– an objective for which Jewish scholars had fought in vain formany decades in the 19th and early 20th centuries – has been achieved despite the fact that there are hardly any Jews left to study or teach it. Jewish book stores are flourishing, with their shelves carrying hundreds of new publications on Jewish history, literature and religion each year. Spectacular Jewishmuseums have opened everywhere between Copenhagen Bologna andWarsaw. Recently, the city of Cologne has decided to fund another big Jewishmuseumproject. There are klezmer bands and synagogue


choirs organising festivals ofYiddish and Hebrew liturgical songs. There are Jewish culture weeks or Jewish filmfestivals in all major cities. There are the Fans of TottenhamHotspur who call themselves the ‘Yids’, and the fans ofAjaxAmsterdamwho proudly display the Star of David. There is the Jewish kitsch, the little chasidimwith their fiddles on display in the Kazimierz district of Cracow, the golems in the Jewish quarter of Prague. Even places which expelled the Jews over 500 years ago re- discover themas a tourist attraction: the Hebrew street names in themedieval quarter of Palermo, the sculpture ofMaimonides in Cordoba, the Nachmanides pubs in Gerona and so on. Maybe Europe will simply settle for the


solution which Ruth Gruber called virtual Jewish: a rich Jewish culture without Jews. The Jewish presence left a long-lasting imprint, and continues to haunt and fascinate Europeans. But it seems that this fascination with


Judaismwill not last forever. In a recent speech historian Diana Pinto, once the foremost proponent of a European Jewish voice as the third pillar next toAmerican Jewry and Israel, soundedmuchmore sober. “The years of Jewish centrality are over”, she claims. “For a quarter of a century, a solemn kippah-clad repentant Europe stood silently in remembrance inside synagogues and Holocaustmemorials, at Jewish cemeteries and in the continent’s symbolic squares and parks. It paid tribute to the missingmillions in political shrines, returned spoliated belongings and art, erected monuments in honour of themurdered Jews, and with some external nudging, restored community properties throughout eastern Europe…Thus after commemorating the Holocaust, honouring the Jews and their centrality, Europeans, to paraphrase Genesis, looked back on their work and said, ‘this was good (and right)’. In the eyes of non- Jewish Europeans, after all thememorials, all themuseums, all the Jewish studies


programmes had been created, and provisions for the teaching of the Holocaust had been taken, notmuch else could be done to honour the Jewish past.As for the Jewish present, strong anti-racist laws and a firm commitment to combat antisemitism wherever it would arise seemed sufficient guarantees for the full-fledged ‘belonging’of Europe’s living Jews inside a new democratic and pluralist Europe. Unlike the Supreme Deity, however, on the seventh day, Europeans did not rest, but were obliged to turn to other problems and other priorities, in a world that had changedmarkedly with the newmillennium.” Pinto calls the period we are facing neither antisemitic nor philosemitic but asemitic. If this is right, if we live in a period of


asemitism, where Jews are neither persecuted nor idealised, thismight also contain an enormous opportunity. The chance to revitalize European Jewry, to turn it once again into a creative community, a community active in the dialogue between majority andminority populations, a group that helps to redefine the religious and ethnic landscape of Europe, a group out of which grow once againmediators between the nations and religions of the continent they have inhabited in its totality for somany centuries. There are no better ambassadors


this might be the hour in which European Jews – as reduced as their numbers are – may have the chance to become both: Europeans and Jews


for the idea of Europe than the Jews, no one knows better about its dangers and its possibilities. Jews no longer have to prove themselves as Europeans; they no longer have to show the world that they are better educated and integrated, that they aremore German than the Germans andmore European than the Europeans. Today, we not only face a Europe


without Jews but a Judaismwithout Europe. Many religious and secular Jewish traditions in Israel andAmerica have simply been transplanted fromEurope: fromthe Polish dress code and the language of the charedim to Kafkas’s influence onmodernAmerican- Jewish literature, fromgefilte fish to klezmer music.As these traditions fade away,


European Jewrymay become but a distant and blurredmemory forAmerican and Israeli Jews. Today, European Jews imitate Israeli


andAmerican practices. In religious life, Chabad on the one hand and the Reform movement on the other hand – both based in the United States –make considerable inroads in Europe.Modern Orthodoxy is increasingly looking to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate as a source for its own authority. With a few exceptions, such as France and Great Britain,most rabbis in Europe today come fromIsrael orAmerica. Not so long ago, European Judaismwas characterised by amyriad of local traditions, the customs of Alsatian Jews, the liturgy of the Jews in Galicia, the ancient Italian rituals; recipes, melodies, and dress codes.All these are forgotten, as Jews have been uprooted in many European centres and the communities of today have nothing, not even thememory, of the prewar communities. European Jewry of today lacks creativity


in Jewish spirituality and secular thought. Sigmund Freud, FranzKafka,Arnold Schoenberg,OsipMandelstam,Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig and Leo Baeck have no successors in today’s Europe. There are signs of hope, though.


Paideia is an innovative and creative institution where Jewish culture is promoted within Europe; The Heidelberg College of Jewish Studies is another. It was followed by rabbinical seminaries in Berlin and Potsdam, by Limmud, which started in England and is now a worldwide phenomenon.All are signs that there is a need among European Jews not only to remain Jews but to know what it means to be Jewish – to acquire Jewish literacy. If Diana Pinto is right and we live


indeed in an age of asemitism, if we don’t have to fight antisemites every day and don’t need to be objects of philosemitismeither, it might be time to turn inwards. This does not mean a rejection of the outside world. Jews are no longer Displaced Persons in Europe. They are truly part of the societies they live in – but theymay be displaced within their Judaism. Thismight be the hour in which European Jews – as reduced as their numbers are – could have the chance to become both: Europeans and Jews.


this is an abridged version of the paper ‘how Jewish are European Jews’, given byMichael Brenner at the paideia decennial conference august 14-16 2011. the full paper is to be published as part of the conference proceedings.


JEWISh rEnaISSancE octoBEr 2011


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