Biennial volume of new and innovative essays on German Jewish Studies, featuring forum sections on Heinrich Heine and Karl Kraus. Nexus is the official publication of the biennial German Jewish Studies Workshop, which was inaugurated at Duke University in 2009 and is now held at the University of Notre Dame. Together, Nexus and the Workshop constitute the first ongoing forum in North America for German Jewish Studies. Nexus publishes innovative research in German Jewish Studies, introducing new directions, analyzing the development and definition of the field, and considering its place vis-a-vis both German Studies and Jewish Studies. Additionally, it examines issues of pedagogy and programming at the undergraduate, graduate, and community levels. Nexus 3 features special forum sections on Heinrich Heine and Karl Kraus. Renowned Heine scholar Jeffrey Sammons offers a magisterial critical retrospective on this towering "German Jewish" author, followed by a response from Ritchie Robertson, while the deanof Kraus scholarship, Edward Timms, reflects on the challenges and rewards of translating German Jewish dialect into English. Paul Reitter provides a thoughtful response. Contributors: Angela Botelho, Jay Geller, Abigail Gillman, Jeffrey A. Grossman, Leo Lensing, Georg Mein, Paul Reitter, Ritchie Robertson, Jeffrey L. Sammons, Egon Schwarz, Edward Timms, Liliane Weissberg, Emma Woelk. William Collins Donahue is the John J. CavanaughProfessor of the Humanities at the University of Notre Dame, where he chairs the Department of German and Russian. Martha B. Helfer is Professor of German and an affiliate member of the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers, TheState University of New Jersey.

Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped showcase the Hebrew Bible as a work of literature and the foundational text of modern Jewish identity. This book is the first in English to offer a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project. Looking at four distinct waves of translations, Abigail Gillman juxtaposes translations within each that sought to achieve similar goals through differing means. As she details the history of successive translations, we gain new insight into the opportunities and problems the Bible posed for different generations and gain a new perspective on modern German Jewish history.

In Viennese Jewish Modernism, Abigail Gillman challenges the conventional understanding of modernism as simply a break from tradition. Until recently, the study of Jewish modernism has centered on questions of Jewish and non-Jewish identity, generally ignoring the role Judaism played in the formulation of European modernism as a whole. By focusing on the works of major Viennese authors and thinkers--Freud, Hofmannsthal, Beer-Hofmann, and Schnitzler--both within and outside the contexts of Jewish identity, Abigail Gillman provides a profound new perspective on modernism.

Viennese Jewish Modernism draws together three central turn-of-the-century cultural phenomena: the breakdown of traditional modes of transmitting the past to the present; the unprecedented Jewish contribution to Viennese culture as a whole; and the development of a specifically Jewish modernism in Europe. Through her consideration of the larger questions of memorialism and memory, the construction of history and identity, and the nature of modernism, Gillman demonstrates that modernism is powerfully drawn to the past and actively engaged with tradition.

Between 1780 and 1937, Jews in Germany produced numerous new translations of the Hebrew Bible into German. Intended for Jews who were trilingual, reading Yiddish, Hebrew, and German, they were meant less for religious use than to promote educational and cultural goals. Not only did translations give Jews vernacular access to their scripture without Christian intervention, but they also helped showcase the Hebrew Bible as a work of literature and the foundational text of modern Jewish identity. This book is the first in English to offer a close analysis of German Jewish translations as part of a larger cultural project. Looking at four distinct waves of translations, Abigail Gillman juxtaposes translations within each that sought to achieve similar goals through differing means. As she details the history of successive translations, we gain new insight into the opportunities and problems the Bible posed for different generations and gain a new perspective on modern German Jewish history.