Edito

The speech delivered in Munich by the American Vice-President J. D. Vance made one thing clear – at least to the fringe of the European conscience that has managed to remain lucid: Europe, which has been lethargic for years now, and this despite the looming threats that Vance only had the dubious merit of pronouncing aloud, must pull itself together. However, pulling itself together – and however important it is to reflect on a common European defense policy – cannot be limited to taking realpolitik into account. On this point, we must be sensitive to the diagnosis in the form of a snub that Vance addressed to us, deploring the supposed divorce of Europe from the democratic values and freedom of expression so dear to the United States, even as the Trumpist regime is taking the path of open authoritarianism and systematic censorship. In the absence of a strong conception of Europe and its political vocation, there is a risk that the same path will be followed. That the lethargy of a liberalism that has long since ceased to reflect on the political basis of its existence will be succeeded by the very real nightmare of a sovereignism subservient to the great powers and playing “democracy” against the law.

In the very short term, that of the decisive federal elections that will take place in Germany this weekend, this nightmare has a name: AfD. We are therefore publishing a text by Monty Ott on the history of this movement, and the democratic cataclysm that the collaboration of conservative parties with the far right would represent. Vance also indicated where his allies were to be found, by meeting the AfD’s candidate for the chancellorship, Alice Weidel, and by describing the treatment of this party as a “denial of democracy”. We also know about the sympathies that unite the international networks of the far right with Putin’s Russia. The paradox is only apparent: the sovereignism of “national preference” becomes subservient to the great policies of national power, insofar as it knows no other policy than force.

It is against this threat that Europe must be able to formulate the exceptional nature of its political project, which is rightly based on a distrust, acquired in the trials of history, of any policy of power. Today, it is the fate of the “small nations”, that of a dizzying experience of the precariousness of their existence, that must illuminate the destiny of Europe and lead it to pull itself together. The clouds are gathering over the very principle of their existence, but, as Ukraine has been able to demonstrate over the past two years, the “small nation” is not without resources. To support this point, we are publishing an account by Joseph Roche of how Odessa, and within it the “small Jewish nation”, was able to survive the war.

And, to accompany this diagnosis, we are republishing Danny Trom’s text “Kundera politique”. It is worth remembering, that for Kundera, Israel was the “small nation par excellence”, and that the political alternative taking shape there makes it the outpost of what Europe must be led to achieve for itself: in adversity, they are united.

The truce between Israel and Hamas, which recent developments suggest may be short-lived, is making for a deplorable spectacle. On both sides, the grim reality of the situation is obscured by boastful proclamations. On the Hamas side, they cry “victory” over a field of ruins and corpses, with utter disregard for the fate of the Gazan population for whom the group has no other agenda than that of martyrdom. On the Israeli side, even as society is moved by the parade of emaciated hostages organized by Hamas, Netanyahu and his allies are rejoicing in the parodies of “solutions” announced with unheard-of levity by President Donald Trump. For a misguided Zionism, any evasion of the Palestinian question is already a victory in itself. Therein lies the secret intelligence that unites the contrasting plans for the future of Gaza: whether the terrorists dig their tunnels again under the feet of destitute civilians, or whether Gaza becomes an ultraliberal paradise for tourists after a forced displacement of its population, it is the political character of the situation that will have been obliterated. Because, on both sides, the aim is to establish a simple balance of power between powers measuring themselves against their capacity for destruction. Faced with this brutal depoliticization of the issues, and their derealization, we wanted to present another depiction of the situation, which cannot be described as a victory for anyone. K. therefore acts as a conduit for a Palestinian voice, that of Ihab Hassan, first published in the American magazine Liberties, who thinks in the only politically viable terms: those of a conflict between two equally just national claims, pointing to the prospect of a two-state solution.

Since this issue seems decidedly devoted to the political question and the difficulties of relating to otherness, we are publishing a reflection on a philosopher who articulated the responsibility involved in confronting the face of the other in its destitution. In his text, Jean-François Rey shows us that Levinas’ thought, far from being confined to the sphere of ethics, has a truly political dimension, which places it where one would not expect it.

Finally, why do some historians of antisemitism absolutely reject any analogy between October 7 and historical anti-Jewish persecution? Matthew Bolton situates this debate, with its far-reaching political implications, on an epistemological level, explaining why “historicists” refuse to conceive of antisemitism as “eternal hatred”. In return, he exposes the flawed nature of their method, which ends up dissolving the very concept of antisemitism by obliterating its historical necessity.

In Austria, as elsewhere in Europe, the ranks of the far right are steadily growing, and it is highly likely that the FPÖ will soon be able to appoint a Nazi-admiring chancellor in the form of Herbert Kickl. K. will soon be documenting this worrying prospect. In the meantime, it’s interesting to place it in a more general political context, that of an Austria grappling with its past, with a young but already crumbling social democracy, torn between backward-looking conservatism and a certain intellectual and artistic vitality. Viennese filmmaker and writer Ruth Beckermann’s documentaries bear precious witness to this recent era. Here, Liam Hoare interviews her about her political and artistic commitments, and their link to a Jewishness that could not be expressed in Austrian political language.

Stéphane Mandelbaum lived a life as raw and transgressive as his art. With the current Drawing Center exhibtion in New York in mind, Mitchell Abidor explores the tortured Belgian-Jewish artist’s turbulent journey—one shaped by his Jewish identity, dyslexia, and fixation on both society’s rebels and its villains and a love for alternative and ground-breakin artists, from Francis Bacon to Pierre Goldman. Mandelbaum left behind a body of work that is both haunting and confrontational, forcing viewers to grapple with the boundaries between art, crime, and identity.

For K., if there are still a few intact snippets left to build on, they are to be found in Europe. Dispersed, weakened, undermined by falsely universalist and vainly critical postures, they are nonetheless still alive in many of the consciences of European countries – indeed, in the majority of them. Our task is to offer them the intellectual means to express themselves more and better than is currently the case. It is also the duty imposed on Europe by Trump’s victory: to reconnect with its project. And for this, using the modern Jewish question as a spur is certainly not the option least suited to the constraints of the present. So we end this week’s issue with a critique, formulated from the current political wanderings of Jews, of what makes contemporary progressivism so inconsistent in the face of the push from the reactionary camp.

Do we still know what is meant by the concept of antisemitism? The debates that have stirred up the academic world since October 7 raise doubts on this subject: for eminent specialists, it would be impossible to reconcile the crimes of Hamas, and their aftermath, with the historical persecutions that have targeted Jews. Any analogy between the two would have to be treated as intrinsically suspect, since it would obliterate the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by invoking an eternal, ancient anti-Jewish hatred. But then, how consistent is the concept of antisemitism? Matthew Bolton’s article rigorously restores the epistemological and political presuppositions of this controversy between the “historicist” and “eternalist” positions, giving us the means to overcome its aporias. What we have to think about is neither an immutable hatred, nor an incident that happens to Jews, but the trace in the present of a past that never ends.

As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by the Red Army this week, and the testimonies of the last survivors, it is precisely this question of the permanence of traces that should stir the European conscience. For the latter, “Auschwitz”, the name of something that had to be avoided at all costs, has been the point of consensus that has enabled a common political orientation to emerge since the Second World War. Europe had stitched itself together around “Never again”. But today, the thread seems to have snapped, and the consensus shattered. Indeed, at the very moment when the reference to Auschwitz is imposed on all, we can see that it has been emptied of its substance, since there is divergence as to the obligation it implies for the present. The core of “Never again” is now open to competing and incompatible interpretations. As Ruben Honigmann suggests in his account of his own encounter with the living memory of genocide, “The page of the Shoah is turned. All that remains are obscene recuperations”. If that’s the case, we’d better take note of it, because what’s at stake is the political identity of Europe, and the future of the Jews who remain there. In addition to his text, we enclose a special feature bringing together a number of contributions published in K. on the subject of distortions of the history of the genocide and the difficult context in which it is transmitted today.

As we commemorate this weekend the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp by the Red Army, and the testimonies of the last survivors, it is precisely this question of the permanence of traces that should stir the European conscience. For the latter, “Auschwitz”, the name of something that had to be avoided at all costs, has been the point of consensus that has enabled a common political orientation to emerge since the Second World War. Europe had stitched itself together around “Never again”. But today, the thread seems to have snapped, and the consensus shattered. Indeed, at the very moment when the reference to Auschwitz is imposed on all, we can see that it has been emptied of its substance, since there is divergence as to the obligation it implies for the present. The core of “Never again” is now open to competing and incompatible interpretations. As Ruben Honigmann suggests in his account of his own encounter with the living memory of genocide, “The page of the Shoah is turned. All that remains are obscene recuperations”. If that’s the case, we’d better take note of it, because what’s at stake is the political identity of Europe, and the future of the Jews who remain there. In addition to his text, we enclose a special feature bringing together a number of contributions published in K. on the subject of distortions of the history of the genocide and the difficult context in which it is transmitted today.

Is Israel finally getting out of the stalemate it has been in for months? With the conclusion of a ceasefire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages, this is indeed what we can hope for. Bruno Karsenti and Danny Trom extend this week’s analysis, based on the failure of Israel to articulate the objective of eliminating Hamas with that of rescuing the hostages. We can only rejoice that the balance is now tipping in the direction of the latter, refocusing Israeli policy by marginalizing the most extreme bangs of Zionism. But those who sincerely believe in the possibility of a political solution between Israelis and Palestinians must not forget that the prospect of genuine peace will remain remote as long as Hamas maintains its yoke on Gaza, and as long as the manner in which the war was waged and its toll on civilian populations have not been examined.

If, within the human community, the Jews appear to be marked by an irreducible difference, it is because of the nature of the promise that guided their emergence from Egypt, and the law in which this promise took concrete form. Now, if it is through this founding moment that the Jewish people come into their own, and if it is as guardians of this law that they find their place among the Nations, the question arises as to what this symbolic origin systematically objects to. The book of Judges, an analysis of which we are publishing this week by Ivan Segré, illustrates what is at stake in the Jewish people’s fidelity to its own law, on the occasion of a trial that has echoes in today’s situation: the conquest of the Promised Land. Questioning the political implications of the rejection of idolatry, Segré highlights the need to eliminate the phallic and bellicose impulse that runs deep in the timeless depths of humanity.

To mark the magazine’s 200th issue, we are republishing the ‘manifesto’ that accompanied its creation. Nearly four years have passed, with their share of upheavals and recompositions, but the diagnosis we made in it still seems relevant today: Europe has lost sight of its “Jewish question”, one of the reasons for its decline, and it is from the unstable position Jews occupy within it that a horizon can be opened up.

The very nature of horror is to be questioned only with difficulty. Whether it fascinates the captive (and therefore blind) gaze, or forces us to avert our eyes, horror seems to thwart our capacity for comprehension, as if it had reached its limit. As a video of Israeli hostage Liri Albag was broadcast last week by Hamas, reactivating the original horror of the event, the question once again arises: what should we do with these images, which bear witness to the unbearable nature of the crimes of October 7, and which Hamas terrorists have sought to propagate? For Emmanuel Taïeb, whose text invites us to reflect on the fate of these images, there is no other way but to look at them lucidly, provided we shift the focus to their uses. For the use of these images for memorial purposes or political mobilization, against the initial intention of those who took them, bears witness to their reversibility. Refusing to confront horror would mean letting the horrific have the last word in history.

Pivoting over to New York, the current exhibition of The Morgan Library and Museum is celebrating Franz Kafka with a profound exploration of his manuscripts, letters, and diaries, offering an unparalleled glimpse into the creative mind that reshaped modern literature. Mitchell Abidor intricately examines Kafka’s impact, particularly his influence on Philip Roth, who reimagined Kafka’s struggles with identity, family, and Jewishness through the lens of American immigrant life. Through this dialogue between two literary titans, we are invited to reconsider the Kafkaesque not merely as a symbol of bureaucratic absurdity, but as a deeply human confrontation with love, alienation, and cultural dislocation.

To mark the magazine’s 200th issue, we are republishing the ‘manifesto’ that accompanied its creation. Nearly four years have gone by, with their share of upheavals and recompositions, but the diagnosis we made in it still seems relevant today: it is also because Europe has lost sight of its “Jewish question” that it is languishing, and it is from the unstable position that Jews occupy within it that a future can be paved.

Ten years ago, Islamist terrorism struck the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper Cacher at Porte de Vincennes, also killing police officers. To commemorate these attacks, the CRIF and Charlie Hebdo are organizing a joint evening of debate and tribute to the victims on January 9. But does this alliance, under the slogan “We are the Republic”, between the institution that represents Jewish associative life and a bastion of militant secularism make sense, beyond the tragic ordeal we have both been through? According to Bruno Karsenti, who points out that the emancipation of Jews and their conversion to the modern political condition depends on a society that is itself emancipated, it intrinsically does. But only if “Republic” is understood in a particular sense, which must resist all dogmatization.

In an era when names like Auschwitz and Dachau evoke Europe’s darkest chapters, Marta Caraion’s Geography of Darkness: Bucharest-Transnistria-Odessa, 1941–1981 sheds light on a lesser-known axis of terror. Through a deeply personal and meticulously researched narrative, Caraion uncovers Transnistria’s haunting legacy—a region transformed by Marshal Antonescu’s Romania into a nightmarish experiment in ethnic cleansing. Elena Guritanu interviewed Caraion for K. This poignant family saga of survival and exile not only illuminates the hidden memory of the Romanian Shoah but also challenges us to confront the unspoken geographies of atrocity.

To coincide with the theatrical adaptation of Katharina Volckmer’s Jewish Cock (“The Appointment”, Camille Cottin and Jonathan Capdevielle, Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, January 7-25, 2025), we are republishing Julia Christ’s article on the novel. It discusses the possibility of a circumcised object plugging the hole of German guilt, and the Jew one must fantasize about to continue living after the Shoah.

The magazine’s editorial team would like to thank all those who are contributing to its campaign to support its continuation and development in 2025.

To begin the year on a high note, we offer you a selection of the seven most popular articles in a period marked by the need to combat the rise of antisemitism in Europe, and the questioning of Israel’s future. This is your chance to delve, or dive back, into the publications that have been the most widely read and shared: Ben Wexler on the curious variation of anti-Zionist formulas taking shape in Canada; Eva Illouz responds to Didier Fassin on whether Israel is committing a genocide; writer Etgar Keret’s interview on the loss of consistency in the reality experienced by Israelis; Balazs Berkovits on the October 7th pogrom as a non-event on the Western left; interview with Dara Horn on her book and the question it bring up on why ‘People love dead Jews’; Noémie Issan-Benchimol and Elie Beressi on the concept of the “Arab Jew” and its political uses; and finally, a two-part series by Balazs Berkovits on ‘What color are the Jews?’. 

Since the time for good resolutions is fast approaching, we’re taking advantage of a strange letter received from the depths of eternity to make our own. This letter, read on stage last month by Julia Christ at our K. event in Paris, was sent to us by an esteemed contributor to the magazine, whose sharp pen is unrivalled when it comes to ferreting out stupidity. In it, he aptly captures the sense of the struggle that has breathed life into the magazine for almost 4 years, and to which we have not finished devoting our energies: not to let the link that unites Jews to Europe fade away.

The end-of-year festivities are here, and with them their procession of epinal images. In the streets, the good people, who have never lost their childlike spirit, marvel at the brilliant decorations and rush to buy gifts and treats. In thatched cottages, a delicate aroma wafts from the kitchen, while the air is filled with the clink of glasses being toasted, laughter and the cries of overexcited kids. Everything is perfectly in place. However, we all know that this ideal image that families strive to create has its downside: just as a liver attack reminds us of the reality of what we thought was a bottomless stomach, the eruption of a political or religious rift can reveal the illusory nature of family harmony at any moment. In the collective imagination, the figure of the racist uncle has come to embody this threat of internal rupture, which can never be entirely averted. There’s no doubt that some of our readers will have come face to face with this during the many end-of-year meals… As for the others, they will be able to live the holiday spirit to the full by discovering O. Bouquet’s personal account of his antisemitic uncle, and the dilemmas facing the man whose children are Jewish in an old Catholic family.

Because the best remedy against indigestion of good feelings is still bad wit, we are also republishing Danny Trom’s analysis of Steven Spielberg and Joe Dante’s Gremlins. In this film, Christmas, and with it the cosmic order, are turned upside down: does this parodic detour belong to a specific genre, that of the Jewish Christmas movie?

Last but not least, in the spirit of reflections on the year gone past, we are also resharing Ruben Honigmann’s text on solitude, never-ending endings and being the penultimate Jew.