WALKING OVER SINKHOLES
Some Reflections on the PCCA 2025 online Conference “Antisemitism and Otherness”
The Conference topic “Antisemitism and Otherness” felt to me well-timed, but at the same time strangely remote, this was my first reaction to the Conference. Was this because it referred to one of the –ism –nouns, that often denote belief systems which are discussed primarily in quite rarefied academic discourses? Or was my feeling rooted in some sort of resistance owing to my German background with its heavy load of history? Or because the word Anti-Semitism had been overused in political battles? The wording evoked in me the picture of something that might be rather unchallengeable.
Now, after the Conference ended, some words, experiences, and associations still stand out. What I noted down here has rather the character of impressions. They pose questions, answers to them seem not yet ripe.
- “The memory is starting its old engine” (Ilya Kaminsky)
It seemed to me almost impossible to deal with Anti-Semitism without being drawn into memories of the Holocaust. This appeared to me sometimes like a collapse of the present into the past. I had the uneasy feeling that sometimes the horrors of the Holocaust eclipse the perception of current Anti-Semitism, a danger that lurks in the wings.
Undoubtedly, an understanding of the past is imperative for understanding the present. We urgently need “the old engine” of memory of which the Jewish Writer from Odessa Ilya Kaminsky speaks*. Keeping memory alive is particularly important with a view to the Holocaust: remembering the Holocaust, struggling to understand how this murderous ideology came about, feeling the sadness that the memory evokes, dealing with feelings of guilt that it entails and with all the horror of it. At the same time it is crucial to perceive precisely und thoroughly the present-day phenomena of Anti-Semitism, recognising those elements that are different from the past. Against this background, I think about the often heard phrasing “Never again is now”. Isn’t there a certain danger that this sentence might cloud a deeper understanding of what current Anti-Semitism is and what it is not? A question, still up for answers.
- Ilya Kaminsky, Dancing in Odessa, London 2014, p. 58
- Sinkholes at the Dead Sea
In a splinter of a dream the Dead Sea presented itself in the Dream Matrix of the Conference. The Dead Sea is a unique landscape, one of the lowest points on earth, a highly salty lake in which neither plants nor animals can live. This lake is shrinking at swift rate. Due to the lowering of the ground water level under the surface many hidden caverns developed; they are not easily discernible from the surface. These sinkholes make walking on the shore dangerous, at any time you could sink in.
The Israeli Artist Sigalit Landau who dealt many times artistically with the wonders of the Dead Sea said in an interview: “You can’t talk about the Dead Sea without meeting some kind of side of death”*. To me, the Conference about Anti-Semitism appears like the scenery of the Dead Sea: Anti-Semitism evokes death threats. Varieties of exterminations, of expulsion, exclusion and destructive phantasies about fantasised enemies were at play in the Conference. It also seems to me, that it might not be a random co-incidence that the Dead Sea is situated at the heart of the Middle East, between Israel, Palestine, and Jordan. There are many sinkholes, that we encountered in the Conference when talking about the Other in the Middle East.
A strong picture came up in me in in the context of the Conference terrain as the Dead Sea: you cannot swim in the Dead Sea, you can only float. Now I strongly felt: we need to swim, not just to float. In terms of dealing with Anti-Semitism this could mean: Not remain just in the mode of reflecting feelings and projections, but get out and start to act. However, for this we would have to get out of the Dead Sea. Is this what we should do? Another open question.
- Who is the Anti-Semitic Other?
As different as the backgrounds of the participants in the Conference were, in one aspect they seemed to be united: nobody of them considered herself as being an Anti-Semite. In any case, Othering was at play, especially shifting identities invited projections. Some took on the role of a wandering Jew, the role of a refugee, we saw a lone researcher, a curious visitor or happy dwellers in a just- found cosy settlements, and a hermit, albeit not of her own choice. There was a certain excitement around in losing friends and finding new ones, giving up home turfs and exploring other options inside and outside oneself. Phantasies are abound. At the end of the day, we live also in the bodies of others, something that is sometimes called projections.
But who was the Anti-Semite in all this? When the event groups were established I had in mind to establish a group called: putting ourselves into the shoes of Anti-Semites. I hesitated, at the end I refrained from suggesting this. Probably my fear was: the act of dealing with Anti-Semitism might be contagious.
Concerning Othering, I had a small but for me telling experience. When talking about my experience having been excluded in some situation outside the Conference somebody said: this is a Jewish experience. With this remark she draw me in into the identity of her group. At first I was happy that I was taken in, a glimpse of what it means to be no more the Other, but to belong. But then it occurred to me that the same feeling of exclusion also can be understood as a typical experience of Palestinians. I realised that one pays a price when losing one’s Otherness: another string of one’s own identity will be ignored. When adapting to another in-group, to another culture you might have to silence parts of who you are, of what makes you unique. Getting out of the role of the Other and becoming part of an in-group can be very precarious. Whom an in-group perceives as the Other might shift in a minute.
The horizon which was drawn out with the Conference topic “Anti-Semitism and Otherness” was immensely vast. It felt as if the topic seemed to be boundless in time and space. It again and again faded away. It seems the topic Anti-Semitism evades any solution. And yet, we are called to swim.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Sigalit Landau, Crystallising Memories, interview in: Planted Journal, 22/03/2024, Internet Access: 23/09/2025
Berlin, September 23rd, 2025 Ingeborg Tiemann