TRANSIT

The essay discusses some ethnic and racial presumptions which subtend discussions of the recent Israeli migration to Germany, specifically the description of the Israeli presence in Berlin as signifying a “return” of Jews to Europe after the Holocaust. The essay argues that this description perpetuates the grounding of Zionism in the experience of a subject of European origins. Considering a few references to the Israeli presence in Berlin in literary texts by Israeli authors of Middle Eastern origins, the essay follows the ways in which non-European writing may play on, rewrite and dispel the narrative of post-Holocaust reconciliation of Germans and Jews by unearthing Israelis’ status in Germany as “oriental” and their corresponding liminal identification as both “Europeans” and “Arabs.”