Jewish Identities in Contemporary Europe

Providing an assessment of Jewish identity, this volume presents critical engagements with a number of Jewish writers and filmmakers from a variety of European countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Poland, and the UK. The novels and films discussed explore the meaning of being Jewish in Europe today, and investigate the extent to which this experience is shaped by factors that lie outside the national context, notably by the relationship to Israel. As the recent attacks on Charlie Hebdo, and the targeting of a Jewish supermarket in Paris, demonstrate, these questions are more pressing than ever, and will challenge Jews, as well as Jewish writers and intellectuals, as they explore the answers.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Jewish Culture and History.

Andrea Reiter is Professor of German at the University of Southampton, UK. She is the author ofContemporary Jewish Writing: Austria after Waldheim (2013). Her research focuses on contemporary German and Austrian Jewish writers and intellectuals.

Lucille Cairns is Professor of French at Durham University, UK. Her work focuses on French women’s writing and filmmaking, male and female homosexuality in French literature and film, and Franco-Jewish literature. She is the author ofSapphism on Screen: Lesbian Desire in French and Francophone Cinema (2006),Post-War Jewish Women's Writing in French (2011), and Francophone Jewish Writers: Imagining Israel(2015).