Opinie

“There where I live, there is my homeland”

What is more Jewish than the figure of the Jewish heretic? Are we not named after someone who wrestled with the divine? Then why do we vilify and not celebrate those who doubt, resist, defy, and question?  Perhaps because Jewish heretics tend to come in two deliciously forbidden flavors, the charlatan (Sabbati Tzvi) and the saint (Spinoza), and the authorities would have us believe that they are the same, or at least equally suspect.  Both … [Lees verder]

Kunst en Cultuur

‘A Tested Man’: Franz Kafka, Inside Out

“Why don’t I stay within myself?” Franz Kafka wrote in his diary in May of 1910 in a fit of self-recrimination after committing “impertinences” toward a train conductor and one of his employers. He was referring to his inability to conceal his irritation and anger at a world that seemed designed to torture him. The question also applies to his writing, and if there’s an answer, it’s to be found at last, unabridged and unexpurgated, … [Lees verder]

Kunst en Cultuur

Kafka as Visual Artist, a dialectical gesture that was just getting started

What do we want from poor Franz Kafka? Everything, it seems, even though or perhaps because  Kafka wanted nothing or even less than nothing from us. One of the most satisfying myths of our time is that Kafka was cripplingly ambivalent about publishing his works. In fact, he published three collections of stories and a variety of other works during his lifetime.  So though we ought not classify him with Emily Dickinson, who had no … [Lees verder]

Opinie

Wherever you go, there you are! An American Jew reports on India

Na drie maanden reizen door Azië gaan Jonathan Gill en zijn vrouw Eveline vervroegd naar huis. Corona sloeg toe in de metropool Calcutta. Jonathan, schrijver en docent Amerikaanse en Joodse cultuur, deelt in deze derde en laatste brief zijn observaties en ziet hoe hij niet kan ontsnappen aan het joods-zijn, waar hij ook is. Op verzoek van de redactie schrijft Gill in zijn moederstaal – alhoewel zijn Nederlands heel goed is. Zijn rijke taalgebruik komt … [Lees verder]