A joint research project with University of São Paulo and the Humboldt University of Berlin
The universe of the German-speaking Jews of the ancient lands of the Habsburg Monarchy and Germany was systematically obliterated from European reality, through the Shoah; through the policies of authoritarian regimes that governed this region and gravitated toward the Soviet Union after the war; as well as through the ideology that was hegemonic during the first decades of existence of the State of Israel, which demanded its citizens renounce their diasporic past in order to encourage the emergence of a new Hebrew-Israeli identity.
Central European Jews, whose culture was based on the cosmopolitan parameters of 19th century, found themselves increasingly displaced as fascism rose, while the remnants of a Jewish tradition of medieval origin, peculiar to Jewish enclaves and ghettos, were likewise fragmented and in a state of perplexity on the eve of the genocide. The meeting of these disparate fragments deeply influences the culture produced by the exiles, who took refuge in all parts of the world – with Latin America among the most important destinations.
Nowadays, access to this obliterated universe depends on a kind of archeology of its debris, which enables the recovery of certain aspects of a complex of aporiai, contradictions and perplexities peculiar to the Jews of Central Europe (Le Rider: 1994) during the interwar period; that is, on the eve of the destruction of this universe.
Our goal is to investigate the fragments of a vanished universe of Jewish (multicultural) identity in relation to images of a Central Europe marked by the dialectic exile/domicile in testimonies, literary texts and press – before and after emigration. The transnational research would actualize experiences from the past and encourage critical as well as alternative perspectives to actual (geo)political debates on Europe, territoriality, nations, citizenships, migration and identity.