Jewish Space
Jews live as both a part of and apart from larger society. What, then,
is Jewish space?
By Eli Barnavi
This article serves as
an introduction to two pieces that follow regarding the “management of Jewish
space” in the memoirs of scientist and statesman Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) and
German Jewish female merchant Glueckel of Hameln (1646-1724). It is reprinted from A
Historical Atlas of the Jewish People edited by Eli Barnavi and published by Schocken Books.
Stereotypes are sometimes grounded in reality. The word “Jew,” whether it is used
pejoratively or not, immediately evokes the association of mobility, a propensity to wander, to move from one place to another.
The association is conveyed by the basic legend concerning the birth of the
Jewish nation—the peregrinations of the Patriarchs. “Jews” also implies dispersion:
they are thought to be everywhere even when absent—how else canone explain anti‑Jewish campaigns
in “Jewish‑free" places such as Paris in 1652 or Polandin the 1960s? Obviously, all human communities
have been subject to mobility and dispersion; but it seems that none but the
Jews has known movement and dispersion so expanded in space and so extended in
time.
The Jewish perception of space is marked by uniquecharacteristics: it comprises a notion
of multiple spaces‑--rather than one of a single space; and between these
spaces--a void. In other words, the Jewish spatial experience is differential anddiscontinuous. Although
this applies to some extent to mankind in general (a one-spatialman does not exist and has never
existed), Jewish history has extended this existential condition to
stereotypical dimensions.
“My heart is inthe
East [Jerusalem] my body in the extreme West [Spain]"‑- in this
famous verse, Judah Halevi, the greatest poet of the Jewish Golden Age in
Spain, epitomizes the perception of multiple spaces and their discontinuity. A
space of the heart, a space of the body, and in between them a void (albeit
traversed by the poet himself on his journey to the Holy Land). Yet Jewish
spatial experience goes beyond the polarity of the Land of Israel/Diaspora: it
is not necessarily rent between two poles, for besides the experience of two
places separated by a gulf, it also incorporates other spaces for which the Jew
has a variety of mental stances, including indifference. This uniqueness of
Jewish spatial experience has been a constant factor in Jewish history, both
when dominated by religion and when molded by Zionism or modern secular
ideologies. Jewish consciousness constantly shifts between awareness of
physical spaces (the birthplace, for example) to spaces of reference (the
ancestral homeland, Hebrew, etc.), a shift which actually constitutes the Jewish spatial experience.
How can one understand such an experience in a tangible
manner? We shall try to explain it through two examples of "spatial
biographies," one of Chaim Weizmann, scientist and statesman (b. Motol,
Belorussia, 1874 ‑ d. Rehovot, Israel, 1952), the other of Glueckel of
Hameln, a wealthy woman merchant who lived in Germany three centuries earlier
(b. Hamburg, 1646-d. Metz, 1724). Both lived, on the whole, successful lives,
well-documented thanks to their memoirs: and while these are not necessarily
“representative" of Jewish biographies, they are at least suggestive.
Eli Barnavi is the
Director of the Morris Curiel Center for International Studies and a Professor
of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. This article is reprinted with
permission from A
Historical Atlas of the Jewish People edited by Eli Barnavi and published by Schocken Books. © 1992 by
Hachette Litterature.
