The Home that Never Was: Rethinking Space and Memory in Late Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century Jewish History

2013/01/01 by Frank Wolff, Wolff, Frank · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #19. Jahrhundert #20. Jahrhundert #Eastern Europe #Europa #Europe #Gedächtnis #Identifikation #Identitätsbildung #Jew #Jewish Identity and Society #Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies #Judaism #Jude #Judentum #Mythologie #Osteuropa #Semantik #identification #identity formation #memory #mythology #nineteenth century #semantics #social differentiation #social space #soziale Differenzierung #sozialer Raum #twentieth century

paper · pdf · doi:10.12759/hsr.38.2013.3.197-215

openalex publication_date 2013/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28

Abstract

Recent research on Jewish migration and 'Jewish spaces' usually asks for the relevance of 'Jewish spaces' in Jewish life. This article looks the other way and examines how the changing conditions of Jewish life altered emigrant's perceptions of their 'old home' in East Europe. It argues that in Jewish memory East Europe functioned as a mythscape which changed from a repressive and revolutionary over a progressive to the lost 'old home'. As a result the article calls to more carefully historicize processes of Jewish memory and spatial semantics as expressions of relations between conflicting groups.

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