Jewish Women and Intersectional Feminism: The Case of Bertha Pappenheim

IF 0.2 Q3 Social Sciences Feminist German Studies Pub Date : 2023-03-01 DOI:10.1353/fgs.2023.a899991
Elizabeth Loentz
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The essay situates the social activist and writer Bertha Pappenheim in a long tradition of international intersectional feminist thought: she recognized over a century ago that Jewish women had different concerns and a different experience of patriarchy than Christian women, as well as a different experience of antisemitism than Jewish men—not to mention that Christian feminists were not immune to antisemitism. Recognizing the marginalization of Jewish women within both the male-dominated Jewish community and the German feminist movement, Pappenheim founded a German-Jewish feminist movement that was distinct from yet integrated into the German feminist movement, and which sought to unite diverse German-Jewish women. The Jewish Women Empowerment Summit, held in Frankfurt, Germany, in September 2021, opened with the panel \"Can Jewish Perspectives Be Considered in Intersectional Spaces?\" (El).1 In their introduction to this special issue, Sonia Gollance and Kerry Wallach answer this question in the affirmative, arguing that it is not only possible but imperative—particularly within the context of German studies—for feminist scholars who research and write about different forms of oppression to find a way to include antisemitism and Jewish perspectives. Yet Jewish feminists working in Germany today, such as Ina Holev and Miriam Yosef, founders of the educational initiative Jüdisch & Intersektional (Jewish & Intersectional), report that they have felt excluded from intersectional feminist groups and that antisemitism is often tolerated or even reproduced in these settings (\"Über Uns\"). [End Page 24] In the following pages I consider what we gain when we read the experiences and work of early-twentieth-century German-Jewish feminists through the lens of a theoretical model developed by Black feminists in the United States in the late twentieth century. I focus especially on the work of the social activist and writer Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), the founder and leader of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB; League of Jewish Women). Audre Lorde emphasized in her work with the nascent Afro-German women's movement in the 1980s and 1990s the vital importance of researching their history in order to better understand and articulate their place as women and feminists of color and Germans. I propose that an exploration of how an earlier generation of German-Jewish feminists grappled with the categories of gender, Jewishness, and Germanness (among others) and their intersections would, on the one hand, be generative to understand the broader intellectual tradition of intersectional thought, and on the other, would provide a feminist lineage for a new generation of German-Jewish women who are struggling to situate themselves and their work within contemporary intersectional thinking and activism. Like Lorde, Pappenheim understood the value of looking backward to move forward: her translations of her ancestor Glikl's memoirs from Yiddish to German and of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women from English to German can be read as a search for role models or an attempt to establish a German-Jewish and feminist lineage. I resist calling Pappenheim a \"vanguard\" of intersectional feminism, in part because I am aware of the problem of co-opting a late-twentieth-century theoretical model developed by Black feminists in the specifically American context to frame the experience and activism of white Jewish women of Pappenheim's time and place. Although Pappenheim would be considered white today, Jews were generally viewed as racially Other in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Germany.2 Yet her insights regarding the intersections of Jewishness and gender bear a striking affinity to the insights of the African American feminists who developed the analytical framework and concept of intersectionality in the last third of the twentieth century. It is important to note here that the category of Jewishness was, in early-twentieth-century Germany, not a purely religious one but an uneasy amalgam of religion and ethnicity...","PeriodicalId":53717,"journal":{"name":"Feminist German Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Feminist German Studies","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/fgs.2023.a899991","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"Social Sciences","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract

Jewish Women and Intersectional FeminismThe Case of Bertha Pappenheim Elizabeth Loentz (bio) This essay addresses the thorny question of whether Jewish women fit into the framework of intersectionality and what we gain when we read the work of early-twentieth-century German-Jewish feminists through the lens of a theoretical model developed by Black feminists in the United States in the late twentieth century. The essay situates the social activist and writer Bertha Pappenheim in a long tradition of international intersectional feminist thought: she recognized over a century ago that Jewish women had different concerns and a different experience of patriarchy than Christian women, as well as a different experience of antisemitism than Jewish men—not to mention that Christian feminists were not immune to antisemitism. Recognizing the marginalization of Jewish women within both the male-dominated Jewish community and the German feminist movement, Pappenheim founded a German-Jewish feminist movement that was distinct from yet integrated into the German feminist movement, and which sought to unite diverse German-Jewish women. The Jewish Women Empowerment Summit, held in Frankfurt, Germany, in September 2021, opened with the panel "Can Jewish Perspectives Be Considered in Intersectional Spaces?" (El).1 In their introduction to this special issue, Sonia Gollance and Kerry Wallach answer this question in the affirmative, arguing that it is not only possible but imperative—particularly within the context of German studies—for feminist scholars who research and write about different forms of oppression to find a way to include antisemitism and Jewish perspectives. Yet Jewish feminists working in Germany today, such as Ina Holev and Miriam Yosef, founders of the educational initiative Jüdisch & Intersektional (Jewish & Intersectional), report that they have felt excluded from intersectional feminist groups and that antisemitism is often tolerated or even reproduced in these settings ("Über Uns"). [End Page 24] In the following pages I consider what we gain when we read the experiences and work of early-twentieth-century German-Jewish feminists through the lens of a theoretical model developed by Black feminists in the United States in the late twentieth century. I focus especially on the work of the social activist and writer Bertha Pappenheim (1859–1936), the founder and leader of the Jüdischer Frauenbund (JFB; League of Jewish Women). Audre Lorde emphasized in her work with the nascent Afro-German women's movement in the 1980s and 1990s the vital importance of researching their history in order to better understand and articulate their place as women and feminists of color and Germans. I propose that an exploration of how an earlier generation of German-Jewish feminists grappled with the categories of gender, Jewishness, and Germanness (among others) and their intersections would, on the one hand, be generative to understand the broader intellectual tradition of intersectional thought, and on the other, would provide a feminist lineage for a new generation of German-Jewish women who are struggling to situate themselves and their work within contemporary intersectional thinking and activism. Like Lorde, Pappenheim understood the value of looking backward to move forward: her translations of her ancestor Glikl's memoirs from Yiddish to German and of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women from English to German can be read as a search for role models or an attempt to establish a German-Jewish and feminist lineage. I resist calling Pappenheim a "vanguard" of intersectional feminism, in part because I am aware of the problem of co-opting a late-twentieth-century theoretical model developed by Black feminists in the specifically American context to frame the experience and activism of white Jewish women of Pappenheim's time and place. Although Pappenheim would be considered white today, Jews were generally viewed as racially Other in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Germany.2 Yet her insights regarding the intersections of Jewishness and gender bear a striking affinity to the insights of the African American feminists who developed the analytical framework and concept of intersectionality in the last third of the twentieth century. It is important to note here that the category of Jewishness was, in early-twentieth-century Germany, not a purely religious one but an uneasy amalgam of religion and ethnicity...
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犹太妇女与交叉女权主义:伯莎·帕彭海姆的案例
犹太妇女与交叉性女权主义伊丽莎白·洛伦茨(传记)本文探讨了一个棘手的问题:犹太妇女是否符合交叉性的框架,以及当我们通过美国黑人女权主义者在20世纪末发展起来的理论模型来阅读20世纪初德国犹太女权主义者的作品时,我们得到了什么。这篇文章将社会活动家和作家伯莎·帕彭海姆(Bertha Pappenheim)置于国际交叉女权主义思想的悠久传统中:一个多世纪前,她认识到犹太女性与基督教女性有不同的关注点和不同的父权制经历,也与犹太男性有不同的反犹主义经历——更不用说基督教女权主义者也不能幸免于反犹主义。认识到犹太妇女在男性主导的犹太社区和德国女权主义运动中被边缘化,帕彭海姆创立了一个德国犹太女权主义运动,它与德国女权主义运动不同,但又融入了德国女权主义运动,并试图团结不同的德国犹太妇女。犹太妇女赋权峰会于2021年9月在德国法兰克福举行,以“在交叉空间中可以考虑犹太人的观点吗?”(El) 1。在这期特刊的导言中,索尼娅·格兰斯和克里·瓦拉赫肯定地回答了这个问题,他们认为,研究和撰写不同形式压迫的女权主义学者不仅有可能,而且有必要——尤其是在德国研究的背景下——找到一种包括反犹主义和犹太人观点的方法。然而,今天在德国工作的犹太女权主义者,如教育倡议j disch & Intersectional(犹太与交叉)的创始人Ina Holev和Miriam Yosef,报告说他们感到被排除在交叉女权主义团体之外,反犹主义经常被容忍,甚至在这些环境中复制(“Über Uns”)。在接下来的几页中,我将通过美国黑人女权主义者在20世纪末发展起来的理论模型来思考,当我们阅读20世纪早期德国犹太女权主义者的经验和作品时,我们会得到什么。我特别关注社会活动家和作家伯莎·帕彭海姆(Bertha Pappenheim, 1859-1936)的作品,她是女性协会(JFB;犹太妇女联盟)。奥德丽·洛德在她对20世纪80年代和90年代新生的非裔德国妇女运动的研究中强调,为了更好地理解和阐明她们作为有色人种和德国女性、女权主义者的地位,研究她们的历史至关重要。我认为,对早期德国犹太女权主义者如何应对性别、犹太性和德国性(以及其他)等类别及其交叉的探索,一方面有助于理解更广泛的交叉思想的知识传统,另一方面,将为新一代德国犹太女性提供女权主义血统,这些女性正在努力将自己和自己的作品定位于当代交叉思维和行动主义中。和洛德一样,帕彭海姆明白回顾过去向前发展的价值:她把祖先格利克的回忆录从意第绪语翻译成德语,把玛丽·沃斯通克拉夫特的《女权辩护》从英语翻译成德语,可以被解读为寻找榜样,或者试图建立德国犹太人和女权主义者的血统。我拒绝称帕彭海姆为交叉女权主义的“先锋”,部分原因是我意识到,采用20世纪末黑人女权主义者在特定的美国背景下发展起来的理论模型来描述帕彭海姆那个时代和那个地方的白人犹太妇女的经历和行动主义存在问题。尽管帕彭海姆在今天被认为是白人,但在19世纪末和20世纪初的德国,犹太人通常被视为种族上的“他者”。2然而,她对犹太性和性别交叉点的见解与非裔美国女权主义者的见解有着惊人的相似之处,后者在20世纪最后三分之一时期发展了分析框架和交叉性概念。值得注意的是,在20世纪早期的德国,犹太人的范畴不是纯粹的宗教范畴,而是宗教和种族的令人不安的混合体……
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Feminist German Studies
Feminist German Studies WOMENS STUDIES-
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Intimate Associations: Reading Community in Sasha Marianna Salzmann's Außer sich (2017) and Else Lasker-Schüler's Der Malik (1919) Shame, Desire, and Queer Jewish Girlhood in Annette Eick's Semiautobiographical Fiction, 1929–1930 Jewish Women and Intersectional Feminism: The Case of Bertha Pappenheim German, Jewish, and Female: Encounters with Antisemitism in Mirna Funk's Winternähe (2015) and Deborah Feldman's Überbitten (2017) Editors' Introduction
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