How do you react to the unfathomable? “The horror of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel can hardly be put into words,” is how the announcement of the charity evening “The Promised Land” outlines it. A number of writers will still try it on December 20th in the Volkstheater – and in doing so will not only counteract the silence that the German literary world was accused of after October 7th, but also show their solidarity against the rampant anti-Semitism.
The Munich author Slata Roschal initiated and curated the evening, together with her colleague Alexander Estis, who lives in Switzerland. You have organized several charity readings in Germany, including in Hanover, Hamburg and Frankfurt. The evening in Munich was particularly important to her, Roschal put it for the Monacensia literary archive, “because I live here, this city means so much to me from a literary perspective, and when I look at the street signs, stumbling blocks and Bavarian election results, I think – where, if not here”.
Where if not here, and where if not, for example, in the Volkstheater? There are a number of Munich and non-Munich authors of the younger generation who, like Roshal, express “solidarity towards Israeli residents and fellow Jews” and want to show “how important, natural and diverse Jewish voices and topics are in young German literature are”.
In addition to Roshal, the authors Dana von Suffrin and Fridolin Schley from Munich will also be appearing at the Volkstheater, as well as Iryna Fingerova, Boris Schumatsky, Lena Streisand and the violinist and composer Alexander Polinskiy. And of course co-initiator Alexander Estis, who recently wrote in an SZ guest article about anti-Semitism: “Since you didn’t think ahead, the only thing that helps now is thinking. If you think, you can still understand a lot now.” This evening is also intended for that.
“The Promised Land. Voices from German-Jewish literature on October 7, 2023“, Wednesday, December 20th, 7 p.m., Volkstheater, Tumblinger Str. 29. Admission free, please register at [email protected]. Donations go to the victims’ aid of the Jewish Community in Munich.