Judaism : Only In Germany

I don’t enjoy writing this in German, a language I often experience as a burden. That sounds grandiose, like some declaration of principle from a character in a Cynthia Ozick story; some German-Jewish assyriologist from Freiburg, maybe, languishing in exile at a small college in the midwest. A bit pretentious, then, for someone like me, someone born right here in East Berlin just before the wall fell. I’ve never lived anywhere else, but I did spend seven days in the United States last February, and briefly, in the parking lot of an Olive Garden, felt as though I was free.

The reason for this grandiosity and the alienation that fuels it, the reason for the doubt, the feeling of being permanently trapped between screaming and hesitant silence, is simple (and of course, complicated): I am a Jew in Germany. To quote that tough guy Maxim Biller: people like me aren’t – or still aren’t, depending on the situation – supposed to be in this country.

My family history has bequeathed me two pieces of baggage: the famous packed suitcase under the bed, and an unpacked suitcase in "Hotel Deutschland," where I extend my booking every two weeks, like Barton Fink. (Barton Fink, who took himself too seriously, and who couldn’t even finish a page of writing because of his own self-righteous idealism — well, no one can say that I don’t know myself.)

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