Wohnwort: the linguistic homelands of Elazar Benyoëtz

Pisano, Libera

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.36950/jndf.2022.15

Wohnwort: the linguistic homelands of Elazar Benyoëtz

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Citation

Pisano L. Wohnwort: the linguistic homelands of Elazar Benyoëtz. Judaica: Neue digitale Folge. 2022;3:1-20. DOI: 10.36950/jndf.2022.15

Abstract

One aspect of Elazar Benyoëtz’s poetry is his bold attempt to treat the catastrophe of Auschwitz through a linguistic prism. In this essay, I would like to shed light on his way of inhabiting the German language as an outsider by considering the ethical implications of his bifurcated linguistic soul. To do so, I will first analyze the general representation of language that appears in Benyoëtz’s work. In particular, I will point to the dynamics of language and how its movement shapes a land and a language beyond all constraints of ownership, while providing an alternative way of inhabiting it. I will then examine possible interpretations of Benyoëtz’s bifurcated linguistic soul along with its ethical implications, including not only a coming to terms with the end of German-Jewish symbiosis, but also a utopian way of repairing it.