Compare the contribution of Jews to metropolitan culture pre- and post-World War II.

Résumé du document

The Second World War and the Holocaust altered in an irremediable way, the Jewish contribution to metropolitan culture. Before the beginning of the Second World War, Jews had had an extremely important part in the cultural life, with many contributions in the musical life, in literature, in journalism, in art etc. These contributions helped to develop artistic movements such as the Viennese turn-of-century and Modernity. However, after the shock of the War, the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, the Jewish contribution to culture changed to become somehow more centred on the consequences of the War, Zionism, the fate of the Jews, the persecutions they had to endure, etc. This essay will draw a comparison of the Jewish contribution to metropolitan culture before and after the Second World War.

Extraits

[...] Today the Jewish population of Austria is about most of them living in Vienna and Graz. This number is very little when compared with the number of Jewish inhabitants of Vienna one century ago. However, despite the fact that Vienna is a city almost empty of Jews, one of the major art schools, the school of Fantastic Realism, is mentored by the Jewish Albert Paris Gütersloh. Furthermore, four leading representatives out of five are from Jewish descent: Ernst Fuchs, Arik Brauer, Hutter and Arnold Hausner, and the last one, Hunterwasser claims strongly his Jewish descent, although it is not quite proved. [...]

[...] Jews became indeed really involved in the economic, cultural life of their countries, and that is why we can talk about an important Jewish contribution to metropolitan cultures. This contribution, from the moment it started in the beginning of the nineteenth century, never ended, but a major historical event such as the Second World War, clearly changed the nature and form of this contribution. It is indeed undeniable that history plays an important part in the cultural life of a city or a country, as it alters the perceptions of life, one's country, human being etc, and this is a common knowledge that, after a war, in each country that participated happen social, cultural and even political changes, and thus the Second World War and the Holocaust altered in an irremediable way the Jewish contribution to metropolitan culture. [...]

[...] However, the major contribution of Herzl is undeniably his reflexion on the Jews and the modern political Zionism he created. From 1886 Herzl became the most famous spokesman for Zionism, motivated at the time by the Dreyfus affair, as he had been covering the affair for an Austro-Hungarian newspaper. That is how his last literary work, the novel Altneuland is devoted to Zionism, where Herzl pictured a state for the Jews combining both a modern Jewish culture with the best of the European heritage. [...]

[...] And thus followed an increase of the Jewish contribution to German culture. Moreover, it had been noticed that there is, since a few years now, a phenomenon of fascination for Jewish things. This assertion comes from an American journalist, Ian Buruma, who wrote in his newspaper New York Review of Books has resulted of late in a wave of interest in Jewish matters, especially in Berlin, and most especially among young people. The sections on Judaica in German book shops are expanding all the time. [...]

[...] Nevertheless, now that it had been more than 60 years since the end of the Nazi Regime, the Jews are more and more expressing themselves and one can wonder if this general movement is going to last. However, it is against the odds that the Jews will be able to make once again a contribution to the German culture as important as they did one century ago. The different contributions to metropolitan cultures pre- and post-Second World War could not have been more different, in its form, importance, and also in the themes generally expressed. [...]