Cynthia Ozick Critical Essay | Susanne Klingenstein

Susanne Klingenstein

SOURCE: "Visits to Germany in Recent Jewish-American Writing," in Contemporary Literature, Vol. 34, No. 3, Fall, 1993, pp. 538-70.

In the following essay, Klingenstein studies the Holocaust and the theme of Jewish-American visits to Germany as exemplified in the writings of Cynthia Ozick and Rebecca Goldstein.

The question of Germany—how to view it, how to respond to it, how to cope with its apparent return not just to normal life but to power and influence in Europe—begs the question of one's attitude toward the Holocaust. It induces even the most American of Jewish writers to think as Jews. It was only a matter of time until the theme of responses to Germany should make its appearance in fiction. This motif has recently emerged in Jewish-American writing in the form of visits to Germany as steps onto Shoah territory. In this essay I examine some very different examples of this new...
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