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Identities
Global Studies in Culture and Power
ISSN: 1070-289X (Print) 1547-3384 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/gide20
‘I am not a German Jew. I am a Jew with a German
passport’: German-Jewish identification among
Jewish Germans and Jewish German Israelis
Oshrat Hochman & Sibylle Heilbrunn
To cite this article: Oshrat Hochman & Sibylle Heilbrunn (2016): ‘I am not a German Jew. I am a
Jew with a German passport’: German-Jewish identification among Jewish Germans and Jewish
German Israelis, Identities, DOI: 10.1080/1070289X.2016.1214133
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2016.1214133
Published online: 02 Aug 2016.
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‘I am not a German Jew. I am a Jew with a German
passport’: German-Jewish identification among
Jewish Germans and Jewish German Israelis
Oshrat Hochman
a,b
and Sibylle Heilbrunn
c,d
a
School of Social and Community Studies, Ruppin Academic Center, Israel;
b
GESIS –Leibniz
Institute for the Social Sciences, Mannheim, Germany;
c
School of Social Sciences and
Humanities, Kinneret Academic Center, Sea of Galilee, Israel;
d
Department of Sociology,
Univesity of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to explore the way German-Jews negotiate their
German and Jewish cultural self-identifications. Given that Jewish and
German identities represent both ethnic and national identities, we concep-
tualize their construction and reconstruction referring to theories of national
identity. To describe the outcomes of the negotiation processes observed, we
recruit Berry’s acculturation theory. This theory provides a valuable framework
to conceptualize the integration of two cultural self- identifications.
The German-Jewish-Israeli setting is particularly interesting due to the
complex relations between the three social groups emerging in the aftermath
of the Holocaust. To explore the participants’German, Jewish and Israeli self-
identifications and the role of the Holocaust in their construction and recon-
struction, we conducted 18 in-depth interviews. Findings imply that the
Holocaust plays a role in the construction of an integrated German-Jewish
identification. Yet, the Holocaust and its consequences notwithstanding, an
integrated German-Jewish self-identification is possible.
ARTICLE HISTORY Received 1 July 2015; Accepted 11 July 2016
KEYWORDS Ethnic and national identity; identification; acculturation; Israel; Germany
Introduction
This study aims to explore how German-Jews negotiate their German and
Jewish cultural self-identifications. Given that Jewish and German identities
represent both ethnic and national identities (e.g. Brubaker 1989; Smooha
2004; Weissbrod 1983), we find it useful to conceptualize their construction
and reconstruction referring to theories of national identity. To describe the
outcomes of the negotiation processes observed, we recruit Berry’s(1990)
acculturation theory. This theory provides a valuable framework to
conceptualize the integration of two cultural self-identifications.
CONTACT Oshrat Hochman Oshrat.Hochman@gesis.or
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1070289X.2016.1214133
© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
Two main models of national identity dominate the national identity
discourse, namely the voluntarist (civic) and the ascribed (organic, ethnic)
models (Kohn 1962,1994; Smith 1991; Zimmer 2003). The voluntarist model
of national identity implies that national identity is associated with volun-
tarist engagement like compliance with state values and institutions, lan-
guage acquisition and so on. The ascribed model of national identity implies
that national identity is ascribed through ancestry, religion or race.
Kohn (1994) proposed that the two models of national identity represent
two different national logics. This proposition was empirically confirmed by
studies indicating that the voluntarist\ascribed dichotomy presents a useful
tool to describe patterns of national identity across different national con-
texts (Jones and Smith 2001; Kunovich 2009).
Smith (1991), however, pointed out, that in most cases, national identity
contains elements of both the ethnic/ascribed and the civic/voluntarist
models (see also Heath and Tilly 2005; Hjerm 1998). Moreover, the dynamic
nature of national membership and national identity (e.g. Brubaker 1996;
Joppke 1999) requires a perspective that accounts for changes not only in
the composition of national identity, but also in the meanings attached to
its different elements.
Addressing these points, Zimmer (2003) proposed to differentiate
between the voluntarist and ascribed (organic) mechanisms social actors
use to construct and reconstruct their national identities, and the symbolic
resources they draw upon to do so. Zimmer (2003)defines symbolic
resources as cultural resources that provide the ‘symbolic raw material’
social actors use to define their national identities in the public discourse
(Zimmer 2003). He specifies four symbolic resources, namely political values
and\or institutions; culture; history; and geography.
Zimmer’s focus lies in the public discourse, where different political
groups promote their organic or voluntarist perspective using similar cul-
tural resources (Zimmer 2003). We, however, focus on the way individuals
interpret cultural resources using the organic or voluntarist mechanisms in
order to claim membership in national/cultural groups (Raijman and
Hochman 2011). Specifically, we adopt the common view that self-
identification represents a dynamic negotiation between social representa-
tions and individual properties and their evaluation (Breakwell 2001;
Schwartz 2005; Stets and Burke 2000). We view symbolic resources as social
representations of the ethno-national group, and boundary mechanisms as
ideologies that reflect individuals’evaluations of these representations
(Kaufmann 2008).
Beyond the application of Zimmers’(2003) framework on individual
actors, this study also seeks to demonstrate how this framework is useful
in making sense of the acculturation strategies of individuals negotiating
their membership in more than one national (or cultural) group.
2O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
Acculturation is a process that takes place when individuals of different
cultures meet (Berry 1990). It essentially implies that individuals have the
possibility to self-identify with more than one group (Gong 2007;
LaFromboise, Coleman, and Gerton 1993; Phinney 1991). In fact, Berry
(1997) proposes four strategies of self-identification that may emerge in
the meeting of two cultures: integration, separation, marginalization and
assimilation (Berry and Sam 1997). The former two types imply retention of
attachment to one’s erstwhile culture that is or is not accompanied by
increasing attachment to the respective ‘other’culture (integration or
separation, respectively). The latter two types imply a loss of attachment
to one’s erstwhile culture that is or is not accompanied by lack of attach-
ment to respective ‘other’cultures (marginalization or assimilation,
respectively).
The acculturation framework presupposes the existence of a ‘core’culture
in the dominant society, and in the ethnic minority. Although we adopt this
point of view throughout our work, it is important to recall that both host
and the ethnic societies represent spaces in which culture is constantly
constructed and negotiated (e.g. Bhabha 1997; Wimmer 2008). The inter-
views we conducted do not provide insight into the participants’percep-
tions on the construction and reconstruction of the two main cultural
groups they are or are not part of, or about the actors producing them,
and so these processes go beyond the scope of our analysis.
The paper makes two main contributions: first, integrating the notions of
voluntarist and ascribed national identity into the model of acculturation,
we provide a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying self-
identification in the context of acculturation, and expand current knowledge
regarding the construction of ethno-national identification. Our findings
demonstrate how ascribed and voluntarist understandings of national iden-
tity determine the permeability of boundaries between different social
groups. In this manner, they also determine whether and how the integra-
tion of two different identifications is possible. Second, we add a fifth
symbolic resource, namely social ties, to the four symbolic resources
Zimmer (2003) specified that partake in the construction and reconstruction
of national identity. By focusing on the construction of identity in the minds
of individuals and not in a political discourse, we demonstrate that social
networks assist the individuals we interviewed in drawing distinctions
between ‘us’and ‘them’based on who their friends are. Like other symbolic
resources, networks too are interpreted both as voluntarist and as ascribed.
Setting –Jews in Israel and in Germany
Our focus on German and Jewish cultural identifications derives from the
fact that these identifications represent classical cases of ethnic-nations
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 3
(Brubaker 1992; Smooha 2004).
1
Gavison (1998), for example, points out that
being Jewish has a religious meaning, implying a shared ethnic descent; a
cultural meaning that does not require adherence to religious laws; and a
national counter-religious meaning that developed in the Zionist movement
as a reaction to the traditional religious Jewish identity (Gavison 1998,
244–245).
This complexity is extended further by the Jewish-Israeli nexus, according
to which all Jews are potential Israeli citizens under the Law of Return
(1950). The Law of Return provides all Jews with the right to return to
their homeland, thus technically allocating Israeli citizenship to all Jews
around the world who choose to immigrate to Israel. Whether a person is
Jewish or not is determined by Jewish genealogy and blood ties (Lang
2005).
Historically, Germany represented an ethnic model of the modern
nation state (Brubaker 1989). Specifically, being German was for a long
time conceptualized in ethnic terms, stressing the shared origin of all
Germans regardless of their domicile or territorial whereabouts. This con-
ceptualization of being German was particularly useful in the years of the
German separation following the Second World War until its reunification in
1989 (Joppke 1999). With the amendment of the German citizenship law in
the late 1990s, this ethnic understanding of the German nation changed, at
least formally. Since 1999, German citizenship is no longer limited to indivi-
duals with ‘German blood’, but is also granted to German-born children of
immigrants. This change in the German citizenship law implies that at least
formally, being German is no longer a question of ascribed membership, but
rather a voluntarist issue: at an age of 17–23, German-born children of
foreign nationals must choose between their parent’s nationality and the
German one. The voluntarist element in German nationality was also
emphasized by means of the immigration law passed in 2005, requiring
immigrants who wish to naturalize to participate in integration and German
language courses (Joppke 2007).
Method
Sample and data collection
The findings presented here rely on semi-structured interviews conducted
with 18 individuals, mostly by the second author. Potential participants were
approached using a snowball method starting with the networks of
the second author, and then utilizing the connections of some of the
participants. The sample represents a criterion sample (Patton 2001, 238)
in the sense that all of the participants were descendants of Holocaust
survivors. Efforts were additionally made to maintain a relatively balanced
4O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
gender division among the participants (nine women and nine men), and a
balanced ratio of individuals living in Germany and in Israel (nine in Israel
and nine in Germany). The average age of the participants was 52, with the
two oldest participants being 66 years old and the youngest 43 years old.
Except for one person, all were living in family relationships with children.
Most, but not all, had a university degree. The interviewees hold diverse
professions, but all can be considered upper middle class. Among the
persons we interviewed in Germany, some are German-born and others
arrived in Germany as young children. Persons living in Israel immigrated
in the 1980s and 1990s.
The sampling procedure was consequential for the representativeness of
the sample. In general, the Jewish community in contemporary Germany is
mainly composed of Jewish immigrants from the FSU who are over repre-
sented in lower socio-economic strata (Haug and Wolf 2006). The partici-
pants of this study represent a highly selective group of upper middle class,
mostly secular Jews. The individuals we interviewed in Israel are first-
generation immigrants. Importantly, however, they are members of the
Jewish majority and the economically and socially dominant Ashkenazi
group (e.g. Haberfeld and Cohen 2007).
2
They provide a comparably better
representation of the contemporary German community in the Israeli
society.
Analytical approach
Analysis of the materials collected in the interviews was based on full
transcriptions made in the language of the interview (mostly German), of
which both authors have sufficient knowledge. We followed the
‘grounded theory’method (Strauss and Corbin 1990), breaking the tran-
scripts into discrete parts (paragraphs or sentences), placing them within
a conceptual framework, and then reconnecting them by means of the
relations between the constructs of this conceptual framework. For the
analysis, both researchers first read the transcripts separately in order to
cross-validate the main recurring themes (e.g. Hill, Thompson, and
Williams 1997). We then discussed our initial impressions evolving from
the text materials and identified the main themes after which we reread
the transcripts, dividing the 18 texts between us. At this stage, we
marked text sections relevant to the themes we selected before, and
tried to divide them into narrower topics. In an additional meeting, we
compared our markings and discussed similarities and differences
between the two coding matrixes, creating subcategories within the
different topics. Consequentially, we developed the relations between
the different subcategories emerging from the topics, moving them
within and between categories in order to locate their meanings in our
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 5
conceptual framework. At this stage, we also reflected on Zimmer’s(2003)
framework of national identity and Berry’s acculturation model (e.g. Berry
and Sam 1997) and compared the interrelations emerging from the
transcripts to those assumed by these conceptual models. Here again,
we considered issues of consistency between descriptions of different
participants and of the extent to which our generalizations represent
their experiences.
Structure of the interview
The themes of all interviews were: (1) the influence of the participants’
family history on the preferred country of living; (2) the role of religion
and tradition in this choice and in the participants’attitudes and convic-
tions; (3) the participants’social, personal and cultural integration; (4) the
preferences of the participants regarding the lifestyles of their children; and
(5) the influence of the homeland (Heimat) on the participants’personal and
social identifications. The interviews were conducted between 2011 and
2012 in Israel and in Germany, most of them in the participants’homes,
and lasted for an average of 1.5 hours.
Findings
In the following section, we present the main findings of our study. The
primary question we approached relates to processes of construction and
reconstruction of national identification among the participants. In our
analysis, we focus on the symbolic resources the participants called upon
to delineate their group membership(s) and the boundary mechanisms with
which they interpret these resources. Additionally, we explore whether and
how the boundary mechanisms are relevant for the integration of a Jewish
cultural identification with a German one. Having noticed meaningful differ-
ences between the participants living in Germany and those living in Israel,
we divided this section into two parts based on the participants’country of
residence. In order to assure the anonymity of the participants, we changed
their names.
German Jews in Germany
Our exploration of the construction and reconstruction of national iden-
tification starts with the self-descriptions of participants. In these self-
descriptions, participants often presented the criteria they consider
meaningful in order to claim membership in a respective national
group. Such criteria can be, for example, found in Stefan’sstatement
below:
6O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
Idefine myself as a Jew with a German passport and with German citizenship.
(Germany, male)
Gesine shares this conceptualization, but provides a more detailed
description:
If I have to define myself, I would say that I am a German citizen of Jewish
faith. (Germany, female)
For Gesine, membership in the German national group is marked by
German citizenship or nationality, and Jewish membership by a specific
religious belief.
The Jewish membership of the interviewees in Germany is often marked
by observing Jewish tradition, which is, however, individually interpreted.
Jewish practices were frequently discussed in association with the intervie-
wees’commitment to preserve their Jewish identity and that of their chil-
dren. These practices are perceived as carriers of the Jewish identity to the
next generation even though they deviate from formal Jewish laws. Relating
to the role of religion and tradition, Hanno, for example, maintained that:
…When the children were born, we both realized that we wanted to handle it
as at home: Leading a secular life, but at the same time making sure that the
children know what Judaism means. We celebrate the major holidays, but in a
rather non-religious way…(Germany, male)
Stefan too described the Jewish practices maintained at home in associa-
tion with his son:
We celebrate all holidays in a traditional way and also in the synagogue. I take
my son to synagogue on Friday nights or Saturday mornings several times a
month. Friday evenings we do the Kiddush, which is the benediction introdu-
cing Shabbat and religious Jewish holidays. (Germany, male)
Traditional Jewish practices represent ascribed or inherited symbolic
resources for participants’Jewish identification. Yet, they also use tradition
as a voluntarist boundary mechanism when stressing their choice whether,
how and when to practice tradition. In Hanno’s words, he and his partner
‘wanted to handle it’their way. Among the participants living in Germany,
Jewish tradition, representing culture, serves as a means to actively claim
their Jewish membership and draw a line between this national group, and
the German one. Relating to family history, Mareike, provides an explanation
for this choice:
The fact that I am living as a Jew in Germany is very important for me. For
myself, but more for the memory of my parents and grandparents, I have to be
here in order to preserve Jewish live. (Germany, female)
In a way, Mareike states that her commitment to maintaining a Jewish life
in Germany is associated with her commitment to the idea that Jews can
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 7
live in Germany. A commitment she also associates with her parents and
their legacy.
The statements above sustain the relevance of Zimmer’s four symbolic
resources (Zimmer 2003). The interviewees reflect on their self-identification
by reference to history (family), culture (holidays), political institutions (citi-
zenship) and geography (living in Germany). In terms of the ascribed/volun-
tarist dichotomy, we demonstrate that tradition and religion, which often
mark an ethnic/ascribed mechanism, are also interpreted in a voluntarist
way. This finding supports the position that an ascribed/voluntarist dichot-
omy oversimplifies processes of national identification. The interviews indi-
cate, however, that these four symbolic resources are not exhaustive. As we
demonstrate below, there is another symbolic resource that Zimmer (2003)
failed to specify, namely social ties. Focusing on the public discourse and
not on individual constructions of national identity, the absence of social
networks from Zimmer’s framework is not surprising.
For many of our interviewees, networks represent an important tool for
the demarcation of group boundaries. Talking about her parents’feelings
towards the possibility that she or her siblings will have Catholic German
friends, Julia, for example, maintained that:
We children went to a Catholic elementary school and later to high school, but
should have had no German friends, because ‘those out there are our ene-
mies’. (Germany, female)
German friends were, for Julia’s parents, a symbol for boundary crossing
into enemy lines. Hanno too mentioned parental control when discussing
his past friendships.
There were also young people my age, in whose families contact with non-
Jewish classmates was strictly forbidden. My parents were a bit uneasy when I
had a non-Jewish girlfriend …In many families, this option was not even
discussed. It was simply clear that one does not go so far…. (Germany, male)
Hanno and Julia present the issue of friendships as a voluntarist one that
involves parents’decision whether to allow or prohibit contact with non-
Jewish Germans. Relating to preferences and lifestyles of her children,
Gesine describes how she uses her parental authority to allow them this
contact:
I don’t want to give my children the feeling that they have to be different and
that they have to socialize with particular people. Here is their home and this
is their homeland and if they have German non-Jewish friends that is no
problem for me. (Germany, female)
Among the interviewees in Germany, friendships clearly mark a boundary
between their own and the German groups. Their strong emphasis on
whether crossing this boundary was allowed or not, implies that for them,
8O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
as for their parents, friendships denote a voluntarist mechanism: given the
opportunities available, you could cross the boundaries if you wanted to.
Identity theory maintains that networks provide individuals with opportu-
nities to act in ways that reflect and confirm their role-identity (Stets and
Burke 2000). Accordingly, network homophily is understood to imply loyalty
to the Jewish group and membership in it.
Networks and social ties were of similar importance also for the partici-
pants we interviewed in Israel. Before we move on to them, we further
explore the acculturation strategies of the interviewees in Germany.
Describing themselves as German and Jewish, they develop a strategy of
integration. Importantly, this acculturation strategy is made possible due to
the different symbolic resources the participants in this study draw on to
describe their identification. While German identification is associated with
institutional civic values, Jewish identification is associated with history and
culture. The two identifications thus do not force a choice.
Although the participants describe an integration strategy, they con-
struct clear boundaries between the two identifications and often per-
ceive these boundaries to be impermeable. Mareike, for example, noted
that:
I don’t feel a stranger in Germany, but as a Jew it’s always a bit special. I wish it
were normal to speak Hebrew without police guarding the synagogue or in
the subway. But that doesn’t work. I do not know if that’s a feeling of
strangeness, but in any case it is not normal. (Germany, female)
Mareike voiced a feeling of strangeness that evolves from the institu-
tional construction of the relations between the Jewish minority and the
German majority, expressed by the German police outside the synagogue. It
is hard to discern from this statement whether she considers the boundaries
to be impermeable because the police marks them so clearly, or because
police protection around synagogues in Germany is required (due to some
general hostility towards Jews). Steffiprovided a clearer interpretation for
the feeling of strangeness that emerged when she told her colleagues about
the past of her Jewish family:
When I told my colleagues that I have Jewish ancestry …a query came up: ‘So,
you come from a Jewish family? And I said: Yes, half …the grandfathers yes,
grandmothers not …. Explaining the relationship, I have noticed Hm?
Suddenly their behaviour towards me changes –is different. But how differ-
ent? What is different? I could not really describe it: More cautious, friendly …
we were no longer at ease. (Female, Germany)
From Steffi’s statement, it is clear that the boundaries between Jews and
Germans are constructed by the Germans. She herself was not expecting
them. However, among other interviewees we interviewed maintained that
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 9
the boundaries were subjectively defined and associated with the Holocaust.
Stefan and Gesine, for example, explained that:
Today I would define myself as a Jew living in Germany, or as German. But I
would never say as my grandfather said with pride, ‘I am German of Jewish
faith’. That has, of course, to do with the history of my family. (Germany, male)
It is definitely great that I have found my home here, taking into account the
history of my family …I do not ask myself all the time whether I am a Jewish
German or a German Jew. Nevertheless, I would not say I am German. That
does sound a little weird to me. Anyhow, I feel at home in Germany and I am
completely integrated. (Germany, female)
Both participants understand the boundaries of the German national
group as permeable. Like Steffy, Stefan and Gesine too understand their
Jewish identification to be defined by symbolic resources that imply ascrip-
tion. Unlike Mareike and Steffy, they perceive the boundaries of the German
group to be based on a voluntarist mechanism.
The interviewees we talked to in Germany confirmed our assumption that
the integration of a German and a Jewish identification is challenging.
Although they feel attached to both groups, they take great care to demar-
cate their boundaries. In the participants’own words, although they are
German and Jewish, they do not view themselves as German-Jews. In this
regard, our interviewees in Germany do not follow the pattern of hyphe-
nated identity that Lang (2005) discovers in the US.
We believe that for many of the individuals we interviewed in Germany, the
need to maintain clear boundaries between Jewish and German self-
identifications reflects the consequences of a cultural trauma. A cultural trauma,
according to Jeffrey Alexander (2004), occurs when members of a collective
experience a horrific event that leaves an indelible mark on the collective
consciousness and changes its future collective identity. The memory of such
an event is catastrophic and threatening both to the existence of the culture
and to the existence and identity of the individuals who belong to the culture.
German Jews in Israel
Similar to the case of the interviewees residing in Germany, also in the case
of those residing in Israel, we identified the symbolic resources the inter-
viewees use to define the boundaries of their cultural groups and the
meanings derived from these resources in terms of membership mechan-
isms –ascribed or voluntarist. In addition, we explored whether and how
the interviewees in Israel integrate their German and Jewish identifications.
We soon realized that Jewish identification among the participants living in
Israel is in many cases minor compared to their Israeli identification. In
10 O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
Thomas’self-described identification, for example, ‘Jewish’is completely
missing:
In Germany I am Israeli and in Israel I am German. I’m a bit of both. (Israel,
male)
An explanation for the absence of Jewish identity may be found in Jan’s
and Marita’s statements:
Whether the Jewish culture and tradition have any impact on my life, my
family and the education of my son? I would answer that with a sentence I
once said which I still believe in very much: ‘… Israel is the only place in the
world where one can safely and confidently stop to be a Jew.’(Israel, male)
Today I live a completely normal life. Being a Jew has no relevance anymore. In
Germany, this was very important, and here you simply are. It is something
natural, nothing imposed. (Israel, female)
Marita’s clarification is informative in the sense that for her, one does not
‘stop to be a Jew’, but rather being Jewish in Israel is ‘normal’and probably
implies less effort or self-awareness. Heike provides a similar explanation to
the fact that her commitment to Jewish practices weakened after her
immigration to Israel:
I also find that the Jewish identity can be more easily maintained in the
Diaspora. We already live in Israel, and that’s for a lot of people here Jewish
enough. (Israel, female)
The practice of Jewish culture, an important element in the construction
of Jewish identification among the interviewees in Germany, could have
assisted the participants in Israel in demonstrating their membership in the
dominant Jewish society and their integration. However, the interviewees in
Israel report that this element in their self-identification plays a minor role if
any. Once they arrive in Israel, the interviewees feel relieved from the need
to actively mark their Jewish group membership by adhering to Jewish
tradition.
Interestingly, the relevance of Jewish identification among the partici-
pants we interviewed in Israel appeared mostly in their reflections about
their children’s Jewish identification, and the outcomes it may have for their
identification. Simona thus maintains:
I do not want to live with my children in Germany because I do not want
assimilation. It’s about a Jewish identity for my children and my grandchildren.
They should marry Jewish and raise Jewish children. And this I can ensure
much better in Israel. (Israel, female)
For Simona, Jewish identity will be preserved only through ascription: if
her children will marry Jewish partners. In order to make sure they do so,
she prefers to live in Israel. Kirsten too, finds ascription very central for the
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 11
preservation of a Jewish identification. Describing her feelings at the birth of
her nephew, the son of her Jewish sister and not Jewish, German brother-in-
law she admits:
I had waited so much for this child, but at that moment I could only think
about what would I tell my parents now …Anyway, I already know now that it
will be very difficult for me, if eventually something like this will happen with
my son. Of course, this feeling is strongest about Germans, but I feel it also
towards non-Jews in general. (Israel, female)
Living in Israel decreases Kirsten’s fear regarding her son’s potential
assimilation, just as it does for David:
I probably would not have stayed in Germany if I had had children there. Then
I would have left sooner. It would be a problem if my child would have
brought a non-Jewish partner home. I do not know why. Emotionally.
(Germany, male)
One of the reasons for the shift we observe from a strong voluntarist
emphasis on Jewish identification of the participants in Germany to an
ascribed one in Israel may be the fact that the fear from assimilation into
a majority non-Jewish culture does not exist in Israel. A second reason is
likely the stronghold of Jewish ancestry for immigrants in Israel as the only
condition relevant for their immigration chances.
Although the context –either in Israel or in Germany –seems to play an
important role in the construction of Jewish/Israeli identification, we must
be careful in our interpretation. Conducting interviews with different people
in Israel and in Germany, we cannot determine if immigration led to the
differences we report, or if the observed differences explain why some of
the participants immigrated to Israel and others did not. It is, however, clear
that the cultural-voluntarist dimension of Jewish identification is weaker
among the interviewees in Israel. Instead, they engage in a cultural-
voluntarist understanding of their German identification.
Culture and more specifically, language was the main symbolic resource
the interviewees in Israel used to describe their German identification.
Marita puts it this way:
I also read no literature in Hebrew, too much effort. I do read the newspaper
every day and now because of my studies also textbooks. But for relaxation, I
read German. (Israel, female)
David too voiced an example for the centrality of the German language in
the lives of the Israeli participants:
Germany is not my home –not my ‘Heimat’, but German is my native
language. To this day, it is much easier for me to express myself in German
than in Hebrew …. (Israel, male)
12 O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
Alex argues along the same lines when stating:
I’m called a ‘German-Israeli writer’. I am a German-speaking, German-born
Israeli who continues to write in German because of his profession. (Israel,
male)
Language is not the sole dimension through which the participants living
in Israel experience their German self-identification. Heike, for example,
explains,
I have now been here at the ‘Goethe Institute’for 11 years and I live my life in
a German ‘bubble’. Sometimes this is even too much. I used to cherish my
‘German-ness’: punctuality and order. (Israel, female)
Relating to her social contacts and the emergence of the German ‘bub-
ble’Heike states,
My Hebrew was not so good; therefore, I focused on my native language and
wanted a job where I could use my German. Also, I still was very connected
with Germany, German culture, in short, order, having all the attributes of
Jeckes.
3
(Israel, female)
For Heike, the German ‘bubble’was at once an available social support
system and a platform for the preservation of those elements in the German
culture that she wanted to keep. Using the term ‘Jeckes’in this context
validates our observation that in Israel, being German does not imply a
contradiction with being Jewish.
The statements above clarify that the interviewees we talked to in Israel
voluntarily maintain their attachment to German language and culture.
Importantly though, most of the individuals we interviewed in Israel seem
to agree that they do so not in order to separate from the Israeli society or
define clear boundaries between them and other Israelis. To the contrary,
they do it because in Israel, the preservation of one’s heritage culture and
language is not contradicting with an Israeli identification.
As in the case of the participants who live in Germany, also among those
living in Israel we found that social networks and friendships were often
used as symbolic resources for the demarcation of German, Jewish or Israeli
national identification. One example for this use of networks is apparent in
the following quote from Samuel when describing his life before immigra-
tion to Israel:
Actually, I had a ‘split personality’, as I called it. On the one hand I had my
friends during the week, the German friends, in school or sports club. On the
other hand I had the weekends with my Jewish friends and camps.
4
But both
sides did not know each other, none knew about the existence of the other.
(Germany, male)
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 13
Samuel relies on his German and Jewish networks to demonstrate his
‘split-personality’. Describing her childhood in Germany, Marita also associ-
ates her networks with her Jewish identification, or indeed lack thereof:
I have lived very much assimilated in Germany. Although I went to a Jewish
primary school, when I was 12, 13 years I became very independent. While
everyone else was in the Zionist youth in Germany (ZJD) and the other Jewish
youth organizations, I had almost only German friends.(Israel, female)
The relationship between networks and self-identification is highly rele-
vant in light of the descriptions the interviewees in Israel provided. The vast
majority, reports to have mainly European, German-speaking friends.
Michael, for example, explains that:
My circle of friends consists mainly of Israelis who come from Austria and
Germany. I have long underestimated the importance of language and culture.
With other Israelis, I can reach a certain point of acquaintance, but ultimately
my friends are German. (Israel, male)
Relating to the influence of the land of origin on his personal and social
identifications, Thomas agrees that friendships with Germans, or in his
words ‘Europeans’, who share his mentality, come more natural for him:
That depends on whether the native Israelis have parents of European origin.
Of course, I am closer to those. There is the same mentality, naturally. I’m not
an oriental, although I like humus. (Israel, male)
We believe that for Thomas and Michael, their German-speaking net-
works imply a lasting attachment to a German identification. Similar to the
Jews we interviewed in Germany, who use networks to preserve their Jewish
culture, those we interviewed in Israel use them to preserve their
German one.
The German identification the participants in Israel describe leads us to
the final issue to be discussed in this section, namely the integration of
Jewish or Israeli self-identification with a German one. Indeed, based on the
interviews we conducted in Israel, we believe that such an integration is
taking place. In the Israeli context, this is facilitated by the decline in the
importance of the cultural-voluntarist dimension of Jewish identification.
Through their immigration, the individuals we interviewed in Israel gained
a sense of secured Jewish identification. They no longer feel obligated to
prove their group membership in everyday practices or social networks.
Once the cultural boundary differentiating them from other Germans is
blurred, the contradiction between their Jewish and German identifications
no longer exists.
A second factor allowing integration of German identification with a
Jewish-Israeli one is the unique position of the interviewees in the wider
Jewish-Israeli society. The individuals we interviewed in Israel are first-
14 O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
generation immigrants that are also members of the dominant Jewish
Ashkenazi group. As such, they are typically represented in higher strata
than most other immigrant groups (e.g. Haberfeld and Cohen 2007; Raijman
and Semyonov 1997; Semyonov and Lewin-Epstein 2015), and their social
group dominates social, political and cultural institutions (Smooha 2004).
Heike, for example, maintains:
Have I ever felt like a stranger in Israel? Actually, I always do, but it is pleasant. I
am thus treated much more accommodatingly and I am also forgiven a lot. I
have never suffered from it. (Israel, female)
Heike feels that she is privileged due to her status as an immigrant in
Israel. Considering Israel’s welcoming policy towards Jewish immigrants, and
particularly those arriving from Western Europe, this is not surprising. Jan
too expresses his sense of liberty to be different within the Israeli society,
and associates it with the fragmented nature of the Israeli society:
I can understand myself as part of Israeli society, because it is no longer a
mainstream society. It consists of very different groups, and I belong to one of
them rather than to the other. Thus, I am part of a minority in a country where
many minorities together make a majority. (Israel, male)
In light of the stratified relations between the different segments Jan
describes, it would have been worthwhile asking whether a Jewish immi-
grant from a middle-eastern country would have also considered the frag-
mented nature of the Israeli society as permissive.
Conclusions
This study investigated the ethno-national identification preferences of Jews
living in Germany and of German-Jewish immigrants in Israel. Stressing the
symbolic resources individuals utilize to define their ethno-national cate-
gories of membership, we asked which boundary mechanisms these
resources represent. Finally, we explored whether and how the interviewees
integrate the two (or better yet three) identifications. Given the unique
setting of this study, we additionally asked in how far the unique complexity
of Jewish-German relations, stemming from the Holocaust, contributes to
these processes.
The findings presented above first provide support to Zimmer’spropo-
sition that individuals use different symbolic resources to demarcate their
ethno-national identity. We were also able to demonstrate that individuals
interpret these resources by reference to different boundary mechanisms.
Thus, the same symbolic resources can have different implications for
individual membership in a respective ethno-national group (Zimmer
2003).
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 15
The setting in which individuals construct their ethnic and national
identifications also seems to play a role. In Germany, individuals tended to
mark their Jewish membership by reference to cultural symbolic resources,
and their German membership by reference to institutional resources like
nationality or citizenship. Although they stressed their voluntarist interpre-
tation of Jewish tradition and its practice, most interviewees in Germany
could not ignore the ascribed-inherited nature of their Jewish identification.
Their national-institutional German identification was also accepted as an
ascribed fact.
Among the Jewish German individuals who migrated into Israel, their
Jewish national identification is asserted mostly through ancestral symbolic
resources. Although all of the interviewees maintain their German nation-
ality, their German identification in Israel is represented by a cultural sym-
bolic resource and not an institutional one. Mirroring the construction of the
Jewish identification in Germany, German identification in Israel is consid-
ered to be ascribed by birth, but its presence in the participants’everyday
lives is voluntarist.
A second important finding relates to the role of networks in the con-
struction of national identification: Networks are often postulated as markers
of national membership. Thus, the participants often use the social ties with
members of a respective group to demonstrate their membership or the
lack thereof. For the most part, networks were understood as voluntarist –
individuals choosing their friends. However, these choices are always made
within a specific opportunity structure. In Germany, this structure was
limited by parents, the number of Jews in the community and other factors.
In Israel, it was limited by the relatively low probability that the participants
and their offspring have to make contact with a non-Jewish German person.
Our findings demonstrate that the Holocaust is clearly present in the
cognitions of German-Jewish individuals, primarily among those living in
Germany. This, however, does not prevent them from integrating their
Jewish and German identifications. In this regard, our exploration yielded
a significant contribution, allowing us to draw a distinction between an
integration that allows one to feel part German and part Jewish, and an
integration that implies the emergence of a new hybrid (German-Israeli)
category (Benet-Martinez et al. 2002). The first form of integration applies to
interviewees who reside in Germany. For these individuals, the integration
of a German and an Israeli identifications is an effort that also implies a
cognitive dissonance: they feel comfortable there but are also alerted to the
threat of assimilation and the loss of their Jewish identification.
The second form of integration characterizes the interviewees in Israel. As
members of a Jewish majority in a country defined as Jewish, these inter-
viewees do not consider it necessary to assert their Jewish membership by
practicing Jewish costumes and religious traditions. Relieved from the threat
16 O. HOCHMAN AND S. HEILBRUNN
of assimilation, they are able to maintain their German culture without
having to sacrifice their Jewish one. In other words, as the cultural symbolic
resources that mark the boundaries between Jews and other Germans fade,
the boundaries themselves become blurred (Alba 2005).
Reflecting on the acculturation model, we would like to stress the impor-
tant role of context in the selection of integration strategies: in Germany, the
maintenance of a Jewish culture contradicts with the accepted notion of
German-ness. In Israel, however, the participants describe a freedom to
practice their German culture that does not hamper their acceptance as
(Jewish) Israelis.
One question left open in this study is whether the Israeli context enables
the emergence of this new category or if it is the migration out of Germany.
In other words, would a German-Jewish category emerge also in a different
non-German context that is not Israel? Future Explorations of Jewish and
German identification will thus benefit most from adding a third group to
the comparison, namely German Jews who migrated out of Germany, but
not to Israel. This group would provide a deeper understanding of the
complex relations between German-ness and Jewish-ness, outside
Germany and outside the context of Israel.
Another string from the findings described above worth pulling relates to
the emergence of a hybrid hyphenated self-identification in the Israeli
context. Specifically, we wonder what role the privileged status of the
interviewees we met in Israel might play in their ability to actively nurture
their foreign identification.
Notes
1. Following Smith (1991) and Joppke (2004), we view both German and Jewish
national identifications as leaning more towards the ethnic national identity
type, but not as strictly ethnic.
2. As members of the Ashkenazi group, the majority of Ashkenazi Jews hold a
relatively high socio-economic position (Bar-Haim and Semyonov 2015)
3. ‘Jeckes’is a term used to refer to German (Jewish) immigrants who arrived in
Israel in the 1930s–1950s. Some maintain that it is related to the word Jacke
(jacket, in German), while others maintain it is an acronym of Yehudi Kshe
Havana (slow-witted Jew, in Hebrew).
4. The camps are summer camps organized by the German Zionist youth move-
ment (ZJD).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
IDENTITIES: GLOBAL STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POWER 17
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