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Contested Diaspora: Negotiating Jewish Identity in Germany

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Book cover Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation

Part of the book series: Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship ((MDC))

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Abstract

The chapter will present tensions between different communal identity constructions of the Jewish diaspora in Germany, due to the immigration of Russian-speaking Jews since 1989. I intend to outline that the conflicts connected with this immigration have to do with the requirements and constraints of the symbolic and institutional order that affects the actions of Germany’s Jewish minority. For one, the symbolic image of a community of victims risks clashing with the actual heterogeneity of Jewish lives. Further, it stands increasingly in conflict with the manifold narratives that, following the Russian-Jewish migration have gained in importance. And finally, it collides with the processes of transnationalisation and multiple forms of belonging that are definitive for the future of the Jewish diaspora in Germany.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Quota Refugee Act of 1980 allows for the recognition of an applicant’s refugee status, in accordance with the Geneva Convention, when the applicant is still in his/her country of origin or in a third country, without him/her having to go through an official asylum procedure. On this, see Kai Hailbronner, Ausländerrecht. Ein Handbuch. Heidelberg: Kohlhammer, 1998.

  2. 2.

    The distribution of the Jewish quota refugees was the responsibility of the Cologne-based Federal Office of Administration. Distribution was decided in consultation with the individual federal states on the basis of the asylum seeker allocation system; that is, according to the population density of each of the federal states. This was followed by the issue of an entry permit. Applicants received a letter entitling them to a permanent residence and work permit, to social services such as integration support (e.g., language courses), welfare benefits, housing benefit, child allowance, and study grants. Upon completion of a recognised language course, immigrants could make use of services provided by the employment office (further training, retraining, and job-creation measures) and after eight years they could apply for German citizenship. Most Jewish immigrants came from Russia and Ukraine, followed by the Baltic States, Central Asia, Moldova, and the Caucasus. In their countries of origin, most of the immigrants had lived in cities, and the proportion of marriages to a non-Jewish partner was over 50 percent. Overall, the group of immigrants was highly-qualified. See Julius H. Schoeps, Willi Jaspers and Bernhard Vogt, Russische Juden in Deutschland. Integration und Selbstbehauptung in einem fremden Land. Weinheim: Beltz, 1996, 31–33.

  3. 3.

    Der Spiegel. „So leise wie möglich“. Nr. 22, 27.05.1996, accessed March 05, 2015. www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-8928367.html .

  4. 4.

    The corporative status has its origins in the German state-church law, which was adopted in the Weimar constitution in 1919 and was incorporated, unchanged, into the German constitution in 1949 (Art. 140 GG/Art.137 V). Although this guaranteed everyone a right to religious freedom, which religion could enjoy this status, and with it the public recognition of a legally endorsed equal religious community, was subject to a legal decision. The corporative status in fact represents a privileging of certain religious communities; it allows, for example, the right to tax collection and to own endowment property, as well as a right to social benefits with state support.

  5. 5.

    Translated from German original. Interview with the chairman of the Israelite Religious Community of Nuremberg, Transcript, 12.

  6. 6.

    “Jüdische Gemeinden streiten über echte Mitglieder,” Frankfurter Rundschau, 5 December 1995, 7; “Ein Fall für den Mond,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, 13 October 1997, 7.

  7. 7.

    The quotations are taken from interviews with Russian-speaking members of Jewish communities from a comparative study of communities, which was undertaken from 2005 to 2008 as a joint project between the University of Applied Science of Erfurt and the University of Erfurt.

  8. 8.

    Translated from German original. Alexander, P., b. 1924, Transcript, 2, male, 84, 3.

  9. 9.

    Translated from German original. Nikolaj, S., b. 1964, Transcript, 9.

  10. 10.

    “A Portrait of Jewish Americans”, 1 October 2013, 1–20. http://www.pewforum.org/files/2013/10/jewish-american-full-report-for-web.pdf

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany

    Karen Koerber

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  1. Karen Koerber
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Correspondence to Karen Koerber .

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  1. Norman Paterson School, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    David Carment

  2. European Ethnology, University of Vienna, Wien, Austria

    Ariane Sadjed

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Koerber, K. (2017). Contested Diaspora: Negotiating Jewish Identity in Germany. In: Carment, D., Sadjed, A. (eds) Diaspora as Cultures of Cooperation. Migration, Diasporas and Citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32892-8_2

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