Banning German and Germany

From 1948 until 1967, Israel banned German language films, plays, and vocal music. Largely forgotten today, this article unravels the shifting contours of the ban—the only formal ban ever instituted by Israel on Germany—and unearths its rationales. It does so by focusing on the government agency in charge of formulating and administering the ban, the Film and Theatre Review Board. The article makes four arguments. First, the ban sought to protect the feelings of Holocaust survivors specifically, and Israeli society generally. Traumatized by the Holocaust, Israeli censors wished to remove any reminders of Germany from the public sphere. Second, the fluctuations of the ban tracked diplomatic developments with Germany and the changing sentiments in Israel toward postwar Germany. Third, the ban contributed to a discourse of national dignity and honor, bolstering the argument in favor of an independent Jewish state. Finally, the ban positioned the Board as an entity that claimed to speak for Jews, downplaying demands by Israeli Jews who wanted to consume German culture. As such, the ban should be viewed as an act of nation building and as an important component in the construction of a new Israeli identity, distinct from and independent of the diaspora Jew

Agency (philosophy) · Argument (complex analysis) · Censorship · Diaspora · Dignity · German · Government (linguistics) · Judaism · The Holocaust · German History and Society · German legal, social, and political studies · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies