The Other Jewish Question: Identifying the Jew and Making Sense of Modernity

• Published in: German studies review 2012, Vol.35 (2), p.393-395
• Main Author: Wallach, Kerry
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund (1903-1969); Antisemitism; Chinese languages; Circumcision; Cultural studies; Culture; Disease; Ethnicity; Feuerbach, Ludwig (1804-1872); Fichte, Johann Gottlieb; Freud, Sigmund (1856-1939); Gender; Gender differences; German language; Heine, Heinrich (1797-1856); Hitler, Adolf (1889-1945); Hoffmann, E T A (Ernst Theodor Amadeus) (1776-1822); Horkheimer, Max (1895-1973); Jewish people; Jews; Judaic studies; Kafka, Franz (1883-1924); Marx, Karl (1818-1883); Modern history; Modernity; Reviews; Spinoza, Benedictus de (1632-1677)
• ISSN: 0149-7952; 2164-8646; 2164-8646
• DOI: 10.1353/gsr.2012.a478055

An impressive number of texts receive close attention in [Jay Geller]'s quest to trace a genealogy of ascriptions (and inscriptions) of Jewishness. Whereas his analysis concentrates on representations of the circumcised Jewish body, Geller goes beyond Beschneidung to include "other such corporeally coded 'quasi-objects' that supplemented, that helped make visible, the circumcised: noses, smells, voice, hair, mimicry, animality, rags, diet, disease and diseased reproduction" (19). In an introduction and nine chapters that proceed more or less chronologically (plus over 100 pages rich with interesting notes), he analyzes: (1) the persistence of circumcision ([Baruch Spinoza], Moses Hess, Berthold Auerbach), (2) interrelationships of Chinese and Jewish hair ([Heinrich Heine]; German Romantics such as E. T. A. Hoffmann, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Achim von Arnim), (3) figurations of diseases including syphilis and leprosy (primarily in texts by antisemitic writers, including Mein Kampf), (4) gender difference ([Levin Varnhagen]), (5) food, particularly onions and garlic (Ludwig Feuerbach), (6) Marx's use of the terms Lump- and Verkehr-, including topics such as the rag trade and prostitution, (7) Max Nordau's conspicuous pre-Zionist omissions, (8) paranoiac Daniel Paul Schreber's vision of a non-Jewish Wandering Jew (Schreber, [Sigmund Freud]), and (9) [Walter Benjamin]'s understanding of the "Jewish aroma" (Benjamin, Franz Kafka, Max Horkheimer, and Theodor Adorno). Despite his emphasis in these chapters on well-known works and authors, Geller never ceases to cull additional arcane cultural tidbits that few before him have unpacked.