Being Back or Living Abroad? Contemporary North American Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and Places of Belonging

• In Event: Jews of North America: a Social Sciences Perspective

Abstract

In the modern history of Jewish migration, millions upon millions of persons came from Europe to North America from the late 19th century through the middle of the 20th century. The words of Lazarus' The New Colussus
reflect a historical phenomenon in which "huddled masses [yearned] to breathe free."
In the last decades, we witness a smaller but not insignificant phenomenon of descendants of such migrants leaving the country that had once been dubbed the "Goldene Medina" (in Yiddish) as well as other North American countries and migrating to countries in Europe. Historically and sociologically, such a phenomenon partially owes to the granting of citizenship to Jewish persons whose forebears had been ethnically cleansed from European societies.
This research draws on discourse analysis and interviews with select individuals who opted to move from countries of North America to Germany as well as Austria. The article highlights understandings of Jewishness, old world / new world, home, and belonging of select individuals, then uses these understandings to construct a map that illuminates how persons are searching for, finding, and struggling with home and belonging in our times. Particular attention is paid to actual topoi, places that Jewishly and otherwise matter in interviewees' life journeys and current realities.
The places of Zionism, Israel, October 7 and its aftermath, etc are not explicitly addressed by the interviewer within interviews, although interviewees independently address and allude to them and the ways they do and do not resonate. (Notwithstanding the many Israelis who live in Berlin and elsewhere in Europe), the research specifically focuses on the North American-European Jewish encounter in the contemporary milieu. Findings of the research allow for re/thinking of the character of Jewish nostalgia, the contours of Jewish memory and history, and the meanings of migratory Jewish identity in 2024. The piece concludes with a reflection on the ease and elusiveness of Jewish re/turning to and belonging in German-speaking lands: being back or living abroad.

Author

• Joshua Krug