In our synagogue

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In our synagogue (Die Synagoge von Thamühl) is a prose fragment by Franz Kafka , which was written in 1922 and can be found in the writings and fragments that have been bequeathed.

It is a description of a strange animal that is in an old synagogue. Its effect on synagogue visitors symbolizes the relationship between men and women as well as between the old faith and that of the assimilated Jews.

Emergence

It is a fragment from the so-called “Hungerkünstlerheftes”, which contains records from the years 1915 and 1921/1922.

The fragment cannot be found in the standard Kafka editions, but is mentioned by current biographers and publications (see, inter alia, Peter-André Alt Kafka The Eternal Son I.)

content

In the introductory paragraph, the Thamühl synagogue in question is described as a meager space that is barely filled by the ever-shrinking community.

A peculiar, marten-like animal lives in this synagogue. It is frightened and calm and prefers to hang around the bars that separate the women's section from the rest of the prayer room. Not the men, only the women fear the animal and they probably do not fear it seriously either, but take it as an opportunity to draw attention to themselves. The animal itself is inconspicuous, but when the prayers of the service are said, this noise is so irritating for the animal that it leaps and bounds in the synagogue.

As the congregation continues to shrink, it may be that at some point in the future the synagogue may be converted into a storage facility and the beast could come to rest. You don't understand your fear, there is no cause directed against the animal, it could have got used over the years. The senseless fear of the animal is compared to that of women.

It is said that many years ago they tried to drive the animal away. However, it can only be proven that reports from various famous rabbis were obtained, but they were of divided opinion. The fragment ends with the following words: "[...] but it was easy to decree from a distance, in reality it was impossible to drive the animal away."

Form and text analysis

This is one of the numerous well-known Kafka animal stories, but this is hardly mentioned in the current literature. The story is not told from the animal's perspective as in Der Bau or in A Report for an Academy , but from the perspective of an - obviously male - synagogue visitor. The anonymous narrator describes the inner life of the animal, its fear of noise (the similarity to the noise-sensitive animal from Der Bau is obvious), its preference for certain places in the synagogue, but without understanding for the animal. The narrator is just as uncomprehending about the timid women. The animal approaches them much more closely than men. Women are largely excluded from the Jewish synagogue tradition. A reference given to the transmission of knowledge about the animal among men from generation to generation can be applied to the whole of Jewish religious teaching.

Kafka has dealt intensively with the Jewish faith, whose European roots lay in Eastern Judaism, whose development then turned on the one hand in the direction of assimilation (sociology) and u. a. ran into the Zionist movement under Theodor Herzl with a new Jewish consciousness. In the letter to his father , Kafka also describes life in the synagogue as he experienced it as a child. He complains that he experienced "nothing about religion" there and that his father conveyed it to him.

Significantly, the narrator of the fragment describes the meager existence and the questionable continued existence of the synagogue without emotion. The animal is a bizarre archaic moment that cannot be banished. Beliefs are not even hinted at in the fragment.

Quote

  • [...] even the most fearful animal could have got used to it, especially when it sees that it is not the noise of pursuers, but a noise that does not affect it at all. And yet this fear. Is it the memory of times long past or the premonition of future times? Does this old beast perhaps know more than the three generations who are each gathered in the synagogue?

review

  • Peter-André Alt: “What the fragment explains about the animal can be transferred to the relationship of Western Jews to piety. When it is said that the men of the community had “long since become indifferent” to the sight of the strange synagogue inhabitant, this is just as reminiscent of assimilation as the remark that the children were no longer astonished at his appearance. The fact that only women 'fear the animal' indicates their role in the Orthodox Jewish worship service, which they are only allowed to watch as spectators in a room separated from the interior of the synagogue by 'bars' [...]. "P. 72.

output

  • Malcom Pasley (Hrsg.): Nachgelassene Schriften und Frage II. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-596-15700-5 , pp. 217-224.

Secondary literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Posthumous writings and fragments. II Appendix, content, p. 2.
  2. ↑ Alt p. 72
  3. ↑ von Jagow / Jahraus p. 530 ff.
  4. ↑ Alt p. 660
  5. ↑ von Jagow / Jahraus p. 194 ff.
  6. ↑ Alt p. 72.

Web links