Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth: Bertha Pappenheim as Author and Activist (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College) 0878204601, 9780878204601

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Monographs of the Hebrew Union College Number 34 Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth Bertha Pappenheim as Author and Activist

Frontispiece photo

Portrait of Bertha Pappenheim by Samson Schames, London, 1930. Courtesy of the Jüdisches Museum, Frankfurt a.M.

LET ME CONTINUE TO SPEAK THE TRUTH

BERTHA PAPPENHEIM AS AUTHOR AND ACTIVIST

ELIZABETH LOENTZ

HEBREW UNION COLLEGE PRESS CINCINNATI

 2007 by the Hebrew Union College Press Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Loentz, Elizabeth. Let me continue to speak the truth : Bertha Pappenheim as author and activist / Elizabeth Loentz. p. cm. — (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College ; 34) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0-87820–460–1 (alk. paper) 1. Pappenheim, Bertha, 1859–1936. 2. Jews--Germany--Biography. 3. Jewish women—Germany—Biography. 4. Women social workers—Germany— Biography. 5. Jewish women authors—Germany—Biography. 6. Pappenheim, Bertha, 1859–1936—Religion. I. Title. DS134.42.P37L64 2007 616.85’240092—dc22 [B] 2007019657

Printed on acid-free paper in the United States of America Typeset by Posner and Sons Ltd., Jerusalem, Israel Distributed by Wayne State University Press 4809 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI 48201 Toll-free 1–800–978–7323

For my husband Wolfgang and our daughters Olive and Ivy

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction

viii 1

1. From Ghetto Jargon to “Women’s German”: Bertha Pappenheim and Yiddish

25

2. “Even Palestine is Diaspora and Galut”: Bertha Pappenheim and Zionism

61

3. The “Jewish Mission” and the Jews’ Mission: Combating Conversion

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4. From Brothel to Beth Jacob: Bertha Pappenheim on Eastern European Jewish Women

123

5. From Silent Opposition to Immeasurable Love: Bertha Pappenheim’s Spiritual Journey

157

6. Bertha Pappenheim’s Biographers

195

7. Freud and Anna O. at Coney Island: Bertha Pappenheim in Art and Fiction

239

Afterword

272

Bibliography

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Index

305

Acknowledgments In autumn 1992 I took on the task of developing a German as second language program for the pilot project Haus Chevalier, a “clearing house” for unaccompanied minor-aged refugees in Hallbergmoos, Germany, a small Bavarian village within sight of the Munich airport. I served as the project’s first teacher for about a year, leaving “my kids” with great sadness the next fall to pursue graduate studies in German literature. There are many reasons for my interest in Bertha Pappenheim, but my experience in Hallbergmoos ranks high among them. When I worked there, Haus Chevalier was still an experiment (it is now one of eight such homes in Germany). In the early 1990s unaccompanied minor-aged refugees were arriving in Germany in increasing numbers. Prohibited from applying for asylum on their own until age 16 and too young to live alone in hostels for adult asylum seekers and their families, these young people fell through the cracks of Germany’s social services. Haus Chevalier sought to address this blind-spot by operating as a “clearing house,” where social workers would establish the circumstances under which the young refugees had left their homes and arrived in Germany, and arrange for guardians and spaces in group homes or foster care. Having fled war, ethnic conflict, religious persecution, or poverty, the children I taught (they were aged 12–17 and came from Kosovo, Macedonia, Somalia, Ethiopia, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, China, Vietnam, Albania, and Rumania—all but one of the girls I taught were unwed mothers) were not unlike the pogrom and war orphans, refugees, and unwed mothers that Bertha Pappenheim had sought to rescue. Thus, when I was introduced to Pappenheim in a seminar on German-Jewish women writers, I was drawn to the author-activist who had devoted her life—almost a century earlier—to the type of work that I had reluctantly left behind. Thus, my first thank-you is to Haus Chevalier and my young students there, for granting me an experience that I hope will continue to influence the direction of my scholarship and life. I wish to express my warmest thanks also to the teachers, colleagues, students, and friends who helped me in a variety of ways over the years spent researching and writing this study. At the Ohio State University I had the privilege of being taught, guided, mentored, and inspired by several gifted and dedicated scholar-teachers. I am most deeply indebted to my mentor and friend Dagmar C.G. Lorenz, who introduced me to Pappenheim and has supported me in this project from its beginning to its completion. I am grateful also to Helen Fehervary and Barbara Becker-Cantarino, who provided a viii

Acknowledgments

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steady flow of encouragement and critique when this project was in its earliest stages, as my dissertation, and to my Yiddish teachers Neil G. Jacobs and David Neal Miller for extending my linguistic and literary horizons eastward. Thanks are due as well to my colleagues and friends in the Department of Germanic Studies and the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago, for providing an intellectually stimulating and collegial atmosphere in which to work and for their support and encouragement, to Christian Messenger for his mentoring, and to Sylvia Manning for the interest that she has shown in my work and career. Finally, I also wish to express my gratitude to Sander Gilman and Helga Kraft, who read the entire manuscript and offered thoughtful and incisive critiques and suggestions. A portion of my research was carried out under a Presidential Fellowship, a College of Humanities Summer Dissertation Fellowship, and a Graduate School Alumni Research Award from Ohio State University. The Leo Baeck Institute generously funded my research in their archives with a Fritz Halbers Fellowship in German-Jewish History and Culture. I am very grateful for the generous support of these institutions. My thanks are due as well to the following libraries and archives and to their extraordinarily helpful staffs, who graciously provided access to their facilities and collections, assisted me in locating elusive materials, photocopied and mailed documents, and led me to other potential sources: the Leo Baeck Institute in New York, especially Diane Spielmann; the Judisches ¨ Museum in Frankfurt, in particular Michael Lenarz; Archiv Bibliographia Judaica in Frankfurt and Renate Heuer; the Frankfurt Stadt- und Universitatsbibliothek, ¨ especially Rachel Heuberger; the Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt; the ¨ Osterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna, in particular Christa Wille at the Ariadne Kooperationsstelle fur ¨ Frauenspezifische Information und Dokumentation; the Vienna Stadt- und Landesbibliothek; the Helene-LangeArchiv, Berlin; the Bibliothek Germania Judaica, Cologne; the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati; the David Simonsen Archives at the National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library; the Martin Buber Archives at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem; the Archiv der deutschen Frauenbewegung in Kassel; the Bertha Pappenheim Seminar und Gedenkstatte ¨ in Neu-Isenburg; the New York Public Library; the Judisches ¨ Museum in Vienna; the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.; the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz , Berlin; the Zentrum fur ¨ Antisemitismusforschung, Berlin; the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich; and finally my home library at the University of Illinois at

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Chicago, in particular the staff of the interlibary loan department. I am grateful also to Jerome Coopersmith, Dori Appel, and Michaela Melian ´ for generously sharing their work with me. I wish to extend also my heartfelt thanks to Michael A. Meyer and Barbara Selya at the Hebrew Union College Press for their guidance and patience, and for the great care that they took in working with me to transform the manuscript that I submitted into the book that it has become. I am grateful also to the two anonymous reviewers who read the manuscript and offered extensive comments and bibliographical suggestions, which helped immensely in shaping the final version. Last, but by no means least, I thank also my friends and family near and far for their loving encouragement and support. My greatest debt of gratitude is owed to my husband Wolfgang, whose love and support has been unconditional and unfailing. I dedicate this book to him and to our daughters, Olive and Ivy.

Introduction In his 1953 biography of Sigmund Freud, Ernest Jones revealed that Anna O., the first case study in Freud and Josef Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria, was none other than Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936)—the author, feminist leader, pioneering social worker, and activist.1 Ever since Jones’s revelation, Pappenheim’s many and important later accomplishments have been obscured by her role as the famous young hysteric whose invention of the cathartic method became the cornerstone of the history of psychoanalysis. This study seeks to direct attention back to Bertha Pappenheim. Her achievements after her recovery, especially her writings, deserve recognition as the products of one of the most creative, versatile, and productive Jewish minds of her time. A prolific author of stories, plays, poems, prayers, travel reports, speeches, letters, essays, and hundreds of aphorisms,2 Pappenheim was also an accom1. Jones writes, “Since she was the real discoverer of the cathartic method, her name, which was actually Bertha Pappenheim (February 27, 1959-May 28, 1936), deserves to be commemorated.” Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 3 vols. (New York: Basic Books, 1953), 1: 223 note b. Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studien uber ¨ Hysterie (Leipzig and Vienna: Franz Deuticke, 1895); Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studies on Hysteria, vol. 2, The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogart Press and Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1955). 2. Pappenheim, who was fond of puns, called her aphorisms Denkzettel. In modern German usage, the word Denkzettel can simply mean note, memorandum, or reminder. However, the phrase “jemandem einen Denkzettel geben/verpassen” can also mean to give someone a lesson— either verbally (a good scolding or “dressing down”) or physically (a thorough beating)— that will not soon be forgotten. Pappenheim’s Denkzettel, some of which are admonishing or instructive in tone, are distillations and records of Pappenheim’s thought(s), meant to provide food for thought for her readers. She distributed these short texts among her younger colleagues and dedicated a large number of them to her protegee ´ ´ Hannah Karminski. Martin Luther used the word Denkzettel in his German translation of the Christian New Testament to refer to tefillin (Matthew 23:5), but there is no evidence that Pappenheim was aware of this usage. Deutsches Worterbuch, ¨ ed. Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1860), s.v. “Denkzettel”; Das Große Worterbuch ¨ der deutschen Sprache in 8 Banden, ¨ 2nd ed. (Mannheim: Duden, 1993), s.v. “Denkzettel.”

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plished translator, having translated into German the eighteenth-century feminist Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, the Western Yiddish memoirs of her German-Jewish ancestor Gluckel ¨ of 3 Hameln, and Old Yiddish texts written for women. She was featured, both as writer and newsmaker, in German-language Jewish newspapers of every religious and political faction and in the journals of the German women’s movement. Above all, she was a noted activist—a compassionate advocate for women, children, and others in need and a formidable and tireless opponent of social injustice, immorality, and hypocrisy wherever she encountered them. Pappenheim’s accomplishments as an activist-writer are all the more remarkable when considered in the context of her long but ultimately successful struggle to recover from the debilitating mental illness that was documented in detail in the case study of “Miss Anna O.” In the summer of 1880 Pappenheim (then twenty-one years old) became ill while nursing her dying father. She presented an array of symptoms: a nervous cough, partial paralysis, severe neuralgia, anorexia, impaired sight and hearing, hydrophobia, frightening hallucinations, an alternation between two distinct states of consciousness, violent outbursts, and the inability to speak in German, her native language. According to Breuer’s published case study, the patient herself led him to her revolutionary therapy, which she called the “talking cure” or “chimney sweeping.” In a hypnotic state, she described her hallucinations and recounted the genesis of each symptom to her doctor. One by one the symptoms disappeared.4 We now know that Pappenheim’s recovery was not as miraculous and straightforward as Breuer portrayed it. The “talking cure” did not cure Anna O. According to medical records discovered by Albrecht 3. P. Berthold [Bertha Pappenheim], trans., Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau: Mit einer kritischen Bemerkung uber ¨ politische und moralische Gegenstande, ¨ by Mary Wollstonecraft (Dresden and Leipzig: Pierson, 1899); Bertha Pappenheim, trans., Allerlei Geschichten: Maasse-Buch. Buch der Sagen und Legenden aus Talmud und Midrasch nebst Volkserzahlungen ¨ in judisch-deutscher ¨ Sprache. Nach der Ausgabe des Maasse-Buches, Amsterdam 1723 (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kauffmann Verlag, 1929); Bertha ¨ Pappenheim, trans., Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel. Ubersetzung und Auslegung des Pentateuch von Jacob Ben Isaac aus Janow (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kauffmann, 1930); Bertha Pappenheim, trans., Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, geboren in Hamburg 1645, gestorben in Metz 19. September 1724 (Vienna: S. Meyer and W. Pappenheim, 1910). Bertha Pappenheim, trans., Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, with an introduction by Viola Roggenkamp (Weinheim: Beltz Athenaum, ¨ 1994). 4. Josef Breuer, “Case 1: Fraulein ¨ Anna O.,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud 2: 21–47 (London, 1955).

Introduction

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Hirschmuller ¨ and Henri Ellenberger, Pappenheim was addicted to chloral and morphine when Breuer ceased treating her, and she spent another six years in and out of sanatoria. Freud later claimed that Breuer, summoned to his patient’s bedside and finding her in the throes of false labor, deserted her when she proclaimed, “Dr. B.’s baby is coming!”5 Although he did not succeed in curing Pappenheim, Breuer certainly recognized the young woman’s strengths and great potential, noting her “powerful intellect” and “great poetic and imaginative gifts, which were under the control of a sharp and critical common sense,” “energetic, tenacious and persistent” willpower, and “sympathetic kindness,” which expressed itself in a powerful instinct to help and protect those in need.6 After recovering from her illness, which has taken on near mythic importance in the history of psychoanalysis, Bertha Pappenheim eventually became one of the most influential Jewish women of her time. During her lifetime her fame was grounded not on her illness and innovative treatment (a secret that she guarded assiduously), but on her many achievements. After relocating with her mother from Vienna to Frankfurt a.M. (her mother’s hometown) in 1888, Pappenheim, now aged twenty-nine, immersed herself in volunteer social work, largely within the Jewish community. Her initiation was at a soup kitchen that catered primarily to Eastern European Jewish immigrants and refugees. In 1895 she founded and taught in the Unentgeltliche Flickschule, 5. According to Ernest Jones, Breuer resolved to stop treating Pappenheim when he realized that his wife had become jealous (to the point of becoming ill herself) of his apparent fascination with his attractive young patient. The day after he broke off the treatment he was called back to Pappenheim, who was experiencing the labor pains of hysterical childbirth. He hypnotized her and “fled the house in cold sweat.” In Jones’ account, this episode was fundamental to Freud’s conception of the phenomena of transference and countertransference in psychoanalysis. Hirschmuller, ¨ Ellenberger, and Mikkel BorchJacobsen have called into question the veracity of Freud and Jones’s account of the pseudocyesis and the end of Breuer’s treatment of Pappenheim. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1: 223–26; Sigmund Freud to Stefan Zweig, June 2, 1932, in Briefwechsel mit Hermann Bahr, Sigmund Freud, Rainer Maria Rilke und Arthur Schnitzler, by Stefan Zweig, ed. Jeffrey B. Berlin, Hans-Ulrich Lindkin, and Donald A. Prater (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1987), 199–200; Albrecht Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer: Physiology and Psychoanalysis (New York: New York University Press, 1978), 126–32; Henri F. Ellenberger, “The Story of ‘Anna O.’: A Critical Review with New Data [1972],” in Beyond the Unconscious: Essays of Henri F. Ellenberger in the History of Psychiatry, ed. Mark S. Micale, 254–72 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993); Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification (New York: Routledge, 1996). 6. Breuer, “Case 1: Fraulein ¨ Anna O.,” 21.

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a tuition-free school that taught mending and clothing repair and eventually served over ten thousand women. That same year, she became the housemother of an orphanage for Jewish girls—her first major post as administrator and educator. She was also becoming an important fixture of the general German women’s movement in Frankfurt. In 1895 she played an active role in organizing the Frankfurt local branch of the General German Women’s Association (Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein, ADF), which was founded immediately following the eighteenth national meeting of the ADF, which was held in Frankfurt. In 1896 she participated in the Federation of German Women’s Associations’ (Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, BDF) Frauenlandsturm (“women’s militia”) campaign to improve women’s rights in the new German Civil Code. Throughout the mid to late nineties, Pappenheim was a prominent figure in the local middle-class women’s movement. She was a member of the Frankfurt Women’s Educational Association. Within the ADF she gave speeches at discussion evenings, participated in a working group that established a literature office to keep the local chapter abreast of new publications pertaining to the women’s movement, and served as secretary of the Association for Women’s Education and University Study. During these years Pappenheim’s first publications appeared under the pseudonym P. Berthold: her translation of the Wollstonecraft work; a volume of stories; her first play, Women’s Rights; and her first essays on social issues, social work, pedagogy, women’s rights, and women in Judaism.7 In 1902 Pappenheim, now in her early forties, founded Weibliche Fursorge ¨ (Women’s Relief), which coordinated the efforts of the Jewish Gemeinde,8 the city of Frankfurt, and the local women’s movement to provide job training and referral services, legal aid, aid for nursing mothers, childcare, a rail station mission, and a girls’ club and dormitory for Eastern European Jewish immigrants, refugees, and other Jews. Women’s Relief soon extended its work beyond Germany’s borders, working with other Jewish organizations to establish similar institutions and services in Galicia.9 7. Christina Klausmann, Politik und Kultur der Frauenbewegung im Kaiserreich: Das Beispiel Frankfurt am Main, Geschichte und Geschlechter 19 (Frankfurt, a.M.: Campus, 1997): 44–45, 53–54, 57, 72,169–71. 8. The Gemeinde is the legal entity that represents all Jews of a town or city and is entitled to levy taxes on its members. Marion A. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Judischer ¨ Frauenbund 1904–1938 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), 43; Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ fur ¨ die Zeit vom 1. Oktober 1907 bis 30. Septbr. 1908 [sic]

Introduction

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In all these activities, Pappenheim played a significant role in modernizing Jewish social work, which was traditionally the realm of volunteers with good will but little or no formal training. By insisting on and instructing volunteers in the use of modern social work techniques and methods, such as casework, she made Women’s Relief a model for other female-led Jewish self-help organizations in Central and Eastern Europe.10 Pappenheim quickly progressed beyond local leadership roles. At the convention of the International Council of Women in Berlin in 1904, she founded the League of Jewish Women (Judischer ¨ Frauenbund, JFB ) and was elected its first president. She remained president of the organization for twenty years and served on its executive board until 1934.11 The JFB joined the Federation of German Women’s Associations, becoming its largest organizational member; and Pappenheim was a member of the executive board of the BDF for ten years (1914–1924).12 Although its platform and projects changed over time, reflecting Germany’s changing political and social climate and economic conditions, the JFB remained steadfastly committed to the goals of the “moderate” German women’s movement, tailoring these to the specific concerns of Jewish women and the Jewish community as a whole. A brochure portrayed the JFB platform as a tree whose branches represented its various missions and programs: care of the sick and aged; youth welfare (including the home for at-risk girls and unwed mothers in Isenburg, which Pappenheim founded in 1907 and directed until her death); the protection of mothers and children; charity work within the Jewish community; other participation in the Jewish community (including improving the legal status of Jewish women); women’s work and women in the workplace; education, intellectual and cultural work; and the Sittlichkeitsbewegung (campaign against immorality).13 At (Frankfurt a.M.: M. Slobotzky, 1908); Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ fur ¨ die Zeit vom 1. Oktober 1908 bis 30. Septbr. 1909 (Frankfurt a.M.: M. Slobotzky, 1909); Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V. fur ¨ die Zeit 1912–1913 (Frankfurt a.M.: n.p., n.d.); Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V.: 1914 und 1915 (Frankfurt a.M.: n.p., n.d). 10. Pappenheim inspired and helped Viennese Jewish women to found their own Women’s Relief in 1914; and Galician Jewish women also founded a League of Jewish Women based on Pappenheim’s model. “Weibliche Fursorge;” ¨ Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 31, no. 14 (April 3, 1914): 227; “Weibliche Fursorge,” ¨ Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 31, no. 22 (May 29, 1914): 381–82; Rosa Melzer, “Nationale Pflichten der judischen ¨ Frau,” Die Welt 14, no. 39 (September 30, 1910): 937–38. 11. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 44. 12. Ibid., 46. 13. Ibid., 58.

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its height, approximately 20–25 percent of German-Jewish women belonged to the JFB. The organization grew from 72 affiliated associations in 1905 (just one year after it was founded) to 160 affiliates and 32,000 members in 1913. In the 1920s it had 34 local groups, 430 affiliated associations, and 50,000 members.14 In 1914 the JFB proposed and co-organized the first international congress of Jewish women, at which the International League of Jewish Women was founded and Pappenheim and Sadie American were elected as its first co-presidents.15 Pappenheim’s leadership roles were not limited to women’s organizations. In 1916 she published the article “Woe to Him, Whose Conscience Sleeps,” which called for a national Jewish welfare association to coordinate Germany’s numerous narrowly focused communal or independent social welfare and charitable organizations.16 Thanks in large part to her persistent agitation, the Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Deutschen Juden (Central Welfare Agency of German Jewry) was established in 1917, and she was elected deputy vicepresident.17 She was also recruited by Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber to teach at the Freies Judisches ¨ Lehrhaus (Free Jewish House of Learning) in Frankfurt and later collaborated with Buber in the Central Office for Jewish Adult Education, which sought to coordinate adult educational opportunities for Jews in National Socialist Germany.18 At the Lehrhaus, she lectured on Gluckel ¨ of Hameln in the summer of 1923 (other speakers that trimester included Siegfried Kracauer, the later Nobel Prize-winning author Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Gershom Scholem, and Leo Baeck) and on “The Meaning of Social Work” in the fall of 1933.19 14. Ibid., 89–90. 15. Hannah Karminski, “Internationale judische ¨ Frauenarbeit,” Der Morgen 5 (1929): 280–87, see 282–83. 16. Bertha Pappenheim, “Weh’ dem, dessen Gewissen schlaft,” ¨ Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 80, no. 51 (December 22, 1916): 601. 17. Ottilie Schonewald, ¨ “Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis.” ¨ Special issue, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12 (1936): 8–10, see 9. 18. In a letter she jokingly calls the organization the “Office for Mediocre Adult Education [Stelle for Mittlere Erwachsenenbildung],” a pun on “central office [Mittelstelle].” Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, March 18, 1936, Martin Buber Archives, Arc.Ms.Var. 350/568, Department of Manuscripts and Archives, The Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. 19. Isabell Schulz-Grave, Lernen im Freien Judischen ¨ Lehrhaus (Oldenburg: Bibliotheks- und Informationssystem der Universitat ¨ Oldenburg, 1998), 65; Rachel Heuberger and Helga Krohn, eds., “Hinaus aus dem Ghetto!…” Juden in Frankfurt am Main 1800–1905 (Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 1988), 183. Rosenzweig doubted that

Introduction

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Nor was her service restricted to Jewish concerns. In 1917 Pappenheim was awarded the Verdienstkreuz der Kriegshilfe, the highest honor for wartime service to Germany, for her work as a factory guardian of forced laborers in munitions factories.20 Pappenheim traveled extensively, both independently and as a representative of various Jewish or women’s organizations, on research trips and agitation tours [Agitationsreisen], on social work missions, and to national and international conferences. A leading voice in the international campaign against white slavery (commonly referred to in German as Madchenhandel), ¨ in 1903 she toured impoverished Jewish communities in Galicia to investigate its causes. Her published report and recommendations, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien (The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia), established her reputation as an expert on the social welfare of Eastern European Jewry and a leader in the campaign against traffic in women.21 In 1906 she journeyed to sites of pogroms in Russia to assess losses and organize relief efforts.22 In 1909 she visited the Balkans, where she petitioned Queen Carmen Sylva of Rumania to join in the crusade against white slavery.23 In the same year she traveled to North America as a delegate of the JFB to the International Council of Women in Toronto. On this trip she also visited American cities, lecturing on white slavery and observing institutions such as Lillian D. Wald’s Henry Street Settlement on New York’s Lower East Side.24 Pappenheim would be willing to lecture at the Lehrhaus. He wrote to his colleague Rudolf Hallo in December 1922, “It’s even more useless to try to get Pappenheim—that brilliant but prickly personage [geniale Kratzburste, ¨ literally “scrub-brush”]—but if you can, it doesn’t matter about what, best of all nothing, it would be lovely, but you won’t manage it either. She is massively prejudiced against the Lehrhaus and against all things—it’s amazing how she derives enough propulsion from self-made prejudices to keep herself going. In a sort of aviation of life, because she is heavier than air, but flies anyway.” Franz Rosenzweig, Briefe und Tagebucher, ¨ ed. Rachel Rosenzweig and Edith Rosenzweig-Scheinmann (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1979), 2:858. 20. Marianne Brentzel, Anna O.- Bertha Pappenheim: Biographie (Gottingen: ¨ Wallstein, 2002), 179–80. 21. Bertha Pappenheim and Sara Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien: Reise-Eindrucke ¨ und Vorschlage ¨ zur Besserung der Verhaltnisse ¨ (Frankfurt a.M.: Neuer Frankfurter Verlag, 1904). 22. Bertha Pappenheim, “Igren: Ein Tagebuchblatt,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 19 (May 11, 1906): 225–28. 23. “Der judische ¨ Frauenbund und die Konigin ¨ von Rumanien,” ¨ Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 73, no. 19 (May 7, 1909): 223–25. This article contains the text of Bertha Pappenheim’s report on the trip. 24. “Fraulein ¨ Bertha Pappenheim in Amerika,” Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 26, no. 30

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Seeking to further study the causes of white slavery and in Palestine to view Zionism “up close,” in 1911 and 1912 Pappenheim toured Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Palestine, Egypt, and Turkey, meeting with community leaders and visiting social work agencies, kibbutzim, schools, brothels, hospitals, and clinics for venereal diseases. She collected the letters she wrote chronicling these trips and published them over a decade later in Sisyphus-Arbeit (Sisyphus Work).25 In 1926 she traveled to the Soviet Union to visit the Jewish Agro-Joint colonies.26 In 1935 she went to Krakow to advise the administration of the Beth Jacob schools for Jewish girls, which had been founded by Sarah Schenirer in 1917.27 Pappenheim’s exclusion from the literary canon—and the limited posthumous appreciation of her works—can be attributed in part to the close relationship between her writing and her social work and activism. German literary criticism has often ignored explicitly programmatic and didactic literary texts, especially those that do not comply with the dominant aesthetic trends or movements of their era, or those that deal with very topical issues (especially women’s or minority issues), categorizing them as Tendenzliteratur (tendentious literature) or Gebrauchsliteratur (utilitarian literature), unworthy of serious critical attention because they lack timeless or universal appeal. Writers like Pappenheim, who wrote much of their work in “minor” genres (letters, travel reports, speeches, aphorisms, prayers, children’s literature) often published in periodicals or distributed their work through informal channels. They are even more apt to fall through the cracks of literary criticism and be excluded from the canon. Thus different standards are necessary for assessing their value. Although Pappenheim’s publications have been all but forgotten, she was a well known and respected writer in Jewish and women’s circles during her lifetime. Her own works appeared in at least twenty newspapers and journals (and counting reviews and reports about her activities, her name appeared in almost fifty periodicals). Thus her words reached a very substan(July 23, 1909): 515; Dora Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O. (Highland Park, IL: Congregation Solel, 1968), 19. 25. Bertha Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit: Reiseberichte aus den Jahren 1911–1912 (Leipzig: Paul Linder, 1924). 26. Bertha Pappenheim, “Bemerkungen zur Arbeit des Agrojoint in einigen judischen ¨ Kolonien Sowjetrußlands,” Der Morgen 4, no. 2 (1928): 189–94. 27. Wolf S. Jacobson, “Beth Jacob und Bertha Pappenheim,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12, no. 10 (October 1936): 1–2; Bertha Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 14, no. 5 (February 1936): 194–96.

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tial Jewish and female readership.28 Others heard them in person, at conferences, at readings, or at performances of her plays.29 Whether printed or spoken, Pappenheim’s addresses, articles, literary texts, and letters were powerful enough to rally the support of some of the most influential Jewish men and women around the world. With her words, she brought to life the Central Welfare Agency of German Jewry, revolutionizing social welfare services in Germany. With her words, she garnered the respect, admiration, support, and collaboration of numerous Jewish intellectuals and community leaders in Germany and around the world (Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Felix and Max Warburg, Claude Montefiore, Margarete Susman, Albert Einstein, and Rebecca Kohut, among others). And with her words she mothered and educated countless Jewish children—her poems, prayers, songs, plays, and children’s stories enriched the everyday lives of the children and young women at Isenburg; and her letters of encouragement and advice guided several of her “daughters,” such as Sophie Mamelok, whom she raised at the Jewish orphanage in Frankfurt, throughout their lives. This is not to say that all of Bertha Pappenheim’s writing is dated. A good example of the lasting quality and continuing resonance of her work is the slim volume entitled Gebete/Prayers, which has appeared in four editions, most recently in 2003.30 Prayers was first published in 1936 by the JFB to honor the memory of their leader (Pappenheim died on May 28, 1936)31 and doubtless also to provide German-Jewish women spiritual sustenance to weather the trials of life under National Socialism. A second edition, in German with English translation, with a preface by Pappenheim’s former colleague 28. These include primarily German-language publications and a small number of English-language publications. I did not complete an exhaustive search of English-language, Yiddish, Polish, or other periodical publications. 29. A reading by Pappenheim of her “simple stories with a profound meaning” left such a deep impression on the artist Samson Schames that he asked her to sit for a portrait. Samson Schames to Dora Edinger, October 23, 1956, Dora Edinger Papers. B86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 30. Bertha Pappenheim, Gebete (Berlin: Philo, 1936); Bertha Pappenheim, Prayers/Gebete, translated by Estelle Forchheimer (New York: A. Stein, 1946); Bertha Pappenheim, Gebete (Dusseldorf: ¨ Verlag Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland, 1954); Bertha Pappenheim, Gebete / Prayers., ed. Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig ¨ (Teetz: Hentrich and Hentrich, 2003). 31. Pappenheim underwent surgery for a tumor in Munich in July 1935. She was appar¨ ently on her way home to Isenburg after delivering her lace collection to the Osterreichisches Museum fur ¨ angewandte Kunst (Austrian Museum for Applied Arts) in Vienna and vacationing in Ischl. Although no definitive cause of her death is recorded, she appears

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Stephanie Forchheimer, was published in 1946 in New York on the tenth anniversary of her death. In it, Forchheimer expressed the desire of Pappenheim’s “disciples and co-workers,” who had “found a new home” in America, to reconnect with and lean on their leader and mentor as they sought to find their bearings in a new world while coming to terms with the fact that their old world had vanished, destroyed by violence and hate.32 In the early 1950s, Helene Schwarz, a Holocaust survivor living in New Jersey, responded to an appeal from the Leo Baeck Institute requesting materials pertaining to Bertha Pappenheim. Schwarz and her husband owned a “handwritten” copy of Prayers (actually the 1936 facsimile edition). They had found the book in a desk that the city of Berlin had given them when they married there in 1948. She wrote to Dora Edinger, Pappenheim’s biographer: “Thank God that I have the prayer-book. I have read in it so often that I know many of the prayers by heart. Now my nerves are so weak that I pick it up often. I would be happy if someone would visit us and tell us about this pious, noble woman.”33 In 1954, the journalist Lilli Marx, one of the original members of the reactivated postwar JFB, which set to work helping Holocaust survivors reestablish Jewish life in Germany, also rediscovered the 1936 volume. Marx no longer remembered Pappenheim, but she and her colleagues “soaked up [the prayers] like a sponge” and released a third edition.34 Decades later, in the early 1990s, a new generation of German-Jewish women discovered the prayers when the men and women of an egalitarian minyan in Berlin read one of them (“An Appeal” from 1935) instead of a Psalm. The reading left them speechless: “It hit a nerve in all of us. We suddenly realized that—a half century after the Shoah—there was still something, after all, that we could connect to—that we had our own tradition, our own ground on which we could stand and take our first steps.” Until that point, the minyan had derived its inspiration largely from American sources.35 Attracted by the “revolutionary world view” exnever to have fully recovered from this tumor (presumably of the liver). She also suffered from gallstones. Dora Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften (Frankfurt a.M.: Ner Tamid, 1963), 128–31; Hannah Karminski, “An die fernen Freunde von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim,” MS. ME 497, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 32. Stephanie Forchheimer, “Preface,” in Bertha Pappenheim, Prayers / Gebete. 33. Josef and Helene Schwarz to Dora Edinger, undated, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 34. Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig, ¨ “Bat Kol—Die Stimme der Bertha Pappenheim,” in Gebete / Prayers, 9. 35. Ibid., 7–8. “An Appeal” is on page 57 of the volume.

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pressed in Pappenheim’s prayers, especially her dedication to social work and social-political activism as “Jewish worship [Gottesdienst]” or “the confession of Jewish faith [Bekenntnis],” Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig ¨ reissued 36 Prayers in 2003. While some of Pappenheim’s works, such as Prayers, can stand on their own and resonate with readers unaware of the author’s biography, the majority of her output was programmatic or didactic, written in service to her social work and activism. This study reads all of Pappenheim’s writings as an integral part of those activities and inseparable from them, and with a close eye to the specific historical and cultural context of late nineteenth and early twentieth-century German Jewry. Because those writings reflect the life’s work and thought of a woman whose efforts influenced, during her lifetime, every ideological faction of German-language Jewry as well as Jewish communities far beyond Germany’s borders, and because those efforts continue to inspire activists, reformers, and artists today, Bertha Pappenheim’s extensive written oeuvre is deserving of the close critical reading that it has, until now, never been given. This study is organized into two parts. The first five chapters investigate how Pappenheim’s words and actions engaged with the key political, social, and cultural issues concerning German and Austrian Jews from the 1890s through the 1930s, specifically: the contested status of the Yiddish language (Chapter One), Zionism (Chapter Two); the threat of a “conversion epidemic” to a Jewish population also threatened by low birthrates and intermarriage (Chapter Three); the Eastern European Jewish “problem” (Chapter Four); and Jewish women’s spirituality and religious practice in the modern age (Chapter Five). All five chapters focus on evidence of a seeming ambivalence in Pappenheim’s attitudes towards these basic Jewish issues. Why did she dedicate herself to translating Old Yiddish women’s literature and rescuing it for contemporary Jewish women when she interpreted that same literature as evidence of women’s inferior status in the Jewish religion, derided contemporary Yiddish as an uncultured “Jargon,” and employed stereotypical (Yiddishized) Jewish speech in her literary works to characterize the depravity of her villains (especially figures involved in white slavery)? Why would an avowed antiZionist undertake extensive travels to Palestine, collaborate in Zionist cultural and social work programs, and nominate a Zionist to lead the League of 36. Ibid., 12, 14–15.

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Jewish Women, which she founded? How could Pappenheim condemn apostasy while praising the strategies of predatory Catholic missionaries? Why did she focus her attentions on Catholic mission work when missions were by and large a minor threat (far more conversions were motivated by pragmatic concerns) and most converts favored Protestantism over Catholicism? How could a writer whose portrayals of Eastern European Jews relied heavily on the common stereotypes of Ostjuden as culturally inferior or even degenerate (all of the prostitutes and human traffickers in her work are Eastern European Jews) also insist that they were a “fountain of hope” for world Jewry? Why did the activist who faulted the authors of a League of Nations report on white slavery for using antisemitic rhetoric write and publish texts that implicated Jews in white slavery—texts that were so incriminating that they were quoted in the antisemitic Encyclopedia of the Jews.37 Why would a feminist notorious for her public pronouncement that traditional Judaism regarded women only as sexual objects remain loyal to that tradition? How did the “not at all religious” Anna O. of Breuer’s case study become the deeply religious woman whom admirers called a “Modern-day Deborah” when she died?38 These contradictions in word and deed notwithstanding, I propose that Pappenheim’s views and actions are neither as paradoxical nor as idiosyncratic as they might seem; instead, they represent the result of her negotiation of a multifaceted or multiply-hyphenated identity, comprised of sometimes conflicting identities and identifications. In Pappenheim’s case, she espoused the symbiosis of a German cultural and national identity with a Jewish religious identity at a time when this symbiosis was increasingly contested, both by German antisemites and Jewish nationalists. Loyal to traditional Judaism, she was still a leader of the women’s movement. She was an unmarried childless woman, yet she still adhered to a religious tradition that defined a woman’s religious identity only within her roles as wife and mother. She was the inventor of the “talking cure,” yet skeptical of psychoanalysis. And although she was an advocate for the rights of Jews and women, she apparently condoned the use of female Jewish forced laborers from Eastern Europe in munitions factories in Griesheim and Hochst during WWI.39 My readings of ¨

37. Sigilla Veri: Lexikon der Juden, Genossen und Gegner aller Zeiten und Zonen (Erfurt: Bodung, 1931), s.v. “Madchenhandel.” ¨ 38. Thon, “Ihr Bild auf meinem Schreibtisch,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedacht¨ nis,” 38–39. 39. Pappenheim served as a Fabrikpflegerin, a factory-worker guardian. Brentzel, Anna O.- Bertha Pappenheim, 179–80.

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Pappenheim’s writings demonstrate how she developed her own unique German / Jewish / feminist perspective regarding the issues and problems that concerned German Jewry in her day—a perspective that was at once very individual and personal but also allowed her to intersect with other perspectives and dialogue with other voices. This perspective was founded on her firm conviction that German culture, Jewish ethics and tradition, and feminism were compatible. Recovering Pappenheim’s voice in the panoply of German-Jewish voices of her era is especially vital. While German-Jewish men’s writings on these subjects have been abundantly examined, the writings of Jewish women, especially strongly religiously identified women, have received relatively little attention. Considering that the tens of thousands of Jewish women who belonged to the JFB (as well as many more men and women in other organizations and projects in Germany and abroad in which Pappenheim was involved) were shaped and influenced by her thought—whether or not they agreed with it in every detail—this lacuna is a serious one, and addressing it is one of the chief goals of this study. Assuming that the negotiation of identity can, and in Pappenheim’s case, certainly does continue posthumously, two final chapters explore how Pappenheim’s life story developed a life of its own after Ernest Jones revealed in 1953 that she was Anna O. I examine in Chapters Six and Seven how the gaps, intentional and unintended, in the documentation of Pappenheim’s life story have enabled diverse scholars and artists to appropriate and interpret that story. The works in question include portrayals of Anna O. and Pappenheim not only by biographers but by historians, practitioners and critics of psychoanalysis and psychiatry, male and female feminists of various persuasions, and by novelists, dramatists, opera librettists, a filmmaker, a visual artist, and even a performance artist. The vanguards of theoretical discussions of the negotiation of identity were Black and Jewish lesbian feminist poets such as Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Irena Klepfisz, all of whom found themselves multiply-marginalized as lesbians in the Jewish or African-American communities, as lesbians in the feminist movement, and as Jews or African-Americans in the lesbian community and feminist movement. My reading of the negotiation of identity in Bertha Pappenheim draws on their insights and on the theoretical discussions they have inspired in the fields of Gender and Women’s Studies and Ethnic and Minority Studies since the early 1990s.40 In dialogue with these voices, I rely on 40. Two important products of these discussions are Kwame Anthony Appiah and

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a model for examining the negotiation of identity that presumes: 1) Identities are not singular, unified, or static. They are, as formulated by Stuart Hall, “fragmented and fractured; never singular but multiply constructed across different, often intersecting and antagonistic, discourses, practices and positions.”41 An individual’s identity is an aggregate of any number of subject positions or identifications, whose configuration is never in stasis but in a constant struggle for equilibrium, continuously seeking a harmonious co-existence of competing positions.42 2) Identity categories, or discrimination based on identity categories, should not be viewed as parallel or analogous (i.e. sexism is analogous to racism), nor should they be seen as existing in hierarchical relationships (i.e. gender and gender discrimination are more fundamental than race and racism). The relationship of identity categories is, rather, as Judith Butler explains, one of “interarticulation,” whereby categories such as gender, race, class, and sexuality are “vectors of power” that “require and deploy one another for the purpose of their own articulation.”43 3) Identity is not a simple sum of its parts. I concur here with Elizabeth V. Spelman’s assertion that “additive analyses of identity and of oppression can work against an understanding of the relations between gender and other elements of identity, between sexism and other forms of oppression.”44 4) The negotiation of identity is an “internal-external dialectic of identification,”45 involving an individual’s identification with other individuals, groups, categories, and institutions, which can be either validated or rejected by them. Identity is the “product of agreement and disagreement”; it is our understanding of who we are, balanced against others’ understandings of who we are in respect to who they are.46 Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Identities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995); John Rajchman, ed., The Identity in Question (New York: Routledge, 1995). 41. Stuart Hall, “Who Needs ‘Identity’?” in Questions of Cultural Identity, eds. Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (London: Sage, 1996), 1–17. 42. See Chantal Mouffe, “Democratic Politics and the Question of Identity,” in Rajchman, The Identity in Question, 33–45. 43. Judith Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (London: Routledge, 1993), 18–19. 44. Elizabeth V. Spelman, “Gender & Race: The Ampersand Problem in Feminist Thought,” in Feminism and Race, ed. Kum-Kum Bhavnani (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 74–78. 45. Richard Jenkins, Social Identity (London: Routledge, 1996), 171. 46. Ibid., 5. Etienne Balibar expresses a similar understanding of identity: “In reality there are no identities, only identifications: either with the institution itself, or with other subjects by the intermediary of the institution. Or, if one prefers, identities are only the ideal

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For example, in 1935 (the year of the institution of the Nuremberg Laws) German Jews might have asserted their “Germanness” by virtue of having been born in Germany, being native speakers of German, and having served the German war effort in WWI. With the institution of National Socialist racist policies, however, “Germanness” meant, on an institutional or legal level, neither German linguistic or cultural heritage nor demonstrable patriotic loyalty to the Fatherland, but “German” (i.e. “Aryan”) race or blood. As far as National Socialist policy was concerned, Jewishness and Germanness were mutually exclusive racial categories. This does not mean, however, that all bona fide “Germans” subscribed to the newly instituted National Socialist definition. Some individuals rejected it altogether; others embraced it in general, but made exceptions, reasoning that Jews who had converted to Christianity were still “German,” or that, while most Jews were aliens and enemies, the Jewish Skat- or Kegelbruder (card or bowling buddy), the nice neighbors, or the brother-in-law were not. Conversely, German-Jewish exiles sometimes found themselves scrutinized as Germans and enemy aliens in the Allied countries where they sought refuge. While National Socialism caused some German Jews who had been estranged or alienated from Jewish religion and culture to “return” to it or to revise their understanding of Jewishness (to embrace, for example, the idea that Jews were, after all, a nation or people), others (one example is the Protestant author Elsa Bernstein, who was interned in Theresienstadt) did not revise their understanding of their Jewish identity (or in her case, lack thereof). Still others, such as Pappenheim and other JFB leaders, rejected National Socialism’s rejection of them, adopting the position that they were the guardians of German culture and values, which were being perverted or betrayed. Because National Socialism was not only antisemitic but also misogynistic, Jewish women found themselves doubly or differently marginalized. This does not mean, however, that the experience of National Socialist antisemitism (or the antisemitisms that preceded it) made Jewish men more receptive to women’s fight for equality within the Jewish community or family. Nor were German women necessarily more attuned to the Jews’ suffering than German men were. Just as there is variance within a given identity category at a specific moment in history, there is also variance diachronically—“Germanness” did not mean the same thing in 1618 as in 1871 or 1933 or 1989 or 2000 (when

goal of processes of identification.” Etienne Balibar, “Culture and Identity (Working Notes),” trans. J. Swenson, in Rajchman, The Identity in Question, 173–96, see 187.

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the Reform of Nationality Law was passed) or in 2005 (when Germany officially became a “land of immigration”). In their essay “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” Daniel and Jonathan Boyarin observe that the category Jewishness “disrupts the very categories of identity because it is not national, not genealogical, not religious, but all of these in dialectical tension with one another.”47 Given the inherent instability of Jewishness as an identity category, it is not surprising that Jewish Studies is also engaging in theoretical discussions of identity. Building on Sander Gilman’s pioneering work in Jewish Cultural Studies (The Jews’ Body; Freud, Race, and Gender; Jewish Self-Hatred), all of which pinpoint the importance of probing the intersections of multiple identity categories (especially race, gender, religion, nation, and language) in investigations of Jewish identity, proponents of a “New Jewish Cultural Studies” have begun to stress the importance of examining the “interarticulation”48 of gender, race, religion, and other identity categories in examinations of Jewish literature and culture.49 Not surprisingly, related projects have emerged over the last fifteen years at the intersections of German, Women’s, and Jewish Studies. In Making Bodies, Making History: Feminism and German Identity, which examines the writings of Jewish and other minority German-language women writers, Leslie Adelson considers the relationships between various categories of identification, exploring “constructs of race, ethnicity, and religion… as only some of the vectors along which identity is articulated in the contemporary German

47. Jonathan Boyarin and Daniel Boyarin, “Diaspora: Generation and the Ground of Jewish Identity,” in Critical Inquiry 19, 4 (1993): 693–725, see 721. 48. Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred: Antisemitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986); idem., The Jew’s Body (New York: Routledge, 1991); idem., Freud, Race, and Gender (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991). Borrowing the term “interarticulation” from Judith Butler, Ann Pellegrini writes, “As a historically contested identity, Jewishness offers a critical opening for exploring the ‘interarticulation’ of gender and race.” Ann Pellegrini, “Whiteface Performances: ‘Race,’ Gender, and Jewish Bodies,” in Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies, ed. Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin, 108–49 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997). See also Ann Pellegrini, “Interarticulations: Gender, Race, and the Jewish Woman Question,” in Judaism Since Gender, ed. Laura Levitt and Miriam Peskowitz (New York: Routledge, 1997), 49–55. 49. Three recent anthologies have been dedicated to this project. Levitt and Peskowitz, ed., Judaism Since Gender; Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin, ed., Jews and Other Differences; and Laurence J. Silberstein, ed., Mapping Jewish Identities (New York: New York University Press, 2000).

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context.”50 In Keepers of the Motherland: German Texts by Jewish Women Writers, Dagmar Lorenz likewise takes into account how the intersections of conflicting and conflicted identifications (nationality, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, class, sexuality, etc.) shaped the writing of individual German-Jewish women writers and contributed to the formation of a distinct tradition of German-Jewish women’s writing.51 As noted above, Chapters Six and Seven focus not on Pappenheim’s own words but on outsiders’ perceptions of her life and work. While this book is the first attempt to render a critical reading of Pappenheim’s extensive written oeuvre from a literary and cultural studies perspective, my readings do not exist in a vacuum. Since Jones’s 1953 revelation, much effort has been devoted to rediscovering Bertha Pappenheim, the accomplished woman behind the pivotal case study. The majority of these publications have continued to focus, however, on her role as Breuer’s famous patient. Numerous scholars, for example, have re-diagnosed Anna O. based on new scientific insights and methods (Jones, Ellenberger, Kluft, Nakdimen, Goshen, Reichard, Pollock, Bolkosky, Gargiulo, Meissner, Spotnitz, Martorano, Orr-Andrawes, Hurst, etc.).52 Many of these palaeodiagnoses pathologize Pappenheim’s later achievements, reading her activism as a sublimation of her illness and her literary writings as a continuation of her talking cure (Kavaler-Adler, Freeman, Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Loewenstein, etc.).53 Others aim to bring clarity to the murky waters of the history (or “founders’ myth”) of the origins of psychoanalysis. Swales, Ellenberger, and Hirschmuller, ¨ for example, have uncovered inconsistencies, exaggerations, and outright lies in Breuer’s and Freud’s contradictory accounts of 50. She continues: “These and other constitutive factors do not arise in isolation from one another’s influence, nor is their relationship one of simple or sequential juxtaposition.” Leslie A. Adelson, Making Bodies, Making History: Feminism and German Identity (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), xvi. 51. Dagmar Lorenz, Keepers of the Motherland: German Texts by Jewish Women Writers (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997). 52. See chapter six for a survey. 53. Susan Kavaler-Adler, “Some More Speculations on Anna O,” American Journal of Psychoanalysis 51, no. 2 (June 1991): 161–71; Lucy Freeman, The Story of Anna O. (New York: Walker, 1972); idem., “Immortal Anna O: From Freud to Feminism,” New York Times Magazine, November 11, 1979; idem., “The Immortal Patient who Led Freud to Psychoanalysis,” Chicago Tribune, December 13, 1979; Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco, “On Rereading the Case of Anna O.: More about Questions That Are Unanswerable,” Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis 22.1 (1994): 57–71; Richard J. Loewenstein,

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Pappenheim’s illness and alleged cure.54 Most recently, Borch-Jacobsen, in Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification, has tried to demystify the origin myth of the foundation of psychoanalysis, inquiring how the myth has survived compelling evidence that its keystone, the Anna O. case study, may very well be a fiction (at least some of Pappenheim’s symptoms were born of suggestion or simulated, the hysterical childbirth may never have taken place, and Pappenheim was not cured by Breuer’s “talking cure”).55 Others, especially feminist literary and cultural critics, psychologists, and psychoanalysts, have sought to restore Pappenheim to her rightful place as the mother of psychoanalysis, the true inventor of the talking cure (these include Forrester and Appignanesi, Hunter, Koestenbaum, and Stephan).56 Conversely, Sybille Duda has claimed Pappenheim as a forerunner of feminist opposition to psychoanalysis and psychiatry.57 Only a handful of scholars have been interested primarily in Pappenheim’s achievements in social work and the German-Jewish women’s movement, most notably Dora Edinger, Ellen Jensen, Marion Kaplan, Helga Heubach, and Britta Konz. Edinger, a younger colleague and a relative of Pappenheim, became her first biographer. She published in 1963 Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, an anthology of published and previously unpublished “Anna O: Reformulation as a Case of Multiple Personality Disorder,” in Rediscovering Childhood Trauma: Historical Casebook and Clinical Applications, Clinical Practice Series 28, ed. Jean M. Goodwin (Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1993), 139–67. 54. Albrecht Hirschmuller’s ¨ work on Josef Breuer is especially important, as he was able, through documents found at Bellevue Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen, to provide new insights into the most obscure period of Pappenheim’s life, the years between her treatment by Breuer and her move to Frankfurt. Hirschmuller’s ¨ appendices include a report written by Pappenheim about her illness, several unpublished letters, and an earlier, less censored version of Breuer’s case-study. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer; Ellenberger, Beyond the Unconscious. 55. Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O. 56. Lisa Appignanesi and John Forrester, Freud’s Women (London: Harper Collins, 1992). Dianne Hunter, “Hysteria, Psychoanalysis, and Feminism: the Case of Anna O.,” in The (M)other Tongue, eds. Shirley Nelson Garner, Claire Kahane, and Madelon Sprengnether (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985), 89–115; Wayne Koestenbaum, “Privileging the Anus: Anna O. and the Collaborative Origin of Psychoanalysis,” Genders (1988): 57–81; Inge Stephan, GrunderInnen ¨ der Psychoanalyse: Eine Entmythologisierung Sigmund Freuds in zwolf ¨ Frauenportraits (Stuttgart: Kreuz, 1992). 57. Sybille Duda, “Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): Erkundungen zur Geschichte der Hysterie oder ‘Der Fall Anna O.’,” in WahnsinnsFrauen, ed. Sibylle Duda and Luise F. Pusch (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1992), 123–45.

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writings (including letters, two essays, numerous Denkzettel, several prayers, and Pappenheim’s auto-obituaries) introduced by a biographical essay.58 Edinger mentored Pappenheim’s second biographer, the psychoanalyst and author Lucy Freeman. Freeman’s biographical novel The Story of Anna O.: The Woman Who Led Freud to Psychoanalysis (1972) is based on Breuer’s case study, Pappenheim’s writings, and Freeman and Edinger’s interviews of Pappenheim’s surviving colleagues.59 Pappenheim’s third biographer, Danish librarian Ellen Jensen, built on Edinger’s and Freeman’s work. Jensen’s non-chronological biography, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim (A Survey of the Life of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim) includes a bibliography of many of Pappenheim’s published writings and an appendix with reprints of one essay and two stories, as well as some previously unpublished works (a poem, a fairy tale, and a large number of aphorisms).60 Two historians have published important work on Pappenheim’s social work and role in the German-Jewish women’s movement. In The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany: The Campaigns of the Judischer ¨ Frauenbund, 1904–1938, Marion Kaplan “[examines] the goals of the JFB, [describes] its charismatic leader, Bertha Pappenheim, and [assesses] the meaning of its three major campaigns: the fight against white slavery, the pursuit of equality in Jewish communal affairs, and the attempt to provide career training for women.”61 Kaplan focuses especially on the “double jeopardy” faced by Jewish women: “as Jews and as women they suffered from discrimination in Germany, and as women they suffered from second-class citizenship in their own Jewish community.”62 Kaplan’s seminal work recovers the lost history of the JFB and astutely identifies many of the very partic58. The 1963 German-language anthology was followed by an English-language translation in 1968. Dora Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften (Frankfurt a.M.: Ner Tamid, 1963); Dora Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O. (Highland Park, IL: Congregation Solel, 1968). See also Dora Edinger, “Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): A German-Jewish Feminist,” Jewish Social Studies 20, no. 3 (July 1958): 180–86. 59. Lucy Freeman, The Story of Anna O. 60. Ellen M. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim: Ein Fall fur ¨ die Psychiatrie: Ein Leben fur ¨ die Philanthropie (Frankfurt a.M.: ZTV-Verlag, 1984). 61. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 3. See also Marion A. Kaplan, Die judische ¨ Frauenbewegung in Deutschland: Organisation und Ziele des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 1904–1938, Hamburger Beitrage ¨ zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden 7 (Hamburg: Hans Christians, 1981). 62. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 4.

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ular problems faced by middle-class German-Jewish women between the turn of the century and the Holocaust.63 Historian Helga Heubach has edited two collections of non-literary texts by Pappenheim and her colleagues pertaining to the JFB home at Isenburg and the campaign against prostitution and white slavery. Heubach has also prepared a small monograph on the JFB home for endangered girls and unwed mothers and developed an exhibit for the Seminar- und Gedenkstatte ¨ Bertha Pappenheim (a meeting room and memorial in one of the houses of the former JFB home) in Neu-Isenburg.64 The most recent book-length study of Pappenheim is Protestant theologian Britta Konz’s Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): Ein Leben fur ¨ judische ¨ Tradition und weibliche Emanzipation (A Life for Jewish Tradition and Women’s Emancipation). The first part of the two-part monograph is a biography with an emphasis on Pappenheim’s religious socialization and family history. The second, longer part focuses on her activism, social work, and writings. Konz undertakes here to reconstruct Pappenheim’s “theology,” asking how she “reconciled Jewish tradition and women’s efforts at emancipation. Did she formulate an ‘early feminist’ theology? Did she reappropriate, reinterpret, reestablish a Jewish women’s tradition?” Through a comparison of the JFB with the League of Protestant Women, Konz also seeks to define “to what degree the Federation of German Women’s Associations was shaped by religious values and ideals.”65

63. A number of more recent publications on the JFB and Swiss and Austrian Jewish women’s organizations have built on Kaplan’s contributions and further expanded knowledge of the history of the Jewish Women’s Movement in these countries: “Judin ¨ – Deutsche – deutsche Judin?: ¨ Auswirkungen des Antisemitismus in Deutschland,” special issue, Ariadne: Almanach des Archivs der deutschen Frauenbewegung no. 23 (May 1993); “‘Judisch-sein, ¨ Frau-sein, Bund-sein’: Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund, 1904–2004,” special issue, Ariadne: Forum fur ¨ Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte, nos. 45–46 (June 2004); Margarete Grandner and Edith Saurer, eds., Geschlecht, Religion und Engagement: Die judischen ¨ Frauenbewegungen im deutschsprachigen Raum, 19. und fruhes ¨ 20. Jahrhundert, L’Homme Schriften 9 (Vienna: Bohlau, ¨ 2005); Gudrun Maierhof, Selbstbehauptung im Chaos: Frauen in der judischen ¨ Selbsthilfe, 1933–1943 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2002). ¨ 64. Helga Heubach, ed., “Das unsichtbare Isenburg”: Uber das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Neu-Isenburg 1907 bis 1942 (Frankfurt a.M.: Kulturamt der Stadt Neu-Isenburg, 1994); Helga Heubach, ed., Sisyphus: Gegen den Madchenhandel ¨ – Galizien (Freiburg i.B.: Kore, 1992); Helga Heubach, Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, Taunusstraße 9, 1907 bis 1942, gegrundet ¨ von Bertha Pappenheim (Neu Isenburg: Magistrat der Stadt Neu-Isenburg, 1986). 65. Britta Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): Ein Leben fur ¨ judische ¨ Tradition und

Introduction

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Other authors and anthologists have made Pappenheim’s life and work more accessible to non-specialists. Marianne Brentzel and Melinda Guttmann have recently published book-length chronologically ordered biographies targeting a general audience. Guttmann’s narrative “portrait,” The Enigma of Anna O.: A Biography of Bertha Pappenheim, is interspersed with English translations of some of Pappenheim’s own writings.66 Lena Kugler and Albrecht Koschorke67 have published a selected anthology of Pappenheim’s writing, Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.): Literarische und publizistische Texte, and, as mentioned above, Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig ¨ have re-released 68 Pappenheim’s Gebete. My study is also preceded by several shorter publications that examine a limited number of Bertha Pappenheim’s literary writings. Judith Lorenz-Wiesch’s “‘Gelehrte Schnorkel ¨ storen ¨ in Wort und Schrift’: Bertha Pappenheim als Schriftstellerin” (‘Erudite Flourishes in Speech and Writing are Disruptive’: Bertha Pappenheim as Writer) focuses on Pappenheim’s “Jewish Self-Understanding” in her report The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia (1904), her play Tragische Momente (Tragic Moments, 1913), and a collection of six stories, entitled Kampfe (Struggles, 1916).69 ¨ Lorenz-Wiesch astutely identifies the central issues of these texts, but the article is too brief to allow for in-depth analysis, and the works highlighted represent only a relatively short period in Pappenheim’s four-decades-long career. Dagmar Lorenz’s Keepers of the Motherland: German Texts by Jewish weibliche Emanzipation, Geschichte und Geschlechter 47 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2005), 10–11. 66. Melinda Given Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O.: A Biography of Bertha Pappenheim (Wickford, R.I.: Moyer Bell, 2001). Brentzel, Anna O.- Bertha Pappenheim: Biographie. 67. Koschorke also featured Pappenheim’s writings in his summer semester 2001 course “Literature and Psychoanalysis: Bertha Pappenheim alias Anna O” at the University of Constance. 68. Lena Kugler and Albrecht Koschorke, eds., Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.): Literarische und publizistische Texte (Vienna: Turia und Kant, 2002); Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig, ¨ eds., Gebete / Prayers. 69. Judith Lorenz-Wiesch, “‘Gelehrte Schnorkel ¨ storen ¨ in Wort und Schrift’: Bertha Pappenheim als Schriftstellerin,” in Gegenbilder und Vorurteil: Aspekte des Judentums im Werk deutschsprachiger Schriftstellerinnen, ed. Renate Heuer and Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow (Frankfurt a.M: Campus, 1995); Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien; Bertha Pappenheim, Tragische Momente: Drei Lebensbilder (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kauffmann, 1913); Bertha Pappenheim, Kampfe: ¨ Sechs Erzahlungen ¨ (Frankfurt a.M.: J. Kauffmann, 1916).

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Women Writers, which is the first comprehensive study of German and Austrian-Jewish women writers from Gluckel ¨ of Hameln to contemporary German and Austrian-Jewish women writers, is the second published work that focuses on Pappenheim’s achievements in the literary realm. Lorenz situates Pappenheim within a distinct tradition of German literature by Jewish women writers, which is characterized in large part by the authors’ “questioning, criticizing, or openly rejecting their two fatherlands’ androcentric power structures” in favor of “an elusive motherland where the Jewish woman’s language and voice reign supreme, defying the political boundaries and institutions of her nation or community.”70 In a subchapter devoted to Pappenheim and Rosa Luxemburg, Lorenz examines Pappenheim’s largely socio-critical literary work in the context of her feminist and Jewish social work and activism, demonstrating how Pappenheim created in those activities a “motherland,” a “realm surrounded by, but separated from patriarchy.”71 ¨ A third study, Inge Stephan’s essay “Sprache, Sprechen, Ubersetzen: ¨ Uberlegungen zu Bertha Pappenheim und ihrem Erzahlungsband ¨ ‘Kampfe,’” ¨ (Language, Speech, Translation: Reflections on Bertha Pappenheim and her Collection of Stories Struggles) reads Struggles as a literary expression of Pappenheim’s dual identity as a Jewish woman and a German writer. Stephan is interested in recovering the writer Pappenheim as one of the “forgotten and repressed examples of that painful symbiosis of Jewishness and German culture… that ended with the Holocaust.”72 A major part of my efforts and the efforts of my predecessors has involved reconstructing Pappenheim’s written oeuvre and recovering the documents that tell the story of her life and work. Researching German and Austrian women writers of Pappenheim’s generation who have not, for whatever reason, gained acceptance into the literary canon is a time-consuming and often frustrating endeavor. There are often no bibliographies, collected works, standard or critical editions, or archived literary estates. Many women published in “disposable” media, such as newspapers and magazines, or used

70. Lorenz, Keepers of the Motherland, xi. 71. Ibid., xii. ¨ ¨ 72. Inge Stephan, “Sprache, Sprechen, Ubersetzen: Uberlegungen zu Bertha Pappenheim und ihrem Erzahlungsband ¨ ‘Kampfe,’” ¨ in Sprache und Identitat ¨ im Judentum, ed. Karl E. Grozinger, ¨ Judische ¨ Kultur. Studien zur Geistesgeschichte, Religion und Literatur 4 (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1998), 29–42, see 29.

Introduction

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pseudonyms, further complicating attempts to locate and assess their work.73 The task becomes more arduous still for Jewish female writers.74 The world of German Jewry was being dismantled in the final years of Pappenheim’s life, and it was violently and irretrievable destroyed shortly thereafter, with much of her written legacy destroyed with it. Hannah Karminski collected materials, but the house of the friends to whom she had entrusted them before she was deported to Auschwitz in 1942 was destroyed by bombing and with it the Pappenheim documents.75 Pappenheim bequeathed her house (with furnishings and arts and crafts collections intact) to the JFB for use as a vacation home for Jewish social workers. When the house had to be sold, its contents (Pappenheim’s “personal estate,” including her collections and at least some of her writings) were moved to the JFB home, which was destroyed by fire on Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938.76 Astonishingly, Pappenheim’s large collection of antique lace, which she had acquired piece by piece herself (Mufflen, ¨ her word for the “musty” exploration of second hand shops, was a beloved hobby), and her collection of decorative cast-iron, inherited from her parents, ¨ remain intact at the Osterreichisches Museum fur ¨ angewandte Kunst (Austrian Museum for Applied Arts) in Vienna. Pappenheim had bequeathed her important lace collection to the museum and delivered it personally before her death because she did not want “her darlings” to fall into the possession of National Socialists (Austria was not yet annexed).77 Locating and creating a comprehensive bibliography of Pappenheim’s published work has likewise been a challenge. Standard periodical bibliographies (such as the Internationale Bibliographie der Zeitschriftenliteratur and its supplements) do not document many of the Jewish and women’s publications that 73. See Jeannine Blackwell, “Anonym, verschollen, trivial: Methodological Hindrances in Researching German Women’s Literature,” Women in German Yearbook 1 (1985): 39–59. 74. For a discussion of the difficulties in reconstructing the textual legacy of German Jewry see Sybil Milton, “Lost, Stolen, and Strayed: The Archival Heritage of Modern German-Jewish History,” in The Jewish Response to German Culture: From the Enlightenment to the Second World War, eds. Jehuda Reinharz and Walter Schatzberg (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1985). 75. Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 9. 76. Ibid., 9–10. Dora Edinger to Lucy Jourdan, undated, Dora Edinger Papers B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. According to Edinger, Helene Kramer ¨ reported that Pappenheim’s Denkzettel (which according to Margarethe Susman numbered roughly 2000) along with all of Pappenheim’s collections were destroyed. Her glass collection was believed to be at the Bezalel Museum in Jerusalem, but Edinger was unable to find it there. 77. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, June 15, 1935, Martin Buber Archives.

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were Pappenheim’s chief venues. While the Leo Baeck Institute and other archives have collected many materials (published and unpublished) from donors throughout the world, their archivists and other researchers who have painstakingly compiled bibliographies (Dora Edinger, Marion Kaplan, Ellen Jensen, and Helga Heubach) believe that Pappenheim actually wrote much more, which was either destroyed or waits to be rediscovered. Because detective work has been a major part of this project, a brief account of my own Mufflen ¨ deserves space here. After exhausting the traditional bibliographical arsenal of Germanists, I sent queries to archives and libraries in the United States, Germany, Austria, and Israel that specialize in German Judaica or in the German women’s movement, as well as to the city libraries and archives of Frankfurt and Vienna (the two cities where Pappenheim resided), and several other large research libraries. Of the roughly 40 institutions contacted, I visited 17 libraries and archives (and ordered photocopies from others), where I accessed rare copies of Pappenheim’s books and leafed through several decades’ worth of individual issues of German-Jewish, Austrian-Jewish, and women’s periodicals; the archives of Pappenheim’s colleagues and acquaintances; and any records and reports still in existence from the many organizations with which Pappenheim was affiliated.78 Building on the work of my predecessors, I have compiled the most complete accounting to date of Pappenheim’s correspondence, unpublished and published writings, reviews of her literary work, and contemporaneous articles chronicling her activities. While I have succeeded in locating many previously uncited items, several unpublished plays and stories mentioned either in Pappenheim’s correspondence or by colleagues remain lost—or wait to be found, either by me or the next researcher who “discovers” Bertha Pappenheim.79 Our detective work is not done. But the time has come for a full-scale analysis of those of Pappenheim’s writings that have come down to us.

78. See acknowledgments and bibliography. More recently, I have also benefited from the Compact Memory project (a joint venture of the Section for German-Jewish Literary History of the Rheinisch-Westfalische ¨ Technical University of Aachen, the Frankfurt University Library, and the Library Germania Judaica in Cologne), which has done German-Jewish Studies an invaluable service by digitalizing German-Jewish newspapers and magazines (to date over one hundred titles from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries), some of which are searchable. 79. See pages 204–5.

1

From Ghetto Jargon to “Women’s German”: Bertha Pappenheim and Yiddish Bertha Pappenheim had a strong command of the Yiddish language. She reported in a 1912 letter to colleagues that she had translated six pages of German into Yiddish for the Hasidic Rebbe of Aleksandrow,1 who had requested a written report on the dangers of white slavery. While she complained that “holding the fountain pen the wrong way round” was so exhausting that she couldn’t complete the translation in one sitting, the language itself posed no difficulty for her.2 It is unknown for sure whether it was spoken routinely in her home (and if it was, which dialect), or precisely when and where she learned it if it was not.3 It is unlikely that she learned the language formally, as she had English, French, and Italian (at the Catholic School she attended) and Hebrew (likely from a private tutor). Although some German-speaking Jews did study Yiddish as adults (most famously Nathan Birnbaum, who organized the first Yiddish language conference in Czernowitz in 1908), Pappenheim did not accord Yiddish the status of a Kultursprache (language of culture) and would scarcely have deemed it wor-

1. According to the date of the letter, this must have been Samuel Zevi, the brother and successor of Jerahmeel Israel Isaac, who was the most famous rabbi of the Aleksandrow (also called Danziger) Hasidic dynasty. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Aleksandrow.” 2. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 149–50, 156. 3. Although Pappenheim once mentions that her father used the term Chalaumes (khaloymes=literally dreams, used disparagingly to refer to something deemed worthless), this alone would not indicate that Yiddish was spoken regularly in her childhood home. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 41. Chalaumes is listed in Werner Weinberg’s glossary of “Jewish-German” words used in specific in-group contexts by German Jews who also spoke “proper German.” Werner Weinberg, Die Reste des Judischdeutschen, ¨ 2nd ed., Studia Delitzschiana 12 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1969), 14–15, 56.

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thy of formal study.4 Nevertheless, her masterful translations into German of the Memoirs of Gluckel ¨ of Hameln, All Kinds of Stories: Mayse bukh, and Tsenerene: Women’s Bible demonstrate her familiarity with Old Yiddish literature and the varieties of Yiddish in which it was written.5 In the traditional account of the transition from Western Yiddish to German as the spoken and written language of German Jewry, German Jews quickly and fully heeded the call of the maskilim (proponents of the Enlightenment or Haskalah), who viewed linguistic acculturation as a prerequisite for emancipation and integration into German society. Moses Mendelssohn’s translation of the Hebrew Bible into standard German written in Hebrew letters, which appeared between 1778 and 1783, served as the catalyst for a language shift that was completed within just a few decades—replacing Yiddish with “pure” Hebrew for religious purposes and “pure” German for profane matters.6 There was, however, no clean break. Steven Lowenstein has demonstrated that the transition from Western Yiddish to German was in fact “an extremely long and complex process with numerous intermediate

4. On Nathan Birnbaum and the Czernowitz Conference see Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Modern Yiddish Culture: The Story of the Yiddish Language Movement (New York: Fordham University Press, 1997), 99–119, 183–221. 5. Pappenheim, Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln; Pappenheim, Allerlei Geschichten; Pappenheim, Zeenah U-Reenah. Pappenheim and several of her critics erroneously refer to the language of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, the Tsenerene, and the Mayse bukh as Judisch-Deutsch ¨ (Jewish-German). According to Steven M. Lowenstein this was a very common misnomer, and many German-Jewish bibliographers mistakenly described both Yiddish and German works written in Hebrew characters as Judisch¨ Deutsch. Steven M. Lowenstein, “The Yiddish Written Word in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 24 (1979): 179–97, see 180. The works translated by Pappenheim were not written in Judisch-Deutsch, ¨ which is standard German written in Hebrew script but in Western Yiddish (Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs) and in a written variety of Yiddish referred to as Written Language A (the Tsenerene and the Mayse bukh). Neil G. Jacobs, who assisted me in classifying the language of the original works, defines Written Language A as a “supraregional form based on WY” that “served as a model for printed Yiddish up to roughly the beginning of the nineteenth century, whether written by speakers of WY or EY. WrLg A was employed for a pan-Ashkenazic readership.” Neil G. Jacobs, Yiddish: A Linguistic Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 51. 6. Neil G. Jacobs, “On the Investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish Speech: Ideology and Linguistics,” American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literatures 8, no. 2 (1996): 177–217, see 183–84; Matthias Richter, Die Sprache judischer ¨ Figuren in der deutschen Literatur (1750–1933): Studien zu Form und Funktion (Gottingen: ¨ Wallstein, 1995), 16, 184n51.

Bertha Pappenheim and Yiddish

27

stages.”7 While Lowenstein was referring primarily to the written language, spoken Yiddish was even more tenacious. According to Max Weinreich, “Yiddish merely retreated to a rear zone of defense under the onslaught of hostile forces. Long after Mendelssohn, the predominant majority of the Jews spoke Yiddish in their homes and with other Jews. Many decades passed before the majority of Jews adopted the language of the country.” 8 The speed with which individuals adopted German varied considerably according to a variety of factors: the size and location of the city of residence; social and economic class; level of secular education; attitudes toward acculturation and assimilation; and degree of religiosity.9 Well into the twentieth century, Western Yiddish survived as the spoken language of Jews in rural enclaves in Switzerland, Holland, western Slovakia, and Hungary; and remnants of Yiddish remained in the more or less identifiably Jewish speech of German-speaking Jews.10 According to their high socio-economic class, urban background, and high level of acculturation, one might expect the Pappenheims to have been among those who shifted to German earlier and more completely.11 In all likelihood, however, Bertha Pappenheim learned Yiddish at home from her parents and other relatives. Her grandfather Wolf 7. Lowenstein identifies four main types of Yiddish or transitional writing styles that were used in nineteenth-century Germany: old literary Yiddish, High German in Hebrew letters (Judisch-Deutsch), ¨ Yiddish dialect in Hebrew letters and Yiddish dialect in German letters. He notes, however, that “there was a continuum of forms from ‘pure Yiddish’ to ‘pure German’ in Hebrew script, and it is not always clear to which category a particular text should be assigned.” Lowenstein, “The Yiddish Written Word in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” 179–80. 8. Max Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, trans. Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 281–82. 9. David L. Gold “‘Gentlemen, We Know More Yiddish Than We Admit’ (On Werner Weinberg’s Die Reste des Judischdeutschen),” ¨ Jewish Language Review 4 (1984): 77–123, see 115; Richter, Die Sprache judischer ¨ Figuren in der deutschen Literatur (1750–1933), 40–43; Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 282. See also Peter Freimark, “Language Behavior and Assimilation: The Situation of the Jews in Northern Germany in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 24 (1979): 157–77. 10. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 282. See also: Jacobs, “On the Investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish Speech”; Jacobs, Yiddish, 303–6; Weinberg, Die Reste des Judischdeutschen; ¨ Gold, “‘Gentlemen, We Know More Yiddish Than We Admit.’” 11. As a hohere ¨ Tochter (a middle-class daughter of or nearing marriageable age) Bertha Pappenheim was trained to appreciate European literature and the arts, she played the piano, and she rode horseback. Her brother Wilhelm (1860–1937) studied law and owned “one of the most complete social science libraries in Central Europe.” Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 16–22.

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Pappenheim (1776–1846) “lavishly supported” the Pressburg (Bratislava) Yeshiva of Moses Sofer (also known as the Hatam Sofer, 1762–1839),12 where . studies were conducted in Yiddish until the Holocaust.13 Weinrich attributes the longevity of Western Yiddish as a vernacular in Western Slovakia to Moses Sofer’s fight against German-speaking rabbis, part of his campaign against Modern Orthodoxy and Reform; and Dovid Katz views him as an “ultraOrthodox” proto-Yiddishist, who “was issuing militant statements about the importance of Yiddish many decades before the modernist Yiddishists began to do the same, in their own secular spirit.”14 Moreover, after re-locating to Vienna, Bertha Pappenheim’s father, Siegmund Pappenheim, continued in the tradition of Pressburg Orthodoxy. Although himself highly acculturated, he was a co-founder of the predominantly Hungarian and very Orthodox “Schiffschul,” whose Rabbi, Solomon Spitzer, was Moses Sofer’s son-in-law.15 Although Yiddish was part of her family’s and her own personal history and she recognized its usefulness in her social work with Eastern European Jews,16 Bertha Pappenheim’s attitudes toward the language were complex and ambivalent, ranging from its rejection as an uneducated Mischsprache (hodgepodge of languages) or “ghetto language” to a reverent nostalgia for it as the language of a disappearing traditional female Jewish religious culture. This chapter examines how she negotiated between these two poles. Pappenheim’s ambivalence was not unique. German Jews’ attitudes toward

12. Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Pappenheim.” 13. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 283. 14. Although Weinreich classifies Pressburg Yiddish as Western Yiddish, he notes that it is “on the border of the Eastern Yiddish massif.” Katz’s map of the dialects of Yiddish situates Pressburg just East of the border between Western and Eastern Yiddish. Weinreich, History of the Yiddish Language, 283; Dovid Katz, Words on Fire: The Unfinished Story of Yiddish (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 141 (figure 6.2), 250. According to Marvin Herzog, Pressburg would lie within the Southern Transition Area, which is “an area of overlap in the E-W border” that “corresponds roughly to the Central European countries, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and, in part, neighboring Galicia, in Poland.” Marvin Herzog, ed., The Eastern Yiddish – Western Yiddish Continuum, vol. 3, The Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry (Tubingen: ¨ Max Niemeyer, 2000), 26. 15. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 15. On the conservative nature of Hungarian Orthodoxy (especially the Schiffschul) in Vienna, see Marsha L. Rozenblit, “The Struggle over Religious Reform in Nineteenth-Century Vienna,” AJS Review 14, no. 2 (1989): 179–221. 16. She once recommended Sophie Mamelok for a position precisely because she spoke Yiddish. Pappenheim to Mamelok, August 18, 1917, in Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 43.

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Yiddish from the 1880s through the 1930s17 ranged between two extremes: 1) An internalization of the antisemitic notion that Yiddish was a bastardized, corrupted, and corrupting form of German that reflected Jews’ supposed degeneracy (physical and moral) and their non-belonging to the German nation and people; thus German Jews were encouraged to eliminate even the slightest remnants of Yiddish from their speech in order to deflect antisemitism. 2) A radical rejection of this racist discourse, whereby Yiddish could be redeemed as the purest of German dialects or conversely as the national language of Eastern European Jewry, a distinct and distinguished language of culture fully the equal of other European (national) languages.18 These two vastly different approaches to Yiddish represented two strategies for dealing with the same problem: the assertion of racial antisemites that no Jew could really speak German, a claim that shook the foundations of the self-identification of the many German Jews who based their claim to German nationality in large part on the fact that they were native speakers of German and fully a part and product of German culture. German and Austrian Jews who were (like Pappenheim) unwilling to relinquish their German or Austrian national and cultural identity in the face of antisemitic German, Austro-German, or Pan-German nationalisms cited German Jews’ identity as native speakers of German and their love for the language as proof of their contested Germanness.19 In 1886, just a year after 17. The following examples are taken from the Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt, C.V.-Zeitung, Im deutschen Reich, Jeschurun, Ost und West, Abwehrblatter, ¨ and Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift. I have chosen these periodicals for two reasons: 1) They represent diverse ideologies and purposes: Cultural Zionist, C.V. (nominally religiously and politically neutral but generally Liberal and non-Zionist), anti-defamation, Modern Orthodox. 2) Pappenheim had a connection to each—either she belonged to the publishing organization; or the paper or journal published her writings, reviewed or advertised her literary works, or reported on her activities. Thus, it can be assumed that she would have oriented herself in reference to the discourse on Yiddish in these venues. 18. For a fuller view of German discourses on Yiddish and Jewish speech from the 1500s to the twentieth century see Sander L. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred; Jeffrey A. Grossman, The Discourse on Yiddish in Germany from the Enlightenment to the Second Empire, (Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000); Dietz Bering, “Sprache und Antisemitismus im 19. Jahrhundert,” in Das 19. Jahrhundert: Sprachliche Wurzeln des heutigen Deutsch, ed. Rainer Wimmer (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), 325–54. 19. Some German and Austrian Jews did rethink their self-definition as nationally and culturally German and reacted to antisemitism with Jewish nationalisms, such as Zionism. Zionists too, however, faced the problem of whether Jewish nationalism meant that Jews should have one national language (and if so what should it be?) or whether a Jewish nation should be multi-lingual, such as Switzerland. A small number even embraced Yiddishist

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Austrian politician Georg von Schonerer ¨ founded his virulently antisemitic Pan-German party, the Viennese Jewish weekly Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift printed the statement: “No one is as proud of the language of his fatherland as the German Jew—after all, language is both the root and the blossom of a nation.”20 Almost half a century later, in 1930, an article in the German-Jewish C.V.-Zeitung asserted (quoting an article in the Orthodox Deutsche Israelitische Zeitung), “The German Jews are Germans and remain Germans… because they speak German, and they think German.”21 Georg Gothein repeated this sentiment in 1932 (the year the Nazi Party won more than one-third of the total vote, becoming the largest voting bloc in the German Reichstag) in the Abwehrblatter, ¨ “What makes a nation is not blood nor race nor tribe. It is shared language …. The mother tongue of German Jews is German. Their culture is German.”22 Antisemitic propaganda, however, denied the German Jews’ claims to German, charging that they spoke Yiddish-tainted German or Mauscheln. Sander Gilman describes Mauscheln (also referred to as Judeln, ¨ meaning “to Jew”) as spoken German characterized by remnants of Yiddish (a Yiddish accent and intonation, bits of Hebrew vocabulary, the use of altered syntax, and a specific pattern of gestures), which served as an outward marker of the corruption and degeneration of its speakers.23 Although many German Jews Diaspora Nationalism. Nathan Birnbaum, for example, coined the term Yiddishist and was the initiator of the First Yiddish Language Conference in Czernowitz (1908), at which Yiddish was proclaimed a Jewish national language. See Goldsmith, Modern Yiddish Culture. Hence, in addition to the Germanophile defenses of Yiddish that I discuss, German-Jewish periodicals also printed essays that defended Yiddish as the national language of (Eastern European) Jewry and emphasized the development of Eastern Yiddish into a language distinct from German (not a dialect) with a distinct culture. See, for example: Nathan Birnbaum, “Sprachadel,” Die Freistatt: Alljudische ¨ Revue 1, no. 2 (May 15, 1913): 83–88; 1, no. 3 (June 15, 1913): 137–45; Fabius Schach, “Der deutsch-juedische Jargon und seine Litteratur,” Ost und West 1, no. 3 (March 1901): 179–90; Moses Calvary, “Jiddisch,” Der Jude 1, no. 1 (April 1916): 25–32. Pappenheim read the first issue of Der Jude (in fact, the sharply critical letter that she wrote to Buber after reading it was the start of a two decadeslong friendship and intellectual exchange); thus she was familiar with such defenses of Yiddish. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, May 28, 1916, Martin Buber Archives. 20. “Deutschthum und Judenthum in Oesterreich,” Dr. Bloch’s Oesterreichische Wochenschrift 3, no. 2 (January 8, 1886): 1–2. 21. “Horen ¨ wir auf, Deutsche zu sein?” C.V.-Zeitung 9, no. 45 (November 7,1930): 581–82. 22. Emphasis in text. Georg Gothein, “Der Abwehrkampf: ein Kampf fur ¨ Deutschland,” Abwehrblatter ¨ 42 (1932): 149. 23. Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred, 255.

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had shed any overt linguistic markers by the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the waves of Eastern European Jews who migrated to Germany and Austria to escape pogroms during that period still spoke Yiddish or were in the process of shifting from Yiddish to German, and therefore often still had Yiddish accents or other markers.24 German Jews were acutely aware of the cultural and linguistic divide between themselves and Eastern European Jews, but antisemitic literature did not tend to make these finer distinctions. A 1928 article in Der Sturmer ¨ maintained: “The Hebrews speak German in a unique, singing manner. One can recognize Jews immediately by their language, without having seen them.”25 Julius Streicher, the publisher of Der Sturmer, ¨ explained in a 1938 children’s book: “When the Jew speaks, he gestures with his hands. One says that he ‘mauschelt.’ His voice often breaks. The Jew almost always speaks through his nose.”26 Hannah Zweig, a Jewish Assistant for Speech Training and Elocution at a German university, typified some German Jews’ internalization of such charges. In a 1931 letter to the editor of the C.V.-Zeitung, she wrote: Anyone who wants to develop a winning personality is already in possession of the most sophisticated means of gaining recognition and popularity—the voice. However, imprecise pronunciation and an unpleasant sounding voice can be repugnant and often distract from a person’s other assets. While this is true in general, it is especially pertinent to the German Jew, because his temperament occasionally causes him to forget to practice aesthetic moderation in regard to the volume of his voice and the animation of his facial expression. A lisped “s,” a heavy and awkward tongue, incorrect pronunciation of the “sh” sound, hasty and over-hurried speech, and a heavy nasal twang— although even the most “Teutonic” [teutscheste] man can have these speech impediments, antisemites are inclined to call them specifically “Jewish.” Even though this is, of course, every bit as dumb as all such 24. Ibid., 219, 255. In his review article of Werner Weinberg’s Die Reste des Judischdeutschen, ¨ David L. Gold rejects Weinberg’s claim that “everyone who knew Judischdeutsch ¨ also spoke proper German,” maintaining there were German-speaking Jews in the 1930s who could not pass undetected because of their speech, and that no German-speaking Jew who “leads any sort of meaningful Jewish life always uses the language in precisely the same way as non-Jews do.” Gold, “‘Gentlemen, We Know More Yiddish Than We Admit,’” 117–18; 78; Weinberg, Die Reste des Judischdeutschen, ¨ 15. See also Jacobs, “On the Investigation of 1920s Vienna Jewish Speech.” 25. Translated and quoted in Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred, 312. 26. Ibid.

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Zweig zeroed in on precisely those “speech impediments” that were commonly attributed to Jews by antisemites. While she insisted that it was “dumb” to argue that they were specifically Jewish, she conceded that “the German Jew’s” temperament made him inherently susceptible to them. Although she suggested that German Jews were naturally predisposed to speaking in a “repugnant” manner, she did not rule out the possibility that nature could and should be overcome. Indeed, those Jews who corrected their speech would reap popularity and respect. The assumption that it was possible to eradicate antisemitism by correcting one’s Jewish speech implied, of course, that those who did not “correct” it were partly to blame for antisemitism directed at them and other Jews. As a female, Jewish, and junior member of a German academic institution in 1931, Zweig performed a delicate balancing act. She was in no position to question the presumed facts of her discipline, namely that linguistic markers typically attributed to Jews were undesirable. Internalizing these “facts,” she argued that individuals who spoke “like Jews” would not only suffer discrimination but would develop low self-esteem. At the same time, however, she had to refute the assumption that the speech traits commonly attributed to Jews were biologically determined or ubiquitous in Jews, for if they were, she too would have them. Thus, she stated explicitly that these traits were not innately Jewish but anerzogen (acquired or trained). Zweig was not alone in her crusade to fight antisemitism through speech therapy. In her article “Speaking Correctly, Our Time Demands It,” which appeared in the Frankfurter Gemeindeblatt in August 1936, Sophie Baum wrote: “Our Jewish children have the right to have untrained everything that could hinder their already difficult path into life. This includes, above all, the timely elimination of speech impediments.”28 The use of the word aberziehen (untrain) echoes Zweig’s assertion that German Jews’ undesirable speech patterns were learned, not innate. Baum’s belief that speech training would ease Jewish children’s “path into life” (whereby she presumably meant the path into general German society, where majority speech norms would matter) was wishful thinking. Jewish children, regardless of whether or not their German was pristine, were assigned to segregated schools two years later.29 27. Hannah Zweig, “Lernt sprechen!,” C.V.-Zeitung 10, no. 22 (May 29, 1931): 276. 28. Sophie Baum, “Richtig sprechen, eine Forderung unserer Zeit,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 14, no. 11 (August 1936): 433. 29. Many families chose to enroll their children in Jewish schools before 1938, due to

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Other authors took an entirely different tack. In a 1903 essay in Im Deutschen Reich (the precursor to the C.V.-Zeitung), “Language and Nationality,” M. A. Klausner30 asserted that German Jews were indisputably among the “models of the best German style” and the “founders and creators of the modern German language.”31 Klausner rejected prevailing definitions of nationality based on “descent and religion, shared history and political unification, language and customs,” because these categories were potentially as divisive as they were unifying. In their place, he asserted that a previously neglected factor, the “will,” was the keystone of nation and nationality,32 and that German Jews (for Klausner this included Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews and their descendents world-wide) had already demonstrated the will to belong to a German nation, “when most of the ancestors of today’s Germans had never heard of a nation, and certainly wouldn’t have wanted to hear about the German one.”33 According to Klausner, medieval German Jews had spoken pure German, and their Yiddish-speaking descendants in Eastern Europe and elsewhere had nurtured and cultivated the German language even after being expelled from German territories. He continued: “As paradoxical as it sounds, the Jews’ will to be part of a German nation is almost older than the German nation itself.”34 Klausner argued that Yiddish or Jargon was “the most widely spoken and the most interesting and distinguished of German dialects.”35 After helping to “develop and hone” the German language in the Middle Ages, Jews cleaved lovingly to it after being forcibly driven out of German lands: “We took with us into exile the language of the fatherland that treated us so unfatherly, and the language of our German brothers, who were so unbrotherly toward us; and we nurtured her as our mother tongue.”36 By using “we” in reference to harassment in or expulsion from public schools. Marion Kaplan, “The Daily Lives of Jewish Children and Youth in the ‘Third Reich,’” in Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 94–118. 30. Klausner was the editor of the Berlin journal Israelitische Wochenschrift (1892–1906), a liberal weekly. He is also the author of The Poems of the Bible, the first modern attempt to produce a German verse version of the Hebrew Bible. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Bible: Modern Versions,” “Press.” Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Periodicals.” 31. Klausner, M. A. “Sprache und Nationalitat.” ¨ Im deutschen Reich 9 (1903): 44–62, see 60. 32. Ibid., 44–45. 33. Ibid., 45. 34. Ibid., 45–46. 35. Ibid., 46. 36. Ibid., 48.

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the Ur-German Jews who were driven out of Germany and eventually became Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, Klausner sought to blur the distinction between German-speaking German Jews and Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, who were immigrating to Germany in increasing numbers.37 Klausner acknowledged that his view had detractors, even among Jews, but charged that they were merely “blinded by prejudice.” He dismissed his most formidable non-Jewish opponent, the influential nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke,38 who called Yiddish a “heinously mutilated language.” Klausner argued that “what [Treitschke] mistook for a mutilation of New High German was actually a historic monument to Middle High German that has survived to this day thanks only to Jewish loyalty.”39 Jargon sounded foreign to modern Germans because Jews had taken with them the German of six hundred years ago. It was not mangled German but a “dialect distinguished by its exceptional etymological refinement and a level of adaptability and flexibility that has been achieved by no other German dialect and of which New High German has every reason to be envious.”40 Klausner turned Treitschke’s assessment of Yiddish on its head: Yiddish was not the degenerate language; modern standard German was. New High German was “impoverished” in comparison to Yiddish, which had preserved “un-stunted” the merits of Middle High German.41 Whereas its critics deemed Yiddish corrupt and

37. About three million Jews left Eastern Europe between 1880 and the beginning of World War I. Many transmigrated through German ports to the United States (over 700,000 between the peak years 1905–1914). Far fewer actually settled in Germany. In 1910 foreign Jews comprised 13% of Germany’s Jewish population. At the beginning of World War I there were approximately 90,000 Jews living in Germany. The number increased to 150,000 by the end of the war due to the influx of Jewish laborers (both recruited and forced) and refugees. Michael A. Meyer, ed. German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 4 vols. (N.Y: Columbia University Press, 1996–1998), 3:17–23; Jack Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers: East European Jews in Imperial Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 14. Wertheimer’s appendices provide detailed statistics (184–201). 38. Treitschke (1834–1896) coined the popular slogan “The Jews are our misfortune.” Treitschke’s justification of antisemitic campaigns against the “foreign” Jewish domination of Germany in his 1879 essay “Our Prospects” granted antisemitic agitation in Germany intellectual credibility. Not a strict racial antisemite, Treitschke believed that Jewish cultural assimilation was both possible and desirable. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Heinrich von Treitschke.” 39. Klausner, “Sprache und Nationalitat,” ¨ 48. 40. Ibid., 51. 41. Ibid., 52.

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corrupting, Klausner suggested that German could actually be “re-enriched” through contact with Yiddish.42 Honing in on precisely those supposed defects most frequently cited by antisemitic critics (the “distortion” of the vowel system, intonation, and the alleged overabundance of Hebrew and Slavic loan words), Klausner demonstrated that these were not shortcomings but evidence that Yiddish, by merit of its loyalty to Middle High German, was more German than New High German. The tour de force of his arsenal of defensive arguments was his assertion that Yiddish intonation (the most commonly ridiculed feature of Yiddish) was not only not foreign but actually resembled the intonation in the Medieval “Nibelungen Verse.” What could possibly be more German?43 Klausner closed with the admonition: We have no reason to be ashamed of Jargon. On the contrary, we should point to it proudly as a testament to an unrivaled loyalty to our fatherland. With its quiet, touching tenacity, this loyalty is morally far superior to any noisy, wage-hungry chauvinism.44 Here, Klausner’s attempt to transform Yiddish into Ur-German was also a timely response to the chauvinistic accusation of unemployed “wage-hungry” Germans that foreigners, Eastern Jews in particular, were stealing their jobs. If Yiddish was a German dialect, then these Eastern Jewish immigrants were not foreign interlopers but legitimate Germans, coming home. 45 Thirteen years later, in 1916, the Orthodox rabbi Joseph Wohlgemuth46 joined in Klausner’s celebration of Yiddish as a German dialect, asserting that the status of Yiddish, which he called the “Cinderella of German dialects,” was improving as a result of German soldiers’ encounters with Yiddish-speaking Jews in Russia: “Our warriors bless the Jewish-German idiom, which offers greetings from the mother tongue in enemy territory and enables communi-

42. Ibid., 51. 43. Ibid., 59. 44. Ibid., 62. 45. For an overview of public debates over Eastern Jews, see Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 23–41. 46. Joseph Wohlgemuth (1867–1942) was a prominent German Orthodox rabbi, educator, theologian, and philosopher of religion. He founded the journal Jeschurun and was on the faculty of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, a bastion of German “Neo-Orthodoxy.” Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Joseph Wohlgemuth.”

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cation with the population of the occupied parts of Russia.”47 Whereas the “wage-hungry” Germans of 1903 had perceived the Yiddish spoken by Eastern Jews in Germany as a marker of unwelcome foreign intrusion, World War I German soldiers, according to Wohlgemuth, recognized the Yiddish spoken by Jews in enemy Russia in 1916 as their own mother tongue.48 Appealing to a World War I audience interested in the expansion of German influence, Wohlgemuth cited the spread of Yiddish throughout the world by migrating Eastern European Jews since the fifteenth century. He hailed Yiddish-speaking Jews as “pioneers of the German language” who were “paving the way for German culture around the world.”49 Wohlgemuth also sought to capitalize on World War I Germans’ hatred of the French, arguing that one could hardly accuse Yiddish of being a “hodgepodge of languages”50 when German (even in military language: Artillerie,

47. J[oseph] Wohlgemuth, “Die judisch-deutsche ¨ Sprache,” Jeschurun 3, no. 8 (August 1916): 422–41, see 423. 48. Wohlgemuth exaggerates, however. Only a small minority of German soldiers (Jewish and non-Jewish) “discovered” and were enamored of Eastern European Jewry and Yiddish (especially Yiddish theater). For most German soldiers, Jews included, the war-time encounter with Eastern European Jews reinforced negative stereotypes. Steven E. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers: The East European Jew in German and German Jewish Consciousness, 1800–1923 (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 143–50. See also David Midgley, “The Romance of the East: Encounters of German-Jewish Writers with Yiddish-Speaking Communities, 1916–27,” in The Yiddish Presence in European Literature: Inspiration and Interaction, Studies in Yiddish 5, ed. Joseph Sherman and Ritchie Robertson (London: Legenda, 2005), 87–98. 49. Wohlgemuth, “Die judisch-deutsche ¨ Sprache,” 423–24, 429, 439. Wohlgemuth was not alone in this argument. The Zionist Davis Trietsch, who was co-founder and co-editor of Ost und West, argued that war-time Germany would do well to cultivate the sympathies of the 12 million “German-speaking” Jews living outside Germany’s borders. Davis Trietsch, Juden und Deutsche: Eine Sprach- und Interessengemeinschaft (Wien: R. Lowit, ¨ 1915). During the war, the Komitee fur ¨ den Osten (KfdO, Committee for the East), which was formed “to defend the interests of the Jews of Eastern Europe and at the same time to gain their sympathy for the Central Powers,” published pamphlets and sent memoranda to government and military officials arguing that Yiddish, as a German dialect, was a “powerful weapon in the defence of the German cultural, economic, political and military interests in Eastern Europe.” Some KfdO members even argued that promoting Jewish national (and linguistic) autonomy through the establishment of Yiddish schools in the occupied territories was the best way to Germanize the East. Zosa Szajkowski, “The Struggle for Yiddish during World War I,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 10 (1964): 131–58. 50. Mischsprache, literally mixed language, is the colloquial term for creoles, pidgins, and ethnolects.

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Infanterie, etc.) was replete with terms from the “homeland of our enemies.”51 Like Klausner, Wohlgemuth emphasized that Yiddish had “faithfully” preserved “authentically German linguistic wealth” in many cases where modern German had discarded Germanic words in favor of Greek or Latin.52 Paradoxically, however, Wohlgemuth denied that Yiddish was once the mother tongue of Western European Jews, insisting that the Jews living in Germany during the Middle Ages were “deeply rooted in the language and culture of their country.”53 According to Wohlgemuth, Jews in Germany spoke a “pure and unadulterated German” through the seventeenth century.54 Yiddish arrived only with the immigration of Polish Jews and disappeared entirely upon the Jews’ political emancipation. Although Wohlgemuth praised Yiddish as a German dialect superior to all others—and he maintained that dialects, not standard German, comprised “the German language in the truest sense”—he denied that it was ever the language of German Jews.55 As noted earlier, Pappenheim, like many of her contemporaries, considered Yiddish to be the antithesis of a “language of culture” (Kultursprache). In a 1911 letter chronicling a journey on the Galilean Sea, Pappenheim categorized her fellow passengers: “As always, the passengers can be grouped into the following categories: tourists, in other words cultured people [Kulturmenschen], whose religion isn’t apparent at first glance, natives, or Jews.”56 The Jews who do not qualify as “cultured” (because they are identifiably Jewish) betray themselves not “at first glance,” however, but by the way they sound. The Jewish passengers of what she derogatorily dubs a “Polack boat” are distinguished by their language, Yiddish: “‘Jainkel, kuck ¨ nicht im Jam!’” (a German transcription of the Yiddish for, “Yankel, don’t look into the water!)57 Pappenheim subscribed to the notion that Jewishness was audibly recognizable. She recounted a meeting with a Russian countess who told her that she assumed that Pappenheim was Jewish because the woman who had arranged their meeting had a Yiddish accent, “that unmistakable, horrible Jewish intonation.” Pappenheim recalled: “Her face was completely contorted, 51. Wohlgemuth, “Die judisch-deutsche ¨ Sprache,” 432. 52. Ibid., 433. 53. Ibid., 426. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid., 430. 56. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 114. 57. Ibid., 115.

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as though she was remembering something that was absolutely disgusting.”58 Pappenheim also relied on speech to identify other Jews. She wrote of the actor and director Ferdinand Bonn: “I don’t know if Bonn is a Jew. I couldn’t see with my naked [unbewaffnet] eye what he looked like, but my ear could discern an occasional faint Mauscheln. However, I didn’t get to check his passport.”59 For Pappenheim, however, recognizably Jewish speech was not always a liability, particularly in in-group communication. In two of her short stories, Yiddish serves as a code that tells the Jewish listener that the speaker is also Jewish and therefore trustworthy. In “Der Erloser” ¨ (The Redeemer), Wolf, a Jewish orphan, is lured into a Christian mission house by a missionary who uses Yiddish words, “… giving Wolf the reassuring feeling that he was dealing with a fellow Jew…”60 In “Freitag Abend” (Friday Evening), Rosy (aka Reisle) spontaneously develops trust in a fleeting acquaintance when he utters a single Yiddish word, “nebbich,”61 in response to her admission that she attends the public lecture series because she is homesick on the Sabbath. Rosy replies to his “nebbich”: Nebekh? … So you are Jewish! Well now, then everything is all right, then you understand me, then I am not afraid of you anymore. Then I don’t need to worry about how I should talk, so that I speak correctly 58. Ibid., 187. 59. Ibid., 152. 60. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 7. In this case a Catholic missionary uses the Yiddish “password” deceptively, to inspire trust where none is warranted. In “Friday Evening” Pappenheim also portrays Gentiles using Yiddish or pseudo-Yiddish. Frau Muller ¨ evicts Rosy on Christmas Eve: “It’s all the same to me—Git out, nut’n but out. Rent’s paid, go back to your ‘Tate’ and your ‘Mame,’ back where you come from” [Das ist mir ganz egal —naus sag’ ich, nix wie naus. Die Miet ist bezahlt, da gehn Sie doch zu ihrem ‘Tate’ und zu Ihrer ‘Mamme’ dahin, wo Sie hergekommen sind] (136). In this case, the speaker does not use “Yiddish” to express solidarity or inspire trust. On the contrary, she makes no attempts to conceal her antisemitism. Frau Muller ¨ calls Rosy and Julius “Jew pack” [Juddebaggasch], and complains that Jews “are thick as thieves.” The use of “Yiddish” by antisemites has a dual purpose: 1) The speakers indicate to their Jewish listeners that they are privy to their “secret language,” and cannot be “taken in.” They seek to demonstrate that their antisemitism is not based on ignorance but on intimate knowledge of Jews. 2) They also use “Yiddish” to mock or insult the Jewish listener; much in the same way that “Yiddish” was employed in antisemitic caricatures, film, theater, and prose to parody Jews. 61. The English word “nebbish” has a different meaning, referring to a timid or ineffectual person. In German-Jewish speech “nebbich” could be either an expression of sympathy or pity or one of contempt. Weinberg, Die Reste des Judischdeutschen, ¨ 111.

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and don’t get laughed at. Then you know how homesick I must be for my parents every Friday evening, for my siblings, and for what comes to life in the shabes-shtub when Mother lights the candles and Father makes Kiddush.62 The single Yiddish word speaks volumes for Rosy. Decoded, the word nebekh says more than just “poor thing”; it expresses solidarity and promises mutual understanding based on shared tradition and common history. Rosy lets down her guard because this stranger is, by virtue of his knowledge of a loaded “password,” no stranger. Much can be left unsaid, because Rosy and Julius already “know” one another.63 Similarly, in “Ein Schwachling” ¨ (A Weakling), Johannes (formerly Gabriel), a convert to Christianity, is attracted to Klara Sulzer’s Jewish speech, which sounds like “home” and evokes memories of his past: The intonation of her voice did him good. The words and idioms that she used, that he hadn’t heard in years, made him feel so comfortable and at home, that it sometimes seemed like a dream, impossible even to imagine, that he had already belonged to another world for such a long time…64 While Pappenheim implies that both Rosy and Klara’s speech is recognizably Jewish, she does not portray their direct speech accordingly.65 The direct 62. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 121–22. 63. In this scene Rosy confesses that she is self-conscious about her recognizably Jewish speech and that she attempts to standardize it when speaking with non-Jews in order to avoid ridicule. 64. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 179. 65. A number of studies have examined the function of representations of Yiddish and Jewish speech in German-language literary works by Jewish and non-Jewish writers. These include: Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred; Grossman, The Discourse on Yiddish in Germany; Richter, Die Sprache judischer ¨ Figuren in der deutschen Literatur; Bering, “Sprache und Antisemitismus im 19. Jahrhundert”; Mark H. Gelber, “Das Judendeutsch in der deutschen Literatur: Einige Beispiele von den fruhesten ¨ Lexika bis Gustav Freytag und Thomas Mann,” in Juden in der deutschen Literatur: Ein deutsch-israelitisches Symposium, edited by Stephane ´ Moses and Albrecht Schone, ¨ (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1986);162–78. Hans Peter Althaus, “Soziolekt und Fremdsprache: Das Jiddische als Stilmittel in der deutschen Literatur,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ deutsche Philologie 100 (1981): 212–32; Elvira Grozinger, ¨ “‘Judengemauschel’: Der antisemitische Sprachgebrauch und die judische ¨ Identitat,” ¨ in Sprache und Identitat ¨ im Judentum, ed. Karl E. Grozinger ¨ (Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz, 1998), 173–97; Gabriele von Glasenapp, “German versus Jargon: Language and Jewish Identity in German Ghetto Writing,” in Ghetto Writing: Traditional

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speech of both women is exclusively standard German. The same is true of both Wolf and Martin in “The Redeemer.” Although Pappenheim describes Wolf’s speech (as a young boy in England) as a mixture of English and Yiddish, and Martin characterizes his own speech as “a sort of High Jargon,” their direct speech is unmarked.66 In numerous other cases, however, Pappenheim does portray the non-standard direct speech of Jewish characters.67 In “The Redeemer,” for example, she indicates that Martin, Wolf, and Reisle speak Yiddish (or a mixture of Yiddish and the dominant language of the country in which they reside). However, only Muhme Rifke’s direct speech is recognizably non-standard. Although all of the Russian Jews in Tragische Momente: Drei Lebensbilder (Tragic Moments: Three Pictures of Jewish Life) are presumably Yiddish speakers,68 only Leib Rosenberg’s lines are written in non-standard German. The speech of both Leib Rosenberg and Muhme Rifke (both of whom are pimps) is highly stereotypical, resembling the sort of Yiddishized speech attributed to unsavory Jewish figures in antisemitic films, caricatures, and literature. Pappenheim characterizes

and Eastern Jewry in German-Jewish Literature from Heine to Hilsenrath, ed. Anne Fuchs and Florian Krobb (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1999), 54–65; Florian Krobb, “‘Muthwillige Faschingstracht’: The Presence of Yiddish in Nineteenth-Century German Literature,” in Sherman and Robertson, Yiddish Presence in European Literture, 22–33. 66. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 7, 24. 67. Pappenheim occasionally portrays the non-standard direct speech of non-Jewish characters. In “Friday Evening” the direct speech of both Herr and Frau Muller ¨ is nonstandard, approximating a lower class Frankfurt dialect. She juxtaposes the non-standard speech of these two bigoted characters to Rosy and Julius’s standard German to imply that the former are uneducated. Frau Muller’s ¨ use of Yiddish is ironic—a woman who cannot herself speak correct German mocks a Jewish girl by insinuating that her “real” language is not German but Yiddish. In Tragic Moments, however, Frau Kogler, an exceptionally positive character, speaks with a Bavarian accent. Her non-standard speech underscores her “foreignness” (she is a Bavarian Catholic in Protestant Frankfurt), which, alongside her “Christian duty,” is one motivation for her solidarity with her Russian Jewish neighbors. Realizing that Fella is too malnourished to produce sufficient milk for her baby, Frau Kogler, who has enough milk for two, nurses him. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 32–35. This scene is also propaganda for the Frankfurt “Infant’s Milk Kitchen,” which was founded by Women’s Relief in 1907. Paul Arnsberg, Die Geschichte der Frankfurter Juden seit der Franzosischen ¨ Revolution (Darmstadt: Eduard Roether, 1983), 102. 68. It is never stated explicitly that the Russian Jews in Tragic Moments speak Yiddish. However, Jerome’s statement that he does not want to found a “new language ghetto” in Palestine suggests that his parents had lived in the old one, the Yiddish-speaking Jewish community in Russia.

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Muhme69 Rifke’s manner of speaking as an “intonation of whining complaint.”70 Muhme Rifke uses recognizably Yiddish expressions such as “takhles” and “oy,” and she says “iz” (the Yiddish third person singular present “to be”) rather than “ist.”71 Leib Rosenberg uses the term “goyim,” and his sentences follow Yiddish word order. For example: “Es kann sein fur ¨ beide.”72 Here the infinitive sein directly follows the modal verb kann, as it would in Yiddish. In standard German, it would occur in the final position.The speech of neither is consistently Yiddishized, however, but merely peppered with a few choice signals of Jewish difference. In these two texts, Pappenheim does not use non-standard speech simply to achieve a greater degree of realism. If this were the case, both good and bad Yiddish-speaking characters would speak “realistically,” i.e. in non-standard German. Instead, its function in these stories is to underscore the negative characteristics of her villains. Indeed, Pappenheim often associated language with character. In a 1912 letter she wrote, “Miss v. E. speaks the harsh Silesian or Lithuanian German, but she seems to be a good and soft-hearted person.”73 The “but” implies that Pappenheim typically expected speech, in this case a regional dialect, to reflect personality or character. Her use of Mauscheln in the portrayal of her villains (in these cases, individuals involved in the white slave trade and prostitution) would suggest that she was not immune to the antisemitic notion that Yiddish was a corrupted German that reflected the moral and sexual degeneracy of the Jews who spoke it. But although she took the liberty of employing Yiddish or Mauscheln in her portrayal of Jews involved in white slavery, she objected strenuously when non-Jews did the same. In a 1927 letter to Claude Montefiore (a leader of Liberal Judaism in England), Pappenheim charged that the “matter of fact” use of Yiddish words (she lists “Schnorrer” = beggar; “Kaften;” “Nekewe” = female [sometimes pejorative]; “Schadchen” = matchmaker) in a League of Nations report on the white slave trade was evidence of the authors’ antisemitic tendencies.74 That is not to say that Pappenheim limited her use of stereotypically Jewish 69. Muhme is both an antiquated German term and a neutral Yiddish word (mume) for aunt. However, onkel and mume are also forms of address used by prostitutes for pimps or brothel proprietors. 70. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 30. 71. Ibid. 72. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 44. 73. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 163. 74. Bertha Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic]. Berlin: Berthold Levy, 1929, 2.

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direct speech to her villains. In “The Miracle Rabbi,” for example, the direct speech of Reb Wolf and Gewiera—both exceptionally positive, indeed exemplary figures—is marked by frequent occurrences of Yiddish word order and lexical items.75 Gewiera is a pious and wise woman who, although she herself is securely anchored in the tradition of the ghetto, realizes that her son must move on. Heeding his wife’s recommendation that their son leave the ghetto to pursue his secular education in Vienna, Reb Wolf sacrifices his own secular intellectual pursuits in order to enable his son’s “escape.” Pappenheim may have patterned Gewiera after the sister of the Hasidic Rebbe of Aleksandrow, whom she met during her travels in 1912. As Pappenheim described the rebbe’s sister: “This woman is Gluckel ¨ of Hameln incarnate. What she says and how she says it, the stories she tells and how she tells them, her devoutness, her common sense, her naivete—everything about her is wonderful.”76 In ´ retelling her conversation with her, Pappenheim employs a language that more closely approximates Yiddish than the direct speech of any of her fictional characters: A swallow that wants to bail out the yam [sea]? Only Reboyne-Shel Oylem can help there, but as it is a most holy and pure endeavor, and does honor to Reboyne-Shel Oylem, He will help you, and the Rebbe, my brother—may he live [days that are pleasant and long]—will help you matsliekh zayn [to succeed].77 Pappenheim finds “wonderful” not only what the Rabbi’s sister says but how she says it, namely in Yiddish. Pappenheim’s 1934 essay “The Jewish Woman” offers further insight into her love-hate relationship with Yiddish. In it she traces the cultural and spiritual roots of modern German-Jewish women (who are inextricably bound to their German linguistic and cultural heritage) to the German-Jewish women of Gluckel ¨ of Hameln’s generation. According to Pappenheim, “… the Jewish woman incorporated bits of German culture into her general repertoire, but her private religious life remained intact and wholly Jewish.”78 The most strik-

This volume was printed with a typographical error in the title. I have maintained this spelling error in the bibliography and citations. 75. Pappenheim, “Der Wunderrabbi,” Kampfe, ¨ 43–66. 76. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 149. 77. Ibid. 78. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” in Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 105–17, see 106.

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ing evidence of the influence of “Germanness” on these women was their language.79 She elaborated: Through the centuries, the “anonymous Jewish woman” was the keeper of unbroken, natural Jewishness and simultaneously, yet unconsciously, the protector of the Old German language. The Women’s Bible (Tsenerene) and the mayse bikher, with their vaybertaytsh80 (Yiddish-German) offer historical proof of this; and I am tempted to call the Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln the classic example.81 ¨ Like Klausner and Wohlgemuth, Pappenheim elevated the status of Yiddish by pronouncing its speakers the protectors of “the linguistic wealth of Old German”; at the same time, she deliberately referred to Yiddish as Weiberdeutsch (women’s German). In doing so, she credited Jewish women, in particular, with this contribution. She reasoned that Jewish men’s indifference to Jewish women’s spiritual and intellectual development allowed Yiddish to serve over time as a “narrow bridge” for Jewish women to a new, outside world.82 More or less by default, Yiddish became the “natural compensation” for the religious education denied women, enabling them to become the unwitting pioneers of German culture in the Jewish community. Pappenheim thus valued Yiddish as a stepping stone for Jewish women to secular culture, first for German-Jewish women of Gluckel’s ¨ era, and again for Eastern European Jewish women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because Jewish fathers were less invested in their daughters’ education than in their sons’ and were less concerned about the ramifications of exposing girls to secular influences, Jewish girls in Eastern Europe more frequently attended secular public schools (when local law permitted a choice) than boys. Their knowledge of Yiddish (which was closer to German than to the Slavic languages of their surroundings) fueled the “desire for an education with a distinctly German bias.”83 Pappenheim conceded, however, that the growing influence of “German language and 79. Ibid. 80. Literally “translations for women,” vaybertaytsh is one name for Yiddish. According to Dovid Katz, “The term shifted over centuries to mean the special language of [Early Yiddish literature for women], and in Ashkenazic ‘men’s talk,’ it became a mildly dismissive name for the Yiddish language itself—a women’s language.” Katz, Words on Fire, 59. Pappenheim uses the Germanized spelling Weiberdeutsch. 81. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 106. 82. Ibid., 107. 83. Ibid., 108.

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intellectual life” gradually resulted in “the decline of Jewish consciousness.”84 She therefore did not disparage the Yiddish of Gluckel ¨ and of her modern Eastern Jewish counterparts (the rebbe’s sister and her literary double, Gewiera) as an uneducated “Jargon.” Instead, she revered it, because she associated this Yiddish with the still “intact” Jewish womanhood of the ghetto, a womanhood marked by a naive spirituality grounded in Jewish women’s sacred day to day responsibilities in the family. Struggling to achieve a happy medium for modern German-Jewish women, a way for them to be culturally German while remaining religiously Jewish, Pappenheim glanced back nostalgically to these women on the brink. Pappenheim’s monumental accomplishment of translating three Yiddish literary works written prior to emancipation either by or for women (The Memoirs of Gluckel ¨ of Hameln, All Kinds of Stories: Mayse bukh, and Tsenerene: Women’s Bible) attests further to her nostalgia for a disappearing female Jewish culture whose language was Yiddish. The enthusiastic reception of these translations in the German-Jewish press indicates that she was not alone in her interest in this chapter of German-Jewish history.85 While the 84. Ibid. 85. I have located 8 reviews of Pappenheim’s Allerlei Geschichten: Maasse-Buch: Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 8, no. 8 (April 1930): 338; Israelitisches Wochenblatt fur ¨ die Schweiz, October 1929: n. pag. [clipping from Archiv Bibliographia Judaica]; Bertha Badt-Strauß, “Judische ¨ Marchen ¨ und Sagen,” Judische ¨ Rundschau 35, no. 22 (March 18, 1930): 151; Bertha Badt-Strauß, “Die Welt des Maasse-Buches,” Morgen 6, no. 1 (April 1930): 103–4; Bertha Badt-Strauß, [Bath-Hillel, pseud.], “Die Welt des Maasse-Buches,” Menorah: Judisches ¨ Familienblatt fur ¨ Wissenschaft, Kunst und Kultur 8, nos.1–2 (January-February 1930): 101; I. Heinemann, Monatsschrift fur ¨ Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, n.s., 38, no. 3 (1930): 239; Anna Neumann, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 5, no. 10 (October 1929): 11–12; J. Posen, Israelit, no. 2 (October 17, 1929): Litterarische Warte, 2. There are at least 10 published reviews of Pappenheim’s Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel: Hanna Cohn-Dorn, Judische-liberale ¨ Zeitung 11, nos. 18–19 (May 13, 1931): 2. Beilage; “Die Frauenbibel ‘Zeenah U- Reenah,’” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 8, no. 2 (February 1932): 6–7; Pessach Goldring, C.V.-Zeitung 10, no. 12 (March 20, 1931): 137–38; Bernhard Heller, Monatsschrift fur ¨ Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, n.s., 42. no. 2 (1934): 312–15; Felix Perles, Zeitschrift fur ¨ die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland 3, nos. 2–3 (1931): 219; Edith Rosenzweig, “Ein altes neues Frauenbuch,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 12 (December 1930): 2–4; Margarete Susman, Morgen 7, no. 5 (December 1931): 454–56; W. Windfuhr, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 36, no. 4 (1933): 246–47; Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 9, nos. 1–2 (September-October 1930): 33; Israelitisches Familienblatt, December 11, 1930, n. pag. [clipping from Archiv Bibliographia Judaica].

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reviewers agreed, without exception, that Pappenheim deserved recognition and praise for making these artifacts of traditional Judaism accessible to new generations of German Jews, especially women, they disagreed on exactly what made them valuable. They also disagreed about the quality of Pappenheim’s translation. As Pappenheim states in her preface to Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, her goal was “to bring back to life the image of one woman, who (while clearly a product of her time) stood out by virtue of her exceptional intellect, and who remained true to her religion, her people, her family, and herself.”86 Gluckel ¨ embodied for Pappenheim “the best and most valuable traits of womanhood.”87 Similarly, in her introduction to All Kinds of Stories, Pappenheim outlined the importance of her translation for her contemporaries: 1) The collection of stories will grant insight into the lives of Jews in the Middle Ages, in particular how the “power of believing in God-given teachings” had allowed them to withstand oppression and thrive despite hostile environs. 2) It will inform scholarship “in cultural history, folklore, linguistics, and (not least of all) sociology, as an indication of the important yet nevertheless so modest position of women in Judaism.”88 3) It will provide parents and educators a “bridge to a renewed appreciation of the meaning of inherited Jewish culture and religion.”89 Pappenheim’s translations of Old Yiddish Literature must be viewed within the larger trend of translating Yiddish and Hebrew texts into German that was one part of a “Jewish Renaissance.”90 Her translation of the Memoirs of Gluckel ¨ of Hameln was published just a few years after Martin Buber’s first “translations” (more accurately described as free renderings) of Hasidic lore,91 and the two carried on a lively intellectual exchange while Pappenheim was translating the Mayse bukh and the Tsenerene and Buber and Rosenzweig I have located only one review of Pappenheim’s translation of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, but even a single review is remarkable, considering that Pappenheim published the translation privately for her Goldschmidt relatives, who were descendents of Gluckel. ¨ N.M. Nathan, review of Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, trans. Bertha Pappenheim. Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 74, no. 41 (October 14, 1910): 490–91. 86. Pappenheim, Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, preface. 87. Ibid. 88. Pappenheim, Allerlei Geschichten, vii-viii. 89. Ibid., viii. 90. See Michael Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996),103–11, 185–211. 91. Martin Buber, Die Legende des Baalschem (Frankfurt a.M.: Rutten ¨ und Loening, 1908); Martin Buber, Die Geschichten des Rabbi Nachman (Frankfurt a.M.: Rutten ¨ und Loening, 1906).

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were collaborating on their translation of the Hebrew Bible into German. It is unclear to what extent Buber and Pappenheim discussed the mechanics of translation and their own motivations for translating Jewish texts. Buber’s letters to her were not preserved; and the surviving letters from Pappenheim may represent only a portion of a larger correspondence—not to mention their meetings in person. The extant letters do show, however, that Pappenheim sent Buber her own version of a Hasidic Tale, “Another Story about the Baal Shem” (dated January 23, 1922)—a clear indication that she had read Buber’s The Legend of the Baal Shem.92 Pappenheim also asked Buber to recommend to her someone who could review the draft of her translation of the Mayse bukh to check her transliteration of Hebrew terms (“Rabbi – Rabi – Rawa? Tefilloh – Thefilo, Tauroh – Thauro”);93 and Buber had Schocken send Pappenheim a copy of his Bible translation.94 Pappenheim’s translations should be read as a female and Germanocentric response or counterpart to Buber’s Hasidic tales. Whereas Buber sought to reconnect alienated German Jews to an “authentic” Jewish past and experience by recovering for them the lost voices of the male-centered tradition of Eastern European Hasidic Jewry, Pappenheim recovered a lost female German-Jewish voice (Gluckel ¨ of Hameln) and texts that were representative of a specifically female Jewish religious and cultural life (the Tsenerene and the Mayse bukh). While Buber looked Eastward, Pappenheim looked for traces of indigenous and specifically female Jewish culture.95 The reviews of All Kinds of Stories largely echoed Pappenheim’s own assessment of the value of her translation for her Jewish contemporaries. There were only two slight departures: 1) The reviewers did not acknowledge Pappenheim’s assertion that modern Jews might learn from the example of how faith helped their ancestors withstand antisemitism. Several reviewers of 92. Bertha Pappenheim, “Noch eine Geschichte vom Baal Schem,” MS dated January 23, 1922, Martin Buber Archives,; Buber, Die Legende des Baal Schem. 93. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, May 1, 1929, Martin Buber Archives, Arc.Ms.Var. 350/568. Buber must have referred her to Prof. Dr. A[ron] Freimann and Prof. Dr. Ismar Elbogen, both of whom are named in her acknowledgments. Pappenheim, Allerlei Geschichten, viii. 94. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, January 6, 1933, Martin Buber Archives, Arc.Ms.Var. 350/568. 95. The Tsenerene and Mayse bukh were read by Ashkenazic women in Western and Eastern Europe, but the versions that Pappenheim translated were published in Western Europe.

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Tsenerene, however, did draw a parallel between antisemitism in Germany during the Thirty Years War and in 1930 and advised modern German-Jewish women to follow the example of their foremothers. 2) Bertha Badt-Strauß, writing for the Zionist Judische ¨ Rundschau, pointed to the utility of All Kinds of Stories for Jewish national education—specifically for parents and educators who wished to familiarize their children with Jewish folklore instead of German fairy-tales;96 and the reviewer for the Frankfurter Gemeindeblatt wrote that Pappenheim walked in the footsteps of the Brothers Grimm.97 The evocation of the Brothers Grimm and the tradition of German fairy tales conjured up the spirit of early nineteenth-century German Romanticist nationalism, which enjoyed a renaissance in early twentieth-century Neo-Romanticism. Although Pappenheim would likely not have embraced the label of Neo-Romanticist, Buber and Rosenzweig were cognizant of the influence of German Romanticism on their Bible translation. The duo relied more heavily on Herder’s interpretation of the language of the Hebrew Bible and on the Grimm dictionary than on traditional Jewish sources or contemporary commentaries. They jokingly referred to the author of the dictionary as “Reb Grimm.”98 Although Pappenheim acknowledged the positive exemplary function of certain aspects of the pre-modern Jewish life portrayed in Old Yiddish literature, especially the vitality of Jewish religious life, her nostalgia had limits. For her, the Tsenerene, in particular, was evidence of the “suppression of Jewish women’s intellectuality.” She elaborated: “The ‘trimmed down’ form, which was the only version in which the hummash, the five books of Moses, was accessible to women, is a fascinating outgrowth of the intellectual and spiritual abstinence demanded of women.”99 Several female critics rejected Pappenheim’s feminist critique of the Tsenerene. Margarete Susman100 toed the es96. Badt-Strauß, “Judische ¨ Marchen ¨ und Sagen.” 97. Review of Allerlei Geschichten: Maasse-Buch, trans. Bertha Pappenheim, Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 8, no. 8 (April 1930): 338. 98. Brenner, Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, 109. This type of romanticist nationalism was not exclusive to Germany. Similar undertakings outside of Germany include Bundist S. Z. Rapoport’s (better known as S. An-Ski) ethnographic expeditions in the 1910s and L. Ginzberg’s monumental Legends of the Jews (1909–1938), 7 volumes of legends, maxims, and parables gleaned from Midrashic literature; Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, trans. Henrietta Szold and Paul Radin, 7 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Itzik Nakhmen Gottesman, Defining the Jewish Nation: The Jewish Folklorists of Poland (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003). 99. Pappenheim, Zeenah U-Reenah, xi. 100. Margarete Susman (1874–1966) was a German-Jewish existentialist philosopher, essayist, and poet, who later tutored Pappenheim in Greek philosophy. At age 90 she pub-

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tablishment line, countering that the “intellectual abstinence” imposed on women was not a sign of traditional Judaism’s disdain for women but rather a direct corollary of women’s important role in the Jewish community: The woman’s life, her position in the home, in work and deed, was, from the very beginning, always important, crucially important, in Judaism. Because the man’s whole life revolved around study, the woman emerged, of necessity, as the custodian of the “real” and the “living.” This situation is also the reason for the modesty of her position in regard to intellectual pursuits. The belief that study demands a person’s whole being and that no man can serve two masters had the dual effect of removing the man from reality and keeping the woman, who was entrusted with managing and sanctifying life with its never-ending troubles and duties, away from things of the intellect.101 According to Susman’s apologist rhetoric, men and women’s spheres and roles were separate but equal; and Bertha Badt-Strauß and Edith Rosenzweig102 offered similar arguments.103 Susman, Badt-Strauß, and Rosenzweig could rationalize the intellectual disadvantaging of women during the period that produced the Tsenerene because for them it was situated in the remote past (they personally were not denied intellectual pursuits—Susman was a well-known intellectual and both Badt-Strauß and Rosenzweig had earned doctorates).104 For Pappenheim, however, who resented never having received an adequate education (secular or religious), the era of forced “intellectual abstinence” was not something purely historical. As the daughter of a strictly Orthodox father, she had experienced it herself. In the case study of Anna O., Breuer suggested that the lack of sufficient intellectual stimulation may have contributed to Pappenheim’s mental illness. lished her autobiography, I Have Lived Many Lives (1964). Margarete Susman, Ich habe viele Leben gelebt (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1964); Martina Steer, “Da zeigte sich: Der Mann hatte ihr keine Welt mehr anzubieten.” Margarete Susman und die Frage der Frauenemanzipation (Bochum: Winkler, 2001). 101. Susman, review of Zeenah U-Reenah, 454. 102. Edith Rosenzweig is best known as the wife of German-Jewish philosopher and theologian Franz Rosenzweig and as the editor of his collected letters. 103. Rosenzweig, “Ein altes neues Frauenbuch.” Bertha Badt-Strauß, “Aus der Geschichte der judischen ¨ Frau,” Menora 9 (1931): 119–24. 104. Bertha Badt-Strauß (1885–1970) was a Germanist and a prolific writer. Born in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), she lived in Berlin until immigrating to the United States in 1939. She also wrote under the pseudonym Bath-Hillel. Martina Steer, Bertha Badt-Strauß (1885–1970): Eine judische ¨ Publizistin (Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2005).

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In the opening paragraph he described his patient: “She was markedly intelligent, with an astonishingly quick grasp of things and penetrating intuition. She possessed a powerful intellect which would have been capable of digesting solid mental pabulum [solide geistige Ernahrung] ¨ and which stood in need of it—though without receiving it after she had left school.”105 Although there is no proof that she ever read Breuer’s case study, Pappenheim employed similar imagery in her 1912 speech “The Woman in Church and Religious Life,” in which she complained of the “intellectual malnourishment” [geistige Unterernahrung] of Jewish women.106 Unlike her female critics, Pappenheim ¨ did not believe that the status of women in the Jewish community had improved since the time of the Tsenerene.107 On the contrary, she argued that women’s “importance” had waned without an improvement of their “position”: “… The trivialization [Verflachung] of religious life among Jews caused Jewish women’s importance within the home to diminish, but her importance and position in communal life did not increase proportionately.”108 The condescending tone of one critic lends credence to Pappenheim’s critique by implying that German-Jewish women of 1930 had not progressed beyond the limited status of their distant ancestors: “Surely we still need to give women 105. Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 21, 42. 106. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” in Der Deutsche Frauenkongress, Berlin, 27. Februar bis 2. Marz ¨ 1912: Samtliche ¨ Vortrage, ¨ ed. Gertrud Baumer ¨ (Leipzig: Teubner, 1912), 241. 107. For a reconstruction, based on Yiddish devotional literature written for and (less frequently) by women, of Jewish women’s spiritual life and religious practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries see Chava Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women (Boston: Beacon, 1998). There is evidence that the Tsenerene’s time had not entirely passed in early 20th century Germany. Bath-Hillel (pseudonym for Bertha Badt-Strauß) writes in 1920 that, especially in Southern Germany, one would readily encounter “grandmothers” reading the Tsenerene on the Sabbath. Lowenstein reports that his mother, who was born in Northern Bavaria in 1888 (and was thus almost 30 years younger than Pappenheim) remembered reading the Tsenerene to other women in her village. Lowenstein also met a German-Jewish man his mother’s age in Washington Heights in the late 1960s, who still read the book every Sabbath. It is essential to note that, because a serious knowledge of Hebrew was limited to a small percentage of men, early modern Yiddish religious literature was also written for and consumed by men (“who were like women” in their inability to read Hebrew and Aramaic texts in the original) as well as women. Badt-Strauß, “Die Zenne Renne,” Neue Judische ¨ Monatsshefte 4 (1919–1920): 55; Lowenstein, “The Yiddish Written Word in Nineteenth-Century Germany,” 182; Katz, Words on Fire, 57–59, 102–4; Baumgarten, “The Printing, Distribution, and Audience of Yiddish Books,” in Introduction to Old Yiddish Literature, 38–71. 108. Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 243.

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this Women’s Bible, not only as a historical document but as material for their moral instruction.”109 Pappenheim’s reviewers devoted considerable space to the style of her translations. While these works are not merely transcriptions, as some reviewers suggested,110 Pappenheim did not translate the original Yiddish into standard German. She defended this choice in her introduction to the Tsenerene: In a medieval form, way of thinking, and point of view that is roughly comparable to the form of expression of the visual arts of Durer’s ¨ era, we experience, in a motley array [kunterbunt], the people and events of the Bible through quotes, interpretations, and stories—all in a language that is indispensable if the charm in the portrayals is not to be destroyed. There are some instances in which even an attempt to “Germanize” [verhochdeutschen] them would be a sin against the spirit of the Tsenerene.111 The majority of reviewers agreed that a translation of the Tsenerene or Mayse bukh into standard German would be wholly inappropriate. Bernhard Heller, for example, applauded Pappenheim’s translation: “Good sense protected the editor from the bad taste of wanting to ‘Germanize’ everything.”112 Both Bertha Badt-Strauß and W. Windfuhr agreed that Pappenheim’s non-standard translation was superior to any standard German translation to date. Badt-Strauß attributed the success of Pappenheim’s translation to her ability to preserve “the charm and freshness that lie in this traditional, folksy

109. Review of Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel, trans. Bertha Pappenheim, Israelitisches Familienblatt, December 11, 1930. 110. One reviewer characterizes Pappenheim’s edition as a “transliteration of the Hebrew letters into German ones… The reader has, so to say, the original in front of him.” Review of Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel, trans. Bertha Pappenheim, Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 9, nos. 1/2 (September/October 1930): 33. In the introduction to her 1994 edition of Pappenheim’s translation of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, Viola Roggenkamp juxtaposes excerpts from Alfred Feilchenfeld’s 1913 transcription of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs and Pappenheim’s translation. A comparison of the two demonstrates that Pappenheim did far more than merely transcribe the original Yiddish into Latin letters. Roggenkamp, introduction to Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, trans. Bertha Pappenheim, x-xi. Although the language of Pappenheim’s translations of the Tsenerene and Mayse bukh is farther from standard German than the language of her translation of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, it is nonetheless not a mere transcription. 111. Pappenheim, Zeenah U-Reenah, xi. 112. Heller, review of Zeenah U-Reenah, 312.

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[volkstumlichen] cloak of language.”113 Windfuhr compared Pappenheim’s ¨ translation favorably to another recent standard German translation: Compared to Goldschmidt’s condensed, cold translation, Pappenheim’s edition is far superior. It not only retains the language of the original, whenever comprehensible to modern readers, but also its style, the characteristic meandering inclusion of details and asides. The tenor of the language itself is often the best commentary.114 Margarete Susman praised Pappenheim for translating the work into a “language that is both comprehensible and close to the spirit of the original.”115 Hanna Cohn-Dorn lauded Pappenheim’s “loyal” preservation of the “linguistic character of the original.”116 Pappenheim’s reviewers agreed with her assessment that the “charm” of the Tsenerene relied to a great extent on its language. Its “spirit” was inextricably linked to its Yiddish medium. Though that spirit was ostensibly untranslatable, Pappenheim did translate it, and her critics agreed that her translation was a success. In the language of her translation, Pappenheim may be compared to Buber and Rosenzweig, who created “what appeared to many readers to be a Hebraized German” for their Bible translation. Michael Brenner has characterized the rationale of that joint effort: Buber and Rosenzweig used translation into German to re-create a renewed linguistic affinity between German-Jewish readers and the ancient Jewish culture behind the Hebrew sources. They sought to introduce acculturated German-Jewish readers to Israel’s Ursprache (original language) and primal religious sensibility.”117 Similarly, Pappenheim sought to reconnect modern Jewish-German women to the religious sensibilities of their foremothers by re-introducing them to their own feminine Ursprache, Yiddish; for Yiddish (the language of the tkhines, the Tsenerene, and other devotional and ethical literature for women), not Hebrew, was the primary language of pre-modern European Jewish women’s religiosity.118 113. Badt-Strauß, “Aus der Geschichte der judischen ¨ Frau,” 124; Windfuhr, review of Zeenah U-Reenah, 247. 114. Ibid., 247. 115. Susman, review of Zeenah U-Reenah, 454 116. Cohn-Dorn, review of Zeenah U-Reenah. 117. Brenner, Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, 104–6. 118. Tkhines were Yiddish prayers for Jewish womens’ private devotions. See Chava

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The success of Pappenheim’s translation lay, in the eyes of her GermanJewish critics, in her ability to create an “old-new language,” a watered-down Pseudo-Yiddish that was accessible to German Jews who could not read the 119 asoriginal Yiddish without sacrificing the “folksiness” [Volkstumlichkeit] ¨ 120 sociated with it. Ironically, Pappenheim’s invented language resembles another invented language, namely the Mauscheln attributed to Jews by antisemites.121 Only one critic objected to Pappenheim’s language, and not because he perceived it as antisemitic. He would have preferred a standard German translation because it would have been more useful as “actual material for moral instruction” for modern women.122 Whereas Pappenheim’s crit-

Weissler, Voices of the Matriarchs: Listening to the Prayers of Early Modern Jewish Women (Boston: Beacon, 1998). 119. Volkstumlichkeit ¨ is generally translated as “folksiness” or “popular appeal.” However, in the context of early 20th century German “volkist [volkisch]” ¨ nationalism, it would more correctly be paraphrased as the (inherent) character of national folk traditions. 120. Badt-Strauß, “Die Welt des Maasse-Buches,” Menorah: Judisches ¨ Familienblatt fur ¨ Wissenschaft, Kunst, und Kultur 8 (1930), 101. 121. The language of Pappenheim’s translations has never been studied closely. While a close linguistic analysis would certainly be worthwhile, it exceeds the scope of this chapter. The following aspects, in particular, warrant further investigation: 1) How much knowledge of Yiddish does Pappenheim expect from her German-Jewish readers? What must be translated? What merely transcribed? 2) Exactly what features of Yiddish must be preserved or at least signaled in order to evoke a feeling of Volkstumlichkeit? ¨ Are these features identical to or different from those used to mark “Jewish speech” in antisemitic portrayals? Close textual comparisons to the originals and to other contemporaneous translations from the Yiddish would be beneficial here. Werner Weinberg demonstrates how much Yiddish (although he resists using the term) was still part of the linguistic repertoire of German Jews in the first third of the twentieth century. Weinberg, Reste des Judischdeutschen. ¨ 122. Review of Zeenah U-Reenah, Hamburger Israelitisches Familienblatt, December 11, 1930. Two other critics agreed in principle with Pappenheim’s technique but took issue with details. Bernhard Heller complains: “Typographical errors and misinterpretations are unfortunately not infrequent.” Heller, review of Zeenah U-Reenah, 314. Edith Rosenzweig observes: “Whoever is accustomed to philological accuracy will be appalled by the arbitrariness with which words and grammatical forms are sometimes reproduced in their original form only to appear the next time in modern day German.” She adds that Pappenheim’s transcription of Hebrew words also lacks consistency. Because Pappenheim made no claims to “scientific accuracy,” Rosenzweig excuses these shortcomings but identifies two others: 1) She notes that Pappenheim’s translation does not accurately reflect how much “pure Hebrew” was in the original. She would have preferred that words that were Hebrew in the original appear in italics in order to highlight how much Hebrew women really knew. 2) She objects to Pappenheim’s rendering of biblical names: “Especially if the editor wanted to capture the allure of this language and time, then the Graeco-Christian Eva and Rebecca

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ics would certainly have objected to the use of Mauscheln in other contexts, they could embrace Pappenheim’s Mauscheln translation because the language was not attributed to them or their contemporaries but very clearly situated in the distant past. Indeed, the frequent glosses within her translation imply that Pappenheim’s readers were almost as far removed from the Mauscheln of her translation as from the original Yiddish. Even the translation had to be translated! One critic stated that the German-Jewish reader would have to contend with the “the hard work of getting accustomed to the strange dialect… just as he does when reading Fritz Reuter.”123 Mauscheln was ostensibly as foreign to the German-Jewish speaker of standard German as Reuter’s Low German dialect [Plattdeutsch] was.124 While Yiddish did to some extent hold nostalgic appeal for Pappenheim, she viewed it primarily as a stepping-stone to a more elevated language, a “language of culture.” She considered Yiddish a product of the ghetto, of forced Jewish separation. The trend among Eastern European Jews to leave the ghetto (whether compelled by pogrom violence, economic hardship, or in the pursuit of secular education) meant that Eastern Yiddish would soon have outlived its purpose—just as Western Yiddish had for German Jews who gradually abandoned it in their pursuit of emancipation. In her social work with Eastern European Jews, Pappenheim consistently advocated for language instruction in the dominant language. In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia (Pappenheim’s report of her investigative tour of Galicia, which was financed in large part by the Jewish Committee for the Suppression of White Slavery), she attributed Jewish girls’ inability to find suitable work to their lack of language skills; they knew only “Yiddish and bad Polish.” She

are not only disruptive, but inaccurate, because the women back then, of course, were called Khave and Rivke…” Edith Rosenzweig, “Ein altes neues Frauenbuch,” 4. 123. Review of Zeenah U-Reenah, Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 9, nos. 1/2 (September/October 1930): 33. 124. On the use of non-standard speech in contemporaneous translations, see David Groiser, “Translating Yiddish: Martin Buber and David Pinski,” in The Yiddish Presence in European Literature: Inspiration and Interaction, ed. Joseph Sherman and Ritchie Robertson, 45–72 (London: Legenda, 2005); Brenner, The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany. In Brenner, see especially chapter 4, “Toward a Synthetic Scholarship: The Popularization of Wissenschaft des Judentums” (100–126), and chapter 7, “Authenticity Revisited: Jewish Culture in Jewish Languages,” (185–211).

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proposed instruction in both Polish and German.125 She also recommended the establishment of a school for prospective immigrants, with English and German language as primary subjects.126 The Women’s Relief Girls’ Club [Frankfurter Madchenclub], ¨ which Pappenheim founded, likewise offered instruction in German to Eastern Jewish immigrant girls to enhance their employability.127 Pappenheim thematized the desired shift of Eastern Jews from Yiddish to the language of their country of residence in two short stories, “The Redeemer” and “The Miracle Rabbi,” in her collection Struggles.128 In “The Redeemer,” Wolf informs his Zionist friend Martin that he chose French rather than Eastern European Jewish landlords in order to learn “proper French.”129 When Martin chides him for being ashamed of his “mother tongue,” Wolf replies, “Which language is my mother tongue? I never knew Russian; I never learned English or German properly; and my Hebrew is of no use to me. All that remains is the hodgepodge of languages that we of the ghetto colony speak among ourselves; and I can’t make do with that.”130 Yiddish cannot be his native language, because it does not enjoy the status of language at all but is denigrated to a “hodgepodge” or “mishmash” [Sprachengemisch].131 Martin counters: “We Zionists must attach great importance to either reviving pure Hebrew or preserving Jargon, our people’s very own languages.” 132 A journalist, Martin plans to feature in his newspaper the debate over which language, Yiddish or Hebrew, should “bind the Jews living scattered in Diaspora.”133 Wolf dismisses both Jewish languages. “I would consider it more appropriate and more practical for you and for your career as a journalist to really master a language that is both a living language and a language of culture.”134 While Pappenheim did not deny Hebrew the status of “language of culture,”

125. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 51, 54. 126. Ibid., 65. 127. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 127–29. 128. Pappenheim, Kampfe. ¨ 129. Ibid., 24. 130. Ibid., 24–25. 131. Sprachengemisch is more derogatory than Mischsprache, which is sometimes pejorative but can be neutral. 132. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 25. 133. Ibid. 134. Ibid.

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she deemed it useless for Diaspora Jews. She considered it, apart from its role in religious practice and study, a dead language, and she had little interest in resurrecting it as a vernacular. In a 1911 letter she criticized a Zionist pre-school in Palestine for teaching children exclusively Hebrew (no Yiddish, French, or Arabic) when there were no Hebrew language schools for the children to attend upon graduation.135 She also accused affluent Zionist leaders of adhering to a double standard: “Buying land, lack of education, and Hebrew language are good for the the masses—but for themselves they want independent professions and the possibilities for development that education and language skills offer.”136 In Tragic Moments, Pappenheim implied that a Hebrew-based Jewish culture could not endure because second generation Jewish colonists would feel drawn “back” to established cultural centers. Foksanianu’s children reproach him for allowing them to learn only Hebrew and “no language of culture completely”—they want a “language for the world that they could use somewhere other than just in Palestine.”137 Notably, his children do not seek out their father’s country of origin, Rumania, but are attracted to Johannesburg, New York, and Alexandria. Jerome likewise does not return to the country that his parents had fled, Russia, but chooses Germany. He rejects founding a “new linguistic ghetto” in Palestine, feeling drawn instead to German culture, which he believes belongs to Jews and Christians alike by virtue of their centuries-long “collaboration” in its development 138 Although she never stated this explicitly, Pappenheim likely also opposed the adoption of modern Hebrew in Palestine because it disadvantaged women, whose knowledge of classical Hebrew (due to inequities in religious education) was generally not comparable to that of men.139 In “The Redeemer,” Pappenheim closes Wolf and Martin’s language de-

135. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit,119. 136. Ibid., 120. 137. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 67. 138. Ibid., 84–85. 139. On the language question in Zionism see Michael Berkowitz, “The Emergence of Hebrew and Dissent,” in Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 40–76 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). See also Naomi Seidman’s important studies of misogyny in the Hebrew language movement, the feminization of Yiddish, and the masculinization of Hebrew: Naomi Seidman, “Lawless Attachments, One-Night Stands: The Sexual Politics of the Hebrew-Yiddish Language War,” in Jews and Other Differences: The New Jewish Cultural Studies, ed. Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin, 279–305; Naomi Seidman, A Marriage Made in Heaven: The Sexual Politics of Hebrew and Yiddish (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).

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bate by allowing Martin to undermine his own argument for Yiddish as Jewish national language. Martin reasons: I am not one bit ashamed that my very first word tells everyone that I am a member of the Jewish nation. The Englishman and the Frenchman are not at such pains to hone their accents so that their nationalities cannot be recognized. Not to mention that I cannot, on account of my temperament, be bothered with such trifles as grammar and the like.140 The first half of his argument is poignantly convincing. Indeed, why should a Jew be ashamed of his people’s language or attempt to conceal his Jewishness? But he has already answered his own question: Yiddish, lacking the basic accoutrements of “languages of culture” (such as a standard grammar and orthography), was not a suitable vehicle for a Jewish national identity. Pappenheim was certainly aware that even proponents of Yiddish as a Jewish national language conceded that standardization was a prerequisite to its cultural ascent. Prior to the Czernowitz Conference on the Yiddish language in 1908, its organizer Nathan Birnbaum stated in an interview that the objective of the conference was “ purely cultural. We wish to raise our vernacular to the level of a cultural language.”141 The first four items of the ten-point agenda for the conference were: 1) Yiddish orthography, 2) Yiddish grammar, 3) foreign and new words, and 4) a Yiddish dictionary.142 Fabius Schach, a Lithuanian-born pioneer of the Zionist movement in Germany, agreed: “Jargon would have to be standardized, grammatically ordered, and then written in Latin letters. That would be the only way to quickly make it popular among the peoples of the civilized world, especially the Germanic peoples.”143 In “The Miracle Rabbi,” Pappenheim explored the dilemma accompanying the shift from Yiddish to German by a Hasidic youth. After finding German books hidden in a sofa that had belonged to his grandfather, a great “miracle rabbi,” Arjeh stays up nights secretly teaching himself to read Ger140. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 25. 141. Quoted in Goldsmith, Modern Yiddish Culture, 187. 142. Goldsmith, Modern Yiddish Culture, 184. 143. Fabius Schach, “Der deutsch-juedische Jargon und seine Litteratur,” 188–89. Whereas Schach advocated reforms (such as writing Yiddish in Latin letters) to broaden Yiddish’s appeal, Soviet opponents of Yiddish proposed similar “reforms” (such as spelling Hebrew origin words phonetically) in order to gradually erode its integrity and weaken its hold.

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man and devouring the German classics (including Heine and Schiller). Wracked by a guilty conscience over indulging in a forbidden fruit and weakened by sleep deprivation, he grows seriously ill. Arjeh is horrified when his father catches him in the act. “His heart pounded. He was speechless. The small book [Heine] slipped from his hand.”144 His admission of nocturnal forays into the world of secular literature resemble the “confession of a serious crime.”145 Arjeh is torn. On the one hand he perceives his actions as reprehensible, even sinful. On the other hand, he fails to see how something so beautiful could be sinful.146 His dilemma is compounded by the community’s expectation that he will follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps as the next in a dynasty of “miracle rabbis.” Arjeh is convinced that he will regain his health only if he is allowed to leave the confines of the ghetto and to fulfill the yearnings that his secular readings have awakened: … I can’t stand being alone in the bet ha-midrash any longer. Father, let me out—let me, let me Father, I can’t just stay here and study in Dobricz forever. The world must be vast and beautiful!—Lotus flowers are blooming outside—when I can’t sleep at night I burn with yearning for the world out there, the palaces, the mountains, to see the virgins and speak with them in the language that Prince Carlos speaks. Let me out into the great wide world—I’m sick here. Out there I will become healthy.147 Pappenheim does not imply that the traditional Hasidic lifestyle itself was necessarily unhealthy. If this were the case, then Arjeh would have been ill long before starting his nocturnal readings. Rather, the illness is a malady of modernity, the result of being caught between two worlds; and the symptoms will disappear when Arjeh ceases to resist inevitable change. Arjeh finds an unexpected ally in his father, Reb Wolf, who had known all along that there were secular books in the sofa, because he (like his father before him) had read them, too. The understanding father resolves to send his son to Vienna to be educated. While Pappenheim views the exodus of younger generations from the confines of the ghetto (accompanied by a shift from Yiddish to German) as inevitable progress, she recognizes that contact with the secular necessarily brings with it alienation from traditional “naive” Jewish spirituality. Arjeh unconsciously brushes back his side curls and removes his yarmulke while read144. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 60. 145. Ibid. 146. Ibid., 63. 147. Ibid., 62.

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ing Heine, thus removing the outward markers linking him to Hasidic tradition.148 But Reb Wolf has his own problems. Reading secular books (including Voltaire, Spinoza, and Goethe’s Faust) renders him unable to fulfill his duties as a “miracle rabbi.” Unable to resist their appeal, he must burn the books “that had clipped the wings of his devoutly religious soul and filled his heart with doubts.”149 He must sacrifice his own secular intellectual pursuits in order to finance his son’s secular education. Another story in the same volume suggests that Pappenheim perceived the gradual alienation from traditional Eastern European Orthodoxy that accompanied increased openness to secular culture to be the lesser of two evils. In “A Weakling,” another rabbi’s son yearns to become an artist rather than a rabbi. When his father forbids secular pursuits, he rebels, runs away from home, and ultimately converts to Catholicism. It is noteworthy that Pappenheim’s Arjeh is drawn to secular German culture rather than to secular Yiddish culture. While some young Eastern European Jews at this time were turning their backs on the traditional Eastern European Orthodox or Hasidic traditions of their parents in favor of German or other predominantly non-Jewish languages and cultures, others rebelled by founding a secular Yiddish culture. Pappenheim was undoubtedly aware of the burgeoning secular Yiddish culture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The periodicals in which her own essays appeared frequently published translations of Yiddish stories and reviewed Yiddish literature in translation; and authors from widely divergent ideological camps urged German Jews to revise their opinions of Yiddish. Both the Neo-Orthodox scholar Joseph Wohlgemuth and the Zionist Fabius Schach,150 for example, urged German Jews to put aside their prejudices against Yiddish and to study its literature in order to become acquainted with and gain appreciation for Eastern European Jewry.151 Wohlgemuth observed in 1914 that some progress toward the acceptance of Yiddish literature 148. It is certainly no coincidence that Pappenheim evokes here Heine, a Jewish convert to Christianity. 149. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 65. 150. Fabius Schach (1868–1930), who was born in Lithuania and educated in Eastern European yeshivot and the university in Berlin, was one of the first members of the Zionist movement in Germany and participated in the First Zionist Congress. He was a prolific writer in German and Hebrew and was a major propagandist for the Zionist movement until a falling-out with Herzl. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Fabius Schach.” 151. Joseph Wohlgemuth, “Vom alten Stamm,” Jeschurun 1, no. 7 (July 1914): 217–29, 217–18. Schach, “Der deutsch-juedische Jargon und seine Litteratur,” 190.

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had already been made: “Just twenty years ago, the ‘real Germans’ among us Jews considered this literature, at the very least, a product of the most hideous corruption of the German language. Some went as far as calling it by the antisemitic term Mauscheln. Today Yiddish songs ring out in salons after very modern dinner parties.” He noted, however, that many German Jews were still more likely to learn Mecklenburger Platt dialect in order to read Reuter in the original than to learn Yiddish.152 Countering the widely held opinion that Yiddish was merely an “intermediate stage that would have to be overcome or a ladder by which to ascend to universal culture,” Schach insisted that “Jargon” was not only a “language of culture” but the “Jewish national language par excellence.”153 Pappenheim did not share his view. Although she once visited the office of a major Yiddish newspaper, the Lodzer Tagblatt, there is only one mention of modern Yiddish literature in all of her extant writings.154 There is no evidence that she was interested in or even took notice of the contemporary Yiddish culture (theater, publishing, intellectual exchange and collaboration between Yiddish intellectuals and artists and their German counterparts, and the founding of YIVO in 1925) that was burgeoning in Germany, especially in Berlin, during the Weimar era.155 The entire range of attitudes towards Yiddish expressed in Pappenheim’s literary and other writings are situated within the broad spectrum of reactions of German Jews to the disparagement of Yiddish by antisemites. Her ambiv152. Wohlgemuth, “Vom alten Stamm,” 218. 153. Schach, “Der deutsch-juedische Jargon und seine Litteratur,” 188, 179. 154. Of her visit to the office of the Yiddish Lodzer Tagblatt, Pappenheim remarked only that she had a good conversation with the editor, whom she liked except for his incessant sniffles. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 150–51. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” in Referate gehalten auf dem 2. Delegiertentage des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, Frankfurt a. M., 2. und 3. Oktober 1907 (Hamburg: Verlag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, n.d., ca. 1907–8), 22. 155. David A. Brenner, “‘Making Jargon Respectable’: Leo Winz, Ost und West and the Reception of Yiddish Theatre in Pre-Hitler Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 42 (1997): 51–66; Delphine Bechtel, “Cultural Transfers between ‘Ostjuden’ and ‘Westjuden’: German-Jewish Intellectuals and Yiddish Culture, 1897–1930,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 42 (1997): 67–83; Glenn S. Levine, “Yiddish Publishing in Berlin and the Crisis in Eastern European Jewish Culture, 1919–1924,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 42 (1997): 85–108; Michael Brenner, “Authenticity Revisited: Jewish Culture in Jewish Languages,” in The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, 185–211; Leo and Renate Fuks, “Yiddish Publishing Activities in the Weimar Republic, 1920–1933,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 33 (1988): 417–34.

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alence towards Yiddish and her careful fence-straddling were the result of her need to negotiate facets of her identity that were, in her cultural context, irreconcilable. Pappenheim defined herself as a Jew and a German. Because German Jews based their claim to German nationality and culture on their language, Yiddish could not be a Jewish “national language,” or even enjoy the status of a distinct language. However, Pappenheim could not dismiss Yiddish entirely. Her revered foremothers spoke it, and it had been their gateway to German culture. In order to negotiate these contradictions, Pappenheim compartmentalized: good Yiddish was securely rooted in the past and bad Yiddish refused to disappear from the present. This clear separation enabled her to idealize Yiddish-speaking female ancestors (even to render translations of their literature in something resembling Mauscheln) while dismissing modern Yiddish as an uneducated Jargon and working to transform its speakers into speakers of a Kultursprache. This separation also explains how Pappenheim could employ Yiddish in her literary works to characterize both exceptionally negative and exceptionally positive characters. Unlike Muhme Rifke’s Mauscheln, Gewiera’s Yiddish does not mark her as a negative figure. Still securely rooted in the traditions of the ghetto, Gewiera essentially lives in a quickly disappearing past; and she does not resist inevitable “progress.” She enables her son to learn the German language and enter German culture. Gewiera’s Yiddish is not a threat, for she is the last of a kind.

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“Even Palestine is Diaspora and Galut”: Bertha Pappenheim and Zionism

1

Bertha Pappenheim was a well-known, perhaps even notorious, anti-Zionist whose antipathy for the movement was duly noted in the Zionist press.2 In 1925, she told a young Zionist on his way to Palestine, “Young man, you are going to the Oriental Jerusalem. Frankfurt is the German Jerusalem. You are traveling to a desolate land, the Promised Land is here.”3 She held fast to this belief even after Hitler’s ascent to power in 1933 and the implementation of the Nuremberg laws in 1935. She rejected Youth Aliyah (the effort to send European Jewish children to safety in Palestine) as a Zionist campaign to populate Palestine.4 In a June 1935 letter to Martin Buber, Pappenheim listed Zionists among the groups she loved to hate: “I don’t want to give up my warm hate. I hate the rabbis who make women out to be creatures that God created inferior; I hate the Zionists who are interested in building a country ‘only politically,’… without honor and justice and probably many more people, all of whom I would stand by without question if they needed me.”5 This passage aptly illustrates Pappenheim’s ambivalent attitude toward Zionism and Zionists. She rejected their political ideology, and she detected major shortcomings in the practices of individual Zionists and Zionist orga1. Pappenheim, “Die Judische ¨ Frau,” 117. 2. See, for example, Anitta Muller-Cohen, ¨ “Eine Antizionistin uber ¨ Palastina,” ¨ Judische ¨ Rundschau, February 17, 1925, 131. More examples will follow. 3. Willi Goldmann, “Personliche ¨ Erinnerungen an Bertha Pappenheim,” in “Dokumentation zum 50. Todestag von Bertha Pappenheim. Veranstaltungsreihe im Auftrag der Stadt Neu-Isenburg,” 14–22 ([Neu-Isenburg]: 1986), 8. Leo Baeck Institute Library, New York. 4. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 49. 5. She writes these remarks in the context of an explanation of her understanding of the concept of Nachstenliebe ¨ (loving one’s neighbor). Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, June 15, 1935, Martin Buber Archives.

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nizations. These negative feelings, however, did not prevent her from collaborating with them and supporting their work. Nor did her antipathy minimize the movement’s influence on her personally. Pappenheim devoted considerable time and money to her study of Zionism. She attended Zionist Congresses in Vienna and Carlsbad and she funded her extensive Sisyphus-Work, which she undertook in large part to observe Zionism “up close,” herself.6 In 1934 she confessed, “Zionism never stopped being a stimulus for me to think and observe.”7 Much has been written on Jewish anti-Zionism in Germany and on the cooperation or lack thereof between Zionists and non-Zionists or anti-Zionists. Relatively little attention has been paid, however, to the role of women in these relationships and to the particular views of Jewish feminist anti-Zionists. This chapter examines Pappenheim’s complicated interactions with Zionism and Zionists and shows how she balanced severe criticism with collaboration and built a long-lasting relationship of mutual respect and influence. The notion that Jews were a distinct “Volk” or nation who should work to found and settle a Jewish state in Palestine was diametrically opposed to Pappenheim’s belief that German Jews were Germans who belonged in Germany. In the third and final act of her 1913 drama Tragic Moments, her character Jerome (aka Schiri) expresses that belief. Schiri was born to Russian pogrom refugees who were living in Germany illegally. Facing certain deportation, the young family had fled to Palestine while Schiri was still an infant. Now, as a young adult, Schiri returns to study agriculture in Germany and decides to settle there. He explains to his father why he has chosen to build a Jewish home for himself and his future wife in Europe rather than colonial Palestine: I feel as though I am connected by thousands of threads to the culture of Western Europe, which, because it is the product of a centuries long collaboration of Christians and Jews, is the legacy and property of all people. I need the books, the art, the theaters, the newspapers, the stimulus of differing opinions and interests, and the bustle of the city with its technological advances. I cannot play the farmer.8 6. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 73, 96. Pappenheim was planning to travel to Palestine again in September 1935. The purpose of this trip, which did not take place, is unclear. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, June 7, 1935, Martin Buber Archives. 7. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113. 8. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 84–85.

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Statements in Pappenheim’s non-fictional writing indicate that these sentiments were her own. In her 1934 essay “The Jewish Woman,” she celebrated the symbiosis of German and Jewish cultures as it specifically applied to the League of Jewish Women: The fusion of German cultural elements with Jewish ones created a new intellectual substance that would be of the greatest import for both the German women’s movement and for Jewish life…. The confluence of the two cultures has left an indelible imprint on both Jewish and German women’s lives. One can no longer imagine one without the other…. The JFB’s orientation has remained steadfastly religiously Jewish and culturally German throughout its 30 year existence.9 Indeed, she reiterated in a Denkzettel that the ideal of a German-Jewish symbiosis was the very foundation of the JFB: “I believe that I have found a formula or motto for the work of the JFB: a world mission based on Jewish morals intertwined with German culture.”10 Despite her feelings of responsibility for and connectedness to Jews everywhere (which was demonstrated in the international reach of her social work and organizational activities), she rejected political Zionism because she was convinced that Jewishness and Germanness had become inseparably interwoven over time, inextricably bound by “thousands of threads.” Because Jews and Christians had worked together to build Germany’s culture, removing Jewishness would leave a perceptible and formidable gap in that culture. Conversely, one could not erase Germanness from German Jews, for being culturally German—and, like Jerome, having an affinity for German books, theater, newspapers, and the debate of political issues central to both Jewish and non-Jewish Germans—had become an integral part of their identity. Although Pappenheim clearly opposed Zionism on these ideological grounds, the majority of her critiques were leveled at Zionist practice. Her main argument was that Zionist politics divided and weakened the Jewish community. In “The Jewish Woman,” Pappenheim referred to Zionism as a “nick” (Kerbe) or chink in the armor of the German-Jewish community: “… Zionists intruded disruptively on communal life in Germany with their ever louder demands, declaring that religion was a private matter within the Jewish nation.”11 In Tragic Moments, Jerome defends Jewish religious ideals, argu9. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 110–11. 10. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 184. 11. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113.

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ing that supplanting them with political agitation divides and weakens the Jewish community: It is wrong to sow discord in Jewish communities rather than telling them: be tolerant of one another, let us be proud of and sincere in our Judaism. Bear witness to its teachings and don’t let others steal them from you and then offer them to you in another form. The doctrine of one god and the commandment to love one’s neighbor are ours—we gave them to the peoples of the world.12 In Sisyphus-Work Pappenheim expressed similar concerns. She commented on the Hamburg Jewish community: “The Zionists make trouble in the community, spreading discontent and discord and inciting the youth.”13 She observed a similar situation in Adrianople (now Edirne, Turkey).14 Rather than dividing into warring factions, Jews should, according to Pappenheim (via Schiri), focus on their common religious heritage, taking pride in their ancient religion, which preceded and gave birth to Christian and Muslim monotheism and ethics. Pappenheim’s second critique of Zionists was that they not only weakened the community from within but caused antisemitism by provoking non-Jews with their outspoken political demands and separatist rhetoric. In SisyphusWork, Pappenheim cited specific examples in Eastern Europe, Turkey, Egypt, and Palestine. About Warsaw she wrote: “Here, too, all calm-thinking Jews lament that the Zionists are intensifying antisemitism and causing the general situation to worsen.”15 About a small town on the border of Galicia and Russia: “They say that antisemitism is the order of the day in Podwolosyska proper; the Polish bureaucrats are literally boycotting the Jews. These conditions are aggravated by the manner and behavior of the Zionists.”16 When a clergyman in Lodz told her that the recent conduct of Jews, in particular their “self-segregation [Abschließung],” was causing “great antisemitism,” Pappenheim assumed that could only be referring to Zionism.17 While in Turkey, she claimed that a Dr. M. informed her that the mayor of Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) had mistaken her for a Zionist, and that this would be detrimental to her efforts to form an Ottoman League for the Suppression of White Slavery. She 12. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 85. 13. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 141. 14. Ibid., 31. 15. Ibid., 156. 16. Ibid., 210. 17. Ibid., 146.

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concluded, “You see that it is the Jews themselves who are sawing off the branch they are sitting on when they pay heed to Zionist agitation.”18 She wrote that the head of the Sephardic Jewish community in Alexandria had complained to her that the “invasion” of Ashkenazim, “especially Zionists,” was endangering Sephardic Jews in both Egypt and Turkey,19 and that the leader of the Alexandria Committee for the Suppression of White Slavery informed her that the Egyptian government would soon put a stop to Zionist activities there. Pappenheim commented: “Even in Egypt, people are familiar with the tactless manner of the Ashkenazim, who always want to play the master.”20 In Turkey, the antisemitism was based on a real fear: “With regard to Zionism, one should note that it is most unpopular in Turkey, because it is the cause of a nascent mistrust of the Jews among Turks. They fear that the Jews want to take a piece of land from them somewhere to build a ‘state within the state.’”21 She praised a Jewish club that supported the Turkish nationalist and secular Young Turk movement, privileging Turkish patriotism over Zionist seclusion: A club with about 400 members, Jewish Young Turks, will become (if they aren’t already) a strong center for progressive Jewish culture without Zionism…. This club is smart enough to be progressive and patriotic. They send children to Turkish schools. They have Turkish members. In short, they do everything that cultivates Jews and wins them respect. 22

18. Ibid., 84. 19. Ibid., 130. 20. Ibid., 134. 21. Ibid., 43. 22. Ibid., 45. The Young Turk revolution of 1908, which led to the legal emancipation of Turkish Jews, was greeted enthusiastically by the Jewish communities of the former Ottoman Empire. This did not, however, prevent the emergence and rapid growth of Zionism. The Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle strenuously opposed the burgeoning movement, which conflicted with its program of integration and acculturation and undermined its influence, especially among younger Jews). Alliance leaders were particularly worried that Turkish Zionism would be construed as treason—because Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire—and would cause antisemitism. The Chief Rabbinate supported the Alliance position. Aron Rodrigue, “The Alliance and the Emergence of Zionism in Turkey,” in French Jews, Turkish Jews: The Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle and the Politics of Jewish Schooling in Turkey, 1860–1925. The Modern Jewish Experience, 121–44 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1990). Bertha Pappenheim was a member of the Frankfurt chapter of the Alliance. She was elected as one of the chapter’s first three female members

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In Palestine itself, Pappenheim blamed the Zionists for exacerbating tensions.23 She reported that “flourishing antisemitism” had resulted in a ban of construction by Jews in Haifa, including buildings for the Technikum (Technion), the Israel Institute of Technology, which was founded by Paul Nathan of the Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Aid Association of the German Jews). “After what I have seen, I can hardly fault the Turkish government. The Zionists with their agitation are to blame.”24 Visiting Jaffa, she complained: “Our co-religionists here are unfortunately conducting themselves as though they already owned the whole country: tasteless and uncareful and uncultivated.”25 Pappenheim objected also to the de facto division of Zionists along socioeconomic lines. She observed that settlement was frequently impossible for the most impoverished and persecuted Jews. In Tragic Moments, Jerome similarly condemns such injustice, tacitly accepted by Zionism: And, Father, also as a Jew, I cannot heed the Zionist call. It is cowardly to retreat from the battlefield with a few thousand people, settle down together in some safe corner, and found a new linguistic ghetto there, knowing full-well that not all Jews, especially not the poorest and the weakest, would ever find a home there.26 In Sisyphus-Work, Pappenheim chronicled a visit to the planter colony Rehovot, which she described in pejorative terms: My impression of Rehovot is that it is a luxury and land speculation colony. In other words: rich people bought land and gave it to others to in 1908. “Mitteilungen der Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle, Lokal-Comite´ Frankfurt a.M.” Ost und West 8, no. 6 (June 1908): 411–12. 23. Wolf Kaiser states that 38 pamphlets or books reporting on Palestine travel were published by German-speaking Jewish writers in the four decades before World War II. He does not, however. list Pappenheim’s Sisyphus-Arbeit among them. Wolf Kaiser, “The Zionist Project in the Palestine Travel Writings of German-speaking Jews,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 37 (1992): 261–86. 24. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 123. 25. Ibid., 114. This passage foreshadows Pappenheim’s later prescriptions for Jewish survival in Nazi Germany. To survive in an antagonistic dominant culture, Jews must be careful, tactful (i.e. avoid public displays of “Jewishness” or any undesirable behavior that reinforced negative stereotypes), and cultivated—after the adage, proponed by the Central-Verein, that “step-children must be doubly good.” Kaplan, Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 201. 26. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 84–85.

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cultivate under a wide variety of—sometimes quite interesting—terms. Arabs or Jews from Yemen are very frequently used for the actual labor.27 Like Jerome, she observes that this brand of Zionists would not welcome the impoverished Jews who suffered the greatest discrimination in Europe: “Poor people are the last thing that these Zionists need, because the land cannot sustain the Jewish farmer—insofar as there is such a thing.”28 Pappenheim was aware, however, that not all colonies were like this one. At the insistence of a new acquaintance who stressed that Rehovot was a “rich, capitalist plantation colony” not typical of most settlements, she visited Ekron and Katra, which she described as “true workers’ or agricultural colonies” where Jews themselves labored.29 While Pappenheim deplored the socio-economic differences among European Zionists in Palestine, she did not condemn the distinct class division between European Jews and Yemenite Jews, or between Jews and Arabs.30 Although she observed that European Jews frequently hired Arabs or Yemenite Jews (whom, she noted, were dark-skinned like the Arabs) to do heavy or undesirable work, she expressed no disapproval of this practice. On the 27. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 97. Now a city in central Israel, Rehovot was founded in 1890 by the group Menuhah as a moshavah, a village in which farming was . ve-Nahalah . conducted on individual farms on privately owned land. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Rehovot;” Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Agricultural Colonies in Palestine.” The moshavah was the most prominent of ten different types of Jewish agricultural settlement in Palestine during these years. Yossi Katz, “Agricultural Settlements in Palestine, 1882–1914,” Jewish Social Studies 50 (1988–92): 63–82. 28. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 96. 29. Ibid., 99. Mazkeret Batyah (Ekron) was a moshavah founded by Baron Edmond de Rothschild and Hovevei Zion and settled by Jews who had already farmed in Russia. The moshavah Gederah (Katra) was founded in 1884 by members of the Bilu movement who immigrated to Palestine in 1882 to work as common laborers. The Society Bilu was founded by young Russian Jews, largely students, in 1881 in reaction to Russian pogroms. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Bilu”; Jewish Encyclopedia, s.v. “Agricultural Colonies in Palestine.” 30. Many Zionists, however, objected to the use of Arab laborers as antithetical to the Zionist ideal that “Jews would become the working class of Palestine.” Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 148. German-Jewish travel writers frequently criticized plantation owners’ employment of Arabs. During the Second Aliyah, when larger numbers of Eastern European Jews came to Palestine without financial means or organizational support and were thus dependent on paid labor, competition between Jewish and Arab laborers increased, and private landowners were harshly criticized for employing Arabs. Kaiser, “The Zionist Project,” 270–73.

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contrary, she promoted these relationships as advantageous for these impoverished and purportedly backward ethnic groups. She reported, for example, that European Jewish colonists built huts for the Yemenites “that are a great step forward compared to their native earthen hovels,” and that they were considerably better off financially in the employ of Europeans than they had been in Yemen.31 She contended that Arabs also benefited from the presence of Jews: “They earn a lot of money from the Jews and they also learn something for their own agricultural work.”32 The colonists in Tragic Moments are not wealthy planters like the ones Pappenheim visited in Rehovot. (Uri recalls how he and his wife Fella labored with their own hands to plant their orange grove, sapling for sapling.) At the same time, however, they employ both Yemenite Jews and Arabs as servants and speak derisively of Bedouins. The neighbors’ daughter Hadassa describes an encounter with a group of the latter: “An hour ago I saw a whole pack of them lying peacefully under one of the cactus hedges, smoking.”33 The term that Hadassa applies to the Bedouins, Rudel (pack), generally refers to groups of wild animals such as wolves, deer, or wild dogs. When the colony alarm sounds, signaling an Arab attack, Uri arms himself with a revolver and a whip (stage directions indicate that he has a pile of whips and clubs in the corner). These details suggest a chauvinistic dismissal of Arabs and Bedouins as subhuman, a necessary fiction if the Zionists are to fulfill their dream of a “land without a people for a people without a land.”34 Although Pappenheim, as I have demonstrated above, depicted nonEuropeans (Jews and non-Jews alike) as inferior to Europeans in respect to technology and standard of living—the building-blocks of “civilization”—she was critical of the Zionist practice of occupying or buying the supposedly ownerless or unoccupied lands that were traditionally the grazing grounds of indigenous nomads. The Arab attack in Tragic Moments was the direct consequence of Uri having purchased land that the Bedouins claimed could not rightfully be sold because it had “always” been their pasture. Uri concedes that he bought property from the “Palestine Office,” not the “government.”35 31. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 97. 32. Ibid., 99. 33. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 69. 34. This quotation is most frequently attributed to the Anglo-Jewish Zionist writer Israel Zangwill, who is frequently misquoted as having written “a land without people.” Adam M. Garfinkle, “On the Origin, Meaning, Use, and Abuse of a Phrase,” Middle Eastern Studies 27, 4 (1991): 539–50. 35. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 69–70. The Palestine Office was established in

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While it was acceptable, in Pappenheim’s view, to employ Arabs and Middle Eastern Jews as laborers (a mutually beneficial arrangement), it was unacceptable and dangerous to overlook their legitimate claim to their homeland.36 Pappenheim’s skepticism about Zionism also stemmed from her awareness of the physical hardships faced by female colonists, especially in those colonies where hard labor was not delegated to hired workers. She alludes to the women’s plight in Tragic Moments when Uri recalls his wife, who is absent after Act Two: “The hard work of the first years as colonists had undermined her health, the fever had sapped her strength.”37 Despite its brevity, this single sentence reveals Pappenheim’s sympathy for the early female settlers. In addition to her visits, Pappenheim doubtless heard accounts of colonial life in Palestine from Zionist acquaintances in the JFB. The conditions depicted in Act Three of Tragic Moments also resemble those described in autobiographical and commemorative texts that illustrate the harsh realities of pioneer life as the fictional Fella would have experienced it.38 Female memoirists recalled 1908 by the World Zionist Organization and headed by Arthur Ruppin. Under the Ottoman regime it was the central agency for Zionist settlement activities, including land purchase. While in Palestine, Pappenheim met with Ruppin, who offered a first-hand account of the activities of the Palestine Office and his conception of Zionism. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 96–97. That Zionist luminaries such as Ruppin, who is considered the “father of Zionist settlement” in Israel, met with Pappenheim is evidence of Zionist leaders’ interest in garnering her support. 36. Michael Berkowitz explains that Zionists generally sought to obscure the presence of Arabs in Palestine: “The Zionist view of Palestine showed Jews to be operating in a cultural void, that is, in a space where the indigenous population had not created a society with a unique character, discernible to European eyes. Predictably it was often reported that the Jews of Palestine were at a higher stage of morality, culture, and education than the Arabs…. Overall, the message that Arabs in Palestine presented an obstacle to mass Jewish settlement was rarely articulated.” Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 147. Wolf Kaiser notes that German-Jewish travel writers often addressed the consequences (most focused on the social and economic consequences, not potential political ones) of “ousting Arab tenants,” but they typically ignored Bedouins’ claims to grazing grounds, finding it “self evident that the Bedouin’s right to pasture their cattle must end with the transition of the soil into Jewish hands.” Kaiser, “The Zionist Project in the Palestine Travel Writings of German-speaking Jews,” 275–79. 37. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 80. 38. Rachel Katznelson-Rubashow, ed., The Plough Woman: Records of the Pioneer Women of Palestine, trans. Maurice Samuel (New York: Nicholas L. Brown, 1932). This volume was written by Socialist Zionists, but the conditions described by these women resembled in many ways those faced by all colonists of modest means. See also Margalit Shilo, “The Transformation of the Role of Women in the First Aliyah, 1882–1903,” Jewish Social Studies, n.s., 2, no. 2 (1996): 64–86; Deborah Bernstein, “The Plough Woman Who

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bouts with yellow fever, encounters with scorpions, exhausting physical labor, hunger, primitive living conditions, and the necessity of shomrim (Jewish guards) to protect the settlers from Arab raids and theft. Despite her awareness of these austere living conditions, Pappenheim nonetheless criticized women who did not live up to her own exacting housekeeping standards. She complained, for example, that households in Ekron and Katra were very sloppily run, even though she knew colonists in these settlements did not hire Arabs or Yemenite Jews and that women therefore faced multiple burdens, assisting their husbands in the fields as well as performing household tasks and rearing children without European conveniences.39 Her high expectations of Jewish women in Palestine were not unlike those to which she held middle-class German-Jewish women. Regarding them, too, she condoned their assignment to a double burden, insisting that if women were more efficient, they could maintain a spotless household, be loving wives and nurturing mothers, and find time for outside volunteer work as well.40 Many Zionist women’s leaders promoted a similar super-woman mentality. Helene Hanna Thon,41 for whom Pappenheim was a role-model, suggested in a 1925 essay, “Women’s Work in Palestine,” that female colonists, although they were already overwhelmed by the difficulties of house-keeping and childrearing under primitive conditions, should strive to institute social welfare and educational programs because their overworked husbands had no time to do so. Like many other feminists, she believed that zealous overachievement would validate women’s claim to equal rights.42 In Sisyphus-Work, Pappenheim also criticized the double standard of the German Zionist elite in Palestine who failed to practice what they preached— Cried into the Pots: The Position of Women in the Labor Force in the Pre-State Israeli Society,” Jewish Social Studies 45, no. 1 (1983): 43–56. 39. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 99. 40. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 65, 71–72. 41. Helene Hanna Thon, “Ihr Bild auf meinem Schreibtisch,” “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,.” ¨ 38–39. Helene Hanna Thon (nee ´ Cohn, 1886–1954) was a social worker in Jerusalem and a feminist leader. She was the second wife of Ya’akov Yohanon Thon, a yishuv leader and managing director of the Palestine Land Development Corporation from 1921 until his death. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Ya’akov Yohanon Thon.” 42. Helene Hanna Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ Judische ¨ Rundschau, December 30, 1925, 847. With the understanding of the Zionist mother as a “mother of the nation,” who was creating and rearing the “new native Jew,” Jewish mothers in Palestine faced intense pressure and scrutiny. See Sachlav Stoler-Liss, “‘Mothers Birth the Nation’: The Social Construction of Zionist Motherhood in Wartime in Israeli Parents’ Manuals,” Nashim, no.6 (Fall 2003): 104–18.

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namely the revival and use of Hebrew as Jewish national language: “He [Herr A., reporter for the “Jewish Chronikle” (sic)] has one child, who is (of course), learning German and not Hebrew as language for the home and mother tongue. The leaders demand that lunacy only for the children of those whom they are (mis)leading.”43 She criticized a Frau Dr. R.: “She adopted two children, whom she (despite her Zionist ideals for other peoples’ children) is raising German. No Hebrew at all as colloquial language!”44 Pappenheim was also highly critical of Zionists’ supposed disrespect for the integrity of the nuclear family: The Jews in Palestine will hopefully come to realize that the collectivist breeding and rearing of children is no promising foundation for the continued existence of a nation…. Nursery school and creche ` are surrogates that should not be used by a healthy family. They should not be promoted as income generating institutions.45 The same criticism appears in Sisyphus-Work: “Nursery schools are a pedagogical lie. They destroy families. They are unnecessary.”46 Pappenheim strongly disapproved, too, of a male-only colony, arguing that the absence of women precluded the formation of a healthy family structure and promoted a damagingly immoral lifestyle: An all-male farm, Kinneret, is economically and morally unhealthy and reprehensible: economically, because productive and profitable colonization and agricultural efforts cannot be run without women; morally, because the young Russian men living there don’t want to practice abstinence, nor should they or can they. Thus, they introduce prostitution to the women living in Palestine, or they develop other bad habits.47 Although Pappenheim found a male-only community unviable, she herself created and led more than one female-only community, the most notable of these being the JFB home for unwed mothers and at-risk girls in Isenburg.48 She strived at Isenburg to create a family-like atmosphere in an all-female 43. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 73. 44. Ibid., 33. 45. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 114. 46. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 215. 47. Ibid. 48. In 1911, an all-female training farm was established at Kinneret. The farm was founded and directed by a female agronomist. In the 7 years of its existence, 70 women

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community, expecting the young women there to practice abstinence until they married, in spite of their past mistakes. She herself remained single, and presumably abstinent, all her life. Nevertheless, she insisted that it was undesirable, even impossible, for young men—at least Russian ones—to do the same. To her, they were a male counterpart to the stereotype of the “hotblooded” Eastern Jewess.49 Pappenheim’s insistence that the presence of women was indispensable for an economically feasible colonization effort reiterated the traditionalist view of the patriarchal family as the foundation of a secure economic system. At the same time, she sought to uplift the status of women by emphasizing the vital importance of their role—the colony would fail without their contribution. While Pappenheim did not redefine woman’s traditional role in the family or in the work force, she revalued the status of traditional women’s work.50 In addition to the arguments introduced above, Pappenheim’s disappointment in Zionism stemmed also from its alleged disinterest in women’s issues and from its irreligious orientation. She wrote in 1934: Zionists have told me again and again that Zionism is a purely political movement that refuses to get mixed up in social or religious matters: there is no such thing as white slavery; prostitution is an international necessity; venereal disease is personal bad luck…. Everything is devoid of culture: the manners and the tone, inconsiderateness and impiety in all facets of life…51 During her travels to Palestine she observed that the settlement Rehovot, for example, was a “very ‘progressive,’ in other words, not religious colony,” whose synagogue would surely stand empty as soon as the older inhabitants passed away.52 She was similarly disappointed by her visit to Jerusalem. She complained that the city’s Zionists knew less about its holy sites than did the Christian tourists, and that she saw only “professional beggars, who quarrel and squabble” at the Western Wall.53 Pappenheim alluded to Zionism’s lack spent time there, undergoing training in vegetable, fruit, and flower gardening, animal husbandry, and home economics. Katz, “Agricultural Settlements in Palestine,” 74–75. 49. See Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 22. 50. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 189. 51. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113. 52. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 99. 53. Ibid., 110. While Pappenheim complained of the irreligiosity of the majority of Zionists, she seemed equally unimpressed by Orthodox factions of the Zionist movement. She calls the Tachkemoni-Schule, an Orthodox school, “an appalling institution,” and cautions

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of religiosity in the second act of Tragic Moments, in which Uri and Fella sell (albeit reluctantly)54 a Sefer Torah with costly silver ornaments to finance their escape to Palestine. The scroll (which had been rescued in Russia by an elderly man who hid with it for three days under a pile of hay in a horse stall) represents the steadfast loyalty of Jews to their millennia-old religion, even amidst great adversity and under threat of physical danger.55 Uri’s sale of the scroll to finance his family’s aliyah underscored Pappenheim’s charge that Zionists were selling (out) their religion in their quest for land and nation.56 When, in the final act, Jerome returns the very same Torah scroll (which he had tracked down and repurchased) to his father, Jerome’s rebellion against his father’s Zionism is marked by his simultaneous reclamation of the Jewish religion (embodied in the scroll) and his decision to make his home in Europe. In Sisyphus-Work, Pappenheim complained repeatedly of the apathy of Zionists towards social and women’s issues, especially prostitution and white slavery. While in Philippopel (now Plovdiv, Bulgaria), for example, she learned of a female trafficker who remained a respected member of the community and was even considered a “benefactress of the community.” Pappenheim commented: “The Zionists claim that such things are none of their business!”57 She reported a similar experience in Jaffa: “When I asked Dr. Ruppin why the Zionists do not devote their attentions to the eradication of white slavery and tuberculosis, he said that it’s not their concern.”58 In her story “The Redeemer,” Pappenheim suggested that Zionism’s alleged attitudes toward white slavery and religion were linked. After attending a Zionist Congress in Basel, Wolf interrupts his work on a bust of Herzl to sculpt a piece representing “… a woman waking from sleep to full consciousthat it would be a disgrace for Germans to donate even a penny toward its operation. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 127. Although Pappenheim mentions Mizrachi (the religious Zionist movement that was founded in 1902 as a religious faction of the World Zionist Organization) in a later text (from 1936), her earlier texts do not mention the movement by name. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 194. 54. Reb Jahiel, who rescued the scroll, entrusted it to Uri with the words, “… as you protect it, it will protect you. It should one day be the foundation stone for a Jewish house, your house.” Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 58–59. 55. Ibud., 57–60. 56. Ibid., 83–84. 57. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 34. 58. Ibid., 97. Pappenheim’s claim that Zionists were not interested in white slavery is not entirely accurate. The Zionist press reported on the conferences for the suppression of white slavery. See, for example, “Delegiertentag zur Bekampfung ¨ des Handels mit judischen ¨ Madchen,” ¨ Die Welt 7, no. 40 (1903): 4–5.

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ness, or ‘Israel awakening’… as the embodiment of the Herzlian idea.”59 Pappenheim’s exceedingly unflattering portrayal of a female Zion in “The Redeemer” is a parody of the motif of a female “Zion,” which, Michael Berkowitz notes, was very popular at the turn of the century. The Viennese sculptor (Samuel) Friedrich Beer, for example, crafted a female Zion on a commemorative medal that was issued at both the First and Second Zionist Congresses. According to Berkowitz, that female “Zion,” which often resembled the heroic female personifications of other nation states, such as Germania, Britannia, or Marianne, appeared on numerous widely distributed postcards.60 By contrast, the model for Wolf’s (Pappenheim’s) Zion was Reisle, a prostitute and apostate. By casting Reisle as the model for the Zionist ideal, Pappenheim underscored three of Zionism’s purported shortcomings. First, its irreligiosity. In her youth, Reisle converted to Catholicism. After returning to Judaism, she later joined the Salvation Army. Both of her conversions were motivated by material considerations rather than religious conviction.61 While Reisle poses as Zion, a delicate silver chain is visible in her decollete. ´ ´ Wolf later learns that the chain carried a small gem-studded cross. The cross is not a sign of Reisle’s piety, however; she received it from Muhme Rifke (for receiving stolen property and returning to service in her brothel). Wolf’s choice of Reisle as a personification of Zion alludes also to Zionism’s refusal to take a stand against or even acknowledge the existence of social problems such as white slavery and prostitution. Although Wolf is aware that Reisle had been a prostitute in the past and suspects that Muhme Rifke’s second-hand store could scarcely support both her and Reisle, he remains oblivious to the possibility that Reisle is again earning money through prostitution. He is finally tipped off by Martin, a Zionist who frequents Muhme Rifke’s brothel. Finally, the choice of Reisle as a model for Zion is also Pappenheim’s critique of Zionism’s romanticized view of the future—its tendency to dream of future migration to Palestine without taking measures in the present to prepare Jews for successful colonization. In “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt: Erwiderung” (A Visit from Frankfurt: A Response) and The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim criticized Zionists for focusing their attentions on the lofty goal of founding a Jewish nation in Palestine without taking into 59. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 32. 60. Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 121–22. 61. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 34.

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account that prospective settlers from Galicia (whom she considered “uneducated,” “immoral,” and lacking in a strong work-ethic) would require extensive preparation before they could become the foundation of a “nation among nations”:62 Certainly, it would be nice to give the Jewish people their own country. But in its present state, the Jewish people cannot yet live as a nation. They cannot work yet, and they aren’t even mature enough to recognize what they must learn…. The Zionists are bad builders. Their castles in the sky are high-rises without foundations…. As if mesmerized, they fixate on the goal of having their own country, and thereby forget the path that leads to that goal: the education of the people. This path is paved with detailed work, and the Zionists detest attention to detail.63 According to Pappenheim, Zionists were incapable of or unwilling to do the “holy detail work [heilige Kleinarbeit]” that she considered the foundation of social work.64 In “The Redeemer,” Wolf’s dreams of possessing Reisle are a metaphor for the Zionist dream of colonizing Palestine. Blinded by visions of marital bliss, Wolf fails to recognize that Reisle is both practically and morally unfit to fulfill his expectations of the ideal Jewish wife and mother, much in the same way that Galician Jews were, according to Pappenheim, not ready to become the bedrock of Zion. While he arranges for Reisle to learn “how to keep an orderly home” from his Christian landlady (who could not possibly teach Reisle how to keep a Jewish home), he makes no provisions for her moral and religious education. He naively assures Martin: “And once she has become my wife, then she will also be the kind of Jewish woman that I expect.”65 As early as 1903, Pappenheim had already gained some notoriety as an “antiZionist.” Following her 1903 tour of Galicia under the aegis of the Frankfurt 62. Bertha Pappenheim, “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt: Erwiderung,” Die Welt 7, no. 27 (July 3, 1903): 15. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien. 63. Ibid., 43–44. 64. Pappenheim wrote the following Denkzettel for the October page of the Kriegsjahrbuch des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine (1915): “An understanding of holy detail work is the basis for understanding all of women’s great duties.” See also: Bertha Pappenheim, “Judische ¨ Siedlung und judische ¨ Frau,” Israelitisches Familienblatt, no. 42 (October 20, 1927): 11. 65. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 40.

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Israelite Relief Organization (Frankfurter Israelitischer Hilfsverein)66 and the Jewish Committee for the Suppression of White Slavery (Judisches ¨ Zweigkomite zur Bekampfung ¨ des Madchenhandels), ¨ Rosa Pomeranz, a Zionist women’s leader who met Pappenheim in Tarnopel (now Ternopil, Ukraine), reported in the Zionist journal Die Welt that Pappenheim was a “mouthpiece for the anti-Zionists” and that both she and her traveling companion, Dr. Sara Rabinowitsch, were “irreconcilable enemies of the Zionist idea and movement” and mouthpieces of “the rich Frankfurt Jews, the high and mighty Western patrons of the wretched Eastern Jews.”67 Upon learning of these charges, Pappenheim issued a response, which Die Welt printed two weeks later, in which she denied being an “irreconcilable enemy” of Zionism: “I am not the ‘mouthpiece’ of any party, organization, or person. I am my own free person and I endeavor to form my own opinion of social events and trends. This is often more difficult than blindly following herd instinct and joining a movement.”68 Deeply insulted, Pappenheim chose to finance her Sisyphus-Work travels of 1911–12 out of her own pocket, explaining: “It is immeasurably important that I am not traveling on anyone else’s behalf or according to their instructions.”69 She assured her colleagues that she would keep an open mind in Palestine—she would take notes and avoid premature conclusions.70 Her reputation persisted, however. In Jaffa, she was even told that a rumor was circulating that she was an “anti-Zionist” and had written her report even before arriving in Palestine, planning to simply publish it upon her return.71 Despite this charge or perhaps because of it, Zionist leaders appear to have been very eager to meet with her. Indeed, she reports that, when she was slow to make the rounds in Constantinople, a representative was sent to investigate why she had not yet sought out the “Zionist luminaries.”72 Despite her attempts to travel “incognito,” she was informed upon her arrival in Jaffa that she had 66. The Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden, modeled after the French Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle, was founded in 1901 to aid Jews in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden.” 67.Rosa Pomeranz, “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt a.M.,” Die Welt 7, no. 25 (June 19, 1903): 4–6. 68. Pappenheim, “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt.: Erwiderung,” Die Welt 7, no. 27 (July 3, 1903): 15. 69. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 73. 70. Ibid., 96. 71. Ibid., 128. 72. Ibid., 70.

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been expected in Jerusalem three weeks earlier, and that her itinerary had already been planned for her.73 Although Pappenheim vigorously resisted being labeled an anti-Zionist by Zionists, she jokingly embraced the label in one of five “auto-obituaries” [selbstverfaßte Nachrufe] that she composed in 1934. Her vision of how her own obituary might appear in the Zionist paper Judische ¨ Rundschau (that in 74 review of 1925 ran Austrian Zionist women’s leader Anitta Muller-Cohen’s ¨ Sisyphus-Work, which was entitled “An Anti-Zionist Writes about Palestine”)75 reads: A vehement long-time opponent of our movement, whose Jewish consciousness and strength can, nevertheless, not be denied. Although she believed that she was German, she was really only an assimilationist. What a shame!76 This “auto-obituary” reveals that Pappenheim was certain of the Zionists’ respect for her despite her ideological differences with them and her frequent public criticism of Zionist practice. There is ample evidence that this respect was mutual. Although Pappenheim was opposed to Zionism for German Jews and in countries where she believed Jews were sufficiently well integrated into and tolerated by the majority population, she initially believed that, correctly implemented, it could prove a salvation for persecuted Eastern Jews.77 In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, she conceded, “… if the Zionists could follow through on Zionism’s promises, Zionism would be a blessing for the Jewish people.”78 Thirty years later, in “The Jewish Woman,” she concluded that her original hope that “applied Zionism” might contribute to a “regeneration of Eastern Jews” was not fulfilled.79 Despite her disappointment in both Zionism and Zionists, Pappenheim was 73. Ibid., 94. 74. As a social worker, Anitta Muller-Cohen ¨ (1890–1962), also born in Vienna, shared many of Pappenheim’s interests (relief work among Eastern European Jews displaced by pogroms or war, rescuing pogrom orphans, etc.). In 1920 she became a member of the Vienna City Council. In 1936, she settled in Tel Aviv, where she continued her work in child welfare and other social services. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Anita Mueller-Cohen.” 75. Muller-Cohen, ¨ “Eine Antizionistin uber ¨ Palastina,” ¨ 131. 76. “Selbsverfaßte Nachrufe,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 28. 77. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 31. 78. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 43. 79. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113.

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cognizant of Zionist influence and power in the Jewish world and therefore strived to maintain at least a modicum of civility with those in the movement in order to continue her collaboration with them.80 In 1933, for example, she refused to allow her colleagues to stage a production of Tragic Moments at a JFB meeting because she knew it would offend the Zionists in attendance. She joked: “That would, of course, be one argument in the play’s favor, but I myself could not advise scattering dynamite among the little ladies [Weiblein] at a delegates’ conference such as the upcoming one.”81 Elfride BergelGronemann recalls an incident in which she and Pappenheim had a heated argument concerning the Youth Aliyah at a 1933 meeting of the Executive Committee of the JFB. After losing the debate, Pappenheim “walked all the way across the auditorium, approached [Bergel-Gronemann] with hands extended, and said in her formal, carefully crafted way of speaking: ‘for the sake of Peace [Scholaum]—shalom [Schalom].’”82 In 1932 Zionist Rahel Straus 80. There is ample scholarship on the tense collaborations and frequent clashes of the Zionist and anti-Zionist or non-Zionist organizations, in general. See Robert S. Wistrich, “Zionism and its Jewish ‘Assimilationist’ Critics (1897–1948),” Jewish Social Studies, n.s. 4, no. 2 (1998): 59; Jehuda Reinharz, “Advocacy and History: The Case of the Centralverein and the Zionists,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 33 (1988): 113–22; Marjorie Lamberti, “The Centralverein and the Anti-Zionists Setting the Historical Record Straight,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 33 (1988): 123–28; Jurgen ¨ Matthaus, ¨ “Deutschtum und Judentum under Fire: The Impact of the First World War on the Strategies of the Centralverein and the Zionistische Vereinigung,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 33 (1988): 123–47; Marjorie Lamberti, “From Coexistence to Conflict: Zionism and the Jewish Community in Germany, 1897–1914,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 53–86; Peter M. Baldwin, “Zionist and Non-Zionist Jews in the Last Years before the Nazi Regime,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 27 (1982): 87–108; Yehoyakim Cochavi, “Liberals and Zionists on the Eve of the National-Socialist Seizure of Power,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 39 (1994): 113–29. On Zionism in the JFB see: Annette Vowinckel and Irene Borowicz, “Nachstes ¨ Jahr in Jerusalem? Deutsch-judische ¨ Frauen und der Zionismus 1896–1933,” in “‘Judisch-sein, ¨ Frau-sein, Bund-sein,’:32–39; Sabine Hering, “Tochter Zions, furchte ¨ Dich! - Zur Auseinandersetzungen judischer ¨ Frauen mit dem Zionismus, 1906–1933” in “Judin ¨ - Deutsche - deutsche Judin?,” ¨ 40–44. 81. Bertha Pappenheim to Frau Cramer, January 9, 1933, Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 82. Elfride Bergel-Gronemann, “Erinnerungen einer Zionisten an Bertha Pappenheim.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12, no. 10 (October 1936): 6. Born in Danzig, Elfride Bergel-Gronemann (1883–1958) was Sammy Gronemann’s (the German author and Zionist leader) sister. She served as the head of the WIZO Berlin for several years. She wrote several articles for Zionist papers, mainly on the situation of Jewish women, as well as an unpublished novel, “Der Spaziergang,” and a play, “Die Beichte.” She emigrated to Palestine in 1937. Joachim Schloer, e-mail message to author, January 2, 2004.

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was astonished when Pappenheim nominated her as Bettina Brenner’s successor as head of the JFB. Straus initially declined, reminding Pappenheim of their ideological differences. Pappenheim answered, “Yes, but Judaism— tradition and Jewish knowledge—is alive in you. Your Zionism is the lesser evil compared to the complete lack of Jewishness in the other candidates being considered.”83 Pappenheim never hesitated to give Zionists credit for their successes in social welfare work. In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, she praised a Zionist Reform heder (Reformcheder), Zionist reading clubs and libraries, and the social gatherings fostered by Zionist organizations, which she believed would provide opportunities for the development of “social graces” and good manners.84 In Sisyphus-Work, Pappenheim frequently praised Zionist projects that were sympathetic to her causes. She commended the Zionist director of the Department for the Protection of Girls in Warsaw: “She seems very capable, has a lot of experience, and has had many successes.”85 She commented approvingly on programs at the Bezalel Art Institute, a Zionist and Hilfsverein orphanage for girls in Jerusalem, the efforts of workers in Jaffa to form a committee for the suppression of white slavery, the Leimel School in Jerusalem, and the Odessa Committee School for Girls.86 In her 1925 review of Sisyphus-Work, “An Anti-Zionist Writes about Palestine,” Anitta Muller-Cohen, ¨ however, accused Pappenheim of allowing her observations to be colored by “partisan hatred,” advocating “head in the sand [Vogel Strauß]” politics vis-a-vis ` the non-Jewish world and Jewish antisemitism (especially in her accusations that Zionist agitation aggravated antisemitism, and in her descriptions of Eastern Jews). Muller-Cohen ¨ concluded, however, that despite Pappenheim’s intent to disparage Zionists, her book unwittingly served to highlight Zionism’s many “merits.” She elaborated: A traveler who sets out to see the Jewish world and, again and again, 83. Rahel Straus (1880–1963) was a medical doctor and mother of 5. She was a founder of the JFB Home Economics School in Wolfratshausen (near Munich) and a member of WIZO. She emigrated to Palestine in 1933. Rahel Straus, Wir lebten in Deutschland: Erinnerungen einer deutschen Judin, ¨ 1880–1933, ed. Max Kreutzberger (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1961), 259. 84. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 45. 85. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 159. 86. Ibid., 103, 107, 109, 113, 127. The Odessa Committee provided the legalized framework for the Hibbat Zion (Hovevei Zion) movement in Russia from 1880 to 1919. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Odessa Committee.”

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Pappenheim undertook her Sisyphus-Work studies of Zionism (and finally published them over a decade later) precisely because she did realize that it was futile to resist the increasing influence of Zionism among Jews in Eastern Europe and the Middle East; and that if she wished to play an active role in Jewish education and Jewish social work programs in these regions, she would have to cooperate with the most influential Jewish organizations there, including the Zionist ones.88 Her harsh critiques of Zionists were by no means evidence of an unwillingness to cooperate with them in achieving common goals. Some of her most scathing attacks were aimed at groups with which she identified, precisely because her expectations of them and the effort she had invested in them were so great. She remained true to her motto— “No one who knows that an injustice is happening anywhere in the world may remain silent. Neither sex, nor age, nor religion, nor party affiliation can justify silence. Remaining silent when you know of injustice makes you complicit.”89 Pappenheim’s willingness to cooperate was evinced already in 1904 when 87. Muller-Cohen, ¨ “Eine Antizionistin uber ¨ Palastina,” ¨ 131. Pappenheim collaborated with Muller-Cohen ¨ in 1924–1925 in the attempt to establish a Weltsammelvormundschaft fur ¨ verlassene, schutz- und erziehungsbedurftige ¨ Kinder (World Collective Guardianship for Abandoned Children and Children in Need of Protection and Education) through the Judische ¨ Welthilfskonferenz (Jewish World Relief Conference). Pappenheim, SysiphusArbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 61–72. 88. Despite its considerable influence in Eastern Europe, the Bund (General Jewish Workers Union) remains a blind spot in Pappenheim’s extant writings. The Russian Bund had 25,000–35,000 members between 1903 and 1905 and over 40,000 members in 1917. Members of the Polish Bund comprised the vast majority of the National Jewish Trade Unions in Poland, which had 46,000 members in 1921 and 99,000 in 1939. The Bund was Socialist, Yiddishist, and autonomist, proponing a Jewish secular nationalism based on the concept of doykeyt (hereness), which focused on Jewish life as lived in Eastern Europe. The Bund was anti-Zionist and anti-Orthodox. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Bund.” See also Joshua D. Zimmerman, Poles, Jews, and the Politics of Nationality (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). 89. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, prologue.

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she advocated collaboration with Zionists in Galicia, observing that Zionist organizations there were “meeting places for the more industrious elements.”90 During her Sisyphus-Work travels, too, she did not simply deride Zionist efforts but offered constructive advice and promised continued support. Her report on the Bezalel Academy in Jerusalem91 is typical both of her frank assessments of Zionist institutions and of her spontaneous efforts to effect positive change. Pappenheim listed both the successes and the shortcomings of the institute. On the one hand: it was pedagogically and organizationally very good; the lace-making school was good in principle and well-run; and the museum would serve the noble purpose of developing the good taste of teachers and students. On the other hand, she found the aesthetic standards and sensibilities of the whole institute to be “artistically atrocious,”92 and disapproved of the reliance on child labor in the carpet-making and lace-making schools.93 Pappenheim, who tatted lace and was an avid collector, immediately began devising plans to improve the lace-making school, “to develop their technique, bring variety into the extremely boring patterns. In short, to refine it and to bring it to a higher level artistically and technically.”94 She further promised the director that she would “go all out” to help that particular school, provided they would stop trying to convert her to Zionism.95 There is ample evidence that Pappenheim’s persistent attempts to influence Zionist social work efforts bore fruit. She believed that one of the movement’s

90. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 62. 91. The Bezalel Academy of Arts and Crafts was founded in 1906 by Boris Schatz, court sculptor to King Ferdinand of Bulgaria. For descriptions of Bezalel’s programs and wide-reaching influence see Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 139–142; and Margaret Olin, The Nation without Art: Examining Modern Discourses on Jewish Art. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001 (chapters 1 and 2). 92. Pappenheim calls the carpets “tacky” and dismisses the olive wood carpentry workshop: “… the olive wood carpentry workshop … produces ‘souvenirs’ of the worst sort.” In the original German, Pappenheim relies on a pun. She writes: “The spelling mistake devil was tempting me to use an impolite word”—the word Schreinerei (carpentry workshop) resembles Schweinerei (dirty mess or scandal). Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 103. 93. Ibid. 94. The director, Boris Schatz (Herr S.) was traveling when Pappenheim visited Bezalel; thus she met with “Herr G. (portrait painter) [Leopold Gottlieb].” Pappenheim, SisyphusArbeit, 103. 95. Ibid., 103–4.

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more positive elements was its effort to enlist the involvement of women.96 She noted with great satisfaction that women landowners in Rehovot could vote in communal elections and could even be elected to the “Waad.”97 She was particularly invested, therefore, in recruiting Zionist women to her social causes. Although some of them initially resented Pappenheim’s meddling, Zionist women’s organizations eventually followed her example. Rosa Pomeranz, for example, first dismissed Pappenheim’s suggestions regarding Galician Jews. When Pappenheim said they were not yet ready for the actual colonization of Palestine and that Galician Zionists should for now focus their attentions on educational programs at home to prepare them for emigration, Pomeranz responded that all such programs accomplished was to ensure that only “educated Jewish women” and not illiterate ones were murdered in pogroms.98 However, Pomeranz (later Melzer) eventually became the leader of the Judischer ¨ Frauenbund fur ¨ Galizien und Bukowina (League of Jewish Women in Galicia and Bukovina), which dedicated itself to the sort of “detail work” that Pappenheim advocated and Pomeranz had derided in 1904. Now the Galician JFB planned to open a girl’s boarding school, and it listed the education of young people among its chief occupations.99 But Pappenheim’s original enthusiasm about male Zionists’ willingness to include women in their work was tempered over time:100 “I was able to observe that the Zionist men admitted women only very reluctantly and only into certain areas (primarily fundraising), and that the Zionist women’s organizations developed very slowly and only in absolute dependence, both intellectually and financially.”101 The exact nature of women’s place in the movement has long been a subject of debate. In her 1920 essay “Women in the Zionist Movement,” Helene Hanna Cohn (who later published under her married name, Thon) blamed not Zionist men but the women themselves for their marginal position. She claimed that, while women were receptive to the program, there has not been “a single woman who has contributed a demonstrably new idea to Zionism…

96. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 44. 97. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 98. 98. Pomeranz, “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt a.M.,” 5. 99. Rosa Melzer, “Nationale Pflichten der judischen ¨ Frau,” Die Welt 14, no. 39 (September 30, 1910): 937–38, see 938. 100. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 113–14. 101. Ibid.

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no woman has made a notable scientific or artistic achievement.”102 She contended that, while women accused men of excluding them from leadership positions, “in reality” women simply did not take advantage of the equal rights that the organization had granted them since the beginning.103 Aware that her views might be considered misogynist, Cohn said she subscribed to the premise that “men and women are intrinsically different,” and women should therefore not judge themselves by male standards.104 Cohn’s main argument was that women should carve out their own niche in Zionism, namely the one they are most suited for, social welfare work and the education of women (ideally to prepare them for their “natural” professions of wife and mother). If women succeeded in doing so, then they would achieve equality “in reality and not just on paper.”105 Michael Berkowitz has observed that women are virtually “invisible” in most Zionist histories, largely because Zionism was a “predominantly and self-consciously” male affair, invested in the creation of “manly men” who would found a Jewish nation.106 He notes that women, though officially welcome, were “decidedly lower-rank citizens” and rarely rose to leadership positions in the World Zionist Organization.107 Berkowitz suggests that women’s invisibility in official histories of Zionism stemmed also from the nature of their involvement. They generally did not attempt to dominate spheres traditionally inhabited by Jewish men but carved out their own separate niche in social welfare work.108 He notes that Zionist women’s organizations were indebted to the Jewish women’s movement in Germany, particularly the example of the JFB.109 Mark H. Gelber, on the other hand, argues with “the slightly pernicious myth about the ostensible anti-feminist orientation of early Zionism.” He insists that “feminism was of major significance to Zionism as the movement

102. Helene Hanna Cohn, “Die Frau in der zionistischen Bewegung,” Der Jude 5 (1920): 533–37, see 533. 103. Ibid., 534. 104. Ibid. 105. Ibid., 537. 106. For a brief history of women’s involvement in the Zionist movement, see Michael Berkowitz, “Transcending ‘Tzimmes and Sweetness’: Recovering the History of Zionist Women in Central and Western Europe, 1897–1933,” in Active Voices: Women in Jewish Culture, ed. Maurie Sacks (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 41–62. 107. Ibid., 45. 108. Ibid., 44, 55. 109. Ibid., 48.

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began to take formal shape, and a full-fledged debate concerning the content and implications of the women’s movement figured prominently in Zionist publications throughout the early years.”110 Be that as it may, Zionist women’s great respect for Pappenheim, despite her fervent opposition to their ideological program, is exemplified by two eulogies written by Zionist women for the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes. Bergel-Gronemann recalled a number of heated disputes between Pappenheim and Zionist women, but insisted, “Friends and opponents are together in their mourning over the passing of this exceptional woman…. This woman was a true leader. Even when in error, she was great and exemplary in her unwavering loyalty to whatever she recognized as right.”111 Helene Hanna Thon’s essay “Her Picture on My Desk” (Thon kept a photo of her role-model on her desk for inspiration) describes Pappenheim’s strength and integrity in glowing terms, observing that something about her was reminiscent of the prophets.112 Thon does not deny Pappenheim’s opposition to Zionist ideals and even criticizes her for judging Zionists by unrealistic standards, but she insists that Pappenheim had influenced the work of Zionist women: Bertha Pappenheim’s prophetic strength in battle did not, admittedly, always serve the same ideal for which we fought, indeed it was often directed with wrath against it…. She measured our work according to standards that no group facing the realities of life could ever meet. Nevertheless, as is the case with people whose sphere of influence exceeds the norm, Bertha Pappenheim has influenced us, even without directly assisting us. Her influence is felt especially among those people who take responsibility for fellow humans in need of help: social workers.113 Thon’s article in the Juedische Rundschau, “Women’s Work in Palestine,” illustrates the extent to which the programs of the Zionist women’s organizations were patterned after Pappenheim’s example.114 The article appeared in December 1925, after the publication of Sisyphus-Work and after 110. Mark H. Gelber, “Feminist-Zionist Expression: Ideology, Rhetoric, and Literature,” in Melancholy Pride: Nation, Race, and Gender in the German Literature of Cultural Zionism, Conditio Judaica 23 (Tubingen: ¨ Niemeyer, 2000), 161–202, see 161–62. 111. Bergel-Gronemann, “Erinnerungen einer Zionisten an Bertha Pappenheim,” 6–7. 112. Helene Hanna Thon, “Ihr Bild auf meinem Schreibtisch,” 38–39. 113. Ibid. 114. Muller-Cohen, ¨ “Eine Antizionistin uber ¨ Palastina”; ¨ Helene Hanna Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina.” ¨

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Muller-Cohen’s ¨ negative review of the book had appeared in the same newspaper. Thus, it is quite possible that Thon was reacting to Pappenheim’s assessment of what social needs remained unmet in Palestine. Thon argued that, rather than holding out for future equality for women in Palestine, Zionist women should focus their attentions on a vitally important area that had been neglected by Zionist men and that suited women’s “feminine character”—namely, the “welfare of the people [Volkswohlfahrt],” which she defined as “caring for the weak members of our people: for the sick, the infirm, the elderly, infants, expectant mothers, the morally at-risk, orphans, for the general and vocational education of the people.”115 Several of the prospective programs outlined by Thon were responses to the problems discussed by Pappenheim in Sisyphus-Work and may, in fact, have been modeled on the projects of Pappenheim’s Frankfurt women’s group Weibliche Fursorge ¨ (Women’s Relief) and the JFB. Thon’s argument for women’s particular affinity for social welfare work—namely, that women best understand the needs of other women and of children—echoes Pappenheim’s rationale for founding Women’s Relief. In the first section, “Working on the New Yishuv,” Thon complains that Zionist men had neglected career training for women and suggests that women should take responsibility for the education of their sisters, adding that women should not be trained only for agricultural careers but in a variety of “helping” and home economics-related occupations. This call for diversification resembles a similar one from the JFB, which, in order to combat unemployment, called for job training in fields in which Jewish women were underrepresented.116 Thon recommended dormitories and recreation centers (Abendheime) for single female workers who had been “torn away from their families and who often decide to enter more or less loose relationships with men, because they don’t know where to turn with their loneliness.” She also proposed job referral and career counseling services and aid for pregnant women and nursing mothers.117 All of the above programs had already been successfully initiated and implemented in Frankfurt by Pappenheim’s Women’s Relief and were certainly familiar to Thon via her connections to the JFB, of which Women’s Relief was an organizational member.118

115. Helene Hanna Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ 847. 116. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 175–76. 117. Helene Hanna Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ 847. 118. Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V. fur ¨ die Zeit 1912–1913. Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V.: 1914 und 1915. Frankfurt a.M.: n.p., n.d.

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In the second section of her essay, Thon targeted educational projects aimed at the Fourth Aliyah, the emigration of “petit bourgeois, less affluent elements, who were, to a large extent, culturally inferior to earlier settlers,” in other words: the Eastern Jewish emigrants, who (as Pappenheim had cautioned twenty years before) would require extensive education before they could become productive colonists. Thon proposed here the very programs recommended by Pappenheim in The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, such as career training for “girls who had finished school (who in many families—according to the widespread (mis)practice in the East—sit around doing nothing),” popular adult education lectures on “home economics, childrearing, health and hygiene,” and “tasteful social gatherings,” at which members of different social classes could meet.119 Certainly, Thon’s apprehensions that the influx of Eastern Jews could have “serious consequences for the cultural level of the people” were no less “antisemitic” than the remarks in Pappenheim’s reports that Muller-Cohen ¨ chastized. A 1910 article in Die Welt by Sarah Thon (Ya’akov Yohanon Thon’s first wife), “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ attested also to the influence of the German-Jewish women’s movement on Zionist women’s organizations.120 Thon proposed in her essay a number of programs resembling those Pappenheim had recommended for Galician Jewish women in The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, such as house industries (including lace-making), nursing and other practical careers, and training in agricultural practices. Like Pappenheim, she proposed shifting from the model of the “school for young ladies” (hohere ¨ Tochterschule) ¨ to a more practical training model—one that would convince Jewish girls and women that “work brings honor, not shame to Jewish daughters.”121 Pappenheim expressed similar sentiments in Sisyphus-Work, where she criticized colonists for founding music schools in Jaffa and Jerusalem when there was supposedly no money available

119. In the final section of her essay, Thon addresses programs targeting the “halukkah Jewry” and non-European Jewish emigrants, segments of the population in whom Pappenheim had shown less interest. Thon recommends serving these populations through the system of “settlements,” a network of neighborhood centers located in the most impoverished quarters, a movement which originated in the U.S. and England. For more on halukkah Jewry and non-European emigrants, see Berkowitz, Zionist Culture and Western European Jewry Before the First World War, 160–62. 120. Sarah Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ Die Welt 14, no. 41 (October 17, 1910): 1063–66. 121. Sarah Thon, “Frauenarbeit in Palastina,” ¨ 1065.

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for home economics schools.122 While Thon’s essay predated this comment, Pappenheim expressed very similar sentiments in an 1898 essay, “The Education of Female Youth in the Higher Classes,” which advocated practical training not just for girls whose financial situation rendered it necessary, but for girls of all classes.123 Although Pappenheim spent more energy criticizing Zionists’ actions or inaction than in debating Zionist ideology, her main objection to Zionism remained ideological. She rejected the Zionist belief that Jews were a people and as such should strive to found a Jewish nation, ideally in the traditional Jewish homeland of Palestine. The Zionist mission was irreconcilable with her steadfast belief that German Jews were fully part of the German nation and culture. In September 1935, on a trip to Amsterdam to meet with Henrietta Szold, the founder and first president of Hadassah and the leader of the Youth Aliyah movement, Pappenheim wrote the following Denkzettel, in which she denied Palestine’s privileged status: “Palestine might mean something, physically, to a small segment of the Jewish world, but for the spirit of Judaism, the whole world is just big enough.”124 In “The Jewish Woman,” she argued: “We Jews should remember that we can see the summit of Mount Sinai from any- where in the world, from the Diaspora—and Palestine too is Diaspora.”125 In the same essay she insisted that it was not only undesirable but impossible for German Jews to renounce their indebtedness to German culture: “And especially in the Diaspora, for us here in Germany, to whose ‘Tarbut Germania’ we are so deeply indebted that it would be ungrateful and foolish to forsake it—we couldn’t, even if we tried.”126 In a brief appeal to German-Jewish women published in November 1934 in the Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt, “Duties of the German- Jewish Woman,” Pappenheim maintained that the Germanness of German-Jewish women could not be nullified by their Jewishness: “It is exceedingly demanding to be a German, a woman, and a Jew today. However, because these three duties are also three sources of spiritual strength, they do not cancel each other

122. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 120. 123. Bertha Pappenheim, [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Zur Erziehung der weiblichen Jugend in den hoheren ¨ Standen,” ¨ Ethische Kultur 6 (1898): 61–63. 124. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 187. 125. Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 117. 126. Ibid.

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out. On the contrary, they strengthen and enrich one another.”127 She insisted that it was the JFB’s duty, despite present travails, “to be the trustee of the German women’s movement in its purest intellectual, social-ethical, unpolitical form.”128 The JFB had recently withdrawn from the Federation of German Women’s Associations, which chose to disband shortly thereafter rather than complying with compulsory Gleichschaltung (Nazification).129 Pappenheim, who had received a medal, the German Verdienstkreuz fur ¨ Kriegshilfe,130 for her patriotic efforts during World War I, could not be convinced, even by the developments of the 1930s, that Jews did not have a place in Germany. Even after 1933, Pappenheim vehemently opposed Henrietta Szold’s Youth Aliyah movement.131 At a 1933 meeting of the executive board of the JFB, she condemned the movement as “the export of children [Kinderexport]” and “mothers fleeing from responsibility.”132 Eva Michaelis-Stern reported that, at Pappenheim and Szold’s first and only meeting, Pappenheim bitterly accused Szold of orchestrating “children’s crusades.”133 Pappenheim was by no means alone in her beliefs. In 1934 the JFB passed 127. Pappenheim, “Aufgaben der deutschen Judin.” ¨ Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 13, no. 3 (November 1934): 115. 128. Ibid. Ironically, an advertisement for the Lloyd Triestino ship line’s fares to Palestine was printed directly beneath Pappenheim’s appeal. 129. Meaning “synchronization,” Gleichschaltung was a euphemistic term for Nazification. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 199. 130. The “Verdienstkreuz” is the highest honor/medal for military or other service. Pappenheim’s was awarded for aid to the war effort in WWI. Brentzel, Anna O.–Bertha Pappenheim, 180. Pappenheim gave numerous speeches (on behalf of the JFB) encouraging Jewish girls and women to participate in war work and to conserve food and resources as part of the war effort. “Kriegsaufgaben der weibl. Jugend,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 13, no. 16 (April 30, 1915): 2; “Konferenz uber ¨ Ernahrungsfragen,” ¨ Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 13, no. 14 (April 16, 1915): 3; Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V.: 1914 und 1915, 90. 131. Although associated with its director, Henrietta Szold, Recha Freier (a GermanJewish teacher, scholar of folklore, and the wife of a rabbi) conceived the idea of Youth Aliyah. Youth Aliyah rescued 3,200 children from Germany. Between 1934 and 1939, at least 18,000 unaccompanied children left Germany; the largest number (between 8,000–10,000) were taken to England on “children’s transports.” Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair, 116–17. 132. Bergel-Gronemann, “Erinnerungen einer Zionisten an Bertha Pappenheim,” 6. 133. Eva Michaelis-Stern, “‘Ich beuge mich vor der Haltung des deutschen Judentums:’ Aus den Annalen der Jugendalija,” Mitteilungsblatt, December 23, 1960, 15. MichaelisStern mistakenly states that the meeting was in 1937. It was most likely in Sept. 1935 in Amsterdam. Heubach, Sisyphus, 17.

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a resolution against “mass shipments [Massenverschickungen]” of school-age children to Palestine. The resolution cautioned that a decision to separate children from their families should not be made without “thorough counseling and research.”134 Others opposed Jewish emigration for other reasons. The Zentralausschuß der deutschen Juden (Central Committee of the German Jews) condemned the “unrestrained emigration” of individuals with financial means, arguing that it was their “duty” to forego emigration to enable those “who no longer have a means of livelihood” in Germany to establish an existence elsewhere.135 Several key figures of the JFB purposefully remained in Germany, still loyal to an ideal vision of humanistic German culture, even in 1942.136 Pappenheim’s closest associate, Hannah Karminski, wrote of her visit with Cora Berliner on the last day before her deportation:137 134. “Delegiertentag des judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Judische ¨ Rundschau 39, no. 6 (January 19, 1934): 4. Pappenheim and the JFB did not dogmatically condemn all emigration. Starting in 1933, the JFB home at Isenburg started accepting young women for a new “work service [Arbeitsdienst] program” (the agreement was written and signed by Pappenheim). The program allowed for the study of Modern Hebrew and was recognized as hakhshara, the certificate of graduation from a certified course of training (usually in agriculture but at Isenburg in home economics and child care) which was required to apply for a visa to Palestine. Willi Goldmann recalls that Pappenheim was able to move the British consul general in Frankfurt to add his sister (who was already 18) to his parents’ visa (which was granted for family reunification. Goldmann was already in Palestine). She had also provided Willi Goldmann with a list of contacts in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa before his emigration. Bertha Pappenheim, “Verabredung zur Aufnahme von Schulerin¨ nen,” in Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, ed. Hannah Karminski and Martha Ollendorff, 10 (Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937); Gertrud Ehrenwerth, “Ausbildung von Schulerinnen ¨ im Isenburger Heim,” in Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, ed. Hannah Karminski and Martha Ollendorff, 10–12 (Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937). Goldmann, “Personliche ¨ Erinnerungen an Bertha Pappenheim,” 9. 135. Zentralausschuß der deutschen Juden, “Unsere Pflicht!” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 9, no. 5 (May 1933): 2–3. 136. On the work of JFB women who remained in Germany after 1933 see: Gudrun Maierhof, Selbstbehauptung im Chaos: Frauen in der judischen ¨ Selbsthilfe, 1933–1943 (Frankfurt: Campus, 2002). 137. Born in Berlin, Hannah Karminski (1897–1942) was a professional pre-school teacher (trained at the Pestalozzi-Frobel-Haus ¨ in Berlin) and social worker. She met Bertha Pappenheim when she became the head of the Frankfurt Girls’ Club. She edited the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes and belonged to the executive committee of the JFB. After the JFB was disbanded, she was a leading figure in the Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Representation of the Jews in Germany) until her deportation. Cora Berliner (1890–1942) earned a doctorate degree in Economics in 1917. She worked in public serv-

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Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth C. and our other friends took books along. They coordinated their selections. To my knowledge C. took Faust I and an anthology. When I went to visit them on the last day, shortly before their departure, they were sitting in the sun in the courtyard reading Goethe.138

Although Pappenheim continued to believe in the existence and desirability of a German-Jewish symbiosis, her actions and writings reveal her tacit acknowledgement that at best the union was flawed. Having internalized negative stereotypes, she attempted to dissociate herself and others from negative traits attributed to Jews. The JFB’s “self-discipline [Selbstzucht]” campaign (launched in 1915) instructed women to dress simply in order to combat antisemitism, a strategy that was based on the premise that Jewish women caused antisemitism by wearing ostentatious jewelry or lavish clothing.139 The JFB called for “simplicity and restraint” from Jewish women again in September 1933, cautioning them that behaving otherwise “harms the individual and the community, makes us despised and unpopular, is repulsive and promotes the hostile attitude, gives cause for the exclusion of individuals and the community!”140 A few months earlier, Pappenheim had published similar recommendations: “We will want to avoid anything that causes a stir or appears provocative… in language or tone; in clothing, appearance, or manner.”141 Here, too, Pappenheim and the JFB were by no means alone. The head of the Frankfurt Jewish Gemeinde administration offered these “Words of Admonition” in March 1934: Restraint is one of the best weapons, if not the best, of anyone who finds himself unjustly excluded from a beloved community. It is enough to mention various tactless behaviors that lead to unjustified generalizations: the ostentatious display of luxuries that causes jealousy ice, including a half-year assignment at the German Embassy in London, until she accepted a teaching position at the Institute for National Economics in Berlin in 1930. After she was removed from the position in 1933, she became the acting chairperson of the JFB. She served as a consultant for the Reichsvertretung until her deportation in 1942. Maierhof, Selbstbehauptung im Chaos, 190–95. 138. Quoted in Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 205; Kaplan, Die judische ¨ Frauenbewegung in Deutschland, 333. 139. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 201. 140. “An die judischen ¨ Frauen,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 9, no. 9 (September 1933): 1. 141. Bertha Pappenheim, “Der Einzelne und die Gemeinschaft,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 9, no. 6 (June 1933): 1.

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and irritation… a lack of restraint in attending public events where Jews are—to put it mildly—at best only tolerated.142 As in her attitude regarding Yiddish, Pappenheim was ambivalent about the Germanness of German Jews. Even in 1913 in Tragic Moments, one of her strongest pleas against Zionism and for a German-Jewish symbiosis, Schiri/ Jerome, Pappenheim’s hero and spokesperson, admittedly Europeanizes his recognizably Jewish name in order to conceal his outward otherness. Hadassa explains his motivation: “He had to listen to so many annoying questions and remarks because of his name that he couldn’t register at the university with the name Schiri.”143 (It is worth noting that he replaces his Jewish name with a French name rather than a German name, still connoting a degree of incomplete belonging in Germany, his chosen homeland.144) The need to erase a Jewish trait as central to identity as one’s name testifies to Pappenheim’s tacit acknowledgement that the German-Jewish symbiosis relied on Jews becoming visibly German and invisibly Jewish.

142. “Worte der Mahnung,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 12 (March 1934): 263. 143. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 73. 144. It is also entirely possibly that a “German” name would have been denied. From 1904 to 1914, Jews needed permission from the office of the Interior Ministry to change a given name. Dietz Bering, The Stigma of Names: Antisemitism in German Daily Life, 1812–1933 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 281.

3

The “Jewish Mission” and the Jews’ Mission: Combating Conversion Bertha Pappenheim considered the threat of apostasy to be one of the chief “struggles” facing European Jewry in the twentieth century. Indeed, three of the six stories in her 1916 collection Struggles (“The Redeemer,” “Hungarian Village Story,” and “A Weakling”)1 treat the theme of conversion, and two of these, the longest stories of the collection, are positioned prominently at the beginning and end of the volume. Pappenheim was not alone. Articles on the “conversion epidemic” or “conversion movement” haunted the pages of the German-Jewish press, and the issue was a chief concern of Jewish demographers, who were alarmed by decreases in the Jewish population.2 A number of publications, including the Viennese weekly Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift and the Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt, published lists of “withdrawals (Austritte)” from the Jewish community, and in March 1910 a meeting on “The Baptism of Jews and the Interests of the State,” organized by the Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith (CV), reportedly attracted an audience of 2000.3 This chapter examines Pappenheim’s narratives for their illumination of the root causes of this so-called epidemic of baptism and for her promotion of reforms aimed at alleviating these ills. It will also con1. Pappenheim, Kampfe. ¨ 2. “Die Taufseuche in Wien,” Ost und West 5, no. 6 (June 1905): 361–72; Jakob Thon, ¨ “Taufbewegung und Mischehen in Osterreich und Deutschland,” Die Welt 10, nos. 46–48, 52 (1906): no. 46, 10–12; no. 47, 7–9; no. 48, 6–7; no. 52, 11–14; Michael A. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 4 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 3: 7–17; Mitchell B. Hart, Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 74–80. 3. “Judentaufe und Staatsinteresse,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 8, no.13 (April 1, 1910): 10.

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sider why Pappenheim directed her attentions especially to conversion to Catholicism and to the work of Catholic missions despite the fact that conversion to Protestantism was more widespread. The first story of the collection, “The Redeemer,” presents one failed and one successful attempt by missionaries in London’s East End to win souls for the Church. Pappenheim begins her narrative with a description of a Christian mission house, without, however, identifying it as such.4 She describes the mission’s sign, which advertises (in English and Yiddish) free medical services, instruction in reading and writing, Bible study, and religious services. Like the unsuspecting passerby, the story’s reader is led to assume that the building houses a Jewish charitable institution serving the impoverished Eastern Jewish pogrom refugees who inhabit the quarter. Pappenheim immediately upsets this expectation, however, informing the reader that the house is “one of the many mission houses in London that serve the purpose of converting Jewish men, women, and children to the Christian faith.”5 Pappenheim’s readers were likely already attuned to the dangers of mission houses like this one. In 1906 the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums printed an article entitled “The Jewish Mission,” which observed, “The Jewish mission speculates directly on the poor, those suffering poverty and those suffering poverty of the mind. They exploit their material want and their intellectual deficiencies, using material rather than intellectual or moral temptations to lure them away from Judaism and lead them to Christianity.”6 In 1903 Im deutschen Reich had printed a report entitled “Deception,” which detailed Christian missionaries’ use of a monthly magazine, Der Zionsfreund (The Friend of Zion), to attract prospective Jewish converts, who would mistakenly assume the periodical was Jewish.7 The inner back cover of a special edition of Zionsfreund entitled “Portraits of Jewish Women” included an advertisement for Mission House Jerusalem in Hamburg. The ad listed the “means by which we try to lead Jews to Jesus.”8 The methods were identical to those described by Pappenheim in “The Redeemer” and “A Weakling”: private 4. The denomination of the mission house is not named. However, several details suggest that it is Catholic. There are Latin verses on the walls; a Catholic-style crucifix (rather than a cross) hangs on the bedroom wall; and the housemother is referred to as Sister Maria and wears a habit. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 2, 8, 10. 5. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 2. 6. “Die Judenmission,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 43 (October 26, 1906): 505–6, 505. 7. “Die Verblendung,” Im deutschen Reich 9 (1903): 212. 8. Judische ¨ Frauenbilder (Hamburg: Zions Freund, n.d., ca. 1905).

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lessons for Jews; mission work with Jewish immigrants; lectures and Bible study; and dormitory accommodations, employment, and vocational training for boys. During this period mission activity of this type was far more prevalent in Great Britain (where “The Redeemer” takes place) than in Germany. Interestingly, however, German Jews converted in far greater numbers than British Jews.9 There were only two groups in Great Britain among whom the number of converts was more than negligible: Jews of German origin who immigrated to England prior to the full emancipation of Jews in Germany in 1871 and impoverished Eastern European Jewish immigrants like the characters in Pappenheim’s story.10 In the opening pages of “The Redeemer” (before the protagonists Wolf and Reisle are even introduced), it becomes clear that Pappenheim’s chief critique was aimed neither at the Christian mission nor at the individuals who succumbed to its temptations, but at leaders and educators within the Jewish community. Despite its deceptive and opportunistic tactics, the mission emerges in Pappenheim’s narrative as an exemplary social welfare institution. The mission house was the cleanest, best-kept, and most welcoming house in

9. In 1907, there were 39 Protestant missionary associations, 615 missionaries, and 149 mission stations in Great Britain. The numbers for Germany were 18, 14, and 13, respectively. “Ueber die protestantischen Missionsgesellschaften zur Belehrung von Juden,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden 3, nos. 8–9 (August 1907): 140. 10. It is difficult to compare the numbers of apostates in Germany and England in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In England there are no official statistics on conversion, because “membership in a religious body was voluntary and an individual’s religious affiliation a matter of indifference to the state.” Although conversions were tracked in Germany, conversions of children under 14 were not recorded by the authorities, and not all adult converts registered their change in status, although they were required by law to do so. One indicator of the difference in magnitude of apostasy is the “vehemence with which communal leaders denounced it” in Germany compared to England, where it was not a matter of communal concern prior to the First World War. In Germany, conversions increased from at least 200 a year (or one for every 2,200 Jews) in the early 1880s to over 500 a year (or one for every 1,100 Jews) in the early 1900s; and the ratios in Berlin were even higher. Todd M. Endelman, “Conversion in Germany and England,” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1987), 83–107. Alan Levenson notes that, given the religious indifference of large numbers of German Jews, the number of converts would have been even higher except for the widely held conviction that it was unprincipled and cowardly to convert at a time when antisemitism was on the rise. Alan Levenson, “The Conversionary Impulse in Fin De Siecle ` Germany,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 40 (1995): 107–22.

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the predominantly Jewish neighborhood.11 The missionaries familiarized themselves with the needs and value-systems of their “clientele” and patterned their mission accordingly. They attended first to the dire “corporeal needs” of the impoverished Eastern European Jewish immigrants who inhabited the neighborhood, realizing that they would be receptive to a religious message only after their basic needs for food, clothing, shelter, and medical care had been met. Offering instruction in reading, writing, and English, they appealed to the traditional Jewish reverence for education, “which Jews have always recognized as the foundation of a dignified human existence, and valued as the beginning for all possibilities for development,” as well as to the practical educational needs of immigrants.12 Nor did Pappenheim blame all Jews who converted. While she condemned opportunistic apostates who made a “convenient business” of conversion, “using the lie of religion to run to the majority for pragmatic reasons,” she cautioned that one should not condemn “zealots (Schwarmer)” ¨ who converted out of religious conviction.13 Pappenheim conceded that Christianity might appeal to Jews “whose hearts and fantasies suffer more than their bodies under the yoke of their difficult everyday existence”: The thought of doing good for the sake of another—Christ—offers support to those who are either not strong enough to do good for its own sake, or who are not instilled with the purely intellectual [geistig]14 God-concept of Jewish teaching. For others, the straightforward nature of the Christian religion, with its clear promises, can be very attractive and comforting.15 Christianity offered, in an “anthropomorphized” package, “what Judaism offered the world in purely intellectual form: the ‘thou shalt.’”16 Christianity’s more “obvious” or “straightforward” nature was, according to Pappenheim, attractive to Jews who were morally, spiritually, or intellectually inferior. While this characterization was flattering neither to Christianity nor to the Jewish convert, Pappenheim blamed not them but the “leaders and teachers of the Jewish community,” whom she faulted, first of all, for mistakenly relying solely on external ritual practice to cement the community: 11. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 1. 12. Ibid., 2. 13. Ibid., 3. 14. The German word geistig can mean intellectual and/or spiritual. 15. Ibid., 3. 16. Ibid., 4.

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Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth They neglected to keep the intellectual [geistig] content of the Jewish creed fresh, comprehensible, and precious enough for the rising generation that the members of the tribe [Stammesgenossen] would continue to rally around it like a standard. One discards with a light heart what one hasn’t learned to appreciate. The Jew simply gets rid of an inconvenient ritual that he no longer perceives as the fence that shelters a magnificent garden but as a restrictive prison wall.17

Pappenheim cited three factors that made Jewish women particularly susceptible to Christian proselytizing: 1) their religious education had traditionally been neglected, 2) their imaginations were more active than men’s, and 3) their need to perform “practical acts of love” was greater than men’s.18 Her assertions, if true, require some qualification. Although women may have been more susceptible than men to proselytizing, statistics show that they were less likely to actually convert.19 In Vienna, male converts outnumbered females 56.1 to 43.9 percent from 1868–1903; and in Berlin 74.44 percent of converts between 1876 and 1906 were men and only 25.56 percent women.20 Statistics show that women’s share in the number of converts in Germany increased from 7 percent between 1873 and 1882 to 37 percent in 1908 and 40 percent in 1912; but despite their increased numbers, women’s 17. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 3. Pappenheim’s narrators frequently serve as spokespersons for her social reform agenda. The similarities between this passage and remarks in Pappenheim’s essayistic work confirm this. In her report The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim critiques strict, unthinking adherence to ritual using the very same image of the garden fence: “Ritual, once called the fence surrounding a magnificent garden, has become an end in itself.” The “prison walls” of the above passage are merely replaced by a ball and chain, a “lead weight.” In this report, too, she cautions, “Once their spiritual content has been lost, formal practices become worthless.” Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 41, 47. An observation in “The Jewish Woman” likewise resembles the narrator’s above formulation: “One does not regard highly something one doesn’t know—or knows only as something unpleasant or annoying.” Pappenheim, “Die judische ¨ Frau,” 107. 18. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 4. 19. Endelman, Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, 13; Paula Hyman, Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 19, 73–75; Marion A. Kaplan, The Making of the Jewish Middle Class: Women, Family, and Identity in Imperial Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 82. ¨ 20. Jakob Thon, “Taufbewegung in Osterreich,” 9; Bruno Blau, “Die Austritte aus dem Judentum in Berlin (1873–1906),” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden, 3, no. 10 (October 1907): 145–53, see 148; and 4 no. 1 (January 1908) 6–12.

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conversion rate remained below that of men.21 (In some parts of Eastern Europe, however, female apostates did outnumber males. In Cracow, for example, 68 percent of converts from 1887 to 1902 were women.22) Pappenheim’s perpetuation of the stereotype of female apostasy may have been intentional and strategic. Because she was aware that the Jewish community was alarmed at the growing numbers of Jews becoming Christians, she used the threat of women converting in large numbers as a trump card in her struggle to improve their status within the Jewish community—both to better their religious education and to increase their active involvement in religious and communal life. For example, in her opening remarks at the Third Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in 1910, Pappenheim argued that women were more susceptible than men to the “conversion epidemic.”23 Here again she faulted not the converts, but male community leaders: The Jewish men are in large part to blame that Jewish women so lightheartedly cast off their bonds to the Jewish people—usually for vanity’s sake—because they do not let women participate in the interests, business, and work of the Jewish community and in Jewish organizations— neither in practical nor in ideological matters.24 In “The Woman in Church and Religious Life,” a speech she delivered at the 1912 German Women’s Congress, an ecumenical meeting, Pappenheim again attributed women’s abandonment of Judaism to their inferior position within the community: Had Jewish women found work, status, and appreciation within the Jewish community that was commensurate with their energy and capabilities before it was already too late, then we would not have to mourn the loss of those who, in their legitimate desire for activity and personal development, let go of the tie that bound them to their tribe. They now unsympathetically turn their backs on us.25 Presenting two case studies in “The Redeemer,” Pappenheim drew attention 21. Endelman, “The Social and Political Context of Conversion in Germany and England, 1870–1914,” in Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, 90. ¨ 22. Jakob Thon, “Taufbewegung in Osterreich,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden, 4, no. 1 (January 1908): 6–12, see 9. 23. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung,” ¨ in 3. Delegiertentag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes. Berlin: Judischer ¨ Frauenbund, n.d., ca.1911, 3. 24. Ibid. 25. Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 245.

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to three especially vulnerable Jewish groups at risk for conversion: pogrom orphans, illegitimate children, and agunot (abandoned wives). Exposing in melodramatic form the shortcomings of traditional Jewish philanthropy, Pappenheim sought to exploit the Jewish community’s fear of large-scale apostasy in order to garner support for specific social work projects and religious reforms. In the story, the first target of the Catholics is Wolf, a newly orphaned thirteen-year-old Russian Jewish pogrom refugee—according to Pappenheim one of the types most frequently targeted by the missionaries in London’s East End.26 Pappenheim describes in great detail the strategy used by Catholic Seelenfanger ¨ (soul snatchers). When Wolf emerges, shortly after his mother’s death, to look for an odd job and food, he is intercepted by a Yiddish-speaking missionary who already knows his name and the details of his recent loss and living conditions. He lures Wolf to the mission house with an offer of employment and on the way engages him in conversation. Appealing to Wolf’s “traditionally Jewish” love for learning, he tempts him with the prospect of learning English and piques his curiosity with allusions to a “sequel” to the Jewish Bible “that is even more beautiful than the Old Testament.” His strategy elicits a positive response: “Despite his hunger and sorrow, the desire to debate and, even a bit the desire to let his light shine, stirred within the little Russian heder pupil.”27 Wolf follows the missionary, “without a bit of reservation or the slightest resistance” because the missionary’s command of Yiddish and the Hebrew letters on the sign at the door leave him secure in the belief that he is entering “a Jewish house.”28 Despite these tempting lures, however, Wolf does not stay at the mission house. He flees when he sees a crucifix, which at once evokes in him horrific memories of a pogrom in Russia. He recalls: Outside, the Christians, drunk with blood, had dragged a Jewish boy to the crucifix and forced him to kneel before it. The boy’s father leapt forth and stabbed his son in the back with a kitchen knife. A moment later they stoned and kicked the father and son to death.29 Because of Wolf’s Jewish sensibilities, he is able to resist the Christian missionaries. Having witnessed Christian atrocities, he is not fooled by the 26. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 4. 27. Ibid., 7. 28. Ibid., 8–9. 29. Ibid., 11.

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slogan “Peace be with you” on the mission door. Moreover, he was indoctrinated as a child with the view that apostasy (Abtrunnigwerden) ¨ was “despicable” and to be avoided at all costs, even martyrdom. Drawing from the past, he derives strength from Jewish practice and teaching. As a boy who was already a “bar mitzvah,” he is, at age 13, a full member of the community and one who has been imbued with the fundamentals of Jewish learning.30 Having been raised by a devout mother, he hears in his mind her “admonishing, warning voice” and flees the mission house bolstered by memories of her reading the Shema from her worn prayer book.31 Pappenheim personally made repeated efforts to save orphans, especially pogrom orphans like Wolf, and restore them to the Jewish community. In August 1906, for example (together with the Aid Association of the German Jews and the Relief Committee for the Needy Eastern European Jews), she arranged for Jewish homes for 110 Russian children orphaned by pogroms, and she personally accompanied ten of them to England, where they would be cared for under the aegis of the Russo-Jewish-Committee.32 In 1924 she petitioned the Judische ¨ Welthilfskonferenz (Jewish World Relief Conference) to establish a Weltsammelvormundschaft fur ¨ verlassene, schutz- und erziehungsbedurftige ¨ Kinder (World Collective Guardianship for Abandoned Children and Children in Need of Protection and Education). The World Collective Guardianship would benefit minor-aged immigrants; children who had resided in a country for a longer period of time, but for whom local authorities were not responsible because of foreign citizenship; or children whom local Jewish organizations could not afford to support.33 In this petition too, Pappenheim appealed to her audience’s fear of a conversion epidemic, cautioning that “great numbers” of children who fell through the cracks both of state social programs and of traditional Jewish philanthropy were likely to “be lured into missions and stolen from Judaism.”34 In another letter, she listed pogrom and war orphans (such as Wolf) as the chief beneficiaries of the World Collective Guardianship, noting that “all of Jewry” must assume re-

30. Ibid., 15. 31. Ibid., 11. 32. “Berlin, 12. August,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 33 (August 17, 1906): Gemeindebote, 1; “Berlin, 28. August,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 35 (August 31, 1906): Gemeindebote, 1. 33. Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 61. 34. Ibid., 62.

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sponsibility for vulnerable Jewish children, regardless of their national heritage, because these children were a “fountain of hope” for world Jewry.35 According to Todd M. Endelman, Pappenheim’s criticisms were valid: “thousands of immigrants” in England availed themselves of the services of missions, “because the relief and services provided by agencies of the native Jewish community were inadequate.” However, not all Jews who took advantage of mission services converted.36 Wolf’s story also draws attention to deserted wives (agunot), another vulnerable group that Pappenheim sought to rescue for the Jewish community. Wolf’s father had immigrated to the United States, leaving his wife and children behind with the promise he would send for them as soon as he was settled. When they never heard from him again (it is unclear whether he fell ill, died, or simply abandoned them), they became destitute, and Wolf’s mother and his two younger siblings died of an infectious disease (the precise malady is not identified, but Pappenheim’s description of the family’s living quarters suggests that it could have been tuberculosis, another concern of the JFB),37 leaving Wolf orphaned. Responding to the plight of the agunah, in 1929 Pappenheim petitioned a rabbinical council in Vienna to revise an “outdated interpretation” of Jewish law that forbade “abandoned wives” from remarrying. Arguing that this law was inhumane and discriminated against women whose husbands were killed or went missing in wars and pogroms, Pappenheim cautioned that here too the Jewish community was guilty of driving “especially the best, youngest, and healthiest Jews, who have a zest for life and are the most capable of reproducing” to conversion or prostitution and other immoral lifestyles.38 Another conversion narrative in “The Redeemer” focuses on the Jewish community’s neglect of a third vulnerable segment of the population, illegiti35. Ibid., 64. 36. Endelman, “The Social and Political Context of Conversion in Germany and England,” 100–101. In Germany, on the other hand, “there is no evidence to suggest that missionaries were responsible for more than a small fraction of total converts from Judaism to Christianity.” Christopher M. Clark, The Politics of Conversion: Missionary Protestantism and the Jews in Prussia, 1728–1941 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1995): 7. 37. The JFB had a commission devoted to tuberculosis prevention and the care of Jewish children suffering from or at risk for tuberculosis. They founded a sanatorium in Wyk auf Fohr ¨ in 1926. Hannah Karminski, “Die soziale Arbeit des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes im letzten Jahrzehnt,” Zedakah (July 1928): 16–24, see 19. 38. Bertha Pappenheim, “Hilfe fur ¨ die Agunoh (Eheverlassene Frau),” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ Special issue, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12 (1936): 20–21.

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mate children. After Wolf escapes from the mission, he becomes the self-appointed protector of an abandoned illegitimate child, Reisle, who frequents the mission house.39 Despite his fears that she would be baptized, Wolf resolves to allow Reisle to continue to attend the mission school because she was learning to read and sew, and “had changed for the better” since visiting there: Before long, Reisle wasn’t wearing a head-scarf anymore. Instead, a clean cloth cap was perched on her hair, which had been combed straight and braided tightly into two long braids. Her movements became calmer. The pronounced impudence that she once had was gone. This pleased Wolf, because he knew that his mother had always severely criticized these rude habits in her own and in other children, and because he knew that the children in the Jewish Free School didn’t become so straight, clean, and pretty so quickly. The boy … was sensible enough to see that Reisle’s new manner was better and more cultured.40 It was not uncommon for Pappenheim to try to motivate reforms in Jewish social services by comparing them unfavorably to Christian, especially Catholic social services. In Sisyphus-Work, she described a number of Catholic social programs in glowing terms. Although she was aware that they practiced “soul-snatching,” she nonetheless proposed that Jews emulate the exemplary women’s and children’s social welfare services of the Catholic Ochrono kobiet Frauenschutz in Warsaw: “The system has to change, and I recommend the Catholic organization as a model, even to those who get goose-flesh when they hear me say it.”41 In this same letter, Pappenheim 39. Reisle is called a Mamser, a term which technically applied only to children born of adulterous relationships, but was frequently used to refer pejoratively to any illegitimate child. This misuse of the term appears to have been common. The August 1931 issue of the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes even printed a clarification of its meaning. Jakob Hoffmann, “Was unter einem Mamser zu verstehen ist,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 7, no. 8 (August 1931): 6. 40. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 16. This description of Reisle’s transformation (the straightening of curly hair, replacing Eastern headwear, toning down gesticulation) reflects Pappenheim’s internalization of antisemitic stereotypes of Jews, especially Eastern European Jews. 41. She also mentions several other Catholic hospitals, orphanages, etc. that succeeded in using their social services to recruit converts because the Jewish community failed to meet the needs of its vulnerable members. Pappenheim observes that Christians built schools in Jewish neighborhoods in Smyrna and Constantinople to attract converts. She reports that the sole purpose of Scotch Hospital in Smyrna was “soul-snatching” and that it had great success because it was the only hospital that would treat Jews. Pappenheim,

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criticized Eastern European Jewish communities for ostracizing unwed Jewish mothers and their illegitimate children. She argued that the community’s small-mindedness (Jewish orphanages refused to take in illegitimate children) drove women either to have abortions or to surrender their children to the Catholic Church: Of course they perform abortions, an illegitimate child is a disgrace, and if such a creature manages, despite their attempts, to survive, then they give it to the Sacred Heart Hospital, because the Catholic Church is sensible enough to accept these valuable gifts of human resources with pleasure…. There is no alternative—for all their Jewish ethics—but death or baptism.42 Here too, the villains were not the Catholics—who were merely sensible and merciful enough to accept these human cast-offs—but the misguided “morals” of the Jewish community.43 Pappenheim also brought the problem of illegitimate children closer to home, citing similar cases where children were lost to the Jewish community in Germany. In her “Introduction to the Association for the Welfare of At Risk Youth” she reported: “For four weeks I have known … that two Jewish children were given away, given to Christians, and that two other Jewish children were ‘disposed of’ by their mothers. Two unmarried Jewish mothers under the age of twenty gave birth to their children and killed them.”44 Beyond the horror of such infanticide, Pappenheim argued that it was unconscionable to lose potentially vital members of the community at a time when the Jewish population in Germany was already in decline due to conversion, low birth rates, the use of birth

Sisyphus-Arbeit, 157, 82–83. In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim reports that Christian orphanages took in large numbers of Jewish orphans because the Jewish community failed to provide adequate services. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 18. 42. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 158–59. 43. In another letter Pappenheim complains of moral hypocrisy within the Jewish community in Eastern Europe in regard to illegitimate children: “But because an ‘indiscretion’ is a stigma among Jews that precludes marriage, there are no illegitimate children, despite the countless premarital transgressions. Midwives, doctors, and illegal abortionists help to destroy the seeds of new life or the new-born child. That is how something that was well meant in Jewish ethics becomes a caricature of itself….” Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 146–47. 44. Bertha Pappenheim, “Einfuhrung ¨ in den Arbeitskreis fur ¨ Gefahrdeten-Fursorge,” ¨ ¨ Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 8, no. 7 (1932): 2–4, 4.

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control, so-called mixed marriages, negative eugenics, “social grounds [soziale Indikation],” and suicide.45 In a speech against the legalization of abortion, Pappenheim stated clearly that the German Jewish community’s obligation toward Jewish unwed mothers and illegitimate children extended beyond Germany’s borders and foreign Jews living in Germany. She wrote: “If we want to survive, then we must have the desire—like I and others whose outlook extends far beyond Germany do— to support every Jewish mother, wherever she may be, and her children.”46 Whereas the World Collective Guardianship targeted at risk Jewish children (including illegitimate ones), Pappenheim founded the JFB Home in Isenburg to rescue Jewish unwed mothers and other “at risk girls,” the “step-children of fate.”47Reisle’s story can be read as propaganda for Isenburg. Had Reisle’s mother found a haven at Isenburg as an expectant unwed mother, both she and her daughter could have been reintegrated into the community; or Reisle could have been rehabilitated there later herself after falling prey to child prostitution. Pappenheim stresses that Reisle, as a girl (especially an illegitimate one), did not enjoy the religious education that enabled Wolf to resist the temptations of the mission house. As an abandoned mamser, Reisle received no aid from the community. Before Wolf befriended her, her only “benefactor” was Muhme Rifke, who exploited and abused her. When Wolf discovers that Reisle has been baptized, he chastises her, asking how she could forget “the teachings of our God, of the God of the Jews.”48 She counters: “I didn’t forget anything. I never saw any sign of a god. Muhme Rifke only told me what I should eat and what is forbidden to eat.”49 Years later Wolf interrogates Reisle about her second conversion to Christianity, “But you were more mature then. Didn’t you feel that you were doing wrong?”50 Unlike Wolf, who grew up firmly ensconced in Jewish learning and tradition, Reisle felt no remorse: No. Wronging whom, what? I don’t even know why I am a Jew. I only take notice when it is a nuisance. And it is lovely to pray and to think about Christ, who looks so beautiful and gentle, and to decorate his 45. Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 73. 46. Bertha Pappenheim, “Diskussionsrede von Bertha Pappenheim,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 11 (November 1930): 3–5, 4. 47. Karminski, “Die soziale Arbeit des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes im letzten Jahrzehnt,” 20. 48. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 18. 49. Ibid., 19. 50. Ibid., 34.

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picture with flowers, and to love him as my redeemer, and to cling to him with a burning passion so blissful that I can’t even begin to describe it.51 For Reisle, being Jewish only means following “bothersome” rules without appreciation of their origins and meanings. She is the case in point for Pappenheim’s general observation in the introduction to the story: younger Jews, especially women, will abandon Judaism if, for lack of proper religious education, they begin to view Jewish ritual observance not as “the fence protecting a wonderful garden” but as a “prison wall.” Reisle’s story also serves as propaganda for Isenburg’s religious philosophy and orientation. Pappenheim named “striving for a life illumined by Jewish religion” as one of the three main pedagogical approaches for reforming wayward girls at Isenburg.52 The “strict observance of Jewish ritual” (kashrut and the observance of the Sabbath and holidays) was “absolute law” at Isenburg, but Pappenheim made sure that her charges developed, at the same time, an understanding of and appreciation for all Jewish practices.53 In addition to formal religious instruction, where the girls learned to read Hebrew in order to understand their prayers and follow services, Pappenheim took every opportunity to give impromptu lessons, seeking to transform religious observance from burdensome obligation to meaningful and beloved tradition.54 Pappenheim viewed the Sabbath, in particular, “with its preparation and pre-celebration on Friday evenings,” as the cornerstone of Isenburg’s education. She described Isenburg’s Sabbath tradition: In addition to those traditionally prescribed elements, a simple Isenburg minhag [rite] evolved: a prayer that could be understood by all, a cheerful get-together over a good meal, singing by the glow of the candles, reading, recitations by the children, merry parliamentary discussions, fruit, chocolate, and sweets… all of the children who have left us are homesick for these Friday evenings!55 51. Ibid. 52. Bertha Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg 1914–1924 (Frankfurt a.M.: R.Th. Hauser, 1926), 21. 53. Ibid., 32. 54. Gertrud Ehrenwerth, “Im Heim” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 13–15, 14. Ehrenwerth recounts how Pappenheim took it upon herself to show the children how to clean and dress chickens (given to the home for Friday evening dinner), using it as an opportunity to explain dietary law and food preparation. 55. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg 1914–1924, 26.

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In “A Weakling,” the final story of the Struggles collection, Pappenheim exposes another dangerous blind spot of traditional Orthodox Judaism: its unwillingness to respond to the younger generation’s yearning for secular culture and integration into the dominant society. In this story Gabriel, the son of a prominent Pressburg rabbi and Talmud scholar, begins to question his calling (as a rabbi’s only son he was expected to follow in his father’s footsteps) after he is introduced to the fine arts by his new neighbors, a Catholic musician and his daughter, Magdalena. Torn between feelings of guilt and the “irresistible magic” of the art and music that fill his neighbors’ home, Gabriel begins to question his upbringing: Why did father teach him that it is forbidden to make images? Why was everything that represented beauty banned from the house? Was it a sin to derive pleasure from beauty? Would God have created beauty if man were not allowed to take pleasure in it? Why did he always have to pray in a foreign language? Were the people less good who prayed to God only when they felt the need to and each in his own way?56 Gabriel’s alienation from his father’s restrictive Judaism, which held the fine arts in low esteem, results in his gravitation toward his neighbors’ Catholicism, which not only permitted artistic pursuits but promoted them.57 Christian music and visual arts (the “Ave Maria,” church hymns, the “Madonna del Granduca,” the “Young John the Baptist” by Murillo and Rafael, the Sistine Madonna, and Durer ¨ engravings) are the objects associated with Gabriel’s growing infatuation with art. Pappenheim stresses that ultra-Orthodox Judaism’s self-imposed isolation from the secular world intensified Gabriel’s attraction to the arts, and in turn his rebellion against the “shackles” of his father’s religion.58 It must be noted here that the type of Orthodoxy that Pappenheim criticized in this story was not the norm in Germany. German Orthodoxy (sometimes referred to as Neo-Orthodoxy), which is associated with Samson Raphael Hirsch (who advocated Torah im derekh eretz, the belief that Torah-loyal Judaism was compatible with integration and acculturation into the dominant

56. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 148. 57. The figure Gabriel may have been inspired in part by Philipp Veit (1793–1877), who was also a convert to Christianity. Veit, a painter in the Nazarene School, was the son of Dorothea Mendelssohn Veit Schlegel, Moses Mendelssohn’s daughter. Helga Heubach, personal communication to the author; Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v., “Philipp Veit.” 58. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 145, 148, 157.

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secular culture), did not vilify secular pursuits, including the arts.59 By setting “The Weakling” in Pressburg, Pappenheim referenced the explicitly antimodern “unbending and militant” Hungarian Orthodoxy that was shaped by Moses Sofer and his Pressburg Yeshiva. According to Michael A. Meyer, Sofer “preached uncompromising rejection of modern culture as the only way in which Judaism could survive. For generations, the influence of Sofer, his disciples, and his descendants made Hungary into a bastion of resistance to modernity.”60 In “Hungarian Village Story,” Pappenheim contrived another scenario in which the self-imposed insularity of Hungarian Orthodox Jews actually increased the likelihood of conversion.61 In this story Hannah, the only child of the widower Ephraim, lives in extreme isolation. Father and daughter are the only Jews in their village, and Ephraim does not take Hannah to synagogue in the next village or allow her to visit public school or speak to Gentiles. Because her world does not extend beyond her small household, Hannah, who is nearing marriageable age, becomes enamored of Josy, the first young man she meets, a Gentile who aided her father when he fainted after a day of fasting. Her infatuation with Josy breeds a fascination with his stories of Catholic saints and of the Virgin Mary and her miraculous interventions.62 Hannah is a female counterpart to Gabriel. For both, the isolation that is meant to reinforce religious beliefs has the opposite effect. Gabriel is drawn to Christian art and Hannah to a Christian man. When Josy learns of an impending pogrom, he offers Ephraim and Hannah protection in exchange for Hannah’s baptism and her hand in marriage. Ephraim, for whom baptism is worse than death, resolves to flee secretly with his daughter. But their flight coincides with a flood alarm; and Josy, responding to the alarm, intercepts them. Torn between her loyalty to her father and religion and her love for Josy, Hannah throws herself into the raging waters of the flood-swollen river and drowns.63 59. For a comprehensive overview of German Orthodoxy see Mordechai Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition: The Social History of Orthodox Jewry in Imperial Germany (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992): Chapter 4, “Literature, Art, and Science,” deals with Orthodox German Jews’ attitudes toward the arts, their artistic production, and their behavior as consumers of art, music, and fiction (149–214). 60. Michael A. Meyer, Response to Modernity: A History of the Reform Movement in Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 157–58. 61. Pappenheim, “Ungarische Dorfgeschichte,” in Kampfe, ¨ 67–101. 62. Ibid., 83–84. 63. This is not Pappenheim’s only conversion narrative (or would-be conversion narra-

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In “A Weakling,” when Gabriel’s father learns that his son has been taught to draw by his Catholic neighbors and plans to become an artist, he accuses Gabriel’s tutor Magdalena of proselytizing, of using art to “lure him into her net,” to “win a soul” for the Catholic Church. Gabriel assures him that Magdalena never attempted to convert him (indeed, when they meet again later in the story, Magdalena disapproves of his baptism until she learns that his father is no longer alive and would not be hurt by his actions), and that he had no intention of abandoning his faith but aspired to honor God by using his God-given talent: She never dreamt of trying to win me for her church, and I never dreamt of deserting our faith. She simply introduced me to so many beautiful things that are never talked about in our school, and she taught me to emulate them. That can’t be a sin, Father, not against God nor against man. God created beauty, and he gave me talent, so that I can nurture it so that it thrives, so I can become an artist. People will say I am blessed by God, not godless.64

tive) ending in tragedy. In “The Redeemer,” Wolf “re-enacts” a scene of kiddush ha-Shem he had witnessed in childhood. He stabs Reisle to death, as he had seen a father stab his son when Christians forced him to kneel down before a cross. Significantly, Wolf stabs not “Reisle” but “Mareia,” the name Reisle had received at baptism. Clearly Wolf acts not solely out of religious conviction but also out of jealous rage—he kills Reisle when he discovers that she is still a prostitute and will never be the sort of Jewish wife he envisions. In “A Weakling” Gabriel/Johannes ultimately commits suicide when he realizes that his conversion was a terrible mistake, the first link in a long “chain of lies.” Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 42, 187–88. 64. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 154.The theme of the troubled artist (visual artists, musicians, writers, actors, etc.) in Hasidic and other Orthodox Jewish communities is a recurrent one in Jewish literature. Some better known examples are Austrian writer Karl Emil Franzos’s (1848–1904) Der Pojaz (Hamburg: Europaische ¨ Verlagsanstalt, 1994 [1905]), Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem’s (1859–1916) trilogy Stempenyu (Odessa: A. Warchawer, 1888), Yosele Solovey (New York: Sholem Aleichen Folksfond, 1919), Blonzhende shtern (New York: Hebrew Publishing, 1920) and American novelist/painter Chaim Potok’s (1929–2002) My Name is Asher Lev (New York: Fawcett, 1972) and The Gift of Asher Lev (New York: Knopf, 1990). See also my essay “Karl Emil Franzos and Bertha Pappenheim’s Portraits of the (Eastern European Jewish) Artist,” in The Jews of Eastern Europe, ed. Leonard J. Greenspoon, Ronald A. Simkins, and Brian J. Horowitz (Omaha: Creighton University Press, 2005), 79–100. Recent critical work and anthologies on Jewish artists and “Jewish art,” especially the visual arts, include Margaret Olin’s The Nation Without Art: Examining Modern Discourses on Jewish Art (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), Kalman P. Bland’s The Artless Jew: Medieval and Modern Affirmations and Denials of the

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For Reb Mordechai, however, being an artist is synonymous with “apostasy”: “Artist! That means living the life of a vagabond, not wearing tefillin, not keeping the Sabbath, eating and drinking indiscriminately, and painting gods and saints!”65 Although it is a great sacrifice for him to be separated from his “Dearest” and “Golden Boy,” Reb Mordechai arranges for Gabriel to become the apprentice of a strictly Orthodox merchant in order to remove him from the influence of his Christian neighbors: “It is better for me to do without the sunshine of my life than for his soul to be harmed.”66 Ironically, the very measures taken to ensure Gabriel’s loyalty to Judaism result in his conversion. After running away from his apprenticeship, Gabriel works as a sign-painter in Vienna, where he becomes easy prey for Catholic missionaries. Totally isolated and devastated by news of his father’s death, Gabriel contemplates suicide. A priest who had been watching him intercedes in the very moment that Gabriel prepares to throw himself into the Danube. Although at first wary of the priest, who wore the garb “that he had been taught to hate since he was a little boy, because it was the sign of the unbeliever and of the persecution of his tribe,” Gabriel, starving for human contact and for the leadership of a new father figure, follows him like a child: The strange, wonderful, impossible thing that he longed for just a few minutes ago, had come true: a man had broken loose from the tangled mass of strangers to share in his fate!… His need for affection and his yearning to be understood were so great that he surrendered himself like a child, with no will of his own, to the priest’s direction.67 The priest leads Gabriel to Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Gabriel resists, mumbling, “I am bad,” but finally submits to the priest, who consoles him, “You are not bad, you are an unhappy creature. What your soul needs is love and beauty and art, and among us you will find it.”68 Gabriel converts to Visual (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), and Vivian B. Mann’s Jewish Texts on the Visual Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 65. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 155. Some traditionalists, especially among the Hungarian Orthodox, had a broader understanding of “apostasy,” which included any reforming gestures. Moses Sofer, for example (at the time of the Hamburg Temple Controversy in 1819) advocated excommunicating reformers. He “failed to distinguish between Jews who converted to another religion and those who simply left the Orthodox fold.” David Ellenson, “The Orthodox Rabbinate and Apostasy in Nineteenth-Century Germany and Hungary,” in Endelman, Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World, 165–88, 168–69. 66. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 158. 67. Ibid., 168. 68. Ibid.

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Catholicism (becoming Johannes Gabriel), and the Church finances his art studies in Rome. Although certainly not uncritical of Catholic missionaries who stalk prospective converts in order to pounce on them at their most vulnerable moment, Pappenheim here again blames primarily the Jewish community for driving its own members to apostasy. The story takes ultra-Orthodox Jews (represented by Reb Mordechai) to task for alienating the younger generation by demonizing secular culture (which is, of course, never entirely secular but intertwined with the dominant religion). A positive counterpart to Reb Mordechai (who essentially leads his son into the arms of Catholic missionaries) can be found in Reb Wolf of Pappenheim’s story “Miracle Rabbi.” When Reb Wolf discovers his son’s love of secular German literature, he does not punish him but makes personal sacrifices in order to enable him to study literature in Vienna. Although Pappenheim’s father remained connected to Hungarian Orthodoxy after settling in Vienna, the family’s habits with regard to secular culture were more consistent with those of German modern Orthodox Jews. Pappenheim’s activism and writings certainly affirm the coexistence and compatibility of secular culture and Judaism in her life, and she was highly critical of more conservative (especially Eastern European) Orthodox factions that vilified secular culture.69 In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, for example, Pappenheim derided the Hasidic heder (the Orthodox Jewish elementary school in which young boys and sometimes girls learned Hebrew and Torah) for its exclusion of secular subjects: “All other knowledge is frowned upon. Because it is said, ‘Everything that you need and that will help you, you will find in the Talmud. If it is not in the Talmud, then you do not need it, and you shouldn’t know it.’”70 69. In Sisyphus-Arbeit she even mentions personally being drawn to specific artworks portraying Christian themes. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 176, 199. 70. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 11. In 1908 Pappenheim was indicted for libel against the teachers of the Frankfurt Orthodox Jewish Elementary School, which she had supposedly insulted in a public meeting by calling the school a heder. “Frankfurt a.M., 30. Mai.” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 72, no. 23 (June 5, 1908): Gemeindebote, 3. Pappenheim was opposed to Jewish elementary schools, “for a normal, healthy child,” because their “one-sided perspective coddles and isolates rather than toughening them for life’s struggles.” The “Jewish house,” not the school, should be the “site of Jewish education and culture.” “Judischer ¨ Frauenbund,” Neue Judische ¨ Presse 19, no. 45 (December 1, 1921): 2.

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Pappenheim insisted that Isenburg “be run steadfastly according to strict ritual practice and with a consciously Jewish spirit [bewusst geistig judisch].” ¨ But like the majority of German Jews (including most Orthodox), she objected to the notion that there was a conflict between Judaism and the knowledge, appreciation, and enjoyment of secular culture, especially the fine arts.71 Indeed, her “Ideas for Continuing the Work of the Home” included arranging lectures, children’s plays, and music on Sunday evenings.72 Helene Kramer, ¨ who grew up in the Jewish girls’ orphanage that Pappenheim directed prior to founding Isenburg, remembers: “… she also sought to awaken in us an appreciation for art and aesthetics, and I remember visiting museums in the immediate vicinity and beyond.”73 Johanna Stahl, another of Pappenheim’s charges, remembers: “Only the best was good enough for our intellectual education. Lectures, concerts, theater, books, the lovely special hours when we did fine handicrafts while she read especially well written novellas to us.”74 In 1929 Pappenheim commissioned sculptor F. Kormis (who also sculpted her likeness) to craft a fountain, “The Exiled Stork,” for the garden in Isenburg.75 The fine arts were also important in efforts to raise funds for the home. In 1911 one of Pappenheim’s plays was staged as a benefit, directed by a Fraulein Klinkhammer of the Frankfurt Schauspielhaus.76 Other fundraisers ¨ included a 1925 production of Goethe’s Jahrmarktfest zu Plundersweile (Market Festival at Plundersweile) with actors from the Neuen Theater; the sale of a plaque by the Jewish artist Leo Horowitz depicting the “Discovery of the Infant Moses;”77 and the sale of Pappenheim’s own original hand-beaded

71. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg: 1914–1924, 32. 72. Ibid., 33 73. Helene Kramer, ¨ “Erste padagogische ¨ Arbeit: Madchenwaisenhaus,” ¨ in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 5. 74. Johanna Stahl,. ibid.,: 5–6. 75. Ida Wolf, “Ein Geschenk fur ¨ das Isenburger Heim” [clipping], Dora Edinger papers, B86/738, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. Fred Kormis (1897–1986) was born in Frankfurt, a.M. He served in the Austrian army during World War I (he was a prisoner-of-war in Siberia from 1915 to 1920). He lived in Germany until 1933, when he emigrated to England via Paris. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Fred Kormis.” 76. “Frankfurt a.M., 29. Januar,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 75, no. 5 (February 3, 1911): Gemeindebote, 3. 77. Leopold Horovitz (1838–1917) was a Hungarian artist trained in Vienna. He was best known for portraiture (his sitters include Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph) and genre scenes.

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necklaces.78 She even integrated the arts into religious observance at Isenburg. She composed for her charges a “Schabboslied” (Sabbath Song) set to music 79 and wrote a Purim-play, “Die Haselnusstorte” (The by Jakob Schonberg ¨ Hazelnut Cake),80 to be performed by the children. Sara Eisenstadt, ¨ a close associate, explained: “Bertha Pappenheim attributed great pedagogical value to aesthetic beauty.”81 Her efforts at Isenburg notwithstanding, Pappenheim did not completely absolve the individual convert of responsibility for his or her actions. Although she portrayed Gabriel as a victim of the Pressburg Orthodox community’s insularity and narrow-mindedness, near the end of the story, Johannes Gabriel (now married to Magdalena) falls in love with a young Jewish woman, Klara Salzer, who condemns his conversion as “weakness of character:” “Today, when we Jews are subject to constant attack, every Jew must stand by the others, no matter how much of a free-thinker he is in religious matters. It is cowardly and dishonorable to go over to the camp of the attackers.”82 Klara Salzer acts here as a spokesperson for Pappenheim, who attacked opportunistic converts in her 1910 opening remarks to the Third Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in almost identical terms: “Baptism and desertion show weakness of character and degeneration.”83 In this speech she was referring especially to Jews who converted only for social or professional advancement.84 Gabriel 78. Heubach, Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, 33, 99; “Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 16, no. 17 (April 26, 1918): 2. 79. Bertha Pappenheim, “Schabboslied,” in Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 305. 80. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Haselnusstorte: Ein Theaterstuck ¨ zum Purim-Fest fur ¨ die Kinder des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, Taunusstrasse 9,” in Heubach, Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, 93–98. 81. Sara Eisenstadt, ¨ “Die Dienstag-Gaste,” ¨ in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 23–24, see 24. That Pappenheim sat for numerous portraits (a painting by Leopold Pilichowski in 1925, two drawings by Samson Schames in ca. 1930, a drawing by Joseph Oppenheimer in 1934) attests to her liberal interpretation of the second commandment, which is frequently cited as the source of Jewish aniconism and the resultant marginalization of the visual arts. 82. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 184. 83. Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung,” ¨ 2. 84. The condemnation of opportunistic converts was widespread. Just a few of the numerous articles critical of such converts include: “Judentaufe und Staatsinteresse”; “Von der Taufe der Juden,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 71, no. 15 (April 12, 1907): 169–70; “Die Taufseuche in Wien.” Like Pappenheim, the authors of these articles are

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was a case in point. His conversion was motivated in part by the antisemitism he had suffered in Vienna. On the very day that he followed the Catholic priest into the cathedral, he had been subjected to anti-Jewish slurs from his coworkers. He also feared that he would be fired by his employer, who was already paying him lower wages because he was Jewish. These experiences contributed to his apostasy: “Without work—without bread. The Chosen People— chosen to be kicked around! What are we proud of? Of our talent for suffering!?”85 Twenty-one years after the “The Weakling” first appeared, Pappenheim wrote “The Inheritance,” a story that takes place shortly after the “shock of April 1933,” an economic boycott followed by the institution of a series of antisemitic laws that called for the removal of Jews, even baptized Jews, from public office.86 The later story illustrates that the 1933 events were especially shocking for converts like the protagonist Professor Goldenherz, who had long dissociated himself from his Jewish heritage. Goldenherz had converted to Christianity a quarter century earlier in order to rise to the position of full professor (a title virtually unattainable for Jews who refused baptism).87 With neither the support of the Jewish community nor the solace of religious faith (either Jewish or Christian), Goldenherz faces extreme difficulty in reorienting himself to the new political reality.88 Pappenheim describes the pain of this transition: “He was shattered. His children too, who only had a faint suspicion of their parents’ origins, could understandably make neither heads nor tails of it.”89 Distant relatives in America soon learn of the world-famous professor’s misfortune and inform him by letter that he can take possession of an “inheritance” if he can provide proof of his origins. Goldenherz documents precisely that aspect of his identity especially critical of wealthy converts from the upper social classes, who betrayed their origins to climb still higher, and Jews who committed “Fahnenflucht” (the term for military desertion) in times of heightened antisemitism. 85. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 161–62. 86. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Erbschaft,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 11 (1933): 277–78. 87. Endelman, “Social and Political Context of Conversion in England and Germany,” 89–90. 88. Presbyterian missionaries in the United States (especially Conrad Hoffmann, the director of the Department of Jewish Evangelization) made efforts to help “non-Aryan Christians” flee Nazi Germany. Yaakov Ariel, Evangelizing the Chosen People: Missions to the Jews in America, 1880–2000 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 128–29. Protestant missions of various denominations also remained open and active in Germany until 1941. Clark, The Politics of Conversion, 289–303. 89. Pappenheim, “Die Erbschaft,” 277.

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that he had hitherto taken pains to obscure, his Jewishness. He gathers together artifacts of his Jewish past that had been hidden in a secret compartment of an old chest since his conversion: “old letters in an illegible script, a signet ring, a little box in the shape of a tower, and then another peculiar instrument, a hand with a pointing finger, and similar strange things.”90 The evidence suffices and Goldenherz takes possession of his inheritance: a yellowed sheet of paper with the Shema, the Ten Commandments, and the words “Love your neighbor as yourself” in Hebrew. Pappenheim concludes the story: The Goldenherz family is said to have been shattered once again. We do not yet know how the story continues, but the inheritance was great and good and valuable, and one would hope that all laid-off [abgebaut] baptized academics will receive it.91 Because the ever-opportunistic professor had likely hoped for an inheritance of considerable material value, he is certainly disappointed; but by leaving the story open-ended, Pappenheim allows for the possibility that this emotional moment of revelation may also bring Goldenherz a realization of the value of what he had foolishly abandoned and the possibility for renewed strength and direction. While Pappenheim does not exonerate Goldenherz, she allows for his redemption. This potentially optimistic ending suggests that she naively believed that some good could come from National Socialist antisemitism. Marion Kaplan concurs: “Even when the Nazis destroyed the rule of law, Pappenheim’s first reaction seems to have been that the forcible return of Jews to their faith was not an entirely negative phenomenon.”92 Pappenheim’s June 1933 essay “The Individual and the Community” also looks at a potentially positive side-effect of these dire events.93 Here she reasons that the compulsory exclusion from public life may at least result in the strengthening of “family ties and religious life.” She closes: 90. Ibid. It is likely that the “illegible” letters are written in Yiddish or German in Hebrew script. The “peculiar instrument” in the shape of a hand with pointing finger is a yad, a Torah pointer. Among Ashkenazi Jews the box containing aromatic spices (hadas) used in the Havdalah ceremony was customarily in the form of a fortified tower. Pappenheim may have known that the oldest known examples of these boxes (from the mid-16th century) were from Germany. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v., “Havdalah.” 91. Pappenheim, “Die Erbschaft,” 278. 92. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 50. 93. Pappenheim, “Der Einzelne und die Gemeinschaft,” 1.

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Love and common sense, strength and money can help to make this time, which is meant to publicly degrade and humiliate us, a time of self-respect, of religious spiritualization, and dignified self-reflection. The gravity of this time can be the path to and preparation for a healthy, joyful future. 94 Pappenheim’s reaction to the enactment of the 1933 “bringing into line” (Gleichschaltung), the National Socialist euphemism for Nazification, is fully in keeping with her unwavering belief that this flare-up of antisemitism would blow over, like others before it, and that Jews would continue to have a place in German culture. Even in the 1930s, Pappenheim believed that the Jewish community was partly to blame for its inability to retain its own members. She wrote in a 1931 Denkzettel, “You can only feel oppressed by your Jewishness if you are not proud of it.”95 The Jewish community was in danger of losing members because it failed to instill in its members a sense of pride strong enough to overcome adversity.96 Gabriel converts to Catholicism because he cannot answer the question “What are we proud of?”97 Goldenherz renounces his belonging to the Jewish community because it inhibits his professional and social advancement. According to Pappenheim’s reasoning, if either man had identified with his Jewish heritage, he would not have felt compelled to seek his self-worth elsewhere. In 1934 Pappenheim answered Gabriel’s question in “The Genuine Ring,” her own rendition of the “Ring Parable” from Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s Nathan the Wise.98 In Lessing’s drama, the Jewish Nathan is asked by the Muslim Sultan Saladin, “Which religion (Judaism, Christianity, or Islam) is the ‘true’ one?” Nathan answers in a parable. Long ago, a man in the Orient 94. Ibid. 95. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 188. 96. Pappenheim was not alone in this belief. In 1910 a Rabbi Dr. Werner proposed a similar recipe for preventing conversion. In addition to ostracizing apostates, the community should strive to “consciously educate [its members] to be proud Jews.” Werner added that state sanctioned antisemitism would end if individual Jews refused to convert: “If all Jews would stand fast by Judaism, then the state would have to grant them every right because it cannot manage without the energies of Jews. But because the state can simply use baptized Jews, it can deprive other Jews of their rights.” “Judentaufe und Staatsinteresse,” 10. 97. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 162. 98. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Nathan der Weise: Ein dramatisches Gedicht in funf ¨ Aufzugen ¨ (Berlin: C.F. Voss, 1779), Act 3, Scene 7.

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possessed a priceless ring that had the ability to make its wearer beloved of God and man. The ring was passed from the father to his most favored son for many generations until it was owned by a man who loved his three sons equally. Unable to decide which son was most deserving, the father commissioned an artisan to make two exact copies of the ring. He then gave each son a ring and his blessing. Upon their father’s death, each claimed to be his father’s sole heir. Because it was impossible to determine which ring was the genuine one, the three brothers never again made peace with one another. In Pappenheim’s version of the tale, the Jews are the holders of the “genuine ring.”99 Because they had received God’s word in its true, original form, in her view Judaism, Christianity, and Islam do not exist as co-equals and there is no way the artisan of her parable can reproduce the original ring. Jews, then, should be proud of their faith as the inimitable incarnation of God’s truth. Enraged because he is unable to emulate the singular beauty of the original, the artist in Pappenheim’s version seeks to destroy the ring. Thus in her view, antisemitism and the will to destroy Jews is a product of the envy of Christians and Muslims, who know that they did not receive the genuine article and are unable to replicate it in their derivative religions.100 Pappenheim insists, however, that antisemitism cannot destroy Judaism. Although the artist destroys the ring, he throws the pieces into space, from whence they continue to shine down upon and bless the chosen, wherever they are. Nevertheless, in other texts Pappenheim cautions that Jews must not become complacent in their status as God’s chosen people, and they should not base their pride on inherited ethical principles unless they continue to uphold them. Thus her definition of a strong Jewish community—one whose members will not desert it and one that will not desert its weakest members—is one that is deservedly proud of its valuable “inheritance” and continues to set an example by practicing the ethics that it gave to the rest of the world. Although not stated explicitly, it can be assumed that Professor Goldenherz and his family, like the majority of German converts, was baptized in the Protestant and not the Catholic faith. Less than a third of Germany’s converts 99. Bertha Pappenheim, “Der echte Ring,” Der Morgen 11, no. 9 (1935): 415–16. 100. Already in her 1906 poem, “Jewish Mothers. Pogrom 1905” Pappenheim implied that Christian envy was the root of pogrom violence: “They are full of envy, because you are of the tribe that already believed in a god when they knew only idols. They stole our wisdom, and then they called us thieves.” Bertha Pappenheim, “Judische ¨ Mutter. ¨ Pogrom 1905,” MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR332, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York.

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chose Catholicism.101 In predominantly Protestant regions and cities, even fewer converts opted for Catholicism. For example, in Berlin 92 of the 102 Jews who left Judaism in 1907–1908 converted to Evangelical Protestantism and only 2 to Catholicism. Of 703 persons in Berlin who left Judaism between 1873 and 1906, 645 (91.75 percent) joined the Evangelical Protestant Church, 14 the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 6 the Evangelical Reformed Church, and only 13 became Catholic.102 Because the majority of German Jews who underwent baptism did so for pragmatic reasons, it is understandable that they opted to join the politically, socially, and economically dominant religion, Protestantism. However, even in places where Protestantism was not dominant, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the percentage of its Jewish converts exceeded the Protestant share of the overall population. There, only 53.6 percent of Jews who left Judaism between 1886 and 1903 became Catholic: 23.1 percent chose Protestantism, although Protestants comprised only 1.09 percent of the overall population. In majority Catholic Vienna in 1903, 272 Jews converted to Roman Catholicism and 211 to Protestantism. The ratios for 1904 and 1908 were 287:147 and 259:146, respectively.103 Given Jewish apostates’ relative preference for Protestantism over Catholicism and Protestants’ clear dominance in Western and Central Europe (which was certainly the chief reason that Jewish converts chose Protestantism), it seems paradoxical that Pappenheim would focus in Struggles and in her non-fiction writing upon the danger of Catholic proselytizing and the specific lures of Catholicism. Catholics, like Jews, were a numerical and qualitative minority in Imperial Germany. Whereas the population of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was roughly 60 percent Roman Catholic and 40 percent Protestant before its dissolution in 1806, Catholics com-

101. Exact statistical information for Imperial Germany exists only for converts to Protestantism, however. Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 3: 15–16. 102. Although more Jews left Judaism during these years, it was only possible to establish the later religion for a smaller segment. Bruno Blau, “Die Austritte aus dem Judentum in Berlin wahrend ¨ der Jahre 1907 und 1908,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden 5, no. 6 (June 1909): 87–90, see 89–90. Blau, “Die Austritte aus dem Judentum in Berlin (1873–1906),” 153. ¨ 103. Jakob Thon, “Taufbewegung in Osterreich,” 6–12; “Austritte aus dem Judentum in Wien im Jahre 1908,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden 7, no. 4 (April 1911): 62–63; “Austritte aus dem Judentum und Uebertritte zum Judentum in den Jahren 1903 und 1904,” Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden 3, no. 2 (February 1907), 31–32. See Marsha L. Rozenblit, The Jews of Vienna, 1867–1914: Assimilation and Identity (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983), 136.

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prised only one-third of the newly founded Second Empire in 1871.104 This percentage remained relatively steady throughout the duration of Imperial Germany. According to the 1910 census (the last before World War I), Evangelical Protestants comprised 61.59 percent of Germany’s population, Roman Catholics 36.39 percent, and Jews .95 percent.105 The Catholics’ “outsider” status in the majority Protestant Second Empire was reinforced by their “inferiority” in terms of economic power and educational standing. Although Catholics comprised roughly one-third of the population in 1908, they paid only one- sixth of the total income tax; and at the close of the nineteenth century, only 16 percent of university professors and 25 percent of university students were Catholics.106 Transformed into a quantitative minority by the first division of Germany in 1866 and the founding of the Second Empire, Catholics also became a qualitative minority through the project of German nation-building.107 The assumption that “a unified, indivisible nation, as both a cultural and as a political nation, unconditionally required a common singular religion” was central to mainstream German nationalist thought; and the national religion deemed most suited to the “German national spirit” was Lutheran Protestantism.108 Due in part to the growing influence and popularity of Ultramontanism, the builders of the new secular German state (whose founders nevertheless associated the German nation with Protestantism, at least in its “secular manifestations”) increasingly came to view Catholics and Catholicism as a threat. In the Kulturkampf of the 1870s, attempts were made to curtail the influence of the Catholic Church, which was denounced for its universalism 104. Wolfgang Altgeld, “Religion, Denomination and Nationalism in NineteenthCentury Germany,” in Protestants, Catholics and Jews in Germany, 1800–1914,” ed. Helmut Walser-Smith, 49–65 (Oxford: Berg, 2001), 51. 105. Heinz Hurten, ¨ Deutsche Katholiken, 1918–1945 (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoningh, ¨ 1992). 106. Thomas Mergel, “Ultramontanism, Liberalism, Moderation: Political Mentalities and Political Behavior of the German Catholic Burgertum,” ¨ Central European History 29, no. 2 (1996): 151–74, see 154. For more detailed statistics see Hurten, ¨ Deutsche Katholiken, 14–19. 107. Peter Pulzer notes the wider-reaching upset of Catholic dominance in the mid-nineteenth century: “Between 1859 and 1871 the map of Europe was redrawn to the triple disadvantage of the Church. In place of a Central Europe dominated by Catholic Austria, there arose a Protestant German Empire, a liberal Italian nation-state that swallowed the Papal States, and an Austria-Hungary both halves of which had anticlerical governments.” Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 3: 201. 108. Altgeld, “Religion, Denomination and Nationalism in Germany,” 54–56.

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and supposed subordination to the papacy (perceived as foreign rule). Viewed as volksfremd (alien to the German people) and nationalfeindlich (hostile to the German nation),. Catholics were subjected to forced assimilation to supposedly Protestant modes of behavior.109 Catholics responded to these attacks politically through the foundation of the Center Party and also through the creation and fostering of a “separate, Catholic German culture,” with its own literary and artistic forms and themes. This sub-culture “had its own history and was at pains to create a comprehensive Catholic scholarship with special publishers and associations for the dissemination of Catholic Culture among Catholics.”110 Pappenheim’s focus on Catholic (rather than Protestant) proselytization and Catholic social services in her conversion stories and other writings can be attributed in part to her sense that Catholics and Jews shared a common status as religious minorities in Germany.111 Catholic antisemitism notwithstanding, Catholics and Jews both were viewed as potentially disloyal German subjects on account of other loyalties (the Pope, the Jewish people or nation); both groups were urged to give up their religious and cultural particularities as a precondition for complete acceptance and integration into the German nation; both religious traditions were marked as alien and un- or anti-modern through the use of a foreign language liturgy and the insistence on dietary restrictions (kashrut for Jews and Lenten and Friday restrictions for Catholics); and the social interactions of individuals from both groups transpired largely within their respective minority milieus. Thus successful Catholic missionary and social work becomes the ideal literary and rhetorical foil for the shortcomings of the Jewish community. Pappenheim’s comparison of Jewish social services to Catholic ones is designed to evoke a sense of rivalry in her Jewish audience towards a fellow minority. One of Pappenheim’s personal rivalries of this nature was her “competi109. Wolfgang Altgeld, “German Catholics,” in The Emancipation of Catholics, Jews and Protestants: Minorities and the Nation State in Nineteenth-Century Europe, ed. Rainer Liedtke and Stephan Wendehorst (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), 100–121. 110. Ibid., 117. 111. Britta Konz notes that Catholicism was also an attractive alternative to some feminists, because (unlike German Protestantism and Judaism) it offered a “fourth station” for women (beyond daughter, wife, or widow), that of the nun; and the Virgin Mary provided an important role model for single women. She notes that the Protestant feminist Elisabeth Gnauck-Kuhne ¨ converted to Catholicism because it offered a greater opportunity for an independent feminine religiosity. Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 136–37.

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tion” with the Katholischen Frauenbund (League of Catholic Women) within the German women’s movement. At the Breslau Women’s Conference in 1908, Pappenheim was chagrined that the representatives of the League of Catholic Women, which had not yet even joined the Federation of German Women’s Associations, were “being wooed from every direction” and being asked their position on every issue, while the representatives of the JFB (who represented the BDF’s largest institutional member) were being systematically ignored. According to a press report by Sidonie Werner, Pappenheim seized the podium, complaining that she, as the representative of the League of Jewish Women, was speaking, not because she was called to do so often (like the spokeswoman of the Catholic Women’s League), but because she was not being called on at all.112 In 1915 Pappenheim again reacted with indignation when Helene Lange, in a speech at the conference of the General Organization of German Women, recognized the contributions of the League of Catholic Women and the Evangelischen Frauenbund (League of Protestant Women), but failed to mention the JFB. Gertrud Baumer ¨ (the chairperson of the BDF) refused to officially censure Lange, stating that Lange’s omission was not motivated by antisemitism, as Pappenheim had charged, and that she was not responsible for Lange’s remarks. Pappenheim threatened to resign from the executive committee of the BDF. She did resign from the National Women’s Service (the organization that coordinated women’s volunteer war work), stating that she did not wish to participate in an organization whose “spiritual mothers” (Baumer and Lange) considered Jewish women to be second-rate citizens.113 ¨ 112. Sidonie Werner, “Der Breslauer Frauentag,” Judische ¨ Presse 39, no. 43 (October 23, 1908): 436–38. The JFB was founded in 1904 and was an institutional member of the BDF since 1907. 113. This dispute is well documented in Akte Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, Korrespondenz mit dem Judischen ¨ Frauenbund, LAB B Rep.235–01 MF-Nr.2213–2214, Helene Lange Archiv, Berlin. See especially: Bertha Pappenheim to [Alice] Bensheimer, February 2, 1916, June 13, 1916, June 17, 1916, June 20, 1916, June 22, 1916; Bertha Pappenheim to Gertrud Baumer, ¨ November 30, 1915; Eva von Roy to Helene Lange, February 8, 1916; Helene Lange to Alice Bensheimer, February 11, 1916. For more on the 1908 and 1915–16 disputes and a similar instance that occurred in 1904 see Mechthild Bereswill and Leonie Wagner, “Public or Private? Antisemitism and Politics in the Federation of German Women’s Associations,” Journal of Genocide Research 1, no. 2 (1999): 157–68; Marion Kaplan, “Sisterhood under Siege: Feminism and Anti-Semitism in Germany, 1904–1938,” in When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany, ed. Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, 174–96 (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984). Marlis Durkop, ¨ “Erscheinungsformen des Antisemitismus

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Pappenheim construed these perceived slights as evidence that Catholic women (members of another minority) had achieved the status that Pappenheim desired and demanded for the JFB and its members: that the religious affiliation of her Jewish organization would not be viewed as anathema to its loyalty to the German nation or the bourgeois women’s movement. The Jewish women wanted to stand up (without feeling pressured to surrender or conceal their religious identity) and still be recognized as full Germans. Not all the women, however, shared Pappenheim’s views. Sidonie Werner noted that the JFB’s insistence that their Jewishness be recognized made some Jewish women in the German women’s movement very uncomfortable: “At the Breslau meeting, we noticed again how fearfully the other Jewish leaders avoid us.”114 Pappenheim regretted that there were Jewish feminists who “owed their intellectual tendencies, their keen intellects, and their sense for social action all to their Jewish origins” but who would take pride in “joining the majority completely and stake everything on covering up or erasing their belonging to the minority.”115 Pappenheim’s rivalry with Catholics was not confined to the arena of the German women’s movement. In 1930 Gaston Heymann responded to the success of “swastika bearers” in the state elections in Saxony with an “Open Letter to the German Jews” in the Deutsche Republik in which he reproached German Jews for “acquiescing with fanatic resignation,” charging that it was their own fault that things had gone so far.116 Responses to the letter were printed in nearly every German-Jewish newspaper. In her response, Pappenheim, who mistakenly assumed the author was a Christian (he was an Alsatian Jew), reproached him for addressing German Jews with a “condescending” tone and a “Bonhomie” with which he would “not dare address

im Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine,” in “Judin ¨ – Deutsche – deutsche Judin?,” ¨ special issue, Ariadne: Almanach des Archivs der deutschen Frauenbewegung, no. 23 (May 1993): 45–52; Leonie Wagner, “Eine gewisse Verstimmung unter den Frauenrechtlerinnen,” in “‘Judisch-sein, ¨ Frau-sein, Bund-sein’,” 8–13. For a brief overview of the denominational women’s movements in Germany see Ursula Baumann, “Religion und Emanzipation: Konfessionelle Frauenbewegung in Deutschland, 1900–1933,” Tel Aviver Jahrbuch fur ¨ deutsche Geschichte 21 (1992): 171–206. 114. Sidonie Werner, “Der Breslauer Frauentag” 437. 115. Bertha Pappenheim, Opening address, First Annual Delegates’ Assembly of the League of Jewish Women, in “Der judische ¨ Frauenbund,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 11 (January 5, 1906): 5–7. 116. Quoted in Meyer, ed., German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 4: 110. Responses to the “Open Letter” appeared in almost all Jewish newspapers (110–11).

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another group of people, let’s say, those of the Catholic religious community, for example.”117 The rivalry between two minorities, however, was not the only reason that Pappenheim focused on the Catholic mission work in her conversion narratives and other texts. The Catholic Church (as opposed to Protestant Christianity, which through its organization into smaller national, regional, or denominational churches lacked the international organizational structure of the Roman Catholic Church) also provided an established framework for social projects with an international reach, much in line with Pappenheim’s vision for a World Collective Guardianship. Developing German Jews’ international outlook and their sense of responsibility and accountability beyond limited borders was vital for social action such as the campaign against white slavery. In 1914, at a world women’s conference in Rome, Pappenheim proposed the establishment of an International League of Jewish Women (IJFB) based on the Catholic model of an undivided international religious body that transcended its members’ respective national identities.118 Pappenheim’s envisioned organization would 1) foster solidarity among Jewish women worldwide without compromising their affiliation with “interconfessional, national, and international” organizations; and 2) enable Jewish women to become involved in the general women’s movement without “relinquishing or obscuring their Jewish religious affiliation.”119 Pappenheim recommended that the IJFB devote itself to precisely those social projects that she had identified in her short stories and in Sisyphus-Work as the blind spots of the Jewish community upon which the Catholic Church capitalized in its missionary work with prospective Jewish converts: women’s roles within religious and communal life; the secular education of the younger generations; the protection of women, girls, and children; medical care; and relief for Jews living in poverty or danger. In addition, the IJFB would initiate efforts to combat antisemitism and to halt opportunistically motivated conversion.120 117. “Ein ‘offener Brief an die deutschen Juden’ – und 3 Antworten,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 8 (August 1930): 7–9, see 8. 118. Pappenheim’s impression of Catholic success in gaining acceptance and respect is exaggerated. Like Jews, Catholics remained conscious of their status as second-class citizens despite gaining some ground in the early 20th century. See Hurten, ¨ Deutsche Katholiken. 119. Karminski, “Internationale judische ¨ Frauenarbeit,” 283. 120. Ibid. See also Dieter J. Hecht, “Die Weltkongresse judischer ¨ Frauen in der Zwischenkriegszeit: Wien 1923, Hamburg 1929,” in Geschlecht, Religion und Engagement: Die Judischen ¨ Frauenbewegungen im deutschsprachigen Raum 19. und fruhes ¨ 20.

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Pappenheim’s efforts departed from her Catholic model in one important way. While she advocated the international organization and solidarity (based on the identification with a common religion) of all Jews for social and humanitarian purposes, she eschewed the notion of an international Jewish “church,” a single centralized (both organizationally and geographically) and hierarchically organized religious institution that would dictate a single mode of religious practice.121 Unlike Zionism, Pappenheim’s Catholic-inspired model would unite world Jewry without requiring assimilated Jews to forfeit their German, French, British, etc. national-cultural identity in favor of a Jewish national-cultural identity. World Jewry would be bound not as a nation or Volk but as religious “Wahlverwandte” (a community bound by “elective affinities”).122

Jahrhundert, ed. Margarete Grandner and Edith Saurer, 123–56 (Vienna: Bohlau, ¨ 2005), see 128–32. 121. Interestingly, Pappenheim did appreciate the influence of papal authority. In 1918 she petitioned both the Pope and U.S. President Wilson to call for an end to pogrom violence in Poland. “Frankfurt a.M., 13. Dezember,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 82, no. 51 (December 20, 1918): Gemeindebote, 3; “Frankfurt a.M.,” Die Judische ¨ Presse 49, no. 50 (December 13, 1918): 481. It is important to note that the vilification of Jews as Christ-killers was still widespread in predominantly Catholic Poland. The Roman Catholic Church did not universalize the guilt or responsibility for Christ’s crucifixion until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v., “Church Councils.” 122. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 194.

4

From Brothel to Beth Jacob: Bertha Pappenheim on Eastern European Jewish Women As noted above, Bertha Pappenheim devoted a large part of her career to advocating for and working with Eastern European Jews, especially women. She was initiated into the world of Jewish social work in Frankfurt in the early 1890s by working in a soup kitchen for Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.1 In 1900 she published the pamphlet Zur Judenfrage in Galizien (The Jewish Question in Galicia), her first attempt to pinpoint deficiencies in and recommend reform of fundraising and social work programs for Eastern European Jews.2 In the early 1900s she joined the Committee for the East European Jews in Frankfurt and served as its representative at conferences devoted to combating white slavery.3 In 1901, at the invitation of the Frankfurt Israelite Relief Organization, she spoke before an audience of two hundred on the purported “immorality” of Galician Jewish women, which she attributed to neglect of their education and job training.4 Her speech led to the founding of the Frankfurt Jewish women’s organization Women’s Relief, which dedicated itself to “improving the lot of our Eastern coreligionists [Stammesgenossen, literally tribesmen] and leading them toward a higher cultural 1. Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O., 15. 2. Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], Zur Judenfrage in Galizien (Frankfurt a.M.: Gebruder ¨ Knauer, 1900). 3. “Delegiertentag zur Bekampfung ¨ des Handels mit judischen ¨ Madchen,” ¨ Die Welt, no. 40 (1903): 4–5. 4. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Immoralitat ¨ der Galizianerinnen,” in Sisyphus: Gegen den Madchenhandel ¨ – Galizien, ed. by Helga Heubach, 19–24; “Referat von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim, gehalten in einer von dem Vorstande des Israelitischen Hilfsvereins zu Frankfurt am Main einberufenen Versammlung am 26. Februar 1901, Sonderdruck (Frankfurt a.M.: 1901). See also “Soziale Schaden,” ¨ Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 65, no. 25 (June 21, 1901): 289–90.

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level—economically, intellectually, and morally.” To this end, Women’s Relief instituted programs for Eastern European immigrants in Frankfurt and did “cultural missionary” work, creating nursery schools, traveling libraries, and small industry, and offering immigration counseling, vocational training, and job referral in Galicia.5 In 1903, under the auspices of the Frankfurt Israelite Relief Organization and the Jewish Committee for the Suppression of White Slavery, Pappenheim embarked upon the first of several “investigative trips” to Galicia. Her travel report in The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia further established her growing reputation as an authority on the material and social problems of that region’s Jews.6 In the spring of 1906 she traveled to Russia to assess pogrom damage and organize relief efforts there. Though she wrote little poetry during her lifetime, she was so moved by the devastation she saw that she composed two poems, “Rare Flowers Bloom” and “Jewish Mothers. Pogrom 1905.”7 Upon her return she wrote and published an essay entitled “Igren,” an account of her visit to a village whose small Jewish population had been decimated by a pogrom,8 and she worked with the Aid Association of the German Jews and the Relief Committee for the Needy East European Jews to arrange for homes in England and the United States for 110 pogrom orphans.9 Pappenheim covered thousands of miles in her efforts to ameliorate the suffering of her Eastern European co-religionists. In 1909 she was able to arrange an audience with Queen Elizabeth of Rumania, whom she petitioned

5. “Zum Artikel: Die Tatigkeit ¨ der Frankfurter ‘Weiblichen Fursorge’ ¨ in Galizien,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 9, no. 24 (June 16, 1911): 3–4; “Frankfurt a.M.,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 8, no. 11 (March 18, 1910): 11; “Frankfurt a.M.,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 72, no. 16 (April 17, 1908): Gemeindebote 3. Gerhard Schiebler, ed., Judische ¨ Stiftungen in Frankfurt am Main. Stiftungen, Schenkungen, Organisationen und Vereine mit Kurzbiographien judischer ¨ Burger ¨ (Frankfurt a.M.: Waldemar Kramer, 1988), 193. 6. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien. 7. Pappenheim, “Judische ¨ Mutter. ¨ Pogrom 1905”; Bertha Pappenheim, “Seltene Blumen Bluhen,” ¨ MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 332, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 8. Pappenheim, “Igren.” Igren is now a suburb of Dnipropetrovsk (formerly Yekaterinoslav), Ukraine, which lies on the Dnieper River. 9. “Berlin, 12. August,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 33 (August 17, 1906): Gemeindebote, 1; “Berlin, 28. August,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 35 (August 31, 1906): Gemeindebote, 1.

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on behalf of the JFB to support the campaign against white slavery.10 In 1911 and 1912 she undertook the extensive, self-financed investigative tour of the Balkans, the Middle East, and Galicia referred to in earlier chapters. To determine the extent of human trafficking and prostitution and study their causes, she met with social workers, activists, and community leaders and toured brothels and hospitals for venereal disease. (As noted above, she belatedly published a compilation of her travel letters under the title Sisyphus-Work in 1924.)11 In 1917 she served as “factory guardian” for 300 Eastern European Jewish female forced laborers in munitions factories in 12 In 1918 she petitioned U.S. President Frankfurt-Griesheim and Hochst. ¨ Wilson and the Pope on behalf of the JFB to publicly condemn pogroms in Eastern Europe.13 In 1926 she journeyed to Riga, Leningrad, Moscow, Southern Russia, and the Crimea to study “the state of Jewish youth welfare, with an emphasis on the protection of girls and the at-risk.” During this trip she also toured the Jewish Agro-Joint14 colonies.15 In November 1935 (just six months before her death) Pappenheim traveled to Krakow to tour the Beth Jacob Seminary and advise its directors on its expansion.16 In addition to the above-mentioned projects and publications, she agitated for social welfare work with Eastern European Jews in numerous other articles, speeches, and letters and focused on the plight of those unfortunates in several literary works, including her 1913 drama Tragic Moments and her 1916 volume of short stories Struggles, several of which were analyzed in preceding chapters.17 10. “Der judische ¨ Frauenbund und die Konigin ¨ von Rumanien,” ¨ 223–25 (see Intro. n. 23). 11. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit. 12. Martina Steer, “‘Wir wollen sein ein einig Volk von Schwestern, vor keiner Not uns furchten ¨ und Gefahr!’ – Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund im Ersten Weltkrieg,” in Geschlecht, Religion und Engagement, ed. Grandner and Saurer, 117; Pappenheim to Mamelok, August 18, 1917, in Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 43. 13. “Frankfurt a.M., 13. Dezember,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 82, no. 51 (December 20, 1918): Gemeindebote, 3. 14. Agro-Joint, the American Jewish Joint Agricultural Corporation, was created by the Joint Distribution Committee in 1924 to resettle Jewish tradesmen and businessmen who were declassed by the Soviet government in agricultural colonies in Crimea and the Ukraine. It was liquidated in 1951. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.” 15. “Personliches,” ¨ Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 2, no. 11 (August 1926): 6. Pappenheim, “Bemerkungen zur Arbeit des Agrojoint in einigen judischen ¨ Kolonien Sowjetrußlands.” 16. Jacobson, “Beth Jacob und Bertha Pappenheim,” 1–2 (see Intro. n. 27). 17. Five of the six stories of Struggles focus explicitly on Eastern European Jewry. Al-

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Pappenheim, like the majority of German Jews, had mixed feelings about the Jews she sought to help. In general, German Jews shared the prejudices of Germans and other Western Europeans against Eastern Europeans in general and Eastern European Jews in particular, regarding them as culturally inferior, primitive, lazy, and dirty. The views of German Jews, however, were more complex. Despite their antipathy, they also identified with the Eastern Jews. For some, this identification was a voluntary and conscious fraternal sympathy. For others, it was grudging, based on the conscious or unconscious acknowledgment that many non-Jews did not distinguish between Eastern and Western Jews and that they themselves might be associated with negative stereotypes and perceptions of their coreligionists. The Eastern Jews’ appearance, language, manners, and “ghetto mentality” also provided an unwelcome reminder of Jewish particularity that embarrassed and frightened acculturated German Jews by calling their own belonging and rootedness in Germany into question. German Jews’ identification or solidarity with their poor and persecuted coreligionists or tribesmen (Stammesgenossen) was often expressed as support for relief efforts: projects to improve living conditions and economic and educational prospects in Eastern Europe, programs to ease the integration of immigrants and refugees into German society, or efforts to facilitate emigration to other destinations, including Palestine. Although well-intentioned, these practical efforts and the writings that advocated for them or reported on them were frequently patronizing or condescending, reinforcing the East–West divide that was felt by both Eastern and Western European Jews. A small but important minority of German Jews, however, especially cultural Zionists, idealized the Eastern Jews, viewing them as the embodiment of an authentic, intact Jewish culture and Volk that no longer existed in Germany and the West.18 though the protagonist of the sixth story, “Friday Evening,” is identified only as an Austrian, two details indicate that she hails from Galicia. Her family members call her Reisle, a Yiddish name, and she states that she takes great care when speaking German in order to avoid ridicule. According to Jack Wertheimer, Galician Jewish youths were sometimes taught by their parents to name Austria rather than Galicia as their point of origin in order to avoid stigmatization. Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers, 145. 18. On German Jews’ and non-Jewish Germans’ attitudes towards Eastern European Jews see Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers; David A. Brenner, Marketing Identities: The Invention of Jewish Ethnicity in Ost und West (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1998); Idem., “Promoting East European Jewry: Ost und West, Ethnic Identity, and the German-Jewish Audience,” Prooftexts 15 (1995): 63–88; Fuchs and Krobb, eds., Ghetto Writing; Sander Gilman, “The Rediscovery of the Eastern Jews: German Jews in the East, 1890–1918,” in Jews and Germans from 1860–1933: The Problematic Symbiosis, ed. Da-

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This chapter examines the multi-faceted portrayal of Eastern European Jews, especially women, in Pappenheim’s literary works and other writings. As for most German Jews, Pappenheim’s personal feelings about those Jews were complex, and her characterizations of them—which range from negative, highly stereotypical portrayals of prostitutes, pimps, and traffickers to idealized descriptions of modern-day Gluckel ¨ of Hamelns—reflect her ambivalence. Her characterizations are also a product of the function or genre of the texts in which they appear, many of which were specifically written to garner support for particular social work programs aimed at the Easterners or in service of the campaign to combat white slavery. To demonstrate the need for the projects and reforms for which Pappenheim lobbied, these representations show an unvarnished (or in some cases exaggerated) view of the poverty, unhygienic living conditions, lack of education and opportunity (especially for women), and even the purported immorality and criminality of Eastern European Jews. However, to foster German Jews’ feelings of responsibility for and solidarity with those unfortunates, these negative portrayals were tempered by references to the root causes of these social ills or counterimages of sympathetically portrayed Eastern European Jews, whose presence ensured the German-Jewish reader that a potential for upward growth lay beneath the dirty veneer, and that money spent and efforts expended to polish these Eastern European Jewish diamonds in the rough would be worthwhile. Pappenheim advocated for solidarity with the Eastern Jews throughout her career. However, her arguments as to why German Jews should concern themselves with their Eastern coreligionists underwent subtle changes over time. Because of the Jewish religious obligation to aid less fortunate coreligionists and because the Jewish communities of Germany were relatively independent and self-reliant (whether by choice or by compulsion), German Jews had a centuries-long tradition of supporting local charitable organizations (hevrot). In her earliest text on Eastern European Jewry, her 1900 essay “The Jewish Question in Galicia,” Pappenheim appealed primarily to such traditional philanthropic tendencies, arguing that from the “universal humanitarian viewpoint,” it was the duty of “educated and wealthy Jews,” especially

vid Bronsen (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1979), 338–66; Trude Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland, 1918–1933, Hamburger Beitrage ¨ zur Geschichte der deutschen Juden 12 (Hamburg: Hans Christians, 1986); Ritchie Robertson, “Western Observers and Eastern Jews: Kafka, Buber, Franzos,” Modern Language Review 83, no. 1 (1988): 87–105; Wertheimer, Unwelcome Strangers; Gilman, Jewish Self-Hatred.

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women, to defend and aid “oppressed Galician and Russian Jews.”19 In her 1904 travel report The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim again argued that it was the “duty” of Western European Jews to participate in “cultural work” in disadvantaged Galicia.20 In these early essays, there is no indication that Western Jews stood to gain anything from aiding their poor Jewish brethren other than the intangible benefit inherent in performing a mitzvah, fulfilling one of God’s commandments. Although Pappenheim denied the direct involvement of Western Jews in the white slavery enterprise, she was cognizant that non-Jews did not necessarily distinguish between Eastern and Western Jews. Thus in her 1907 speech “On the Morality Question,” given at the Second Delegates’ Conference of the JFB, Pappenheim no longer appealed solely to German Jews’ humanitarian sensibilities but also to their fear of antisemitism. “We Jewish women, we must defend our people against these symptoms of immorality [white slavery and prostitution] that embarrass us and humiliate us in the eyes of the world before they become rampant.”21 In a 1924 speech, Pappenheim again implored Jews everywhere to work to eliminate this “stain of shame on Jewry.”22 In her writings (both literary and programmatic) on white slavery, Pappenheim delineated sharply between Eastern and Western Jews: the traders and victims of white slavery were Eastern European Ashkenazic Jews or, less frequently, Eastern European or Middle Eastern Sephardic Jews, but never Western European Jews. She insisted, however, that it was Western Jews’ duty as Jews to combat it. In 1913, for example, she reprimanded Western European and American Jews for turning a blind eye to the plight of their Eastern European coreligionists,23 a charge she repeated in 1923: “We often hear Western Jews say that white slavery is an Eastern European matter. We don’t have that here, it’s only an issue in the East. I do not believe that there is anything that concerns only one group of Jews and not the other.”24 I do not mean to imply that Pappenheim’s appeal to German Jews’ fear of antisemitism replaced her argument that Jews were responsible for one an19. Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.] Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 9. 20. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 56. 21. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 22. 22. Bertha Pappenheim, “Bericht einer Sonderbesprechung judischer ¨ Teilnehmer am Weltkongress gegen Unsittlichkeit,” in Sisyphus-Arbeit, 235. 23. Bertha Pappenheim, “Das Interesse der Juden am V. Internationalen Kongress zur Bekaempfung des Maedchenhandels. 24. Bertha Pappenheim, “Schutz der Frauen und Madchen,” ¨ in Weltkongress judischer ¨ Frauen. Vienna, 6–11 May 1923, 31.

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other everywhere, but rather that she began to layer complementary strands of argumentation in order to tailor her appeals to specific audiences. At the JFB’s Second Delegates’ Conference, which was attended mainly by Jewish women but also male community leaders, Pappenheim announced: “We know that a large number of Jewish girls ply the trade of ‘free’ prostitution. We know that Jewish women can be found in brothels all around the world. And we know that in white slavery the majority of the traffickers and their wares are Jewish.”25 In her Sisyphus-Work letters, which were originally intended only for a small circle of Pappenheim’s female Jewish colleagues, she again detailed frankly the involvement of Eastern European Jews in white slavery and prostitution. In a letter from Warsaw, dated May 8, 1912, she reported: “It is always the Jews who are stealing, buying, and seducing the girls.”26 Two days later, she repeated, “Almost all of the traffickers, pimps, etc. are Jews…”27 In a 1910 speech held at the Jewish International Congress for the Suppression of White Slavery, Pappenheim stated forthrightly what her coreligionists were, she charged, afraid to admit: “Many Jews are traffickers, many Jewish girls are the merchandise.”28 In a 1911 speech, “Reise-Eindrucke” ¨ (Impressions of a Journey), however, which was given before the German National Committee for the Suppression of White Slavery, Pappenheim did not single out Jewish involvement as she did in speeches and writings aimed at Jewish audiences.29 She said nothing of the religion or ethnicity of traders. Instead she stated explicitly that the victims were of all religious persuasions (antisemitic propaganda portrayed white slavery as the Jewish trade in Christian or Aryan women). 30 And when non-Jews named the Jews as the chief players in the white slave trade, she accused them of antisemitism. Indeed, in her report on the Fifth International Congress for the Suppression of White Slavery (1913), Pappenheim noted that she could

25. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 19. 26. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 155. Although Pappenheim’s source for this information is a Catholic women’s organization (one that practices “soul snatching”), she does not doubt the veracity of the claims nor attribute them to antisemitism. 27. Ibid., 164. 28. Ibid., 222. 29. Bertha Pappenheim, “Reise-Eindrucke,” ¨ offprint from Bericht des Deutschen Nationalkomitees uber ¨ die VIII. Nationalkonferenz in Karlsruhe (Berlin: Bernhard Paul, 1911). 30. Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 11, 22.

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discern in the reports and comments “the presence of a latent antisemitism in all of the nations.”31 It is difficult to assess the true extent of Jewish involvement in prostitution, procuring, and white slavery from the statistics available. We do know that Jewish prostitution in the Habsburg provinces of Galicia and Bukowina and in the Russian Pale of Settlement was quite common, even if in relative terms it was lower than the Jewish proportion of the population.32 However, of the 578 suspected and convicted international traffickers on the lists compiled by the white-slavery police in Berlin and London in 1908 and Hamburg in 1905, 214 or 37 percent are identified as Jewish (predominantly from Eastern Europe); and Louis Maretsky of the B’nai B’rith reported in 1912 that 271 of 402 traffickers on a Hamburg police list and 374 of 644 known traffickers in Central and Eastern Europe and South America were Jewish.33 In 1910 the First Jewish International Conference on White Slavery released a survey that counted 182 traffickers in Germany, among whom 19 were Jewish. The proportion of known Jewish traffickers elsewhere was higher: in Austria 65 of 101, in South America 80 of 93 (they are identified as Russian or Polish Jews), in Galicia 38 of 39, in Russia 104 of 124, in Hungary 68 of 105, and in France 34 of 127.34 Although these statistics give the impression that Jewish procurers were overrepresented, it is possible that prejudice led the police to target Jews or foreigners more strenuously, or that foreign Jews were more apt to be apprehended because they were profiled. Furthermore, law enforcement may have relied on Jewish anti-white slavery organizations to help them identify suspects. The reports generated by Jewish organizations or individual observers (like Pappenheim), however, may be similarly skewed because they relied heavily on Jewish networks and informants in their data collection and tended not to research or report on certain markets (between England and Belgium, 31. Pappenheim, “Das Interesse der Juden am 5. Internationalen Kongress zur Bekampfung ¨ des Madchenhandels,” ¨ 606. 32. Edward Bristow, “The German-Jewish Fight Against White Slavery,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 28 (1983), 303; for more statistics see Edward Bristow, “Jewish Prostitution in Eastern Europe,” in Prostitution and Prejudice: The Jewish Fight Against White Slavery 1870–1939, 48–84 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). 33. Bristow, Prostitution and Prejudice, 52–53. 34. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 111. Official Report of the Jewish International Conference on the Suppression of the Traffic in Girls and Women (London: Central Bureau, Jewish Association for the Protection of Girls and Women, 1910).

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for example) where the trade was known to be predominantly non-Jewish. The author of a 1910 article in the Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums argued that white slavery only appeared to be a Jewish problem because Jewish activists focused on trade routes and markets dominated by Jews, ignoring other major markets where Jews were not active. According to the article, if all markets were taken into consideration, statistics would show that Jews made up only a small percentage of the overall traffic.35 Most German Jews were scarcely enthusiastic about the prospect of what seemed to be a mass exodus (beginning in the wake of pogroms in the 1880s and escalating during the First World War) of Eastern European Jews to Germany. They feared that the immigration of larger numbers of these refugees might undermine the progress that they and earlier immigrants from the East had made towards full integration and acceptance in Germany.36 Despite these misgivings and prejudices, however, the majority of German Jews opposed restrictions on immigration and residency based on religious affiliation, realizing that this could be a first step in reversing the recent and still tenuous emancipation of German Jews. When the Prussian Ministry of the Interior closed the border to Jewish migrants in April 1918, organizations representing German Jews were unanimous in their protest of the action.37 Although Pappenheim labored to improve the situation of Eastern Jews who had already arrived in Germany, she too repeatedly expressed the wish that they would remain in Eastern Europe or choose destinations other than Germany. In a 1911 letter from Palestine she wrote of a new conservatory being established in Jerusalem. “It would be great if all of the Russian prodigies would now come here instead of going to Germany.”38 During World War I, Pappenheim arranged for a protegee ´ who spoke Yiddish to work with Russian Jewish forced laborers in Frankfurt, telling her, “It is all the same whether you go to Eastern Europe, or if Eastern Europe—unfortunately— comes to Germany.39 In her opening address for the Second Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in 1907, she lamented the “invasion” of Eastern European 35. Kaplan, Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 112; “Internationaler Madchen¨ handel (Zum Kongress in Berlin),” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 74, no. 45 (November 11, 1910): 529–31. 36. For statistics see chap. 1, n. 37. 37. Meyer, ed. German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 3:378–81. 38. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 111. 39. Pappenheim to Mamelok, August 18, 1917, in Edinger, ed. Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 43.

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Jews into Germany.40 She recommended that German Jewish philanthropic organizations, rather than indiscriminately welcoming every Eastern European Jew as a martyr or “Ahasver,” should undertake measures (in areas where Jews were not in danger of pogrom violence) to found “cultural centers” in Eastern Europe to transform “wandering Jews” into “people who settle down and take on gainful employment.”41 Pappenheim emphasized that keeping these needy Jews in Eastern Europe was advantageous for both German Jews and would-be immigrants. In “The Jewish Question in Galicia” she cautioned that even “the best” Galicians would not be able to compete in the West: While such a man may be considered cultured (relatively speaking) in Galicia … his value drops as soon as he crosses the border…. Everywhere—in Austria, England, Germany—he becomes the “Polack,” who, as we know, isn’t exactly popular and will face all manner of difficulties when he tries to get ahead.42 Accordingly, Pappenheim and many of her contemporaries endeavored to improve living conditions and career prospects for Jews in their home surroundings.43 Pappenheim acknowledged that such social work would appeal to German Jews who felt a genuine humanitarian obligation to their Eastern brethren as well as to those with less altruistic motives (not to mention the majority, who were likely somewhere in between). In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia she wrote: If you are interested in Galicia today for the selfish reason that you are afraid that the dreaded Polacks might leave their country in ever40. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung ¨ des zweiten Delegiertentages des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” in Referate gehalten auf dem 2. Delegiertentage des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, Frankfurt a. M., 2. und 3. Oktober 1907 (Hamburg: Verlag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, n.d., ca. 1907–8), 4. 41. Ibid. 42. Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 7. 43. The Federal Republic of Germany is currently employing the same strategy in regards to Spataussiedler, ¨ ethnic Germans from the Former Soviet Union seeking repatriation. Challenged by the large numbers of remigrants since the early 1990s and their difficult integration (characterized by high unemployment, the formation of “ghettoes,” and a high level of crime and drug use among youth), the German Ministry of the Interior seeks to curtail immigration by founding Kulturzentren (cultural centers) in German communities in the Former Soviet Union and sending economic aid.

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increasing numbers and inconvenience you by settling down in your beloved and clean corner of the earth or neighborhood—then you can do the same thing to protect against this calamity as someone with purely altruistic motives, who wants to help masses of suffering, sinking, intelligent people.44 Realizing, however, that immigration could not be halted entirely, Pappenheim also proposed programs that would prepare prospective immigrants before their departure from Eastern Europe or help to ease their integration upon arrival in Germany.45 As benefactors / reformers / teachers of Eastern European Jews, Pappenheim and other German Jewish social workers and philanthropists were able to accomplish two objectives. On the one hand, their social projects provided a way to eliminate the alleged faults of Eastern Jews that supposedly exacerbated antisemitism towards all Jews. On the other hand, social work and philanthropy were distancing mechanisms. By creating “missionary versus primitives” or “colonizer versus colonized” relationships, German Jews were able to concretize the social distance between themselves and Eastern European Jews. They reified the distinction that, although very real and apparent to them, was challenged by the assertions of racial antisemites, who did not distinguish between Western and Eastern Jews. German Jews struggled to hold their Eastern European brethren at arm’s length until social work efforts could render them indistinguishable from themselves. Pappenheim’s work cultivated such an image, especially for German-Jewish women. In “The Jewish Question in Galicia” she referred to German-Jewish social workers, doctors, nurses, and teachers in Galicia as “civilizers” and “pioneers” and recommended sending “missionaries of practical dutiful charity” into the “Galician wilderness.”46 In a 1908 speech Pappenheim reported that three female Jewish nurses were serving as “missionaries of modern hygiene” in Galicia.47 In a 1908 letter to her pupil Sophie Mamelok, Pappenheim asked her to consider going to Kolomea (now Kolomyya, Ukraine) as a “cultural pioneer.”48 Other texts imply a parent-child or 44. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 53. 45. Ibid., 64. 46. Pappenheim, Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 17, 20–21. 47. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zustande ¨ in Galizien,” in Heubach, Sisyphus, 126. 48. Bertha Pappenheim to Sophie Mamelok, July 5, 1908, in Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 34.

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teacher-pupil relationship between German Jews and Galicians. In one essay Pappenheim wrote, “When there is an ‘incident,’ one must proceed with unrelenting strictness, so that the populace is not in doubt for an instant about what is allowed and what is not allowed.”49 In another essay, she claimed that Galician women must be taught the most basic rules of personal hygiene and housekeeping, to “bathe their children and comb their hair, do laundry and mending… and sweep and scrub.”50 She recommended awarding token prizes for the “best-darned stockings, the best-cared-for babies.”51 At least one Eastern European Jewish intellectual took umbrage at Pappenheim’s patronizing attitude. The publicist Binjamin Segel52 issued a scathing critique of the work of Women’s Relief in Galicia. Segel’s two-part article, which was written in response to the annual report of Women’s Relief, accused Pappenheim’s colleagues of being ignorant of conditions in Galicia and exhibiting the typical Western European chauvinism and condescension toward Galician Jews.53 He was particularly critical of Nurse Johanna’s report, in which she complained that her attempts to bring “order” to a hospital in Drohobycz (now Drohobych, Ukraine) resulted in death-threats from Galician Jews, who angrily threw stones at her when she attempted to institute visiting hours. Segel waxed ironic: I have heard similar reports from the colonies of German East Africa, Australia, and the regions where savages and cannibals live. You will get a cold shiver down your spine, when you consider the dangers that the heroic Nurse Johanna so valiantly defied in order to uphold the Western European principle of order, and when you comprehend “just what it

49. Pappenheim, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 31. 50. Pappenheim, Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 19. 51. Ibid., 22. 52. Segel was a prominent figure in the German-Jewish press. He also published a sharp rebuttal of Theodor Lessing’s 1909 article series “Impressions of Galicia.” Lessing’s article series was derided by numerous critics on account of its negative, grossly stereotypical portrayals of Galician Jewry. “Anmerkung der Redaktion,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt, June 16, 1911, 4. 53. Binjamin Segel, “Die Tatigkeit ¨ der Frankfurter ‘Weiblichen Fursorge’ ¨ in Galizien,” pts. 1 and 2, Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 9, no. 22 (June 1, 1911): 1–2, 9, no. 23 (June 9, 1911): 1–2. Although Segel objects to the chauvinism of Women’s Relief towards Galician Jews, he himself speaks condescendingly of his own “countrymen”: “They are the most good-natured, easily guided, and eager-to-learn people in the world. One just has to know how to talk to them” (pt. 1, 1).

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entails, how much energy and good will is required, to undertake such a campaign against the lack of culture”… 54 As noted above, German and Austrian Jews viewed not only Eastern European Jews but also their “half-Asian” Eastern European non-Jewish neighbors as culturally inferior. In his study Halb-Asien: Land und Leute des ostlichen ¨ Europa (Half-Asia: The Land and People of Eastern Europe), Karl Emil Franzos attributed Eastern Jews’ backwardness and lack of culture in part to the backwardness and barbarity of their Gentile oppressors, for “every country gets the Jews it deserves.”55 Pappenheim’s texts express similar views of Eastern Europeans’ general cultural inferiority and their “Half-Asian” propensity for violence. Her published travel journal “Igren,” which chronicled her visit to pogrom victims in the Ukraine, contrasted the children of German settlers with native Russian children: “The German children, who were tidily dressed, came out of a well-tended school-house and greeted us in a friendly manner. This was a sharp contrast to the Russian children in the next farming village, three minutes from Ribalsk, where the young people, dressed in dirty rags, hung around indolently.”56 She described a visit to a modest yet tidy German farmhouse in idyllic terms: “Everything, everthing— the farm girl at the window, the cat by the hearth—seemed to be waiting for a Gerrit Dou or Jan Steen. At once I felt the meaning of culture for a people.”57 A similar view informs her poem “Jewish Mothers. Pogrom 1905,” where Pappenheim condemns the barbarism of Russian and Ukrainian pogrom perpetrators: 54. Ibid., pt. 1, 1. 55.Quoted in Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 27–29. Critics likened Pappenheim’s portraits of Eastern European Jewish life in Struggles to those in Franzos’s literary work. Regina Neißer, review of Kampfe: ¨ Sechs Erzahlungen, ¨ by Bertha Pappenheim, Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 34, no. 22 (1917): 372. Like Pappenheim, Franzos was an Austrian Jew who relocated to Germany later in life. Although he was born in Czortkow (now in the Ukraine), the Barnow of his stories, he was raised by a Germanophile father and attended a Dominican school, where he learned Polish and Latin. Despite his geographical origins, he was never part of the Eastern European Yiddish-speaking ghetto and deliberately distanced himself from Eastern European Ashkenazic Jews by emphasizing his father’s Sephardic origins. See my essay “Karl Emil Franzos and Bertha Pappenheim’s Portraits of the (Eastern European Jewish) Artist.” 56. Pappenheim, “Igren,” 227. 57. Pappenheim, “Igren,” 227. Jan Steen (1626–1679) was a Dutch painter who has been compared to Rembrandt and is known for his paintings of everyday life. Gerrit Dou (1613–1675) was a leading painter of the school of Leiden, known for his domestic genre paintings.

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They aren’t human, appearances deceive … Mothers, the shadows darken, they draw nearer. They take on a brutal, bestial form. With wild lust, they murder and they burn. Mothers, they will kill the child at your breast. (lines 10, 16–19)58 In a 1912 letter Pappenheim reported to her colleagues that she felt very uneasy in Moscow, where she could not help but view local ruffians as potential pogrom-murderers: When I saw these drunken men and women together, heard them yelling and laughing and howling from the windows, felt the brazen characters bumping up against me, breathed this air, saw the cellar into which they throw the people that die night after night in brawls, all the while knowing that, in any given moment, 4,000 such people, who could turn into pogrom-beasts on command, with the wave of a hand, are gathered in a relatively small place—the thought of it weighed heavily on me.59 In Pappenheim’s drama Tragic Moments, the barbarism of Russian Christian pogrom perpetrators stands in stark contrast to the civilized humanity of their Russian Jewish victims. In the middle of a three-day pogrom, the wife of the Russian chief of police (the Jews’ “greatest enemy”) is about to give birth, and the chief bids the Jewish Doctor Margulies to deliver the child. Although Margulies’ own pregnant wife had just been murdered in the pogrom, his mother urges him to go, “for it is written: weohawto lereacho komaucho! (Love your neighbor like yourself).”60 This scene underscores the perverse irony of the pogroms: purportedly for religious reasons, Christians slaughtered the very people whose religion fathered their own. Although the negative traits Pappenheim ascribed to Eastern European Jews were largely identical to those attributed to all Jews by antisemites, she rejected the notion that these traits were inherent. Indeed, her plans for a trans58. Pappenheim, “Judische ¨ Mutter. ¨ Pogrom 1905.” The original is rhymed. Pappenheim noted, however, that not all Eastern Europeans were violent antisemites. She reported that 18,000 socialist workers in a factory town on the Dnieper took to arms to save their Jewish neighbors from the “semi-official murderers.” She noted that no harm came to Jews wherever the number of socialist workers was great enough to “protect human rights.” Pappenheim, “Igren,” 225. 59. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 191. 60. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente, 21.

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formation or rejuvenation of Eastern European Jewry through social work and education relied on the premise that Eastern European Jews were not inherently physically, morally, culturally, or intellectually inferior or degenerate but were the victims of an adverse environment. Pappenheim insisted that advances already accomplished by social work programs proved the validity of her assertions. In “The Jewish Question in Galicia” (1900), for example, she rejected the notion that Jews were not suited to farming, arguing that an existing agricultural school for boys had already proven “that Jewish boys develop to be physically normal and strong when they are raised to be tough and hard-working and encouraged to do physical work.”61 In 1904 she observed that Galician youth were “intelligent and have potential for development,”62 and in 1911 she marveled: “The Eastern European Jews’ capability for positive development is admirable.63 Beyond traditional Jewish philanthropy and a fear of antisemitism, in the mid-1920s Pappenheim added another argument to her appeal to Western Jews to assume responsibility for their Eastern brethren: namely, that the survival of Eastern European Jews was vital to the survival of world Jewry at a time when Western Jewish populations appeared to be in a dangerous state of decline.64 In a report on the Second Jewish World Relief Conference in Carlsbad in August 1924, Pappenheim argued that homeless Jewish pogrom and war orphans must be protected as “a valuable human resource [Menschenmaterial] that had the potential to become a selected pedagogical elite [padagogische Auslese], a fountain of hope.”65 In a March 1926 letter to the ¨ executive committee of the JFB, Pappenheim referred to “a drop in the birth 61. Pappenheim, Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 12. 62. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 62. 63. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 205. 64. On demographic developments in Germany and Austria see Meyer, ed. German-Jewish History in Modern Times, 3: 7–34. On the development of Jewish social sciences in Germany in the early 20th century and Jewish social scientists’ debates on Jewish population decline, see Hart, “The Bureau for Jewish Statistics and the Development of Jewish Social Science, 1904–1931” and “The Wages of Modernity: Fertility, Intermarriage, and the Debate over Jewish Decline,” in Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), 56–95. Hart notes that the knowledge generated by Jewish social scientists, especially on the ‘crisis’ in Jewish demographics,” had become an impetus for practical social action by Jewish communities by the late 1920s (222). Pappenheim’s interest in population policy [Bevolkerungspolitik] ¨ from the mid-1920s through the 1930s is part of this trend. 65. Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 64.

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rate, birth control, intermarriage, ‘social indication,’ eugenics, and recently also suicide” among Jews and admonished, “The Jewish community, understood nationally or internationally, cannot afford to lose a single child.”66 Hoping to “take the credit or at least the blame for starting a population policy [bevolkerungspolitischen] ¨ movement in the Jewish Gemeinden,” Pappenheim drafted a leaflet warning that the “continued existence” of the Jewish community in Germany was in grave danger. She listed a similar set of dangerous trends: “Marriage and birthrates are dropping due to late marriage, intermarriage, birth control, abortion, the unwillingness to bear children, fear of financial disadvantages or a smaller inheritance, conversions, mission activities, etc. The statistics would be even more alarming were not the immigration from the East still pouring into our community of blood [Blutsgemeinschaft] some of their not yet entirely exhausted will to preserve our kind.”67 Pappenheim was not the first German Jew to suggest that Eastern European Jewry could play an important role in the rejuvenation of Western European Jewry. Her cultural Zionist contemporaries likewise advanced this notion, which entailed a radical up-ending of the idea that Eastern Jews were inherently inferior or degenerate. The relationship of German Zionists to their Eastern European brethren was very complex. On the one hand, the Eastern Jews served as poster-children for the negative effects of the Diaspora or Galut existence. They embodied the physical, cultural, and moral degeneration that was the alleged result of the oppressive abnormality of ghetto existence.68 At the same time, German Zionism’s conception of a Jewish national regeneration was also influenced by the ideologies of German volkisch ¨ 69 nationalism. For some German Zionists, Eastern European Jewry represented a “genuine,” unalienated Jewish Volk, which, unlike Western European Jews, had not lost its Jewish national identity in the vain attempt to assimilate into the dominant culture. Several Zionist periodicals (as well as others that were not expressly Zionist but generally sympathetic to Jewish nationalism) sought to help reconnect Eastern and Western Jews. Die Welt, Der Jude, Die Freistatt, and Ost und West were all dedicated to disseminating positive images of the Eastern Jews. In addition to furthering anti-defamation efforts and promoting philanthropic 66. Ibid., 73. 67. Ibid., 78–79. 68. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 88. 69. Ibid., 101–2.

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projects in Eastern Europe, these periodicals sought to familiarize German Jews with Eastern European Jewish culture by featuring the works of its artists, visual depictions of Eastern European Jewish life, and translations of Yiddish literature, folklore, and folksongs. Martin Buber’s Judischer ¨ Verlag (Jewish Press) likewise published translations of Yiddish literature and reproductions of the works of Eastern Jewish artists as part of a cultural Zionist “Jewish Renaissance.”70 Martin Buber’s positive revaluation of Hasidism is one example of the Zionist reversal of negative stereotypes of Eastern European Jewry. By ignoring the unattractive realities of contemporaneous Hasidic life in favor of a highly selective, stylized, legendary vision of the early years of the Hasidic movement, Buber succeeded in rescuing Hasidism for German Jews. The darker side of the Hasidic lifestyle in Buber’s day (the supposed moral depravity, physical hardships, superstition, illiteracy, disregard for secular learning, and morally dubious zaddikim emphasized by critics such as Pappenheim) would hardly have seemed an attractive alternative to the majority of German Jews. By focusing on Hasidic legend, however, Buber propagated a mythical Hasidism, a vision of an organic, intact Ur-Jewish community, which although it was appealing to Jewish adherents of German-style volkisch ¨ nationalism as well as to Jewish neo-mystics, had little to do with the contemporaneous Hasidic communities of Eastern Europe.71 During and after World War I, however, when direct contact with Eastern Jews became inevitable (German soldiers encountered Eastern Jews on the Eastern front, and growing numbers of Eastern Jewish refugees and forced laborers entered Germany), the “cult” of Eastern Jewry focused increasingly on contemporary Eastern Jews. According to Aschheim, a distinctly socialist direction distinguished this strain of the myth from its pre-war predecessors. The best known literary and artistic product of this socialist-inspired strain was Arnold Zweig and Hermann Struck’s 1919 collaborative work, Das ostjudische ¨ Antlitz (The Face of East European Jewry), which in picture and word inverted negative stereotypes of Eastern Jews, romantically depicting them as the true Jewish proletariat, representatives of a culturally and spiritually intact community that had managed to resist Western materialism.72

70. Brenner, “Promoting East European Jewry,” 63–88. 71. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 122–35; Robertson, “Western Observers and Eastern Jews,” 97–98. 72. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 199–202. See also Noah Isenberg, “The Imagined Community: Arnold Zweig and the Shtetl,” in Between Redemption and Doom: The

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The Berlin Volksheim, founded by Zionist Siegfried Lehmann in 1916, was one exemplary practical outgrowth of this positive revaluation. Instead of a wholesale glorification of Eastern Jews, the Volksheim founders envisioned a synergetic exchange between Eastern and Western Jewry. While Western Jews would assume the roles of teacher and social worker toward their minoraged Volksheim pupils, imparting the practical vocational skills necessary to “overcome” the ghetto, they themselves would learn from their pupils “noninstrumental values, religious subjectivity, lost Jewish modes of being.”73 Pappenheim’s 1936 essay “Kleine Reisenotizen” (Brief Travel Notes), which she wrote after visiting the Beth Jacob seminary in Krakow in November 1935, suggests that her vision of what German Jews stood to receive if they invested in the practical education of Eastern European Jews was different from the Volksheim concept.74 For her, it was important for German Jews to invest in “Eastern Jewish girls’ education” because the 3.5 million Jews living in Poland represented “bloodwise [blutmaßig], ¨ a reservoir of intact Jewishness, of unspent Jewish vitality and the will to live.”75 This statement defines more clearly what was already implied in the above-mentioned texts from the 1920s, that Eastern European Jews provided biological insurance for the continuity of Jewish life.76 This did not mean, however, that Pappenheim and other German Jews who came to regard Eastern European Jews as a population reservoir [Bevolkerungsreservoir] ¨ had revised their negative opinions of those Jews—the adherents of the “cult” of Eastern Jewry were an important but small minority.77 Although Pappenheim advanced the notion that Eastern Jews could be the salvation of World Jewry, she cautioned, “Whether we will succeed in activating significant forces for World Jewry or not, depends on

Strains of German-Jewish Modernism, 51–76 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999). 73. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 195. Lehmann visited the JFB Home in Isenburg sometime in the late 1920s or early 1930s. However, there is no mention of Lehmann or the Volksheim in Pappenheim’s extant writings. Hanna Lowenstein, ¨ “Erinnerung an Bertha Pappenheim,” TS, Bertha Pappenheim Collection, 51/324, Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt. 74. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen.” 75. Ibid., 194. 76. Ibid. 77. Whereas the notion that Eastern European Jews could rejuvenate German Jewry was at first restricted to some Zionist and Orthodox circles, by the 1920s the idea that Eastern European Jewry represented a “population reservoir” gained currency among German Jews of other persuasions. Maurer, Ostjuden in Deutschland, 756–57.

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what attitude we take toward this reservoir of Jewishness.”78 For Pappenheim, Eastern Jews were a natural resource, biological raw material. They were valuable to World Jewry only if “processed” and used wisely. In other words, educating Eastern Jewish girls and women was a vital component of Jewish “population policy.” Portrayals of Eastern European Jewish women in Pappenheim’s earlier writings ranged from negative, grossly stereotypical depictions resembling antisemitic caricatures to nostalgic idealizations that hearkened back to a traditionally pious womanhood of centuries past. Although the latter are positive, it is clear that Pappenheim viewed those women as exceptions whose anachronistic way of life was undesirable for new generations of Jewish females. Both of these extremes are represented in Pappenheim’s 1916 collection of short stories, Struggles. As noted above, the two female figures of the first story, “The Redeemer,” are little more than caricatures of two “types” (Pappenheim’s term) of Eastern European Jewish womanhood: the youthful prostitute and the aging female trafficker and brothel proprietor. Muhme Rifke’s “whole appearance is characteristic of the Russian or Galician Jewess [Judenfrau].”79 Pappenheim’s vision of this “type” is hardly flattering: A headscarf made of brownish black satin covered half of her forehead, which, like her entire face, seemed to be covered with lined, wrinkled, grained parchment. She had small, red-rimmed, lashless eyes and a toothless mouth. Her head and shoulders were covered by a large shawl.80 Her hands are dirty, as is her “typically Jewish” second-hand store; she is prematurely aged; and she complains incessantly in a “plaintive, whining tone” of her physical ailments and general misfortune.81 She is a thief, she exploits and abuses children (she sent Reisle begging and beat her when she brought home too little money), and she runs a brothel. The prostitute Reisle embodies another “type” of the East European Jewess.82 While Pappenheim focuses here on physical attributes and clothing, Reisle’s outward appearance is meant to reflect her inner character. A diamond pin fastening her red blouse, for example, “betrayed” not only her “voluptuous

78. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 194. 79. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 28. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid., 26–30. 82. Ibid., 27.

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figure” but also “her lack of any conception of tidiness, one common side of vanity that is suitable for ruining its intended effect.”83 Elsewhere Pappenheim states that Reisle is vain and obsessed with dressing up [putzsuchtig]. ¨ She is 84 “morally repugnant,” with a “serious deficiency in her inner life.” These stereotypically negative portrayals of Reisle and Rifke are consistent with representations of Eastern European Jewish women in Pappenheim’s travel reports. In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim noted, “The women and girls’ way of dressing is gaudy and tasteless.” The exemplary family life of traditional Jewry had given way to the “sad sight” of the “Saturday afternoon ‘parade,’” where “throngs of young girls, dressed to the nines, roam the main streets and public gardens of the small towns, flirting with officers and high school students.”85 While the girls are, according to Pappenheim, “fresh and pretty,” the women are “prematurely aged and wilted, often with the demeanor of dull domestic animals.”86 They are “lazy,” “mentally lazy [denkfaul],” and “indolent.”87 Their ignorance of proper child-care, hygiene, and housekeeping practices is the “root of abundant misfortune, of disease, gross neglect, and depravity.”88 She claims that most of the prostitutes in Galicia, as well as many of the pimps, were Jewish women.89 Pappenheim made similar assertions in Sisyphus-Work, where she predicted that the Zionist venture in Palestine would collapse within twenty years, due largely to Eastern European Jewish women’s ignorance of and disinterest in home economics.90 She reported that the Jewish women of Sofia (which had an Ashkenazic community comprised mostly of Rumanian, Russian, and Galician Jews) were morally corrupt, dirty, and lazy,91 and that the majority of prostitutes and pimps in Saloniki, Philippopel, and Constantinople were Eastern European Jews, including at least one notorious female procurer with connections in Galicia and Rumania.92 In regard to the female 83. Ibid. 84. Ibid., 20, 28, 30, 35, 38–39. 85. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 8, 10. 86. She reiterates later in the text that Galician women are “domestic animals in the basest sense of the word.” Ibid., 48. 87. Ibid., 21, 48. 88. Ibid., 61. 89. Ibid., 46–47. 90. Ibid., 119–20. 91. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 28. 92. Ibid., 34, 40, 42, 51–2.

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Jewish residents of Lodz, she reported, “… the street scene is appalling— immorality; hedonism; gaudy bad taste in form, color, and fashion; careless, laughing depravity is already visible in small girls.”93 However, she absolved these women of responsibility for their failings, reasoning that their immorality was the logical result of their woefully inadequate religious and practical education. It was “no wonder… because there is no school, no instruction, no religious influence or training.”94 In public speeches tailored for a Jewish audience, Pappenheim did not mince words concerning the purported immorality of these women. In her controversial speech “On the Morality Question,” she warned: Boredom, curiosity, lethargy, an obsession with dressing up, fantasy, and hot bloodedness, on the one hand; lack of education, inexperience, enticement, and cunning criminality on the other hand complement one other with the result that the most Orthodox regions of the East— of all places!—supply the white slave trade with the largest share of human merchandise.95 Pappenheim marshalled the entire arsenal of negative stereotypes commonly attributed to Eastern Jewish women. However, she attributed their supposed faults to the complete neglect of their practical and especially their religious education in ultra-traditional Eastern European Jewish communities, where women were viewed as “inferior creatures whose only purpose is reproduction.”96 Despite social revolution elsewhere, the typical woman in these communities remained weak and passive, “living with the unchallenged belief that she can attain a kind of prestige only indirectly, through her sexual exploitation [ihrer sexuellen Verwertung].”97 She maintained that Galician and Russian girls from the most pious homes were, paradoxically, the most likely to fall prey to white slave traders or to prostitute themselves, because “they knew that they have only a sexual value [Geschlechtswert].”98 Lacking the religious and moral education afforded their male counterparts, they might justifiably see little difference between the status and function of a prostitute and that of a Jewish wife. 93. Ibid., 146. 94. Ibid. 95. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 22. 96. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 14. 97. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 21. 98. Ibid.

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In a 1901 speech at a meeting of the Frankfurt Israelite Relief Organization, Pappenheim continued her advocacy for Galician women. She argued, “The girls who are bad today are only bad because society let them become bad, and didn’t help them to become good while they were still wavering, when they were still standing on the border between good and bad.”99 In a 1908 essay Pappenheim again attributed the rampant spread of white slavery in Galicia to “men’s attitudes about matters of sexual ethics and women’s rights.”100 It was “no wonder” that Galician Jewish women, “who were raised primarily as sexual beings, without knowledge and vocational training,” would take advantage of the first opportunity, no matter how dubious, to escape.101 Although Pappenheim characterized Reisle and Muhme Rifke as “typical” Eastern Jewish women, she did offer positive female counterparts. In “The Redeemer,” Wolf Wasserschierling’s deceased mother was a hard-working and pious woman and an exemplary mother. Gewiera of “The Miracle Rabbi” was also a different type of Eastern European Jewish woman. “With her partly old-fashioned, partly idiosyncratic nobility,” she embodied the archaic gentility of dynastic Hasidic zaddikim.102 While Pappenheim honored the sort of naive feminine wisdom and piety personified in Gewiera, she did not offer her as a role model for the next generation of Eastern European Jewish women. Although she embodies the best aspects of her disappearing culture, Gewiera recognizes its imminent demise and advocates for her son an alternative path. Instead of becoming a Wunderrabbi like his father and grandfather, he will receive a secular German education. Thus in “The Miracle Rabbi” Pappenheim reiterated the negative views of most German Jews of her generation in their aversion to Hasidism.103 The Hasidic movement, which opposed modern science and abhorred secular learning, was antithetical to the rationalist Enlightenment ideals inherent in the self-understanding of post-emancipation German Jews. Although Ger99. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Immoralitat ¨ der Galizianerinnen,” 20. 100. Pappenheim, “Zustande ¨ in Galizien,” 125. 101. Ibid., 124. 102. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 50. 103. According to Mordechai Breuer, Orthodox Jews were an important exception. After roughly 1907 many Orthodox German Jews shifted from their “earlier definite rejection” to a “thoroughly genererous, even respectful treatment” of Hasidic Jews. Personal connections between individual rabbis developed into widespread collaboration between Orthodox Jews in Germany and Hasidic Jews in the international Agudat Israel. Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, 367–68.

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man Jews found some Hasidic ideas acceptable and even attractive, most believed that the movement had degenerated—that corrupt, charlatan Wunderrabbis, who themselves lived in luxury, held their poor, uneducated followers in a state of ignorance in order to exploit them. Finally, it was widely felt that the physical appearance of the Hasidic “caftan-Jews” who immigrated to Germany undermined German Jews’ attempts to render their Jewishness invisible. The Hasidim served as visible reminders of the differences that acculturated German Jews had sought to erase in their attempts to transform their Jewishness into something that could be contained behind the closed doors of the home or synagogue.104 In The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, Pappenheim asserted that Galician Hasidism was no longer the “mystically pious, antiTalmudic movement” within Orthodox Judaism that it had once been: “Today, Hasidism holds the spirit of the pure doctrine of God and of morality transfixed in forms and formulas, with the result that its adherents cannot see through the jumble of trivialities to the heart of Jewish teaching.”105 The form of religion had superseded its moral content, allowing “a state of deepest moral depravity” to coexist with Orthodox practice: “More often than not they only live under the spell of ritual, which they have not dared cast off, because they are superstitious and afraid of what their neighbors will say. They are not devout [fromm].”106 She condemned especially the emergence of a “priestly caste” and entire “dynasties of Wunderrabbis,” as antithetical to Judaism, which “knows no Dogma and no priests as mediators between man and God.”107 While she carefully noted that not all Wunderrabbis were necessarily “swindlers,” she charged that some (she named those of Chortkov, Sadgora, and Belschitz) exploited the “superstition and limited intelligence” of their followers to amass personal riches and even to gain political influence.108 She demystified the so-called “miracles” these leaders performed, claiming they “were usually advice in business, medical, or legal matters, whose efficacy [could] be explained by the rebbe’s experience in assessing the circumstances, or by psychological or suggestive influences.”109 Pappenheim’s descriptions of the rebbes’ wives were more sympathetic. In 104. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 13–16. 105. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 41. 106. Ibid., 41. 107. Ibid., 42. 108. Ibid. 109. Ibid.

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her assessment, they were more intelligent than their husbands: “The contact with the public in the ante-chambers of the rabbis appears to have made them more sophisticated and well-versed in the ways of the world. This is demonstrated by their comprehension of what our mission could mean for the country and its people.”110 However, she viewed these matrons as different from most Hasidic women, who remained, in general, “under the spell of absolute ignorance and lack of culture.”111 In theory, Hasidism allowed for the learned hasidah, examples of whom included the Ba’al Shem Tov’s daughter Edel; her daughter and the mother of the zaddik Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav, the zaddikah Feige; and the “Maid of Ludomir,” Hannah Rachel Werbermacher.112 However, these women were certainly more the exception than the rule. By the early twentieth century—although secular education for Polish Hasidic girls was encouraged, largely due to financial considerations— formal religious education was deemed “not in consonance with Jewish tradition.”113 Like Gewiera, Rosy of “Friday Evening” and Hannah of “Hungarian Village Story” are sympathetic figures, but they too are not role models. Like Reisle of “The Redeemer,” they serve to warn what will happen if the education of the next generation of Jewish women does not keep pace with the changing times. Hannah becomes enamored of a Catholic boy and his religion. Unable to choose between her father and her beloved, she commits suicide. Rosy, whose parents send her to work so that she can contribute financially to her brother’s university education, is the victim of the traditional privileging of male offspring. Because she has received insufficient vocational training and will not work on the Sabbath, her earnings are minimal. Unable to afford safe lodging, she is vulnerable to unwanted sexual advances by her landlord.114 Despite the many shortcomings of Eastern European Jewish women that Pappenheim enumerated in her literary texts and other writings, she nevertheless viewed them as the raw material that could potentially rejuvenate an 110. Ibid. 111. Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], Zur Judenfrage in Galizien, 7. 112. Shoshana Pantel Zolty, “And All Your Children Shall be Learned”: Women and the Study of Torah in Jewish Law and History (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1993), 247–52. 113. Ibid., 266. 114. Women’s Relief’s job referral office specialized in finding Jewish employers who would hire Jewish women who observed the Sabbath. Women’s Relief also offered referrals for safe, affordable housing and in 1913 began to rent out rooms on its own. Bericht des Vereins “Weibliche Fursorge” ¨ E.V. fur ¨ die Zeit 1912–1913, 12–13, 22–23, 25.

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international Jewish community in crisis. The project of educating these women was of such vital importance to Pappenheim that she devoted much of her energy in the last months of her life to strengthening the Beth Jacob movement in Poland. Interestingly, Sarah Schenirer, the eldest daughter of a Krakow Hasidic family and founder of the Beth Jacob schools, reached virtually the same conclusions as Pappenheim. Schenirer’s personal experiences (according to one anecdote, she returned home from her work as a seamstress to find her brother and father engrossed in a religious debate that was beyond her comprehension, her mother reading the Tsenerene, and her younger sister reading a Polish novel) alerted her to the dangers of ignoring girls’ religious educations. Whereas their mothers “found fulfillment in prayer and simple faith” and their brothers found intellectual stimulation “in the challenging world of yeshivah and Torah study,” the new generation of Hasidic girls, who attended Polish public schools, were no longer satisfied to remain in the world of their mothers. They came to perceive traditional Jewish life as outmoded and yearned to be free of its restrictions.115 When she founded her first school in 1917, Schenirer expected resistance to her plans to institute religious education for girls—both from “progressives,” who would “consider traditional education for women a step backward,” and from male Orthodox leaders, who, at a 1903 conference of rabbis, had almost unanimously rejected a proposal for establishing religious schools for women.116 In 1919, however, the international Orthodox organization Agudat Israel, acknowledging that informal Jewish education and the Jewish home were no longer enough to keep Jewish girls loyal to tradition, began its affiliation with the Beth Jacob movement, and in 1923 Agudat Israel assumed partial financial responsibility for its schools. In 1925 the Beth Jacob Seminary in Krakow was established, and by 1931 there were 111 Beth Jacob schools in Poland, serving 14,930 students. In 1937 there were 250 schools serving 38,000 students.117 Beth Jacob’s success within the Hasidic community was attributable to Schenirer’s ability to garner the support of several prominent Hasidic leaders, including the Rebbe of Belz (her family were

115. Devora Rubin, ed., Daughters of Destiny: Women who Revolutionized Jewish Life and Torah Education (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah, 1988), 169–70. 116. Zolty, “And All Your Children Shall be Learned,” 277. 117. The 1937 statistics are those provided by the Agudat. The Joint Distribution Committee figures are more modest (248 schools, serving 35,586 students) but still impressive. Gershon C. Bacon, The Politics of Tradition: Agudat Yisrael in Poland, 1916–1939 (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1996), 161–69.

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members of this exceedingly conservative sect), the Rebbe of Ger, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe.118 Pappenheim characterized Beth Jacob as: … an intellectual movement within East European Jewry… through which coming generations, from the very milieu that sinned against Jewish woman for centuries, will today draw strength from the inexhaustible wellspring [unerschopflicher ¨ Quelle] of Jewish teaching, so that they can faithfully and consciously bear witness to its teachings.119 After visiting the Beth Jacob Seminary in Krakow in November 1935, however, she wrote: As the result of my observations during my stay at the Krakow seminary, I have become convinced that the seminary must be reorganized and equipped to become a bridge into the real world for its female students— naturally while maintaining the observance and heartfelt study of Jewish law [unter Beibehaltung und seelischer Durcharbeitung aller religionsgesetzlichen Vorschriften].120 Although Pappenheim was heartened by the work of the seminary, she identified the need to take the Beth Jacob project one step further. The Krakow Seminary was devoted primarily to religious education, in particular to educating future teachers, who would in turn teach at Beth Jacob schools in remote communities. After her visit in Krakow in 1935, Pappenheim proposed founding a partner school, an “institute for social education,” which would give “female Jewish youth the theoretical introduction to and practical training in those professions whose representatives are recognized in all civilized countries as indispensable to the life of the community.”121 Seeing the spiritual needs of Jewish women met, Pappenheim sought to direct attention back to their material needs. Her proposed partner institute would offer young women vocational training in fields that would both provide them 118. Although the Belzer rebbe supported the Beth Jacob movement in theory, he did not allow daughters of Belzer Hasidim to attend Beth Jacob schools. The majority of Beth Jacob students were from the Ger sect. Zolty, “And All Your Children Shall be Learned,” 278–80. 119. Quoted in Jacobson, “Beth Jacob und Bertha Pappenheim,” 1. 120. Ibid., 2. 121. Bertha Pappenheim, “Leitgedanken von Bertha Pappenheim,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12, no. 10 (October 1936): 3–4.

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with a livelihood and serve the well-being of the whole Jewish community. Rather than becoming unworldly female Yeshiva-Bokhoyrim, women would learn traditionally female trades and skills (housekeeping, child-care, social work, nursing), with an emphasis on home economics as the foundation for all female professions. Pappenheim argued: It’s useless to have a Beth Jacob program that doesn’t move ahead with the times, that is left behind rather than preparing the way. If the Agudat wants to continue to be … an intellectual current and a fountain of Jewish life in every legitimate form, then it must see to it that the girls find a bridge out of the depths of this wellspring into the real world. If it doesn’t do that, the bridge will silt up. The youth are thirsty for life and ready to walk this bridge.122 Pappenheim urged that her proposed institute not be viewed as competition for the seminary but as a complementary venture: The teaching objective of the seminary and the training objective of the proposed new institution should not for an instant be seen as antithetical but rather as complementary. The Orthodox life-style, and—if one may call it that—the students’ intellectual, religious “dowry,” must be so secure that the girls will remain Jewishly educated, professing Jewish women, who can use their knowledge to defend their religion against attacks, and who do not only carry their religion through life out of habit or like a burden. No matter where destiny leads them.123 Pappenheim recommended that tuition and room and board should be kept low enough that girls from families of limited means would find a place there to learn to make an “independent, honest living.”124 She hoped, therefore, to interest the Agudat Israel, which, as mentioned above, supported the Beth Jacob system, in financing the partner schools. An international Orthodox organization that had been founded largely in opposition to the advancement of Zionism, Bundist socialism, and Reform Judaism, Agudat Israel had united three relatively disparate factions: German Orthodoxy, Hungarian Orthodoxy, and Polish and Lithuanian Orthodoxy (including Hasidic

122. Quoted in Jacobson, “Beth Jacob und Bertha Pappenheim,” 2. 123. Pappenheim, “Leitgedanken von Bertha Pappenheim,” 3. 124. Ibid.

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Jews).125 Pappenheim recommended that the first “teaching missionaries” should “know Polish well, understand Yiddish, and learn Hebrew.”126 That she recommended several institutions in Germany for their training indicates that she presupposed that they also be proficient in German. In the case of Beth Jacob, Pappenheim compromised on her usual insistence that Jewish schooling should be conducted in the dominant language of its host country. This was, perhaps, a pragmatic concession both to Beth Jacob and to the Polish Agudat, which promoted the use of Yiddish for ideological reasons, viewing it as a barrier against assimilation. Schenirer’s students recall that their founder insisted on the exclusive use of Yiddish at Beth Jacob (even outside of the classroom).127 In a 1930 issue of the Beit Ya’akov Journal Schenirer argued: “Speaking Polish is not a sin, but speaking Polish because one is ashamed to speak Yiddish is a great sin.”128 Pappenheim approved, for a slightly different reason. In regard to the Beth Jacob schools she commented in her “Brief Travel Notes”: I view all linguistic seclusion [Sprachenklausur] as an ill. However, Yiddish possesses all of the possibilities (scientific, literary, and linguistic) for development towards the German language, so that whoever knows Yiddish well can quickly learn to speak and understand a good pure German. This is not the case for Hebrew.129 In the 1930s Pappenheim objected less to the use of Yiddish in Polish-Jewish institutions than she had in previous years. Compulsory schooling for children up to age fourteen had been instituted in Poland since her early visits to Galicia. This meant that Jewish children already had a spoken and written command of Polish.130 Formal schooling in Yiddish would equip them to learn German as well.131 A Beth Jacob student recalls that they “were always 125. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Agudat Israel.” See also Bacon, The Politics of Tradition. 126. Pappenheim, “Leitgedanken von Bertha Pappenheim,” 3. 127. Rubin, Daughters of Destiny, 202–3. 128. Quoted in Zolty, “And All Your Children Shall be Learned,” 294. 129. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 195. 130. Ibid., 194. 131. Pappenheim would likely have been less amenable to vocational schooling in Yiddish for boys because their Polish was tainted by the (Yiddish) “intonation of the cheder.” This was not the case for young women, who generally did not receive the intensive religious schooling in Yiddish that their male counterparts did. Ibid., 195.

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chatting away in Polish,” and that “Sarah Schneirer [sic] explained, appealed, requested and reminded, and after that she could also raise her voice and speak angrily, trying to enforce the importance of speaking Yiddish.”132 Pappenheim’s insistence that the teachers learn Hebrew is also noteworthy. She required that her charges in Germany learn Hebrew, but only for religious purposes. At the proposed Beth Jacob institute, the teachers would be responsible for vocational, not religious education. As noted above in Chapter Two, Pappenheim’s rejection of Zionism included a rejection of Hebrew as a secular language. However, by 1936—although she still vehemently opposed, in principle, emigration to Palestine—Pappenheim had already helped several individuals to make aliyah and had arranged for girls bound for Palestine to receive vocational training at Isenburg. She had apparently resigned herself to the reality of increased emigration to Palestine and concluded that if emigration was inevitable, then young women should go prepared. The leaders of Agudat Israel, both in Germany and in Poland, including the director of the Krakow seminary, were highly supportive of Pappenheim’s recommendations.133 At her insistence, they organized a social education conference for April 23, 1936 to discuss implementing them. The Agudat’s respect for Pappenheim’s authority in this arena was so great that they postponed the conference to May 5 when illness prohibited her from travelling. Continued ill health, however, prevented her from attending that meeting as well. Although Pappenheim did not live to see it, the first Beth Jacob vocational school, the Ohel Sarah High School, was founded in Lodz in 1937.134 Throughout her career, Pappenheim stressed that communal responsibility for fellow Jews extended across borders. Not until the mid-1920s, however, did she imply that the tie that bound Western and Eastern Jews was anything but a purely religious one. Her literary writings, however, are less clear-cut. In “The Redeemer,” for example, Wolf immediately recognizes Reisle as a Jew: by the dark curly hair that hung in tangles in her face, by the shape of her lively eyes with their longing gaze, and through that inexplicable

132. Rubin, Daughters of Destiny, 203. 133. Jacobson, “Beth Jacob und Bertha Pappenheim,” 2. 134. Bacon, The Politics of Tradition, 169–70; Deborah R. Weissman, “Bais-Ya’akov: A Women’s Educational Movement in the Polish Jewish Community, A Case Study in Tradition and Modernity” (Master’s thesis, New York University,1977), 81–82.

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feeling of a tribal bond that instinctively joins together all Jews, Wolf knew that she was a Jewish girl.135 This instant identification had nothing to do with religious or even cultural affinities but was more primal— based on the recognition of physical traits, such as the shape of the eyes, and an instinctive “tribal bond.”136 Although Pappenheim, like most German Jews, continued to view Jews as a religious (not an ethnic or national) community, the language that she used to describe exactly what it was that connected diverse groups of Jews across national boundaries changed over time, gradually alluding to Jews’ interconnection as a people or tribe. This shift is most apparent in the abovementioned 1936 “Brief Travel Notes,” where Pappenheim listed some of the diverse factions of world-Jewry: “Yemenites, Mizrachists, Falashas,137 Agudists, Hasidim, Zionists of every type, Liberal Jews and Reform Jews [Liberale und Reformjuden], Jewish Chinese, Indian Jews, the assimilated of all countries, home-comers… Perhaps they can be viewed as blood relatives, even if their connection has long since been purely voluntary.”138 While she seemed here unwilling to accept the notion that the “mosaic pieces of the Jewries” should be bound only by blood, she was unable to name an alternative because the “common denominator formulated by Hillel139 and elucidated by the ten commandments and the sexual ethics of religious law, which people call pop-

135. Pappenheim, Kampfe, ¨ 13–14. 136. It is noteworthy that Pappenheim chooses the word Stammgemeinschaftsgefuhl ¨ (feeling of a tribal bond). In 1910 Franz Oppenheimer published the essay “Stammesbewußtsein und Volksbewußtsein,” in which he differentiated between Eastern and Western European Jews’ relationships to Zionism. According to Oppenheimer, Eastern European Zionists felt a Volksbewußtsein (national consciousness) and Western European Zionists a Stammesbewußtsein (tribal, ethnic, or “clan” consciousness), the “sense of belonging to a great historical nation, a pride in common ancestry, an identification with the past, and an acceptance of Jewish identity.” This historical Stammesbewußtsein did not conflict with Western European Zionists’ German, French, etc. cultural or national identity. Aschheim, Brothers and Strangers, 97. 137. This term refers to an Ethiopian Jewish group, who now prefer the name Beta Israel. They view the designation “Falasha” as one of contempt. 138. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 195. 139. Pappenheim refers here to the “golden rule.” When a non-Jew told Hillel the Elder he would convert to Judaism if Hillel could teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot, Hillel responded: “What is hateful to you, do not unto your neighbor; this is the entire Torah, all the rest is commentary.” Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Hillel (the Elder, tan.).”

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ulation policy [Bevolkerungspolitik] ¨ nowadays, is disregarded and has 140 failed.” The terminology that Pappenheim employed in this essay is not unlike the language that National Socialists used during these same years. The term Welt-Judentum [World Jewry], a commonplace of antisemitic conspiracy theories, and the expressions blutmaßig ¨ [blood-wise], Lebenskraft [life force or vitality], Lebenswille [will to live], and Bevolkerungsreservoir ¨ [population reservoir] were among the mainstays of National Socialist “Blood and Soil” rhetoric.141 That Pappenheim would employ the language of her oppressors is not necessarily surprising. Victor Klemperer argued that even Jews were not immune to the all-pervasive “LTI,” the “Lingua Tertii Imperii” or Language of the Third Reich, whose words and images were unquestioningly assimilated by all who lived in Germany during its reign, “supporters and opponents, beneficiaries and victims.”142 Klemperer observed, “The LTI was omnipresent and reigned supreme even among Jews, in their conversations, in their letters, even in books, as long as they were still allowed to publish them.”143 However, this language (the blood terminology, organic images, and archaisms) predated and was not specific to National Socialism. It was also the language of cultural Zionists such as Martin Buber, whose Jewish nationalist thought, as noted above, was influenced by volkisch ¨ and neo-romantic nationalisms. Pappenheim read Martin Buber’s Drei Reden uber ¨ das Judentum (Three Addresses on Judaism), in which he used the concept of “blood” and “community of blood” to define Jewish identity in a world where Jews (especially Western Jews) were no longer bound by land, language, and culture or way of life—the three elements that typically constitute nationhood.144 After the Holocaust, Buber felt compelled to clarify his usage of the term “blood” in this text. In a 1959 Hebrew edition he added the note: “Several years after 140. Pappenheim, “Kleine Reisenotizen,” 194. 141. Eugen Seidel and Ingeborg Seidel-Slotty, Sprachwandel im Dritten Reich: Eine kritische Untersuchung faschistischer Einflusse ¨ (Halle: Verlag Sprache und Kultur, 1961), 64–84; Cornelia Berning, Vom “Abstammungsnachweis” zum “Zuchtwart”: Vokabular des Nationalsozialismus (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1962), 210. 142. Victor Klemperer, Die unbewaltigte ¨ Sprache: Aus dem Notizbuch eines Philologen “LTI,” 3rd edition (Darmstadt: Joseph Melzer, 1966. First published 1947), 20. 143. Ibid., 28. 144. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, May 17, 1918, Martin Buber Archives; Martin Buber, Drei Reden uber ¨ das Judentum (Frankfurt a.M.: Rutten ¨ und Loening, 1911); Manuel Duarte de Oliveira, “Passion for Land and Volk: Martin Buber and Neo-Romanticism,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 41 (1996): 239–60.

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these words were written, evil men arose and perverted the concept ‘blood,’ which I found necessary to use here. Therefore, I hereby announce that every place I used the concept ‘blood,’ I in no way intended it as a racial term, which, in my opinion, has no basis, but as a term that indicates the continuity of generations, which is the backbone which preserves a people’s essence.”145 It must be pointed out that this language is also the language of eugenics or “race hygiene,” as the movement was sometimes called in German. Since the eugenics movement had widespread support in Germany from all political parties through the Weimar period, it is hardly surprising that Pappenheim, a social worker and activist, would employ its terminology. Given her efforts to rescue and rehabilitate individuals at the margins of society—such as prostitutes and other “at risk” or “morally insane” women (this “asocial” behavior was believed to be hereditary), who were becoming the targets of negative eugenics—it would have been imperative for her to familiarize herself with eugenics and to engage with it in her work. It should also be noted here that race did not play an important role in the German eugenics movement until the end of World War I. After the war, the movement was split into two camps: the Munich chapter of the German Society for Race Hygiene embraced a “Nordic” ideology, while the Berlin chapter rejected it. Moreover, racial antisemitism was not inherent to the “Nordic” ideology in its early stages. The Aryan supremacists embraced it during the years of the Weimar Republic and adopted it fully under National Socialism.146 Even after 1933, German eugenics was more concerned with class than race.147 Pappenheim’s extant writings contain few direct references to qualitative eugenics, either positive (improving society by promoting reproduction among its fitter elements) or negative (improving the population by discouraging reproduction among the unfit). It is clear, however, that she was highly skeptical of the notion that character traits are hereditary. In 1911, for example, she wrote her colleagues: Just imagine it, I am seriously considering bringing a Gypsy baby home with me, because it would so interest me to find out if and when learned 145. Quoted in Duarte de Oliveira, “Passion for Land and Volk,” 250n43. 146. Henry Friedlander, “The Setting,” in The Origins of Nazi Genocide (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995), 1–22. Sheila Faith Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany, 1904–1945,” in The Wellborn Science: Eugenics in Germany, France, Brazil, and Russia, ed. Mark B. Adams (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 8–68. 147. Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany,” 10.

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traits are overcome by inherited ones. I see a lot of little creatures here, who are tempting me to do a pedagogical experiment.148 In a report on Isenburg, Pappenheim likewise seemed to delight in defying eugenic “wisdom”: We know that good parents can have bad children, and bad parents can have good children. It is comforting that eugenics is not infallible, otherwise the world would long since have perished. All Jewish Messianic hope is personified in each child who needs our help to seek, 149 sound in body and mind, the path to godliness [Gottahnlichkeit]. ¨ Indeed, Pappenheim’s work at Isenburg was predicated on the notion that nurture and education can overcome nature. German “race hygiene,” however, was not restricted to qualitative concerns. In the years leading into the First World War, a population policy [Bevolkerungspolitik] ¨ whose measures were directed at an absolute increase in population (stemming the decline in the birthrate) came to the fore of the German eugenics movement.150 Although Pappenheim seems to have rejected qualitative (especially negative) eugenics, she embraced the quantitative strand of positive race hygiene. In the abovementioned 1924 petition to the Jewish World Relief Conference to establish a World Collective Guardianship, Pappenheim used the terminology of population policy and positive eugenics to justify the rescue of Eastern European pogrom and war orphans, arguing that they were a “valuable human resource [Menschenmaterial] that must become a selected pedagogical elite [padagogische Auslese].”151 In order ¨ to effectively counter the arguments of proponents of negative eugenics, who would deem the individuals Pappenheim sought to help (including impoverished Eastern European Jewish children—poverty was also considered a sign of degeneracy) not worthy of rescue, Pappenheim spoke their language, legitimizing her own arguments with the same type of archaisms and racial- biological terminology favored by her opponents. Although she labeled her project “Jewish population policy,” she radically undermined this discourse by calling Eastern European Jews—whom eugenicists, and not just in Germany,

148. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 50–51. Emphasis is mine. 149. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, 24. 150. Weiss, “The Race Hygiene Movement in Germany,” 26. 151. Pappenheim, Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], 64.

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considered inferior and even dangerous (the so-called “Slavic threat”)—a “fountain of hope,” the key to the regeneration of world Jewry.

5

From Silent Opposition to Immeasurable Love: Bertha Pappenheim’s Spiritual Journey In 1882, when “Anna O.” was twenty-three years old, her physician Josef Breuer assessed the state of his patient’s spiritual life: She is not at all religious; the daughter of very orthodox, religious Jews, she has been accustomed to carry out all instructions meticulously for her father’s sake and is even now still disposed to do so. In her life religion serves only as an object of silent struggles and silent opposition.1 Nevertheless, by the time she was in her seventies, Bertha Pappenheim was widely admired for her piety and deep love for Jewish tradition. An obituary in the Zeitschrift des Schwesternverbandes der Bne¨ Briss reported her death, noting these very characteristics: On Shavuot, the day of the receiving the Torah on Mt. Sinai,2 a life ended that was sustained by immeasurable love for Judaism and its teachings, a life that stood for the fulfillment of God’s law and the sanctification of God’s name.3 This chapter traces Pappenheim’s religious journey from that clinical assessment when she was Breuer’s patient until her death in 1936, when she was mourned as the religious teacher and spiritual mother of generations of German-Jewish women. Regrettably, sources pertaining to what is perhaps 1. This passage is absent from the case study published by Freud and Breuer, which suppressed Pappenheim’s Jewishness. Quoted in Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 277. 2. Yom Matan Torah. 3. Anna Lewy, “Bertha Pappenheim ist von uns gegangen,” Die Zeitschrift des Schwesternverbandes der Bne¨ Briss 9, no. 6 (June 1936): 1.

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the most interesting period in that religious and spiritual development, the years between her treatment by Breuer and her re-emergence as the housemother of the Frankfurt Israelite Orphanage for Girls in 1895, do not exist. The stories that Pappenheim published anonymously during these years, Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder (Small Stories for Children), have no explicitly religious content.4 Nor are there any letters or other documents from either these missing years or from Pappenheim’s youth in Vienna that shed light on the nature of her alleged “silent struggles” with religion or on what precipitated her apparent religious “rebirth.” While it is impossible to ascertain conclusively the nature of Pappenheim’s “silent opposition” to the staunch Orthodoxy of her father, her later writings offer some insight. In many of these essays and speeches Pappenheim argued, speaking from experience, that women’s exclusion from certain central aspects of Jewish religious and communal life was causing their alienation from the Jewish religion. She pointed to a vicious cycle. Because women were defined in Judaism primarily through their roles as busy wives and mothers, they were “exempted” from lernen (the rigorous study of religious texts), an active role in public worship, certain time-bound mitzvot, and leadership roles in the Jewish community. Because they received little or no formal religious instruction, they frequently learned only the mechanics of Jewish rituals without gaining an understanding and appreciation of their significance. The ostensibly well-meaning exemption of women from traditionally male mitzvot (on the grounds that they could interfere with their important family responsibilities) had evolved into a de facto exclusion of women from communal affairs and even from rudimentary Jewish education, which in turn caused their alienation from Judaism and their resultant unwillingness or inability to create a Jewish home and properly educate Jewish children. In extreme cases, women abandoned Jewish tradition and practice, left the community, or adopted immoral lifestyles.5 At the same time, by defining women solely by

4. [Bertha Pappenheim], Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder (Karlsruhe: G. Braun’sche Hofbuchdruckerei, n.d.). 5. Pappenheim continues in the tradition of Jewish feminists who came before her, such as Fanny Lewald, who also deplored the exclusion of women from Jewish education. Lorenz, Keepers of the Motherland: German Texts by Jewish Women, 37–48. Maya Fassmann also writes about Pappenheim’s Jewish predecessors and contemporaries in the German women’s movement. Maya Fassmann, “Judinnen ¨ in der deutschen Frauenbewegung, 1865–1919,” in Zur Geschichte der judischen ¨ Frau in Deutschland, ed. Julius Carlebach (Berlin: Metropol, 1993), 147–65.

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their roles as wives and mothers, traditional Judaism marginalized unmarried, childless women like Bertha Pappenheim. As we have shown, most of Pappenheim’s time and energy in the 1890s were devoted to the German women’s movement. Surprisingly, however, her burgeoning interest and involvement in feminism did not exacerbate her alienation from the Jewish religion. On the contrary, the movement gave her the tools, platform, and confidence to critique Judaism (or more precisely the status quo in contemporary Jewish life) from within the tradition and to demonstrate that it was compatible with feminism. In her first known essay dealing with these issues, “The Question of Women’s Rights and Careers for Women in Judaism” (published in 1897), Pappenheim argued: “a tribe that has suffered the deprivation of freedom for centuries should actually… have the greatest understanding for a social movement such as the women’s movement. Like Jews, women demand only fairness, i.e. equality with those of equal capabilities.”6 She maintained that “orthodoxy or religiosity” and the goals of the women’s movement were not mutually exclusive: The women’s movement is an intellectual movement that has absolutely nothing to do with religious needs [Bedurfnis], ¨ religious denomination, or the particular bias [Farbung] ¨ of that denomination. The sole purpose of the women’s movement is to make the woman into a vehicle of culture equal to the man, to grant her rights and charge her with duties that no educated person should relinquish.7 Pappenheim was a member and proponent of what she referred to as the gemaßigte ¨ Frauenbewegung, the middle-class, literally “moderate,” branch of the German women’s movement. This branch (later represented by the BDF, of which the JFB became a part) “perpetuated the conventional notion that motherhood was the destiny of women.”8 Although these moderate feminists upheld the notion that women were by nature intrinsically different from men, they did not equate difference in vocation with a difference in value; instead, they sought to elevate the status of motherhood, arguing that it was the most important career because mothers were the educators of future generations and as such “guardians of social and cultural values.”9 In her

6. Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Frauenfrage und Frauenberuf im Judenthum,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 61, no. 41 (October 8, 1897), 484–85. 7. Ibid., 484. 8. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 65. 9. Ibid., 65, 72.

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speech at the 1910 Jewish International Congress for the Suppression of White Slavery, Pappenheim argued for the compatibility of the women’s movement with women’s traditional roles: It is not true that the changed times and free thinking have freed the woman who is fighting for her rights from her duties as wife and mother. On the contrary, the thinking woman must be even more conscious today of the fact that … the family is the element of the state and the tribe. Therefore, modern woman will encounter, everywhere she looks, the tasks that promote the preservation of the state and tribe.10 The confluence of Pappenheim’s entrance into the middle-class German women’s movement with her rediscovery of or reconciliation with traditional Judaism was neither coincidental nor paradoxical. The women’s movement offered unmarried, childless women like Pappenheim (who, entering her midto late thirties, was probably coming to terms with the likelihood that she would never marry or have children of her own) the alternative of “social motherhood.” Even a single, childless woman could fulfill her motherly destiny through a career (paid or volunteer) in education or social work, vocations that were considered “extensions of women’s natural child-rearing functions.”11 At the same time that the women’s movement presented to Pappenheim the theoretical possibility of “social motherhood,” the Frankfurt Jewish community offered her the practical opportunity. In 1895 she became the substitute housemother of the Israelite Orphanage for Girls in Frankfurt. The orphanage offered Pappenheim a socially acceptable venue in which to put into practice the ideologies of the women’s movement; and it allowed her to carve out a place for herself (as the “mother” of motherless children) in a religious tradition in which single, childless women otherwise had no place.12

10. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 227. 11. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 65. 12. As a member of the Jewish elite of Frankfurt, Pappenheim would scarcely have been expected to seek gainful employment as a full-time orphanage housemother. Indeed, it is quite unlikely, given her background and her lack of formal education in social work, that she would ever have been offered the position had the housemother’s illness not made an emergency substitute necessary. When Pappenheim, who had, in the meantime, proven her skills, was offered the position in 1897, she stipulated that her salary be donated directly back to the orphanage. Pappenheim later advocated that social work should, in general, be unpaid or poorly paid. “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 6, 21; Brentzel, Anna O. – Bertha Pappenheim, 84.

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Although many feminists have branded Judaism, especially Orthodox Judaism, as a misogynist tradition, some of today’s Orthodox Jewish feminists insist that Orthodoxy actually celebrates femaleness by recognizing and valuing women’s innate strengths and abilities and enabling them to succeed in their predestined roles.13 Pappenheim’s conception of women’s place was somewhere between these two extremes. While she insisted that Judaism, including Orthodox Judaism, and feminism were not mutually exclusive, she rejected the notion that all details of Jewish law and practice were consistent with the truths handed down at Mount Sinai.14 Indeed, she even suggested that certain practices and beliefs that seemed incompatible with feminism were actually perversions of Judaism. The faulty male interpretation of the letter of Jewish law had resulted in insult and injury to the spirit of Jewish law. When that happened—when historical developments rendered traditional practices inhumane or counterproductive—Pappenheim believed that Jewish law could and should be amended. In the case of the agunah, for example, she argued that it was not in the best interests of the Jewish community to forbid tens of thousands of World War I widows to remarry because of a technicality: “We ask the assembly of rabbis and scholars to attend to the fate of those women who are in danger of being crushed under the wheels of an outmoded interpretation of the law to not bury them alive as widows or drive them to an un-Jewish life.” Pappenheim implied in a Denkzettel that the Torah too had been subject to human (male) mediation: Dear daughters! If I might allow myself to critique the Bible, I would say that, from the unjust position that the Bible assigns to women, it 13. The most marked difference between Pappenheim and modern (sometimes newly) Orthodox feminists is Pappenheim’s apparent disinterest in “family purity” laws. While many feminists regard the family purity laws to be demeaning, Frankiel and Aiken positively revalue the status of niddah (ritual impurity of menstruous women), arguing that it offers women (by imposing distance from their husbands, as well as by providing a tangible way to celebrate their physical rhythms) a unique opportunity for spiritual growth. They argue that keeping family purity laws also has been shown to have health benefits and helps to preserve romance within the marriage. They maintain further that visiting the mikvah can be an intensely spiritual experience. Pappenheim’s extant writings show little interest in family purity laws, perhaps because she considered herself, as an unmarried woman, no expert in these matters. Tamar Frankiel, The Voice of Sarah: Feminine Spirituality and Traditional Judaism (San Francisco: Harper, 1990); Lisa Aiken, To Be a Jewish Woman (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1992). 14. Pappenheim, “Hilfe fur ¨ die Agunoh,” 21.

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follows that it was composed by a brilliant but male human, and not divine dictate. In other words, her inferior status is not the logical and necessary consequence of the difference of the sexes that was willed by God.15 Similarly, in her 1934 essay “The Jewish Girl,” she suggested that male religious authorities had interpreted religious commandments to their own advantage, and that these interpretations were not fundamental to Judaism but mere matters of convention: “The unequal assessment of two creatures who are absolutely dependent on one another can only be explained by the possibility that male lawmakers and interpreters of the law granted themselves a preferential status, which over the course of time became a philosophy of life.”16 Pappenheim and the JFB generally sought to practice “subtle subversion”17 in their reform efforts, carefully avoiding radical positions that could offend potential supporters. There were occasions, however, on which Pappenheim opted for frontal attacks. One example was her speech “On the Morality Question” at the Second Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in October 1907. Because her remarks spurred a scandal that spread quickly throughout the German-Jewish press, it is worth quoting the contentious passage here in its entirety: We women of all cultured lands, we fight against being equal under the law to idiots and children because we have learned to recognize this discrimination as an impediment to our development. And the Jewish woman? For centuries she has not even enjoyed the rights of a thirteen-year-old boy within Jewish communal life, in its culture and its religion (which were, for a long time, identical for Jews). The thirteen-year-old boy, a child, is ceremoniously declared autonomous. He is admitted into the community [Gemeinde]. He counts in a minyan. He takes part in ritual customs. He has a claim to and share in the Torah, he can receive its teachings in their pure form, strengthen himself with them and be inspired by them, refine his sense of morality!—And the woman in the Jewish community? She doesn’t 15. In Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 184. 16. Bertha Pappenheim, “Das judische ¨ Madchen,” ¨ in Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 118. 17. Marion Kaplan aptly applies Glenda Gates Riley’s term “subtle subversion” to the tactics of the JFB. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 74, 98.

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count, she’s worth nothing. She learns nothing. Her spirit doesn’t need strength and grace. She isn’t even allowed to stay pretty, even if she was born with the gift of beauty. She has to mutilate [verstummeln] ¨ or at least disfigure [entstellen] herself. In the eyes of the Jewish law a woman is not an individual, not a personality. She is judged and valued [gewertet] only as wife and mother. The poetic glorification of the Jewish woman bears no relation to the modest rights granted her in civic life.18 Pappenheim did not object here to the traditional notion that women should be first and foremost mothers. Indeed, her actual words were not that Jewish law regarded a woman “only as wife and mother” (this would be antithetical to her conviction that motherhood was the highest imaginable calling) but that it reduced women to “sexual beings [Geschlechtswesen],” breeders whose spiritual needs, intellects, and personalities were inconsequential. A footnote in the printed version indicates that its editors changed the wording “against the wishes of the speaker, in order to avoid polemics.” Newspaper coverage of the conference, however, documented the speech with Pappenheim’s original wording.19 Pappenheim did not believe that motherhood, women’s ideal role, should negate a woman’s autonomy or silence her voice. A mother deserved rights equal to those of her thirteen-year-old son: personal autonomy, the right to a religious education, the right to be counted as a whole Jewish person (in a minyan), a voice (the right to passive and active suffrage) in the community.20 Thus the prostitute “Rifkele Schepschowitz [sic] in [Asch’s] God of Vengeance”21 was, according to Pappenheim, an “explainable phenomenon”: 18. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 20. 19. Ibid., 20. “II. Delegiertentag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 5, no. 39 (October 11, 1907): 2, Beilage 9–10. See also Pappenheim’s report The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia, in which she makes similar arguments and uses the term “Geschlechtswesen.” Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 47. 20. On the JFB’s long battle for voting rights in the Jewish Gemeinde see Kaplan, “The Pursuit of Influence and Equality in Germany’s Jewish Community,” in The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 147–68. 21. Pappenheim alludes here to Scholem Asch’s Yiddish play God of Vengeance, which because of its portrayal of lesbianism and family-run bordellos in the Eastern European ghetto, caused theatre scandals in 1907. Sholem Asch, The God of Vengeance: Drama in Three Acts (Boston: The Stratford Co., 1918); Naomi Seidman, “Staging Tradition: Piety and Scandal in God of Vengeance,” in Sholem Asch Reconsidered, ed. Nanette Stahl,

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Eastern European girls from the most Orthodox families became prostitutes because they knew they had only “a sexual value.”22 It is hardly surprising that male Jewish community leaders took umbrage at Pappenheim’s remarks. The Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt published a detailed report of the heated discussions that followed. According to this report, Rabbi Dr. Jakob Horowitz,23 “in a state of great agitation,” accused Pappenheim of “defaming Judaism.” Pappenheim, also “agitated,” retorted that she “owed it to the memory of her ancestors” to defend herself against this charge, whereupon Horowitz conceded that he had known and respected Pappenheim and her “altruistic, selfless, and noble dedication” to philanthropy for too long to believe that her insults to Judaism were intentional.24 Nevertheless, he defended Judaism’s traditional image of the “ideal” Jewish woman: In the houses in which Jewish women light the candles every Sabbath, consecrating the home, in the houses in which the song of Eshet Hayil25 is sung, another assessment of the Jewish wife prevails. That the ideal of Jewish womanhood is the married woman who is a mother, cannot truly be a reproach against Judaism. The whole warmth, the whole sanctity of Jewish family life is connected to precisely that ideal.26 Their heated exchange notwithstanding, Pappenheim likely agreed with Horowitz’s remarks and with his justification that when Judaism excused women from certain commandments, it did not mean to diminish their importance but rather to honor their “service to God” in the home. Indeed, Pappenheim chastised married female colleagues for neglecting their duties

51–61 (New Haven: Beinecke Rare Book Manuscript Library, 2004); see also op. cit., Nina Warnke, “God of Vengeance: The 1907 Controversy over Art and Morality,” 63–77. 22. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 21–22. 23. Jakob Horowitz (1873–1939) was a leader of Communal Orthodoxy in Frankfurt and served as vice-president of the Union of German Rabbis. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Jacob Horovitz.” 24. “II. Delegiertentag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Beilage 9. 25. Eshet Hayil (a woman of valor) are the opening words of Proverbs 31:10–31, a song in praise of the virtuous woman, which in some families is recited or sung by the husband on Friday evenings before the Kiddush. According to the song, the Eshet Hayil is practical, hard-working, devoted to husband and household, thrifty, optimistic, confident, wise, and kind. According to some sources Eshet Hayil refers not to the housewife but to the Sabbath or to the Torah. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Eshet Hayil.” 26. “II. Delegiertentag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Beilage 9.

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as wives and mothers in favor of volunteer social work outside the home.27 In a later speech, however, she took Horowitz’s arguments to their logical conclusion, arguing that the discrepancy between women’s great “significance [Bedeutung]” for the Jewish community as “upholder, guardian, and preserver of the people” and her low “position [Stellung]” (her lack of a voice in communal matters)28 was “illogical.”29 She concluded that modern women were actually worse off than their female ancestors. Their “significance” had waned as a result of the diminished importance of the Sabbath and kashrut (the realms in which Jewish women had traditionally presided) among increasingly liberal Jews. Through the trivialization [Verflachung] of religious life among Jews, the Jewish woman has lost some of her significance at home, so far without gaining in equal measure in importance and position in Jewish community life.30 After the contentious 1907 JFB conference, more articles appeared echoing Rabbi Horowitz’s assertion that Pappenheim’s remarks represented a “defamation of Judaism.” Die Judische ¨ Presse attributed her damaging statements to her “appalling, elementary ignorance” of Jewish law and her admittedly “scant knowledge of Jewish literature.”31 By focusing on 27. Edinger, ed. Bertha Pappenheim, 144–45. Pappenheim also discouraged Irene Darmstadter ¨ from learning how to drive a car because a mother of three belonged at home with her daughters. Bertha Pappenheim to Frau Darmstadter, ¨ August 20 [no year], S1/324 Teil II, Bertha Pappenheim, Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main. 28. In her 1934 essay “The Jewish Girl,” Pappenheim offered additional examples of disregard for women in Jewish tradition, noting that a girl baby is already considered a “second-class creature,” greeted by the father’s disappointed announcement that the baby is “nothing, a girl” or “only a girl.” Pappenheim suggested counteracting this immediate disregard for girl children by promoting the naming ceremony popular in Southern Germany (“Hole Krasch”) as a parallel to the male Bris. Pappenheim, “Das judische ¨ Madchen,” ¨ 118–19. For a study of the origin of the German-Jewish Hollekreisch ceremony in German folklore (the Germanic Goddess Holda and the legendary figure of Frau Holle), see Jill Hammer, “Holle’s Cry: Unearthing a Birth Goddess in a German Jewish Naming Ceremony,” Nashim 9 (2005): 62–87. 29. Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 240–41. 30. Ibid., 243. 31. “2. Delegiertenversammlung des judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Die Judische ¨ Presse 38 (1907): 426–28; Isak Unna, “Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim und die Stellung der Frau im Judentum,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 5, no. 40 (October 18, 1907): 2. Der Israelit called for Orthodox women to distance themselves from the JFB. “Vom Judischen ¨ Frauenbund,” Der Israelit 48 no. 41 (October 10, 1907): 3. Other reports on the event

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Pappenheim’s lack of familiarity with Jewish texts, however, her critics, especially Rabbi Dr. Isaak Unna, who issued the most scathing attack, unwittingly supported Pappenheim’s arguments. Using “scientific proofs” from the Bible and the Talmud, Unna refuted Pappenheim’s claim that Jewish women were regarded by Jewish law as mere sexual beings. He recommended that the champions of women’s emancipation immerse themselves in the study of Nahida Remy’s32 book “The Jewish Woman.” The author of the book wrote it as a Christian…. The opinion of the Jewish woman that prevails in this book shows a greater knowledge of the position of women in Judaism than the delegates of Jewish women’s organizations demonstrate.33 By denigrating the leaders of Jewish women’s organizations34 and asserting that they did more harm through their ignorance of Jewish texts than they did good through their philanthropy, Unna unintentionally buttressed Pappenheim’s argument that Jewish women should receive a religious education commensurate with their “significance” in the Jewish community. Pappenheim’s 1912 speech “The Woman in Church and Religious Life” can be read as a belated reply to Unna’s article.35 In it, she legitimized her included: Noemi ¨ Baneth, ´ “Ueber den II. Delegiertentag des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” ¨ Judische ¨ Rundschau no. 42 (October 18, 1907): 458; Anne Berliner, “Bericht,” Judische ¨ Rundschau 12, no. 42 (October 18, 1907): 458–59; “Zweite Delegiertenversammlung des judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 71, no. 42 (October 18, 1907): 500–502. 32. Nahida Ruth (Remy, nee ´ Sturmhoefel) Lazarus (1849–1928) wrote Das Judische ¨ Weib (The Jewish Woman) (1891) while still a Christian. She later converted to Judaism and married her mentor, philosopher Moritz Lazarus. Although she was a journalist, playwright, and novelist, she is best known for her writings on Jewish topics. 33. Isak Unna, “Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim und die Stellung der Frau im Judentum,” 2. 34. The majority of the women in the JFB identified strongly with the Jewish religion and the Jewish community. Less strongly Jewish-identified feminists tended to opt for secular organizations. 35. Although this speech occurs five years later, it is clearly a belated rebuttal of Unna and other critics of her 1907 speech; and it was not her last word on the matter. Helga Heubach notes that Pappenheim also alluded to the scandal in an April 20, 1911 letter published in Sisyphus-Arbeit: “Over the holidays, I found all of them [Sephardic Jews] in the streets. The girls and women don’t work…. Dr. H. will have to excuse me, but in fulfillment of the law, they are only sexual creatures. And they should know it better than Dr. H., because they live the law, whereas he only studies it and interprets it as he sees fit.” Heubach, Sisyphus, 117. This passage underscores Pappenheim’s conviction that women’s knowledge and interpretation of Jewish law, which was based on lived experience, was as

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right, as someone “who grew up within the tradition,” to speak authoritatively about women’s role in Judaism. She conceded that it may appear presumptuous to Talmudists and scholars of Jewish history and culture for an “uneducated woman” to speak as an expert on these subjects. However, she added, since institutions of Jewish learning were closed to them, Jewish women competent to discuss these matters had never been produced. Women had been excluded from the process of recording Jewish law in the distant past, and were still not permitted their own “critical revision of the original texts according to modern feminist perspectives.”36 She continued: We Jewish women must accept, unquestioningly, praise and criticism, homage and condemnation of our sex when it is brought to us as the distillation of an enormous accumulation of literature, gathered from Jewish texts, as seen through the lens of male scribes and scholars according to their own views and perhaps also colored by their own personal experiences.37 Pappenheim did not propose, however, that women should pursue the same sort of rigorous text-based religious education that men did. Women had their own areas of expertise and knowledge that should be valued and nurtured and developed through a religious education that focused on feminine roles and values rather than on the lernen taught and practiced in the bet ha-midrash. Lisa Aiken, a contemporary Orthodox Jewish feminist, argued in 1992 that traditional Judaism teaches that women are not only physically but intellectually different from men. Both are considered to be “equally endowed” with chochmah (hokhmah, innate knowledge). However, men are . considered to be “more innately endowed” with daat (da’at), the sort of analytical reasoning valued highly in the exegesis of religious texts, whereas women are considered to possess more binah,38 which Aiken defines as woman’s “inner reasoning”: her “innate ability to enter another person’s valid as men’s knowledge of Jewish law, which was based on the study of texts. As late as ¨ 1934 Pappenheim alluded to Anne Berliner’s negative assessment of the 1907 JFB meeting in the Zionist Judische ¨ Rundschau: “The only word that can describe [the event] is: ‘Schade!’ [What a pity!]” Pappenheim concluded each of her “auto-obituaries,” in which she imagined how the newspapers of various factions of German Jewry would remember ¨ her, with the exclamation, “Schade!” Anne Berliner, “Bericht,” Judische ¨ Rundschau no. 42 (October 18, 1907): 458–59. 36. Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 239. 37. Ibid. 38. Aiken, To Be a Jewish Woman, 32.

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emotions and thoughts and draw conclusions from the knowledge we obtain through this process.”39 She suggests that women’s binah contributes to her suitability to the vocation of mother, as well as to the “motherly” (my term) or “helping” (her term) professions. Aiken adds that women have traditionally not been attracted to male forms of Torah study because men (who have a predominance of da’at) experience spiritual enrichment through analyzing textual detail while women experience it through their relationships with others.40 Pappenheim argued that women should gain relative equality within the Jewish community because of this inherent difference. She incorporated this argument in her campaign for women’s voting rights in the Jewish community.41 Ernst Simon recalled that Pappenheim applied the German women’s movement’s “fundamental principle that women are equal to men not in nature but in value” to her arguments for women’s right to vote in the Gemeinde: Not for the sake of formal equal rights but because she could demonstrate that, without the participation of women as responsible partners, some essential practical tasks of the Jewish Gemeinde that women can handle better than men would have to be neglected. Especially in the area of social welfare.42 At the Third Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in 1910, Pappenheim appealed to the prevailing “common sense” notion that “there are things that we women can learn to understand as well as men, and things that we must understand differently and better than men.”43 In her opening address to the Second Delegates’ Conference of the JFB, Pappenheim had already stated which areas should be considered women’s territory, “You don’t have to be a committed feminist to know and understand that women’s and children’s interests are best represented by women.”44 Women would not become men 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid., 37. 41. See Marion Kaplan for a discussion and history of the JFB’s campaign for voting rights in the Jewish community. Jewish Feminist Movement 147–65. 42. Ernst Simon, “Drei judische ¨ Frauentypen,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 11, no. 4 (April 1935): 3–6, see 5. 43. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung.” ¨ Pappenheim is referring here, and in several of the citations below, to what Aiken calls women’s binah. 44. Bertha Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung ¨ des zweiten Delegiertentages des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” 3.

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in skirts but would contribute by offering a feminine perspective: “It is not useful to have women in the Gemeinde council if they are not womanly, and if they think that thinking like a man will be to their advantage.”45 Nor should allowing women to be active in the Gemeinde encroach upon their duties at home, which Pappenheim still viewed to be their most important sphere of influence: … what is valuable in each woman’s life is not her outward activity. This should and will only be a means to an end for her. Her most magnificent achievement, the pure joy of every woman will always involve the influence of her personality on individuals, her ability to bring happiness through full dedication, through love and philanthropy [Menschenliebe].46 In a 1928 plea for voting rights for women in the Viennese Jewish community, Pappenheim argued that giving women a voice and a function within the Gemeinde—allowing all Jews, not just male ones, to work towards a common goal, each doing the tasks best suited to his/her talents—would not jeopardize men’s position but would allow Jewish men and the whole Jewish community to reach a higher developmental plane through collaborative efforts: Once the Jewish Gemeinde and council … give women a better Jewish moral education and opportunities to develop their specifically feminine character, and confront them with important, essential tasks, then men and all Jews will once again embark on a joyful upward development.47 Thus Pappenheim reiterated that education for women was a prerequisite for voting rights, an argument she had also furthered before the turn of the century in the debate over women’s suffrage in the secular realm.48 While Pappenheim was involved in many different efforts to educate Jewish women during her long career, the project closest to her heart was the JFB home for “at risk” girls and unwed mothers and their children at Isenburg. 45. Pappenheim, “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet.” 46. Pappenheim, “Zur Eroffnung ¨ des zweiten Delegiertentages des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes,” 5. Emphasis in original. 47. “Frauenwahlrecht in Wien,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 4, no. 2 (February 1928): 3. 48. Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Eine Frauenstimme uber ¨ Frauenstimmrecht [A Woman’s Voice on Women’s Suffrage],” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 106–8; Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Noch ein Wort zum Frauenstimmrecht,” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 143–44.

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As discussed above in Chapter Three, Isenburg can be viewed as the prototype for Pappenheim’s conception of religious education for women and girls.49 In 1934 she referred to the home as an “institution for practicing and transitioning to a Jewish-feminine-motherly lifestyle.”50 Pappenheim instituted formal religion classes at Isenburg (including lessons in Hebrew, so that girls would learn to understand their prayers). She arranged for the girls to attend services at the synagogues of neighboring towns, and she invited other Jews living in Isenburg to join them for services on the High Holidays. At the same time, however, she clearly considered the less-formalized religious education of Isenburg to be of far greater importance.51 Because a woman’s Jewishness was, in Pappenheim’s eyes, inseparable from her identity as woman and mother, the most important lessons of Judaism were imparted simultaneously with training in the “feminine” arts of cooking, housekeeping, and mothering. Rather than seeking spiritual fulfillment for women in the traditionally male spheres of the synagogue52 or bet ha-midrash, Pappenheim strove for a “spiritualization” or “Jewishly religious illumination of everyday life.”53 Women should find spiritual fulfillment in raising Jewish children, overseeing kashrut, and preparing the home for the Sabbath.54 Serving as “surrogate” mothers, Pappenheim and her colleagues 49. That Pappenheim did not believe that girls’ religious education should be identical to boys is evidenced in her observation that the religious instruction offered at Isenburg is “inadequate” for boys beyond age 7. Bertha Pappenheim, “Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg (1929–1934),” 2. 50. Ibid., 4. 51. Ibid., 5–6. 52. Pappenheim once recommended separate services for women as a means to allow them a separate yet equal forum for public and communal worship without challenging the Orthodox prohibition of the commingling of the sexes during synagogue services (the sexes were typically separated in Liberal synagogues in Germany, as well). Pappenheim argued: “The rationale for allowing Jewish women to participate in the activities of synagogue worship only as an audience from behind the fence is the recognition of the psychological difficulty of all coeducation. With the exception of certain highpoints in the life of individuals, sexual arousibility is stronger than reverent contemplation. If Jews did not consider women to be intellectually and socially inferior beings, who may only receive religious teaching second or third hand, this realization would have led to true women’s worship services. Designed to be short and reverent, women’s services could still be of great religious importance today.” Bertha Pappenheim, “Zu dem Artikel ‘Gebete,’” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 2, no. 4 (January 1926): 5. 53. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, 22, 21. 54. Despite her interest in spiritualizing women’s daily routines, Pappenheim’s writings

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taught their charges by example and by patient explanation of the rationale behind tradition and action: Don’t demand that anything be done mechanically—explain everything tirelessly, demonstrate everything, don’t presuppose anything. Nothing goes without saying, nothing ethical, nothing intellectual, neither the material nor the technical. Everything must be shown and taught by example.55 Pappenheim’s colleagues and charges remember that she was extremely gifted in imparting impromptu lessons. Gertrud Ehrenwerth recalls: “On some evenings she explained Jewish law and customs. Her interpretation of the Ten Commandments is unforgettable for me and many others who ever heard it.”56 Similarly, Grethe Bloch recalls: Every Friday evening and all holiday evenings, Pappenheim enriched the Jewish atmosphere of the home (which was run strictly according to religious law) by drawing on her great wealth of knowledge and her story-telling talent to make everything comprehensible to large and small, and to impress the meaning of the Sabbath and holidays in a way that strict Orthodoxy was perhaps not able to…. She tried to give each celebration the character befitting of it. She could spin the dreidel with the children on Hanukkah, make jokes on Purim, supplement the explanations of the Haggadah at Passover, and impress on the children the solemnity of Rosh Ha-Shanah and Yom Kippur.57 Pappenheim highlighted the special days in Judaism in which women play a major role: first and foremost the Sabbath. She opened her essay “The Sabbath and the Jewish Woman”: “If the Jews had given this world nothing

do not mention the tkhines, Yiddish prayers dedicated to women’s religious duties, household tasks, and concerns. Although Pappenheim translated other Yiddish works by or for women, she did not (nor did she express plans to) translate tkhines into German. See Chava Weissler, “Prayers in Yiddish and the Religious World of Ashkenazic Women,” in Jewish Women in Historical Perspective, ed. Judith R. Baskin (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 159–81. 55. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, 23. 56. Gertrud Ehrenwerth, “Im Heim,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 14. 57. Grethe Bloch, “Was Isenburg mir gegeben hat,” in Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, ed. Hannah Karminski and Martha Ollendorff (Berlin: Judischer ¨ Frauenbund, 1937), 13.

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but the idea of the Sabbath as a day of rest, it would be enough to ensure the thanks and respect of all people for all time.” Pappenheim encouraged Jewish women to lead their families back to Judaism by re-introducing the observance of the Sabbath into their homes: Women should be the bearers of this conviction and will in the family, when they create weekly for their husbands (with their approval, whether it is given eagerly or must be awoken) and children a small magical island of domesticity, where a good Sabbath atmosphere is cultivated—with light, rest, contentment, and last but not least the pleasures of the flesh.58 Indeed, Pappenheim considered the Sabbath to be one of the most important “pedagogical tools” at Isenburg. She stipulated: “We must continue to keep the Friday evenings joyful, easily understood, and loving, stressing their Jewish spiritual value.”59 She viewed the Sabbath as the Jewish tradition over which Jewish women presided: both symbolically, through the duty of signaling its beginning by lighting and blessing Sabbath candles, and more concretely, by preparing the home and ensuring “that for 24 hours every human and animal in the Jewish home rests, and breathes a sigh of relief, and finds composure and energy for the next six workdays.”60 Pappenheim believed that by shifting the emphasis from Sabbath as burden (24 hours during which one was forbidden to do certain things) to Sabbath as celebration (a reprieve from the burdens of the work-week, replete with special food, singing, reading-aloud, guests, special treats of fruit and chocolate), she could awaken in the residents, students, and adult employees at Isenburg a yearning to live a Jewish life that would endure even after they left the home.61 The remarks of Pappenheim’s colleagues and students testify to the success of this strategy. Gertrud Ehrenwerth remembers: “The Friday evenings were unforgettable for all, children or adults. Bertha Pappenheim made them so impressive yet so simple that even the youngest child could feel the special solemnity.”62 Although Pappenheim did not address this in her writings, it is 58. Bertha Pappenheim, “Der Sabbath und die judische ¨ Frau,” Gemeindeblatt der judischen ¨ Gemeinde zu Berlin (1931): 192. 59. Pappenheim, Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, 33. 60. Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 242. 61. Edinger, ed. Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 100. 62. She reports that Pappenheim wrote a simple Friday Evening prayer (in German) and a “Sabbath Song [Schabboslied]” for Saturday midday for the girls at Isenburg.

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possible that she valued also the predominance of feminine symbolism surrounding the Sabbath. Orthodox feminist Tamar Frankiel writes: “… although God is always masculine and feminine and beyond either of these, we experience God on Shabbat as the feminine, the Queen.”63 Of all the holidays, Pappenheim focused most on Hanukkah and Purim. She referred to Hanukkah as the “most cheerful time in the house.”64 She published as a present to the Frankfurt Girls’ Club a humorous Purim story, “Die Haselnußtorte” (The Hazelnut Torte), and she composed a verse drama version of the same story to be performed on Purim by the children at Isenburg.65 She likely placed special emphasis on these two celebrations in order to offer equally joyous Jewish alternatives to the Christian holidays Christmas and Fasching (Shrovetide Carnival); but Hanukkah and Purim also held additional appeal due to their special significance for women. Both are celebrated primarily in the home (the woman’s realm), and women play an active role in the traditions of both. During Hanukkah women are obliged to light Hanukkah candles, and on Purim Jewish women send “portions” (shelakhmones), usually sweets and other foods, to friends and give charity to the poor. Pappenheim’s “Hazelnut Torte,” which was meant both to entertain and to educate her charges concerning the traditions of Purim, chronicles the circular journey and gradual transformation (as children sneak bits of it and their mothers render it presentable again with new decorations) of a “Schlachmonaus” from its female baker Frau Frummet to her brother’s Ehrenwerth, “Im Heim,” 14. See also Bertha Pappenheim, “Gebet am Freitag Abend,” Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, 31. 63. Frankiel, The Voice of Sarah, 59. 64. Pappenheim, “Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, (1929–1934),” 6. 65. Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Haselnusstorte: Eine Purimgeschichte,” (N.p.: n.p., n.d); Bertha Pappenheim, “Die Haselnußtorte: Ein Theaterstuck ¨ zum Purim-Fest,” in “Das ¨ unsichtbare Isenburg”: Uber das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Neu-Isenburg 1907 bis 1942, ed. Helga Heubach, 93–98 (Frankfurt a.M.: Kulturamt der Stadt Neu-Isenburg, 1994). Since Pappenheim was interested in late medieval and early modern Yiddish literature, she may have written her Purim play as a modern version of the Yiddish Purim-shpil (Purim Play), which originated parallel to the Christian Fastnachtspiel (Shrovetide Play). Pappenheim’s play shared with the Purim-shpil that it was written for performance in the “family” home at the Purim feast. The play does not, however, follow the conventional form of the Purim-shpil, which generally included a narrator, prologue, epilogue, and blessings for the audience. Pappenheim also composed a text (1919) chronicling her own solitary Hanukkah celebration. Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim, 137–39.

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house and (after being re-gifted to several other homes in the Jewish community) back again to Frau Frummet. Hanukkah and Purim also held special appeal because of the stories of heroic Jewish women associated with them. On Purim, Jews celebrate Queen Esther’s role in delivering the Jews from Haman’s plot to kill them. And Hanukkah is associated with the book of Judith, who, using her feminine wiles in God’s service, beheads the evil Holofernes (after plying him with wine), who had demanded that the Jews worship Nebuchadnezzar. Tamar Frankiel notes that these two holidays are of great spiritual importance to Jewish tradition: “The sages taught that in the time of Mashiach [messiah], Chanukah and Purim will continue to be celebrated while other holidays will drop away.”66 Although Pappenheim managed to invent a place for herself within the Jewish community as a “surrogate mother,” her “failure” to marry and become a biological mother apparently never ceased to occupy her thoughts. If one consequence of the reduction of Jewish women to “sexual beings” was that women lacking a proper moral education might see no wrong in exploiting their sexuality outside of marriage, a second consequence was that women who failed to marry and have children would also find themselves at the margins of the Jewish community, without a clear role and purpose. Pappenheim addressed this dilemma in her speech at the Second Delegates’ Meeting of the JFB: The law recognizes only the married woman, and even she loses respect if her marriage remains childless. The girl who for whatever reasons, despite all efforts, did not find a husband is in the traditionally Jewish viewpoint the object of contemptuous pity.67 Because it was unimaginable that a Jewish woman might choose to remain single, it was assumed, particularly in cases where an adequate dowry was available, that she had been unable to attract a mate because she was in some way flawed. It is unclear why Pappenheim never married. She certainly possessed the desirable traits of a prospective bride: physical beauty, social graces, a good family, and a generous dowry. It is also unknown whether or not she refused serious offers of marriage. It is rumored that her mother thwarted a budding romance with a violinist, a union deemed unfitting to the family’s social stand-

66. Frankiel, The Voice of Sarah, 70. 67. Pappenheim, “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage,” 20.

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ing. Freud’s biographer Ernest Jones intimated that a psychiatrist at the sanatorium where Pappenheim was a patient (after her treatment by Breuer) fell in love with her and wanted to marry her.68 Ellen Jensen has speculated that Pappenheim may have chosen not to marry out of fear she would pass her mental illness on to future generations,69 even though later in life Pappenheim rejected the concept of negative eugenics.70 Even in middle-age, however, Pappenheim continued to attract members of the opposite sex. In 1911, on a ship between Tripoli and Jaffa, she was “propositioned” by a man who claimed that she could pass for thirty if she dyed her hair (which had turned completely white when she was still quite young). Pappenheim was amused by his invitation to spend a week with him in Beirut, where he could show her “much depravity.” She wrote to her friends, “In short, were I not so lacking in experience and practice, and had I not insisted on the date on my birth certificate, I think that my journey could have ended abruptly, just like in a novel.”71 She also evaded the efforts of a would-be matchmaker in Lemberg, who wished to introduce her to “a fine professor from Berlin, a widower without children.” Asked whether she had “wealth” and how much, Pappenheim replied, “Just as much as I need,” eliciting the reply, “Oh, then there is nothing doing.” She appears, however, not to have ruled out marriage entirely. To the matchmaker’s question, “Wouldn’t you like to marry?” she answered, “I haven’t sworn off marriage.”72 If one is to believe the assessment of some male associates, Pappenheim remained single because she simply did not like men. Rabbi Georg Salzberger reported: “She was unmarried and a man-hater.”73 Rabbi Caesar Seligmann74 recalled: “She didn’t get along well with men who didn’t subordinate themselves to her will and leadership.”75 There may be a bit of truth to Seligmann’s observations, as Pappenheim reportedly was a dominant per68. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 44. 69. Ibid., 45. 70. See the discussion of eugenics in the previous chapter. 71. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 90. 72. Bertha Pappenheim to Clem Cramer, April 16 1907, Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 73. Quoted in Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 60. 74. Caesar Seligmann (1860–1950) was a leader of Liberal Judaism in Germany. He was a rabbi in Frankfurt from 1902 to 1939, when he emigrated to London. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Caesar Seligmann.” 75. In Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 60.

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sonality, most comfortable in leadership roles. Since she was unwavering in her convictions, conflicts frequently arose when her authority was questioned, and not only with men. She herself, however, dismissed accusations of “man-hating”: “Men are so vain, and for generations have been so spoiled by their own assessment of themselves, that a man will perceive a woman’s objective critique of his actions or behavior as a general ‘hostility towards men.’”76 It has also been suggested that Pappenheim was a lesbian. Ann Jackowitz reported that one Pappenheim relative spoke derisively of her, “Why are you interested in Pappenheim? She was nothing but a nut and a lesbian.”77 Daniel Boyarin cites the following passage in one of Pappenheim’s Sisyphus-Arbeit letters as evidence that “there is accordingly some justification for considering Bertha Pappenheim a foremother of lesbian separatist feminism!”78 The Jewish women of Saloniki are said to be especially beautiful. I found the most beautiful one that I saw here, perhaps one of the most beautiful that I have ever seen, in a brothel. It’s horrible that such a proud flower of human beauty should have been born for such a purpose in life. I understand how a man could commit every foolishness for the sake of such a woman, but I cannot comprehend this 20 year old person, who offers for sale the most beautiful and best thing that she possesses, her body. Does she have no soul? … I must interrupt my report, for today, to go to bed. Perhaps I will dream of the lovely Jolanthe, whom I can’t get out of my head since I saw her today.79 This musing notwithstanding, Pappenheim did not reveal her sexual orientation in any of her extant writings. In fact none of her writings address homosexuality explicitly. One can extrapolate from her disapproval of the use of contraceptives to enable extramarital heterosexual sex without consequences that she would have viewed the physical realization of homosexual love as counter to Jewish belief because homosexual sex could not result in procreation.80 A Denkzettel likewise suggests that Pappenheim probably 76. Ibid., 184–85. This Denkzettel is dated September 5, 1919. 77. Ann Jackowitz, “Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim and Me,” in Between Women: Biographers, Novelists, Critics, Teachers and Artists Write About Their Work on Women, ed. Carol Ascher, Louise DeSalvo, Sara Ruddick (Boston: Beacon, 1984), 269. 78. Daniel Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct: The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 315. 79. Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 40–41. 80. There is no biblical proscription of female homosexuality. The Talmud forbids les-

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would have advocated celibacy for homosexuals: “Controlling sexual love out of the strongest sense of responsibility is moral. Morality is controlling ALL egoistical drives out of a feeling of social consciousness—loving one’s neighbor 81 [Nachstenliebe].” ¨ Another plausible reason that Pappenheim remained unmarried was that she had been seriously ill and thus not a prime candidate for marriage during the years in which she would have been most marriageable. Mikkel BorchJacobsen suggests that Pappenheim, whom he calls a “gifted simulator,” had feigned her illness because she was “literally suffocated by her family atmosphere and sought to escape it by any means possible, including illness.”82 If Borch-Jacobsen is correct, then it may not have been to escape only the stifling family atmosphere of her present but to evade an inevitably stifling future trapped in a marriage in which she was unlikely to be her partner’s equal. Pappenheim addresses marital inequality in her 1899 three-act play Frauenrecht (Women’s Rights).83 In it, Alice Scholl, who has recently joined the Women’s Relief Society, asks her husband Martin for 100 marks from the money that she brought into her marriage in order to help Susanne Helfrich, a poor, dying female worker, and her illegitimate daughter. According to marriage contract and law, the husband is the steward of his wife’s money, and Martin rejects her request. She voices her objection to this and other injustices

bianism, but the halakhah is more lenient towards female homosexuals than males. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Homosexuality.” Rachel Biale, Women and Jewish Law: An Exploration of Women’s Issues in Halakhic Sources (New York: Schocken, 1984): 192–96. 81. Pappenheim, “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet.” Emphasis in original. 82. Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O., 92, 83. 83. Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], Frauenrecht (Dresden: E. Pierson, 1899). Women’s Rights is Pappenheim’s first and only work that explicitly addresses the exploitation of the working class. She shows great sympathy and admiration for Susanne, the female protagonist of Act I, who is arrested for leading an unauthorized political gathering of women who are meeting to plan a strike. Characteristically, Pappenheim focuses on the particular problems facing female workers, such as the necessity of mothers and women caring for aging parents to take in poorly paid piece-work and “homework.” She upholds the ideal of female solidarity. The women form workers’ groups and agitate solely among other women. They selflessly chip in to compensate for the losses of a sick co-worker. They nurse Susanne, who returns from prison dying from lung disease, and prepare to care for her daughter after her death. With its realistic portrayal of members of the working class and their environs as well as its attention to contemporary social issues, Women’s Rights bears a strong resemblance to German naturalist drama of this period (the works of Gerhart Hauptmann, among others) and is a precursor of the social and political dramas of later authors, such as Friedrich Wolf.

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that were discussed at meetings of the Relief Society, including Paragraph 1589 of the new book of statutes. Alice tells her husband that she signed a petition protesting Paragraph 1589, which stated (in her words) “that a father is not legally related to his child…. you would have the right to say to me, I don’t know this woman or her child….”84 She objects to the moral double standard inherent in the law: If a woman and child must live as sinners, then the [man’s youthful] passion was also sinful and must be confessed and atoned for. Or such passion rightfully inhabits the human heart, and both parties, man and woman, must deal justly with its consequences.”85 But the plot takes a surprising twist. Alice learns that the woman and child she had intended to help were Martin’s former lover and his illegitimate child. Alice agrees to stay with Martin but only as the mother of their daughter. “I will no longer be your wife—that is my woman’s right.”86 Whereas her later writings focus on women’s position within the Jewish community and according to Jewish law, Pappenheim illustrates in Women’s Rights that civil law was equally guilty of treating adult women like minoraged children. This infantilization of married women is underscored linguistically by Martin Scholl’s use of the word “child” and various diminutives— “Personchen” ¨ (little person), “Kindergesichtchen” (little baby face), “Kindskopf” (big kid, literally an adult with the head of a child), “Lieschen”— in addressing or in reference to his wife.87 Whether or not Pappenheim deliberately evaded marriage, she did choose to spend her life in the company of women, creating over the course of her long career numerous communities of women (the JFB, the Girls’ Club, 84. Pappenheim, Frauenrecht, 34. 85. Ibid., 35. 86. Ibid., 56. A new Burgerliches ¨ Gesetzbuch (Civil Code) was written in 1888, approved in 1896, and took effect in 1900. Despite the actions of the BDF and other activists for women’s rights, the new Prussian Civil Code upheld men’s privileged position in the family. Men retained their right to make all decisions concerning the family; men were the legal guardians of their children and, as such, made the decisions regarding their education; and men had control over any wealth that a woman brought into the marriage or inherited during the marriage. The new Civil Code did, however, grant full legal status to married women, allowing them to conclude contracts and initiate legal proceedings. According to the new Civil Code, women also had a right to the money they earned, whereas it had previously belonged to their husbands. Ute Frevert, Women in German History: From Bourgeois Emancipation to Sexual Liberation (Oxford: Berg, 1988), 135–36. 87. Pappenheim, Frauenrecht, 25–28.

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Women’s Relief, Isenburg, etc.). Indeed, Pappenheim insisted that Isenburg maintain a “familial character,” and authorities who inspected the home verified that it did.88 If so, it was a family entirely devoid of men, in which she could become a Jewish “mother” without becoming a Jewish wife. Long after she had established herself as a “surrogate mother,” however, Pappenheim continued to grapple with her spinsterhood. The second stanza of a poem she wrote at age 52 reads: Love did not come to me— So I sound like the violin, Whose bow has been broken.89 This stanza expresses the traditional Jewish view that a single person (male or female) is in a defective or incomplete state. According to the mystical tradition of the Zohar, “A person can be considered one and whole … and without defect … when he is joined together with his complementary partner and is thereby hallowed by the elevated sanctification of kiddushin.”90 A woman’s “music” must remain silent and she cannot fulfill her intended function without a bow to play her. The first stanza of the same poem reads: Love did not come to me— So I live like a plant, In the cellar, without light.91 The light metaphor in this stanza also has a corollary in the Zohar, which states, “Soul and spirit, male and female, are intended to illuminate together. One without the other does not radiate and is not even termed a ‘light’.”92 Without a mate, a woman will neither give nor receive light. The unmarried woman’s “normal” development (into wife and mother) is stunted, like a plant without light. Pappenheim concludes the poem: Love did not come to me— So I bury myself in work, 88. “Inspektionsbericht einer einweisenden Behorde ¨ aus dem Jahre 1928,” in Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, edited by Hannah Karminski and Martha Ollendorff, 9–10. 89. “Mir ward die Liebe nicht.” MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 332, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 90. Quoted in Michael Kaufman, The Woman in Jewish Law and Tradition (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1993), 12. 91. Pappenheim, “Mir ward die Liebe nicht.” 92. Quoted in Kaufman, The Woman in Jewish Law and Tradition, 12.

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And live for duty until my life’s spent. Love did not come to me— So I think of Death fondly, As a friendly face.93 According to the poem, the spinster’s restless activities—in Pappenheim’s case her social work and surrogate motherhood—are poor substitutes for marital love and “real” motherhood. They do not make life worth living. While Pappenheim’s poem accepts the premise that spinsterhood is an undesirable state and that the unmarried woman cannot live up to her full potential, it challenges the notion that she remained single due to personal shortcomings or defects. The passive voice (in the German) of the repeated first verse of each stanza absolves her of responsibility. Love did not pass her by because she was defective. She is defective because love passed her by. The stories in Pappenheim’s 1896 collection In der Trodelbude ¨ (In the Rummage Store) likewise revolve around the defects of the objects that find their way into a second-hand shop run by a man who has himself been disappointed by love and life. In most of the stories, the physical defects are badges of honor. The objects either incurred their injuries while serving others, or they prove themselves useful despite or thanks to their defects. The unsightly stains on the singed antique lace in the story “What the Lace Tells,” for example, are evidence of a miracle. A lightning strike had burned the lace on a baby girl’s baptismal gown but left the child unscathed. Later the little girl comforts a boy who had lost his father to a typhus outbreak and tells him the story of her “miracle.” She shows him the lace, which, sewn into the altar parament, holds a place of honor in the village church. Years later they meet again at a museum of applied arts, where the lace is exhibited. Recognizing one another because of the lace, they become reacquainted, fall in love, and are married shortly thereafter.94 Some contemporary Jewish feminists, such as Rose L. Levinson, might read Pappenheim’s poem “Love did not come to me” as a description of a specifically female and Jewish mid-life crisis, the lament of a Jewish woman who suddenly realizes that she will never have children. Levinson writes in a 1994 essay, “To be a woman in Judaism is to be less than. To be an unmarried, childless woman is to be even more diminished. To be an unmarried, child93. Pappenheim, “Mir ward die Liebe nicht.” 94. Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], In der Trodelbude: ¨ Geschichten (Lahr: Moritz Schauenburg, [1896]).

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less, middle-aged Jewish woman is to move dangerously close to invisibility.”95 Levinson refers specifically to that woman’s invisibility in religious practice in the here and now because there is essentially no place for a woman without a family in traditional Judaism.96 Sadly, in traditional Judaism the single woman is also destined to oblivion after death, for she has no “Kaddish” (no son to recite for her the prayer remembering the deceased)97 and no daughter to continue her genetic line. In another Denkzettel, Pappenheim commented, “Reproduction is the bridge between life and death. There is, therefore, no death.”98 If the mother lives on only in her children, what becomes of the childless woman? Pappenheim appears to have worked her way through her female Jewish mid-life crisis with wry humor. The thought of being the last of her line continued to be painful, but her feminist side could imagine worse scenarios. On the day following her sixtieth birthday, she wrote the following Denkzettel: When a painful melancholy over being the last of my line and having no Kaddish threatens to overcome me during lonely hours, I am comforted by the thought that I could have had a stupid husband or a wayward child.99 In 1934, at age 75, Pappenheim finally publicly affirmed spinsterhood as a legitimate and rewarding alternative lifestyle. In her essay “The Jewish Girl,” she asserted that the “old maid” is no longer the “nightmare” of old: The unmarried, mature, independent woman has developed into a positive type whose right to exist is fully recognized by all cultural groups. Alone and free, she is determined to take full responsibility… for her life, her commitments, entering and severing relationships, and shaping her destiny, also in respect to her sexuality.100 She also reconsidered her earlier assertion that social work was a poor 95. Rose L. Levinson, “Standing Alone at Sinai: Shame and the Unmarried Jewish Woman,” in Lifecycles: Jewish Women on Life Passages and Personal Milestones, ed. Debra Orenstein (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights, 1994), 110. 96. Ibid., 101. 97. In Yiddish and in German-Jewish speech, the word Kaddish can also refer to the son, as it is his duty to say the kaddish prayer for his deceased parents. Weinberg, Die Reste des Judischdeutschen, ¨ 121. 98. In Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 185. 99. Pappenheim, “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet.” 100. Pappenheim, “Das judische ¨ Madchen,” ¨ 121, 125.

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substitute for “real” motherhood, something to fill empty hours. A later Denkzettel praises work as a “fountain of youth” and a June 1930 prayer transfigures it to the very meaning of her life.101 In this prayer the Malakh ha-Mavet (the Angel of Death) brushes her with his wings but then moves on. He passes her by because she still has a job to do, “upon whose completion the meaning of her life will be fulfilled.”102 She no longer looks forward to “death’s welcome face” but prays for enough strength in her later years to complete her mission. Her 1934 “Prayer of Thanks” reveals that a part of this mission was surrogate motherhood. In this prayer she lovingly recounts playing with a small child at Isenburg. She gives thanks, “I am so happy that I created a shelter for this little human sprout. If I hadn’t, it might have been crushed in the dirt, and we would be one hope poorer.”103 The Jewish mother creates life; but the Jewish social worker, figured here as a gardener, performs an equally valuable function, preserving this life for the community when the biological mother is unable to.104 A 1924 letter, in which Pappenheim comforts her friend Frau Guggenheim, who has just learned that she cannot have children of her own, exemplifies her conception of surrogate motherhood: Women who must do without the happiness of real, personal motherhood can develop a great aptitude for spiritual motherhood, if they travel the quiet road of caring for those children and youths whose biological mothers failed them completely or in part. You should learn to support these children, for whom you can be an act of providence, with all of the warmth and fervor you can muster. For them, you should learn to do great work and holy detail work. Then you will learn to bear 101. In Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 179; Pappenheim, Gebete (Berlin: Philo, 1936). 102. Pappenheim, Gebete, Prayer dated June 17, 1930. 103. Pappenheim, “Dankgebet,” Gebete, Prayer dated September 1934. 104. The flip-side of Pappenheim’s self-affirmation through “social motherhood” is the corollary that the aged, single, childless woman’s claim to a spot on this earth expires when she is no longer able to perform the deeds that had legitimated her existence—or in Pappenheim’s words, “A person is only as important as she is for others.” In her prayer “Gebet der Alten” (Prayer of an old woman), Pappenheim appeals: “… if I am one day in danger of becoming a burden on those whose life’s burden I have always tried to help bear, then brush over me, Spirit, in mercy, and separate in me what is dust from what is part of you.” Pappenheim, “Denkzettel,” in Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 192. Pappenheim, “Gebet der Alten,” Gebete, Prayer dated Sept. 16, 1925.

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your fate wistfully, and perhaps even discover direction and meaning, however painful, in it.105 Several years later Pappenheim sought to institutionalize the sort of surrogate motherhood she had prescribed for Frau Guggenheim in a Childless Mothers’ Community of Shared Destiny [Schicksalsgemeinschaft kinderloser Mutter]. ¨ In a call for founding members, she described its purpose: … to give childless women educational and welfare responsibilities, in which they fulfill motherly duties… for individual children. “For a woman, no children are someone else’s.” In this fashion every child can be drawn into a caring woman’s circle of light. Therefore, we think—as the Psalmist said—that childless women should look for a way to become joyful mothers. In other words, she should seek, either within the framework of organized child and youth welfare work or outside of it, to exert the influence that she would have devoted (as her most precious spiritual gift) to her own children.106 Pappenheim, who wrote, “Motherliness is a woman’s most primal instinct, even a virgin can experience its pleasures”107 and whose epitaph read, “He makes the childless woman a joyful mother of children” (Psalm 113), spoke in her letter to Frau Guggenheim from personal experience. She had already traveled the path of the childless “mother.” Numerous testimonies suggest that Pappenheim truly embodied the ideal of “motherliness” that she espoused. Irene Darmstadter ¨ recounts: In the Girls’ Club we truly got to know her as a mother. How many souls did she actually lead to God? And according to the words of our sages, that means that she gave birth to them! And if mothering means to be at the mercy of life and its mysterious powers, so that it can re-create itself again and again; if being a mother means serving everything that is in the process of becoming, understanding every living thing, and clothing all who are needy in love—Oh, then no one understood it better than she. Then she was a mother with every splinter of her strength, every fiber of her heart, every particle of her being.108

105. In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 87–88. 106. “Kinderlose Frauen.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 6 (June 1930): 7. 107. In Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 185. Dated October 9, 1927 108. In Heubach, ed. “Das unsichtbare Isenburg,” 171.

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Pappenheim’s letter of reference from her work at the Frankfurt orphanage for girls confirms: Her rich pedagogical talent and her fine instincts quickly found a connection to the heart of every child. With motherly care, she used this childish sympathy to develop and improve their intellectual powers, and to develop and strengthen the character of her charges. Through grateful love, that often showed itself in a touching way, the pupils tried to repay the beneficial influence of the protector of their childhood and youth.109 Pappenheim also designed a fountain celebrating motherhood and donated it to Isenburg.110 Entitled “The Exiled Stork,” its motif may be an allusion to Pappenheim’s early story “In the Land of Storks,” in which Kamilla, a young woman deserted by her fiance, ´ becomes head nurse in the Land of Storks after the death of the Old Mother Stork. “Her most ardent wish was fulfilled and she had little children in abundance.”111 Like Kamilla, Pappenheim became, in the words of Ernst Simon, a “true mother of the people,”112 a title she certainly would have relished. The final chapter of Pappenheim’s spiritual journey was her search for a female-friendly expression of the God of Judaism and her self-styling in the last years of her life as a prophetess and spiritual leader of Jewish women. As mentioned above, Pappenheim’s writings (literary and otherwise) evince no sign of interest in Judaism until the late 1890s, after she had embarked on her career in Jewish social work. From then until about 1922, they dealt exhaustively with social problems in the Jewish community and the role of women in Judaism—but did not explore her own personal spiritual struggles. Beginning roughly in 1922 (the year of the earliest prayer published in Gebete), Pappenheim’s writings, especially her prayers, several late short stories, and her Denkzettel, exhibit a growing preoccupation with her own relationship to 109. “Zeugnis,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 6. See also Gertrud Ehrenwerth, “Im Heim,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ Special issue, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12 (1936): 13. 110. Ida Wolf, “Ein Geschenk fur ¨ das Isenburger Heim” [clipping], Dora Edinger Papers, B86/738, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. [Pappenheim], “Im Storchenland,” in Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder, 24–34. This story provides evidence of Pappenheim’s early interest in the possibility of surrogate motherhood. 111. “Im Storchenland,” in Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder, 24–34. 112. Simon, “Drei judische ¨ Frauentypen,” 6.

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God and her own personal place (as opposed to “women’s role” in a general sense) in the Jewish community. It stands to reason that a feminist who, after the death of her father and the end of her treatment by Breuer, never again had a close personal relationship with a man would resist envisioning God as a male figure or patriarch.113 Indeed, in her extant writings, there is only one reference to a male-gendered God. It occurs in the following Denkzettel, written April 16, 1935: God is inconceivable, we can only know Him by his attributes—justice, truth, and the will to live. Seeking this knowledge, activating it zealously, means loving God. God is one and unified, and all-encompassing.114 Although Pappenheim uses the masculine pronoun Ihn as prescribed by German grammar, it is quite clear that a God who is “inconceivable,” “unified,” and “all-encompassing” cannot be reduced to a gendered, God-the-Father figure. Indeed, in a letter to Martin Buber, Pappenheim criticized him for referring to God with the masculine pronoun in his translation of the Bible.115 113. Her closest male friend was Martin Buber, with whom she corresponded starting in 1916, when Pappenheim wrote a letter to Buber harshly criticizing an article in the first issue of Buber’s journal Der Jude. Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, May 28, 1916, Martin Buber Archives; R. Bernstein, “Russische und judische ¨ Feldpost.” Der Jude 1, no. 1 (April 1916): 47–51. Pappenheim found their epistolary exchange intellectually stimulating, writing “It is so good to think. I am grateful to anyone who gives me food for thought. I am not spoiled in this regard” (Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, May 17, 1918). Despite Pappenheim’s relentless critiques (and their frequent disagreements and misunderstandings), their respect and affection for one another was mutual. Pappenheim wrote to Buber, for example, “I almost addressed you with ‘dear’ [instead of the formal “most esteemed”], but that wouldn’t do, because you probably feel the same way about me that I feel about you. I feel a mixture of attraction and repulsion. From a distance, I don’t like you and I scoff heartily at your manner and methods, but in dialogue with you (without the esoteric philosophy) I am pleased with you, your language and such” (Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, March 10, 1936). Pappenheim told Buber repeatedly how much joy she derived from their interactions (Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, June 15, 1935, March 21, 1936) Upon Pappenheim’s death, Buber wrote to Hannah Karminski, “I didn’t just admire her as a representative of the true passion of the intellect/spirit [Leidenschaft des Geistes], a type that is growing ever rarer. I loved her [hatte sie auch lieb] and I will remember her with fondness for the rest of my life. “Aus Kondolenz-Briefen,” Bertha Pappenheim Collection, S1/324 Teil II, Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main. 114. Emphasis is mine. In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 33. 115. “In all circles and in all classes, there were and certainly still are Christians who read

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Further evidence for Pappenheim’s reluctance to envision a male-gendered God is her invocation of the Shekhinah. In general terms, the Shekhinah is God as presence, in a spacio-temporal sense. As Shekhinah, God is present in the world, sanctifying a place, an object, an individual, or a whole people. In Kabbalah, however, the Shekhinah represents the feminine principle, God’s feminine dimension as the daughter and as the “mother of all life … the caring part of God, which can be felt as God’s immanence in the world.”116 The Shekhinah “serves as the link between the realms of God and the World.”117 It is understandable that the vision of God as mother, caretaker, and sanctifier of the profane would appeal to Pappenheim, who defined women’s role as that of mother, caretaker or “social mother,” and sanctifier of the profane (preparing the home for the Sabbath, ushering in the Sabbath with the lighting of candles, and keeping kashrut and family purity laws). Pappenheim invokes the Shekhinah by name in three texts. Her “Evening Prayer,” written to be spoken collectively by the children at Isenburg at the close of each day, ends, “May the Holy Shekhinah bless and fill [erfullen] ¨ us again tonight, so that we can again see the light of the sun, move our limbs vigorously at work and play, and give and receive love. Amen.”118 In her 1934 story “The Genuine Ring,” the artisan commissioned to replicate the original ring (Judaism) is unable to do so. Frustrated, he destroys the ring and throws its stone into the heavens, from whence it continues to emanate its power, which Pappenheim calls the Shekhinah.119 Pappenheim’s portrayal of God alludes both to the Shekhinah’s role in God’s Covenant to protect the Jews and to Her feminine attributes. Like the Shekhinah, who accompanied the Jews into exile (fulfilling God’s Covenant to never desert them), the stone of the story is exiled (cast away by the jealous artist) but continues to bless the scattered Jewish people. She appears at special moments in humans’ lives, particularly in the lives of women, such as the conception or birth of a child. the Bible in natural, naive (or primitive) devoutness, and find edification, strength, and comfort in times of deep troubles—the way to God, to God not to HIM.” Bertha Pappenheim to Martin Buber, March 18, 1936, in Martin Buber, Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten, ed. Grete Schaeder (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1972) 2:587. 116. David S. Ariel, The Mystic Quest: An Introduction to Jewish Mysticism (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1988), 94–95. 117. Ibid., 94. For a more comprehensive discussion of Shekhinah in Kabbalah see 89–109. See also Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Shekhinah.” 118. Bertha Pappenheim, “Nachtgebet,” in Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924 (Frankfurt a.M.: R.Th. Hauser, 1926), 31. 119. Pappenheim, “Der echte Ring.”

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The Shekhinah also shows Herself in natural phenomena, particularly displays of light: She flies like a “glowing eye,” appears as lightning, as a rainbow, and in the colorful reflection of sunlight off a snow-covered mountain. Although the Shekhinah is traditionally associated with light, it is possible that Pappenheim emphasized this characteristic because light (especially the lighting and blessing of candles to usher in the Sabbath) is associated in Jewish tradition with women. Pappenheim wrote, for example, of the light associated with the foremothers Sarah and Rebecca: There is a beautiful Midrash that tells that, as long as Sarah lived, a cloud hovered and a light shone over her tent…. The light ignited itself again in the moment that Rebecca, Isaac’s wife, moved into Sarah’s tent. Over the tent of the Jewish woman of today there should also be a light, and it should ignite itself again and again through her descendants.120 If the above text is read in conjunction with Pappenheim’s “Gebet fur ¨ Frauen” (Prayer for Women), it is plausible that Pappenheim associated or even equated Sarah’s light with the Shekhinah. In that prayer, Pappenheim yearns for a generation of women inspired by God’s feminine incarnation and blessed by Her.121 “May a generation arise, born of strength and love and reverence for the holy Shekhinah, who blesses those who live and work with a pure heart.” By invoking the Shekhinah, God’s feminine dimension, Pappenheim may be seen as the foremother of Jewish feminists, who a half-century later rediscovered the Shekhinah in their search for a more female-friendly Jewish spirituality. Orthodox Jewish feminist Tamar Frankiel discovered this feminine dimension in her struggle to negotiate the seeming incompatibilities of Orthodox Judaism and feminism. Frankiel refers to the Shekhinah as “the

120. Bertha Pappenheim, “Anregung zu einem freien Zusammenschluß judischer ¨ Eltern,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 5, no. 2 (February 1929): 4. 121. A feminist interpretation of this prayer is supported further by Pappenheim’s plea, “may innane letters cease to barricade woman’s path.” Forchheimer’s English rendering of “geistlose Buchstaben” as “secular writings” is a mistranslation. Bertha Pappenheim, Prayers/Gebete, trans. Estelle Forchheimer (New York: A. Stein, 1946). Pappenheim refers here not to secular writings (as I have demonstrated in previous chapters, Pappenheim never vilified secular culture) but to faulty (counter to the spirit of the law) male interpretations of Jewish law, which impeded women’s development both spiritually and as contributing members of the community.

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collective feminine soul of the Jewish people.”122 She elaborates, “Inasofar as we know God’s presence in the world—in the forces of nature, in the ordinary course of our own lives—we know it as feminine.”123 Lynn Gottlieb, a privately ordained, unaffiliated rabbi, refers to the Shekhinah as “She who Dwells Within” or “The Light that Dwells Within Women.” While her conception, which derives not only from Jewish tradition but also from other “ancient goddesses of the Near East,” would be far too radical for either Frankiel or Pappenheim, she shares with them the recovery of the Shekhinah as a way to reclaim a place for women in a religious tradition that had become male-dominated.124 Pappenheim requested that she be buried with her antique silver ring, which had a heart with the inscription “Schadaj.”125 Schadaj (also Shaday, Shaddai, translated into English as “Mighty One”) is one of several ways in Jewish tradition of referring to the divine. This ring offers further insight into Pappenheim’s conception of God. In contrast to the names that function either as euphemisms to avoid speaking God’s ineffable name (e.g. “Adonai”) or God-attributes (e.g. “El”), “Shaday functions almost as a proper noun: it is one of God’s actual names. When, for example, Naomi speaks of Shaday as her God… it’s clearly a name and not a euphemism.”126 Pappenheim’s attachment to this ring attests to her conception of a God with whom the individual can have a personal relationship—even a woman can call God by name. The choice of Schadaj also places Pappenheim in the company of her foremothers, such as Naomi, who called God by name. While Pappenheim resisted a male-gendered anthropomorphism of the divine being, she did believe that each individual has the capacity to communicate directly and personally with God through prayer. By prayer, she did 122. Frankiel, The Voice of Sarah, 59. 123. Ibid., 61. 124. Lynn Gottlieb, She Who Dwells Within: A Feminist Vision of a Renewed Judaism (San Francisco: Harper, 1995), 22. See also Chava Weissler, “Meanings of Shekhinah in the “Jewish Renewal Movement,” Nashim 10 (2006): 53–83. 125. Hannah Karminski, “An die fernen Freunde von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim,” MS, ME 497/MM 61, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York, 8. Shaddai was frequently used in the simplest sort of amulet worn by Jews to protect against evil spirits and misfortune, the inscription of the name of God on a piece of parchment or silver. Shaddai and other names of God are still common today in pendants worn by Jewish women. Encyclopedia Judaica vol. 2: 906–15. The origin of Pappenheim’s ring and precisely what it meant to her (whether it was an heirloom or perhaps a surrogate wedding ring) is unknown. 126. David Neal Miller, e-mail to the author. For a discussion of the etymology of Shaddai, see Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “God, names of.”

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not mean reciting standard prayers at prescribed times but a more personalized communication:127 Prayer should not be a commandment. Prayer is the precipitation [Niederschlag] of feelings, longings, wishes, in reverent devotion to something incomprehensibly great: drop by drop, formed or unformed, this outpouring surges forth from the rivulets of the inner person, demanding expression…. Only seldom does an individual experience a pure climax of feelings (sorrow or happiness in consciousness and concentration). The precondition, that the rivulets of the soul are unblocked, free for resurgence, expression, and forming, is even more rarely present in a person. That is why many people need formulaic prayers.128 According to the above definition, Pappenheim’s own ability to pray and her deep spiritual connection to God were quite exceptional in the last years of her life. While she lamented that the predisposition to pray was a rare occurrence and that the intensely personal communications she envisioned had to fight their way, “drop by drop,” to consciousness, the volume Prayers attests that she was granted the gift of prayer many times in her later years— and the published ones likely represent only a fraction of the prayers that emerged “formed,” not to mention those that remained in a less finished state. Pappenheim’s prayers suggest also that she believed communication with God to be a two-way exchange: God communicated directly with each individual via his/her conscience. In her “Afterword” to Prayers, Margarete Susman identified the plea for strength “to experience God’s strength vividly at every moment” as the main theme of Pappenheim’s prayers ( I would add that that plea is representative of her understanding of the individual’s experience of God).129 Susman judged Pappenheim’s November 1935 prayer, entitled “Calling,” to be both Pappenheim’s “deepest” and most quintessentially Jewish one:130 127. Pappenheim did, however, derive comfort from reciting traditional Jewish prayers. She recited her favorite Psalm, Psalm 121 (in German and Hebrew) and the Shema daily in the days before her death. Karminski, “An die fernen Freunde von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim,” 10. Pappenheim’s affinity for Psalm 121 grants further insight into her understanding of God. Like the Shekhinah, the God of this Psalm protects and guides the individual without pause. 128. Pappenheim, “Zu dem Artikel ‘Gebete’,” 5. 129. Margarete Susman, “Nachwort,” in Gebete. 130. Ibid.

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My God, You are not a God of meekness, of the Word and of incense, no God of the past. You are a God of omnipresence. To me you are a demanding God. You sanctify me with your “Thou shalt”; you expect me to decide between good and evil; you demand that I prove that I am strength of your strength, that I strive to rise to your heights, to carry others with me, to help them with all of my being. Demand, demand, so that I feel in my conscience with every breath of my life, that there is a God.131 Susman elaborated on Pappenheim’s belief that she experienced God through her conscience: “This was the source of her whole knowledge of God, that she experienced with her conscience his unremitting demands… By beseeching God to demand of her unceasingly, she…. forced the Living God down to her with each beating of her heart.” Knowing Pappenheim’s understanding of the conscience as the “Organ in which God shows himself through his unceasing demands,”132 one can sense the desperate urgency of Pappenheim’s warning, “Woe to him, whose conscience sleeps.”133 When the conscience sleeps, one is devoid of God’s presence. Susman regarded “Calling” as the quintessential Jewish prayer because it acknowledges “that everything that a person accomplishes comes from God; that a person may not accept God’s gifts as grace or take them for granted. He must hold them faithfully in trust, live in them, and pass them on to others.”134 Pappenheim’s prayer transforms Judaism’s commandments from burden to blessing. “The iron thou shalt ! You must!” is experienced “not as constraint but as a revelation of the Living God.”135 Susman, who served as Pappenheim’s private tutor in philosophy during the 1930s, reported that Pappenheim developed a great passion for the philosophy of the early Greeks, in which she discovered “in overwhelming power and clarity what she had been searching for everywhere and found every-

131. Pappenheim, “Anruf,” in Gebete. 132. Susman, “Nachwort.” 133. Pappenheim, “Weh’ dem, dessen Gewissen schlaft.” ¨ 134. Susman, “Nachwort.” 135. See also “Prayer in Fear” of October 1934: “How good it is to have a conscience. I feel its omnipresent blessing”; “Prayer” from March 1932: “May the strength stay with me to appeal again and again in seething rage to banish every injustice!” and “Prayer” from October 1929: “Don’t let me go blind—not with my soul!” Pappenheim, Gebete.

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where: the Great Law.”136 Susman defined Pappenheim’s understanding of “the Great Law”: It was a different law from God’s commandment but still deeply connected to it: in basis and premise…. Just as she had gleaned the guiding line for her life and actions from the law as God’s commandment, the cosmic proto-law of Greek antiquity as the strict and just order of becoming and passing, birth and death taught her to surrender… to suffering and death.137 Surrender to pain (both physical and emotional) and death, as well as humility in the face of the circle of life and God’s creation are recurring motifs in Pappenheim’s prayers.138 In her last years, Pappenheim—referred to in her youth as “not at all religious” by Breuer—refashioned herself into a spiritual leader of women, a modern-day prophetess, whose age and experience had granted her the knowledge of “the Great Law.” She wrote in “Prayer” (dated August 1922): “Time… you brought to life the inheritance of my ancestors, enriching my life. You showed me threads, pulsating like veins, that bind all existence.”139 God had shown her “the only path,” “the way of kings [Konigsweg],” ¨ and she 140 felt the obligation to lead others to it, to “carry others with [her].” She felt a heightened urgency to lead Jewish women back to the Konigsweg ¨ in 1933, as Jews suffered increasing discrimination under Hitler. In a March 1933 letter to the executive committee of the JFB, she invoked the example of her Jewish foremothers, “who, had they had to go through what we are living through today, could have borne it only because they were full of the workings of the Great Law…. Whatever the future brings us Jews: You know that Jewish women rescued the community once before. We will want to try 136. Margarete Susman, “Bertha Pappenheim’s geistige Welt,” “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 35. 137. Ibid. 138. See especially: “Prayer of an Old Woman”; “Prayer” from June 1930, which calls the Angel of Death God’s messenger and “Keeper of the Great Law”; “Prayer” from July 1929; “An Old Woman’s Prayer of Thanks” of December 1929; “Prayer in Fear” from June 1934; and a poem that she dictated on her death-bed, “Quietly, quietly, without ado.” Pappenheim, Gebete; Bertha Pappenheim, “Leise, leise, ohne Weise,” in “An die fernen Freunde von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim,” by Hannah Karminski, MS. ME 497/MM 61, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 139. Pappenheim, Gebete, August 12, 1922. 140. “Gebet” (January 19, 1923), “Geloebnis”, “Gebet” (December 16, 1933), “Anruf,” in Gebete, by Bertha Pappenheim (Berlin: Philo, 1936).

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not to be weaker than they were.”141 She imagined herself as their leader, volunteering to resume the position of chairperson of the JFB, from which she had resigned almost ten years earlier. In her letter Pappenheim urged Jewish women to withdraw into the confines of the family and the Jewish community, to follow the example of their European ghetto foremothers, who found “strength in confinement.”142 Pappenheim had already sought to reconnect modern Jewish German women with these roots in 1929 and 1930, when she translated and published the Tsenerene and the Mayse bukh, two Yiddish books popular among Jewish women during the Thirty Years War, another time of intense antisemitism. By upholding Jewish women of that era as role models for modern Jewish women, Pappenheim implicitly advocated return to a spirituality that she believed had deteriorated when emancipation granted Jewish women spheres of influence beyond the confines of home and family. This stance appears to be regressive. However, considering that Pappenheim prescribed for all Jews (women and men alike) the withdrawal into private life and the cultivation of a Jewish home and family life as a strategy for weathering antisemitism, then women, in their traditional roles as guardians of the Jewish home, would become saviors of the Jewish community.143 This self-perception as a leader akin to female biblical heroes was apparently not mere hubris on Pappenheim’s part. Others echoed the same assessment. Even her ideological opponent, Zionist Helene Hanna Thon, commented on Pappenheim’s “prophetic strength for battle,” observing that she had something reminiscent of the prophets, in particular the prophetess Deborah.144 Ottilie Schonewald ¨ referred to Pappenheim’s “prophetic vision,”145 and Eva Reich-Jungmann agreed, “She fulfilled a prophetic function.”146 In her October 1934 short story, “The Hill of the Martyrs,” Pappenheim again prescribed recourse to “The Great Law” as a strategy for weathering antisemitic persecution. In this story a female figure wanders among the gravestones in an old Jewish cemetery. She appeals to the Jewish martyrs buried there, “Holy martyrs, how are we to live? How should we poor souls withstand the difficulty of our times, the suffering and the hate that beset

141. In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 10. 142. Ibid. 143. Pappenheim, “Der Einzelne und die Gemeinschaft.” 144. Thon, “Ihr Bild auf meinem Schreibtisch,” 38–39. 145. Schoenewald, “Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund, 8. 146. Heubach, Das unsichtbare Isenburg, 163.

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us.”147 They reply, “Schma Israel, adaunoi elauhenu, adaunoi echod”148 (Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one), which is often regarded as the central creed or confession of faith in Judaism. It is the first line of a three-part prayer composed of three passages from the Pentateuch, all of which concern the Mt. Sinai Covenant, God’s promise to keep the Jews, whom he has freed from slavery in Egypt, as his chosen people among the nations, provided they obey His commandments. Pappenheim’s invocation of the Shema and the Mt. Sinai Covenant serves a dual purpose. On the one hand, it comforts Jews, who should take solace in and derive hope from God’s promise. On the other hand, it implies that their present woes are a result of their failure to keep their side of the covenant— they have failed to live in accordance with “The Great Law.”149 As problematic as the second half of this dual interpretation of Pappenheim’s invocation of the Shema is, Pappenheim likely did mean to imply here that antisemitism was a result of Jews’ immorality. In a 1932 essay she stated outright, “If we Jews are at the mercy of great hostility today, it is because we too violate and circumvent the purity of morals and the laws of morality.”150 The female prophet of “The Hill of the Martyrs,” however, remains unheard by the masses, who laugh at her message: “The mob… laughed mockingly and raucously into the distance, where more grumbling people stood on the square. An echo caught the laughter, so that it rolled back over the wall and hit the woman like a deathblow, and she dropped dead on the Hill of the Martyrs.”151 This story portrays the pain that Pappenheim had felt again and again when her warnings went unheard, were misunderstood, or were ridiculed by the masses. In a 1933 prayer, Pappenheim had once before expressed the deep pain she felt when her truths fell on deaf ears: People have struck and hurt me many times—what does it matter?

147. Bertha Pappenheim, “Der Hugel ¨ der Martyrer,” ¨ in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 37. 148. Ibid. 149. The invocation of the Shema would be, according to Margarete Susman’s interpretation, that the “Great Law” and the Covenant are identical, also an allusion to the “Great Law.” Susman, “Bertha Pappenheim’s geistige Welt,” 34–37. 150. Pappenheim, “Einfuhrung ¨ in den Arbeitskreis fur ¨ Gefahrdeten-Fursorge,” ¨ ¨ 2. 151. Pappenheim, “Der Hugel ¨ der Martyrer,” ¨ 37. See also Pappenheim’s story “Vision,” which offers another portrayal of a woman (here it is the mother Chawa—an allusion to the mother of mankind, Eve—with her two children) as prophet or emissary. Bertha Pappenheim, “Vision,” Der Morgen 6, no. 5 (1930–1931): 431–34.

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Let me pick myself up so that I may take the only road—the way of kings. And they have neither heard nor understood me—what does it matter! Let me continue to speak and to say the truth. And when it is cold, and when it is dark, and when the air is bad to breathe, and I see the true meaning, and want to pronounce it, but the people are too stupid—what does it matter! I can bear witness without sound and words—by actions. Let me again be strong and stay strong. Amen.152 This prayer captures not only Pappenheim’s pain and disappointment, but her steadfast conviction that God had revealed to her his “way of kings” and that she would, as long as he granted her the strength, continue on that path, witnessing through actions when her words remained unheard.

152. Pappenheim, in Gebete.

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Bertha Pappenheim’s Biographers In a 1999 essay, literary scholar and cultural critic Stanley Fish rejected biography as a “bad game”: “Biographers can only be inauthentic, can only get it wrong, can only lie, can only substitute their own story for the story of their announced subject. (Biographers are all autobiographers, although the pretensions of their enterprise won’t allow them to admit it or even see it.)”1 Proponents of “feminist biography,” however, maintain that the conscious and conspicuous re-insertion of the narrating biographer into the text— usually with a frank acknowledgment of his or her theoretical or ideological bias and personal investment in the subject—is precisely what makes this sub-genre productive. What began as an attempt by feminists to secure a usable past by rescuing from obscurity individuals (usually women) who had been overlooked or marginalized by traditional biography or historiography has developed into an alternative paradigm for life-writing, one which disavows the claim to narrative objectivity in favor of empathetic, engaged inter-subjectivity. In “feminist biography,” the disembodied, disinterested scholar-scientist narrator is replaced by an interpersonal relationship between narrator, subject, and even reader.2 This chapter examines how Bertha Pappenheim’s biographers—whether unconsciously, as players in the “bad game” of biography, or intentionally, as feminist biographers—have used her life story to tell their own. For the purposes of this chapter, “biography” is broadly defined to mean the narration of Pappenheim’s life story in a non-fiction text, whether it belongs to a traditional biographical genre (essay, chapter, or book-length narratives of Pappenheim’s life story, encyclopedia entries, obituaries) or to other non-fictional genres from various disciplines (including psychiatry, psychoanalysis, literary 1. Stanley Fish, “Just Published: Minutiae Without Meaning,” New York Times, September 7, 1999. 2. Judy Long, Telling Women’s Lives: Subject/Narrator/Reader/Text, Feminist Crosscurrents (New York: New York University Press, 1999), 101–34.

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criticism, women’s studies, etc.) Hence the biographers discussed here range from psychiatrists and psychoanalysts who utilize Pappenheim’s story to delineate their own places within the history of their discipline, to a new generation of Jewish feminists (male and female) in search of Jewish role models for a self-styled non-biologically-determined family tree. Pappenheim’s biography is not, of course, the exclusive domain of non-fiction writing. She has also appeared in or inspired numerous literary texts and works of art in a wide variety of genres and media. These will be examined in the next chapter. Bertha Pappenheim’s biographers are faced with numerous obstacles. Apart from the record of her illness, which itself is incomplete and far from uncontested, vexingly little is known of her life before 1895, when she emerged in her mid-thirties as a public figure in Jewish social work and the women’s movement.3 Pappenheim’s debut as a public figure coincided with the publication of the case study Anna O. in the Studies on Hysteria4 and raises many unanswered questions: Did Pappenheim ever read the Studies on Hysteria?5 What did she think of her famous treatment? How did she manage to finally recover fully enough to embark on her long and productive career? We know that only a year before moving to Frankfurt (she is listed as a resident there as of November 14, 1888), she spent over two weeks (June 30 to July 18, 1887) at a sanatorium in Inzersdorf, near Vienna. Her diagnosis was “hysteria,” and she was discharged as “recovered.” But she had also been discharged as “recovered” after a four-and-a-half month stay ending on January 17, 1884.6 Why did her relapses stop, or did they? There are other questions: Was she ever romantically attached as a young woman? What was the nature of her relationships to her father, mother, and brother? How did the deaths of her sisters Henriette (who died in 1855 at age six, four years before Bertha was born) and Flora (who died in 1867 at age 3. In 1895, she became the house mother of the Frankfurt Israelite Women’s Association’s (Israelitischer Frauenverein) orphanage for girls, remaining in this position until 1907, when she resigned to dedicate herself to the JFB home in Isenburg. In 1895 she also played an active role in organizing the Frankfurt local branch of the General German Women’s Association (ADF). 4. Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud, Studien uber ¨ Hysterie. 5. Citing Dora Edinger, Lucy Freeman conjectures that Pappenheim did read Studies on Hysteria and “everything Freud ever wrote,” but this remains speculation. Marianne Brentzel writes that no one “warned her or asked her permission” to print the case study, but this cannot be corroborated. Freeman, The Story of Anna O., 203. Brentzel, Anna O. – Bertha Pappenheim, 87. 6. Klausmann, Politik und Kultur der Frauenbewegung im Kaiserreich, 165. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 115–16.

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thirteen, when Bertha was eight) affect her?7 These gaps in documentation and other unanswered questions—precisely because they do leave room for imagination and speculation—are part of what makes Pappenheim’s life story so enticing to a remarkably broad spectrum of biographers with widely divergent views of who she was, what she thought, and what makes her legacy worth rescuing and her story worth telling. In her later life, Bertha Pappenheim fantasized about how her life and works would be assessed after her death. That preoccupation led her to compose several “auto-obituaries” in 1934.8 Her genuine concern with how her sometimes controversial person and work would be remembered is discernible between the lines of these self-deprecating parodies. Writing for various German-Jewish papers, in each one she positioned herself as the consummate outsider, someone who did not belong to any single Jewish faction and was appreciated fully by none. She imagined that the Familienblatt9 would criticize her for demanding change prematurely and using tactics that were not “everyone’s cup of tea.”10 The Orthodox Israelit would scold, “With her pedigree she should have served Orthodox Judaism better.”11 The C.V. Zeitung would upbraid her for stubbornly refusing to join their ranks despite their shared dedication to reconciling Jewish “essence [Wesen]” and German culture.12 The Zionist Judische ¨ Rundschau would chide, “Although she believed she was German, she was really only an assimilationist.”13 And finally, the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes would regret that “world Jewry—men and women” failed to show her the gratitude she deserved for founding the JFB. Each of these obituaries closes with a resounding “Schade!” (What a shame!),14 no doubt a literary nod to German-Jewish satirist Kurt Tucholsky, who wrote, in response to a reader survey in Die literarische Welt: I don’t know what my obituary should look like. I only know what it will look like. It will consist of a single syllable. Mama and Papa will be 7. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 19. 8. Pappenheim, “Selbstverfaßte Nachrufe,” 28–29. 9. She is probably referring to the Israelitisches Familienblatt from Hamburg, as the Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt (in 1919 its main title was changed to Neue Judische ¨ Presse) ceased publication in 1923. 10. Pappenheim, “Selbstverfaßte Nachrufe,” 28–29. 11. Ibid. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid.

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sitting at the dinner table whiling away their marriage reading the newspaper. Startled by a picture by Dolbin, he will suddenly look up and say, “How about that, Theobald Tiger is dead.” And she will speak my eulogy, “Oh!” [Ach!]15 Tucholsky’s “Ach!” becomes Pappenheim’s “Schade!” Pappenheim’s assumption that her passing would merit mention in the presses of virtually every segment of the German-Jewish community was accurate. Obituaries did appear in the Orthodox Israelit, the Vienna-Bratislava Orthodox Judische ¨ Presse, the Judisch-liberale ¨ Zeitung, the C.V.- Zeitung, Die Wahrheit (the Austrian equivalent of the C.V.-Zeitung), the literary journal Der Morgen, the Zionist weekly Judische ¨ Rundschau, the Zeitschrift des Schwesternverbandes der Bne¨ Briss (which she had refused to join), the Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung, the Frankfurter Gemeindeblatt, Judische Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik, and even the New York Times.16 ¨ Pappenheim’s colleagues received letters of condolence from organizations 15. “Wie soll Ihr Nekrolog aussehen? Eine kleine Anleitung fur ¨ kunftige ¨ Biographen zur richtigen Gestaltung des Nachruhmes,” Die Literarische Welt 3, no. 15/16 (April 15,1927), 3. Theobald Tiger was one of Tucholsky’s pseudonyms. Brentzel and others have suggested that Pappenheim wrote her auto-obituaries in response to a survey by Kurt Tucholsky, who planned to publish a collection of auto-obituaries, which never came to fruition. Brentzel, Anna O.- Bertha Pappenheim, 236. I have been unable to corroborate this, but they do appear to be patterned (although they are dated May 1, 1934) after Tucholsky’s 1927 response to Willy Haas’s survey in Die literarische Welt, “What should your obituary look like? Brief instructions for future biographers on how to properly establish posthumous fame.” According to Haas, these reader surveys, which included thought-provoking questions, such as whether the Ten Commandments should be revised to reflect contemporary morals, were the most popular item in his publication and prompted responses from the most important writers and thinkers of the day. Willy Haas, Die Literarische Welt: Erinnerungen (Munich: Paul List, 1960): 179–80. 16. C. Benedikt, “Bertha Pappenheim,” Die Wahrheit, June 5, 1936, 6–7; Cora Berliner, “Bertha Pappenheim,” C.V.-Zeitung 15, no. 23 (June 4, 1936):1. Beiblatt, 4; “Bertha Pappenheim,” Der Israelit, June 4, 1936, 15; “Bertha Pappenheim,” Der Israelit, June 11, 1936, 10; “Bertha Pappenheim,” Judisch-liberale ¨ Zeitung, June 3, 1936; “Bertha Pappenheim s. A.” Judische ¨ Presse, June 12, 1936, 3; Dora Edinger, “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ Judische ¨ Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik, n.s., 6 (1936): 49–50; Stephanie Forchheimer, “Bertha Pappenheim,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 14, no. 10 (July 1936): 372; Bertha Fraenkel-Ehrentreu, “Berta [sic] Pappenheim,” Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung, June 15, 1936, 272; G.L. “Bertha Pappenheim,” Judische ¨ Rundschau, June 4, 1936, 10; Anna Lewy, “Bertha Pappenheim ist von uns gegangen,” Die Zeitschrift des Schwesternverbandes der Bne¨ Briss 9, no. 6 (June 1936): 1; “Miss Bertha Pappenheim: Feminist Leader and Author Had Traveled Widely,” New York

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and individuals (male and female) from every corner of Germany and from beyond its borders;17 and the JFB published an entire commemorative issue of the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, which included reminiscences by Pappenheim’s colleagues and other Jewish luminaries, including Max Warburg (a prominent banker and a leader of the Aid Association of the German Jews), Martin Buber, and Otto Hirsch (Executive Director of the National Representation of Jews in Germany, the Reichsvertretung).18 Of course, none of the obituaries or reminiscences ended with the “What a shame!” that Pappenheim had ironically projected, but they were unanimous in their admiration of her valiant struggles in the name of social responsibility and human rights. In fact, the obituaries in the Israelit and the Judische ¨ Rundschau, the papers that had been most critical of Pappenheim during her lifetime, were among the most detailed and laudatory. The Israelit, which had once accused her of demonstrating a “fanatical, almost pathological hate” for Orthodox Judaism now upheld her as a role-model for Jewish women.19 Alluding to the Tsenerene, the obituary published in the Israelit closes: “‘O daughters of Zion, go forth and behold.’ Behold, what a human will, a Jewish will is capable of when it seeks in action the way to G-d, his people, and his teachings.20 The Judische ¨ Rundschau credits her for promoting a Jewish consciousness (albeit “outside [its] ranks”) at a time when this could not be taken for granted.21 Pappenheim’s relocation to Frankfurt following her recovery may have been an attempt to escape the stigma of her mental illness, which was, according to her cousin Paul Homburger “common knowledge” in Vienna.22 Pappenheim apparently kept the entire episode a secret, even from her closest associates. The JFB commemorative issue stated, for example, that Pappenheim moved to Frankfurt and began her activity in Jewish social work there Times, June 5, 1936; Eva Reichmann-Jungmann, “Gedenken an Bertha Pappenheim,” Morgen 12, no. 6 (1936–1937): 281. 17. “Aus Kondolenz-Briefen,” Bertha Pappenheim Collection, S1/324 Teil II, Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte der Stadt Frankfurt am Main. 18. “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis.” ¨ Leo Baeck, President of the Reichsvertretung, also honored Pappenheim’s memory at a committee meeting. G.L., “Bertha Pappenheim,” Judische ¨ Rundschau, June 4, 1936, 10. 19. “Frankfurt a.M., 20. Mai,” Israelit 49, no. 21 (May 21, 1908): 9. 20. “Bertha Pappenheim” Der Israelit, June 4, 1936, 15. 21. “Bertha Pappenheim,” Judische ¨ Rundschau, June 4, 1936, 10. 22. Paul P. Homburger to Dora Edinger, April 1, 1958, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.

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in 1881 (the year her father died). This revised dating—in reality, Pappenheim did not take up residence in Frankfurt until November 1888—bypasses Pappenheim’s treatment by Breuer and her subsequent relapses.23 Dora Edinger surmised that Pappenheim may have destroyed all documents pertaining to her illness during a visit to Vienna in 1935, at which time she also requested that her relatives not reveal it, even after her death.24 With the exception of the published Anna O. case study and sanatoria records,25 there remains from this period only Pappenheim’s first known published work, Small Stories for Children,26 a collection that, in all likelihood, originated during the years of her illness. It is possible that some of these stories are versions of those that Pappenheim read (in late 1882) to her distant cousin Anna Ettlinger. Ettlinger encouraged Bertha, who was then auditing a course in nursing, to give it up in favor of literary work.27 These stories may 23. Hannah Karminski, who edited the commemorative issue, contacted Pappenheim’s brother Wilhelm for assistance in collecting material. He informed her that no documents remained from her Vienna years and did not correct the mistakes in the chronology printed in the commemorative issue. “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 2–3. Edinger, Freud’s Anna O., 13. 24. During this visit, Pappenheim delivered her lace collection to the MAK in Vienna; hence it is possible that she was also tying up other loose ends. Edinger, Freud’s Anna O., 19–20. 25. The appendices of Albrecht Hirschmuller’s ¨ biography of Josef Breuer include records of Pappenheim’s treatment at Bellevue Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen. These include a transcription of the Pappenheim case history compiled by Breuer, a report of her treatment at Bellevue, and an additional report by Breuer; letters from Josef Breuer, Recha Pappenheim, and Fritz Homburger (Bertha’s cousin in Karlsruhe) to Robert Binswanger; Bertha Pappenheim’s own account or her illness (written in English in 1882); and one letter from Bertha Pappenheim to Robert Binswanger. These documents also shed light on her visits to Karlsruhe, where she spent time with her distant cousin Anna Ettlinger and participated in a nursing course organized by the Baden Women’s Union. Hirschmuller ¨ also located (in the archives of the Vienna City Psychiatric Hospital) records of Pappenheim’s treatment at a sanatorium run by Dr. Fries and Dr. Breslauer in Inzersdorf near Vienna, where Pappenheim spent a total of 10 months between 1883 and 1887. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 114–15, 276–308. 26. Pappenheim, Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder. The work was published anonymously and undated, but the Vienna City Library (owner of the sole known copy) lists Bertha Pappenheim as the author. This is confirmed by Sophie Pataky, ed., Lexikon deutscher Frauen der Feder: Eine Zusammenstellung der seit dem Jahre 1840 erschienenen Werke weiblicher Autoren, nebst Biographien der lebenden und einem Verzeichnis der Pseudonyme (Berlin: Carl Pataky, 1898), 115. 27. Fritz Homburger to Robert Binswanger, January 4, 1883, in Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 306–7.

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also be, as Hirschmuller ¨ suggests, written versions of the tales of Pappenheim’s “private theater,” the fairy-tale-like stories through which she reportedly escaped the monotony of her everyday life, or literary allusions to episodes from her illness. “The Pond Sprite,” for example, evokes Breuer’s account of the genesis of her nervous cough. In the story, a pond sprite is unable (despite the threat of severe punishment and the watchful eye of the stone head on the fountain) to resist the temptation to follow the strains of dance music from a nearby ball. At the ball she dances with a tall handsome man with a long beard and deep blue eyes, who abandons her in horror when he finally recognizes her. When the pond sprite returns home, she finds that her pond has frozen over, and she lies down on its bank, where she is gradually covered by the falling snow. In the springtime, a snowdrop blooms where she had lain. Breuer’s case study concludes that Anna O.’s nervous cough, which recurred whenever she heard rhythmic music, began when she was overcome with guilt for wishing that she could be at the dance whose music she heard from her father’s bedside. According to Hirschmuller, ¨ the menacing and reproachful stone head of the story are a veiled allusion to Pappenheim’s hallucinations of her father with a death’s head; and the handsome male dancer who deserts the sprite is an amalgam of Breuer and Pappenheim’s father.28 The fact that her colleagues apparently had no knowledge of the collection’s existence (although several stories do demonstrate Pappenheim’s early interest in philanthropy, social work, and pedagogy)29 also suggests that Pappenheim associated it with her illness and hid it for that reason. In addition to concealing what she wished to exclude from her biography, Pappenheim also made an effort to preserve those documents with which she wished to inform it. She entrusted her prolific correspondence and other writings to Hannah Karminski, her closest friend in her later years. Karminski and Pappenheim were like “mother and daughter.” They exchanged letters 28. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 122–23. Pappenheim, Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder, 35–38. Breuer and Freud, Studies on Hysteria, 37, 40. 29. Two stories are didactic: in “Die Geschichte vom Grimassenhans” (The Story of Grimacing Hans), the title character learns not to make faces when he is finally terrified by his own reflection, and “Die Spatzin” ¨ (The Sparrow) teaches the value of selfless charity that is not a public demonstration but a “secret with God.” “Im Storchenland” (In the Land of Storks) depicts social work as meaningful surrogate motherhood for women denied biological children. Bertha Pappenheim, Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder. The collection is not listed in the bibliography compiled by Hannah Karminski. “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 3.

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daily,30 and Karminski planned to write a biography of Pappenheim.31 Pappenheim’s attempts to shape the written record of her life were in vain, however. Karminski, whom she trusted to portray her according to her wishes and informed by her own words (just as her translations had enabled Gluckel ¨ of Hameln and Mary Wollstonecraft to live on in their own words), was deported in 1942 and is believed to have died in transit to Auschwitz.32 She had entrusted the Pappenheim documents to Swiss friends in Berlin, but they were destroyed in the Allied bombings.33 It is impossible to ascertain precisely how many and which of Pappenheim’s writings have been irretrievably lost. Several unpublished plays and fairy tales mentioned either in Pappenheim’s correspondence, in the press, or by colleagues are unaccounted for: the stories and fairy tales “Eine Geschichte vom Barchen” ¨ (The Story of Little Bear, 1921); “Typische Therapie” (Typical Therapy, 1930); “Das Kritzelmannchen” ¨ (The Doodled Mankin, 1935); “Das verdrehte Dornroschchen” ¨ (The Confused Sleeping Beauty, 1936); “Umschichten” (Restructuring, 1936);34 and “Das Schicksal des Konig Planeius” (The Fate of King Planeius);35 and the plays “Schwarze ¨ Spitzen” (Black Lace, premiered 1920),36 “Das Gesindel” (The Riff-raff) and 30. Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 9. Kaplan, Die judische ¨ Frauenbewegung in Deutschland, 148. Despite their closeness, Pappenheim apparently never extended her the offer to use the familiar address “du.” See Bertha Pappenheim to Hannah Karminski, July 29, 1934, A 481, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 31. Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 18. 32. The story of Karminski’s deportation and death is a testimony to the type of female solidarity idealized by Pappenheim. Her Reichsvertretung colleague Hildegard Bohme ¨ petitioned the authorities to be transported in her seriously ill friend’s stead, but the petition was denied. Like Pappenheim, Karminski never married, claiming, “Only an unmarried woman will dedicate herself fully to a cause.” Marion Kaplan, Die judische ¨ Frauenbewegung in Deutschland, 149. 33. Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 9. 34. Kathe ¨ Mende reported to Dora Edinger that she had in her possession these stories and fairy tales. Kathe ¨ Mende to Dora Edinger, August 8, 1959, Dora Edinger Papers, B86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 35. Pappenheim submitted this text to the Frankfurter Zeitung, but it was rejected on the grounds that its “deeper meaning” was not discernable, and the paper published fairy tales only when they were of “relevance to the current situation.” Redaktion der Frankfurter Zeitung to Bertha Pappenheim, April 4, 1908, Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 36. The play premiered at a Founder’s Day Celebration of the Madchenklub. ¨ See Review of “Schwarze Spitzen,” in “Madchenklub,” ¨ Neue Judische ¨ Presse 18, no. 13 (March 31, 1920): 2.

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“Ostern” (Easter).37 Also lost are the translations that Pappenheim was working on in her last days, a text from the period of the French Revolution and three more books of the Tsenerene (her published translation included only Bere’shit [Genesis]).38 Pappenheim also kept diaries, but these have not been found.39 Although bits of her wide correspondence continue to resurface,40 the bulk of it (including her daily letters to Hannah Karminski) is lost forever.41 Having no biological children, Pappenheim extended her family tree by “grafting on” branches; she mentored her “daughters” (from the Frankfurt orphanage for Jewish girls) Sophie Mamelok and Helene Kramer ¨ well into adulthood as they followed in her footsteps pursuing careers in Jewish social work;42 she became the matriarch of the JFB, whose socially-minded Jewish members became her “sisters” and “daughters”;43 and she created and nur-

37. Pappenheim mentioned these two plays in a January 9, 1933 letter to Clem Cramer. Bertha Pappenheim to [Clem] Cramer, January 9, 1933. 38. Badt-Strauß, “Judische ¨ Frauenliteratur,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 31–33; Ehrenwerth, “Im Heim,” 13. 39. In a letter to Clem Cramer, she notes that her epistolary long-windedness occurred at the expense of her diary. Bertha Pappenheim to [Clem] Cramer, April 16, 1907, Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 40. Most recently, I have found correspondence with Albert Einstein and David Simonsen. Albert Einstein Archives, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. David Simonsen Archives, Judaica Collection, The Royal Library, The National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library. 41. Bella Rosenak, for example, reports that Pappenheim and her husband (Rabbi Leopold Rosenak, with whom Pappenheim twice traveled to Galicia, and who was active in the campaigns against white slavery) corresponded frequently. However, these letters are not extant. Bella Rosenak, letter to the Leo Baeck Institute, October 1956, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt, a.M. 42. Helene Kramer ¨ became the director of the JFB home in Isenburg after Pappenheim’s death, and Sophie Mamelock became the director of the JFB home for children at risk for tuberculosis in Wyk auf Fohr. ¨ Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 46–48. See also Pappenheim’s letters to Sophie Mamelok in Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 29–46. 43. As in a real family, the JFB was not immune from internal conflict, such as the conflict between Zionists and non-Zionists and between Pappenheim and her old guard and the next generation of leaders. See Britta Konz, “Generationenkonflikte im Judischen ¨ Frauenbund,” in “‘Judisch-sein, ¨ Frau-sein, Bund-sein’” 24–31; Annette Vowinckel and Iren Borowicz, “Nachstes ¨ Jahr in Jerusalem?,”:32–39; Sabine Hering, “Tochter Zions, furchte ¨ Dich!,” 40–44; Britta Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 332–36.

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tured another almost exclusively female family at the JFB home in Isenburg.44 By the mid 1940s, however, this grafted branch had been severed: Hannah Karminski was dead; the JFB was banned in 1938, its surviving members scattered;45 and the home for unwed mothers and endangered girls at Isenburg was closed and its inhabitants and workers deported.46 Until her “outing” as Anna O. by Ernest Jones in 1953, Bertha Pappenheim virtually disappeared from public memory.47 Even in German-Jewish exile communities and in post-war Germany, the record of her remarkable accomplishments was eclipsed by the achievements of other Jewish women, like Zionist Henrietta Szold, who had labored to evacuate large numbers of European Jewish children to Palestine, a project that Pappenheim had opposed. According to Edinger, the children’s vacation retreat and convalescent home (Erholungsheim) of the new post-war JFB was named after Szold (an American), rather than Pappenheim.48 Pappenheim reappeared on the international radar when Jones mentioned her in a footnote to his 1953 Freud biography: “Since she was the real discoverer of the cathartic method, her name, which was actually Bertha Pappenheim deserves to be commemorated.”49 At roughly the same time, Pappenheim was honored in a series of German postage stamps called “Helpers of Humanity.”50 44. See Britta Konz’s interpretation of Isenburg as an alternative, all-female Jewish family. Britta Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 310–17. 45. On the history of the JFB after Pappenheim’s death and the activities of its members after the organization was disbanded, see Marion A. Kaplan, Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); idem, “Jewish Women in Nazi Germany: Daily Life, Daily Struggles, 1933–1939,” in Different Voices: Women and the Holocaust, ed. Carol Rittner and John K. Roth (New York: Paragon House, 1993): 187–212; Gudrun Maierhof, Selbstbehauptung im Chaos. The JFB was re-established by Jeanette Wolff and Ruth Galinski in 1953. Judischer ¨ Frauenbund in Deutschland Web site, “Geschichte,” http://www.juedischerfrauenbund.org/css/geschichte. htm (accessed June 15, 2006). 46. Heubach, “Das unsichtbare Isenburg”, 205–8; Heubach, Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, 75–78, 100. 47. One notable exception is her inclusion in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, which was a project of the Works Project Administration of the City of New York. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, ed. Isaac Landman (New York: Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, 1939–1943), s.v. “Bertha Pappenheim.” 48. Dora Edinger to Sophie Mamelok, May 20, 1958, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 49. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1: 223. 50. Pappenheim was the 17th honoree. The Bertha Pappenheim stamp appeared in

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Jones’s revelation prompted wide interest in Pappenheim. The first to stake a claim on her life story was Dora Edinger (1890-1977), who justified her rights on the merit of personal, professional, and distant familial ties. Edinger’s mother-in-law, Anna Edinger, was Pappenheim’s second cousin.51 Dora Edinger had been active in Jewish social work and Jewish women’s education in Frankfurt and was the editor of the Zeitschrift des Schwesternbundes der Loge der Bne¨ Briß from 1928 to 1936 (when she escaped to New York with her eldest son). Edinger, who had begun work on her Pappenheim biography and anthology prior to Jones’s revelation, believed that there was not enough material available to write a full-length book. She intended to publish a biographical essay together with a representative collection of Pappenheim’s own writings.52 Edinger was appalled by Jones’ indiscretion, which she viewed as a breech of doctor-patient confidentiality.53 Intent on preserving the dignity of her former colleague (and surely by extension that of the JFB, to which she, too, had belonged), she undertook immediate damage control, seeking the support of Ottilie Schonewald, ¨ Pappenheim’s successor, from 1934 to its dissolution, as chairperson of the JFB: 1954 in the 5th series, which also included artist Kathe ¨ Kollwitz; Lorenz Werthmann, the founder of the German Caritas movement; and Johann Friedrich Oberlin. Earlier honorees included Nobel Peace Prize winners Henri Dunant (founder of the Red Cross); Saint Elizabeth (1207–1231); and the pedagogues Heinrich Pestalozzi and Friedrich Frobel. ¨ E.G. Lowenthal, “Helfer der Menschheit: Deutsche Bundespost ehrt Bertha Pappenheim,” Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland [Dusseldorf], ¨ November 5, 1954, offprint. 51. Anna Edinger’s husband, Ludwig Edinger (1855–1918), a professor of neurology in Frankfurt, may have been Pappenheim’s physician after her move to Frankfurt. Although he is unable to verify whether Edinger treated Pappenheim or the extent of that treatment, Kreft argues that a revision of the “founding myth” of psychoanalysis may be in order if Edinger was not only Pappenheim’s physician but also her psychotherapist. Gerald Kreft, “Zur Archaologie ¨ der Psychoanalyse in Frankfurt: Fundstucke ¨ und Perspektiven um Ludwig Edinger,” in Psychoanalyse in Frankfurt am Main: Zerstorte ¨ Anfange, ¨ Wiederannaherung, ¨ Entwicklungen, ed. Tomas Plankers, ¨ et al. (Tubingen: ¨ Edition Diskord, 1996), 222. 52. Dora Edinger to Dr. [Max M.] Stern, February 18, 1960, Dora Edinger Papers B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 53. Dora Edinger claims to have known Pappenheim’s secret: “ I knew from my fatherin-law and BP knew that I knew, that she was ‘Anna O.’ but never has she ever made any remark to any one of us concerning her experience, though she frequently talked to me about the cases of psychoses in the family.” Dora Edinger to Max Stern, October 11, 1959, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.

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In my opinion, we cannot just sit idly by. I thought that perhaps you, as her legal successor as chairwoman of the Executive Board of the Judischer ¨ Frauenbund, could write to Jones and 1) ask him why he didn’t honor medical confidentiality in this one case, 2) ask why he didn’t familiarize himself with Bertha Pappenheim’s writings and books, and 3) suggest that he do so now and incorporate them into his next edition. The former Frauenbund women here are simply horrified by this publication, but are at a loss as to what to do. The medical history has been published, and that’s just the way things are, but the Judischer ¨ Frauenbund owes it to its founder’s memory to not let this matter rest.54 Edinger and her JFB colleagues were not alone in their condemnation of Jones. Paul Homburger, the executor of Pappenheim’s estate, publicly protested Jones’s revelation, which he insisted was “contrary to her thinking and wishes.”55 He closed his letter to the editor of the Aufbau, New York’s newspaper for German-Jewish immigrants: “The image of Bertha that should and will survive, is not that of a sick patient but of a person who overcame illness and as a leader in the social ascent of mankind.”56 While Dora Edinger objected to Jones’ one-sided portrayal of Pappenheim, some colleagues accused her of painting an equally skewed portrait. Ottilie Schonewald ¨ complained that Edinger had intentionally overlooked her as a source for the Pappenheim biography, writing, “It’s funny that you considered using M[argarete] Susman and Frau [Paula] Nassauer as sources but not me.” According to Schonewald, ¨ the letters in her possession did not always show Pappenheim’s best side: “Since your collection is supposed to honor BP, I doubt that you will want to include her letters to me in your collection.”57 Indeed, Edinger appears to have foregone Schonewald’s ¨ input because she was aware of her acrimonious relationship with Pappenheim. In a letter to Grete Berent, Edinger confided: “It was always obvious that she [Schonewald] ¨

54. Dora Edinger to Ottilie Schonewald, ¨ Dec. 29, 1953, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. Ottilie Schonewald ¨ (1883–1956) was chairperson of the JFB from 1934 until it was disbanded in 1938. 55. Paul Homburger to Richard Karpe, October 4, 1958, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 56. Paul P. Homburger to editor of Aufbau, April 25, 1954, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 57. Ottilie Schonewald ¨ to Dora Edinger, August 28, 1956, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.

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and Dr. Kreutzberger let their dislike of BP carry over into the historiography, and the last yearbook is completely objective proof.”58 Although Edinger worried that with the passage of time Pappenheim’s memory would fade,59 she was visibly offended when others infringed on her presumed right to tell Pappenheim’s story, even when they steered clear of the Anna O. material. She was disturbed, for example, by news that Bertha Badt-Strauß, whom she felt was not as close to Pappenheim as she was, was planning a biography. Edinger complained to Sophie Mamelok that Badt-Strauß was withholding letters from her.60 Edinger also unceremoniously dismissed another effort to assess Pappenheim’s life work, Ruth Dresner’s doctoral thesis, as “bad.”61 Edinger’s testiness stemmed in part from her inability to find a publisher for her own manuscript. In 1957 she informed her colleagues that the Leo Baeck Institute (whom she considered the logical sponsor for her work) would not, despite Martin Buber’s recommendation, support her research with grant assistance or publish her collection.62 I suspect 58. Dora Edinger to Grete Berent. May 20, 1961, Dora Edinger Papers B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. Margarethe Berent (1887–1965) became Prussia’s first and Germany’s second female lawyer in 1925. She was co-founder of the Association of Women Jurists and Association of German Women Academicians, taught family and juvenile law at Alice Salomon’s Women’s School for Social Work, and was a member of the executive board of the JFB. In 1928 Max Kreutzberger became the manager of the Central Welfare Agency of German Jews and in 1933 the head of the Reichsvertretung der deutschen Juden. In 1957 he became Director of the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. Edinger may be referring here to Giora Lotan, “The Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle,” Leo Baeck Institute Year Book 4 (1959): 185–207. Although the article mentions Pappenheim in passing, it fails to credit her for inspiring the founding of the Central Welfare Agency of German Jewry. 59. She confided in Sophie Mamelok, “It depresses me, how much better known Henrietta Szold is than Pappenheim, not only here [in the United States] but in Germany.” Dora Edinger to Sophie Mamelok, May 20, 1958, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 60. Ella Werner to Dora Edinger, May 22, 1957, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.; Dora Edinger to Sophie Mamelok, March 27, 1958, Nachlaß Dora Edinger, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 61. Dora Edinger to Grete Berent, September 9, 1957, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.; Ruth B. Dresner, “Bertha Pappenheim: The Contribution of a German Jewish Pioneer Social Reformer to Social Work: 1859–1936” (PhD diss., Fordham University, 1954). 62. Dora Edinger to Sophie Mamelok, September 6, 1957, Dora Edinger Papers. B 86/735. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.; Max Kreutzberger to Dora Edinger, November 1, 1957, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. According to Kreutzberger (who was chagrined that Edinger was spreading the rumor that the Leo

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that this perceived betrayal accounts for her choice to deposit her own papers [Nachlaß] in Frankfurt, where her book finally was published in 1963 by the Ner Tamid Verlag, rather than at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York. Edinger’s archived correspondence confirms that numerous other American and German publishers rejected her proposals and manuscript.63 Frustrated by these rejections—mostly attributed to the fact that the story of Bertha Pappenheim as feminist and social worker would interest only a very narrow audience—Edinger ultimately changed her mind about including details of the Anna O. case study. She seems to have concluded that the social worker and feminist Bertha Pappenheim could only be resurrected with the help of the famous hysteric Anna O. She began peddling her project as valuable source material for psychoanalysts and for a psychoanalytical biography.64 Nevertheless, Edinger persisted in her attempts to control the dissemination of Pappenheim’s biography. When she learned in 1957 that Irving Wallace intended to write a popular fictionalized biography for Knopf Publishers, she immediately wrote the Leo Baeck Institute and Martin Buber, urging them to refuse his requests for source material. She cautioned, “Considering BP’s literary work (which is really quite horrible [schauderhaft])65 and her crass medical history, Wallace might write a biography `a la Emil Ludwig.”66 She

Baeck Institute had broken promises to her) the LBI had assisted Edinger in collecting materials, had given her a grant for $300 to support her research in New York, and intended to offer further assistance in publication, providing that she obtain a publishing contract. They had refused her request for a $3000 grant, and they were not willing to act as publisher. 63. Edinger named Basic Books and Grove Press, among others. Dora Edinger to Lucy Freeman, February 20, 1963, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 64. Ibid. 65. Edinger’s exceedingly negative assessment of Pappenheim’s literary works explains her omission of Pappenheim’s literary texts (with the exception of the Denkzettel and prayers) from her anthology. 66. Dora Edinger to Grete Berent, September 9, 1957, Edinger to Paul Homburger, undated, and Edinger to Martin Buber, undated, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. Emil Ludwig (Cohn) (1881–1948), born in Breslau, was a prolific German biographer, whose extremely popular biographies, valued more for their colorful literary style than for rigorous historical research, factual accuracy or objectivity, were translated into many languages. His subjects included Goethe, Napoleon, Bismarck, Lincoln, Cleopatra, Roosevelt, Stalin, Michelangelo, and Jesus. Ludwig was baptized as a young man but renounced Christianity after the assassination of Walter Rathenau. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Emil Ludwig.”

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had other objections to Wallace, however. She intimated to Sophie Mamelok, “I doubt that he knows German or is a Jew.”67 Edinger finally chose her protegee, ´ ´ Lucy Freeman, to write a psychoanalytical biography based on the materials Edinger herself had collected and the interviews she had conducted. Edinger assumed co-authorship of the project, referring to “our approach to the biography,” “our plans,” and “our outline” and offering stylistic advice.68 It apparently didn’t bother Edinger that Freeman, an American Jewish lay analyst and professional writer,69 couldn’t read German. In fact, she may have preferred it—Freeman remained dependent on Edinger, her sole intermediary to the texts. Edinger frequently warned Freeman that not just anyone could translate Pappenheim’s texts: Pappenheim was fond of puns and sometimes wrote in Frankfurt dialect; and one could not possibly fully understand her writings without knowledge of the dynamics of the Frankfurt Jewish community, Jewish social work, and the German women’s movement—none of which Freeman possessed.70 With Edinger’s tutelage, however, Freeman succeeded in placing her biography, The Story of Anna O.: The Woman Who Led Freud to Psychoanalysis, with a major publisher.71 She appealed to a mass audience by replacing, in her title, the name of the now obscure figure of Jewish and women’s history with two better-known and sexier names. More than thirty year later, her fictionalized biography is still in print.72 Edinger’s prediction that Anna O. would eventually overshadow Bertha Pappenheim proved accurate. Since Jones’s 1953 revelation, the vast majority of publications on Pappenheim have focused on the two years of her 67. Edinger to Sophie Mamelok. September 6, 1957. Contrary to Edinger’s assumption, the best-selling novelist and screenwriter Irving Wallace (1916–1990), born in Chicago, was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants. His son David reclaimed the family name Wallechinsky. Contemporary Authors Online, s.v. “Irving Wallace.” 68. Edinger to Lucy Freeman, September 29, 1963, July 21, 1964, July 13, 1964, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 69. Lucy Freeman (1916–2004) was a New York Times reporter (1941–1952) and a freelance writer of mystery and crime fiction, biography, and popular non-fiction in psychology and psychiatry. In 1976 she received the Writers Award for “outstanding contribution to public understanding of psychiatry” from the American Psychiatric Association. Contemporary Authors On-Line, s.v. “Lucy (Greenbaum) Freeman.” 70. Dora Edinger to Lucy Freeman, February 20, 1963, February 22, 1963, October 19, 1963, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 71. Lucy Freeman, The Story of Anna O. (New York: Walker, 1972). 72. Ibid.

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seventy-seven-year life in which she was a patient of Josef Breuer. As such, numerous scholars have sought to re-diagnose Anna O. based on new scientific insights. These “palaeodiagnoses” have included: double personality;73 multiple personality disorder;74 schizophrenia;75 mood disorder (primary or druginduced);76 melancholia and pathological mourning;77 hysterical personality;78 borderline disorder or borderline psychotic state;79 major depression; anxiety disorder; and/or conversion disorder.80 Others have favored organic causes for Pappenheim’s symptoms: drug-induced delirium and complex partial seizures;81 chloral hydrate and morphine dependence;82 or spontaneous acute 73. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1: 223. 74. Henri F. Ellenberger, “The Story of Anna O.: A Critical Review with New Data,” in Beyond the Unconscious: Essays of Henri F. Ellenberger in the History of Psychiatry, ed. Mark S. Micale, 254–72 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Richard P. Kluft, “Unsuspected Multiple Personality Disorder: An Uncommon Source of Protracted Resistance, Interruption, and Failure in Psychoanalysis,” Hillside Journal of Clinical Psychiatry 9 (1987): 100–115; Kenneth A. Nakdimen “Psychoanalysis and Multiple Personality,” American Journal of Psychiatry 145 (1988): 896–97; Richard L. Loewenstein, “Anna O: Reformulation as a Case of Multiple Personality Disorder,” in Rediscovering Childhood Trauma: Historical Casebook and Clinical Applications, ed. Jean M. Goodwin, Clinical Practice 28 (Washington D.C.: American Psychiatric Press, 1993), 139–67. 75. Frederic ´ ´ M. Bram, “The Gift of Anna O.” British Journal of Medical Psychology 38 (1965): 53–58; Charles E. Goshen, “The Original Case Material of Psychoanalysis,” American Journal of Psychiatry 108 (1952): 829–34; Suzanne Reichard, “A Re-Examination of ‘Studies in Hysteria’,” Psychoanalytic Quarterly 25 (1956): 155–77. 76. Sergio ´ de Paula Ramos, “A Case of Chemical Dependence,” History of Psychology 6, no. 3 (2003): 239–50. 77. George H. Pollock, “Bertha Pappenheim’s Pathological Mourning: Possible Effects of Childhood Sibling Loss,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 20 (1972): 476–93 78. Sidney Bolkosky, “The Alpha and Omega of Psychoanalysis: Reflections on Anna O. and Freud’s Vienna,” Psychoanalytic Review 69 (1982): 131–50. 79. Gerald G. Gargiulo, “An English Object Relations Approach,” in Anna O: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations, eds. Max Rosenbaum and Melvin Muroff (New York: Free Press, 1984), 149–60; William Meissner, “A Study on Hysteria: Anna O. Rediviva, Annals of Psychoanalysis 7 (1979): 17–52; Hyman Spotnitz, “The Case of Anna O.: “Aggression and the Narcissistic Countertransference,” in Anna O: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations, eds. Max Rosenbaum and Melvin Muroff (New York: Free Press, 1984), 132–40. 80. Joseph T. Martorano, “The Psychopharmalogical Treatment of Anna O.,” in Anna O: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations, 85–100. 81. Alison Orr-Andrawes, “The Case of Anna O.: A Neuropsychiatric Perspective,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 35, no. 2 (1987): 387–419. 82. Ramos, “A Case of Chemical Dependence,” 239–50.

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disseminated encephalomyelitis.83 Due to the paucity of information about Pappenheim’s life before 1895, many of these re-diagnoses rely heavily on the later chapters of Pappenheim’s biography. Thus her writings and her four decades-long career as social worker, activist, and feminist leader are either offered as proof of the efficacy of Breuer’s cure or pathologized as a continuation or sublimation of her mental illness. One clinical interpreter of Pappenheim’s later life, Susan Kavaler-Adler, took issue with another (George H. Pollock’s) assessment that Pappenheim was “active and contributing in her later adult life.” Kavaler-Adler countered that she may have appeared active and involved from an “external viewpoint,” but that from a psychoanalytical point of view she could only be seen as “driven by intense compulsion.”84 Although she conceded that there was “not enough factual information to make conclusions,” she nevertheless did conclude that Anna O. was a “borderline character with severe hysteroid symptomatology.”85 Kavaler-Adler’s interpretation pathologized both Pappenheim’s activism and her writing. According to her, Pappenheim’s significant achievements in social work reflected her “psychological failing in developing and sustaining more intimate relationships, both within herself and with other people…. Action is second nature to borderlines and reinforces their state of denial.”86 She dismissed Pappenheim’s literary work as artistically limited (her expression is “ideational and abstract”; and her characters are “stereotypic caricatures, born to express intellectual thoughts” and lacking the “complexity of a conflict-ridden human-being”), inferring that these supposed inadequacies manifest the author’s pathological narcissism.87 Pappen- heim did find herself in a cadre of distinguished literary women, however; according to Kavaler-Adler, her “story-telling” resembled the “kind of repetitive pathological mourning reenactments seen in the creative work of such borderline-level women as Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, Edith Sitwell, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath.”88 Kavaler-Adler was certainly not the first critic to pathologize Pappenheim’s later accomplishments. Freeman’s fictionalized biography also offers a psychoanalytical interpretation of Pappenheim’s social work and feminism. 83. Lindsay C. Hurst, “What was Wrong with Anna O.?,” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 75 (1982): 129–31. 84. Susan Kavaler-Adler, “Some More Speculations on Anna O.,” 168. 85. Ibid., 161. 86. Ibid., 168. 87. Ibid., 164–65. 88. Ibid.,168.

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In Freeman’s rendering, Pappenheim’s restless activism was an attempt to stave off loneliness and combat the same phantoms that plagued her during her illness, phantoms that were in check but not vanquished. By helping unwed mothers and agunot, she was rescuing herself, the young woman deserted by Breuer after her false pregnancy. This perceived desertion also contributed to her supposed hatred of men and failure to marry. Her battles against white slavery and prostitution were nothing more than the vicarious enjoyment of repressed forbidden sexual desires.89 Rosalea A. Schonbar and Helena R. Beatus, conversely, have rejected readings based on classical drive theory, which presumes that an individual’s “highly adaptive and constructive social behavior” serves “only to hide primitive urges,” maintaining that such interpretations (they name Freeman, Karpe, and Ellenberger, in particular) trivialize Pappenheim’s accomplishments.90 They argue that the seeming discontinuity of Pappenheim’s life (the mysterious transformation from hysteric to leader and reformer) was the product of an outmoded interpretive model. Pappenheim’s biography makes sense when viewed through a newer and better theoretical lens—their own: “We believe that understanding any life demands a theory that considers the individual’s unique biological, familial, and sociocultural background, recognizes continuity over the lifespan, and contains a principle to account for such continuity.”91 However, their quest to restore continuity in Pappenheim’s life-story has led them to speculate on biographical detail when gaps in factual documentation obscure a full picture. They conclude, for example, that part of Bertha Pappenheim’s problem was that she was raised by a mother who was depressed by her unhappy arranged marriage and by the deaths of two of her children: Henriette (September 2, 1849–October 15, 1855) and Flora (October 24, 1853–April 17, 1867). Unfortunately, their assumptions are based solely on their own preconception that an arranged marriage is by definition unhappy; and their only evidence that Recha Pappenheim was clinically depressed (as opposed to sad, as any bereaved mother would be) is an unsmiling portrait of her as a young woman.92 89. Freeman, The Story of Anna O., 231–66. See also Bernd Nitzschke, “Prostitutionswunsche ¨ und Rettungsphantasien -- auf der Flucht vor dem Vater: Skizzen aus dem Leben einer Frau (‘Anna O.’ – ‘P. Berthold’ – Bertha Pappenheim),” Psyche: Zeitschrift fur ¨ Psychoanalyse und ihre Anwendungen 44, no. 9 (September 1990): 788–825. 90. Rosalea A. Schonbar and Helena R. Beatus, “The Mysterious Metamorphoses of Bertha Pappenheim: Anna O. Revisited,” Psychoanalytic Psychology 7, no. 1 (1990): 66. 91. Ibid., 59, 62. 92. Ibid., 68–69.

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Schonbar and Beatus are by no means the only ones who have speculated about undocumented root causes of Pappenheim’s mental illness. Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco has sought to explain its origin in the alleged disintegration of the Pappenheim family. He has cited sibling rivalry and Bertha’s conflicts with a domineering mother.93 While the theory of the domineering mother was Jones’ fabrication, a lasting sibling rivalry has been documented by Freeman,94 and especially by Pollock, who writes that several of Pappenheim’s colleagues recounted “that B.P. had in the Isenburg home a tapestry with two fighting roosters which she called: ‘a portrait of Willy and me.’”95 Pollock 93. Pietro Castelnuovo-Tedesco, “On Rereading the Case of Anna O.” 94. Freeman, The Story of Anna O., 169. 95. Pollock, “Bertha Pappenheim’s Pathological Mourning,” 481. While Wilhelm and Bertha Pappenheim were still young, their cousin Fritz Homburger reported: “Bertha is also more attached to her brother when she is separated from him; he thinks all the time that he has the right to dominate her, and has often provoked her by his inconsiderate behavior.” Fritz Homburger to Robert Binswanger, July 23, 1882, in The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 299. While Edinger (cited in Pollock) conjectures that Bertha Pappenheim resented her brother’s superior education (I wonder whether he may have resented her prominence), the siblings’ ideological differences may also have contributed to their apparently strained relationship. Wilhelm Pappenheim was a Zionist. He is listed among the founders of the Austrian Association for the Colonization of Palestine. He apparently also had a strong interest in socialism. He owned what is believed to have been one of the most important private libraries in Central Europe on the history of socialism. David Borisovicˇ Rjazanov, the director of the Marx Engels Institute in Moscow, purchased portions of Wilhelm Pappenheim’s library for the Institute in 1920. Rjazanov also thanks Wilhelm Pappenheim in his 1927 Marx-Engels edition for the use of documents pertaining to the Marx family history and for letters from Bruno Bauer to Marx. Whereas Bertha Pappenheim rejected Zionism, her stance on Socialism is not well documented. She mentions socialist thought in one letter to Martin Buber: “I think that I did partially understand your book [Drei Reden uber ¨ das Judentum], perhaps at least the basic ideas. It is a description of ‘Jewish social policy’ as I practice it in my life and would like to see it practiced by all Jews. Striving for God’s image—unity—making a difference through everyday duty, initiating and enabling the advancement of the whole community—action—and the realization of socialist ideas—the future.” In a Denkzettel dated Easter Sunday, 1919 she stated that the chief struggle taking place in the world was not that between Socialism and Capitalism but between the personal manual labor of individuals and technology. Pappenheim’s anti-modern stance toward technology and industrialization, which she believed had devalued the work and creativity of individuals, is also expressed in her story “The Vision.” Wilhelm and Bertha Pappenheim did have shared interests, however. Both attended a Delegates’ Meeting for Combating the Traffic in Jewish Girls in Lemberg in 1903 (Bertha represented the Committee for the Eastern European Jews in Frankfurt and Wilhelm represented the Aid Society for the Needy Jewish Population in Galicia). “Neue Vereine zu Kolonisation Palastinas,” ¨ Palaestina 2, nos. 3–6 (1903–1904): 232–38, 235; “Grundung ¨

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notes that as a “replacement child,” Bertha Pappenheim may have experienced an even greater sibling rivalry with her deceased siblings than with her living brother because “children who are dead may remain powerfully in the mother’s mind and so can become even more important rivals for the surviving sibling, who has no ability or opportunity for reality confrontation and correction of the image of the idealized dead child.”96 Castelnuovo-Tedesco conjectures further that Siegmund Pappenheim may have sought consolation for his unhappy marriage in brothels and that Anna O. may have been sexually abused as a child.97 Castelnuovo-Tedesco is not alone in this assumption. Richard J. Loewenstein likewise has cited Pappenheim’s activism against white slavery and prostitution and her fictional writings as evidence that she “was not only abused by her father but also witnessed or knew of her father’s sexual exploitation or involvement with other women.”98 There is, of course, as little evidence for Siegmund Pappenheim’s philandering (with prostitutes or otherwise) and abusive behavior as there is for Recha Pappenheim’s depression and their unhappy marriage—namely none whatsoever. Like Beatus and Schonbar, Meredith M. Kimball rejects the notion of a discontinuity in the trajectory from the hysteric Anna O. to the mature Bertha Pappenheim. She refuses to “reduce” her later achievements to symptoms or a sublimation of her illness.99 Instead, she sees Pappenheim as a recovered hysteric who underwent a five-step process of self-reconstruction: “a) choosing the date to end the relationship with Breuer, b) withdrawing from drugs, c) writing and publishing her own work, d) moving to Frankfurt, and e) taking her first full-time job.”100 Kimball interprets Pappenheim’s hysterical labor eines judischen ¨ Kolonisationsvereins fur ¨ Palastina ¨ in Wien,” Altneuland: Monatsschrift fur ¨ die wirtschaftliche Erschliessung Palastinas, ¨ no. 12 (December 1904): 376–77; Gerhard ¨ Oberkofler, “Uber sozialistische Privatbibibliotheken in Wien und ihr Schicksal: Notizen insbesondere zu den Bibliotheken von Anton Menger, Theodor Mauthner, Wilhelm Pappenheim und Bruno Schonfeld,” ¨ Alfred Klahr Gesellschaft Mitteilungen 11, no. 2 (May 2004): 1, 4–5; Pappenheim to Buber, May 17, 1918, Martin Buber Archives; Pappenheim, “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet”; Pappenheim, “Vision”; “Delegiertentag zur Bekampfung ¨ des Handels mit judischen ¨ Madchen,” ¨ Die Welt 7, no. 40 (1903): 4–5. 96. Pollock, “Bertha Pappenheim’s Pathological Mourning,” 478. 97. Castelnuovo-Tedesco, “On Rereading the Case of Anna O.” 98. Loewenstein, “Anna O: Reformulation as a Case of Multiple Personality Disorder,” 162. 99. Meredith M. Kimball, “From ‘Anna O.’ to Bertha Pappenheim: Transforming Private Pain into Public Action,” History of Psychology 3, no. 1 (February 2000): 32. 100. Ibid., 25.

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and pregnancy as a “useful metaphor for the beginning of Pappenheim’s selfreconstruction.”101 De-emphasizing the sexual aspects of the Anna O. case in favor of the maternal, she reads the pseudocyesis (hysterical pregnancy and labor) as a “fantasy of procreation,” whereby Pappenheim declared independence from Breuer and gave birth to herself as an independent person.102 The pregnancy also represents the “centrality of creativity” and of motherhood in Pappenheim’s life.103 Focusing on Pappenheim’s agency in her recovery, it becomes immaterial whether Freud and Jones’ account of Pappenheim’s pseudocyesis was fact or fiction. Whereas the pseudocyesis is the main event in the founding myth of psychoanalysis, in Kimball’s reconstruction it is downgraded to a “useful metaphor” for Pappenheim’s independent decision to end her treatment by Breuer on a specific date. In his re-diagnosis of Anna O.’s disease as Multiple Personality Disorder, Richard J. Loewenstein notes self-reflexively that “retrospective case reports say more about the contemporary interpreter than about the original participants in the case.”104 While this is implicit in the abovementioned studies, it is stated explicitly in Max Rosenbaum and Melvin Muroff’s Anna O.: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations, whose publication corresponded roughly to the one-hundred-year anniversary of Anna O.’s treatment by Josef Breuer, as well as the appearance of a new psychiatric diagnostic manual DSM III.105 The editors asked their contributors, consisting primarily of a distinguished cadre of psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and psychiatrists with a wide variety of approaches (modern psychoanalytical view, object relations approach, family therapy approach, group process theory, child psychology, drug therapy approach, psychodynamic theory), “how they would treat Anna O. if she walked into their offices today.”106 Rosenbaum sums up the purpose of the volume: “This book is an effort to get psychotherapists to reflect on their approach to patients in the light of Breuer’s early work with Bertha Pappenheim and to rethink the influence of the intrapsychic and the interpersonal and the entire area of psychotherapy techniques and philosophy of ther-

101. Ibid., 27. 102. Ibid. 103. Ibid., 27–28. 104. Loewenstein, “Anna O: Reformulation as a Case of Multiple Personality Disorder,” 140. 105. Max Rosenbaum and Melvin Muroff, eds., Anna O.: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations (London: Free Press, 1984). 106. Ibid., xi.

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apy.”107 In other words, the book is more about contemporary psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, and psychiatry and their practitioners, and how they respond to a landmark event in their professional lives (the release of a new psychiatric diagnostic manual) than it is about the benchmark case study Anna O. or the historical figure Bertha Pappenheim. While the abovementioned authors utilize the Anna O. case study to demonstrate or test new theoretical models (often in comparison to older or competing ones), others have focused on her case in their attempts to bring clarity to the murky waters of the history (or “founders’ myth”) of the origins of psychoanalysis. Henri Ellenberger and Albrecht Hirschmuller, ¨ for example, uncovered inconsistencies, exaggerations, and outright lies in Breuer’s, Freud’s, and Jones’s contradictory accounts of Pappenheim’s illness and alleged cure. Ellenberger can be credited with correcting Jones’s mistaken claim that Pappenheim had been a patient at an institution in Gross-Enzersdorf after her treatment by Breuer, correctly deducing (but unable to document) that she had instead been treated at the Fries and Breslauer Sanatorium in Inzersdorf near Vienna. He discovered that Pappenheim had also been a patient at Bellevue Sanatorium in Kreuzlingen on Lake Constance. At Kreuzlingen, Ellenberger gained access to Pappenheim’s patient file, which also included an earlier (1882) version of Breuer’s case study that added to and in some instances contradicted the published case study.108 Josef Breuer’s biographer Albrecht Hirschmuller ¨ later visited Kreuzlingen and located additional documents pertaining to Bertha Pappenheim’s treatment. His detective work unearthed evidence of three additional hospitalizations in the Inzersdorf Sanatorium near Vienna, confirming Ellenberger’s hunch.109 More recently, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, in Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification, has focused on the Anna O. case study in his endeavor to demystify the therapeutic myth of psychoanalysis.110 His short monograph, which reads like a detective novel, inquires how the origin myth of psychoanalysis can persist so pervasively “in psychotherapeutic discourse (and beyond—in the culture, in our relationship to the past and to history, in the way we react to ‘traumatic’ events that occur in our lives)” despite conclusive evidence that its cornerstone, the Anna O. case study, was a deliberate fabri107. Ibid., xiv. 108. Ellenberger, “The Story of ‘Anna O.’,” 264–70. 109. The Bellevue documents, including the 1882 case history, are included in an appendix to his biography of Breuer. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 96, 276–308. 110. Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification.

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cation. According to Borch-Jacobsen, the hysterical pregnancy, “constructed of clues, rumors, and lies,” was not Pappenheim’s fantasy but Freud’s, “a pseudomemory meant to explain away, after the fact, the abysmal failure of the original ‘talking cure.’”111 The published case study of Anna O. was not the “empirical origin” of Freud and Breuer’s theory of hysteria. Rather, it “came to illustrate it after the fact, through a self-serving revisionism that was anything but innocent.”112 Borch-Jacobsen has joined Fritz Schweighofer in suggesting that at least some of Pappenheim’s symptoms may have been born of suggestion or simulated.113 Many resembled those produced by Danish stage hypnotist Carl Hansen, whose appearance in Vienna’s Ringtheater in early 1880 ignited a city-wide fascination with hypnosis that lasted for months.114 The notion that Anna O. simulated her symptoms was advanced first by Ellenberger, however, who writes: “I propose … that Anna O.’s illness was similar to one of those great ‘magnetic diseases’ of the early nineteenth century, such as that of Justinus Kerner’s ‘Seeress of Prevorst.’ This would mean that the illness was a creation of the patient with the unaware encouragement and collaboration of the therapist.”115 In his appendix, Borch-Jacobsen observes that Freud’s deception continued long after his death: “Whoever proposes to research the history of psychoanalysis should understand that he or she is about to enter a strange universe ruled by secrecy, rumor, and the manipulation of information.”116 Recounting his own futile attempts to gain access to carefully guarded materials (Marie Bonaparte’s journals, in particular), he concludes: “As long as Freud’s legitimate and bastard heirs share their documents only with other true believers, the history of psychoanalysis will remain susceptible to every kind of manipulation—and will continue to attract a highly justified suspicion.”117 Other scholars, especially feminist (both female and male) literary and cul111. Ibid., 48. 112. Ibid., 60. 113. According to Schweighofer, Anna O. was an intelligent but bored young woman who simulated the symptoms of hysteria in order to escape the restrictive roles prescribed to her: “Bertha betrays Breuer, he betrays Freud, and Freud betrays the public.” Fritz Schweighofer, Das Privattheater der Anna O.: Ein psychoanalytisches Lehrstuck, ¨ Ein Emanzipationsdrama (Munich: Ernst Reinhardt, 1987), 7–8. 114. Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O., 65. 115. Ellenberger, “The Story of ‘Anna O.’,” 272. 116. Borch-Jacobsen, Remembering Anna O.: A Century of Mystification, 93. 117. Ibid., 95.

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tural critics, psychologists, and psychoanalysts, have sought to restore Pappenheim to her rightful place as the true inventor of the talking cure and one of the founding mothers of psychoanalysis.118 In her study Die Grunderinnen ¨ der Psychoanalyse: Eine Entmythologisierung Sigmund Freuds in zwolf ¨ Frauenportraits (The Female Founders of Psychoanalysis: Demythologizing Freud, Twelve Portraits of Women), Inge Stephan endeavors to deconstruct the traditional “founding myth,” in which Freud plays the leading role as “founding hero.” She revalues the role of Freud’s female relatives, patients, analysands, colleagues, benefactors, and admirers, without whom Freud’s psychoanalytical theories would be unthinkable.119 In her reading, Anna O. becomes the battleground and eventually the prize in a rivalry between two men.120 Wayne Koestenbaum proposes conversely that Freud and Breuer’s relationship was one of collusion against women. Their collaboration was “an extreme case of a practice common among men in the fin de siecle: ` men wrote together to reassert their priority in the face of renascent female authority.”121 According to Koestenbaum, Freud sought to diminish Pappenheim’s role in the discovery of psychoanalysis by locating “the origin of psychoanalysis not in June 1882 when Anna O. went into hysterical labor, but on November 18, 1882, when Breuer confided in him.”122 Freud then eventually sought to downplay Breuer’s role in the discovery of psychoanalysis by faulting him for not recognizing the significance of the hysterical childbirth. Koestenbaum quotes Freud’s On the History of the Psychoanalytical Movement: “At this moment [Breuer] held in his hands the key that would have opened the ‘doors to the Mothers,’ but he let it drop. With all his great intellectual gifts there was nothing Faustian in his nature.”123 Appignanesi and Forrester concur: “In Freud’s account, Breuer declines to be what the psychoanalyst would later always be: the midwife to desire.”124 His retreat permits Freud to assume the pose of the midwife of psychoanalysis himself. Observing that hysteria “expresses in the language of the body what psy118. Appignanesi and Forrester, Freud’s Women; Hunter, “Hysteria, Psychoanalysis, and Feminism”; Koestenbaum, “Privileging the Anus”; Stephan, GrunderInnen ¨ der Psychoanalyse. 119. Stephan, GrunderInnen ¨ der Psychoanalyse, 7–15. 120. Ibid., 53–55. 121. Koestenbaum, “Privileging the Anus,” 58. 122. Ibid., 64. 123. Ibid., 65. 124. Appignanesi and Forrester, Freud’s Women, 86.

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choanalysis expresses in words,” Dianne Hunter names Pappenheim the “forebear of psychoanalytical feminism.”125 The major contribution of female hysterics to psychoanalysis was that they made, via their physical symptoms, the invisible (the unconscious) visible and thus interpretable for male theorists. Hunter links feminism and psychoanalysis: “Hysteria can be considered as a self-repudiating form of feminine discourse in which the body signifies what social conditions make it impossible to state linguistically.”126 According to Hunter, Pappenheim bridged (first in her “talking cure” and later in her activism and writing) the gap between hysteria and feminism by translating into words that which her body had articulated physically. Through the verbalization of her (and other women’s) physical and emotional suffering, she was able to create a social network and public forum for her feminism, becoming in Lucien Israel’s ¨ terms a “successful hysteric.”127 According to Hunter’s interpretation, however, men still played the active role in inventing the theory of psychoanalysis. Pappenheim’s talking cure or chimney sweeping was merely the “germ cell” of psychoanalytic theory and practice; and this seed would have remained dormant without cultivation by male theorists. Hunter and others wish to claim Pappenheim’s biography for the annals of psychoanalytical feminism and to graft the movement onto Pappenheim’s family tree. What they fail to mention (Inge Stephan is a notable exception) is Pappenheim’s skepticism about psychoanalysis. According to Dora Edinger, Pappenheim vehemently opposed the use of psychoanalysis on her charges.128 Anna Freud likewise claimed that Pappenheim (after her treatment) remained a life-long opponent of psychoanalysis.129 Pappenheim’s sole extant written statement concerning psychoanalysis, while it is not a wholesale rejection, is ambivalent: In one Denkzettel she states, “Psychoanalysis is, in the hands of a doctor, like confession in the hands of a Catholic priest— whether it is a valuable tool or a double-edged sword depends on who is using it and for what.” Another Denkzettel, however, implies that she derived great satisfaction from practicing a psychotherapy of her own design, “It is priceless to help someone to see and understand a page in the open book of his life so 125. Hunter, “Hysteria, Psychoanalysis, and Feminism,” 114. 126. Ibid., 102, 114. 127. Ibid., 105. Hunter observes that Israel’s ¨ analysis of Pappenheim approaches the “idea that feminism is transformed hysteria, or more precisely that hysteria is feminism lacking a social network in the outer world” (113). See also Lucien Israel, ¨ L’Hysterique, ´ le sexe et le medecin ´ (Paris: Masson, 1980), 200–205. 128. Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O., 15. 129. Nitzschke, “Prostitutionswunsche ¨ und Rettungsphantasien,” 819.

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clearly that all of the coming pages will unconsciously be illuminated and appear to him in a new light—to bind him but also to let him become active.”130 Sybille Duda has suggested that Pappenheim’s rejection of psychoanalysis originated from the same source as her hysteria; both were protests or forms of resistance against women’s prescribed roles.131 In the introduction to her anthology series WahnsinnsFrauen (a chapter of the first volume is devoted to Pappenheim), Duda puts forth the basic tenets of the feminist antipsychiatry movement: Women’s madness is less a psychiatric or individual problem than a societal one. Because we live in a patriarchal society, it is no wonder that, amid the restrictions, limitations, and oppression of patriarchy, the only “home” left for many women is madness. Psychoanalysis is the socialization theory of patriarchy, and women’s madness is a protest against women’s prescribed role.132 The fact that Pappenheim chose to help women by becoming a social worker and feminist activist rather than a psychoanalyst (the choice of some recovered hysterics) is evidence that she might have sympathized with Duda’s assertion that female mental illness was frequently a societal rather than individual problem, and that societal reforms would ultimately be more successful at eradicating women’s madness than individual psychoanalysis would. Despite her apparent ambivalence towards psychoanalysis, Pappenheim did not reject psychiatric treatment wholesale. Reports from the JFB home in Isenburg indicate that the home’s residents underwent regular psychiatric examinations and student trainees received instruction in child psychology.133 While psychoanalysts and their critics have employed Pappenheim’s life story to revise the history of psychoanalysis and define their respective places within or against it, Daniel Boyarin has used her biography in Unheroic Conduct: 130. The two Denkzettel appear together in Bertha Pappenheim, “Gedanken uber ¨ Erziehung,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 5, no. 2 (February 1929): 5. 131. Duda, “Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936) Erkundungen zur Geschichte der Hysterie oder ‘Der Fall Anna O.’,” 124, 131. Following Dianne Hunter, Elaine Showalter similarly argues, “On the unconscious level Anna O.’s rejection of the patriarchal order became her rejection of the father’s tongue.” Elaine Showalter, The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980 (New York: Pantheon, 1985), 156. 132. Sybille Duda and Luise F. Pusch, eds., WahnsinnsFrauen, 7–8. 133. Ehrenwerth, “Ausbildung von Schulerinnen ¨ in Isenburger Heim,” 11. See chap. 4, n. 134; Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 310.

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The Rise of Heterosexuality and the Invention of the Jewish Man in an attempt to create an alternative Orthodox Jewish tradition, claiming her as his role-model for a “non-homophobic, traditionalist-Orthodox Judaism.”134 Professing, “If for Bertha Pappenheim, Glikl of Hameln was an ego-ideal, then Bertha Pappenheim is such for me,” Boyarin establishes a precedence and lineage for his alternative “Orthodoxy.” With his gender-bending declaration, “I would have my portrait painted while wearing Bertha Pappenheim’s clothes”135 (an allusion to Leopold Pilichowski’s portrait of Pappenheim dressed as Gluckel), ¨ Boyarin creates a place for himself (as a man) within an alternative feminine and feminist genealogy. Although Unheroic Conduct is not a biography in the traditional sense, Boyarin’s acknowledgment that his book is about “identification,” namely his identification with Bertha Pappenheim in his search for a role model for conducting a “passionate” yet loving self-critique of Orthodox Judaism, places Boyarin squarely within the tradition of feminist life writing as defined at the start of this chapter.136 Citing Pappenheim’s role as a teacher in Franz Rosenzweig and Martin Buber’s Freies Judisches ¨ Lehrhaus (Free Jewish House of Learning), Boyarin claims the first-wave feminist Pappenheim as his “model for an alternative to the pseudo- objectivity of Wissenschaft” and the “foremother for another genealogy for Jewish Cultural Studies” characterized by the sort of “engaged, politically frank scholarship” that is the hallmark of second-wave feminist scholarship.137 The title of Boyarin’s final chapter, “Retelling the Story of O.: Or, Bertha Pappenheim, My Hero,” further justifies the classification of Unheroic Conduct as “feminist biography.”138 Boyarin’s “retelling” of Pappenheim’s biog134. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, xxiii. 135. Ibid., 352–53. Pappenheim’s rendition of Gluckel ¨ was so convincing that it was later mistaken for an actual portrait of Gluckel. ¨ Viola Roggenkamp notes that Pappenheim included a reproduction of the portrait in her privately published translation of Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs, and that the portrait also graced the title pages of later versions by other translators and editors, who may have assumed that it was a picture of Gluckel. ¨ Viola Roggenkamp, introduction to Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, xiii. The socialist and Zionist painter Leopold Pilichowski (1869–1933) was born near Lodz, studied art in Munich, and later lived in Paris and London. In addition to portraying in his paintings the plight of Jews of the lower classes, such as the exploited wool-dyers of Lodz, Pilichowski became a successful portraitist, portraying Jewish luminaries such as Bialik, Einstein, Ahad Ha-Am, Nordau, and Weizmann. Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. “Leopold Pilichowski.” 136. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, xxiv-xxv, 353. 137. Ibid., xxiii. 138. Ibid., 313.

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raphy is as much about the author (his own need for a hero and his claiming of Pappenheim—by retelling/revising her story—as that hero) as it is about his subject. In this chapter Boyarin justifies his choice of Pappenheim as his “ego-ideal”: [She] figured out how to combine—however tensely—militant feminist protest and demand for radical change within Judaism with a continued commitment to the existence of vibrant, full traditional Jewish life and personal commitment to continuing the practice of Halakha…. She seems to have been able to negotiate the minefield between critique and defense of Jewish culture, between polemic and apologetic, that seems so formidable and yet so imperative.139 Boyarin’s general characterization of his hero and why he believes that she has the potential to be a powerful and empowering role model in the negotiation of Jewish identities today is, in principle, on target. However, although Boyarin criticizes other biographers’ “tendentious” or “biased” misrepresentations of Pappenheim’s writing and thought,140 charging that they willfully ignored details that contradicted their agendas, he employs in his “biography” (which is, in its creation of a “hero,” also myth) the same selectivity. Four central themes in Boyarin’s hero narrative demand scrutiny: 1) the classification of Pappenheim as an Orthodox Jew; 2) her relationship to Yiddish; 3) her suitability as a role model for a “non-homophobic” Orthodox Judaism; and 4) her opinion on the integration of women into traditionally male religious practices, particularly textual study. Boyarin objects to Naomi Shepherd’s assertion that Pappenheim was not an Orthodox Jew: If Pappenheim observed Jewish tradition, as she clearly did, then she is Orthodox, and Orthodoxy has been redefined by her feminist militance. By describing Pappenheim—almost against her will, as it were—as having left “Orthodox” Judaism, these feminist writers willy-nilly repeat 139. Ibid., 353. 140. Boyarin notes, for example, that the English version of Edinger’s “biased” or “tendentious” account was published by a Reform congregation. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 325; Daniel Boyarin, e-mail message to the author, December 19, 2000. He rails against Freeman’s claim that Orthodox civil law promoted white slavery. “Of course Freeman’s was not Pappenheim’s own opinion. It is the projection on the part of her biographer who is so virulently hostile to traditional Jewish culture that she cannot distinguish between a smear and the truth.” Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 325.

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the very same gesture of exclusion that her Orthodox antifeminist opponents wished to achieve.141 However, by calling Pappenheim an “Orthodox Jew,” Boyarin applies to her a label (“almost against her will, as it were”) that she did not embrace.142 Pappenheim strenuously resisted what she considered to be partisan denominational and political categorizations because she believed that partisan politics weakened the Jewish community. Actually, Shepherd’s characterization of Pappenheim is more respectful of Pappenheim’s wishes (insofar as these can be documented) than Boyarin’s insistence on her Orthodoxy. Shepherd writes that Pappenheim was “not Orthodox,”143 not that she “left Orthodoxy.” This subtle distinction is important, as the deliberate action of leaving implies an explicit statement of denominational affiliation or disaffiliation, which Pappenheim assiduously avoided. Shepherd seems to be carefully attuned to this nuance. While she states that Pappenheim was “not Orthodox,” she refrains from applying another denominational label.144 Pappenheim had witnessed community schisms in Vienna in the early 1870s that were precipitated by disagreements between the reform-minded Gemeinde board and Orthodox Jews, most notably the Hungarian Orthodox Jews of the Schiffschul, the private synagogue of which her father was a founding member. Although the Gemeinde board modified the initial, more radical, proposal for liturgical reforms (made in 1870 by a subcommittee for religious affairs that based the proposal on the decisions of the 1869 Leipzig Synod) in order to maintain the unity of the community, members of the Schiffschul, led by Solomon Spitzer, responded to a set of reforms passed in January 1872 with an application to secede from the Jewish community and create a separate Orthodox Gemeinde in Vienna. Although the Austrian government ultimately rejected their petition to secede, the nasty polemics of both 141. Ibid., 317–18. See Naomi Shepherd, “The Rebel as Lacemaker: Bertha Pappenheim and the Problem of Jewish Feminism,” in A Price Below Rubies: Jewish Women as Rebels and Radicals, 208–44 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). 142. Despite her close attention to Pappenheim’s conception of Judaism, Britta Konz, too, persists in calling Pappenheim “orthodox.” Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), 148, 215, 231. 143. Shepherd, “The Rebel as Lacemaker,” 229. 144. In 1933 Pappenheim described herself as “neither Orthodox nor Zionist, neither Liberal nor C.V.” Ottilie Schonewald ¨ characterized her as “non-partisan”: “She could call no party, movement, or group her own.” In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis, ¨ ” 10, 8.

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sides deepened the schisms between opposing factions in Viennese Jewry.145 Spitzer “declared all who abided by the board’s decision to be apostates, idolators, and transgressors of Jewish law, and anyone who paid taxes to a Gemeinde that made such decisions to be cursed and damned.”146 The liberal Viennese periodical Die Neuzeit responded with vicious rhetoric against the predominantly Hungarian Jews of the Schiffschul: “Hot-headed Hungarians, Pressburg liars, lunatics, fanatics, and warmongers only wanted ‘to drag Transleithanian barbarism into the intelligent Residenz at any price.’”147 Pappenheim found the divisions caused by Orthodox separatism in Frankfurt deleterious to her social work efforts there. Scarcely three weeks after her controversial speech “On the Morality Question” at the Third Delegates Meeting of the JFB, Orthodox leaders organized a public lecture, “The Women’s Movement and the Ethics of Judaism” (by Jakob Rosenheim, the publisher of the Israelit and a leader in Frankfurt’s secessionist community, the Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft) to inaugurate the Orthodox women’s organization, the Judische ¨ Frauenvereinigung e.V., which was founded to protest Pappenheim’s “defamation” of traditional Judaism. Women’s Relief issued a statement denouncing the founding of another women’s organization as “unnecessary and detrimental.”148 Shortly after the founding of the new organization, which Pappenheim called “A men’s club in women’s clothing,” the teachers of the Israelitische Volksschule, the elementary school of Frankfurt’s secessionist Orthodox community, accused Pappenheim of libel for stating at a November 7, 1907 meeting of Women’s Relief that the Orthodox women would find enough work to busy themselves at the “heder in the Barenstraße.” ¨ The teachers charged that Pappenheim had also called the school and its teaching staff inferior [minderwertig]. In the 145. Rozenblit, “The Struggle over Religious Reform in Nineteenth-Century Vienna,” 200–221. A passage from Spitzer’s formal protest, which was signed by 389 Austrian, German, and Hungarian rabbis, highlights the main points of contention: “A Jew who does not believe in the future arrival of a personal Messiah, a descendant of David, in the reunification of the Jewish people in the Holy Land, and in the reinstitution of sacrificial worship as commanded in the Torah, is to be considered as a renegade from Judaism. Further, the elimination or the omission of the ritually established recitation of the prayers which mention these promises involves apostasy from Judaism, and therefore, a Torah-true Jew may not and cannot remain in the same religious community with people who are guilty of such apostasy.” Quoted on 211. 146. Ibid., 209. 147. Ibid., 219. 148. “Frankfurt a.M., 24. Okt.,” Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt 5, no. 42 (November 1, 1907): 10–11.

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proceedings Pappenheim explained that her chief complaint against the school was that it was the instrument of “clerical community politics.” When the court acquitted Pappenheim, the Orthodox newspaper Der Israelit attacked her vociferously, charging that she harbored “a fanatical hatred (almost bordering on pathological) of traditional Judaism—and there isn’t any other kind of Judaism—that makes her completely incapable of penetrating its ideas [Gedankengut].” It admonished that no woman who was firmly ensconced in “Torah-loyal Judaism” should submit herself to the leadership of a woman who “wastes no opportunity to drag that Judaism through the mud.”149 Pappenheim later parodied the sanctimonious posturing of secessionist Orthodoxy in “Menschenfabel” (Human Fable, dated December 18, 1933), in which there is a separate path to “Jewish Heaven” for the secessionists [Austrittler].150 Boyarin’s assertion that Pappenheim was “Orthodox” because she “observed Jewish tradition” disregards the complexity of German-Jewish religious practice and politics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Before the nineteenth century, the majority of Jews in Germany practiced traditional, not Orthodox Judaism. Unlike the largely unreflective traditional Judaism of pre-Enlightenment Germany, German Orthodox Judaism was a movement that emerged in the nineteenth century in response to the liberalizing tendencies of what would become the Reform movement.151 The religious practice of individual German Jews during this time cannot be neatly divided into the two categories Orthodox and Reform (German Liberal Judaism). As Marion Kaplan has noted, “At the grassroots level, individuals created their own Judaism, a Judaism striking in its variety.”152 Adherence to traditional Jewish practice was not necessarily an indicator of allegiance to Orthodoxy, for “every pious action can be interpreted in multiple ways—theological, familial, communal, or simply traditional—and there is rarely a direct correspondence between practice and belief.”153 In Germany, allegiance to Liberal Judaism did not translate into hostility to tradition, as was sometimes the case in American Reform Judaism. There 149. “Frankfurt a.M., 20. Mai,” Der Israelit 49, no. 21 (May 21, 1908): 9. See also Der Israelit 49, no.12 (March 19, 1908): 7; Allgemeines Zeitung des Judentums 72, no. 23 (1908): Gemeindebote 3. 150. Bertha Pappenheim, “Menschenfabel,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ special issue, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12 (1936): 38. 151. Kaplan, ed., Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 144. 152. Ibid., 235. 153. Ibid., 236.

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were, for example, strictly observant Jews among the faculty of the “conservative but decidedly anti-Orthodox” Jewish Theological Seminary in Breslau and the liberal Academy for the Scientific Study of Judaism in Berlin.154 There was also diversity within German Orthodoxy (rural vs. urban, secessionist vs. communal Orthodoxy [Gemeindeorthodoxie], Modern or neoOrthodoxy vs. traditional Orthodoxy); and German neo-Orthodoxy adapted to modernity and emancipation with its own set of innovations. In regard to the women’s issues that were Pappenheim’s chief concern, the German-Jewish Reform movement had less impact than a late twentieth century–early twenty-first century American observer might assume. “[It] did not change, and only rarely challenged, many traditional restrictions on women (separate seating in the balcony, not counting for the prayer quorum, not being called to the Torah). Although some Reform leaders tried to change the legal status of women in marriage and divorce, this was rarely central to their concerns.”155 Boyarin’s styling of Pappenheim as feminist Yiddishist likewise requires some qualification. He argues that Pappenheim favored Yiddish over Hebrew and standard German literature as a “vehicle of a cultural revolution, whereby Jews would remain warm, active Jews and still become a part of German cultural life.”156 According to him, she stood in direct opposition to the maskilim by seeking to modernize Jewish life through a “radical reclamation and enhancement of the traditional economic and social power of Jewish women and of Yiddish.”157 Boyarin observes here an affinity between Pappenheim and Sarah Schenirer, the founder of the Beth Jacob schools. It is certainly true that both women saw a correlation between the poor state of religious education for women and their weakening ties to or abandonment of Judaism. But Boyarin’s assertion, “Like Pappenheim, Schenirer’s commitment to preserving traditional yiddishkayt was intimately connected to her devotion to the Yiddish language,” is incorrect.158 As I demonstrated in Chapter One, Pappenheim was not a Yiddishist. She had no desire to promote the continued 154. Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, 4, 155. Kaplan, Jewish Daily Life in Germany, 155. See also Meyer, Response to Modernity, 139–40, 210–11. On women’s issues in German Orthodoxy see Breuer, Modernity Within Tradition, 120–25, 276–81. 156. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 331–32. 157. Ibid., 334. 158. Ibid., 337.

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vernacular use of or literary and cultural development of Yiddish in the twentieth century. Her translations of pre-modern Yiddish literature written by or for women had nothing to do with rescuing the Yiddish language, which in her assessment had outlived its purpose and was valuable only as a stepping-stone to German. She translated the Mayse bukh, the Tsenerene, and Gluckel’s ¨ memoirs into German to recover the voice of pre-modern Jewish women’s spirituality, not their language. Nor was Pappenheim interested in reclaiming Jewish women’s “traditional economic power,” as Boyarin suggests. As Marion Kaplan has demonstrated, Pappenheim was a “moderate” German feminist who advocated acculturation to the dominant society’s middle-class ideal of woman as wife and mother. Ideally, according to Pappenheim, work outside the home should be limited to volunteer charitable and social work activities (a type of social motherhood), and it should never infringe upon a married woman’s primary duties in her home. Pappenheim’s efforts to provide vocational training and ensure proper employment opportunities and work conditions for women represented her acknowledgment that not all Jewish women could attain the aforementioned middle-class ideal.159 Boyarin cites Ann Jackowitz’s claim that one of Pappenheim’s relatives had said that she was “nothing but a lesbian” as well as the passage from one of her letters about Jolanthe, the “proud flower of human beauty.” Calling the latter a “luscious moment,” Boyarin claims Pappenheim as a role model for a “non-homophobic” Orthodox Judaism.160 Given Pappenheim’s conservative views on sexual morals and ethics, it is unlikely that she would have relished these titles. As I implied in the previous chapter, speculations that Pappenheim may have been a closet lesbian or bisexual must remain just that, speculations. She may have known that her closest colleague, Hannah Karminski (the woman who traveled to Isenburg to be with her in her final days, held her hand during her last hours, and pressed her eyes shut and said the Shema when her life was over) was a lesbian.161 There is, however, no explicit mention of this relationship or any other Frauenfreundschaft (friendship between women) in her extant writings. Boyarin argues that Pappenheim resisted the “embourgeoisement, hetereo159. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 59–85, 169–89. 160. See the passage on the prostitute Jolanthe in the previous chapter; Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 315; Pappenheim, Sisyphus-Arbeit, 40–41. 161. According to Gudrun Maierhof, Karminski was in a committed relationship with Paula Furst. ¨ She refers to Furst ¨ as Karminski’s “life partner” (Lebensgefahrtin). ¨ Maierhof, Selbstbehauptung im Chaos, 74.

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sexualization, and thus the confinement of fin de siecle ´ Viennese women.” Her “‘solid, rugged, masculine appearance’” (Boyarin quotes Edinger here) was, “not an idiosyncrasy but a cultural characteristic,” an alternative Jewish 162 In Telling Women’s feminine ideal embodied by women like Gluckel. ¨ Lives: The New Biography, Linda Wagner-Martin observes that some biographers selectively use photographs to support their arguments (certain unflattering photos of Hadley Hemingway, for example, have served to demonstrate that her physical appearance justified the Hemingways’ marital problems).163 Like these biographers, Boyarin offers a picture of Fritz Kormis’s bust of Pappenheim as evidence of that “strong masculine appearance” (actually the bust depicts the wizened, angular face of an old, not manly, woman).164 Strangely, he does not allow for a comparison with other portrayals of Pappenheim as a mature woman (for example, the Oppenheimer sketch, the Schames sketches, the Bertha Pappenheim stamp, and the strikingly elegant photographic portrait of ca. 1907).165 The majority of written accounts, in fact, emphasize Pappenheim’s “feminine” appearance and demeanor. Artist Samson Schames, for example, remembers her “vanity,” especially with regard to her elegant hands, when she posed for him.166 Kathe ¨ Mende recalls how Pappenheim showed off pretty new clothes by playfully pirouetting about the room.167 Eva Reichmann-Jungmann remembers her as “delicate and fragile.”168 And Otto Hirsch admired how she combined a “masculine mind” with “feminine beauty and charm.”169 For Boyarin, opening up the traditionally male dominated and phallo- and heterocentric bastion of textual study is the key to reforming Orthodox Judaism from within: “If women and men feminists and lesbigay people learn Torah, the very Torah they learn will change itself.”170 Hence, he interprets Pappenheim’s complaint that Jewish women “learn nothing” to mean that

162. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 347. 163. Wagner-Martin, Telling Women’s Lives, 41. 164. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 347–48. 165. See Brentzel, Anna O.–Bertha Pappenheim, 157, 196, 197, 227, 246, 247. 166. Samson Schames to Dora Edinger, October 23, 1956, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. 167. Kathe ¨ Mende, “Als Mitarbeiterin und Gast in ihrem Heim,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 23. 168. Eva Reichmann-Jungmann, Untitled, in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 21. 169. Otto Hirsch, “Kritik und Kampf,” in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 29. 170. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 357.

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they were excluded from “the community of Torah-learning, the Bes Hamidrash.”171 As Boyarin notes, Pappenheim did argue that Jewish women had traditionally been denied adequate religious instruction and that their inferior position was due to male hegemony in the interpretation of Jewish law. Despite these complaints, she did not (as I have detailed in Chapter Five) promote textual study for women as the route to re-enfranchisement. Although she spent time late in life studying classical Greek philosophy, she never attempted to remedy her admitted deficiency in Jewish texts. She legitimated her claims for reform not with textual evidence but by her authority as a woman raised in the tradition.172 She implied that the knowledge transmitted orally and through example from mother to daughter and practiced in the traditionally female sphere of influence (the domestic sphere and its extensions into social welfare work) should be regarded as equal to male text-based learning. It is clear that Pappenheim realized, as Boyarin states, that women’s status or position (Stellung) in the practice of contemporary Jewish life did not measure up to her theoretical importance or significance (Bedeutung) in traditional Judaism; and women’s powerlessness to remedy this disparity could be attributed to their lack of access to the texts. Authority and legitimacy still resided, for better or worse, in the written word (as her bitter debates with Isaak Unna and other Orthodox rabbis demonstrated). However, Pappenheim’s practical efforts only skirted this issue, rather than addressing it head on. It is possible that her shift of emphasis away from the text in her social work with women signified a deeper resistance to textual hegemony, an attempt to de-center the text in favor of traditionally female expressions of active spirituality (honoring God and experiencing God’s presence in mothering and social mothering). Daniel Boyarin traces his lineage as an “orthodoxymoron, a male feminist Orthodox Jew” matrilineally—through his “ego-ideal” Bertha Pappenheim to her “ego-ideal” Gluckel ¨ of Hameln. However, if Pappenheim is Boyarin’s mother in spirit, then he should trace his lineage not only to Gluckel ¨ but also to Pappenheim’s other role model, Mary Wollstonecraft, the decidedly less conventional eighteenth-century English feminist and writer). While she did not have herself painted as Wollstonecraft, Pappenheim hung her portrait in

171. Ibid., 357. 172. See, for example, Pappenheim, “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben,” 239; Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 6.

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her living room, and she translated Wollstonecraft’s most famous work, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, into German.173 Just as Boyarin skirts certain details of Pappenheim’s biography in order to render her a suitable role model, Pappenheim underplayed certain details of her heroines’ life stories. To be sure, there were many differences between Pappenheim and Gluckel. ¨ Whereas Pappenheim was a childless spinster, Gluckel ¨ was a twice-married mother of twelve. Whereas Gluckel ¨ spoke and wrote Yiddish, Pappenheim urged her Yiddish-speaking contemporaries to give up their “Jargon” in favor of a “language of culture.” Whereas Gluckel ¨ viewed herself as a member of a supranational community of Ashkenazi Jews, living among but entirely separate from Gentile Germans, Pappenheim was acculturated and integrated, viewing contemporary Jewish women as full members of both German society and an international Jewish community. Whereas Gluckel ¨ did not openly question the existing patriarchal order or male interpretation of Jewish law, Pappenheim publicly challenged the traditional male Jewish establishment whenever she felt that antiquated laws were harming women. It would seem implausible that Pappenheim should view Gluckel ¨ as anything but an artifact of a time and way of life that had passed—with good riddance. But that was not the case. Pappenheim closes her introduction to the memoirs: “Gluckel ¨ of Hameln deserves a place among those women who modestly and unconsciously personified the best and most valuable traits of womanhood.”174 Although clearly a “product of her time,” and therefore not exemplary for modern women in every detail, Gluckel ¨ embodied in essence the timeless values of Jewish womanhood: she was an “intelligent, strong woman.”175 She was highly educated, a devoted wife and mother, and she remained true to her people and her religion despite antisemitism and adversity. Other details of Gluckel’s ¨ life story doubtless also held great appeal for Pappenheim. As a survivor of mental illness and the inventor of the “talking cure,” Pappenheim may also have been intrigued by Gluckel’s ¨ disclosure that she started her memoirs as a sort of “writing cure,” to ward off “melancholy thoughts” in the sleepness nights after her husband’s death.176 Another theme

173. Pappenheim [pseud. P. Berthold], trans. Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau; Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 42. 174. Pappenheim, Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, Vorwort. 175. Ibid. 176. Ibid., 3.

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that struck a chord was female bonding, particularly between mothers and daughters.177 For example, when Gluckel ¨ was no longer able to live alone, she chose to live with one of her daughters rather than with a son. Mother/daughter solidarity was reflected often in Pappenheim’s own life and work. After her father’s death, Pappenheim and her mother Recha left Bertha’s brother behind in Vienna to return to the maternal home city of Frankfurt. Recha Pappenheim lived with her daughter until her death, and mother and daughter lie buried side by side in Frankfurt, the city of their mothers, rather than in the paternal plot in Pressburg. Although Jones and others have asserted that Pappenheim and her mother were not close and that Recha was “somewhat of a dragon,” according to Edinger that was far from the truth.178 A 1933 prayer, in which Pappenheim asks God to help her to earn the right to lie next to her mother, suggests a deep and sincere respect.179 While Pappenheim had no biological daughters of her own, she gathered around herself a community of “spiritual daughters,” choosing to live and work in a world practically devoid of men. In 1919 Pappenheim wrote, as her gaze shifted from the cast iron decorative art in her curio cabinet to the portrait of Wollstonecraft on her wall: “Grace and iron—if only women could unify these two concepts that are generally considered contradictory. Mary Wollstonecraft, dear woman, you embodied the harmonious blend.”180 Pappenheim’s idealization of Wollstonecraft as the embodiment of “Grace and Iron” departs sharply from the reality of Wollstonecraft’s biography. If Pappenheim’s notion of grace extended beyond physical grace to the grace of moral deportment, then Wollstonecraft would hardly fit the bill. Mary Wollstonecraft had at least three romantic liaisons that would not have lived up to Pappenheim’s exacting 177. See Dagmar Lorenz, Keepers of the Motherland, 9. 178. Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1: 225; Edinger, ed., Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 13. 179. “Gebet” (July 3, 1933), in Pappenheim, Gebete. 180. Pappenheim, “Die Channukah-Feier,” 18e. In addition to antique lace, Pappenheim collected decorative cast iron [Eisenkunstguss]. She donated her significant collection, which included numerous pairs of earrings and other women’s jewelry, to the ¨ Osterreichisches Museum fur ¨ angewandte Kunst (MAK) in Vienna. The incongruous use of cast iron in these small, finely detailed works of art was the inspiration for an ideal of womanhood distinguished by the combination of “grace and iron.” Elisabeth Schmuttermeier et al., Eisenkunstguss der ersten Halfte ¨ des 19. Jahrhunderts aus den ¨ Sammlungen des Osterreichischen Museums fur ¨ Angewandte Kunst : Ausstellung im Geymuller-Schlossel, ¨ ¨ 1. Juli bis 29. November 1992 (Vienna: Museum fur ¨ Angewandte Kunst, 1992).

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moral standards: 1) Wollstonecraft became so infatuated with the married artist Henry Fuseli, painter of the famous painting “The Nightmare” (1781), that she proposed a Platonic menage ´ `a trois. Fuseli’s wife declined; 2) her two-year relationship with American writer Gilbert Imlay, which resulted in a baby daughter but no marriage certificate; 3) her relationship with William Godwin, whom she did not marry until she became pregnant with her second child, Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein.181 Pappenheim acknowledges Wollstonecraft’s moral missteps in the introduction to her translation, but she still defends her. Pappenheim argues, for example, that Wollstonecraft refrained from marrying Imlay to spare him the responsibility for her debts, and that Imlay nonetheless regarded their union as a binding one.182 Pappenheim does not mention the more obvious ties to her own life story. Like her own “iron,” Wollstonecraft’s armor was not impermeable. Wollstonecraft’s public and published persona bespoke a woman of iron will and conviction, a champion of inalienable human and women’s rights. However, in private Wollstonecraft fell victim to frequent and prolonged bouts with depression. Like Pappenheim, Wollstonecraft also idealized communities of women. In her youth she dreamed of setting up house with her best friend Fanny Blood, a dream that became reality. However, Mary did not have Fanny all to herself. They shared a home and founded a school with Mary’s two sisters, one of whom they rescued from a purportedly abusive marriage. Sadly, the plan that Mary Wollstonecraft devised for rescuing her sister involved deserting her sister’s baby (an action Pappenheim would never have condoned), which died shortly after losing its mother. Pappenheim’s affinity for Wollstonecraft was grounded not in approval or admiration for the choices she made in her private life but in respect for Wollstonecraft’s seminal work, which according to Pappenheim still had currency one hundred years after its initial appearance. In her Vindication, Wollstonecraft asserted that women, as human beings, should have equal rights but also equal duties. Only when women were sufficiently educated to fulfill their duties as free human beings, however, would they earn and enjoy

181. Jennifer Lorch, Mary Wollstonecraft: The Making of a Radical Feminist (New York: Berg, 1990) 33–34, 41–62. In her introduction, Pappenheim quotes extensively the biography written by William Godwin (Wollstonecraft’s husband), which, according to Pappenheim, consisted of close renderings of Wollstonecraft’s “own reports and stories.” Pappenheim, Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau, ix. 182. Ibid., vi.

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these rights.183 Wollstonecraft’s Vindication influenced Pappenheim’s particular brand of “moderate” feminism, which advocated “taking the winding road slowly but surely to the top of the mountain” rather than “trying to scale its steepest part.” Women’s equality did not necessarily mean that women and men would carry out identical tasks, but that women’s work (especially the education and rearing of children) should be regarded as as important and vital as men’s.184 Because a single role model for Pappenheim’s vision of modern Jewish womanhood did not exist, Pappenheim grafted another “mother” onto her family tree, Mary Wollstonecraft. She created a hybrid “ego-ideal” (Boyarin’s term) who embodied the positive qualities of each of her two role models: Gluckel’s ¨ steadfast female Jewish spirituality and motherliness, Wollstonecraft’s feminism and sense of social justice, and the intelligence and independence of both women. To date, the most recently published book-length biographies of Bertha Pappenheim, one in the United States and one in Germany, were written for a popular audience: Melinda Given Guttmann’s The Enigma of Anna O. (2001) and Marianne Brentzel’s Anna O.–Bertha Pappenheim (2002).185 Although these books appear three decades after the first book-length Pappenheim biography (Freeman’s The Story of Anna O., 1972) and almost twenty years after the second (Ellen Jensen’s Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim: Ein Fall fur ¨ die Psychiatrie - Ein Leben fur ¨ die Philanthropie [A Survey of the Life of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim: A Case for Psychiatry – A Life for Philanthropy] 1984), both biographers claim to be the first.186 Brentzel writes in her preface: Dora Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim’s niece by marriage and her long-time colleague, set about honoring Pappenheim’s life work with the publication of a biography on the occasion of her 100th birthday. Her 183. Ibid., xx. See also Bertha Pappenheim, [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Zur Frauenfrage vor hundert Jahren,” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 405–6. 184. Bertha Pappenheim, [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Gemaßigte ¨ und radikale Frauenbewegung,” Ethische Kultur 7 (1899): 354–55. At the time, Pappenheim was opposed to suffrage for women, a view she later revised. See Pappenheim, “Eine Frauenstimme uber ¨ Frauenstimmrecht” and “Noch ein Wort zum Frauenstimmrecht.” 185. Brentzel, Anna O.- Bertha Pappenheim: Biographie; Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O.: A Biography of Bertha Pappenheim. 186. Freeman, The Story of Anna O.; Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim.

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grand plan failed for a number of reasons…. Later attempts to portray the life of the great Jewish woman Bertha Pappenheim proved problematic, on account of the contradictory aspects of her life’s work.187 When she finally mentions Freeman and Jensen near the end of her book, she refrains from using the word “biography” in reference to their projects. She calls Jensen’s work a “study” or “paper [eine Arbeit]” and critiques her: “In her efforts to respect the many sides of Bertha Pappenheim, her versatility, she remains too reverent toward her heroine and doesn’t dare any evaluation of the documents and texts whatsoever.”188 Guttmann similarly claims to be Pappenheim’s first biographer: “Bertha Pappenheim, a woman of heroic stature, has not been the subject of a comprehensive biographical study until now. This book is both the first biographical portrait and first chronological biographical study.”189 She refers to Jensen’s work as “studious explorations of Bertha’s life in Germany”190 and doesn’t mention Freeman’s biography at all, although it is included in her bibliography. Brentzel and Guttmann are somewhat justified in denying the label “biography” to Freeman’s fictionalized work, which features invented dialogue and, although it includes a bibliography, does not cite sources for facts stated and anecdotes told. The only factor that would seem to disqualify Jensen’s biographical study, however, is its not strictly chronological organization. Especially Guttmann owes a greater debt to Jensen than she acknowledges.191 Guttmann describes her own intention to “let Bertha speak for herself”: Both the psychoanalytic and historical interpretations of her life essentially ignored Bertha’s literary estate. Despite a plethora of plays,

187. Brentzel, Anna O.–Bertha Pappenheim: Biographie. 188. Ibid., 266. 189. Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O., 6. 190. Ibid. 191. Like Freeman, Jensen was mentored by Dora Edinger. Whereas Freeman placed her book with a major publisher, and it remains in print, Jensen fell out of favor with the major publishing house S. Fischer Verlag, which had initially planned to publish the book in cooperation with the city of Neu-Isenburg. A local newspaper attributed the break-down in negotiations to “irreconcilable differences between Ms. Jensen and both the Fischer Verlag and the town of Neu-Isenburg.” Her book finally appeared, subsidized by other organizations, in a small edition with a smaller press. “Neuauflage statt Erstausgabe,” Dreieich-Spiegel, October 21, 1982.

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poems, stories, essays, and prayers, none of Bertha’s exegetes have used her literary output as ‘the Royal Road’ to illuminating her life. The reader will discover here how Bertha, after the end of her relationship with Breuer, continued to self-heal by pursuing her ‘talking cure’ through the act of publishing the contents of her ‘private theatre.’ My primary goal is to let Bertha speak for herself for the first time.192 Decades before Guttmann published her biography, however, Dora Edinger, Ellen Jensen, Marion Kaplan, Amy Colin, and Helga Heubach had already used Pappenheim’s writings to illuminate her life. Nevertheless, both Brentzel and Guttmann do an invaluable service by making Pappenheim’s biography easily accessible, in a chronological ordering, to mass audiences in English and German. Neither biography, however, unveils substantial new material, even though Guttmann claims to do so, “Having explored her entire archive, I feel I am positioned to overturn the mythical cast, created by psychoanalysts…. I have unearthed letters, photographs, and newspaper articles…. Many are newly discovered.”193 The only new discoveries cited, however, are two unpublished 1916 letters to Martin Buber. Unfortunately, Guttmann, who does not read German, was also misled by her (unnamed) translators on several counts. She mistakenly reports, for example, “‘The Redeemer’ is the only story [in Struggles] that does not take place in Galicia, but in London.”194 “The Redeemer,” however, takes place in London and Paris; “Hungarian Village Story” in an unspecified Hungarian village; “Friday Evening” in Frankfurt; and “A Weakling” in Pressburg (Bratislava) and in and around Vienna. Only two of the six stories take place in Galicia. She claims further, “In Bertha’s early tales, an unmarried woman is stereotyped as a virgin, a hag, or an alien. The boys and men of her tales all have significant, active identities against which the ‘feminine’ remains the passive ‘other.’”195 In Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder, however, the purported “virginal hag” of the story “In the Land of the Storks” is actually a positively cast unmarried “mother” figure; and the heroine of “The Sparrow” is not the title figure (a lone old woman of bird-like appearance) but the strong, independent, and generous school girl who defends her. The stories of In the Rummage Store likewise feature several strong, independent girls and 192. Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O., 7–9. 193. Ibid., 6, 14–15, 16. 194. Ibid., 231. 195. Ibid., 116.

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women. Guttmann also falsely assumes that “Reb Jahiel” of Tragic Moments is a rabbi, mistaking reb (a general form of address for a Jewish man) for the Yiddish rebe (German Rebbe) or rov (German Rabbi or Rabbiner). Missing the reference to the classic German fairy-tale “Dornroschen” ¨ (“Sleeping Beauty”), she mistranslates the title of Pappenheim’s lost story “Das verdrehte Dornroschen” ¨ (which means “‘Screwed up’ or Confused Sleeping Beauty”) as “The Twisted Rose.”196 It is worth noting that both Brentzel and Guttman’s interest in Bertha Pappenheim appears to be more personal or political than professional in nature. Neither is by training a historian or a scholar of Jewish, Women’s, or German Studies. Guttmann is a theater professor and a performance artist. Brentzel, a former member of the provincial leadership of the German Maoists until it disbanded in the early 1980s, is a free-lance writer with degrees in political science and pedagogy. She is, however, gaining welldeserved recognition as a biographer of Jewish women. Her Pappenheim biography was preceded by a biography of Else Ury, the German-Jewish author of the beloved “Nesthakchen” ¨ (Baby of the Family) youth novels who was murdered in Auschwitz. Brentzel is currently working on a co-authored biography of Mussolini’s lover, an Italian-Jewish art critic and initiator of the “Novecento” in Milan. Her critique of Britta Konz’s recent book (that Konz’s examination of Pappenheim’s biography from a theological perspective may be of limited usefulness “for today’s feminist discourse, in which secularization is viewed as historically liberating,” and that its academic prose will limit its accessibility and attractiveness to a general readership) suggest that her own writing pursues a feminist activist agenda.197 I began this chapter with Stanley Fish’s admonition that, “biographers are all autobiographers, although the pretensions of their enterprise won’t allow them to admit it or even see it.” Guttmann, however, who offers her “biographical portrait” as a corrective alternative to the “artifice” (i.e. false objectivity) of “conventional biography,” freely admits that her biography, whose “conven-

196. Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O., 317. Pappenheim, Tragische Momente; Pappenheim [pseud.], Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder; Pappenheim [pseud. P. Berthold], In der Trodelbude. ¨ 197. Konz, Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936); Marianne Brentzel, “Feminismus contra judische ¨ Frommigkeit?” ¨ review of Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936): Ein Leben fur ¨ judische ¨ Tradition und weibliche Emanzipation, by Britta Konz, Querelles-Net: Rezensionszeitschrift fur ¨ Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung, no. 18 (March 2006), http://www.querelles-net.de/2006–18/text18brentzel.shtml

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tions are allied with postmodernist feminism,”198 is highly subjective. She presents her “discovery” and exploration of Pappenheim as self- exploration: Like Søren Kierkegaard on his fruitless search for spiritual truth though the church, the priests, and the Bible, I discovered that Bertha’s presence was not to be found in the architecture of these houses, exotic journeys, psychoanalytic scholarship, or historical archives, but paradoxically, as Kierkegaard discovered, truth is subjectivity…. In my contemplation of Bertha, using my introspective and empathetic powers, I felt a vibrant consciousness marking itself on my own in the present; an inward experience of her as “being in the world”; apprehended by a “leap of faith” beyond time; beyond the inert object of a historical study. I was seized with Bertha’s utter reality.199 Whereas Boyarin merely entertained the idea of wearing Bertha Pappenheim’s clothes, Guttmann (a theater professor and performer) not only donned Pappenheim’s clothes but “became” her subject in her 1984 performance art piece Anna O’s Private Theatre, which I will revisit in the next chapter. Also of interest are the biographies that remain unwritten. German-Jewish writer Barbara Honigmann became interested in the “double life” of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, with whom she is distantly related, after visiting the small exhibit dedicated to Pappenheim at the site of the former JFB home in Neu-Isenburg. In her lecture “A Book That I Didn’t Write: On Biographical Writing” (November 14, 2002),200 Honigmann explains why, after researching the life story of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim for several years and “drafting and eventually rejecting a good many things,” she abandoned her plan to write a biography or a literary work inspired by the biography of Pappenheim (105). Although she had written dramatic works based on the lives of other historical figures (the writers Else Lasker-Schuler ¨ and Heinrich von Kleist) in the past, Honigmann confesses that she has always found “the ‘treatment’ of an authentic life in a literary work problematic, especially when it concerns people who can assert their place in history on their own, and who have left behind their own writings” (106). Although she was drawn to Pappenheim’s 198. Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O., 16,12. 199. Ibid., 2–3. ¨ 200. Barbara Honigmann, “Ein Buch, das ich nicht geschrieben habe: Uber biographisches Schreiben” (Zurcher ¨ Poetikvorlesung III), in Das Gesicht wiederfinden: ˇsber Schreiben, Schriftsteller und Judentum (Munich: Carl Hanser, 2006), 89–111.

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story, Honigmann felt increasingly “repulsed” by it when her “material” failed to take on form: “I only knew what I wanted to write but not how. No language came to mind, because I couldn’t abandon myself to a free association with the material. I knew too exactly what and why I wanted to write about Bertha Pappenheim” (106-7). Namely, to use Pappenheim’s story to “correct the widespread opinion according to which all Jews who played a role in German culture and society were irreligious, assimilated, preferably left-wing intellectual, and had at any rate left Judaism far behind them” (109). Despite her strong identification with Pappenheim as a Jew who acculturated and contributed to German culture and society while remaining a loyal and observant Jew, Honigmann felt alienated by the “old-fashioned” language and reserved tenor of her writings. Finding herself “too far removed yet too close—thus not at the right distance needed to encounter a life story and to describe it,” Honigmann determined that the project would do Bertha Pappenheim, herself, and her audience an injustice (111).

7

Freud and Anna O. at Coney Island: Bertha Pappenheim in Art and Fiction The gaps in the documentation of Pappenheim’s life that have frustrated some of her biographers have been welcomed by a diverse cadre of creative artists in various media (novel, drama, opera, visual art, film, and performance art) who have embraced ambiguity as an invitation to explore the links between the near-mythical figure of Anna O. and the historical figure Bertha Pappenheim. This chapter examines the wide array of those fictional and artistic portrayals, inquiring how the “historical person” Bertha Pappenheim corresponds to the Anna O.s and Bertha Pappenheims of fiction and art, onto whom a variety of fantasies and values have been projected.1 Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s tragedy Elektra (theater premiere 1903), Frank Wedekind’s drama Totentanz (Dance of Death) (1905),2 and Arnold Schonberg ¨ and Marie Pappenheim’s operatic monodrama Erwartung (Ex-

1. My survey is not exhaustive. Bertha Pappenheim appears in small, marginal roles in Carol De Chellis Hill, Henry James’ Midnight Song (New York: Poseidon, 1993) and Nikola Hahn, Die Farbe von Kristall (Munich: Marion von Schroder, ¨ 2002). Literary critics have also pointed to the similarities between Anna O. and the writer Anna Wulf in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1962), the first-person narrator of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper (Boston: Small, Maynard, 1899), and Anna (London: Secker and Warburg, 1976), the account of a young German woman’s breakdown and suicide, told in diary form by her husband David Reed (pseud.). Showalter, The Female Malady, 238, 241; Diane Price Herndl, “The Writing Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anna O., and ‘Hysterical Writing.’” National Women’s Studies Association Journal 1, no.1 (1988): 52–74. 2. The title Totentanz was later changed to Tod und Teufel (Death and the Devil) to avoid confusion with August Strindberg’s Totentanz. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Elektra, Musik von Richard Strauss (Berlin: Adolph Furstner, ¨ 1908). Frank Wedekind, Totentanz, Fackel, nos. 183–84 (July 4, 1905). I will quote from Frank Wedekind, Totentanz, in Werke in zwei Banden, ¨ 2: 291–324, 788–91 (Munich: Winkler, 1990); Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Elektra (Frankfurt a.M.: Fischer, 1994).

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pectation) (1911) were written decades before Ernest Jones revealed that Anna O. was Bertha Pappenheim.3 It is possible, however, that the three authors were already aware of Anna O.’s identity. Hofmannsthal, Marie Pappenheim, and Schonberg ¨ lived in Vienna, where the Pappenheim / Anna O. nexus was (according to her cousin Paul Homburger) “common knowledge”;4 and Wedekind had strong Vienna connections. He wrote Dance of Death in Spring 1905 around the time of the Vienna premiere of his play Buchse ¨ der Pandora (Pandora’s Box), in which he played the role of Jack the Ripper. Dance of Death was also first published in Vienna in Karl Kraus’s Fackel.5 Hofmannsthal’s Elektra bears a strong resemblance to Breuer’s Anna O., and the likeness appears to have been deliberate.6 Hofmannsthal borrowed Hermann Bahr’s personal copy of the Studies on Hysteria while he was working on Elektra and was in close contact with Bahr while Bahr was writing his Dialogue on Tragedy, which applied Breuer and Freud’s theories to Greek tragedy. Hofmannsthal also marked passages in the Anna O. case study in his personal copy of the Studies on Hysteria.7 Michael Worbs has noted numerous parallels between Hofmannsthal’s Elektra and Breuer’s Anna O. Their respective hysterias are caused by the trauma of their fathers’ deaths. Both develop split or dissociative personalities. They both mourn or grieve at night, entering an auto-hypnotic state during which they relive the past, re-experiencing in vivid detail the events surrounding their fathers’ actual passing. Both suffer from frightening hallucinations, and both are estranged from their physical bodies. Anna O. is “sexually underdeveloped” and develops anorexia; and Elektra appears prematurely aged 3. Ullrich Scheideler, ed., Arnold Schonberg: ¨ Buhnenwerke ¨ I, Erwartung op. 17: Kritischer Bericht, Skizzen, Textgenese und Textvergleich, Entstehungs- und Werkgeschichte, Dokumente; Und Pippa tanzt! (Fragment). Abteilung III, Reihe B, Band 6, Teil 1 of Arnold Schonberg ¨ Samtliche ¨ Werke (Mainz: Schott Musik International, 2005). 4. Paul P. Homburger to Dora Edinger, April 1, 1958, Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/735, Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. 5. Wedekind, Werke in zwei Banden, ¨ 2:788–89. 6. Michael Worbs, Nervenkunst, Literatur und Psychoanalyse im Wien der Jahrhundertwende (Frankfurt a.M.: Europaische ¨ Verlagsanstalt, 1983); Lorna Martens, “The Theme of Repressed Memory in Hofmannsthal’s Elektra,” German Quarterly 60 (1987): 38–51; Silvia Kronberger, Die unerhorten ¨ Tochter: ¨ Fraulein ¨ Else und Elektra und die gesellschaftlichen Funktion der Hysterie (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2002); Jill Scott, Electra After Freud: Myth and Culture, Cornell Studies in the History of Psychiatry (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005). 7. Martens, “The Theme of Repressed Memory in Hofmannsthal’s Elektra,” 39; Hermann Bahr, Dialog vom Tragischen (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1904).

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and “feels nothing of that which is felt by women.” Both suffer a “narrowing of the field of vision” and have difficulty recognizing people.8 Lorna Martens argues, however, that Hofmannsthal’s Klytamnestra, ¨ who suffers from repressed memory (her “most important qualification as a hysteric”), resembles Anna O. even more closely than his Elektra. Klytamnestra’s ¨ inability to walk unassisted (she uses a cane and leans on a companion) is suggestive of Anna O.’s hysterical paralysis; and like Anna O., Klytamnestra ¨ hallucinates a snake and suffers a speech disturbance.9 Worbs and Lorna Martens concur that Hofmannsthal did not simply seek to offer a literary illustration of his contemporaries’ scientific or medical studies of hysteria. Instead, he was interested in “modernizing the ancient subject material for a secular epoch.”10 Martens believes that Hofmannsthal wished to explore the “parallels between the theory of the repressed memory and the psychoanalytic cure and the ancient theme of guilt and retribution in his Greek source.”11 Jill Scott counters that Elektra (unlike her mother, who does suffer from repressed memory) is haunted by memory and her inability to forget Agamemnon’s murder;12 and although she exhibits symptoms of hysteria, she is not a hysteric. Rather, both she and Anna O. “appropriate” and “perform” the medical discourse of hysteria, using disease as a “defensive strategy.”13 Taking Bertha Pappenheim’s later life into account, Scott concludes that this strategy proved successful for both women: Elektra ultimately succeeds in avenging her father’s death, and Bertha Pappenheim is transformed from a “speechless,” helpless victim of hysteria to a vocal advocate for Jewish women and children.14 Marie Pappenheim and Arnold Schonberg’s ¨ Expectation, op. 17 (composed in 1909) has frequently been compared to Hugo von Hofmannsthal and 8. Worbs, Nervenkunst, 280–95. See also Scott, Electra After Freud, 62–65; Ritchie Robertson, “‘Ich habe ihm das Beil nicht geben konnen’: ¨ The Heroine’s Failure in Hofmannsthal’s Elektra, Orbis Litterarum 41 (1986): 312–31, see 322. 9. Lorna Martens, “The Theme of Repressed Memory in Hofmannsthal’s Elektra,” 43. See also Scott, Electra After Freud, 70–73. 10. Worbs, Nervenkunst, Literatur und Psychoanalyse im Wien der Jahrhundertwende, 293. 11. Martens, “The Theme of Repressed Memory in Hofmannsthal’s Elektra,” 41. 12. Scott, Electra After Freud, 69. In a close reading, Scott demonstrates how the two women enter the “codependent” or “symbiotic” relationship of psychotherapist and patient. Klythamnestra ¨ turns to Elektra, who “speaks like a physician” to heal her “crippled tongue” (71–73). 13. Ibid., 58–59. 14. Ibid., 79–80.

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Richard Strauss’s Elektra (play premier 1903, opera premiere 1909). The two works and their composers have typically been viewed as opposites. Strauss was the “central figure in the mainstream of Austro-German art music… the putative heir to Wagnerism and … leader of a neoromantic musical orthodoxy.” Schonberg ¨ enjoyed a smaller, largely avant-garde following and is regarded as the “outstanding representative of musical modernism.” Elektra, with “several principal singers, large orchestral forces, and Wagnerian leitmotifs” enjoyed immediate, widespread success. Expectation, a “monodrama” with a lone female voice “set to the free tonality of musical expressionism,” did not premiere until 1924 and was preformed only infrequently and to mixed reviews thereafter.15 When he wrote Elektra, Hofmannsthal was already an established author. After its success, he continued his collaboration with Strauss and is now regarded as an eminently canonical author and one of the major representatives of fin de siecle ` Viennese culture. “Mizzi” Pappenheim, on the other hand, was a medical student and only a reticent poet at the time of her collaboration with Schonberg. ¨ In 1906, without her knowledge (she did not find it appropriate for a doctor, “who should have both feet planted firmly on the ground,” to publish poetry), friends delivered her poems to Karl Kraus, who published four of them in Die Fackel under the pseudonym Marie Heim.16 After writing Expectation, she took a long hiatus as a public literary figure, not publishing again until 1949. Now she is virtually unknown. Despite the marked contrasts between the two works and their writers and composers, the opera and monodrama have in common the portrayal of their female protagonists as hysterics—both inspired (perhaps) by Anna O. Whether or not The Woman of Expectation was indeed patterned after 15. John Bokina, “The Politics of Psychological Interiorization: Strauss’s Elektra and Schoenberg’s Erwartung,” in Opera and Politics: From Monteverdi to Henze (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 111–27, see 111–12. For reviews of Erwartung and documents pertaining to Schonberg’s ¨ long struggle to see his work in print and on stage see Scheideler, ed. Arnold Schonberg: ¨ Buhnenwerke ¨ I , 205–89. 16. Scheideler, ed. Arnold Schonberg: ¨ Buhnenwerke ¨ I, 299. Dr. Marie Pappenheim (1882–1966) was born in Pressburg. She studied medicine in Vienna, where she met Schonberg ¨ through her friend, the composer Alexander Zemlinsky. She completed her studies as a dermatologist in 1910 and married Dr. Hermann Frischauf, a neurologist. Her poems were published by Hugo Heller and in Karl Kraus’s Fackel. She went into exile in Paris in 1934. After being imprisoned in Gurs, she escaped to Mexico in 1940. In Mexico she founded the exile press El Libro Libre together with Egon Erwin Kisch and other authors. She returned to Vienna late in life. Karl Fallend, “Marie Frischauf-Pappenheim,” Literatur und Kritik, no. 305–6 (July 1996): 103–7.

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Anna O. is contested. The majority of critics favor Schonberg’s ¨ version of the genesis of Expectation: the idea was his alone, and Pappenheim merely executed his creative vision.17 In an August 27, 1909 letter to Ferruccio Busoni, Schonberg ¨ wrote: “I have started a new composition; something for the theater; something quite new. The librettist (a lady), acting on my suggestions, has conceived and formulated everything just as I have envisaged it.”18 The fact that events in Schonberg’s ¨ biography shortly before the opera was written (Schonberg’s ¨ wife Mathilde had an affair with their mutual friend, the painter Richard Gerstl. The affair ended with Gerstl’s suicide in 1908) are reflected in the themes of the libretto (infidelity and violent death) speaks for Schonberg’s ¨ version and against the Anna O. case study as the primary inspiration for the piece.19 However, Marie Pappenheim’s statements on the genesis of the libretto contradict Schonberg’s. ¨ She recounted in a 1949 interview: We were out in the country, in Steinachkirchen. We were a large party: Schonberg, ¨ his students, Alban Berg, Anton Weber, Erwin Stein. Then Schonberg ¨ said to me, “Write an opera for me.” I told him, “I can’t write an opera. I can write a lyric monodrama at most.” Schonberg ¨ replied, “Write whatever you want!” Shortly after that, I went to visit friends at the Traunsee, and there I wrote a monodrama that was lyrical through and through. It is actually a love letter, but not to Schonberg. ¨ I finished it in three weeks, and I showed it to Schonberg ¨ who put it to music within the next 14 days.20 She reiterated in a 1963 letter to Helmut Kirchmeyer, “P.B. [Schonberg’s ¨ biographer Paul Bekker] must have misunderstood something. I did not receive a suggestion or instructions about what to write (and I wouldn’t have followed them, anyway).”21 She states that she had been in Ischl the summer before writing Expectation. Every night around 10:30 she had to traverse a piece of dark forest to reach her apartment. The woods in the monodrama 17. See Bryan R. Simms, “Whose Idea was Erwartung?” in Constructive Dissonance. Arnold Schoenberg and the Transformations of Twentieth-Century Culture, ed. Juliane Brand and Christopher Hailey, 100–111 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 100; Jose´ Maria Garcia Laborda, Studien zu Schonbergs ¨ Monodram “Erwartung” op. 17 (Laaber: Laaber, 1981), 16, 98. 18. Quoted in Simms, “Whose Idea was Erwartung?” 100. 19. Ibid., 101. 20. In Ullrich Scheideler, ed., Arnold Schonberg, ¨ 299. 21. Ibid., 270. She told Dika Newlin the same story in 1951. Dika Newlin, Bruckner, Mahler, Schonberg ¨ (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978).

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were inspired by this experience.22 Elements of Marie Pappenheim’s biography also suggest that Anna O. may have been a model for The Woman. Born in Pressburg (where Bertha Pappenheim’s father was born), Marie may have been related to Bertha Pappenheim. Even if she was not,23 she had other reasons to be interested in Anna O. She was a medical student, and her brother Martin, a psychiatrist, was later a professor of neurology and psychiatry in Vienna. Her closeness to psychoanalytic circles is further demonstrated by her collaboration with Wilhelm Reich, with whom she founded the Socialist Society for Sexual Counseling and Sexual Research in 1928.24 Despite disagreement about whether or not Marie Pappenheim and Bertha Pappenheim were related to or even knew one another, and about which member of the collaborative duo first thought of the idea for the libretto, there is widespread consensus that the character The Woman was influenced by Freud and Breuer’s Studies on Hysteria.25 The sequence of scenes in the monodrama mirrors the progression of hysteria as outlined by Freud in the Studies 22. Laborda, Studien zu Schonbergs ¨ Monodram “Erwartung” op. 17, 17. 23. Fallend and Wickes (Wickes cites an interview with Marie Pappenheim’s niece) insist that she was not. Laborda, Falck, Mauser, Gervink, and Simms agree that she was. Karl Fallend, “Marie Frischauf-Pappenheim,” Literatur und Kritik no. 305–6 (July 1996): 103–7, see 105; Lewis Wickes, “Schoenberg, Erwartung, and the Reception of Psychoanalysis in Musical Circles in Vienna until 1910/1911,” Studies in Music 23 (1989): 88–106, see 96; Laborda, Studien zu Schonbergs ¨ Monodram “Erwartung” op. 17, 18; Robert Falck, “Marie Pappenheim, Schoenberg, and the Studien uber ¨ Hysterie,” in German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Fusion: 1890–1989, edited by Claus Reschke and Howard Pollack, Houston German Studies 8, 131–44 (Munich: Fink, 1992), 132; Siegfried Mauser, “Paralipomena zum Libretto von Schonbergs ¨ ‘Erwartung’ Op. 17,” in De editione musices: Festschrift Gerhard Croll zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Wolfgang Gratzer and Andrea Lindmayr, 391–400 (Laaber: Laaber, 1992), 392; Simms, “Whose Idea was Erwartung?” 102; Manuel Gervink, Arnold Schonberg ¨ und seine Zeit (Laaber: Laaber, 2000), 144. 24. Falck, “Marie Pappenheim, Schoenberg, and the Studien uber ¨ Hysterie,” 132; Wickes, “Schoenberg, Erwartung, and the Reception of Psychoanalysis in Musical Circles in Vienna until 1910/1911,” 96; Fallend, “Marie Frischauf-Pappenheim,” 105–6. 25. Falck, “Marie Pappenheim, Schoenberg, and the Studien uber ¨ Hysterie”; Fallend, “Marie Frischauf-Pappenheim,” 104; Mauser, “Paralipomena zum Libretto von Schonbergs ¨ ‘Erwartung’ Op. 17”; Laura A. McLary, “The Dead Lover’s Body and the Woman’s Rage: Marie Pappenheim’s Erwartung,” Colloquia Germanica 34, nos. 3–4 (2001): 257–69; Simms, “Whose Idea was Erwartung?”; Eva Weissweiler, “‘Schreiben Sie mir doch einen Operntext, Fraulein!’ ¨ Marie Pappenheims Text zu Arnold Schonbergs ¨ ‘Erwartung’,” Neue Zeitschrift fur ¨ Musik 145, no. 6 (1984): 4–8, see 4; Alexander Carpenter, “Schoenberg’s Erwartung and Freudian Case Histories: A Preliminary Investigation,” Discourses in Music 3, no. 2 (Winter 2001–02), http://www.discourses.ca/v3n2a1.html.

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on Hysteria. The first three scenes (in which The Woman walks through the forest looking for her unfaithful lover) are typical of the fear neuroses that typically precede a hysterical episode: she exhibits “fearful expectation, general agitation, sudden anxiety attacks, being startled, phobias of snakes, storms, the dark, insects and the like, hallucinations.”26 The final scene, the discovery of the corpse of the murdered lover (whom The Woman may have murdered herself, later repressing the memory of her crime) demonstrates the transition from fear neurosis to the traumatic experience and ensuing hysterical episode. Bryan Simms, Robert Falck, and Siegfried Mauser have compared The Woman to the Anna O. case study, in particular. Simms proposed that she presents the classical symptoms of hysteria as delineated by Freud and Breuer and exemplified by Anna O.: “Like Anna O. [The Woman] experiences amnesia, partially banishing the murder from her conscious mind while beset at the same time by a speech impediment and hallucinations involving imaginary slithering or crawling animal forms.”27 Falck observed that the “alternation of autologue and memory episodes” in Expectation, which takes place during the night and ends at dawn, is “roughly equivalent to Anna O’s two separate states of consciousness.”28 Mauser also discovered a postcard, which he believes points to Bertha Pappenheim as the model for The Woman’s hallucinations. Marie Pappenheim wrote to Schonberg, ¨ “I have only one request in regard to the visions. As I already wrote, I want to keep the same pale reflection that B. described to me.”29 The unresolved questions surrounding the origins of the libretto bear a strong resemblance to the mysteries shrouding the origin myth of psychoanalysis. Who conceived the plot? Who was the creative genius, Schonberg ¨ or Pappenheim? Who is telling the truth? Who is lying and why? Why do some historians and critics favor one version over the other? Why is the notion of creative genius more compelling than a story of close collaboration between equal partners? Whereas Elektra and Expectation allude to the Anna O. case study without ¨ 26. From Freud’s “Athiologie der Hysterie,” quoted in Mauser, “Paralipomena zum Libretto von Schonbergs ¨ ‘Erwartung’ Op. 17,” 398. 27. Simms, “Whose Idea was Erwartung?” 102–3. Of course, Anna O. killed neither her father, nor Breuer. 28. Falck, “Marie Pappenheim, Schoenberg, and the Studien uber ¨ Hysterie,” 136. 29. Quoted in Mauser, “Paralipomena zum Libretto von Schonbergs ¨ ‘Erwartung’ Op. 17,” 400.

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exploring the connection between Anna O. and the woman she would become, Wedekind’s one-act play Dance of Death prefigures post-Jones portrayals of Pappenheim by linking the activist Bertha Pappenheim to the hysteric Anna O. Wedekind’s protagonist, Elfriede von Malchus, a virginal spinster and member of the “International Society for the Suppression of White Slavery,” bears a strong resemblance to Pappenheim, who by this time was already a key figure in the German and international campaigns against white slavery and prostitution.30 Fraulein ¨ von Malchus enters a brothel with the purpose of “rescuing” her family’s maid, who had become a “victim” of the white slave trade. Like Anna O., Elfriede von Malchus is sexually underdeveloped; she has “weak erotic sensibilities.”31 Like Pappenheim, she is wealthy and unmarried. Attempting to rescue her maid, von Malchus enters into a debate with Casti Piani, the trafficker who entrapped the young woman. Casti Piani tells her, “What combating white slavery does for your sensuality, white slavery itself does for mine.”32 He proceeds to recite his “feminist” defense of prostitution as the key to women’s emancipation: Do you believe that the love market would ever… have been declared disgraceful if men could compete with women in it?! It’s envy over earnings! Nothing but envy! Nature gave women the advantage of being able to trade in love. That’s why bourgeois society, which is governed by men, tries again and again to make this business out to be the most shameful of all crimes.33 Elfriede von Malchus responds enthusiastically: “Every winter for years I have heard twelve to twenty lectures on the women’s movement, from all of the female and male authorities. I can’t recall ever having heard anything that got to the bottom of the matter like your arguments do…. You are a great man!—You are a noble man!”34 She offers herself to Casti Piani in marriage, suggesting that he still has time to become an “orderly person” and start a new life as the editor of a socialist 30. Pappenheim’s engagement in the campaign against white slavery began in 1902, and she wrote against “free love” and about the “morality question” earlier. Kaplan, The Jewish Feminist Movement in Germany, 110–11; Bertha Pappenheim, “Die sozialen Grundlagen der Sittlichkeitsfrage,” Die Frau 9, no. 3 (December 1901): 129–38; Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], “Ehe und freie Liebe,” Ethische Kultur 8 (1900): 262. 31. Wedekind, Totentanz, 299. 32. Ibid., 300. 33. Ibid., 304. 34. Ibid., 305.

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newspaper or as a representative of parliament.35 Casti Piani rejects her proposal, likening bourgeois marriage to slavery—women would regain their true dignity only when they can sell themselves without disgrace on the free market to the highest bidder. This would in turn remove the stigma from unwed mothers, who would be able to support their “illegitimate” children better than married women can (an allusion to Pappenheim’s interest in rescuing Jewish unwed mothers).36 Casti Piani invites her to watch, from behind a curtain, a transaction (written in verse) between Mr. Konig ¨ (a client) and Lisiska (von Malchus’s former maid). Inspired by Lisiska’s lament that the brothel is the temple of love’s martyrs (prostitutes and their clientele), for whom romantic love means “eternal agony and never-ceasing agony,” von Malchus spontaneously concludes that she has naively and unfairly mistaken “the sanctity of sensual passion” for “the basest vulgarity” and has really been battling white slavery in order to satisfy her repressed carnal urges. She begs Casti Piani to deflower and sell her.37 This dramatic conclusion anticipates Lucy Freeman’s later theory that Pappenheim was a “fantasy whore,” whose social work with prostitutes and unwed mothers was motivated by “unresolved sexual conflicts between Pappenheim, her father and Breuer.”38 There is no hard evidence that Wedekind based Elfriede von Malchus specifically on Bertha Pappenheim. Most of von Malchus’s characteristics were not unique to Pappenheim but attributed also to early twentieth-century misogynistic stereotypes of feminists, in general, and female members of the morality crusades in particular: they were hysterical, and their activism was a fulfillment or sublimation of unfulfilled (largely because they were undesirable to men) or repressed sexual urges.39 On the occasion of the International Conference for the Suppression of White Slavery in Vienna, Karl Kraus wrote: 35. Ibid., 306. 36. Although the JFB home in Isenburg was not established until 1907, Pappenheim was already advocating for Jewish unwed mothers and illegitimate children in 1903–1904. Pappenheim and Rabinowitsch, Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevolkerung ¨ in Galizien, 19. 37. Wedekind, Totentanz, 320–21. 38. Heubach, Sisyphus, 306. 39. Despite the resurgence of forced prostitution and human trafficking since the latter part of the 20th century (especially since the crumbling of the Soviet bloc), there are still critics who maintain that such problems do not exist or that their prevalence is grossly exaggerated. Dietmar Jazbinsek, for example, has recently argued that forced prostitution is a case of mass hysteria of the sort described by Elaine Showalter in Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Dietmar Jazbinsek, Der internationale Madchenhandel: ¨ Biographie eines sozialen Problems (Berlin:

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Nature could care less into which socially acceptable activity the frightened sexual drive escapes. Many a would-be prostitute [Schnepfe] has preached as a feminist in the crusade again prostitution. The women [pejorative, Weiber] need something to keep themselves busy, and devoting themselves to abolishing prostitution is the most sensible option, because they stay connected with the matter. It’s all about the fire, even if the women [Weiber] have stopped burning and are only interested in extinguishing the flames.40 Although Pappenheim mentions neither Kraus nor Wedekind in her extant writings, it is inconceivable that she would not have been familiar with them both. Kraus was a vocal critic of the Sittlichkeitsbewegung (morality movement), and Wedekind wrote controversial plays that were the subject of heated public debate and a frequent target of censorship.41 The first post-Jones fictional rendering of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim was John Huston’s feature film Freud, which premiered December 12, 1961, starring Montgomery Clift as Freud and Susannah York as Cacilie ¨ (a composite figure based primarily on Anna O.).42 Huston commissioned Jean-Paul Sartre to write the screenplay, which was to depict a Hollywood 1950s-friendly Freud, an individualist pioneering adventurer, who against great odds and plagued by the opposition of an aging medical establishment, discovers the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fur ¨ Sozialforschung, 2002), http://skylla.wz-berlin.de/pdf/ 2002/ii02–501.pdf. 40. Karl Kraus, “Gegen den Madchenhandel,” ¨ Fackel, no. 288 (October 11, 1909): 22–24. See also Karl Kraus, “Der Prozeß Riehl,” Fackel, no. 211 (November 13, 1906), ¨ nach dem Prozeß Riehl,” “Sittenrichter,” Fackel, no. 212 (November 23, 1906), “Die Ara Fackel, no. 216 (January 9, 1907); Karl Kraus, Sittlichkeit und Kriminalitat ¨ (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1987); and “Spezial-Nummer Salon Riehl,” special issue, Simplicissimus 3, no. 11 (December 1906). Kurt Tucholsky made similar statements about female activists in the anti-white slavery movement, for example, “I don’t like the women who combat white slavery. First of all, white slavery doesn’t exist…. Second, women whose need for activity isn’t satisfied at night often frequently get rabid during the daytime.” Kurt Tucholsky, “Madchenhandel ¨ in Buenos Aires,” in Gesammelte Werke, vol. 5, 246–50 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt), 247. 41. See Ward B. Lewis, The Ironic Dissident: Frank Wedekind in the View of His Critics (Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1997). 42. Freud: The Secret Passion, directed by John Huston, screenplay by Charles Kaufman, Wolfgang Reinhardt, and Jean-Paul Sartre (uncredited), performances by Montgomery Clift, Susannah York, Larry Parks, Susan Kohner, Eric Portman (Universal, 1962). Huston originally planned to cast Marilyn Monroe as Anna O. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Freud Scenario, ed. J.-B. Pontalis, trans. Quintin Hoare (London: Verso, 1985), vii.

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subconscious and invents psychoanalysis. Sartre completed a 95-page synopsis entitled Freud in 1958. Although he would change her name in later versions, the female protagonist of the synopsis was named Anna O. A year later Sartre completed a 450-page first draft of the screenplay. When asked to shorten it, he produced two even longer versions. Charles Kaufmann and Wolfgang Reinhardt reduced the screenplay to a marketable length and removed material they thought might be objectionable to a mainstream American audience (in addition to the theme of prostitution, which survived into the final version, Sartre’s screenplay featured explicit incest, homosexuality, masturbation, and child abuse). Sartre divorced himself from the project and insisted that his name not appear among the credits. The film was not a commercial success, even after Huston released it with a spicier title, Freud: The Secret Passion; and critical reviews were mixed.43 The completed film retained most of Sartre’s interventions in the story of the birth of psychoanalysis. Sartre followed the Jonesian model, which in turn echoed Freud’s own version as told in “On the History of the Psychoanalytical Movement.”44 Thus in this version psychoanalysis was not discovered in June 1882 when Pappenheim went into hysterical labor, but on November 18, 1882, when Breuer reportedly related the incident to Freud.45 Freud sought in his “History” to diminish Breuer’s role in the discovery, faulting him for not recognizing the significance of the hysterical childbirth. Of Breuer Freud wrote, “At this moment he held in his hands the key that would have opened the ‘doors to the Mothers,’ but he let it drop. With all his great intellectual gifts there was nothing Faustian in his nature.”46 Because psychoanalysis, according to Freud and Jones, was not the joint discovery of Freud and his colleagues, let alone their patients, but the achievement of a single genius, Hollywood could also bend the facts and collapse multiple female patients into one composite figure to create a more streamlined, linear narrative. Scholarship on Sartre and Huston’s Freud has focused on how Sartre, who was, according to Huston, “a Communist and an anti-Freudian,” dealt with a thinker who was “now uncritically presented as his ultimate and victorious antagonist.”47 Annette Lavers has observed that Sartre’s approach to Freud was highly selective; by focusing on the early Freud, Sartre found, “[not] a 43. Jean-Paul Sartre, The Freud Scenario, vii. 44. Sigmund Freud, “On the History of the Psychoanalytical Movement,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 14: 7–66. 45. Jones, Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, 1: 226. 46. Freud, “On the History of the Psychoanalytical Movement,” 65. 47. Annette Lavers, “Sartre and Freud,” French Studies 41 (1987): 298–315, 299–300.

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patriarch of dubious philosophical competence, but a brother-in-arms, an adventurer, struggling against a hostile establishment and ‘thinking’ about himself, plagued by guilt and dependency, but driven by a burning desire for recognition and a sense of destiny.”48 Gertrud Koch concurred that the scenario was as much about Sartre as it was about Freud: “Behind the discovery of the unconscious and of the Oedipus complex… Sartre the biographer hides his own project of existentialist analysis of an author named Freud.”49 Contrary to Hazel Barnes’s assessment that Sartre portrayed Freud according to Freud (“The Freud of the scenario has stepped out fully dressed from the pages of Ernest Jones’ biography, Volume I…. Sartre has given us the drama of Freud’s own myth of himself”),50 Freud’s daughter Anna strenuously opposed the film, issuing the statement, “In our opinion neither the historic nor scientific truth about the person, Sigmund Freud, or his work, can be or is conveyed by the film, contrary to the pretensions made by its producers.”51 Although Sartre’s interpretation of Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim was similarly not loyal to source materials, Pappenheim’s surviving relatives and supporters did not object in public, as they had to Jones’s biography. Perhaps they wished not to draw more attention than necessary to any possible connection between the female protagonist, who no longer bore the name Anna O., and Bertha Pappenheim. Although the hysteric patient of the film was no longer called Anna O. (as she was in Sartre’s original scenario) but rather Cacilie, ¨ she clearly had more in common with Anna O. than with Cacilie ¨ M. or any other Freud case study. She was Breuer’s patient, she practiced “chimney-sweeping” with Breuer, and she shared many of Anna O.’s distinctive symptoms and characteristics (disturbed vision, hysterical paralysis, sexual immaturity, a hydrophobia that stemmed from having witnessed a dog drink from her water glass). Most notably, Breuer ended her treatment after her false pregnancy and labor. By introducing the theme of prostitution, Sartre further linked his Cacilie ¨ to Bertha Pappenheim. Having repressed the memories that her mother had been a dancer in a cheap cabaret and that her father had died not in a Protestant hospital as she remembers but in the arms of a prostitute in a brothel, Cacilie ¨ 48. Ibid., 305 49. Gertrud Koch, “Sartre’s Screen Projection of Freud,” October 57 (Summer 1991): 3–17, see 8. 50. Hazel E. Barnes, “Sartre’s Scenario for Freud,” Esprit Createur 29 (1989): 52–64, see 47, 58. 51. Norman N. Holland, “How to See Huston’s Freud,” in Perspectives on John Huston, ed. Stephen Cooper, 164–83 (New York: G. K. Hall, 1994), 165, 167.

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attempts to prostitute herself in the red light district Red Tower Street. Sartre’s Freud concludes that Cacilie’s ¨ wish to become a prostitute stems from her repressed memory of her father’s death in a brothel, just as later psychoanalysts have surmised that Pappenheim’s campaign against prostitution and trafficking was a sublimation of her illness or that her father had hired prostitutes. By introducing the fiction that Freud took over Cacilie’s ¨ treatment after a panicked and selfish Breuer deserted her before she was fully cured, the genius Freud is able to discover the roots of her neuroses. Presumably, had Anna O. been Freud’s patient, she would have been cured, and Bertha Pappenheim would not have had to spend her life living out her neuroses through her social work. Approximately one hundred years after Anna O.’s treatment by Breuer, Austrian writer Helmut Eisendle (1939-2003) wrote the first of two texts, the drama The Gift of Anna O. (1983) and the novel Oh Hannah!, both of which critically reassess the meaning of Anna O.’s illness and cure in the history of mental illness and its treatment.52 Considered one of contemporary Austrian literature’s “literary scientists,” a group of writers whose works are concerned with critiquing the theoretical systems of modern science, Eisendle earned a Ph.D. in psychology, after which he worked for a short time as a pharmaceutical representative before devoting himself full-time to writing. The Gift of Anna O. consists of three acts, each of which is interrupted at intervals by scenes from Anna O.’s illness and treatment. In the play, the writers Herr S. (Arthur Schnitzler) and Herr H. (Hugo von Hofmannsthal) enter into discussion with Richard von Krafft-Ebing and P.J. Moebius, debating the influence of Freud, Breuer, and Anna O.’s contributions and discoveries on their own literary works—and vice versa. Schnitzler, for example, is inclined to see Freud as a “great writer,” suggesting that he would have been a literary great with or without the Anna O. case study.53 Hofmannsthal observes that the goals of literature and analysis are the same—discovery [Erkenntnis]— and that writers, not scientists, are the true vanguards of new knowledge: “The great writers are like the Vikings, who were in America long before Columbus.”54 Citing Freud, Schnitzler argues that “writers and analysts reach the same conclusions about human nature, ergo the novelist is the Doppelganger ¨ 52. Helmut Eisendle, Das Geschenk der Anna O. Szenen uber ¨ die Psychoanalyse (Frankfurt a.M.: Verlag der Autoren, 1983); Helmut Eisendle, Oh Hannah! (Vienna: Paul Zsolnay, 1988). 53. Idem., Das Geschenk der Anna O., 8. 54. Ibid., 12.

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of the analyst.”55 At Schnitzler’s behest, Hofmannsthal grudgingly admits that he may have been thinking of Anna O. when he wrote his Elektra.56 Although Bertha Pappenheim appears as a mature women in the postlude, the play is concerned with rescuing her memory not as a social worker, activist, or writer but as the “main character” in the history of psychoanalysis, its “creator” or “patroness.”57 She invented the “talking cure,” thus “showing [Freud and Breuer] the way to the subconscious.”58 She identified the “super-ego and the id,” and she was the first practitioner of self-analysis.59 The scenes with Freud and Breuer reinforce, however, the standard origin myth of psychoanalysis. Breuer is unwilling or unable to acknowledge Anna O.’s great gift to him. He urges Freud not to underestimate the physical aspects of Anna O.’s illness and the role that drugs played in her cure, and he cautions that Anna O. was an “isolated case, not a model.”60 The myth is not, however, left entirely intact. Freud remains the courageous genius, who was willing to engage in a “Faustian game,” but he is also a “profiteer,” as are the literary authors who draw inspiration from his texts.61 Oh Hannah!, which Eisendle originally entitled “Elektra’s Golden Cage,” also takes the case study of Anna O. as its point of departure, transporting Anna O. (called Hannah Ortheil, the name evokes the word Urteil, judgment or verdict) into the 1980s to reassess the causes and nature of her illness and the efficacy and ethics of her treatment. Eisendle uses Anna O. and Hannah as a vehicle for a critique of contemporary psychiatry.62 Hannah Ortheil has much in common with her model. Like Anna O., she is a Viennese “hohere ¨ Tochter” [a young lady of the upper classes], whose illness stems in part from her growing dissatisfaction with her prescribed role and from feelings of guilt for no longer playing it willingly. She is “at home in her golden cage. Elektra.”63 She exhibits some of the same symptoms as Anna O. She escapes into a “private theater.” She is sexually inexperienced and estranged from her body: “She regards her body as a pretty pet. She doesn’t know what it’s good

55. Ibid., 96. 56. Ibid., 97. 57. Ibid., 106. 58. Ibid., 30, 57. 59. Ibid., 100, 107. 60. Ibid., 63, 74. 61. Ibid., 107 62. Eisendle, Oh Hannah!, 184. 63. Ibid., 31.

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for and doesn’t want to find out.”64 She speaks Anna O.’s jumble of foreign languages, and her illness manifests itself in full-blown psychosis after the death of her father. The role of “hohere ¨ Tochter,” however, has changed in the one hundred years since Anna O.’s lifetime. Now Hannah is allowed to pursue a university degree, even though her parents choose her course of study. She studies psychology, a subject that will prepare her for a feminine, “helping” career as a child psychologist or a school guidance counselor.65 Whereas Breuer surmised that Anna O. would have benefited from the intellectual stimulation she never got, the intellectual “nourishment” that Hannah receives through her studies only exacerbates her existential crisis. She rails against “being forced to quarrel with the wise theories of wise men. Schopenhauer, Manganelli, Devereux, Freud, Nietzsche, or whomever.”66 Although she rejects the idea of an Elektra complex, she cannot resist suggestion. “I obey the model and play the role until the play one day becomes reality.”67 The novel explores the possibility that Hannah’s illness is simulated and/or a rebellion against her prescribed role. She muses, “I will resist the downright mediocrity of the life of a hohere ¨ Tochter—a life that repeats itself, always the same ad infinitum—until it hurts.”68 Unlike Anna O., whose doctor deserts her, Hannah O. abandons her doctor, deciding one day that “she’s done with playing psychological games.”69 Hannah runs away to Frankfurt and reinvents herself in defiance of all prescribed roles. She takes a job as a waitress and an apartment in the seedy neighborhood of the main train station, and she explores her sexuality in a love affair with a poet and veteran of the American Army, Warren Gillespie. She recognizes that her illness was a “playful and learned, voluntary suffering” but also a mechanism of “self-defense.”70 Had she stayed in Vienna, submitting to the “game or tyranny of treatment,” she would have emerged a “healthy victim, a calm woman, a calm, gentle woman who takes and follows commands, marries, loves at command, bears children, and practices an approved career. A good woman.”71 Here Eisendle broaches the theory that 64. Ibid., 35. 65. Ibid., 11. 66. Ibid., 15. 67. Ibid., 19. 68. Ibid., 22. 69. Ibid., 111. 70. Ibid., 163–64. 71. Ibid., 170.

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Anna O. similarly healed herself. Moving to Frankfurt, she leaves her doctors, the sanatoria, and her illness behind and reinvents herself as a social worker and activist. There are no records of relapses or treatment after Pappenheim’s relocation to Frankfurt. Dr. Kier, Breuer’s alter-ego who compares his patient to Anna O., experiences his own crisis when Hannah runs away from Vienna and her treatment. He surmises that she had “recognized [her doctors’] impotence” or had been playing a game all along.72 Dr. Kier, too, departs for Frankfurt, where he is scheduled to speak at a symposium on the topic “Mental Illness: A Modern Myth?”73 In a protracted stream of consciousness sequence (the reader is also privy to Hannah’s thoughts through the same mechanism), he examines his own role, as a practitioner, in the confrontation between theoreticians and clinicians. His experience with Hannah has caused him to lose his bearings. He wonders if the critics of psychiatry are right, if mental illness is merely a “metaphor for something that falls outside of the norm.”74 He asks himself: What is sick? Our economy, politics, I myself?… What am I doing as a doctor, as a diagnostician, as an analyst? I hand out stigmas and labels. I hand out illnesses to people who have problems that—if I want to be honest—are a burden to me, that challenge my existence as a physician and psychiatrist…. We are the deputies of normality. We diagnose, treat, hospitalize, isolate, label, no, we heal…. Am I about to ruin my career? Did a woman manage that?… Maybe what we call illness, mental illness, is simply an individualized life-style that, above all, seems absurd after supposedly normal people start to perceive it as a disturbance. Like witchcraft or heresy long ago.75 Another perspective on Anna O. was offered in 1984 by Melinda Guttmann, a professor of theater and author of a 2001 Pappenheim biography.76 Guttmann devised and performed “Anna O’s Private Theatre.” Katheryn Kovalcik-White describes the performance piece as follows: It is important work, in that it bridges the anti-feminist gaps in the history of psychoanalytic theory and presents the contemporary issues

72. Ibid., 79, 152. 73. Ibid., 146. 74. Ibid., 155. 75. Ibid., 156–58. 76. Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O.

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relevant to women’s “Other” role in society. The solo performance piece works more than psycho-drama; it is visual poetry. The provocative work, though under an hour in length, develops in a nonlinear style in terms of time, text and space. Guttmann creates her environmental frames through her inventive use of props such as a mirror, a dollhouse, a rag doll, a cigar and others that are multifunctional, which aid her character and scene transformations. A violinist strolls around the skeletal set highlighting generations of mood swings with haunting music.77 According to Guttmann, her piece is involved with three dialogues: “the dialogue between psychoanalysis and history; the dialogue between feminism and psychoanalysis; and the dialogue between Self and Other…. The interplay between my life and Anna O’s reifies these ideas in microcosm….”78 Clearly, Guttmann’s performance piece is inseparable from her later Pappenheim biography. As in the introduction to the biography, she notes in an interview that her search for Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim is patterned on Kierkegaard’s search for God, which ended with the discovery born of introspection that, “‘subjectivity is truth.’”79 She elaborates further on her reliance on self-exploration: “In both acting and Self Psychology, the primary methods are introspection and empathy. As scholars of hermeneutics point out, the way to understand historical events is to re-experience them.”80 Hence, the research for her piece included hiring a director to do improvisations in which she re-enacted Anna O.’s symptoms. She concluded: “I felt that my transference onto her was important to expose and wondered how to integrate my life with her life.”81 In the piece, Guttmann blends both the 1880s with the 1980s and Pappenheim’s life with her own life. She begins with a series of contemporary psychoanalysts’ answers to the question “How would you treat Anna O. today?” to satirize the “the orthodoxy of the profession and the anguished maltreatment that female patients have suffered.”82 Although she does not cite her source, it is most likely Rosenbaum and Muroff’s Anna O.: Fourteen Contemporary 77. Katheryn Kovalcik-White, “The Story of Anna O: Performing a Case History,” Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory 2 (1984): 75–80, 75. 78. Ibid., 75–76. 79. Ibid., 77. 80. Ibid. 81. Ibid. 82. Ibid., 79.

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Reinterpretations.83 She juxtaposes Pappenheim’s poem “Love Did Not Come to Me” with her own dream about love and death.84 She performs a “ritual” with a life-size rag doll that represents “a self-object merge of [herself] and Anna O.” In a later scene the rag doll “takes on the image of our [Pappenheim’s and Guttmann’s] mutual female ancestors.”85 She talks about how Pappenheim’s family and her own come from the same milieu and juxtaposes the Tennessee waltz and the Viennese Strauss waltzes.86 The intent of her piece is, according to Guttmann: to avoid the objective stance traditionally taken by either realistic theatre or by traditional case histories… . This is not a commercial project, but an innovative method of training historians. In lieu of giving a lecture and reproducing the Aristotelian male professor, I am presenting a complex form focusing on subjective interpretations, that I hope will reshape and shatter the orthodoxy of academic and psychoanalytic institutions, through the subjectivity of women.87 Another work, Irvin D. Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept (1992), invents an 1882 encounter between Josef Breuer and Friedrich Nietzsche.88 The meeting is arranged by a Russian woman, Lou Andreas-Salome, ´ who convinces Breuer to employ his talking cure to free Nietzsche of his obsession with her. Because Nietzsche would never knowingly submit to analysis, Andreas-Salome´ insists that Breuer pose as a patient, requesting help from Nietzsche in overcoming his sexual obsession with Bertha Pappenheim. The roles of analyst and analysand become indistinguishable. Guided by 83. Rosenbaum and Muroff, eds. Anna O.: Fourteen Contemporary Reinterpretations. 84. Pappenheim, “Mir ward die Liebe nicht.” 85. Kovalcik-White, “The Story of Anna O.,” 79. 86. Guttmann’s assertion that she grew up in a milieu similar to Pappenheim’s is more projection than fact. Guttmann was raised Christian (whether her family was religious, she does not say) in Chicago. She writes in the acknowledgements to her Pappenheim biography: “To the Divine in each of us that leads us to create our lives with Love. For my friends and their families in the Chicago milieu in which I was raised: for their high culture; beautiful manners; formal households glittering with art, books, and music; passionate philanthropy; and loving loyalty. My Chicago milieu so paralleled that of Bertha Pappenheim’s— my imaginative entrance into Bertha’s world was in many ways seamless… in memory of my paternal grandparents, whose aristocratic Viennese ancestors passed on from generation to generation a passion for justice, and the wisdom that with privilege comes responsibility.” Guttmann, The Enigma of Anna O., 339. 87. Kovalcik-White, “The Story of Anna O,” 79–80. 88. Irvin D. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept (New York: Basic Books, 1992).

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Nietzsche, Breuer discovers that his own persistent sexual fantasies (as well as a fantasy that his house will burn, killing his wife and children so that he will be free to start a new life with Bertha in America) are caused by a commonplace mid-life crisis. Just as Bertha’s false pregnancy was ostensibly the result of her forbidden sexual attraction for her father, Breuer’s attraction to Bertha (rather than to some other woman) signals a repressed desire for his own mother, also named Bertha, who died when he was three and she was in her twenties, roughly the same age that Bertha Pappenheim was in 1882.89 Projecting his own perceptions of his relationship with Andreas-Salome´ onto Breuer’s relationship with Pappenheim, Nietzsche seeks to convince Breuer that Pappenheim is not a pitiable victim of hysteria but a predator who is using her simulated illness to seduce and dominate him. The collapse of the two women into one is cemented by the mention of two famous photos in which both women brandish whips.90 Yalom is not a novelist by trade but a psychiatrist, an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford, and the author of the standard textbooks for Existential Psychotherapy and Group Psychotherapy. He describes the genesis of his plot: I started with the desire to write about Nietzsche. I wanted to tap his works, which haven’t been harvested for the area of therapy. I decided to catch him in the time of his greatest despair, after the breakup with Lou Salome´ (an aristocratic Russian woman who would become an eminent psychoanalyst) in 1882, but I couldn’t find someone who might have been his therapist. I was just about to have to settle on a fictional character, a Swiss ex-Jesuit, when Breuer dawned on me…. I loved his 89. I am certainly not the first to attribute the counter-transference to Breuer’s loss of his mother. The exact date of Bertha Breuer’s (nee ´ Semler) birth is unknown. She was age 22 when she married Leopold Breuer sometime in 1840, and Josef Breuer was born January 15, 1842. Hirschmuller, ¨ The Life and Work of Josef Breuer, 11, 129–30, 327; George H. Pollock, “The Possible Significance of Childhood Object Loss in the Josef Breuer-Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.)-Sigmund Freud Relationship,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 16, no. 4 (1968): 711–39. 90. These are among the most famous photographs of both women. In the novel, they are described as follows: “In the photograph she [Lou Andreas-Salome] ´ handed Breuer, two men [Nietzsche, Paul Ree] were standing before a cart; she was kneeling inside it, brandishing a small whip” (21). “Bertha … was dressed for riding. Her jacket constricted her: a double row of small buttons, stretching from her tiny waist to her chin, struggled to contain her mighty bosom. Her left hand daintily clasped both her skirt and a long riding whip. From her other hand, gloves dangled” (224). Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept.

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first book, Studies in Hysteria. … The case of Anna O., described in it, occurred in 1882, so the timing was perfect. I had my time, I had my man, Nietzsche, and then, finally, I had my therapist.91 Yalom explains on his website that he intended this novel, together with another of his works, Lying on the Couch, as pedagogical tools, “teaching stories and a new genre—the teaching novel.” He notes that both books have been immense commercial successes (best sellers that have been translated into fifteen to twenty languages) despite mixed reviews from critics. 92 Joseph Coates, for example, praises Yalom’s “firm grasp of Nietzsche’s thought” and calls the novel “the best dramatization of a great thinker’s thought since Sartre’s ‘The Freud Scenario.’” But he faults the novel for its “clunky B-movie dialogue.”93 The romance novel quality of the novel is also discernible in Breuer’s numerous sexual fantasies about Bertha Pappenheim, one of which reads as follows: “Bertha slowly and shyly unbuttoning her hospital gown; a naked Bertha entering trance; Bertha cupping her breast and beckoning him; his mouth filled with her soft, jutting nipple; Bertha parting her lips, whispering, ‘Take me,’ and tugging him to her. Breuer throbbed with desire”…94 In another review, D. M. Thomas criticizes Yalom’s failure to do justice to Pappenheim and Lou Andreas-Salome, ´ for not allowing them to “take the 95 stage as more than extras.” However, in the case of Bertha Pappenheim, whose career as a social worker, activist, and writer did not begin until the mid-nineties, a more substantive role would scarcely have been believable, given the novel’s 1882 setting. Yalom goes as far as he can by letting Breuer credit her with the discovery of the talking cure: “Thanks to Bertha—she is an extraordinarily creative woman—I discovered an entirely new principle of 91. Interview by Dulcy Brainard, Publishers Weekly August 17, 1992. Irvin D. Yalom’s Web site, http://www.yalom.com/ (accessed February 4. 2004). Yalom elaborates in his afterword: “Nietzsche and Breuer never met…. Nonetheless, the life situation of the major characters is grounded in fact, and the essential components of this novel—Breuer’s mental anguish, Nietzsche’s despair, Anna O., Lou Salome, ´ Freud’s relationship with Breuer, the ticking embryo of psychotherapy—were all historically in place in 1882.” Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept, 303. 92. Irvin D. Yalom’s Web site, http://www.yalom.com/ (accessed February 4. 2004). 93. Joseph Coates, “Placing Nietzsche at the Dawn of Psychoanalysis,” review of When Nietzsche Wept, by Irvin D. Yalom, Chicago Tribune, July 26,1992. 94. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept, 172. 95. D. M. Thomas, “Philosopher on the Couch,” review of When Nietzsche Wept, by Irvin D. Yalom, Washington Post, July 26, 1992.

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treatment.”96 While Breuer’s adolescent sexual fantasies about Pappenheim could certainly be read as a crude objectification of women, they are consistent with Yalom’s presentation of Breuer’s condition as a mid-life crisis. When Breuer cannot take his eyes off Andreas-Salome’s ´ “bosom” as they talk, this reflects the male character’s (not necessarily the author’s) inability to focus on the female intellectual’s other attributes. Yalom is guilty, however, of perpetuating the mistaken belief that Andreas-Salome´ was a parasitic intellectual whose reputation rested not on her own creative achievements but on those of the men to whom she attached herself. Yalom’s Andreas-Salome´ seductively confesses: “I’ve always enjoyed basking in the presence of great minds— perhaps because I need models for my own development, perhaps because I collect them. But I do know I feel privileged to converse with a man of your depth and range.”97 In September 1992, the same year that Yalom’s novel appeared, The Mystery of Anna O., a play written by Jerome Coopersmith and Lucy Freeman and directed by Yanna Kroyt Brandt, premiered at the John Houseman Studio Theater in New York.98 Like Freeman’s biography, the play examines the relationship between the patient Anna O. and the highly productive social worker and activist Bertha Pappenheim. The play extends into the 1950s, depicting a fictional confrontation between Chicago journalist and Pappenheim admirer Stephanie Gardener, and Freud biographer Ernest Jones.99 The Mystery of Anna O. offers a new variation on common criticisms of 96. Yalom, When Nietzsche Wept, 41. 97. Ibid., 7. See Biddy Martin’s Woman and Modernity for a discussion of how critics have “diminished or denied” Andreas-Salome’s ´ talents and accomplishments “by subordinating them to what they take to be her seductiveness, false self-representations, dilettantism and opportunism…” Biddy Martin, Woman and Modernity: The (Life)Styles of Lou Andreas-Salome´ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 1. 98. Jerome Coopersmith (born 1925 in New York) is the author of the libretto for Baker Street, a Sherlock Holmes musical, for which he received a Tony nomination in 1965. He is the author of numerous librettos, plays, television specials and series, including Johnny Jupiter and Hawaii Five-O. Contemporary Authors Online, s.v. “Jerome Coopersmith.” Jerome Coopersmith and Lucy Freeman, “The Mystery of Anna O.,” MS.; Lawrence Van Gelder, review of The Mystery of Anna O., by Jerome Coopersmith and Lucy Freeman, directed by Yanna Kroyt Brandt, New York Times, September 23, 1992, Current Events Edition, C16. 99. Coopersmith writes: “The character of Stephanie Gardener is fictional. In a way, it is based on Lucy. A reporter in Chicago at the time of the psychoanalytic convention, she did in fact interview Ernest Jones (whom she described as testy and acerbic). But Lucy did not argue with him about the identity of Anna O, and Lucy was not raised in Pappenheim’s

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Freud and his followers’ mishandling of the Anna O. case study: Jones’s famous indiscretion (revealing Anna O.’s identity in his Freud biography) was possible only because of Breuer and Freud’s own earlier breeches of confidentiality; Breuer omitted from the published case study the fact that Breuer’s treatment had only limited success; the unverifiable pseudocyesis; and some critics’ speculations that Bertha Pappenheim was a simulator. Like Freeman’s mentor Dora Edinger, Stephanie Gardener faults Jones for claiming in his Freud biography that Anna O. was Bertha Pappenheim. She is not concerned with a breach of doctor-patient confidentiality, however. She objects because she is convinced that Anna O. was not Bertha Pappenheim (although Pappenheim too was Breuer’s patient and was treated in a sanatorium). According to Gardener, the real Anna O. died, addicted to morphine, in a sanatorium, where Breuer had hidden her (to protect his own reputation) when she became pregnant with his child. The foundation myth of psychoanalysis was a lie because the false labor was not false and the woman in labor was not Bertha Pappenheim. However, the lie was not Jones’s or Freud’s lie but Breuer’s. Stephanie Gardener tells Jones: “I think [Freud] told you what he thought was true. What he wanted to be true. He told you what Breuer told him”100 In the play, both Jones and Gardener remain stubbornly attached to their theories. Unwilling to budge, each (psycho-)analyzes the other’s motivations for clinging to a particular version of the story. Gardener insists that Jones shares his “profession’s desperate need to defend Dr. Breuer,” because he is afraid that the truth will cause the “foundation of a science … [to] crumble.”101 When he learns that Gardener left psychoanalysis after overhearing two analysts make jokes about their clients over dinner, Jones suggests, “I wonder, was your anger so great that you carry it over to all practitioners?”102 In the production of The Mystery of Anna O., Bertha Pappenheim is played by the actress who also plays Gardener. This doubling underscores Gardener’s identification with Pappenheim, suggesting that it is an additional motive for her unwillingness to accept that Anna O. was Bertha Pappenheim. Indeed, in her conversation with Jones, Gardener divulges that she was the

Home for Jewish Girls. Those things were invented by me as devices for telling the story.” Jerome Coopersmith, letter to the author, July 1, 2003. 100. Coopersmith and Freeman, The Mystery of Anna O., I-11. 101. Ibid., I-12, II-5/6. 102. Ibid., II-5/6.

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illegitimate daughter of a prostitute and had grown up in Pappenheim’s home for girls. Pappenheim’s appearances in the play, however, also corroborate Jones’s theory. During a flashback to Pappenheim at a performance of her own play, Jones interprets the drama biographically, “The play reflect[s] the experience of Anna O exactly! The loss of her father … being spurned by an imagined lover…”103 In another flashback, Bertha Pappenheim tells a Russian countess that an excellent Jewish doctor saved her life.104 Finnish-American composer Kari Henrik Juusela’s “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland: A Chamber Opera” of the same year as Yalom’s novel and Freeman and Coopersmith’s play depicts yet another fictional encounter, a chance meeting of Pappenheim and Freud at the Dreamland amusement park at Coney Island in 1909.105 Like the encounters between Breuer, AndreasSalome, ´ and Nietzsche in When Nietzsche Wept, the 1909 encounter between Freud and Pappenheim is fictional but theoretically possible. Both visited the United States (including New York) that year. Pappenheim attended the International Women’s Congress in Toronto in June 1909, and during this trip she spent several weeks in New York, where she visited Lillian D. Wald’s Henry Street Settlement.106 In September of 1909 Freud presented “Five Lectures 103. Coopersmith and Freeman, The Mystery of Anna O., II-18. Coopersmith identifies the play within the play as A Woman’s Right [Frauenrecht]. Jerome Coopermith, Letter to the author. July 1, 2003. However, the lover in Frauenrecht is not an imaginary lover but a very real one, who left behind not only a jilted woman but a child. Although the audience of The Mystery of Anna O. would scarcely know Pappenheim’s play, if they did, Jones’s intentional misrepresentation of its plot would support Gardener’s version. It is also noteworthy that Jones associates Pappenheim with the character of the unwed mother rather than with the philanthropically inclined wife, who learns that her husband had fathered the illegitimate child of the poor dying woman she has been trying to help. Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.], Frauenrecht. 104. Coopersmith and Freeman, The Mystery of Anna O., II-9. 105. Kari Hendrik Juusela, “‘Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland’: a Chamber Opera,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 1992). Juusela describes his musical role-models, “The pitch language and style of the orchestra music pays homage to great composers of the early twentieth century including: Charles Ives, Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Edgar Varese.” The title refers to the well-known song “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland,” composed by Leo Friedman and Beth Slater Whitson for the 1909 musical In the Good Old Summertime. Juusela is currently Dean of the Professional Writing Division at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Kari Hendrik Juusela’s Web site, http://karijuusela.com/ (accessed June 25, 2006). 106. Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O., 19; “Fraulein ¨ Bertha Pappenheim

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on Psycho-Analysis” at Clark University, marking the first major acceptance of his theories by the scientific community.107 In the opera, this chance meeting between the two at the height of their respective careers forces both Freud and Pappenheim to reassess their life’s work.108 In scene two, the roles of analyst and patient are temporarily reversed. Pappenheim finds Freud on the couch in an anteroom of the performance hall, where he fainted after being insulted by his protege ´ ´ Jung, who called him “A has-been! Just taking up space.”109 At first, Pappenheim asks the questions and Freud (not knowing who she is) does the soul-searching: Freud: Usually they squabble like roosters. Bertha: Is that really what’s upset you so much? Freud: They wish I were already dead! They forgot about the years I worked alone scorned and rejected!110 When she reveals her identity they become combative. Each attacks where the other is most vulnerable. Freud dismisses Pappenheim as an hysteric, as “deluded today as [she was] 30 years ago.”111 Her social work and activism are a sublimation of her illness. When she fights prostitution and aids unwed mothers and agunot, she is actually rescuing herself, the whore who gave birth to the child of another woman’s husband and was then deserted by her lover. For the first time in these fictional works, however, Pappenheim talks back, in Amerika,” Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 26, no. 30 (July 23, 1909): 515; Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim, 113–15. See also Ishbel Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen and Temair, Our Lady of the Sunshine and Her International Visitors: A Series of Impressions Written by Representatives of the Various Delegations Attending the Quinquennial Meeting of the International Council of Women in Canada, June 1909 (London: Constable, 1909); Report of the International Congress of Women Held in Toronto, Canada, June 24th-30th, 1909, Under the Auspices of The National Council of Women of Canada. 2 vols. (Toronto: George Parker and Sons, 1910). 107. Anna O. featured prominently in the first of the “Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis.” Sigmund Freud, “Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis,” in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, 11: 9–55. See especially the “First lecture,” 9–20. 108. Bertha Pappenheim appears in various guises in the opera: as herself in 1909, as Anna O. (in a series of flashbacks), and as Annie, the young American social worker from the Coney Island Rescue Mission who accompanies her to Dreamland. In the final Act Annie bleeds to death from a botched abortion that she underwent the day before. Hence, Bertha Pappenheim meets not only Freud in Dreamland, but two other versions of herself. 109. Juusela, “‘Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland’,” 73. 110. Ibid., 80–83. 111. Ibid., 113.

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reclaiming her status as the true mother of psychoanalysis and the talking cure. She calls Freud a “fraud,” a “quack,” and only the stepfather of psychoanalysis: “Psychoanalysis was born in scandal! It’s Dr. Breuer’s abandoned child! And mine!”112 Another attack on Freud is the basis of Dori Appel’s two-act play Freud’s Girls, which deals with Freud’s (mis)treatment of two famous female patients (Emma Eckstein and Dora Bauer), as witnessed by a committee of female critics: Bertha Pappenheim, Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), Anaıs ¨ Nin (1903– 1977), and Marie Farrar.113 Each witness is uniquely qualified to critique Freud’s “scandalous treatment” of Emma and Dora. Pappenheim, as Anna O., was deserted by her doctor, whose published case study falsely portrayed her as cured by the talking cure. Novelist Virginia Woolf, a survivor of sibling molestation/incest, was a bisexual woman married to a man, suffered from mental illness and repeated lengthy breakdowns, and eventually committed suicide.114 Anaıs ¨ Nin was deserted by her father as a child, later had an incestuous affair with him, and achieved renown as a writer of erotica and diaries. She was the patient and later lover of Otto Rank, who belonged to the inner circle of the early psychoanalytic movement until his 1924 study The Trauma of Birth initiated a break with that movement.115 Marie Farrar is the subject of Bertolt Brecht’s ballad “The Infanticide of Marie Farrar” (1922), an orphaned servant girl who was executed for infanticide.116 Her unwanted baby survived an attempted illegal abortion, numerous folk treatments (drinking gasoline with pepper, wearing a tightly laced corset), hard physical labor throughout pregnancy and labor, and Marie’s fervent prayers for a miscarriage. The baby was eventually born in a freezing outhouse. Dori Appel is a playwright, clinical psychologist and family therapist, and animal rights advocate. Her background as a psychodramatist clearly informs 112. Ibid., 105–16. 113. Dori Appel, “Freud’s Girls: A Play in Two Acts.” MS. The play has won several awards, including the Oregon Book Award in Drama (1998). It premiered in a student production at Yale College, Wales, UK (2001) and has had readings in Oregon, Seattle, and New York. Dori Appel, Playwright Web site, http://www.geocities.com/doriappel/ (accessed June 26, 2006). 114. See Hermione Lee, Virginia Woolf (London: Chatto and Windus, 1996). 115. Otto Rank, Das Trauma der Geburt und seine Bedeutung fur ¨ die Psychoanalyse (Leipzig: Internationaler Psycholanalytischer Verlag, 1924). See Deirdre Bair, Anaıs ¨ Nin: A Biography (New York: Putnam, 1995). 116. Bertolt Brecht, “Von der Kindesmorderin ¨ Marie Farrar,” in Hauspostille (Berlin: Propylaen ¨ Verlag, 1927).

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“Freud’s Girls.”117 Psychodrama, a therapeutic technique developed by Jacob L. Moreno, “employs guided dramatic action to examine problems or issues raised by an individual (psychodrama) or a group (sociodrama).”118 In Appel’s play, the “committee” (Pappenheim, Woolf, Nin, and Marie Farrar) act as unseen and unheard witnesses to and critics of the happenings in Freud’s consultation and waiting rooms and at other sites (called “excursions”). While the dialogue between the individual committee members and Freud and his colleagues is one-sided (Freud does not hear the women’s critiques), their voices do not go unheard. A second dialogue develops among the committee members, who lend each other sympathetic but not uncritical ears. By witnessing the fates of other women that in some ways mirror their own histories, and through the support they get from each other, the witnesses are compelled to take a closer look at their own pasts and to reassess their own relationships to the male psychoanalytical establishment. At the start of “Freud’s Girls,” Bertha Pappenheim is portrayed as a largely uncritical advocate of Freudian psychoanalysis who takes pride in the role she played in its origins. In the play’s prelude, Bertha “gives a quick pleased glance behind her, then sits up taller, nodding enthusiastically” when Freud (at a meeting at the Vienna Society of Psychiatry and Neurology) refers to the “momentous discovery of [his] colleague Dr. Josef Breuer.”119 In stark contrast to the historical Pappenheim, who concealed this part of her past and was skeptical of psychoanalysis’s efficacy, Appel’s Pappenheim admonishes her fellow witnesses to remain neutral and fair. When Virginia and Anaıs ¨ call the consultation room the “inquisitor’s chamber” and an “enchanter’s lair” and Anaıs ¨ refers to the female patient as a “lamb … brought to slaughter,” Pappenheim objects. “You are so dramatic! Can’t we simply say, ‘The patient comes for treatment’?”120 And later: “We are witnesses. The fair witnesses… we must also be fair to Dr. Freud’s important contributions…. Most important, his discovery of the unconscious.”121 However, after witnessing Freud and Fliess’s malpractice in the treatment of Emma, who was disfigured by Fliess’s botched (and probably unnecessary) 117. Dori Appel’s Web site, http://www.geocities.com/doriappel/ (accessed November 5, 2003). 118. American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama Web site, “General Information about Psychodrama,” http://www.asgpp.org/pdrama1.htm (accessed April 19, 2006). 119. Appel, “Freud’s Girls,” Prelude-2. 120. Ibid., I:8–30/31. 121. Ibid., I:14–53/54.

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surgery and nearly died from excessive postoperative bleeding (dismissed by her male doctors as “hysterical”), Bertha takes Dora’s part when she justifies her decision to quit treatment: Dora [talking back to Freud’s presentation of her case]: I was eighteen years old, psychoanalysis was eroding what little confidence I had, and so I quit. How can that possibly be viewed as revenge? Bertha: Always he is at the center of the universe. Freud: Her breaking off treatment so unexpectedly, just when my hopes of success were at the highest, and thus bringing these hopes to nothing—this was an unmistakable act of vengeance on her part. Bertha: And that’s a bit of paranoia on yours!122 Ultimately, Appel’s Bertha condemns the relegation of women to marginal and passive roles in Freudian psychoanalysis: Women were valued primarily as case studies, and when they were allowed into the ranks of psychoanalysts, they were to remain passive and obedient members of the psychoanalytic cadre. Bertha assesses Emma’s fate: He has made her an analyst. This is her reward for being such a good girl. After three years of treatment with him, Emma gets to see her own patients, and even to write papers, like the one called, “The Question of Sexuality in the Raising of Children.” … As time went on, she got feistier, quarreled with Freud, and lost her favored position. Then, when she insisted that she had an organic problem and consulted a female physician, Freud became very angry.123 When Bertha laments that Dora is “Buried and forgotten, like her real name,” she is also lamenting her own history.124 First, the erasure of her name from the Anna O. case study obscured her active role in the discovery of the talking cure and the history of psychoanalysis (even if this was not a role she embraced). Later, her role as a leader of German-Jewish women was forgotten when her followers scattered, fleeing National Socialist oppression, or became victims of the Holocaust. When her name was recovered by Jones, who revealed that she was Anna O., her own achievements as a writer, social worker, and activist were overshadowed by her role in the origins of psychoanalysis. 122. Ibid., II:11–107. 123. Ibid., II:11–110/111. 124. Ibid., II:11–113.

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The work of the two most recent artists in my survey, the husband-wife duo Michaela Melian ´ and Thomas Meinecke, can be characterized as a pointedly inter- or multi-disciplinary, egalitarian, and symbiotic collaborative. Whereas Freud (according to some feminist critics and authors) and his followers de-emphasized collaboration (especially the collaboration of women) to propagate the myth of the creation of psychoanalysis by a solitary male genius, the ideal of an intense, yet broadly inclusive intellectual collaboration—made possible by newer means of communication (especially e-mail) and postmodern understandings of gender identities and roles—is thematized in Meinecke’s novel Hellblau (Light Blue), which features Bertha Pappenheim.125 The novel can be read as a model for a postmodern collaboration challenging traditional modes of scholarship and art, whose conventions have generally demanded a principal investigator, single author, or creative genius. The novel, a postmodern epistolary novel, consists largely of a flood of e-mails, copies, and faxes exchanged among four friends: (1) Tillmann, a German writer living in Ocracoke, North Carolina; (2) Yolanda, who grew up in Bitburg as an “army brat” and is collaborating with Tillmann on an unnamed book project; (3) Cordula, Tillmann’s ex-girlfriend in Berlin, who has a passionate interest in music, especially techno;126 (4) Heinrich, Yolanda’s ex-boyfriend, who studies National Socialism and Bitburg. A fifth central figure, Tillmann’s Jewish-American girlfriend Vermilion, is writing a dissertation at Duke on Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn. She commutes between Durham, Chapel Hill, and Ocracoke. The novel’s portrait of Pappenheim is multiply mediated. Tillmann reports what Vermilion tells him that she has read about Pappenheim in Boyarin’s Unheroic Conduct. Later, Tillmann reads and quotes from the work himself, using Vermilion’s copy of the book. His reading is filtered through Vermilion’s reading, which is, in turn, dictated by the parameters of her dissertation project. Passages in her book are underlined, marked, and notated, and Tillmann has already read her work in progress over her shoulder while she works at the computer. His reading is punctuated by their comments to one another on the subjects of the book: I flip back a few pages: Jewish self-hatred as a chapter in Vermilion’s 125. Thomas Meinecke, Hellblau (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 2001). 126. Techno is a sequence-driven, rhythm-oriented style of electronic dance music that originated in Detroit in the early 1980s. Although it failed to gain mainstream success in the United States, it became a huge phenomenon in Europe by the early 1990s.

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dissertation, completed shortly before her return to Ocracoke. Jewish self-hatred as the feminine self-hating of misogynist men. At the same time, the matter could also be viewed the other way around, namely as expressly positive. Hasn’t overcoming the traditional concept of masculinity been the issue for a long time now? Of course. It’s logical. Vermilion says she wants to investigate now how the rejection of the Zionist State of Israel (which is expressly masculinely encoded) by Hasidism (which is, in comparison, more femininely encoded) corresponds to this model. Vermilion tells me, for the first time, about the semesters she spent studying Yiddish in Austin, Texas. About Bertha Pappenheim’s thesis that Yiddish is Women’s German.127 As illustrated by the passage above, Tillmann’s exposure to Boyarin’s ideas is mediated by Vermilion, but it is not passive. Through his own critical reading of Boyarin, Tillmann enters Vermilion’s research as an active contributor: A logical observation that I would like to present to Vermilion tomorrow: If the study of the holy scrolls in secluded study rooms is reserved exclusively for men, and conversely, as the logical extension of this, reading secular books is an activity carried out predominately by women (think of Pearl Abraham)… then feminism should always have had markedly Jewish traits, from the start.128 The novel is “about” radical de-centering, a blurring of boundaries between disciplines, between individual writers and scholars (it is not always clear who is writing the individual missives that comprise the novel; books and articles are paraphrased and quoted but not cited), between art and criticism, and between traditional identity categories (race, gender, nationality, ethnicity). In the novel, life becomes performance art (or more aptly performed cultural criticism). In accordance with her own observation that she can’t really “turn off” her work, and Tillmann’s observation that even their “love scenes”129 are “in a way, scientific, in character”—their bed and Tillmanns’s body become the stage for the enactment of Vermilion’s scholarly investigations. Having read in Boyarin that the clitoris was called “the Jew” in the Viennese slang of Freud’s time, Vermilion leads Tillmann’s hand to her clitoris, inviting him to, “play with [her] Jew.”130 Alluding to a Jewish joke that the only difference 127. Meinecke, Hellblau, 98. 128. Ibid., 195. 129. My emphasis. 130. Meinecke, Hellblau, 98, 89, 94.

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between man and woman is that the woman is not circumcised, she refers to Tillmann’s uncircumcised penis as his “Jew.” Fascinated by the operation that Tillmann underwent to correct phimosis (a tight foreskin that will not retract), a surrogate or “almost” circumcision, Vermilion uses Tillmann (a non-Jewish German male) as a test ground for her theories on Jewish gendering, “the topos of the Jewish man as a kind of woman.”131 She calls Tillmann Venus. She dresses him in Hasidic women’s fashions. She first urges him to grow his hair long and styles it with a curling iron (like a woman’s) but then fashions peyes (traditionally worn only by men) from the long hair. She shaves his body hair (which is supposedly considered unattractive among Hasidim), but also begs to shave his head (like a married Hasidic woman). By dressing him as a Jewish woman, she is also dressing him as her intellectual idol Boyarin, who mused that he would have his portrait painted wearing Bertha Pappenheim’s clothes.132 She then herself enacts the role of the “traditional” (according to Boyarin) Jewish wife. When Tillmann’s stipend expires, she works to pay his rent (also accepting money from her parents to support him, a variation on kest), enabling him to study unencumbered. The disciplinary border crossings, the merging of life, work, and art, and the collaborations in Meinecke’s novel have corollaries in Meinecke’s work and the work of the husband and wife team Melian-Meinecke. ´ Meinecke wrote his novel Tomboy, whose cover is graced by Melian’s ´ drawing “Tomboy,” while she worked on her “Tomboy series,” which explored questions of identity and “ascribed gender.”133 Daniel Boyarin’s Unheroic Conduct (recommended to Melian ´ by Irit Rogoff) links Melian’s ´ project Projektion to Meinecke’s Hellblau.134 Hellblau, which extends the exploration of identity formation beyond gender to include national, racial, ethnic, religious, and other identities, is the natural extension of Meinecke’s Tomboy, Melian’s ´ “Tomboy” series, and the couple’s work in the band F.S.K, which has, since its inception in 1980, challenged notions of fixed or inherent identity: Long before the advent of the unspeakable discussion about “German Pop Identity”, FSK was the only band that was already making fun of “German identity” with purely musical means, via its easy mix of polka, folk music and country. FSK presented German cliches ´ as viewed from 131. Ibid., 93. 132. Boyarin, Unheroic Conduct, 353. 133. Thomas Meinecke, Tomboy (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1998). Michaela Melian, ´ e-mail message to the author, August 1, 2003. 134. Ibid.

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outside Germany. Therefore Munich could sometimes be found “on the beautiful Rhine River” (am schonen River Rhein).135 ¨ F.S.K.’s border crossings go beyond national music or musical genre boundaries to include “cross-singing”: Melian ´ has performed songs originally sung by male artists and Meinecke has sung titles made popular by Marilyn Monroe. The influence of Meinecke’s music in his novel Hellblau similarly goes beyond the thematic, the inclusion of a sort of ethnomusicology (including explorations of Jews in Jazz and black Jazz musicians who spoke Yiddish, and whether Mariah Carey is indeed black), and the discussion of the business and politics of techno. His prose style is also influenced by his music: in Hellblau, the DJ Meinecke becomes a literary DJ, “sampling” American cultural studies. In an interview, Meinecke suggested that his strategy of “sampling,” which has been criticized by some reviewers as the failure to provide a coherent plot and plastic characters, is representative of a “feminine literature,” as opposed to “masculine literature,” which is characterized by “superficial plots carried out by autonomous subjects”: When I am concerned with decoding the ascription of the dichotomy masculine vs. feminine, I hold on to the fact that reflection, contemplation, and therefore also knowledge, are traditionally feminine-encoded virtues of so-called reception (or conception, in the reproductive sense); and that I have purposely committed myself to these feminine ideals in my writing.136 Michaela Melian’s ´ work features Bertha Pappenheim more directly and prominently than her huband’s does.137 Her recent installation Projektion, which has also been exhibited under the title HysterikerIN (Hysteric), consists 135. Munich is on the Isar, not the Rhine. Martin Busser ¨ and Claudia Mucha, “Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle: Bekenntnis zur Heimatlosigkeit,” satt.org, January 2002, http://www.satt.org/musik/02_01_fsk_2.html (accessed November 17, 2003). 136. Knarf Rellom, ¨ “Atombusen und Dtarzan: Die Geografie des Denkens oder wie heissen eigentlich weibliche Jockeys?,” WoZ-Online, May 30, 2002, http://www.woz.ch/ wozhomepage/music02/meineke.htm (accessed November 17, 2003). 137. Artist and musician Michaela Melian ´ (born 1956) lives and works in Bavaria with her husband Thomas Meinecke (born 1955). They co-edited the magazine Mode und Verweiflung (Fashion and Despair) (1980–86) and are both musicians in the band F.S.K., with whom they have produced numerous albums and toured Europe and the U.S. She has lectured and taught at the Academies of Art in Berlin-Weissensee, Munich, Nuremberg, Vienna, and Stuttgart and at Bauhaus Weimar. Thomas Meinecke is also a radio DJ and a moderator on Bayern 2 Radio’s pop culture magazine Zundfunk. ¨

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of two identical projections of a portrait of Bertha Pappenheim onto silk taffeta: “The projection is permanently visible in duplicate, as a static image and as a back-to-front, moving one cast by the rotating mirror. The two images will never merge, even if, repeatedly, they overlap for a brief instant.”138 The portrait itself is a digital composite sketch (in German Phantombild, literally phantom image) constructed on the police facial-i.d. computer program of the Bavarian State Criminal Investigation Bureau. Since the early 1990s, many of Melian’s ´ works have “dealt with questions of identity and ascribing gender,” and she dedicated several to “women who were marginalized by male historiography…. Among others these include works on Tamara Bunke, Emma Goldman, Charlotte Moorman, Bertha Benz, Hedy Lamarr, Bertha Pappenheim.” Melian ´ was intrigued by the fact that Pappenheim “has always had a sort of key position in feminist literature. The story of her illness as the hysteric Anna O. is very well known, while her own identity as a publicist and feminist remained to a large extent unknown.”139 Melian ´ comments, in a short text which accompanies her Pappenheim installation, on the use of the facial-i.d. program, coupled with the technique of double projection: For this work, the fact that the portrait was generated out of male facial features according to a description (i.e. language) had an additional meaning: the male doctor-female patient relationship, the artist-model relationship.140 The use of the police facial-i.d. program to create a portrait of Pappenheim that is mediated through male features reflects the repression of the biographies of women such as Pappenheim in conventional historiography. In Pappenheim’s case the repression was three-fold: 1) Her active role in the history of psychoanalysis was obscured to favor the representation of a single male genius. 2) As a leader of women and an activist in spheres perceived as women’s domain (children and women’s welfare, the morality question, the women’s movement, etc.), she was marginalized within a history writing that favored achievements in traditionally male spheres. 3) The activist and writer Bertha Pappenheim disappeared behind the case study Anna O.

138. Frank Wagner, “Low Tech-High Concept. The Reenactment of History and Personality in Michaela Melian’s ´ Art Projects,” in Michaela Melian: ´ Triangel, ed. Silvia Eiblmayr, et al. (New York: Lukas and Sternberg: 2003). 139. Michaela Melian, ´ e-mail message to the author, August 1, 2003. 140. Ibid.

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The use of multiple images that never merge entirely although they do briefly overlap alludes to the difficulty that historians, biographers, and critics have in reconciling the various “faces” of Bertha Pappenheim. The title Projection suggests that all representations (historical, psychoanalytical, feminist, biographical, or artistic) of Pappenheim are to some degree “projections” of the artist, scholar, or writer’s own desires. Scholars of various disciplines, artists, biographers, former colleagues, collaborators, supporters, and opponents all have their own image of who Bertha Pappenheim was, what she accomplished, and which of these achievements were most significant and why. These images are shaped by the personal experience, historical context, disciplinary training, and personal and/or professional agenda of the individuals who create them. All of these images will resemble Pappenheim to some degree and at times overlap or merge with the “real” Bertha Pappenheim, but no single reading or rendering will capture her fully.

Afterword The last two chapters of this study have dealt with how diverse “biographers” (loosely defined) and artists have rediscovered Pappenheim, rewritten her biography, retold her story, and renegotiated her identity— sometimes as part of their own negotiations of identity, personal (such as Boyarin’s search for an ego-ideal) or professional (such as psychoanalysts and psychiatrists’ endeavors to define their place within the history and traditions of their disciplines). While this story is certainly not complete, one of its more recent chapters represents a homecoming of sorts for Pappenheim. In 2003, two GermanJewish women, Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig, ¨ re-issued Pappenheim’s Prayers and read one of them as the invocation at the opening session of Bet Debora 2003: The Third European Jewish Women’s Conference of Rabbis, Jewish Politicians, Activists and Scholars. Bet Debora, a loose network of European Jewish women that meets every two years, is not the direct descendant of Pappenheim’s JFB. In fact, the JFB, which was re-established in post-Shoah Germany, is still in existence. With headquarters in Frankfurt a.M., one of its primary missions is the integration of Russian Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union into the German-Jewish community. While this project mirrors in some ways the first JFB’s work with Eastern European Jewish immigrants at the beginning of the last century, it also reflects the new realities of this immigrant generation. Whereas the earlier newcomers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century were typically more religious than their German counterparts, now the reverse is true, and the women of the JFB focus their energies on offering basic courses in Judaism and its religious observance.1 The founders of Bet Debora also see themselves as heirs to the tradition of the JFB. In addition to honoring Pappenheim, the Third Conference also honored Berta Falkenberg,

1. A recent membership survey showed that roughly 2/3 of the members of today’s JFB are immigrants. Since 1996 the number of local chapters, which had been stagnant since 1974, has grown from fewer than 10 to 32, due to immigration from the former Soviet Union. The Judischer ¨ Frauenbund in Deutschland, Homepage, http://www.juedischer frauenbund.org/css/index.htm (accessed September 6, 2006).

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head of the Berlin chapter of the JFB from 1924-1938, by placing a plaque on her former home in Berlin. As with other individuals and organizations who have claimed Pappenheim as a foremother, however, Pappenheim may not have embraced Bet Debora’s adulation without reservation or retort. Would she have approved of Lara Dammig ¨ encouraging a group of women to wear kippot to services at a Berlin synagogue? Or Elisa Klapheck seeking ordination as a rabbi? It is impossible to project how Pappenheim would have adapted her outlook and work to the twenty-first century, but her highly controversial speech at the Second Delegates’ Conference of the JFB in 1907 caused a national debate in the German-Jewish press, and her first-hand inspections of brothels certainly caused greater outrage than the few raised eyebrows elicited by Dammig’s ¨ yarmulka. Even during her lifetime, Pappenheim openly criticized her young successors in the leadership of the JFB, whose membership included increasing numbers of women whose religious or political affiliations or life-style choices were not in accord with her own (Zionists and married professionals, for example). Yet she never abandoned the organization, and she never allowed religious and political differences to impede collaborative work towards a common goal. Although Pappenheim may not have been overjoyed at the prospect of Klapheck’s career goal, she may have at least been comforted by Klapheck’s choice to be trained and ordained through the rabbinical studies program of the New York-based ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, which defines itself as non-denominational or trans- or post-denominational and is devoted to bringing “creativity, relevance, joy, and an all embracing awareness to spiritual practice,” promoting social justice, and ensuring that “men and women are full and equal partners in every aspect of our communal Jewish life.”2 Klapheck was attracted to Renewal for the same reasons that Pappenheim steadfastly resisted categorization as Orthodox, Liberal, Reform, etc. Like Pappenheim, Klapheck believes that traditional denominational labels only cause conflicts and are counterproductive, divisive, and alienating.3 Pappenheim would certainly also have understood and respected Klapheck’s matter-of-fact and unapologetic self-identification as German and

2. ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal, “ALEPH’s statement of principles,” http://www.aleph.org/principles.html (accessed September 6, 2006). 3. Rainer Mayer, “Judisch, ¨ deutsch, Rabbinerin: Mit Elisa Klapheck tritt die dritte Rabbinerin in Deutschland an,” Aufbau: Das Judische ¨ Monatsmagazin, January 29, 2004, http://www.aufbauonline.com/aufbau/ausgaben/2004/issue02/7.html.

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Jewish: “I am a German, a German Jew.” After visiting Israel in 1989, Klapheck, a direct descendant of victims and survivors of the Holocaust, concluded that Germany, not Israel, was her home. She confided to Volker Resing that “she doesn’t ask herself anymore whether she belongs here. In spite of Germany’s history.” With other German-Jewish community leaders of her generation, Klapheck seeks to shift the focus in Europe from the Holocaust past to a renewal of Jewish life in the present and future. To this end, she tries to reconnect with the history of European Jewry (before it was all but destroyed) by recovering the silenced voices of past female Jewish leaders such as Bertha Pappenheim and Germany’s first female rabbi, Regina Jonas.4 Pappenheim may or may not have approved of the large numbers of female rabbis, religious scholars, and politicians at the Third Conference of Bet Debora. Nevertheless, the theme of the conference, “Power and Responsibility,” and the related questions it posed resonate with the questions she herself asked throughout her career as social worker, activist, and leader. The invitation to the conference promised discussion of the following: How does Jewish tradition relate to the themes of “women and power”? What do the rabbinic teachings have to say? Which important Jewish women have contributed significantly to the remodeling of Judaism? To what extent did these women also influence non-Jewish society? What is the perspective for active women today in Jewish communities of Germany and Europe in general? What are the arenas of their political, social or educational work? What is their status in the community? How much recognition do they receive, in comparison to men? In what ways does their commitment to the Jewish community connect them with the non-Jewish majority? To what extent are Jewish women able to define their roles? How much influence can they have on, for example, the content of Jewish educational material? How strongly do they express themselves on general topics that affect Jewish women? Do their voices reach the existing authorities? Do women listen to each other? To what extent does Europe’s new political framework present special challenges to Jewish women? Do women bring unique viewpoints on questions related to such topics as the integration of Russian-

4 Volker Resing, “Wiederentdeckter Glaube: Elisa Klapheck kampft ¨ fur ¨ ein modernes europaisches ¨ Judentum,” Programm: Zeitung der Katholischen Akademie in Berlin e.V., 2, no. 4 (2003): 7.

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speaking immigrants; multi-cultural society; Jewish-Islamic dialog; fundamentalism; immigration policies?5 Pappenheim would doubtless have been pleased that a new generation of German-Jewish women was searching in her name for answers to these questions, and that her “Prayer of a Chairwoman before the Meeting,” was guiding their efforts: Strength, strength Send with me the flame on my journey So that its light may show me the way And I will not err from the path Through you, to you. Strength, strength Help me amid the tangle of voices So that I do not, misled by the noise Fail to find the words Through you, for you. Strength, strength Let me, in breath and heartbeat Be filled by the rhythm That carries justice and truth From you, to you.6

5 Bet Debora, “Invitation to the Third European Jewish Women’s Conference of Rabbis, Jewish Politicians, Activists and Scholars,” http://www.bet-debora.de/2003/anmel dung/tagung-e.htm (accessed September 6, 2006). 6. Bertha Pappenheim, “Gebet einer Vorsitzenden vor der Sitzung,” dated January 22/23, 1928, in Gebete (Berlin: Philo, 1936).

Bibliography ARCHIVES Albert Einstein Archives, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Correspondence with Bertha Pappenheim (Non-Scientific Correspondence, P folder I, 47–802, 47–803) American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati Felix Warburg, correspondence with Bertha Pappenheim (Warburg Collection, Box 185 Folder 3 General Correspondence and Box 214 Folder 3 General Correspondence) Archiv Bibliographia Judaica, Frankfurt a.M. Bertha Pappenheim file David Simonsen Archives, Judaica Collection, The Royal Library, The National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library Correspondence with Bertha Pappenheim (Bertha Pappenheim file) Helene Lange Archiv, Berlin Akte Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, Korrespondenz mit dem Judischen ¨ Frauenbund (LAB B Rep. 235–01 MF-Nr. 2213–2214) Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a.M. Allgemeine Verhaltnisse ¨ der Schuler ¨ und Schulerinnen ¨ der Peters(mittel)schule (Schulamt 323) Animierkneipen (Magistratsakten T/380) Bertha Pappenheim (Sammlung Personengeschichte S2/153) Bertha Pappenheim Collection (S1/324) Verein Weibliche Fursorge ¨ (Magistratsakten S/1.984) Deutscher Ausschuß fur ¨ Gefahrdetenfursorge ¨ ¨ (Wohlfahrtsamt 328) Freiherrlich-Wilhelm-Carl-von-Rothschildsche Stiftung fur ¨ wohltatige ¨ und gemeinnutzige ¨ Zwecke i.sp. Unterstutzungen ¨ fur ¨ Vereine (Magistratsakten V/539) Versorgung der Pfleglinge, Kost- und Ziehkinder; Sauglingsfursorge ¨ ¨ (Magistratsakten R/1.566) Wilhelm- und Auguste-Viktoria-Stiftung fur ¨ Sauglingsfursorge ¨ ¨ (Magistratsakten R/23) Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. Dora Edinger Papers (contains “unechter Nachlaß” Bertha Pappenheim) (B 86/735, B 86/738, A 319, A 478-A 488) Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York Collections: Klara Caro (AR 4808) Dora Edinger (AR 4182) Stephen Kamberg and Bertha Pappenheim (AR 6578) Helene Kramer ¨ (AR 2046) Lilli Liegner (AR 1228, 3902, 4503) Bertha Pappenheim (AR 54, AR 331, AR 332)

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Ottilie Schonewald ¨ (AR 3896) Ella Werner (AR 3079) Memoirs: Karminski, Hannah. “An die fernen Freunde von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim.” (ME 497) Livneh, Emmy (ME 397) Rothschild-Lichtenberg, Friedel. “Reminiscences of a Frankfurt Childhood.” (ME 521) Schonewald, ¨ Ottilie. “Lebenserinnerungen, 1883–1946.” (ME 574) Seligmann, Caesar. “Mein Leben: Erinnerungen Eines Grossvaters. Geschrieben am 8. Kislew 5694 (26. November 1934), nach Unterbrechungen fortgesetzt und abgeschlossen am 18. August 1941.” (ME 595) Susman, Margarete. “Ich habe viele Leben gelebt: Erinnerungen.” (ME 637) Martin Buber Archives, Department of Manuscripts and Archives, The Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem Correspondence with Bertha Pappenheim (Arc.Ms.Var. 350/568) Seminar- und Gedenkstatte ¨ Bertha Pappenheim, Neu-Isenburg, Germany Materialsammlung zur Entstehung und Arbeit der Bertha-Pappenheim-Haus- Initiativgruppe, Neu-Isenburg NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS (Published before 1945) Abwehrblatter: ¨ Mitteilungen aus dem Verein zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums Altneuland: Monatsschrift fur ¨ die wirtschaftliche Erschliessung Palastinas ¨ Bayerische Israelitische Gemeindezeitung Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes C.V.-Zeitung Dokumente der Frauen Dr. Bloch’s Oesterreichische Wochenschrift / Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift Ethische Kultur Frankfurter Israelitisches Familienblatt / Neue Judische ¨ Presse Frankfurter Neueste Nachrichten Die Fackel ¨ Frankfurter Wohlfahrtsblatter: ¨ Mitteilungen der sozialen Amter Frankfurts Die Frau Die Freistatt: Alljudische ¨ Revue Gemeindeblatt der Israelitischen Gemeinde Frankfurt am Main / Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt Gemeindeblatt der Judischen ¨ Gemeinde zu Berlin Im deutschen Reich Der Israelit Israelitisches Familienblatt (Hamburg) Israelitisches Wochenblatt fur ¨ die Schweiz Jahrbuch des Bundes Deutscher Frauenvereine Jahrbuch fur ¨ die Judischen ¨ Gemeinden Schleswig-Holsteins und der Hansestadte ¨ Jahrbuch fur ¨ judische ¨ Geschichte und Literatur

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Jeschurun Jewish Review Der Jude Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund: Mitteilungen aus der Bundes- und Vereinsarbeit Judisch-liberale ¨ Zeitung / Judische ¨ Allgemeine Zeitung Juedische Monatshefte (Frankfurt) Judaica (Bratislava) Judische ¨ Presse (Berlin) Judische ¨ Presse: Organ fur ¨ die Interessen des Orthodoxen Judentums (Vienna/Bratislava) Judische ¨ Rundschau Judische ¨ Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik Die literarische Welt Menorah Monatsschrift fur ¨ Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums Der Morgen Neue Bahnen: Organ des Allgemeinen Deutschen Frauenvereins Neue Judische ¨ Monatshefte Orientalistische Literaturzeitung Ost und West Palaestina Simplicissimus Die Wahrheit Die Welt Die Weltbuhne ¨ Zedakah: Mitteilungen der Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der deutschen Juden Zeitschrift fur ¨ Bucherfreunde ¨ Die Zeitschrift des Schwesternverbandes der Bne Briss / Die Logenschwester: Mitteilungsblatt des Schwesternverbandes der U.O.B.B. Logen Zeitschrift fur ¨ Demographie und Statistik der Juden Zeitschrift fur ¨ die Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland WRITINGS OF BERTHA PAPPENHEIM This bibliography includes Bertha Pappenheim’s published and unpublished writings, speeches, and translations. It includes only those items that can be attributed with certainty to Pappenheim. Therefore some texts that may have been written by her (such as unsigned annual reports of organizations that she led) do not appear here. The bibliography includes articles and reports that include speeches and remarks by Pappenheim only when printed verbatim. Some of the titles listed have been reprinted one or more times, either during Pappenheim’s lifetime or posthumously. Except in cases where the first published version is difficult to obtain or the title was published roughly simultaneously in multiple sources, I have generally listed only the first printing. Subsequent posthumous reprintings or English language translations of some of the items listed below can be found in the following publications:

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“Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis.” ¨ Special issue, Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12, nos. 7–8 (July-August 1936). Edinger, Dora, ed. Bertha Pappenheim: Freud’s Anna O. Highland Park, IL: Congregation Solel, 1968. . Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften. Frankfurt a.M.: Ner Tamid, 1963. Guttmann, Melinda Given. The Enigma of Anna O.: A Biography of Bertha Pappenheim. Wickford, R.I.: Moyer Bell, 2001. Heubach, Helga. Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, Taunusstrae 9, 1907 bis 1942, gegrundet ¨ von Bertha Pappenheim. Neu-Isenburg: Magistrat der Stadt Neu-Isenburg, 1986. Heubach, Helga, ed. Sisyphus: Gegen den Madchenhandel ¨ - Galizien. Freiburg i.B.: Kore, 1992. ¨ . “Das unsichtbare Isenburg”: Uber das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in NeuIsenburg, 1907 bis 1942. Frankfurt a.M.: Kulturamt der Stadt Neu-Isenburg, 1994. Jensen, Ellen M. Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim: Ein Fall fur ¨ die Psychiatrie – Ein Leben fur ¨ die Philanthropie. Frankfurt a.M.: ZTV-Verlag, 1984. Karminski, Hannah and Martha Ollendorff, eds. Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims. Berlin: Max Lichtwitz, 1937. Kugler, Lena and Albrecht Koschorke, eds. Bertha Pappenheim (Anna O.): Literarische und publizistische Texte. Vienna: Turia und Kant, 2002. [Pappenheim, Bertha]. Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder. Karlsruhe: G. Braun’sche Hofbuchdruckerei, n.d. Pappenheim, Bertha [P. Berthold, pseud.]. “Eine Aufgabe ethischer Kultur.” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 290. . “Ein Beitrag zur Frage der Madchen-Waisen-Erziehung.” ¨ Die Frau 6, no. 4 (January 1899): 230–32. . “Die Dienstbotenfrage als soziale Frage.” Ethische Kultur 7 (1899): 325–26. . “Ehe und freie Liebe.” Ethische Kultur 8 (1900): 262. . “Es giebt keine Kinder mehr.” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 120–22. . “Frauenfrage und Frauenberuf im Judenthum,” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 61, no. 41 (October 8, 1897): 484–85. . Frauenrecht: Schauspiel in drei Aufzugen. ¨ Dresden: E. Pierson, 1899. . “Eine Frauenstimme uber ¨ Frauenstimmrecht.” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 106–8. . “Gemaßigte ¨ und radikale Frauenbewegung.” Ethische Kultur 7 (1899): 354–55. . “Hauspflege.” Ethische Kultur 8 (1900): 78–79. . In der Trodelbude: ¨ Geschichten. Lahr: Moritz Schauenburg, [1896]. . “Noch ein Wort zum Frauenstimmrecht.” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 143–44. . “Zur Erziehung der weiblichen Jugend in den hoheren ¨ Standen.” ¨ Ethische Kultur 6 (1898): 61–63. . “Zur Frauenfrage vor hundert Jahren.” Ethische Kultur 5 (1897): 405–6. . Zur Judenfrage in Galizien. Frankfurt a.M.: Gebruder ¨ Knauer, 1900. Pappenheim, Bertha [P. Berthold, pseud.], trans. Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau: Mit einer kritischen Bemerkung uber ¨ politische und moralische Gegenstande. ¨ By Mary Wollstonecraft. Dresden: E. Pierson, 1899.

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Pappenheim, Bertha. “An eine wegen Mordes verurteilte Jugendliche.” Letter to L.N., February 7, 1931. In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 16. . “An meine Mitarbeiterinnen der Isenburger Heimkommission.” Letter to [Clem] Cramer, July 1932. In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 99–101. [MS. Helene Kramer ¨ Collection, AR 2046. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York; MS. Dora Edinger Papers, A 484. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.] . “Anregung zu einem freien Zusammenschluß judischer ¨ Eltern,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 5, no. 2 (February 1929): 4. . “Ansprache anlasslich ¨ der Feier des 25 jahrigen ¨ Bestehens des Madchenclubs. ¨ Montag, den 19. Marz ¨ 1928.” In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 88–94. [MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, S1/324. Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a.M.] . “Anstaltserzieher.” (1925) In Karminski and Ollendorff, Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, 12. [ This and other texts from this commemorative volume appeared also in Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 13, no. 6 (June 1937).] . “Antrag. Von der Erfurter Delegiertentagung.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 1, no. 3 (1924): 8. . “Aufgaben der deutschen Judin.” ¨ Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 13, no. 3 (November 1934): 115. [Also in Israelitisches Familienblatt, February 14, 1935 (clipping from Archiv Bibliographia Judaica).] . “Aus dem Bericht des Heims des Jud. ¨ Frauenbundes in Neu-Isenburg von 1912 und 1913.” In Heubach, “Das unsichtbare Isenburg”, 41–42. [According to Heubach, this was first published in Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund: Mitteilungen aus der Bundes- und Vereinsarbeit (June 1914).] . “Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg (1929–1934).” Offprint from Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 10, no. 11 (November 1934). . Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924. Frankfurt a.M.: R.Th. Hauser, 1926. . “Aus der Arbeit des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 1 (January 1930): 1–8. . “Aus einem Brief.” (December 16, 1934). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 33–34. . “Aus einem Erziehungsbericht.” In Karminski and Ollendorff, Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, 8. . “Aus einem Jahresbericht.” (1920). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 6. . “Aus Reisebriefen.” (1909–1912). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 25–27. . “Bemerkungen zum Stundenplan von Vorlehre und 9. Schuljahr.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 12, no. 5 (May 1936): 2–3. . “Bemerkungen zur Arbeit des Agrojoint in einigen judischen ¨ Kolonien Sowjetrußlands.” Der Morgen 4, no. 2 (June 1928): 189–94. . “Bemerkungen zur 2. Judischen ¨ Welt-Hilfskonferenz in Karlsbad. August 1924.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 1, no. 1 (1924): 2–4. . “Bericht des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Neu-Isenburg (1914–1915).” In Heubach “Das unsichtbare Isenburg”, 54–57.

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. “Bericht uber ¨ die Grundung ¨ des Internationalen Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes.” Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund: Mitteilungen aus der Bundes- und Vereinsarbeit 1, no. 7 (1914): 1–2. . “Ein Besuch aus Frankfurt: Erwiderung.” Die Welt 7, no. 27 (July 3, 1903): 15. . “Bienen-Liedchen.” (For the Zeitung des Schulkinderbund im Heim des Jud. ¨ Frauenbund Isenburg, August 9, 1934). MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, Leihgabe Kulp. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. . “Brief an den Bundesvorstand.” (March 19, 1933). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 10. . “Die Channukkah-Feier.” (December 23, 1919). In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 137–39. [In “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet.” MS. Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.] . Correspondence with Gertrud Baumer. ¨ Akte Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, Korrespondenz mit dem Judischen ¨ Frauenbund, LAB B Rep. 235–01 MF-Nr. 2213–2214. Helene Lange Archiv, Berlin. . Correspondence with [Alice] Bensheimer. Akte Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, Korrespondenz mit dem Judischen ¨ Frauenbund, LAB B Rep. 235–01 MF-Nr. 2213–2214. Helene Lange Archiv, Berlin. . Correspondence with Martin Buber. Martin Buber Archives, Arc.Ms.Var. 350/568. Department of Manuscripts and Archives, The Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem. [Three of Pappenheim’s letters (May 17, 1918, June 12, 1935, and March 18,1936) are available in Martin Buber. Briefwechsel aus sieben Jahrzehnten. Edited by Grete Schaeder. 3 vols. Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1972.] . Correspondence with Clem Cramer. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. . Correspondence with Clem Cramer. Dora Edinger Papers, A 484 and B 86/738. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with Frau [Irene] Darmstadter. ¨ Bertha Pappenheim Collection, S1/324. Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with Fraulein ¨ [Gertrud] Ehrenwerth. In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 101–2, 128–130. . Correspondence with Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein Archives, Non-Scientific Correspondence, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. . Correspondence with Freiherrl. Wilhelm Carl von Rothschild’sche Stiftung fur ¨ wohltatige ¨ und gemeinnutzige ¨ Zwecke, Mag. Akten V/539/III. Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with Hans Georg Hirsch. Dora Edinger Papers, A 478. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with Frida Kahn. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. . Correspondence with Sophie Mamelok. In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 29–46. . Correspondence with Eugen Mayer. Dora Edinger Papers, A 485/486. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M.

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Bibliography . Correspondence with Anne Nathan. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. . Correspondence with Principal of the Petersschule. Schulamt 323 and S2/153. Institut fur ¨ Stadtgeschichte, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with Frau Saphra. Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. . Correspondence with David Simonsen. David Simonsen Archives, Bertha Pappenheim file. Judaica Collection, The Royal Library, The National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library. . Correspondence with Felix Warburg. Warburg Collection, Box 185 Folder 3 General Correspondence and Box 214 Folder 3 General Correspondence. American Jewish Archives, Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati, OH. . “Dank fur ¨ den Gabentisch fur ¨ Isenburg.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 8, no. 11 (1932): 9–10. [“Dankesworte am Gabentisch zum 25 jahrigen ¨ Geburtstag des Isenburger Heims (23. November 1932).” In Heubach, “Das unsichtbare Isenburg.” 129.] . Denkzettel. In Jahrbuch der Frauenbewegung (1915): May of calendar section.* . Denkzettel. In Jahrbuch der Frauenbewegung (1916): October of calendar section. . Denkzettel. In “Zur Soziologie der judischen ¨ Frauenbewegung in Deutschland,” by Siddy Wronsky, 97–98. Jahrbuch fur ¨ judische ¨ Geschichte und Literatur 28 (1927): 84–99. [First published in Das Jahr des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes (1926/1927): 18/24. Tischri, 26. Tamus.] . Denkzettel. In “Antisemitismus und Abwehr. Geleitworte zum vierzigjahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Abwehrvereins.” Abwehrblatter ¨ 41 (1931): 12–54. . “Denkzettel. Hannah Karminski zugeeignet.” MS. Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. . “Diskussionsrede von Bertha Pappenheim.” In “Aussprache zum § 218 Auf der Durkheimer ¨ Sommerschule des JFB.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 11 (November 1930): 3–5. . “Der echte Ring.” Der Morgen 11, no. 9 (December 1935): 415–16. [Also in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 37–38 (text dated February 27, 1934); Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 14, no.10 (July 1936): 393–94.] . “Einfuhrung ¨ in den Arbeitskreis fur ¨ Gefahrdeten-Fursorge.” ¨ ¨ Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 8, no. 7 (July 1932): 2–4. . “Der Einzelne und die Gemeinschaft.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 9, no. 6 (June 1933): 1. . “Eiskraut.” (Text dated March 14, 1936). Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 14, no. 10 (July 1936): 394.

* Many Denkzettel were published posthumously in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis” ¨ (10–12, 16, 19, 21, 22, 28, 29, 31, 33, 39); Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften (179–-95). Some were also published in newspapers, periodicals, and calendars during Pappenheim’s lifetime. I have not listed all of these individually in the bibliography.

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. “Entwurf eines internationalen Flugblattes.” In Heubach, Sisyphus, 249–51. [According to Heubach, this was first published as “Entwurf fur ¨ ein internationales Flugblatt zur Bekampfung ¨ des Madchenhandels, ¨ auf dem Londoner Kongreß zur Bekampfung ¨ des Madchenhandels, ¨ uberreicht ¨ von Bertha Pappenheim.” Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund: Mitteilungen aus der Bundes- und Vereinsarbeit 1, no. 1 (1914): 2 (according to Ellen Jensen, p. 4)]. . “Die Erbschaft.” Frankfurter Israelitisches Gemeindeblatt 11, no. 11 (July 1933): 277–78. . “Erwiderung.” Neue Bahnen 39 (1904): 121–22. . “Falle, ¨ die mir padagogisch ¨ zu denken geben.” In Karminski and Ollendorff, Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, 8. . “Frauenwahlrecht in Wien.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 4, no. 2 (February 1928): 3. . “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben.” In Der Deutsche Frauenkongreß, Berlin, 27. Februar bis 2. Marz ¨ 1912: Samtliche ¨ Vortrage, ¨ edited by Gertrud Baumer, ¨ 237–45. Leipzig: B.G. Teubner, 1912. [Published in English translation as “The Jewish Woman in Religious Life.” Jewish Review 3, no. 17 (January 1913): 405–14.] . “Freitag Abend.” In Judisches ¨ Stadtebild, ¨ Frankfurt am Main, edited by Siegbert Wolf, 157–73. Frankfurt a.M.: Judischer ¨ Verlag, 1996. [First published as “Freitag Abend.” In Kampfe, ¨ 117–40.] . “Gebet.” (August 2, 1934). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 27. . “Gebet am Freitag Abend.” In Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes, 1914–1924, 31. [MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 332, Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York.] . Gebete. Edited by Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund. Berlin: Philo, 1936. [Other editions include: Prayers/Gebete. Translated by Estelle Forchheimer. New York: A. Stein, 1946; Gebete. 2nd ed. Dusseldorf: ¨ Allgemeine Wochenzeitung der Juden in Deutschland, 1954; Gebete/Prayers. Edited by Elisa Klapheck and Lara Dammig. ¨ Teetz: Hentrich and Hentrich, 2003.]* . “Gebete auf Bestellung schreiben…” (June 26, 1903). MS. Dora Edinger Papers, B 86/738. Judisches ¨ Museum, Frankfurt a.M. . “Gedanken uber ¨ Erziehung.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 5, no. 2 (February 1929): 5. . “Gedanken uber ¨ Sozialarbeit.” (Denkzettel, 1921–1936). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 10–12. . “Gedanken zur Erziehung.” (1922–1934). In Karminski and Ollendorff, Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, 6–7. . “Gedanken zur Todesstrafe.” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 4, no. 9 (September 1928): 3. ¨ . “Der geistige Grundri.” (From the lecture “Uber Fursorge ¨ der gefahrdeten ¨ weiblichen Jugend” at the Zentrale fur ¨ private Fursorge ¨ Frankfurt a.M., 1906). In Karminski and Ollendorff, Zum 30 jahrigen ¨ Bestehen des Isenburger Heims, 3–4. * Most of the prayers in this anthology also appeared in “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis” ¨ or other issues of the Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes. I have not listed these separately in the bibliography.

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Bibliography . Guidelines for Founding an International League of Jewish Women (Rome, 1914). In “Internationale judische ¨ Frauenarbeit,” by Hannah Karminski, 283. Der Morgen 5 (1929): 280–87. [First published as “Leitsatze ¨ aus dem Referat von Fraulein ¨ Bertha Pappenheim zur Grundung ¨ des Internationalen Jud. ¨ Frauenbundes.” Der Judische ¨ Frauenbund: Mitteilungen aus der Bundes- und Vereinsarbeit 1, no. 8 (1914): 1.] . “Die Haselnutorte: Eine Purimgeschichte. Dem Madchenclub ¨ zugeeignet.” Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 54. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. [English translation published as “The Hazelnut Torte.” Translated by Trude Parzen. The Annual of Psychoanalysis 10 (1982): 293–98] . “Die Haselnußtorte: Ein Theaterstuck ¨ zum Purim-Fest fur ¨ die Kinder des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, Taunusstraße 9.” In Heubach, Das Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes Neu-Isenburg, 93–98. . “Ein Hauch von Ihrer Seele.” (On postcard to Clem Cramer, September 12, 1912). MS. Bertha Pappenheim Collection, AR 331. Leo Baeck Institute Archives, New York. . “Heim des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Neu-Isenburg.” Frankfurter ¨ Wohlfahrtsblatter: ¨ Mitteilungen der sozialen Amter Frankfurts, May 1922 [Cited in Jensen, Streifzuge ¨ durch das Leben von Anna O./Bertha Pappenheim]. . “Hilfe fur ¨ die Agunoh (Eheverlassene Frau).” (Petition to the Rabbinerversammlung der Kenessioh gedauloh Wien, June 29, 1929). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 20–21. . “Der Hugel ¨ der Martyrer.” ¨ (October 1934). In “Bertha Pappenheim zum Gedachtnis,” ¨ 37. . “Igren: Ein Tagebuchblatt.” Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 70, no. 19 (May 11, 1906): 225–28. . “Die Immoralitat ¨ der Galizianerinnen.” In Heubach, Sisyphus, 19–24. [First published as “Referat von Fraulein ¨ Pappenheim, gehalten in einer von dem Vorstande des Israelitischen Hilfsvereins zu Frankfurt am Main einberufenen Versammlung am 26. Februar 1901.” Sonderdruck. Frankfurt a.M.: 1901.] . “Das Interesse der Juden am V. Internationalen Kongress zur Bekaempfung des Maedchenhandels. London 30. Juni bis 5. Juli 1913.” Ost und West 13, no. 8 (August 1913): 601–6. [Also in Sisyphus-Arbeit, 228–34.] . “Die judische ¨ Frau.” (August 25, 1934). In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 105–17. . “Der judische ¨ Frauenbund.” Judische ¨ Presse 36, no. 8 (February 24, 1905): 77–79. [Also in Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 69, no. 9 (March 3, 1905): 100–101.] . “Judische ¨ Gefahrdetenfursorge.” ¨ ¨ In Die soziale Bekampfung ¨ der Geschlechtskrankheiten, Bericht uber ¨ den vom Stadtgesundheitsamt, Wohlfahrtsamt und Jugendamt veranstalteten Lehrgang vom 3. und 4. April 1925 in Frankfurt a.M., 25–27. Schriften des Frankfurter Wohlfahrtsamtes 12. Frankfurt a.M.: Union-Druckerei und Verlagsanstalt, 1925. . “Das judische ¨ Haus.” Der Israelit 70, no. 14 (April 5, 1929): 14. . “Das judische ¨ Madchen.” ¨ (December 31, 1934). In Edinger, Bertha Pappenheim: Leben und Schriften, 118–28.

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Reviews of Aus der Arbeit des Heims des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes in Isenburg, 1914–1924, by Bertha Pappenheim: “Jugendfursorge,” ¨ Judische ¨ Wohlfahrtspflege und Sozialpolitik, n.s., 1, nos. 9–10 (September-October 1930): 372–75; Walter Loewenstein, Judisch-liberale ¨ Zeitung, August 20,1926 [clipping from Archiv Bibliographia Judaica]. Reviews of Gebete, by Bertha Pappenheim: Bertha Badt-Strauß, “Bertha Pappenheims Gebete,” Judische ¨ Rundschau 41, no. 101 (December 18, 1936): Literaturblatt; Eva Reichmann-Jungmann, Der Morgen 12, no. 10 (January 1937): 473–74. Reviews of Kampfe: ¨ Sechs Erzahlungen, ¨ by Bertha Pappenheim: Kurt Alexander, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 81, no. 30 (July 27, 1917): 360; Judische ¨ Presse 48, no. 30 (July 27, 1917): 332–33; Zeitschrift fur ¨ Bucherfreunde, ¨ n.s., 10, nos. 1–2 (August-September 1918): 286; Regina Neißer, Dr. Bloch’s Wochenschrift 34, no. 22 (June 8, 1917): 372. Review of Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln, translated by Bertha Pappenheim: N.M. Nathan, Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 74, no. 41 (October 14, 1910): 490–91. Reviews of Sisyphus-Arbeit: Reiseberichte aus den Jahren 1911–1912, by Bertha Pappenheim: Hanna Cohn-Dorn, C.V.-Zeitung 5, no. 10 (March 5, 1926): 142; Anitta Muller-Cohen, ¨ “Eine Antizionistin uber ¨ Palastina,” ¨ Judische ¨ Rundschau 30, no. 14 (February 17, 1925): 131. Reviews of Sysiphus-Arbeit: 2. Folge [sic], by Bertha Pappenheim: Julie Blasius, “Madchenhandel,” ¨ Die Weltbuhne ¨ 26 (1930): 823–26 [Pappenheim’s text is dicussed here within a critique of the League of Nations reports on white slavery.]; Klara Caro, “Ausfuhrungen ¨ uber ¨ ‘Sysiphus-Arbeit’ (2. Folge) von Bertha Pappenheim,” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 6, no. 5 (May 1930): 7–8; Die Logenschwester, April 15, 1930 [clipping from Archiv Bibliographia Judaica]; Mally Dienemann, Der Morgen 6, no. 1 (April 1930): 103. Reviews of Tragische Momente: Drei Lebensbilder, by Bertha Pappenheim: Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums 78, no. 21 (May 22, 1914): 251; Jewish Review 4, no. 23 (January-February 1914): 463–65. Reviews of Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frauen, by Mary Wollstonecraft, translated by Bertha Pappenheim [P. Berthold, pseud.]: Laura Frost, Dokumente der Frauen 7, no. 11 (September 1, 1902): 299–301; Henriette Goldschmidt, Neue Bahnen 34, no. 1 (January 1, 1899): 4–5; Arthur Pfungst, Ethische Kultur 6 (1898): 423–24. Reviews of Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel, translated by Bertha Pappenheim: Hanna Cohn-Dorn, Judisch-liberale ¨ Zeitung 11, nos. 18–19 (May 13, 1931): 2. Beilage; “Die Frauenbibel ‘Zeenah U- Reenah,’” Blatter ¨ des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes 8, no. 2 (February 1932): 6–7; Pessach Goldring, C.V.-Zeitung 10, no. 12 (March 20, 1931): 137–38; Bernhard Heller, Monatsschrift fur ¨ Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, n.s., 42, no. 2 (1934): 312–15; Felix Perles, Zeitschrift fur ¨ die Geschichte

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Index Abortion, 103, 138 Adelson, Leslie, 16–17 Agro-Joint colonies, 8, 125 Agudat Israel, 147, 149–50, 151 Agunot, 98, 100 Aleksandrow, Rebbe of (Samuel Zevi), 25, 42 Alexandria, 55, 65 Allgemeiner Deutscher Frauenverein (General German Women’s Association, ADF), 4, 119, 196 Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle, 65n22 American, Sadie, 6 Andreas-Salome, ´ Lou, 256–59 An-Ski, S. (S.Z. Rapoport), 47n98 Anna O.: Breuer’s case study, 2; education of, 48–49; fictional portrayals of, 240–61 passim; in history of psychoanalysis, 3n5, 17–18, 216–20, 230, 249, 251–52, 263, 265; inaccuracies in Breuer’s case study, 2–3, 17–18, 216; identity known in Vienna, 199, 240; identity revealed by Ernest Jones, 1, 204–6; palaeodiagnoses, 17, 209–16; private theater, 201, 235, 252; pseudocyesis (false pregnancy), 3, 215, 218, 249, 257; relapses, 2–3, 196, 216; religious life, 157 Appel, Dori, 263–65 Arabs in Palestine, 67–69, 70 Asch, Sholem, 163–64 At-risk girls, 85, 102, 125, 154. See also Isenburg Badt-Strauß, Bertha (Bath-Hillel, pseud.), 47, 48, 49n107, 50–51, 207 Baeck, Leo, 6 Bahr, Hermann, 240 Bauer, Dora, 263, 265 Baum, Sophie, 32 Baumer, ¨ Gertrud, 119

Beatus, Helena R., 212 Bedouins in Palestine, 67–69 Beer, Friedrich, 74 Bellevue Sanatorium (Kreuzlingen), 18n54, 200n25, 216 Berent, Grete, 206, 207n58 Bergel-Gronemann, Elfride, 78, 84 Berliner, Cora, 89–90 Bet Debora, 272–75 Beth Jacob Schools, 8, 125, 140, 147–51 Bezalel Art Institute, 23n76, 79, 81 Birnbaum, Nathan, 25, 56 Birth control, 138 Bonn, Ferdinand, 38 Borch-Jacobsen, Mikkel, 18, 177, 216–17 Boyarin, Jonathan, 16 Boyarin, Daniel, 16, 176, 220–23, 225, 226–30, 237, 266, 267–68 Brandt, Yanna Kroyt, 259 Brecht, Bertolt, 263 Brenner, Bettina, 79 Brentzel, Marianne, 21, 233–36 Breuer, Josef: ends Anna O’s treatment, 3n5; in Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept, 256–58, 259. See also Anna O. Buber, Martin: Bible translation, 45–46, 47, 51, 185; Der Jude (The Jew), 30n19; Drei Reden uber ¨ das Judentum (Three Addresses on Judaism), 153–54, 213n95; Freies Judisches ¨ Lehrhaus, 6, 9, 221; friendship with Pappenheim, 185n113; Hasidism, 45–46, 139; mentioned, 61, 62, 199, 207, 208, 235 Bund (General Jewish Workers’ Union), 80n88 Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine (Federation of German Women’s Associations, BDF); 4, 5, 20, 88, 97, 119–20, 159, 178n86 Butler, Judith, 14, 16n48

305

306

Index

Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Pietro, 17, 213–14 Catholicism, 58, 74, 93–109 passim, 115–22 Central-Verein deutscher Staatsburger ¨ judischen ¨ Glaubens (Central Association of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, C.V.), 30–31, 66n25, 92, 223n144 Childlessness, 180–84 Cohn-Dorn, Hanna, 51 Constantinople, 76, 101, 142 Coopersmith, Jerome, 259–61 Czernowitz Yiddish Language Conference, 25, 56

Eckstein, Emma, 263, 264–65 Edinger, Dora, 10, 18–19, 24, 205–9, 219, 222n140, 233 Edinger, Ludwig, 205n51 Einstein, Albert, 9, 203n40 Eisendle, Helmut, 251–54 Eisenstadt, ¨ Sara, 111 Ekron (Mazkeret Batyah), 67, 70 Elbogen, Ismar, 46n93 Elizabeth, Queen of Rumania (Carmen Sylva), 7, 124–25 Ellenberger, Henri, 3, 17, 216, 217 Ettlinger, Anna, 200 Eugenics, 103, 138, 154–56, 175

Study, 4; Committee for the Eastern European Jews, 123, 213n95; Eisendle’s Oh Hannah!, 253, 254; Gemeinde under National Socialism, 90; General German Women’s Association (ADF), 196; Israelite Relief Organization, 76, 123, 124, 144; Israelite Women’s Association Orphanage for Girls, 4, 9, 158, 160, 184, 196n3, 203; Girls’ Club, 54, 173, 178, 183; Judische ¨ Frauenvereinigung (Jewish Women’s Union), 224; Orthodox elementary school (Israelitische Volksschule), libel case against Pappenheim, 109n70, 224; Munitions factories in Frankfurt, 12, 125, 131; Pappenheim’s “Freitag Abend,” 40n67, 235; Pappenheim’s move to, 3, 199–200; Relief Committee for the Needy Eastern European Jews, 99, 124; Secessionist Orthodox Congregation (Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft), 224–25; Unentgeltiche Flickschule (tuitionfree mending school), 3–4; mentioned, 24, 61, 205, 208, 209, 231, 272. See also Weibliche Fursorge ¨ Franzos, Karl Emil, 107n64, 135 Freeman, Lucy, 17, 19, 209, 211–12, 213, 222n140, 234, 247, 259–61 Freies Judisches ¨ Lehrhaus (Free Jewish House of Learning), 6, 9, 221 Freier, Recha, 88n131 Freimann, Aron, 46n93 Freud, Sigmund: 1, 3, 216–18, 240, 244–45, 248–52, 261–65

Falkenberg, Berta, 272–73 Feilchenfeld, Alfred, 50n110 Fish, Stanley, 195, 236 Fliess, Wilhelm, 264 Forchheimer, Stephanie, 10 Frankfurt a.M.: Alliance Israelite ´ Universelle, 65n22; Association for Women’s Education and University

Galicia: League of Jewish Women in, 82; Pappenheim’s travels to, 7, 124, 125; prostitution in, 130, 142, 143, 144; Weibliche Fursorge, ¨ work in, 4, 124, 134–35; Women’s Relief founded in, 5n10; Zionists in 64, 74–75, 77, 79, 81, 82. See also individual titles in Pappenheim

Dammig, ¨ Lara, 11, 21, 272–73 Darmstadter, ¨ Irene, 165n27, 183 Diaspora Nationalism, 29n19 Dormitories for single women, 4, 85 Dresner, Ruth, 207 Duda, Sybille, 18, 220

Index writings Gilman, Sander, 16 Ginzberg, Louis, 47n98 Gleichschaltung (Nazification), 88, 114 Gluckel ¨ of Hameln, 44, 45, 46, 221, 230–31. See also Pappenheim translations Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 58, 90, 110 Goldmann, Willi, 61, 89n134 Gothein, Georg, 30 Gottlieb, Leopold, 81n94 Griesheim, 12 Grimm, Brothers, 47 Guttmann, Melinda, 21, 233, 234, 235–37, 254–56 Haifa, 66 Hall, Stuart, 14 Hasidism: German-Jews’ views on, 139–40, 144–45; heder, 109; learned women in, 146; in Meinecke’s Hellblau, 266, 267, 268. See also Rebbe of Aleksandrow, Martin Buber, “Der Wunderrabbi,” Beth Jacob Schools Hebrew, 25, 26, 45, 46, 51–55 passim, 71, 89n134, 104, 150–51, 170 Heine, Heinrich, 57, 58 Heller, Bernhard, 50, 52n122 Henry Street Settlement, New York, 7, 261 Herzl, Theodor, 73–74 Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Aid Association of the German Jews), 66, 76, 79, 99,124 Heubach, Helga, 18, 20, 24, 235 Heymann, Gaston, 119 Hirsch, Otto, 199, 228 Hirsch, Samson Raphael, 105–6 Hirschmuller, ¨ Albrecht, 3, 17, 18n54, 200n25, 201, 216 Hochst, ¨ 12 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 239, 240–41, 242, 251–52 Hollekreisch, 165n28

307

Homburger, Fritz, 200n25, 213n95 Homburger, Paul, 199, 206, 240 Homosexuality, 176–77 Honigmann, Barbara, 237–38 Horowitz, Jakob, 164–65 Horowitz, Leopold, 110 Hovevei Zion (Hibbat Zion), 67n27, 79n86 Hunter, Diane, 18, 219 Huston, John, 248–51 Illegitimate children, 98, 100–103, 169, 177–78, 247, 261. See also Isenburg Immigrants, Eastern European Jewish: aid for in Germany, 3, 4, 54, 123, 126; Christian missions and, 93–94, 95, 100; in contemporary Germany, 272; and conversion, 94; German-Jew’ attitudes toward, 131, 138, 140, 145; minor-aged, 99; preventing immigration of, 131, 132–33; programs for prospective, 54, 124; statistics, 34 Infanticide, 102 Intermarriage, 138. See also “Ungarische Dorfgeschichte,” “Ein Schwachling” ¨ International Council of Women, 5, 7, 121, 261 International League of Jewish Women, 16, 121 Inzersdorf, Fries and Breslauer sanatorium in, 196, 216 Ischl, 9, 243 Isenburg, JFB home at: “The Exiled Stork” fountain, 184; familial character of, 71–72, 179; hakhshara at, 89n134, 151; psychiatric examinations at, 220; religious education at, 104, 169–74; religious practice at, 104, 110, 118, 186; secular culture at, 110–11; mentioned, 5, 9, 103, 155, 182, 196n3, 204 Israel Institute of Technology (Technion, Haifa), 66

308

Index

Jackowitz, Ann, 227 Jaffa, 66, 72n53, 73, 76, 79, 86 Jensen, Ellen, 18, 19, 24, 234, 235 Jerusalem, 23n 76, 61, 72, 77, 79, 81, 86, 131 Judische ¨ Welthilfskonferenz (Jewish World Relief Conference), 80n87, 99, 137–38, 155 Judischer ¨ Frauenbund (League of Jewish Women, JFB): and antisemitism in BDF, 119–20; delegates’ meetings of, 97, 111, 128, 129, 131–32, 162–69 passim, 174, 224, 273; founding of, 5; German-Jewish identity of, 63; Gebete, publication of, 9; Girls’ Club (Frankfurt), 183; home economics school (Wolfratshausen), 79n83; and International League of Jewish Women, 6; JFB tree (platform and projects), 5; membership, 6; model for Zionist women, 83, 85; and moderate women’s movement, 159; during National Socialism, 15, 87–90, 191–92, 204; post-Holocaust, 10, 204, 205–6, 272–73; “self-discipline” campaign, 90; tuberculosis sanatorium in Wyk auf Fohr, ¨ 100, 203n42; Zionist women in, 78–79, 84; mentioned, 9, 199, 203. See also Isenburg Job referral for women, 4, 85, 124, 146n114 Jones, Ernest: 1, 3n5, 17, 204–5, 213, 216, 249–50, 259–61 Jung, Carl Gustav, 262 Juusela, Kari Henrik, 261–63 Kaplan, Marion, 18, 19–20, 24, 225, 227, 235 Karminski, Hannah, 1, 23, 89–90, 200n23, 201–202, 203, 204, 227 Katra (Gederah), 67, 70 Kavaler-Adler, Susan, 17, 211 Kimball, Meredith M., 214–15 Kinneret, 71

Klapheck, Elisa, 11, 21, 272–74 Klausner, M.A., 33–35, 43 Klemperer, Victor, 153 Klepfisz, Irena, 13 Koestenbaum, Wayne, 18, 218 Kohut, Rebecca, 9 Komitee fur ¨ den Osten (Committee for the East, KfdO), 36n49 Konz, Britta, 18, 20, 223n142, 236 Kormis, Fritz (Fred), 110, 228 Koschorke, Albrecht, 21 Krafft-Ebing, Richard von, 251 Krakow, See Beth Jacob Schools Kramer, ¨ Helene, 23n76, 110, 203 Kraus, Karl, 240, 242, 247–48 Kreutzberger, Max, 207 Kugler, Lena, 21 Lange, Helene, 119 League of Jewish Women for Galicia and Bukovina, 82 League of Catholic Women, 119 League of Nations Report on White Slavery, 41 Lehmann, Siegfried, 140 Leimel School (Jerusalem), 79 Leningrad, 125 Leo Baeck Institute, 10, 24, 207–9 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 114–15 Liberal Judaism, in Germany, 170n52, 225–26 Lodz, 64, 143, 151 Lodzer Tagblatt, 59 Loewenstein, Richard J., 17, 214, 215 London, 93, 98, 130 Lorde, Audre, 13 Lorenz, Dagmar C.G., 17, 21 Lorenz-Wiesch, Judith, 21 Mamelok, Sophie, 9, 28n16, 133, 203 Marriage, 177–81 Marx, Lilli, 10 Mayse bukh. See Pappenheim translations Meinecke, Thomas, 266–69 Melian, ´ Michaela, 266, 268–70

Index Mende, Kathe, ¨ 228 Mendelssohn, Moses, 26 Michaelis-Stern, Eva, 88 Mittelstelle fur ¨ Judische ¨ Erwachsenenbildung (Central Office for Jewish Adult Education), 6 Mizrachi, 72n53 Moebius, P.J., 251 Montefiore, Claude, 9, 41 Moscow, 125, 136 Motherhood, 159–60, 163, 174, 179–84, 201n29, 215, 227 Muller-Cohen, ¨ Anitta, 77, 79–80, 85, 86 Munich, 9 Muroff, Melvin, 215, 255–56 Nassauer, Paula, 206 Nathan, Paul, 66 Nationaler Frauendienst (National Women’s Service), 119 New York, 7, 261 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 256–59 Nin, Anas, 263, 264 Nursery schools, 71, 124 Odessa Committee, 79 “Open Letter to the German Jews,” 119 Oppenheimer, Joseph, 111n81, 228 Orthodox Judaism: contemporary feminists and, 161; German Orthodoxy (Neo-Orthodoxy), 105–6, 225; Hungarian (Pressburg) Orthodoxy, 28, 105–9, 223–24; Pappenheim and, 157, 158, 159, 197, 199, 222–26, 227; secessionist congregation in Frankfurt (Israelitische Religionsgemeinschaft), 224–25; secular culture and, 58, 105–6, 107n64; white slavery among Orthodox Jews, 143, 164. See also Agudat Israel, Beth Jacob Schools, Hasidism, Mizrachi ¨ Osterreichisches Museum fur ¨ angewandte Kunst, (Austrian Museum for the Applied Arts, MAK), 9n31, 23, 231n180

309

Palestine Office, 68 Pappenheim, Bertha: epitaph, 183; “Helpers of Humanity” stamp, 204; lost works of, 202–3; obituaries and auto-obituaries, 157, 197–99; Verdienstkreuz der Kriegshilfe (medal of merit for war work), 7, 88. See also Anna O. Writings “Aufgaben der deutschen Judin” ¨ (Duties of the German-Jewish Woman), 87–88; “Die Channukah-Feier” (The Hanukkah Celebration), 231; Denkzettel, 1n2, 23n76, 63, 75, 87, 114, 161–62, 168–69, 176–85 passim, 213n95, 219–20; “Der echte Ring” (The Genuine Ring), 186, 114–15; “Ehe und freie Liebe” (Marriage and Free Love), 246n30; “Einfuhrung ¨ in den Arbeitskreis fur ¨ Gefahrdeten¨ Fursorge” ¨ (Introduction to the Association for the Welfare of At-Risk Youth), 102–3; “Der Einzelne und die Gemeinschaft” (The Individual and the Community), 90, 113–14, 143; “Die Erbschaft” (The Inheri- tance), 112–14; “Die Frau im kirchlichen und religiosen ¨ Leben” (The Woman in Church and Religious Life), 49, 97, 165, 166–67; “Frauenfrage und Frauenberuf im Judenthum” (The Question of Women’s Rights and Careers for Women in Judaism), 159; Frauenrecht (Women’s Rights), 4, 177–78, 261n103; “Eine Frauenstimme uber ¨ Frauenstimmrecht” (A Woman’s Voice on Women’s Suffrage), 169; Gebete (Prayers), 9–11,182, 187, 189–91, 193–94, 272, 275; “Die Haselnußtorte” (The Hazelnut Torte), 111, 173–74; “Hilfe fur ¨ die Agunoh” (Help for the Agunah), 100; “Igren: Ein Tagebuchblatt” (Igren: A Page from a Diary) 7, 123, 135; “Der Hugel ¨ der Martyrer” ¨ (The Hill of the Martyrs), 192–93; In der Trodelbude ¨ (In the

310

Index

Rummage Store), 180, 235; “Die Immoralitat ¨ der Galizianerinnen” (The Immorality of Galician Women), 123, 144; “Das Judische ¨ Madchen” ¨ (The Jewish Girl), 162, 165n28, 181; “Die judische ¨ Frau” (The Jewish Woman), 42–44, 61, 62, 63, 71, 72, 77, 87; “Judische ¨ Mutter: ¨ Pogrom 1905” (Jewish Mothers: Pogrom 1905), 124, 135–36; Kampfe ¨ (Struggles): “Der Erloser” ¨ (The Redeemer), 38, 40–41, 54–56, 60, 73–75, 92–104 passim, 106n63, 141–42, “Freitag Abend” (Friday Evening), 38–39, 40n67, 146, “Ein Schwachling” ¨ (A Weakling), 39, 58, 92, 105–9, 111–12, 125, 235, “Der Wunderrabbi” (The Miracle Rabbi), 42, 54, 56–58, 60,109, 144–45, “Ungarische Dorfgeschichte” (Hungarian Village Story), 92, 106, 146; Kleine Geschichten fur ¨ Kinder (Small Stories for Children), 158, 184, 200–201, 235; “Kleine Reisenotizen” (Brief Travel Notes), 122, 140–41, 150, 152–53; “Menschenfabel” (Human Fable, December 18, 1933), 225; “Mir ward die Liebe nicht” (Love did not come to me), 179–80, 256; “Noch ein Wort zum Frauenstimmrecht” (Another Word on Women’s Suffrage), 169; “Noch eine Geschichte vom Baalschem” (Another Story about the Baal Shem), 46; “Reise-Eindrucke” ¨ (Impressions of a Journey), 129; “Der Sabbath und die judische ¨ Frau” (Sabbath and the Jewish Woman), 171–72; “Schabboslied” (Sabbath Song), 111, 172n62; “Schutz der Frauen und Madchen” ¨ (Protection of Women and Children), 128; Selbstverfaßte Nachrufe, autoobituaries, 77, 197–98; “Seltene Blumen Bluhen” ¨ (Rare Flowers Bloom), 124; Sisyphus-Arbeit (Sisyphus-Work), 8, 37–38, 41, 42, 55, 59, 62–82 passim, 86–7, 101–2, 125, 129, 131, 136,

142–43, 175, 176; “Die sozialen Grundlagen der Sittlichkeitsfrage” (The Social Bases of the Morality Question), 246n30; Sysiphus-Arbeit 2 (SisyphusWork 2), 41, 137–38; Tragische Momente (Tragic Moments), 40–41, 55, 62–64, 66, 68–69, 73, 78, 91, 125, 136, 236; “Vision,” 193n151, 213n95; “Weh’ dem, dessen Gewissen schlaft!” ¨ (Woe to Him, Whose Conscience Sleeps), 6, 190; “Zu dem Artikel ‘Gebete’” (On the Article “Prayers”), 170, 189; “Zur Eroffnung ¨ des zweiten Delegiertentages des Judischen ¨ Frauenbundes” (Opening Remarks at the Second Delegate Meeting of the League of Jewish Women), 131–32, 168–69; “Zur Eroffnung” ¨ (Opening Remarks), 97, 168; “Zur Erziehung der weiblichen Jugend in den hoheren ¨ Standen” ¨ (The Education of Female Youth in the Higher Classes), 87; Zur Judenfrage in Galizien (The Jewish Question in Galicia), 123, 127–28, 132, 133–34, 137; Zur Lage der judischen ¨ Bevol¨ kerung in Galizien (The Condition of the Jewish Population in Galicia), 7, 53, 74–76, 77, 79, 81, 86, 109, 124, 128, 132–33, 142, 145–46; “Zur Sittlichkeitsfrage” (On the Morality Question), 59, 66, 128, 129, 143, 162–66, 174, 224 Translations: Allerlei Geschichten: Maasse-Buch (All Kinds of Stories: Mayse bukh), 26, 43, 44–53, 192, 227; Die Memoiren der Gluckel ¨ von Hameln (Memoirs of Gluckel ¨ of Hameln), 2, 26, 43, 44, 45, 46, 50n110, 202, 227; Eine Verteidigung der Rechte der Frau (Vindication of the Rights of Women), 2, 4, 202, 230; Zeenah U-Reenah: Frauenbibel (Tsenerene: Women’s Bible), 26, 43, 44–53, 192, 227 Pappenheim, Flora, 196, 212

Index Pappenheim, Henriette, 196, 212 Pappenheim, Marie, 239–45 Pappenheim, Recha, 212, 213, 214, 231 Pappenheim, Siegmund, 25n3, 28, 201, 214 Pappenheim, Wilhelm, 27n11, 200n23, 213 Pappenheim, Wolf, 27–28 Philippopel, 73, 142 Pilichowski, Leopold, 221 Pogrom orphans, 98, 99, 124, 137–38, 155 Pogrom refugees, 62, 93, 98 Pogroms, 7, 98–99, 100, 106, 115n100, 124–25, 135–36 Pollock, George, 17, 213–14 Pomeranz, Rosa (Melzer), 76, 82 Pope Benedict XV, 125 Population decline, German Jews, 102, 137–38 Population policy (Bevolkerungspolitik), ¨ 138, 152–53, 155–56 Potok, Chaim, 107n64 Pressburg, 105–106, 111, 224, 231, 235, 244 Prostitution: Agunot and, 100; Eastern European Jews and, 41, 74, 127, 129, 130, 141–43, 163–64; Karl Kraus on, 248; in Palestine, 71; and Pappenheim’s hysteria, 214, 247, 250–51, 262; Zionists and, 72, 73, 74. See also white slavery Psychodrama, 255, 264 Rabinowitsch, Sara, 76 Rehovot, 66–67, 68, 72, 82 Reichmann-Jungmann, Eva, 192, 228 Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland (Reich Representation of the Jews in Germany), 199 Remy, Nahida, 166 Renewal, ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish, 273 Rich, Adrienne, 13 Riga, 125

311

Rosenak, Leopold, 203 Rosenbaum, Max, 215, 255–56 Rosenheim, Jakob, 224 Rosenzweig, Edith, 48, 52n122 Rosenzweig, Franz, 5–6, 9, 46, 47, 51 Rumania, 7, 55, 124 Russia (and Ukraine): German soldiers in, 35–36; Pappenheim’s travels to, 7, 124, 125, 135; Pappenheim’s “Der Erloser,” ¨ 98; Pappenheim’s Tragische Momente, 73, 136; Pogroms, 73, 98, 124, 135, 136; Prostitution, 130, 143 Ruppin, Arthur, 68n35, 73 Salzberger, Georg, 175 Saloniki, 142, 176 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 248–51 Schach, Fabius, 56, 58–59 Schames, Samson, 9n29, 111n81, 228 Schatz, Boris, 81n91, 81n94 Schenirer, Sarah, 8, 147–48, 150, 226 Schicksalsgemeinschaft kinderloser Mutter ¨ (Childless Mothers’ Community of Shared Destiny), 183 Schiffschul, 28, 223–24 Schiller, Friedrich von, 57 Schnitzler, Arthur, 251–52 Schonbar, Rosalea, 212 Schonberg, ¨ Arnold, 239–45 Schonberg, ¨ Jakob, 111 Schonewald, ¨ Ottilie, 192, 205, 206, 223n144 Schweighofer, Fritz, 217 Segel, Binjamin, 134 Seligmann, Caesar, 175 Sephardic Jews, 65, 128, 166n35 Shaday, 188 Shekhinah, 186–88 Shepherd, Naomi, 222–23 Sholem Aleichem, 107n64 Sigilla Veri: Lexikon der Juden (Encyclopedia of the Jews), 12 Simonsen, David, 203n40 Smyrna, 64, 101 Society Bilu, 67n29

312

Index

Sofer, Moses (Hatam Sofer), 28, 106 Spelman, Elizabeth V., 14 Spinoza, Baruch de, 58 Spitzer, Solomon, 28, 223–24 Stahl, Johanna, 110 Stephan, Inge, 18, 22, 218, 219 Straus, Rahel, 78–79 Strauss, Richard, 242 Streicher, Julius, 31 Struck, Hermann, 139 Suffrage, women’s 163, 168–69, 233n184 Suicide, 106, 107n63, 138 Susman, Margarete, 9, 47–48, 51, 189–91, 206 Synagogue, women in, 170n52 Szold, Henrietta, 87, 88, 204 Tachkemoni School (Jaffa), 72n53 Tarnopel, 76 Thon, Helene Hanna (nee ´ Cohn), 70, 82–83, 84–86, 192 Thon, Sarah, 86–87 Tkhines, 51, 170n54 Toronto, 7, 261 Treitschke, Heinrich von, 34 Trietsch, Davis, 36n49 Tsenerene. See Pappenheim translations Tulcholsky, Kurt, 197–98, 248n40 Unna, Isaak, 166 Unwed mothers, 5, 71–72, 102–3, 169, 212, 247, 262. See also Isenburg Veit, Philipp, 105n57 Vienna: Anna O.’s identity known in, 199, 240; conversion statistics for, 96, 116; in Eisendle’s Oh Hannah!, 253, 254; International Conference for the Suppression of White Slavery in, 247; ¨ Osterreichisches Museum fur ¨ angewandte Kunst, (Austrian Museum for the Applied Arts, MAK), 9n31, 23, 231n180; Pappenheim family in, 28, 109; Schiffschul, 28, 223–24; Pappenheim’s “Der

Schwachling,” ¨ 108, 112; Pappenheim’s “Der Wunderrabbi,” 42, 57; Zionist Congress in, 62; mentioned, 3, 24, 100, 158, 200, 217 Vocational training for women, 85, 86–87, 89n134, 124, 148, 151 Volksheim, Siegfried Lehmann’s in Berlin, 140 Voltaire, 58 Wald, Lillian D., 7, 261 Wallace, Irving, 208–9 War orphans, 99, 137–38, 155 Warburg, Felix, 9 Warburg, Max, 9, 199 Warsaw, 64, 79, 101–2, 129 Wedekind, Frank, 239, 240, 246–48 Weibliche Fursorge ¨ (Women’s Relief, Frankfurt): aid for Eastern European immigrants, 123–124; activities of, 4–5; founding of 4–5; Girls’ Club, 54, 173, 178, 183; Infant’s Milk Kitchen, 40n67; job referral, 146n114; and Judische ¨ Frauenvereinigung (Union of Jewish Women) 224; model for Zionist women’s work, 85; projects in Galicia 4, 134–35; mentioned, 179 Weltsammelvormundschaft (World Collective Guardianship), 80n87, 99–100, 121, 155 Werner, Sidonie, 119, 120 White slavery: and antisemitism, 128, 129; conferences on suppression of, 123, 213n95, 129–30, 160; Eastern European Jewish Women and, 141–44; German National Committee for the Suppression of, 129; Jewish Committee for the Suppression of, 53, 76, 124, 129, 130; League of Nations Report on, 12, 41; Jewish involvement in, 129–31; Karl Kraus on, 247–48; as mass hysteria, 247n39; Kurt Tucholsky on, 248n40; Pappenheim’s travels to study, 7–8, 124–25; Pappenheim’s hysteria and, 212, 214;

Index in Wedekind’s Totentanz, 246–48; Western Jews and, 121, 128; Zionists and, 72, 73, 74, 79; mentioned, 25, 125, 127 Wilson, Woodrow, 125 Windfuhr, W. 50, 51 Wohlgemuth, Joseph, 35–37, 43, 58–59 Wollstonecraft, Mary, 229–30, 231–33. See also Pappenheim translations Women’s Relief of Galicia, 5n10 Women’s Relief of Vienna, 5n10 Woolf, Virgina, 263, 264 Yalom, Irvin D., 256–59

313

Yemenite Jews in Palestine, 67–69, 70 Young Turk Movement, 65 Youth Aliyah, 61, 78, 87, 88 Zentralausschuß der deutschen Juden (Central Committee of the German Jews), 89 Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der deutschen Juden (Central Welfare Agency of German Jewry), 6, 9, 207n58 Zohar, 179 Zweig, Arnold, 139 Zweig, Hannah, 31–32

Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 1 Lewis M. Barth, An Analysis of Vatican 30 2 Samson H. Levey, The Messiah: An Aramaic Interpretation 3 Ben Zion Wacholder, Eupolemus: A Study of Judaeo-Greek Literature 4 Richard Victor Bergren, The Prophets and the Law 5 Benny Kraut, From Reform Judaism to Ethical Culture: The Religious Evolution of Felix Adler 6 David B. Ruderman, The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farrisol 7 Alan Mendelson, Secular Education in Philo of Alexandria 8 Ben Zion Wacholder, The Dawn of Qumran: The Sectarian Torah and the Teacher of Righteousness 9 Stephen M. Passamaneck, The Traditional Jewish Law of Sale: Shulhan . Arukh, Hoshen Mishpat, Chapters 189–240 . 10 Yael S. Feldman, Modernism and Cultural Transfer: Gabriel Preil and the Tradition of Jewish Literary Bilingualism 11 Raphael Jospe, Torah and Sophia: The Life and Thought of Shem Tov ibn Falaquera 12 Richard Kalmin, The Redaction of the Babylonian Talmud: Amoraic or Saboraic? 13 Shuly Rubin Schwartz, The Emergence of Jewish Scholarship in America: The Publication of the Jewish Encyclopedia 14 John C. Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions 15 Robert Kirschner, Baraita De-Melekhet Ha-Mishkan: A Critical Edition with Introduction and Translation 16 Philip E. Miller, Karaite Separatism in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s Epistle of Israel’s Deliverance 17 Warren Bargad, “To Write the Lips of Sleepers”: The Poetry of Amir Gilboa 18 Marc Saperstein, “Your Voice Like a Ram’s Horn”: Themes and Texts in Traditional Jewish Preaching 19 Emanuel Melzer, No Way Out: The Politics of Polish Jewry, 1935-1939 20 Eric L. Friedland, “Were Our Mouths Filled with Song”: Studies in Liberal Jewish Liturgy

21 Edward Fram, Ideals Face Reality: Jewish Law and Life in Poland, 1550-1655 22 Ruth Langer, To Worship God Properly: Tensions Between Liturgical Custom and Halakhah in Judaism 23 Nili Sacher Fox, In the Service of the King: Officialdom in Ancient Israel and Judah 24 Carole B. Balin, To Reveal Our Hearts: Jewish Women Writers in Tsarist Russia 25 Shaul Bar, A Letter That Has Not Been Read: Dreams in the Hebrew Bible 26 Eric Caplan, From Ideology to Liturgy: Reconstructionist Worship and American Liberal Judaism 27 Rina Lapidus, Between Snow and Desert Heat: Russian Influences on Hebrew Literature, 1870–1970 28 Howard L. Apothaker, Sifra, Dibbura deSinai: Rhetorical Formulae, Literary Structures, and Legal Traditions 29 Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Happiness in Premodern Judaism: Virtue, Knowledge, and Well-Being 30 Zafrira Lidovsky Cohen, “Loosen the Fetters of Thy Tongue, Woman”: The Poetry and Poetics of Yona Wallach 31 Louis H. Feldman, “Remember Amalek!” Vengeance, Zealotry, and Group Destruction in the Bible according to Philo, Pseudo-Philo, and Josephus 32 Marc Saperstein, Exile in Amsterdam: Saul Levi Morteira’s Sermons to a Congregation of “New Jews” 33 Edward Fram, My Dear Daughter: Rabbi Benjamin Slonik and the Education of Jewish Women in Sixteenth-Century Poland 34 Elizabeth Loentz, Let Me Continue to Speak the Truth: Bertha Pappenheim as Author and Activist