culture, subculture and counterculture - Facultatea de Litere

THE FRUSTRATION OF THE JEWISH SPIRIT
ALINA BEATRICE CHEŞCĂ
“Danubius” University of Galaţi, Romania
This paper analyses frustration as an inexorable datum of the Jewish spirit and
the way it is mirrored in some Jewish writers’ works, such as Franz Kafka and
Mihail Sebastian. Their works have the value of a confession, since it is
generally stated that the Jewish spirit is tormented by an unbearable guilt. One of
the main themes approached by the Jewish artists is loneliness and the ways it
can be overcome; for most of them, isolation is a synonym for guilt, as it causes
frustration, anguish and culpability. The Jew’s inner life is overwhelmed by
anguish, which, according to Heidegger, “reveals the individual, in one’s
intimate being, the most genuine possibilities of existing.” (1977: 147) Certain
obsessive repetitions are to be found in the Jewish culture: frustration, guilt, fear
of life/death, anguish, loneliness, the instinct of life/death, freedom. The paper
will prove that the Jewish artists have understood the isolation they are doomed
to by society (and, why not, by destiny) in the name of their Jewish origin; this
could be called ‘the loneliness of the Jewish’.
Of primary importance in this context is the endemic anti-Semitism of
Romanian culture, which has deep historic roots. Encouraged by the rise of
Nazism during the 1930s, the indigenous anti-Semitism of the Iron Guard made
life for Jewish students at the university a continuous torment. They were
assigned special seats, continually insulted verbally and assaulted physically. It
was often necessary for the police to be called in to protect them as they left the
lecture halls. There is a moving passage in a novel from 1934 by Mihail
Sebastian/Iosif Hechter (For Two Thousand Years), for a while a member of
Eliade’s inner circle, in which the obviously autobiographical main character,
who had been slapped in the face, remonstrated with himself: “Tell yourself that
you are the son of a nation of martyrs…dash your head against the walls, but if
you wish to be able to look yourself in the face, if you don’t wish to die of
shame, do not weep.” (1990: 28)
The reigning academic figure at the university, or at least the figure who
exercised the most influence on the writers of the time, was Nae Ionescu,
professor and philosopher. He was a charismatic speaker, capable of producing
an almost hypnotic influence to auditoria. He attracted bright young students
around him, including Eliade and Sebastian; the young generation of that time
was fortunate to have such an unequalled teacher in philosophy. Even the Jewish
Sebastian was unable to shake off Ionescu’s spell until about 1936. Before
Sebastian published his book For Two Thousand Years dealing with anti-
Semitism, he asked his beloved and highly respected teacher Nae Ionescu to
write the preface. This preface was devastating. Nae Ionescu justified his anti-
Semitism based on the presumption of deicide. And the unbelievable happened,
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