Norbert Elias and the German-Jewish Synthesis

Abstract

It is still, to use the words which Gershom Scholem used at the beginning of his famous address to the plenary session of the World Jewish Congress in 1966, a ‘melancholy enterprise’ to speak of Jews and Germans and their relations over the last two hundred years (Scholem, 1966:31). The difficulties which he addressed on that occasion remain, although they are rarely treated with the subtlety and clarity of vision characteristic of Scholem. These include the obvious intellectual difficulties involved in, for instance, generalizing with any confidence about ‘Jews’ and ‘Germans’ as if they were discrete entities. More important even than these, however, are the emotional difficulties, what Scholem called ‘the burden of emotions’ carried by both sides and which render ‘dispassionate consideration or analysis of the matter . . . almost impossible’ (1966:31). Consequently, the written version of Scholem’s lecture reads like the pioneering document that it is, or at least as a courageous foray into largely unexplored territory, a foray not without considerable cost and personal pain.