Oz-Salzberger, Fania. “Israelis and Germany: A Personal Perspective.” In Being Jewish in 21st-Century Germany (ed. Olaf Glöckner and Haim Fireberg; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2015): 117-28.
Abstract
This article deals with a phenomenon that for many Israelis (and maybe even to many “bio-Germans”) – not to speak of the Jewish communities in Germany – is difficult to digest. It means, the almost mystical attraction of Germany (and Berlin in particular) to Sabras, that pushes so many to visit, to live for different periods of times among Germans and even to emigrate to Germany. Oz-Salzberger studied the various social networks of Israelis in Berlin (either in real life or in virtual networks) in order to find the common characteristics that bond all Israelis in Germany in general and Berlin in particular. Although she found that “many of the current Hebrew-speaking residents of Berlin whom I have met in recent years, Jews as well as Arabs, are enchanted, fascinated, and sometimes even obsessed with the dark past.” Yet, “Berlin remains problematic for them, and they live their problematic life in it as a matter of choice; because life is not meant to be simple, and because this urban, highly cultured, intense global-polis is not offering its newcomers either harmony or simplicity. It is not part of the deal.”
