinnerungen). He was bornon Purim, the day of Jewish Carnival, 21 March 1875, in the West Prussian town ofStrasburg (Brodnica). As the firstborn son of neo-orthodox Rabbi Selig Gronemann andhis wife Helene Breslau, and brother to their daughter Elfriede,18 he spent most of hischildhood and school days in Hannover. In 1906 he moved to Berlin as a student, andfrom there he fled to Paris in 1933. In 1936 he emigrated to Palestine, where he livedin Tel Aviv until his death on 6 March 1952.

Selig Gronemann had studied at the Breslau Rabbinical Seminary under ZachariasFrankel and Heinrich Graetz, and was one of the few German rabbis who distancedthemselves in 1897 from the so-called ‘protest rabbis’ and their anti-Zionist attitude.19

Having read Theodor Herzl’s Der Judenstaat at the age of 22, Zionism appeared to

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Sammy Gronemann to be the logical consequence of his understanding of Judaism,arguing: ‘It is actually damn hard not to be a Zionist.’20 Unlike most German Jews andZionists, however, he preserved a neo-orthodox Jewish lifestyle,21 especially regardingShabbat and Kashrut; arguing that he was just not in the habit of ‘changing his dietevery thousand years.’22 But instead of pursuing a rabbinic career like his father,Gronemann became a lawyer. He maintained relations with the student organisation(the Dybbuk Chaverim) of the Hildesheimer Rabbinical Seminary in Berlin, mostlythrough amateur theatre projects.23 Around 1899 he thus came to the attention of Mar-tin Buber, who had developed the (never realised) concept of a ‘free young-Jewishstage’24, and Gronemann wrote possibly the first and only play for it: his PurimspielHamans Flucht (Haman’s Escape) – its literary reflection can be found in Buber’sPurim-Prolog.25 After a short foray into philosophy Gronemann began his law studies,which he completed successfully in 1898. This was followed by a clerkship and, in1904, by his state exam, which he took on the day of Herzl’s funeral. Gronemanndeveloped this coincidence into a personal, meaningful connection that strengthened hissense of responsibility for the founding and perpetuation of a liberal tradition of justicewithin the Zionist movement.26

Gronemann took part in a Zionist meeting for the first time in 1900 and subse-quently founded the local Zionist branch in Hannover, which he represented one yearlater as a delegate at the Fifth Zionist Congress. He would participate in all futureZionist congresses, first as delegate, and then, beginning in 1921, as chief judge of theZionist Congress Court, until he refused re-election in 1947. He also helped establishthe Zionist Court of Honour in 1911, over which he presided until 1933.27 His appoint-ment represents an unparalleled continuity of decades-long repeated re-elections in theZionist Congress, considering the passing mandates of its presidents. As a ‘constitu-tional conscience of the Zionist movement’28 he influenced Zionist identity politicsdecisively. David Remez, one of the country’s first ministers and one of the signatoriesto the Israeli Declaration of Independence, emphasised the ‘institution’ of Gronemann’spersonality, by claiming that a Zionist could be called so only if two conditions weremet: he paid his Shekel, and he knew Gronemann.29

As a lawyer Gronemann had defended, amongst others, Herzl against DavisTrietsch, Ahad Ha’am in the Berne Trials, and Arthur Schnitzler’s Reigen.30 Togetherwith Alfred Klee, Fritz Simon, and Hermann Lelewer he ran a law firm in Berlin; hespecialised in marriage and family affairs, international law and literary copyright.31 In1910 he co-founded the Association for the Protection of German Writers, the first ofits kind, and served until 1933 as its syndic.32 He legally represented RichardBeer-Hofmann33 and was involved with the Yiddish avant-garde theatre Vilna Troupe(from 1920–1923/8, with the financial help of Leo Winz)34; as well as being a sup-porter of the Hebrew Habimah Theatre Ensemble (1926–1931) during their residenciesin Berlin.35 Little attention has been paid to the fact that Gronemann was responsiblefor bringing both theatre groups to the city, decisively contributing to their survival.36

In order to gather their support, in 1921 he founded and led the first German Associa-tion for Jewish Theatre in Berlin37; later, with Margot Klausner, he co-founded Habi-ma’s administrative secretariat and early philanthropic organisations, among whosemembers were Martin Buber, Arnold Zweig, Alfred Döblin, Leon Feuchtwanger, MaxReinhardt, and Leopold Jessner.38 Relationships with both theatres had developed dur-ing his service as a German soldier and translator in the press department Ober Ost(Kaunas and Vilnius) during the First World War. He had been part of the Associationof Former Intellectuals, to which Hermann Struck and Arnold Zweig39 also belonged;

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they assisted his efforts to bring ‘authentic’ Jewish theatre to Berlin. His encounterswith Eastern European Jews inspired his literary debut Tohuwabohu, a bestseller in1920, which reciprocally interpolates narratives and perspectives of Eastern-Europeanand German Judaism.40 Later he published a collection of inter-cultural oddities fromhis experiences as German soldier, titled Hawdoloh und Zapfenstreich and Schalet, acollection of anecdotes.41,42 Even before 1914 Gronemann had written short plays,essays, and a number of short stories, though most have been lost; one chapter remainsof a second novel.43 He co-founded and co-edited the satirical journal Shlemiel (origi-nally Shlemihl) in 1904 and was responsible for most of its satirical portraits of leadingZionists.44 He served as the president of the biggest German B’nai Brith Lodge (theMontefiori Lodge) and was a founding member of the Soncino Society for Friends ofthe Jewish Book.45 He supported Eastern European Jewish refugees in Germany, leg-ally and financially, in the Committee of the East, as well as in arbitration courts.46 Heappears to have been temporarily affiliated with the Jüdische Volkspartei,47 but other-wise remained without any party membership.

After fleeing to Paris in 1933 Gronemann became active in the support of refugeesand helped re-establish the Zionist organisation, founding its local branch Ost und Westand assuming presidency of its Comité Allemand. Between 1934 and 1937 he travelledas ‘Zionist itinerant preacher’48 throughout Europe in aid of the Jewish National Fund(KKL – Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael) and the United Israel Appeal (KH – KerenHayesod).49 His eventual emigration to Tel Aviv in Spring 1936 was overshadowed bythe accidental death of his wife Sonja (née Gottesmann).50 He was unable to continueas a lawyer and worked instead as an arbitrator with former colleagues in the ARBAgroup.51 He lived with very limited means with the family of his sister Elfriede; hewrote his memoirs, six large plays, ten one-act plays, as well as a number of cabaretsongs, poems, articles, and essays which critically reflected life in the Yishuv. All ofhis plays, with few exceptions (e.g. the once lost Der gordische Knoten), have beentranslated into Hebrew and have been staged with varying degrees of success by theHaMatate, Ohel, Cameri, and Habimah theatres, thereby making Gronemann stand outamong the German–Jewish immigrants as the hitherto most successful dramatist inHebrew theatre. Gronemann’s greatest successes were the aforementioned Jakob undChristian52 and King and Cobbler,53 which were, together with Der Prozess um desEsels Schatten, published in the 1940s.54 During this time Gronemann also supportedand wrote for immigrant artists such as Stella Kadmon55 and Ruth Klinger56 – withwhom he appeared occasionally as conférencier – and for Paul Loewy.57 He collabo-rated with established artists such as Avigdor Hameiri, the founder of the Kumkumsatirical theatre in Tel Aviv, with the poet Nathan Alterman – Hameiri and Altermantranslated the majority of his plays – as well as with actor Shimon Finkel.58 He gavelectures on Jewish humour and theatrical traditions in adult education (1944/5);59 recentresearch reveals that he also hosted a radio show at Kol Israel during 1948/49.60 Hewas an active part of the Taussig literary salon61 and a central figure in the Yekkecommunity.62 In his network of relationships, which – to name only the better known –consisted of Margot Klausner, Manfred Geis, Max Brod, Shalom Ben-Chorin, HeinrichLoewe, and Elias Auerbach, he was appreciated for his infectious humour and come-dies, which fused Eastern European Jewish traditions with German drama, earning himthe nickname ‘Shalom Aleichem of the Yekkes’,63 as well as ‘Aristophanes of theZionist movement’.64 Set against the backdrop of a pathos-laden national Zionistself-perception65 and the German-Jewish preoccupation with the genre of tragedy,66

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Gronemann’s satirical talent and comedies mark him out as an exceptional figure withinGerman Judaism and the Zionist movement.67

Despite his wit, which he considered a weapon in defence of his optimistic, i.e.messianic, world view,68 towards the end of his life Gronemann became embitteredabout what he felt to be a dissatisfactory realisation of Zionist goals. His last politicalacts were a Draft for the Regulation of the Political Situation in 1947, which proposeda binational solution to the Israel/Palestine question,69 and his resignation as congressjudge. In 1946, in his last conference speech, his conclusion drawn from the FinalSolution was a call for a radical reform of the Zionist movement.70 He admonished theprevalence of intolerance towards deviating opinions, lack of understanding of demo-cratic processes, electoral fraud, ruthlessness, ‘terror’, and party fanaticism; warning theZionist congress once again that ‘nothing is as damaging to ethics as idealism.’71

3. Where the comedy ends

The contrast between idealist and realist perceptions informs the dramatic conflict ofShakespeare’s romantic comedy The Merchant of Venice, which has, on account ofShylock’s grappling with a distorted ethics of reciprocity, considerable importance formodern Jewish relations with German society.72 Gotthold Ephraim Lessing had ide-alised Shylock in his Nathan the Wise,73 who became – additionally in his imperson-ation of Moses Mendelssohn – a ‘magna carta’ for enlightened, German Jewry;74

Zionists, however, felt the need to condemn him as an obstacle to their aims.75 Jewishactors and directors too, were drawn rather towards Shylock, and contributed to an ide-alisation of this comparatively more ambivalent, inherently more lively pariah figure76

– an idealisation also informed by the underside of Jewish emancipation.77 On accountof the dialectics between antisemitism and Zionism which informs Herzl’s rationale fora Jewish State, Nathan’s idealised alter-ego was thus discovered as a potential hero innationalist propaganda78: Shylock (but not Nathan) became part of a series of playsstaged in the 1930s at Habimah – itself a Zionist symbol79 – intended to expose thedangers of assimilation.80

In 1925 Gronemann had published an essay in which he shifted focus away fromShylock altogether, in favour of understanding Antonio as Shakespeare’s personifiedcritique of melancholic self-righteousness, countered by the recklessness of Venetiancarnival and exposed by Shylock.81 He is said to remain untouched by these extremessince, as a Jew, he obeyed a higher morality, depicted as the unavoidable cause ofJewish suffering in the Diaspora. A Zionist interpretation, which also sought to liberatethe German Jew from the assimilatory double bind of his desire for recognition andself-hatred – a self-centred lachrymose disposition understood as a result of internalisedanti-Semitism, and a threat to the mode of Shakespeare’s comedy.82 Gronemannintended to promote his reading by assisting the Jewish theatre director LeopoldJessner, who was to direct the first Hebrew production of The Merchant of Venice inMay 1936, at the Habimah in Tel Aviv. In a letter from July 1935, Gronemannexpressed his fear to Margot Klausner83 that Jessner’s production would reinforce MaxReinhardt’s tragic interpretation of Shylock84 and exposed himself thereby as one ofReinhardt’s conservative critics.85 He emphasised his willingness to assist in a new,innovative production, in order to help the Habimah ‘fulfil a historic and culturallyimportant duty.’86 Two months later, three weeks after the 19th Zionist Congress,Gronemann apologised for having to postpone his arrival and his ‘cooperation’(‘Zusammenwirken’) with the Habimah due to his travels for the Keren Hayesod.87

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Possibly, arrangements had been made between Gronemann and Jessner, at the latestduring the Habimah Party and Press Conference, which had taken place during thatCongress.88 There, Gronemann spoke about the history of Jewish theatre as a culturalhistory in its own right, and of German theatre as a Jewish heritage, thereby introduc-ing the avant-garde director Jessner to the Zionist public.89 He defended Jessner’s dra-maturgical intentions as ‘certainly very rational ones’, meant to ‘redeem [ לואגל ] theplay in the Jewish respect’ by further exalting Shylock’s character in the tradition ofHenry Irving and Rudolph Schildkraut.90 However, Gronemann thought a completeredemption to be possible only in the nascent Jewish State, where Jews ‘are currentlyreturning to their own theatre’, after having been ‘touring extensively all over theworld’ by ‘playing roles both big and small’ in ‘every theatre.’91 Simultaneously,Gronemann undermines expectations of aggrandisement implicit in the traditional Jew-ish notion of an ‘ascent’ (Aliyah)92 to the biblical Land of Israel. By expecting ‘physi-cians becoming drivers, or lawyers becoming construction workers’ he describes, in anironic manner, the Jewish settling in Palestine as a process of deterioration, socialdecline, and the Zionist notion of a Jewish historical resurgence rather as a reversal topre-Enlightenment history, as that place in time ‘where the comedy ends and the dramabegins …’93

Jessner describes, albeit less humorously, a similar transition, after having hinted at‘enduring and difficult negotiations with Habimah’, during which he had been offeredthe post of Habimah’s artistic director – an offer which he would turn down on accountof a number of misunderstandings possibly connected, too, to his aversion to conflictand his compromising stance.94 At the Zionist Congress in 1935 – long before hispersonal conviction would transform from being a supporter of the assimilationist Cen-tralverein into a ‘staunch Zionist’ (in the USA) –95 he felt the need to be apologetic.Jessner pointed out that in his theatrical work he had always dealt with and emphasisedJewish issues, even if they remained disconnected from the Land of Israel, i.e. theZionist project. His intention in the adaptation of The Merchant of Venice was to updatethe diasporian Shylock, by transforming his line: ‘sufferance is the badge of all ourtribe’96 into the rhetorical question of the new Jew: ‘sufferance is the quality of ourtimes?!’ [‘!? וננמזתלחנ–תונלבסה ’]. This transition from the patient sufferer Jew towardsan avenger and fighter is indicative, too, of a shift towards an ironic tone – from thelament over ‘all the sorrow of the generation’ into the slightly scoffing tone of the newShylock’s ‘great and strong astonishment’ about the enduring attribute of ‘sufferance’.97

However the actual production, as described by Shelly Zer-Zion, neverthelessturned towards a tragic interpretation, on account of Jessner’s attempt to lend voice tohis tragedy of the German Jew while continuing the German–Jewish stage tradition ofShylock as tragic hero in the historical context of Nazi Germany. A controversy ensuedamong Palestinian-Jewish intellectuals following the premiere in Tel Aviv, which culmi-nated in a public literary trial against Shakespeare, Habimah, and Jessner, which how-ever exculpated the latter from charges of furthering antisemitism by idealising adiasporian, i.e. inherently anti-Zionist Jewish figure; it was also cleared on account ofhis having shown courage by rendering Shakespeare’s ‘light comedy’ meaningful in aserious fashion.98 Audiences, however, remained indifferent and insensitive to theprojected German-Jewish experience. Gronemann’s interpretation, which rejected any‘ignoble actualisation’ on account of the timeless and exalted truth [ יאליעתמא ] con-tained in Shakespeare’s plays,99 obviously had had no part in Jessner’s production. Hisexpected arrival at the end of 1935 was delayed until 19 February 1936, on account ofhis journeys for the KH and KKL and the circumstances following his immigration100

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– too late to influence Jessner’s dramaturgical intentions, which, despite initial ideologi-cal resistance, succeeded in establishing The Merchant of Venice as a canonical piece inHebrew theatre.101

Nevertheless, Gronemann was able to use his interpretation to serve Zionist propa-ganda during his tour through Europe.102 Since the Habimah repertoire, at that time,still lacked a genuine, original comedy, it comes as no surprise to discover that the the-atre commissioned such a comedy by Gronemann. He thus wrote Jakob und Christian(Jacob and Christian), which Habimah rejected at first.103 It then changed its mind, butGronemann had already offered it to other theatres and it was produced in 1937 by theTel Aviv Matatee, and almost simultaneously at the Jüdische Volkstheater in Vienna;marking thereby Gronemann’s first international drama success.104 Out of it developedDer Weise und der Narr, which was rejected by Habimah too, only to later become thefirst milestone of comedy-drama in modern Hebrew theatre, premiering at the Ohel the-atre in 1943. Later it was picked up as a musical by the Cameri in 1963, with addi-tional songs by Altermann and a score by Sasha Argov; Habimah eventually caught upwith it in 2005.

I argue that Der Weise und der Narr bears traces of Jakob und Christian, whichreflects Gronemann’s attempt to adapt his interpretation of The Merchant into a genuineJewish comedy for the modern stage. Thereby, an attempt becomes apparent to returnthe (German) Shylock – that uncongenial Commedia dell’arte stock-character of Pan-talone in Jewish disguise – home, into that genre, tone, and tradition from which heand Hebrew theatre had first emerged.105

4. Dialectical empathy

Playwrighting is a branch of politics.

(Israel Zangwill)106

Jakob und Christian is a comedy of errors, similar to Plautus’s Menaechmi and Shake-speare’s The Comedy of Errors, which lends the genre its name. They are comedies ofso-called ‘mistaken identities’: twin brothers are parted in childhood and grow up indifferent countries. Eventually, one brother sets out to find the other (marking the‘other’ in the English word ‘brother’). Obstacles appear, such as restrictions on foreign-ers entering the country, punishable by death. Upon finding at last the long-lost ‘br-other’, who was brought up in a different language and with different manners und cus-toms – making him a complete stranger – both ‘twins’ recognise each other as brothers.This is without question a didactic device with moral underpinnings: a complete stran-ger and even an enemy could be your brother (this story, upon being told, rescues theSyracusian trader Egeon in The Comedy of Errors).

In Gronemann’s literary works this quid-pro-quo device is a leitmotif, identifiable inhis literary debut and bestseller from 1920 Tohuwabohu and in Der Weise und der Narrfrom 1942, i.e. before and after Jakob und Christian (1937). Inspired by Gronemann’sencounters as a German soldier in Kaunas and Vilnius, Tohuwabohu interpolates thenarratives between a German Jew in Eastern Europe and an Eastern European Jew inGermany: The Litvak Jossel moves to Berlin and the assimilated Heinz, who turns outto be his relative, travels to visit the home of his newly discovered family in Lithuania.In the process of this mutual exchange they develop an intimate understanding of theirrespective socio-cultural backgrounds and perspectives, in a dialectic reminiscent of

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Steven Aschheim’s description of the relationships between Eastern European andGerman Jews in his book Brothers and Strangers (which draws on Gronemann’s writ-ings, but not on his drama).107 In the end Jossel’s and Heinz’s ways part again.Whereas Jossel travels with his wife to the 6th Zionist congress in Basel, Heinz pursuesthe vanities of entertainment at a horse race, unable to grasp the burning questions ofhis time.

In a similar dialectical fashion, Der Weise und der Narr depicts an encounter in thetradition of the carnivalistic ‘King for a Day’ motif: King Solomon learns of the exis-tence of his doppelgänger, Shemadai the Cobbler. The Hebrew translation changes thisreference to Ashmedai, the king of demons, into ‘Shalmai’; converting, as it were, thearchetypical trickster to the tribe of Shlemihl and transforming the fool for the modernHebrew stage.108 He is a drunkard, neglecting both wife and work, preferring to enter-tain the crowds in the marketplace with parodies and mock mimes of the king. Solo-mon’s Egyptian wife, Nofrit, demands Shalmai’s head for this perceived blasphemy. Inher Egyptian world view, a god-like king may not have any double as he is supposedto be ‘the only God’ – an object of respect and veneration, not of mockery. Yet whenSolomon subsequently orders him to his palace, he falls in love with Shalmai’s loyalwife Na’amah. In order to seduce her, Salomon forces Shalmai to switch clothes. Solo-mon then gets mistaken for the cobbler and with the knowledge of his mother, whowants him to learn a lesson, he is expelled from the palace, wherein Shalmai remainsto reign. As exiled cobbler Solomon becomes aware of the corruption and intriguesplaguing his kingdom, from the perspective of his subjects. At the same time Shalmaidiscovers the responsibilities of a king. In the end, each protagonist returns to his origi-nal status and place, though their perception of self and other has been transformed.109

Shalmai becomes a better husband who treats his wife like a queen, and Solomonbecomes a better ruler for his people, finishing at once his melancholic philosophicaltreaty Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) with its famous meditation on humility: ‘vanity of vanities,all is vanity … […] For every deed God will bring to judgment – for every hiddenthing, whether good or bad.’110 Gronemann’s version reads: ‘What seems evil may begood, what seems good, may badly end. Concealed to you – the end lies in God’shand.’111 On this note, the final remarks made in the comedy relate to mankind’s incli-nation towards acting out tragedies, by ‘killing, looting, pillaging and burning/but I pre-fer a “Happy End”’.112

Gronemann’s comedy interpolates the spaces of Zion and of diaspora, as well asbiblical myth and Zionist ideal with Palestinian reality. The Solomon narrative can beread as a meditation on Gronemann’s life as successful lawyer and prominent Jew inBerlin before the rise of National Socialism. After the circumstances and quality of hislife deteriorated following his flight from persecution in 1933, he was forced to cometo terms with his new situation. Through the dialectical interplay between Solomon, themiserable ‘king’, and the foolishly happy Shalmai, Gronemann negotiates these twoidealistic and realistic outlooks on life, worlds, and times. This was an artistic expres-sion of the psychological need for inner reconciliation and inter-cultural mediation withwhich his contemporary Yekkes could doubtlessly identify. On the meta-theatrical level,however, the German-Jewish playwright probes the possibility of changing his socialrole and profession (‘Umschichtung’), as well as the boundaries of human inter-subjec-tivity in Palestine. Yerushalmi argues that Gronemann’s play was an attempt to immu-nise his contemporaries against the dangers of fascism. ‘There is no doubt’, she adds,‘that the cobbler, who metaphorically repairs how human beings make their way in theworld, is also an actor whose true craft is to get into the shoes of others.’113 Similarly,

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Mittelmann argues regarding Jakob und Christian that it ‘renders obvious the absurdityof [German National Socialist] race theory’, while simultaneously luring his audience‘into empathy with the humane situation of the respective other.’114 How does Grone-mann apply this literary and dramaturgical technique – this dialectical empathy – indetail in Jakob und Christian? And what sets it apart from classical comedy of errors,i.e. where does its specific structural component lie?

5. Jakob und Christian

All beginnings are difficult, says the proverb.

The hardest part is the end, teaches the history of comedy.

(Walter Hinck)115

Jakob und Christian is situated in a small German village before the First World Warand based on the conflict between the stereotypes of a Nazi and that of a traditionalEastern European Jew. As a farcical satire it belongs to the genre of analytic drama,familiar to German audiences through Heinrich von Kleist’s The Broken Jug, whichgradually reveals past events that culminate in the verdict of a trial. But whereas TheBroken Jug ends with the identification of the criminal – the judgement and expulsionof Adam the judge – the verdict is suspended in Jakob und Christian, with preciselythose qualities of mercy and wisdom that Portia recommends to Shylock.116 Jew andGerman are thus liberated from their “brotherly” strife. Of the two, the character ofChristian Stockbrand is the most nuanced one. He appears not only as an ambitiousmember of the Nazi party, who discovers his Jewish origins, but also as the stock char-acter of an opportunistic assimilationist and convert, who grew up as an estranged Jewin a tradition of adopted self-hatred.117

At the beginning of the play, Christian is introduced as a novice politician of peas-ant origins, about to reach a new stage in his career – his election into the Landtag andmarriage into an aristocratic family. He is hailed as a ‘man of the people’, a charismaticdemagogue skilled at delivering nationalistic, anti-Jewish rhetoric who believes Ger-mans to be superior to non-Germans. His empathy towards other humans is limited tothose of German origin.

After the funeral of his mother, Emerentia, Christian discovers that his real motherwas a Jew who died in a train crash shortly after his birth. While seeking shelter in anearby village, his Jewish father met the German maidservant Emerentia, who had justgiven birth to her first son. Being a rich merchant from Romania, he hired her in orderto serve as his son’s foster mother (Milchmutter) in Bucharest, on the condition thatshe leave her own son behind. Emerentia accepted the invitation, but swapped the chil-dren around. Thus, Christian discovers himself to be the son of a Jew. Initially thisrealisation further increases his incitement against Jews to the point of calling for theirannihilation.

Emerentia’s last will decreed that all of her inheritance go to Jakob Jacubowitz,taken to be her own son, who had grown up as the son of the Jewish Merchant fromBucharest. She leaves it up to Jakob’s whether to grant his foster brother a monthly sti-pend of over 100 Marks or not. But as soon as Jakob, who starts the play as a deadbeatSchnorrer from Romania, finds out that he is actually of German descent, he is quickto adopt his new role as the master.118 Opportunism on his side draws Jakob to inter-nalise both Christian’s condescending attitude and anti-Semitic rhetoric. This inversion

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happens quickly and is the main comic device of the play, which inverts the empatheticcapacity of both protagonists. Whereas before the inversion Christian had empathisedexclusively with Germans, now he restricts it exclusively to Jews. Henceforth Germansare excluded from his feeling of belonging together, i.e. from Max Weber’s notion of aZusammengehörigkeitsgefühl.119 Jakob, on the other hand, limits his empathy exclu-sively to Germans after the exchange.

This first inversion of roles reveals that Gronemann’s understanding of empathy isnot reduced to a certain group of people, but limited by notions of distinction andidentification converging in ready-made role models fashioned around the exclusion ofa specific other. Through inversion, these conceptual roles are brought into conflict withone another. They develop into subjects of laughter, on account of the underlying inclu-sive nature of empathy that is revealed by this inversion. Empathy appears as hetero-topic space, in the Foucauldian sense,120 and as common ground which facilitates theseswitches in the first place. Its disclosure exposes these ‘identities’ as arbitrary con-structs, which therefore appear as grotesque fragmentations unnecessarily narrowingempathy’s scope. Their mechanisms contradict the Bergsonian ‘élan vital’ and thereforeappear as folly.121

In the following dramaturgical step, Gronemann inverts the inversion, howeverwithout causing a return to previous antithetical positions; the final sudden reversal(peripeteia) avoids recognition (anagnorisis). He does not reverse the inversion andallows for no return to or discovery of any underlying self. On the contrary, both rolesand actors retain the empathetic perspective of the respective Other and embody hence-forth two perspectives in need of resolution, awaiting their synthesis. We, the audience,learn that Dr Wendel – a notorious drunkard and Jakob’s (or perhaps Christian’s) ille-gitimate father – had swapped the children too, after hearing of Emerentia’s plans tofollow the merchant. Jakob and Christian return to their previous self-perceptions –Christian as German, Jakob as a Jew – yet, they are not able to return to their previousmental exclusions of the Other, too, given their experiential awareness of the subversivepresence of empathy. Each is supplemented with an emotional experience of his br-other. The empathetic inclinations of protagonist and antagonist, as well as those of theaudience towards them, are doubled in a dialectical dramaturgical process resulting in anew Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl.

Originally, this kind of thought experiment might have been a dialogical mediationtechnique that Gronemann used as judge and lawyer in court, and then applied to therealm of drama.122 It brings about reconciliation, not by legislative coercion, but byfaith in human reason and in its inherent capacity to empathise with an-other in a recip-rocal fashion (Portia’s qualities of mercy and wisdom). This becomes clear towards theend. In the tradition of the well-made-play, which usually draws upon the device ofunexpected information that drastically alters the outcome, Dr Wendel remembers abirthmark which could identify once and for all the protagonists’ origins. But sinceboth have discovered the common ground of empathy, and thus of mutuality and com-promise, they agree – on the advice of Paradies, the only Jew in the village – to divideEmerentia’s inheritance equally before the identification of a birthmark could threatenthis inclusive awareness of self-and-other. All parties agree, the contract is signed, andit is hard not to notice a faint echo of Lessing’s Ring Parable in Nathan the Wise:rather than arguing about vain pride and arbitrary origin, the three monotheistic reli-gions should compete instead for the benefit of all humankind – an idea of inter-religious tolerance which Lessing had adopted from the Quran, thereby defining amodern paradigm for German–Jewish relations.123

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When, in the final scene of Jakob und Christian, the ‘real’ identity of both milk-brothers is about to be revealed, the curtain slowly falls and closes with the words: ‘Ofthe two the Jew is – (Curtain falls.)’124 The connecting hyphen turns into a broken linkand desolate signifier. The moment of recognition or revelation (anagnorisis) turns intoa moment of confusion, in the truest sense of the Hebrew Tohuwabohu [ והבווהת ], i.e.as an astonishment [étourdissement] over the emptiness inherent in the dependent aris-ing of all existence.125 But it is precisely in this Tohu and Bohu that the universalimage and humane likeness of the protagonists is revealed: others are brothers, i.e.Gronemann’s Jew is of the two – from the East and from the West, of German and ofJewish origin. Judgement is suspended; ambivalence and, with it, past and future areretained in the present.126 Both characters, as well as the empathies of the audiencetowards them, are suspended. Reader and audience are left with no definitive answer asto who is who, other than a dreamlike, zweideutig image reminiscent of WalterBenjamin’s understanding of utopia – Jewish–German dialectics at a standstill.127

Jakob und Christian belongs to a tradition of satire specific to the shaping of themodern Jew, in line with works such as Oskar Panizza’s Operated Jew (1893) and Sal-omo Friedlaender’s Operated German (1922),128 preceding Charlie Chaplin’s movieThe Great Dictator by three years (1940) and Edgar Hilsenrath’s novel The Nazi andthe Barber (1977) by forty.129 Gronemann’s dramaturgical device may serve as a keyto these works, since it operates on analytical, performative and meta-theatrical levels.The dialectical steps of Gronemann’s dialectical empathy may, I argue, serve as a gen-eral guide for a dynamic analysis of intersubjectivity and as an alternative analyticalidiom for the hypostatised notion of ‘identity’.130 Can Jakob und Christian be said to‘raise ethnic humor to the level of critical theory’?131 Was Gronemann a Jew notbeyond Judaism, but ‘beyond identity’?132

Clearly, Jakob und Christian should be read against the background of Grone-mann’s interpretation of The Merchant of Venice and his attempt to shape Jessner’s pro-duction one year before. It culminates in a trial scene, like Shakespeare’s comedy, towhich Gronemann’s play makes explicit references that are more frequent and pro-nounced in the Hebrew version.133 The trial scene opens with an adaptation of Portia’sfamous interrogation: ‘Which one is the Aryan? And which one is the Jew?’134 Thisinitial moment of unclarity informs Gronemann’s comedy, in which we do not know ifthe notoriously drunken Dr Wendel (i.e. Dr Shiftle) had exchanged both children ornot. Apparent in this personification of drunkenness and its resulting dramaturgicalamnesia is a type of peripeteia specific to Purim. The Rabbinic dictum Ad-DeLoYeda(‘until you seize to comprehend’)135 demands an altered state of mind in which anydistinction between friend and fiend is suspended.136 In precisely this manner – byrepeated, potentially indefinite inversion ad absurdum – Gronemann undermines theaudience’s capability of distinguishing between Jakob und Christian, between Jew andGerman, and implicitly between Shylock and Antonio too. It is this momentum,powered by the Purim axiom, by which this specific Jewish mode of inversion is distin-guished from the comic inversion apparent in other comedies of errors, and by which itmight be said to come closest to the theatre of the absurd.137 Originally, this mode ofinversion may have developed out of Talmudic hyperbole, since according to JacobNeusner, Talmudic dialectics differ from Greek dialectics in two ways: ‘They deal withconcrete cases and laws, not abstract concepts’, and possess a ‘meandering and open–ended character.’138

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6. God’s Dramaturg

… one should consider contemporary Germany as the homeland of the holy word,

as the mother-earth of prophecy and as the castle of pure spirituality …

(Heinrich Heine)139

Following the refugee waves after 1933 (the 5th Aliyah), German-Jewish literature con-tinued to develop to a limited extent in Palestine,140 although encounters with Hebrewsociety had created conflicts ever since the battle over the language of instruction at theTechnion Institute in Haifa in 1912.141 Unlike the medieval fusion of Hebrew and Ger-man, which had given birth to Yiddish, the modern Hebrew claim had – in extremecases – led to violent persecution of non-Hebrew speakers. For example, bomb threatsby Jewish right-wing fundamentalists put an end to Stella Kadmon’s cabaret, and sheeventually returned to Vienna after Gronemann had helped her gain a licence by havingher recite Hebrew sentences in front of Tel Aviv’s mayor.142 Likewise, the 1943 bomb-ing of the printing house of the Orient, a German-language periodical, caused its edi-tors Wolfgang Yourgrau and Arnold Zweig to leave.143 These were by no means theonly prominent immigrant-refugees144 who left, or who would have left given thechance to do so: Leopold Jessner, for instance, left for Austria in 1937 following his‘Palestine Interlude’, after having told the Israeli actor Shimon Finkel, who had playedhis Shylock: ‘It’s easier to stage Nathan the Wise for the Goyim than for the Jews.’145

Generally speaking, though, it is safe to assume that ‘most German Jews would havepreferred to stay in their country.’146

The heated atmosphere and debate following the attack on the Orient in 1943 ledto “the use of increasingly inflammatory language to depict the Yishuv as a totalitariansociety, and to describe certain circles within it as ‘fascist’, while coining terms such as‘Yishuv-Nazis’”.147 In a hitherto overlooked, posthumously published text, titled Zumeiner Entlastung (Towards my Exoneration), Gronemann too described a world per-meated by Hitler’s ‘fanatical fascist ideas’, which took root ‘even in the land of theJews, whom he had threatened to annihilate physically and spiritually.’148 He writes bit-terly of the Yishuv’s relationship with the German language and the discrimination hefaced as a German author, which he blames for his being denied recognition: ‘the Jewsof Israel adopt his [Hitler’s] principles and inherit all of those narrow-minded preju-dices under which they had suffered for so long, intolerance, chauvinism, etc. – eventhe barbaric slogan of a collective guilt, which had been applied to them over centuries,has become their own.’149 Outraged by this perceived preposterous absurdity, he returnsthe collective accusations against the Yekkes by suggesting that equating Hitler’s fascistideology with German language and culture points towards such mindset, since:

Neither Lessing, neither Goethe, neither Heine, nor even Herzl is being used to represent theGerman language, but a Hitler who has both violated and corrupted this language. Nobodyseems to understand that he is being given a posthumous triumph if we allow him to expelus from the temple of culture, which we have always approached with special veneration.150

In line with this, he continued to write in Palestine/Israel in the German language, whichhe called his ‘spiritual home’,151 as the language ‘not of Hitler, but of Lessing’,152 Heine,and Herzl.153 Gronemann did not understand ‘the temple of [German] culture’ – thatalternate Jewish religion of Bildung, including the German Staatstheater154 – in terms ofassimilation. Therefore, neither as a Diaspora to be negated nor as a rival to Zionist cul-ture politics in Palestine155, but rather in terms of the German–Jewish tradition, including

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its liturgical and theatrical dimensions, which was supposed to be continued in Palestineand Israel. After a century and a half of Jewish efforts to achieve that hyphen which hadput the word German on a par with Jewish tradition, German–Jews like Gronemanncould not and would not easily give up this accomplishment. In the active state of Herzl’sdream should a Jew not be able to speak the language in which he had dreamt it? Grone-mann’s text is clear on this issue. The title (Towards my Exoneration) hints at testimonyand self-accusation, which responds self-ironically to a self-accusation (Selbstanzeige) hehad made a few years earlier, on account of his autobiography that was published inHebrew as Memoirs of a Yekke – then still a derogatory term, associated with the unwill-ingness and often utter inability of German–Jewish refugee immigrants to assimilate intothe new Hebrew culture.156 Multiple ironies are at work here, but in the face of thistragedy Gronemann’s optimism is clear to see, stripped of any wit in its defence: ‘If free-dom of thought and speech, freedom in every respect, is to be realised somewhere inthe world,’ he writes in conclusion of his Exoneration, ‘it will be realised in Yisrael; andif not in this generation, then in another, later one which has liberated itself from the yokeof exile.’157

Gronemann seems to have seen this liberation as contingent upon anotherparadigm shift, pointedly formulated in his inversion of the Jewish credo(Shma Yisrael, לארשיעמש ) : ‘Listen Lord, Israel is Your people, Israel is One.’159

According to Irvin Eppstein’s eulogy, given at the Bialik Lodge, in Tel Aviv on 14March 1952, Gronemann had recited this admonition for unity and solidarity with‘rarely perceived inner excitement’ in his speech honouring the United Nations Par-tition Plan for Palestine in 1947.160 An admonition still relevant after his death,according to Eppstein, that can also be read as the aphoristic fruit, containing theseed of Gronemann’s ripened Jewish and Zionist conviction. The ironic inversionexemplifies at once his stance against idealism and the metamorphosis of his life,by establishing human agency over divine providence in returning authority to man.Gronemann’s Shma compels, with his characteristic chutzpah (‘So What?!’),161 the‘Eternal Lord’ and artistic director of the world to ‘Listen!’ in order to reveal toHim that His Jewish people are not only ideally ‘one’ – unified, unique, and anation – but also realistically ‘one’ among other peoples and nations. A people castto stage the script of one God’s drama with those peoples and scripts (un)chosen toplay it with them.162 Evidently, Gronemann’s dramaturgy of dialectical empathy ismeant to develop these encounters to their potential, not of tragedy, but of comedy.

Note on contributorJan Kühne is a PhD student at the Center for German Studies of the Hebrew University in Jeru-salem. His interdisciplinary study focuses on the German roots of Hebrew theatre in SammyGronemann’s drama. Current research includes Zionist satire and political performance in Jewishmodernity. As an artist-scholar, Jan Kühne’s last theatrical work marks the first Hebrew adapta-tion of Viktor Frankl’s Man in Search for Meaning, directed at the Israel Festival – MerkazHaBamah, in June 2015. His publications include ‘A Multi-Tragic Paradigm’ – Nathan the Wisein Israel (2011).

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AcknowledgementsI am grateful to the DAAD Center for German Studies and the Franz-Rosenzweig Center for theStudy of German–Jewish Literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for supporting myPhD-research, especially to Prof. Ruth Fine and Prof. Yfaat Weiss. I likewise wish to thank DrShelly Zer-Zion and Dr Caroline Jessen, who, through their cooperation as representatives of theIsraeli Center for the Documentation of Performing Arts and, respectively, the Deutsches Literar-chiv in Marbach, had furthered research on Sammy Gronemann in the administrative Habimah-Archive. Due to set limitations, I extend my gratitude at the appropriate places, but would like tothank also, for their friendly and valuable discussions on the subject of this paper, Prof. JakobHessing, Prof. Tom Lewy, Prof. Uri Cohen, Jamila Nashef, and last but not least Ofer Waldmann,and Magdalena Luszczynska.

Notes1. Dorit Yerushalmi, “The Utterance of Shoemaking,” in Jews and Shoes, ed. Edna Nahshon

(Oxford: Berg, 2008).2. As such the play was translated into English, following the Hebrew title Shlomo HaMeleh

VeShalmai HaSandlar [ רלדנסהימלשוךלמההמלש , i.e. King Solomon and Shalmai the Cob-bler] trans. Nathan Alterman (Tel Aviv: Moadim, 1942). Republ. in 1975. Cf. Ibid., TheKing and the Cobbler. trans. Moshe Lowenstein (London: Yuval, 1952).

3. Ibid., 181. Cf. Sammy Gronemann, Der Weise und der Narr (Tel Aviv: Moadim, 1942).4. Cf. Menachem Dormann, “On ‘King Salomon and Shalmai, the Cobbler’ [Hebr.],” in

Shlomo HaMelech VeShalmai HaSandlar (Tel Aviv: Kibbutz HaMe’uchad, 1975). DovSadan, “Between Shemadai and Shalmai [Hebr.],” in Alterman Booklets (Tel Aviv: KibbuzHameuchad, 1977). Dan Laor, Nathan Alterman — A Biography [Hebr.] (Tel Aviv: AmOved, 2013).

5. Menachem Dormann, “On ‘King Salomon and Shalmai, the Cobbler’ [Hebr.],” 156.6. Shelly Zer-Zion, “The Dybbuk Reconsidered – The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Sym-

bol between East and West,” in Leipziger Beiträge zur jüdischen Geschichte und Kultur,ed. Dan Diner (Leipzig: K.G. Saur, 2005).

7. Ziva Shamir, “Why did Bialik agree to translate The Dybbuk?,” [Hebr.] in Do not chaseme away – New Studies on the Dybbuk.

8. Deborah Gilulah, “Altermann, the Translator: Studies on” King Solomon and Shalmai theCobbler “[Hebr.],” in Hebrew – a Living Language (II.) – Studies on the Language in ItsSocial and Cultural Contexts, eds. Rina Ben-Shahar, Gideon Toury (Tel Aviv: Hidekel,1999).

9. César Augusto Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works of Sammy Gronemann” PhD diss.,(London: University College, 2002).

10. Hanni Mittelmann, Sammy Gronemann (1875–1952) (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag,2004). S.a. Gudrun Jäger, et al, “Gronemann, Sammy (Samuel) Dr Jur. Jurist,” in LexikonDeutsch-Jüdischer Autoren (9), ed. Renate Heuer, 315–23 (München: K.G. Saur, 2001).Joachim Schlör (re-)published Gronemann’s Schalet – Beiträge zur Philosophie des “WennSchon” (Leipzig: Reclam, 1998). Tohuwabohu (Leipzig: Reclam, 2000). Erinnerungen(Berlin: Philo, 2002), Erinnerungen an meine Jahre in Berlin (Berlin: Philo, 2004). I amgrateful to Hanni Mittelmann and Joachim Schlör for a number of documents and informa-tion that enabled me to continue their research on Gronemann.

11. Trans. as הקילשתונורכז [Erinnerungen eines Jecken], by Dov Sadan (Tel Aviv: Am Oved,1946). Orig. German: “Erinnerungen eines Optimisten”, Jedioth Chadashoth (23.4.1948–25.3.1949). Republ. as Erinnerungen. Cf. ref. 11.

12. Ibid., 16.13. Dan Diner, “Jeckes — Ursprung und Wandel einer Zuschreibung,” in Zweimal Heimat.

Die Jeckes zwischen Mitteleuropa und Nahost, eds. Moshe Zimmerman, Yotam Hotam(Frankfurt am Main: Beerenverlag, 2005) 100–3. Anat Feinberg, “Jeckes,” in Enzyklopädiejüdischer Geschichte und Kultur (EJGK), Bd. 3, ed. Dan Diner (Stuttgart/Weimar: Metzler,2012), 180–3.

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14. Gronemann. “Zu meiner Entlastung.” Jedioth Chadashoth (30.3.1953). The only studyreferring to this text is by Curt D. Wormann, “German Jews in Israel: Their CulturalSituation since 1933,” in Yearbook 15, Leo Baeck Institute, 1970, 88. I am grateful toDr. Jeanette Malkin for this reference.

15. Ibid., “Jakob und Christian,” Israeli Documentation Center for the Performing Arts(ICDPA), 15.2.6 (1937). I am grateful to Prof. Dorit Yerushalmi for our conversations andfor having drawn my attention to this typoscript.

16. Bab. Talm., Gittin 68b; Jer. Talm., Sanhedrin 2,6. Shalmai’s original German nameShemadai explicitly refers to Ashmedai.

17. Ruth R. Wisse, No Joke: Making Jewish Humor (Princeton University Press, 2013), 204.18. Mittelmann, Sammy Gronemann, 10f.19. Ibid., 17f.20. Gronemann, Erinnerungen (Berlin: Philo, 2002), 148. If not otherwise indicated, all

translation by the author.21. Cf. Gerschom Scholem, Von Berlin nach Jerusalem – Jugenderinnerungen (Erw.

Ausgabe). Eds. Michael Brocke, Andrea Schatz (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1997), 26–39.22. Gronemann, Erinnerungen an meine Jahre in Berlin, 231.23. Ibid., 313–17.24. Martin Buber, “Eine jungjüdische Bühne,” Die Welt 45 (8.11.1901). S.a.: Mittelmann,

Sammy Gronemann, 46f. Cf. Mark H. Gelber, Melancholy Pride: Nation, Race, and Gen-der in the German Literature of Cultural Zionism (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag,2000), Ch. 1.

25. Cf. Sammy Gronemann, Hamans Flucht – Ein Purimspiel in fünf Bildern (Wien: R. Löwit,1926). Cf.: Ibid., Erinnerungen, 174. Kap. 18. Buber’s Ein Purim-Prolog is his only textdedicated to Purim. Martin Buber. “Ein Purim-Prolog.” Die Welt 10 (1901): 10.

26. Gronemann, Erinnerungen, 270. Cf. Ibid.. “Theodor Herzls Heimkehr.” Schlemiel 8(1904): 74–76. Cf. Anon., “Gronemann Takes Leave,” Jedioth Chadashoth 4, [Hebr.] (24.Januar 1947).

27. Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works,” 55f.28. Moshe Gottesmann, “Sammy Gronemann guides us through ‘Tohuwabohu’.” Haboker,

[Hebr.] (15. April 1938).29. The XXII. Zionist Congresss (Basel 9.-24.12.1946). Stenograph. Protocol [Hebr.]

(Jerusalem: Histadruth HaZionit, 1946), 536.30. Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works,” 83, 79.31. Ibid., 94, 100.32. Ernst Fischer, “Der ‘Schutzverband deutscher Schriftsteller’ (1909–1933),” in Archiv für

Geschichte des Buchwesens, eds. Bertold Hack, Reinhard Wittmann, and Marietta Kleiss(Frankfurt a.M.: Buchhändler-Vereinigung GmbH, 1980), 34, 39, 74, 89, 102, 144, 264,457, 479, 483, 595, 616.

33. Gronemann, “Vertrag Beer-Hofmann/Habimah,” ICDPA, Habimah-9.1927 (1.9.1927).34. Shelly Zer-Zion, “The Birth of Habimah and the Yiddish Art Theatre Movement.” Assaph

– Studies in the Theatre 22–23 (2008): 73–88.35. Shelly Zer-Zion, Jan Kühne, “The German Archive of the Hebrew Habima”, 250–4.36. David A. Brenner, “Making Jargon Respectable” Leo Winz, Ost und West and the

Reception of Yiddish Theatre in Pre-Hitler Germany,” in Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook1997), 62.

37. Hannelore Riss, Ansätze zu einer Geschichte des Jüdischen Theaters in Berlin 1889–1936(Frankfurt a.M.: Lang, 2000), 93, 97.

38. Zer-Zion, Kühne, “The German Archive of the Hebrew Habima,” 243.39. Arnold Zweig portrays Gronemann in his novel The Case of Sergeant Grischa, in the liter-

ary figure of war-judiciary Posnanski. Hans Harald Müller, Der Krieg und die Schriftsteller— Der Kriegsroman der Weimarer Republik (Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1986), 133. I amgrateful to Alfred Bodenheimer for this reference.

40. Sammy Gronemann, Tohuwabohu (Leipzig: Reclam, 2000). Ibid., Utter Chaos (With anintroduction by Joachim Schlör), trans. Penny Milbouer (Indiana University Press, Upcom.Fall 2016). Cf. Sander Gilman. “The Rediscovery of the Eastern Jews: German Jews inthe East, 1890-1918,” In Jews and Germans from 1860 to 1933: the ProblematicSymbiosis, ed. David Bronsen, 338–65 (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1979), 353.

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41. Sammy Gronemann. Schalet — Beiträge zur Philosophie des “Wenn Schon!” (Berlin:Jüdischer Verlag, 1927). Republ: 1998.

42. Ibid., “Hawdoloh und Zapfenstreich,” Jüdische Rundschau 41–83, no. except 53, 67, 69,71, 73, 74, 75, 76–81 (1924); Ibid., Hawdoloh und Zapfenstreich — Erinnerungen an dieostjüdische Etappe 1916–1918 (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1924). Republ: 1984.

43. See Central Zionist Archives Jerusalem (CZA) A135. Cf. Gronemann. “Zu meinerEntlastung.” Jedioth Chadashoth (1953): 13.

44. Cf. Gronemann, Erinnerungen, 257f, 262. cf. Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works”, 39. Onthe appropriation of Leo Winz’s satirical journal Shlemihl by Herzl, see: Philip Messner,“Leo Winz und die Diskurse jüdisch-nationaler Identität um 1900,” M.A.-Thesis, (Berlin:Humboldt-Universität, 2008), 70f. Cf. David A Brenner. German-Jewish Popular Culture,Ch. 2.

45. Ulrich Heider, “Die Soncino-Gesellschaft der Freunde des Jüdischen Buches e.V.:(1924–1937),” (Köln, Private Publishing: 2006), 12.

46. Anonym, “Ostjüdische Schiedsgerichte,” Jüdische Rundschau 41(23.5.1922). S.a.:Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works,” 64f.

47. Joachim Schlör, “Wenn schon. Nachrichten von Sammy Gronemann,” in Gronemann,Schalet, 243.

48. Alice Krück, and Joachim Schlör, “Tel Aviv,” in Sammy Gronemann: Erinnerungen anmeine Jahre in Berlin, 346.

49. Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works,” 88–101.50. Anonym, “Sonja Gronemann,” Pioniere und Helfer Juni (1936); Miriam Scheuer, and

Wera Lewin, Portraits of Three Women (Tel Aviv: Women’s International ZionistOrganisation, 194?); “In court.” Davar [Hebr.], 10.7.1936.

51. Merchán-Hamann, “Life and Works,” 94, 100.52. Gronemann, “Jakob und Christian,” ICDPA, 15.2.6 (1937).53. Gronemann, Der Weise und der Narr (Tel Aviv: Moadim, 1942).54. Sammy Gronemann. Der Prozess um des Esels Schatten (Tel Aviv: Moadim, 1945).55. Henriette Mandl, Cabaret und Courage (Wien: Universitätsverlag, 1993), 121f.56. Ruth Klinger, “Brief an Arnold und Beatrice Zweig,” Ludger Heid (Bern: Peter Lang,

2.12.1944), 85f.57. Manfred Geis, “Töne und Schatten.” Mitteilungsblatt, 22.1.1943.58. Alterman translated some of Gronemann’s plays into Hebrew; Finkel directed his Heinrich

Heine and his Uncle at Habimah (1947).59. Michael Volkmann, Neuorientierung in Palästina 1933–1948 (Köln: Böhlau, 1994), 110,

123, 225. Published in the same year: Gronemann, “The Jew’s Wit and Humour,” Bamah[Hebr.] 45 (1945).

60. Maariv, 26.11.1948; 28.1., 3.2., 20.2., 27.3., 18.4., 24.4., 6.5., 2.6., 1.7.1949. [Hebr.]61. Alice Schwarz-Gardos, “Der literarische Salon von Nadja Taussig – eine Institution,”

Mitteilungsblatt 80 (Juni 1992). Cf. Jedioth Chadashoth, 25.12.194262. Curt D. Wormann, “German Jews in Israel.”63. Schalom Ben-Chorin, “Der Schalom Alejchem der Jeckes – Zu Sammy Gronemanns 25.

Todestag,” Mitteilungsblatt des “Irgun Olei Merkas Europa” 9 (4.3.1977); TheodorWeisselberger, “Sammy Gronemann zum Gruss.” Ostjüdische Zeitung, 31.5.1936.

64. Elias Auerbach, “Sammy Gronemann s.A.” Mitteilungsblatt des “Irgun Olei MerkasEuropa”, 14.3.1952.

65. Mark H. Gelber. Melancholy Pride: Nation, Race, and Gender in the German Literatureof Cultural Zionism (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2000).

66. Bernhard Greiner. “Der ‘Fall’ der Tragödie als Gegenstand des deutsch-jüdischen Dialogs(Walter Benjamin, Franz Rosenzweig, Carl Schmitt),” In Die deutsche Tragödie. NeueLektüren einer Gattung im europäischen Kontext, ed. Volker C. Dörr, Helmut J. Schneider(Bielefeld: 2006). Daniel Fulda. “Zwischen Assimilation und Selbstbehauptung. Diejüdisch-deutsche Aneignung der Tragödie in der klassischen Moderne,” in Die Tragödieder Moderne. Gattungsgeschichte – Kulturtheorie – Epochendiagnose, eds. Daniel Fulda,Thorsten Valk, 207–33 (Berlin: DeGruyter, 2010).

67. Mittelmann, Sammy Gronemann, 50. Cf. David A. Brenner. German-Jewish PopularCulture, 7.

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68. Gronemann, Hawdoloh und Zapfenstreich, 25f. Ibid., “Zu meiner Entlastung.” Cf.Mittelmann, “Sammy Gronemann – Humor im Dienste des Zionismus”, In JüdischerAlmanach: Humor, Ed. Gisela Dachs (Frankfurt a.M.: Jüdischer Verlag, 2004), 46.

69. CZA 135/37 (7.7.1948; 7.6.-30.9.1948).70. Der XXII. Zionist-Congress, 457, 536f. Cf. Anonym, “Sammy Gronemann s.A.” Jedioth

Chadashoth, 7.3.1952.71. Sammy Gronemann, “Kongressadresse 1946,” (CZA A135/22). Gronemann’s only printed

reference to the Shoah.72. Andrew G. Bonnell, Shylock in Germany – Antisemitism and the German Theatre from the

Enlightenment to the Nazis (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008). S.a. John Gross,Shylock: A Legend and Its Legacy (New York: Touchstone, 1992).

73. Gunnar Och, Imago Judaica: Juden und Judentum im Spiegel der deutschen Literatur1750–1812 (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1995), 159–63.

74. George L. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union CollegePress, 1985), 15.

75. Shoham, Chaim. “Nathan der Weise unter Seinesgleichen: Zur Rezeption Lessings in derhebräischen Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts in Osteuropa”, In Lessing Yearbook 12 (1981).Gad Kaynar, “Lessing and Non-Lessing on the Israeli Stage: Notes on Some Theological,Political and Theatrical Aspects”, Lessing Yearbook 32 (2000): 361–8. Cf. Jan Kühne,“‘Deutschlands besseres Selbst’? – Nathan der Weise in Israel”, in Lessing und das Juden-tum, eds. Dirk Niefanger, Gunnar Och, Birka Siwczyk (Hildesheim: Olms, 2015), 436.

76. Cf. Karl Emil Franzos, Der Pojaz – Eine Geschichte aus dem Osten (Frankfurt a.M.:Athenäum, 1988 (1905)), 56, 104. Alexander Granach, Da geht ein Mensch – Roman einesLebens (München: Piper, 1999 (1945)), 417.

77. Steven E. Aschheim, “Reflections on Theatricality, Identity, and the Modern Jewish Expe-rience,” in Jews and the Making of Modern German Theater, eds. Jeanette Malkin, FreddieRokem (Iowa: University of Iowa Press, 2010), 21–38.

78. Also as Aryan antagonist by German Social-Nationalist propaganda, cf. Hilde Haider-Pregler, “Shylock 1943”, Maske und Kothurn 3 (2010): 109–24.

79. Cf. Shelly Zer-Zion. “The German-Jewish Elite and the Creation of Jewish-ZionistTheatres: 1916–1931 Habima and TAI in Berlin [Hebr.],” PhD diss., Hebrew University,2006. Shelly Zer-Zion. “Von einer hebräischen Studiobühne zum Nationaltheater – DieTransformation von Habimah in Berlin,” in Zweimal Heimat. Die Jeckes zwischenMitteleuropa und Nahost, eds. Moshe Zimmerman, Yotam Hotam. (Frankfurt am Main:Beerenverlag, 2005).

80. Shelley Zer-Zion, “Shylock immigrates to Eretz Israel [Hebr.],” Kathedra 110 (2004),73–100.

81. Sammy Gronemann, “Antonio, der Kaufmann von Venedig,” in Jahrbuch für jüdischeGeschichte und Literatur 26 (Berlin: M. Pappelauer, 1925). Republished: Ibid., Erinnerun-gen, Ch. 12. Ibid., “Shylock and Antonio [Hebr.]”, Bamah 10 (May 1936).

82. Gilman describes the “classic double bind situation” as follows: “Society has stated,through its literary institutions: Become like me – speak my language, think within myconstraints, express yourself within my forms, undertake the same search for origins as Ido – and you will become one with me. […] That is the liberal promise, but there is alsoa conservative curse: Tthe more you are like me, the more I know the true value of mypower, which you wish to share, and the more I am aware that you are but a shoddy coun-terfeit, an outsider.” Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred, 120. Cf. Theodor Lessing, Der jüdischeSelbsthass. Berlin: Meiner, 1930.

83. Contact already in 1927, see Hebr. letters to G. by Semerinski, Ben-Chaim, ICDPAHabimah-1927 (11.10.1927); Aharon Meskin, Channa Rowina, ICDPA Habimah-1927(29.8.1927); Ibid., ICDPA Habimah-1927 (26.10.1927).

84. Cf. Siegfried Jacobsohn, Max Reinhardt (Berlin: Erich Reiss, 1910), 1f. Cf.85. Erika Fischer-Lichte. “Theatre as Festive Play. Max Reinhardt’s Productions of The

Merchant of Venice”, In Jews and the Making, 222. In a later article, Gronemann displayshis great admiration for Reinhardt, expressing his hope of a “Hebrew Salzburg” in Pales-tine, with productions of Goethe’s Faust or Beer-Hoffmann, directed by Reinhardt. SammyGronemann, “Otto Brahm and Max Reinhardt [Hebr.]”, Bamah 41 (1944): 29–31.

86. Sammy Gronemann, “Letter to Margot Brandstätter [Klausner]”. ICDPA (31.7.1935).

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87. Gronemann wrote to Klausner from Nizza, on his way for the KH to Prague and Vienna,expressing his hope to return to Tel Aviv at the end of the year: “Ich freue mich darauf,mit Ihnen und den Freunden von der Habima zusammenwirken zu können.” ICDPAHabimah-1936 (27.9.1936).

88. Where Habimah’s appeal for a special budget and recognition was rejected.“Stenographisches Protokoll”, XIX. Kongress (Wien: Fiba Verlag, 1937), 546, 587.

89. Cf. Anat Feinberg, “The Unknown Leopold Jessner”, in Jews and the Making, 232–60.90. Chanoch, N., “Letter from Lucerne [Hebr.]”. Davar, 1.9.1935.91. Ibid.92. Hebr.: Ascent ( הילע ). Traditionally, immigration to the Land of Israel/Palestine is depicted as

an ascent to a higher place or status, since the Land of Israel is said to be the highest countryin the world ( תוצראלכמההובגלארשיץרא ). Bab. Talm., Kiddushin 69a-b. In Gronemann’sthought one can observe the transformation of this geographical thought into a calling for thedevelopment of a supreme ethical and moral stance. Ibid, “Zu meiner Entlastung.”.

93. Chanoch, N., “Letter from Lucerne.”94. Feinberg, “The Unknown Leopold Jessner”, 245f.95. Ibid., 250.96. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 3.97. Chanoch, N., “Letter from Lucerne.” An attribute idealised in Nathan the Wise.98. Shelley Zer-Zion, “Shylock immigrates”, 99.99. Gronemann’s distinction between “noble” and “ignoble actualisation” draws upon Max

Brod. Sammy Gronemann, “On Actualisation [Hebr.]”, Bamah 44 (1945): 35–8. Cf. MaxBrod, Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum: ein Bekenntnisbuch (München: K. Wolff, 1921).S.a. Manfred Geis, Die ‘Zweigleisigkeit’ des Jischuw (Ehrung Max Brods)”. Yedioth Cha-dashoth 25 (23.6.1944). Sammy Gronemann, “Ein Jubiläum?”, in Ein Kampf um Wahrheit,Ed. Ernst F. Taussig (Tel Aviv: 1949) 23–4.

100. “On the Boat to Tel Aviv” [Hebr.], Davar 20.2.1936. Jessner, too, arrived in February.Feinberg, The Unknown Leopold Jessner, 245.

101. Avraham Oz, “Transformations of Authenticity: Shylock Among His ‘Countrymen’”, inThe Yoke of Love (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995). S.a. Ilan Ronen’s 2012production at Habimah.

102. e.g. Sammy Gronemann, “Letter to Keren Kayemeth LeYisrael in Cernauti”. CZA A135/24 (13.5.1936).

103. Sammy Gronemann, “Letter to Habimah”, ICDPA (4.1.1937).104. Jan Kühne, “‘Wer ist Wer?’ — Sammy Gronemanns ‘Jakob und Christian’”. Pardes 19

(2013): 202.105. Cf. Comedy of Betrothal, the first Hebrew comedy and oldest known Hebrew drama,

which was written by Leonne de’Sommi at the court of Mantua in the 16th century – thenone of the centres of the Commedia dell’arte. Yair Lipshitz claims this play as proof thatthe history of Hebrew drama did not begin with the tragedy of The Dybbuk, but withde’Sommi’s comedy. Yair Lipshitz, The Holy Tongue, Comedy’s Version – IntertextualDramas on Stage in a Comedy of Betrothal (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University [Hebr.],2010), 19. Cf. Gronemann in Chanoch, N., “Letter from Lucerne”.

106. Cit. in Israel Zangwill. From the Ghetto to the Melting Pot — Israel Zangwill’s JewishPlays. Ed. Edna Nahshon (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2006), 29.

107. “A thoroughly acculturated German Jewry had created the stereotype of the Eastern Jewas its mirror opposite. Both the ‘German’ Jew and the ‘Ostjude’ were products of a‘modernized’ perspective: their polarity formed part of the same dialectic. The great post-1880 migrations were about to test and transform the nature of this dialectic”. Steven E.Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 23 (s.a. 83). On Gronemann, see: 29, 51, 153f.

108. Even in the Talmud Ashmedai (Asmodeus) possesses the characteristics of an archetypicaltrickster, often in charge of preserving the ethical order of the world. EncyclopediaJudaica, Vol. 2, 592. Cf. Gronemann’s depiction of the Zionist Congress as a “Schlemiel-centrale”, i.e. as the “Central Office for Schlemiel Activities”, in: Gronemann.“Stenographisches Protokoll des VII. Zionisten-Kongresses”. Schlemiel 4 (1904): 32–3.Cf. Ibid. Erinnerungen, 260. Cf. Brenner, German-Jewish Popular Culture, 33. On theShlemihl, the Jewish trickster: Dov Sadan, “On Shlumiel’s Problem”, Orlogin [Hebr.] 1(Dez. 1958); Ibid., “In Between Shemadai and Shalmai [Hebr.]”. Wisse, Ruth R.

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The Schlemiel as Modern Hero (London: University of Chicago Press, 1980). Cf. SidraDeKoven-Ezrahi. “Schlemihl”, In EJGK, Bd. 5, 365–71.

109. Common to German comedies of the 17th and 18th century. Walter Hinck. Vom Ausgangder Komödie, 23.

110. Kohelet 12:8,14 (New International Version)111. “Was böse scheint, kann gut, was gut scheint, böse enden, / Den Ausgang kennst Du nicht,

er liegt in Gottes Händen.” Gronemann, Der Weise und der Narr, 54.112. Ibid., 55.113. Yerushalmi, “The Utterance of Shoemaking”, 193.114. Mittelmann, Sammy Gronemann, 132. Cf. Dalinger, “Trauerspiele mit Gesang und Tanz”,

260–64.115. Walter Hinck, Vom Ausgang der Komödie. Exemplarische Lustspielschlüsse in der

Europäischen Literatur. (Springer, 1977), 7.116. Cf. Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1.117. Christian’s ambivalence conflates elements both of Christian Maske, (Carl Sternheim, Der

Snob. München: Kurt Wolff, 1920); and of Gronemann’s old friend Börries vonMünchhausen, whose contamination with Nazi ideology had fascinated Gronemann farbeyond his exit from Germany. Cf. Sammy Gronemann. “Jettchen Gebert und ihrSchöpfer,” in Georg Hermann: Jettchen Gebert (Hebr.) (Tel Aviv: LiGvulam/Bialik,1941). Cf. Mark Gelber, “The Hebraic Poetics”. Cf. Jutta Ditfurth, Der Baron, die Judenund die Nazis. Reise in eine Familiengeschichte (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 2013).

118. An inversion of the reverse-to-type theme, cf. Steven E. Aschheim, “Reflections onTheatricality”.

119. Cf. Brubaker, Rogers, and Frederick Cooper. “Beyond ‘Identity.’” Theory and Society 29,(2000): 20.

120. As a place that is simultaneously another place, ‘in a single real place several spaces,several sites that are in themselves incompatible. Thus it is that the theater brings onto therectangle of the stage, one after the other, a whole series of places that are foreign to oneanother.’ Cf. Michel Foucault. “Of Other Spaces – Heterotopias.” Accessed December 28,2015. http://foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html

121. Cit. f. Stott, Comedy, 26.122. Cf. Jan Kühne, “‘Das schönste Theater bleibt doch das Gericht.’ – Todesstrafe und Talion

im Drama Sammy Gronemanns”. Aschkenas 24, Nr. 2 (2014): 305–23.123. Quran, Surat al-Ma’ida, 48. Cf. ref. 76.124. “Von den Beiden ist der Jude – (Der Vorhang schliesst sich.)”125. See Rashi on Genesis 1,2: “ טרדנלהינודא,םיאקיסלקלזועודובכ!ריפסקש!ריפסקש …”126. Characteristic for the psychic imbalance diagnosed by Paul Mendes-Flohr in German Jews

– A Dual Identity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 36.127. Walter Benjamin, “Paris, die Hauptstadt des XIX. Jahrhunderts”.128. Jack David Zipes, The Operated Jew: Two Tales of Anti-Semitism (Routledge, 1991). Cf.

Steven E. Aschheim, “Reflections on Theatricality”.129. Cf. David A. Brenner, German-Jewish Popular Culture Before the Holocaust: Kafka’s

Kitsch (Routledge, 2008), 39. Cf. Hessing, Germanistik in Israel, 16.130. Cf. ref. 120.131. David A Brenner, German-Jewish Popular Culture, 39.132. Cf. ref. 125.133. Whereas in the German version, Portia’s question is being adopted only once, in the

Hebrew version it recurs repeatedly in the play, explicitly in Act 2, Scene 9: ‘Shakespeare!Shakespeare! Honour and Might to the classics, mein Herr Landrat!’ Gronemann, Jakobund Christian [“ טרדנלהינודא,םיאקיסלקלזועודובכ!ריפסקש!ריפסקש ”] ICDPA 15.2.6.

134. “Wer ist der Arier hier und wer ist der Jude?” Ibid., “Jakob und Christian.” Cf.: “Which oneis the merchant? And which one is the Jew?” The Merchant of Venice, Act 4, Scene 1.

135. Addeloyeda was chosen by Agnon for the annual Purim-Parades in Tel Aviv. YaacovShavit, and Shoshana Sitton, Staging and Stagers in Modern Jewish Palestine: TheCreation of Festive Lore in a New Culture, 1882–1948 (Detroit: Wayne State UniversityPress, 2004), 98. S.a. Hizky Shoham, Mordecai is Riding a Horse – Purim Celebrationsin Tel-Aviv (1908–1936) and the Building of a Nation [Hebr.] (Ramat Gan, Beer Sheva:Bar Ilan University Press, 2013). Cf. ref. 132.

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136. ” יכדרמךורבלןמהרוראןיבעדיאלדדעאירופבימוסבלשיניאבייחימ:אבררמא .” Bab. T. Megilla 7b.A debate exists among Talmudic Rabbis about the degree of intoxication, which is usuallyattributed to the consumption of wine. Literally, however, the imperative ימוסבל refers toםוס , i.e. a kind of equalisation, literally closing of eyes (effacing differences). Therein a

relationship exists towards םס , i.e. poison, medicine, or drug, and also to אמס , i.e. the con-centrated effect or essence of a narcotic or psychoactive agency inductive to an alteredstate of mind. Cf. Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli andYerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature (Leipzig: Drugulin, 1926), 965, 998. Therefore, awide range of possible altered states of consciousness may be addressed by this term,which are not necessarily dependent upon chemical agents, but may be caused also by(potentially trance-inducing) activities like dance or theatrical play. E.g.: “As to the moodin which the drama was performed it was one of Dionysian ecstasy and dithyrambic rap-ture. The player, withdrawn from the ordinary world by the mask he wore, felt himselftransformed into another ego which he did not so much represent as incarnate and actual-ize. The audience was swept along with him into that state of mind.” Johan Huizinga,Homo Ludens – A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (London: Routledge, 1980), 145.The Talmud Jerushalmi broadens the dictum from Mordechai and Haman to their wivesand extends this dichotomy to all Jews and non-Jews: “Cursed Seresh, Blessed Esther;Cursed all Evil-Doers, Blessed all Jews” (“ םיכורבםיעשרהלכםירורא,רתסאהכורבשרזהרורא

םידוהיהלכ .”) Jer. Talm. 7b.Cf. Jer. Talm. 7b137. Although not exhibiting signs of disintegrating language and meaning, nevertheless of dis-

integrating conceptual categories, who are rendered meaningless towards the end of theplay. Cf. Martin Esslin. The Theatre of the Absurd (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968).

138. Jakob Neusner, “Dialogue and Dialectics: Talmudic”, in New Dictionary of the History ofIdeas (2005). Cf. Joann Sfar’s formulation of Judaism turning multiplicity into oneness,essentially “like Westerners” but not in the same way: “Western thought works by thesis,antithesis, synthesis, while Judaism goes thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis…” JoannSfar, The Rabbi’s Cat (New York: Pantheon Books), 25.

139. Heinrich Heine, “Jessika,” In Conditio Judaica, Ed. Hugo Bieber (Berlin: Welt Verlag,1925), 124. Trans. cit. in Michael Mack, German Idealism and the Jew: The InnerAnti-semitism of Philosophy and German Jewish Responses (University of Chicago Press,2003), 93.

140. Jan Kühne, “Deutschsprachige jüdische Literatur in Palästina/Israel”, in Handbuch derdeutsch-jüdischen Literatur, ed. Hans Otto Horch (Oldenbourg: DeGruyter, 2015), 201–20.

141. Wormann, “German Jews in Israel”; Sheila Margalit, “The War of the Languages as aNational Movement [Hebr.]”, Cathedra 74 (1994); Svetlana Reingold, War of theLanguages: Founding of the Technion/Technikum (Haifa: City Museum, 2011).

142. Mandl, Cabaret und Courage, 124ff; Stella Kadmon, “Chansons auf der Dachterasse –Stella Kadmon in Tel Aviv. Aus einem Interview mit Siglinde Bolbecher (25.3.1985)”, Mitder Ziehharmonika – Zeitschrift der Theodor Kramer Gesellschaft 3 (November 1989).

143. Gordon, “German Exiles in the ‘Orient’”.144. Cf. Schalom Ben-Chorin, “Deutsche Dichtung in Israel”, Karmel — 40 Jahre Israel 1

(1988), 6.145. Cf. Feinberg, Unknown Leopold Jessner, 245f. Cf. Ibid., Wiedergutmachung im Programm

– Jüdisches Schicksal im deutschen Nachkriegsdrama (Köln: Prometh Verlag, 1988).146. Tom Segev, The Seventh Million – The Israelis and the Holocaust (New York: Hill and

Wang, 1993), 20.147. Gordon, “German Exiles in the ‘Orient’”, 156. Cf. Joseph Roth to Stefan Zweig. Letter

from 18.8.1935. In: Roth, Joseph: Briefe 1911–1939, ed. H. Kesten, Köln/Berlin 1970,419–22. In 1969, Yeshayahu Leibovitz spoke of a Judeo-Nazi mentality, in order to criti-cise a rising national-religious extremism in Israel, following its extension of national terri-tory and military rule over large segments of the Palestinian civilian population. “ תוילטנמ

תיצאנ־ודוהי ” Accessed October 8, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKZtzmjm-FM.In 2014 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants published an advertisement arguingthat “right-wing Israelis are adopting Neo-Nazi insignia.” Haaretz 23.8.2014. The analogyis – in non-Jewish contexts and academic discourses – part of anti-Semitic tropes. Cf.Monika Schwarz-Friesel Gebildeter Antisemitismus. Eine Herausforderung für Politik undZivilgesellschaft (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015).

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148. Gronemann, “Zu meiner Entlastung”.149. “Die Juden Jisraels nehmen seine Prinzipien an und übernehmen alle jene engstirnigen

Vorurteile, unter denen sie so lange gelitten haben, Intoleranz, Chauvinismus, etc.; – siehaben sogar das barbarische Schlagwort der kollektiven Schuld, das Jahrtausende auf sieangewendet wurde, sich zu eigen gemacht.” Ibid., “Zu meiner Entlastung”.

150. “Hier handelt es sich um das Verhältnis zur deutschen Sprache. Nicht Lessing, nichtGoethe, nicht Heine oder sogar Herzl nimmt man als Repräsentanten der deutschenSprache, sondern einen Hitler, der noch dazu dies Sprache vergewaltigt und korrumpierthat. Man will nicht begreifen, dass man ihm auf diese Weise einen posthumen Triumphbereitet, wenn man ihm gestattet, uns aus einem Tempel der Kultur auszutreiben, dem wirstets in besonderer Ehrfurcht genaht sind.” Gronemann, “Zu meiner Entlastung”.

151. Ibid.152. Gronemann, Letter to the KKL, CZA, A135/25. Cf. Mittelmann: Sammy Gronemann, S.

122.153. Gronemann, Kongressadresse 1946, CZA A135/22. Cf. Jakob Hessing. “Germanistik in

Israel oder die Wiederkehr des Verdrängten,” in Auf den Spuren der Schrift: israelischePerspektiven einer internationalen Germanistik, eds. Hanni Mittelmann, Christian Kohlroß(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011), 11f.

154. Malkin, Jews and the Making, 8. Cf. George L. Mosse, German Jews Beyond Judaism(Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1985). Alfred Kerr described Jessner as having“turned a stable into a temple [meaning the Staatstheater]”, cit. in Feinberg, The UnknownLeopold Jessner, 240.

155. Gronemann hints towards an anti-German bias, for which the said association with Naziideology may have served as a welcome pretext to further sideline the German language,considering the predominant influence of German culture in Jewish modernity, making itthe most potent rival to the Zionist enterprise and its identity politics, apparent for examplein the fact that, albeit German courses seized to be taught in 1933, Italian courses stillcontinued. Cf. Yfaat Weiss. “Rückkehr in den Elfenbeinturm: Deutsch an der HebräischenUniversität.” Naharaim 8, no. 2 (2014): 228f.

156. Gronemann’s “Selbstanzeige” translates both as “self-advertisement” and “self-accusation.”Ibid., “‘Sichronoth shel Jecke‘ – Selbstanzeige”, Makkabi 5, Nr. 14/15 (5.12.1946): 28.Cf. ref. 13. Gronemann had also served as judge in a public trial against German-Jewishimmigrants, Alice Schwarz-Gardos, “Der literarische Salon von Nadja Taussig – eineInstitution”. Mitteilungsblatt 80 (Juni 1992): 3.

157. “Die Freiheit des Gedankens und der Rede, die Freizügigkeit in jedem Sinne, werdenwenn irgendwo in der Welt, in Jisrael verwirklicht werden, wenn nicht in dieserGeneration, so in einer späteren, die sich von den Schlacken des Exils freigemacht habenwird”. Gronemann, “Zu meiner Entlastung”.

158. “Listen Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord, is one.” Deut. 6,4.159. Irvin Eppstein, “Eulogy to Sammy Gronemann at the Bialik Lodge, Tel Aviv,” (Jerusalem:

Leo Baeck Institute, 1952). Irvin Eppstein’s handwriting. I am grateful to Uri Eppstein forthis reference and our conversations.

160. “…eine selten wahrgenommene innere Erregung”. Ibid.161. “Grundsätze muß der Mensch haben – aber er darf sich nicht danach richten!” Gronemann,

Schalet, 109.162. Cf. the notion of mutual “unchosenness” in Judith Butler, Parting Ways: Jewishness and

the Critique of Zionism (Columbia University Press, 2012), 24.

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