Israel și Europa De Est – O Relaţie Spirituală Dificilă∗ (Israel And Eastern Europe – A Difficult Spiritual Relationship)

Authors

  • Leon Volovici

Keywords:

Antisemitism, Eastern Europe, Jewish Emancipation, Jewish identity, Modernity, Secular Judaism, Sionism, State of Israel, Aharon Appelfeld, Amos Oz, George Steiner

Abstract

This work traces the evolution of Jewish representation(s) of Europe since the Emancipation, focusing on the cultural image of Europe among the Eastern-European Jewish intelligentsia, in relation with the process of building a modern, national Jewish identity. The author mentions the idea of “abandoning” Europe which occured in the Zionist ideology and in the post-Holocaust Israeli public discourse due to the impact of modern political antisemitism, and to the influence of the European national ideologies. This study discusses the new tendencies of the Israeli society and culture to “re- discover” Europe and to re-build the cultural and spiritual bridges between Israel and the post- communist Eastern Europe. Outlined in their recent books, the perspectives of two outstanding Israeli writers, such as Amos Oz and Aharon Appelfeld, are used, here, to exemplify this new approach.

Author Biography

Leon Volovici

Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Head of Research and Member of the Managing Board of The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Short term guest lecturer at the Universities of Cluj, Bucharest and Iasi, teaching Modern East European Jewish History. He is author of Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s (1991), of many studies and essays on antisemitism in Eastern Europe and on Jewish intellectual life in Romania; edited Romanian Jewish writers, such as Mihail Sebastian (the original Romanian version of his Dairy). Editor of Romanian Jewish history at the Jews in Eastern Europe: The YIVO Encyclopedia (Yale University Press, 2008). 

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Published

2026-08-31

Issue

Journal for the Study of Religions and Ideologies, vol. 7, no. 21, Winter 2008

Section

Studies & Articles