Arnon Grunberg

Birthday

Unavoidable

Today, June 8, my mother’s birthday I went to Brussels to speak about Jewish literature and the wandering Jew, with Marcel Möring and Tobi Lakmaker.
The conversation about identity remained civilized, almost tame.
Gender, in the broadest sense of the word, was by far a much hotter topic than Jewishness. Unavoidable, the Jew as a member of a minority, has become mainstream in the West. Once again, the Jew is seen as a defender of the status quo, a pillar of the corrupted powers.
Well not in the Bozar in Brussels but elsewhere, a young woman asked: ‘Why are we speaking about this topic tonight?
The Jew is history.

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