Unfähigkeit zu trauern? Paradigmenwechsel im jüdischen Umgang mit dem Tod

Inability to mourn? Paradigm shift in the Jewish approach to death – with Alfred Bodenheimer

Killing and death are written and talked about everywhere, and are unfortunately omnipresent, but what about mourning? How do we mourn all the dead and then go on living?
Not least because of his crime novel Cain’s Victims and how his character Rabbi Klein deals with mourning in it, we asked Alfred Bodenheimer if he would take on this topic for our Salon. We are particularly pleased that he spontaneously accepted our invitation.

Alfred Bodenheimer lives and works between Basel and Tel Aviv. Since the Hamas massacre on 7 October – he was in Israel at the time – he has been reflecting on the drifting apart of mourning in the diaspora and in Israel.

„In the diaspora, the traditional Jewish form of confronting death persists to a greater or lesser extent. People fear death, they want to keep it away, but when it comes, it is usually dealt with in a religiously conventional way (despite the emotional burden). For example, prayers are said for the dead, and there may be a week of mourning (sitting shiva). The categorisation of death in a millennia-long history of loss and damage lives on in this sense.

In Israel, especially since 7 October, I have the feeling that, on the one hand, there is a martyr spirit among many soldiers (this was revealed dozens of times in letters written by soldiers before they died) and, on the other hand, it is recognised that forms of violent death can no longer be accepted because they gnaw at the country’s self-image. The gulf between the diaspora and Israel, which Michael Wolffsohn recently described, is also opening up here. However, not only politically, as Wolffsohn meant, but in dealing with a fundamental human problem and condition.“

 

Alfred Bodenheimer, born in 1965, has been Professor of History of Religion and Literature of Judaism at the University of Basel since 2003, and in between (2005-2008) was also Rector of the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien in Heidelberg. He is the author of the Rabbi Klein crime novels, and his second Jerusalem crime novel will be published in April 2024. He lives in Switzerland and Israel.

Tickets
The move to the Grüner Salon, i.e. to the Volksbühne – a public institution – means that we are required to charge a contribution towards costs. The tickets cost 5€.

Registration at the email info@salon-ich.berlin or via the Volksbühne ticket office

Jewish Salon in the Grüner Salon is a project of KIgA e.V. (Kreuzberg Initiative against Anti-Semitism)

Jewish Salon in the Green Salon
a Berlin Jewish Salon
Salonières: Marion Kollbach and Sonia Simmenauer