Jack Zipes
Published: 1991
Total Pages: 160
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Pp. 47-86 contain the texts of the two stories: "The Operated Jew", by Oskar Panizza (p. 47-74), and "The Operated Goy", by Mynona (pen name of Salomo Friedlaender). The first (published in 1893) is the story of a Jew who underwent radical surgery in order to become a bona fide German, but was unsuccessful due to a bout of drunkenness at his wedding to a Gentile woman, which caused him to disintegrate and reveal the truth. The second story, written in 1922 as a reaction to the first, narrates the tale of an antisemitic Prussian aristocrat who was enchanted by a Jewess, became a religiously observant Jew, and settled in Palestine. Pp. 87-109, "Oskar Panizza: The Operated German as Operated Jew", relate Panizza's biography and try to explain what impelled Panizza to write "The Operated Jew". The story, although antisemitic (as Panizza himself was in the early period of his writing), is also critical of German society, which oppressed the individual; thus, to be German means self-destruction for the Jew. Pp. 110-137, "Salomo Friedlaender: The Anonymous Jew as a Laughing Philosopher", relate his biography and state that Friedlaender wanted to show that, despite the racial difference, German-Jewish symbiosis may be achieved. Pp. 1-46 contain the essay "Preliminary Diagnosis", reflecting on Jewish existence in a prejudiced world, especially in postwar Germany, both West and East. Now, as in the past, the Jew is compelled in one way or another to seek his "normalization" in society, and thus to "operate" on himself.