“Two Senses of Home” – an event launching the anniversary year

 

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Foreign Minister, invited to the opening event "Two Senses of Home" of the German-Israeli series of readings and talks. Other participants were Meir Shalev, the Israeli author, and Edgar Reitz, the German director.

 

Two legendary storytellers, each capable of taking history and turning it into gripping tales. One does this using a film camera; the other, his pen. The former is Edgar Reitz, the German filmmaker; the latter is Meir Shalev, the Israeli writer. The two of them joined Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Foreign Minister, in discussing on the evening of January 15, 2015, the topic of “Two Senses of Home". The venue was the Weltsaal in Germany's Foreign Ministry in Berlin. This discussion was the kickoff of the German-Israeli series of readings and talks. This series, in turn, marked the beginning of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel. A wealth of events will be held in Germany and Israel in 2015 to honor these special relationships. 

 

“It is not possible to think about either of our two countries without remembering the scars left by the horrible history that binds us, without considering the barbarism of the Nazis, and how it caused them to commit the inconceivable crimes of the Shoah, and without realizing how many people found a new homeland only because sheer survival forced them to leave their old one – Germany,” stated Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Foreign Minister, in his address at the discussion. It was attended by several hundred guests.

As the minister stated, Germany and Israel are today “part of the homeland formed by western democracies.” Steinmeier pointed out that the partnership entered into by Germany and Israel had achieved a depth and a breadth nearly completely inconceivable fifty years ago.

Yacov-David Hadas-Handelsman is Israel's ambassador to Germany. He emphasized that German-Israeli relations had developed nearly unbelievably well from their starting point, which was “the darkest cave of history”.  As the ambassador noted, this relationship is also a manifestation of the will of the Jewish people to shape its own future. Hadas-Handelsman voiced his hope that this year's series of discussions will yield revealing insights into the daily lives and ethoses of both countries, and that these discussions will foster lively exchanges of ideas and information.

 

The first evening in the  series of readings and talks, which was created by Germany's Foreign Ministry and by Artists-in-Berlin Program of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), bore the title “Two Senses of Home” (“Zweierlei Heimaten”).

The panelists could not have better qualified to treat this topic. Meier Shalev was born in 1948, the year in which the state of Israel was founded. The author's recurring leitmotifs are war, identity, homeland and its loss. As Steinmeier put it, “these leitmotifs are virtually emblematic for the inceptions of the relationships between Germany and Israel.”

Edgar Reitz was born in 1932. He is the director of “Homeland – a German chronology” (“Heimat”). This trilogy covers more than six decades of German history. Reitz has thus also dedicated himself to the subject.

Shalev's approach to “home” was depicted in a reading undertaken by Corinna Kirchhoff, the actress, from his novel “A pigeon and a boy”, which was published in 2007. All of its story lines share the background of the battle in 1948 for Jerusalem. All of them raise the question of the meaning of “feeling at home”. The evening also featured a clip from Reitz's first “Heimat” series. It showed the return home of Paul Simon, the series' protagonist, from the First World War.

 

Astrid Frohloff, a TV journalist who was stationed in Israel, moderated the ensuing discussion, in which the participants strove to convey the import for them of “home”. They looked at how this term is perceived in Germany and Israel. “It's the place where I want to be, which I really don't want to leave,” said Shalev. Steinmeier emphasized that “home” as a geographic entity was losing its importance in a world gripped by globalization. For Steinmeier, his homeland is German and the sphere of culture shaped by this language. Reitz recounted how his search to discover his own roots and his attempt to relate the story of his place of origin led to his coming closer and closer to an understanding of the term. “But the more and more I strove to nail down the term, the more and more it slipped away from me.” As he said, the German term “Heimat” is enticingly ambiguous and laden with associations. It lacks the ability to be applied in a general way. “The converse of 'Heimat' is definitely 'nation', which is an abstract construction. This term does not have the capacity to yield a 'homeland'. 'Heimat' – should such exist at all – exists through the stories that we tell about it,” said Reitz.

Shalev agreed with Reitz. It is precisely in cases in which one lacks a homeland in the physical sense that the narrative, the history and the stories become a form of home. “Hebrew is my second homeland. It is one that I take with me wherever I go.”

Reitz expanded the discussion to encompass an aspect that has gained a new import from the terrorist attacks that had taken place in Paris the week previously. “There is in a way a homeland for our minds. It is comprised of our understanding of freedom and of our societal consensus. These, in turn, constitute the bases enabling our artistic endeavors.” An open society offers a homeland for the intellect. This kind of home no longer relates in any way to a particular nationality.

“How do the relationships between Germany and Israel impact upon our shaping of our understanding of 'homeland'?” was the question raised by Frohloff in concluding her moderation. In reply, Shalev told a story. The first thing that his mother did upon returning home was to greet her house. “Shalom, beit” - “hello, house” in Hebrew was what she said. His mother was convinced that intoning this greeting in the proper way would lead to the house's answering her. Reitz liked this image. As he said, “As long as the door to a house is open, it contains a home. This could serve as an inspiration to us all.” The facts that a large number of Israelis have gone to live in Germany and that young Germans are finding friends in Israel are reasons to be optimistic,” said Steinmeier. The foreign minister concluded by saying: “Our looks at German-Israeli relationships will encompass both the past and the promising shape of things to come.”

The evening's musical accompaniment was provided by an ensemble from the German Symphony Orchestra of Berlin, which performed two pieces by the jewish composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. The subsequent reception gave the event's guests, who were from the societal, political and cultural communities, opportunities to pursue their discussions with the panel's members, and to exchange views about German-Israeli relations.

 

The link to the speech given by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany's Foreign Minister

The link to the speech given by Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, Yacov Hadas-Handelsman, Israel's ambassador to Germany