Culture

Dybbuk, golems, zombies, spectres, werewolves and other Mazzikim, Jewish demonology has penetrated the cinema, but what does it have to tell us? Between memories of the Shoah, reflections on evil, the body or the unconscious, or even the quest for an alternative religiosity – on the occasion of the exhibition currently on view at the mahJ in Paris: “The dybbuk. Phantom of the lost world”, an investigation into one of Judaism’s most singular contributions to art and representation. By David Haziza, who has just published ‘Jewish myths. The return of the sacred’, in the Diaspora book series published by Calmann-Lévy.

In our final summer issue, we present you with a selection of texts that have already appeared in our pages, grouped around a key theme. With the end of summer and the soon to be starting new Jewish calendar year, this week we turn our eye to the complexity of Jewish identity and experience and the culture of questioning that accompanies us throughout – with perspectives from Ivan Segré, Mona El Khoury, Ruben Honigmann, Astrid von Busekist and Noémie Issan-Benchimol. 

Every week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages and have been brought together around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K.’s literary texts, with pieces by Moshe Sakal, Berl Kotlerman, Avishag Zafrani, Julia Christ, Stéphane Bou and Maxime Decout.

Each week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, and have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover K. ‘s work about the realities of and stories to be told from life in Eastern Europe. With texts by Benny Ziffer, Gabriel Rom, Romano Bolkovic, Yeshaya Dalsace, Emmy Barouh and János Gadó.

Every week this summer, K. brings you a selection of six texts that have already appeared in our pages, but have been brought together for the occasion around a few key themes. This week, we invite you to (re)discover some of the first-person accounts written for K. With texts by Ruben Honigmann, Yossef Murciano, Judith Lyon-Caen, Judith Offenberg, Ivan Segré, Gabriel Abensour and Frédéric Brenner.

This week, we invite you to (re)discover K. ‘s texts on Judeo-American symbiosis. And its deterioration? With texts by Mitchell Abidor, Elie Petit, Mona El Khoury, Macha Fogel and Christian Voller.

After having published a review of Motl in America a month ago, Mitchell Abidor returns in his text to this extraordinary tale of Jewish immigration to the United States. Blending his family’s memories with Sholem-Aleichem’s account, Abidor recounts the journey to the “Promised Land”, the new arrivals’ disorientation and their acculturation to American society. Above all, he pays tribute to the unfailing optimism of these Jews who had left “Pogromland”.

“It is the calm after the storm. / It is the calm before the storm. / We know what happened. / We got back to normality. / We know what is yet to come. / We will lose said normality. / War is here, and more is coming.”

Paying tribute to Joann Sfar’s comic strip The Rabbi’s Cat (Le Chat du Rabbin), Ewa Tartakowsky takes the opportunity to question certain “Ashkenazi-centric” prejudices. Isn’t there a tendency to relate to Maghrebian Jewishness while ignoring its specificities, thereby retaining something of the colonial legacy? In this respect, Sfar’s work, driven by the caustic lucidity of The Cat, is a valuable remedy for appreciating the subtleties of a mixed European Judaism.