Esther Dischereit is currently DAAD Chair in Contemporary Poetics at NYU. She is described by her publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, as “possibly the preeminent German-Jewish voice of the post-Shoah generation.”

About the Talk

The situation of Jews in Germany cannot be separated from the situation of other minority groups, and a close look reveals that one is reflected in and through the others. Many Muslims have been prompted to find civic interlocutors among the Jewish minority by the ways in which the majority population in German society has questioned whether and how they might "belong." In 2018, the Turkish and Turkish-German community in Germany witnessed the end of the so-called NSU trial against a member of a terrorist cell that called itself "National Socialist Underground (NSU)." The group was responsible for the murder of at least nine persons with migration background and a police officer. The number of arson attacks on refugee housing rose dramatically, and right-wing terrorists circulate lists of Jewish targets for potential attacks. Turkish and Jewish organizations call for investigations to continue and to recognize migrant perspectives in tackling racial attacks.

How does this effect "us"? To answer this, I must first ask, in addition: Who is this "us"? How ought "we," as Jewish citizens and migrants, respond to racialized hate crimes not sufficiently investigated by law enforcement and the judiciary in Germany? My talk will address some aspects of the current situation of Jews in light of the rise of AfD populist party politics in Germany and of German-American relations after the elections of Trump in the U.S.