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German-Israeli Literature Days

There are many points of contact between German and Israeli contemporary literature.

01.04.2014
picture-alliance/Sven Simon - Hannah Dübgen
picture-alliance/Sven Simon - Hannah Dübgen © picture-alliance/Sven Simon - Hannah Dübgen

More than 20,000 Israelis currently live in Berlin. Interest in the German metropolis is particularly great among young Israelis. Germany consciously promotes this kind of exchange. When almost the entire Federal Cabinet travelled to Jerusalem in February for German-Israeli intergovernmental consultations, among other things, it was decided to introduce a Working Holiday Visa to enable young Israelis spend a year working in Germany.

 

Many of the Israelis who come to Germany have a professional interest in art and culture. Lively creative interchange has already developed, and there are numerous encounters and meetings, for example, in the field of literature. “Many paths lead to Germany in contemporary Israeli literature,” claims a recent volume of essays in a periodical published by the Hochschule für Jüdische Studien (HfJS) in Heidelberg. In the opposite direction, German contemporary literature is also influenced by Israeli literature. The volume of essays refers to “Eine Art Liebe” (A Kind of Love) by the author Katharina Hacker. It describes how the young Berlin-based Jewish studies scholar Sophie is commissioned by lawyer and Holocaust survivor Moshe Fein to write down his story and that of his childhood friend Jean, a tale of flight and betrayal.

 

Meetings of authors in Berlin and Tel Aviv

 

The Goethe-Institut and the Heinrich Böll Foundation are also examining points of contact between German and Israeli literature during their German-Israeli Literature Days. Since 2005 the event has invited authors from both countries alternately to Berlin and to Tel Aviv. In 2014 the festival is focusing above all on “Matters of Faith”. What role does faith play for modern German and Israeli authors? The guests will include the German writer Hannah Dübgen, who wrote part of her 2013 debut novel “Strom” in the Artists Residence Herzliya near Tel Aviv, and the Israeli author and translator Assaf Gavron, who lived in Berlin as a guest of the DAAD.

 

German-Israeli Literature Days from 5 to 13 April 2014 in Berlin and Frankfurt (Oder)

 

www.goethe.de

 

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