Itta Shedletzky

Bacherach and Barcelona. On Else Lasker-Schüler's

Relation to Heinrich Heine

At the outset, let me pose the following questions: What did Heinrich Heine
mean to Else Lasker-Schüler? Was it more than just the fact, that she came to
know Heine ~ like Goethe and Schiller — "already as a child in her parents'
house."1 This piece of information, in itself, is not at all marginal in the case
of Else. (I shall allow myself to use this intimate form to make a long name
short.) Did their common German-Jewish background, even from the same
region, have any significance for her? Do the two authors have more in
common than their free play with the German language and with Jewish
matters or their preference for assuming roles and undergoing metamorpho-
ses? Can one speak about spiritual affinity inspite of obvious differences in
time and temperament, mentality and gender?
In Else's work and letters there are several allusions to Heine and
quotations from his poems. From a first glance, mainly at the quotations, one
has the impression, that Else was quite fond of Heine, but did not know
much more about his work than a few of the most famous poems from Buch
der Lieder. Thus, in a letter to Willem (Wilhelm) Schmidtbonn, she parodies
the poem " Die Lorelei" in the dialect of her native city Elberfeld:

Wo steckst De dann eegentlich, Willem? Etwa op däm Hunsrück

on trägst eenen Muhlkorb? [...] Oder weilst De bei de Loreley on
bricht Ding flammend Herz entzwei? Eck weess jedenfalls nich,
wat soll et bedeuten on worömm eck so trureg bin, Du wackelst
em Schaukelstuhle meck ömmer durch ming Sinn. Der Abend is
kühl on et plätschert die Hände onterm Kinn, eck bin in Zürich et
gletschert op eenmal - [...] 2

(Where are you hiding, WHlem? Are you on the Hunsrück

wearing a muzzle? Or are you staying with the Lorelei and your
flaming heart is breaking? I, in any case, do not know what it
1
Sigrid Bauschinger, Else Lasker-Schüler. Ihr Werk und ihre Zeit (Heidelberg: 1980), 68.
2
In Konzert (1932), dtv 10645 (München: 1986), 73. The quotations from Else Lasker-
Schüler's works are taken from the pocket-book edition of dtv: Gesammelte Werke in
acht Bänden (dtv 10641-10648), (München: 1986). The year in brackets after the title
refers to the first publication. Quotations from Heinrich Heine's works are taken from the
Insel edition: Heines Werke in zehn Bänden (Oskar Walzel, Ed.), (Leipzig: 1910).
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114 Itta Shedletzky

means and why I am so sad. You are shaking in a rocking chair

always through my mind. The evening is cool and it babbles,
hands under the chin. I am in Zurich and suddenly glaciers —

In the prose sketch Handschrift, Else refers to Heine's ballad "Belsazar" and
cites the famous opening lines: "Die Mitternacht zog näher schon;/ In stum-
mer Ruh lag Babylon." 3 In her drama "Ichundich," Else quotes the chorus
line from Heine's ballad "Die Grenadiere": "Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser ge-
fangen." 4 In her polemic against the publishers, "Ich räume auf," Else uses —
slightly changed — the last two lines of Heine's poem "Und bist du erst mein
ehrlich Weib," in order to claim the poet's legitimate need for appraisal:
"Doch wenn du meine Verse nicht lobst,/ Laß ich mich von dir scheiden." 5
In Else's sarcastic criticism of the PEN club, whose members discuss
publishing matters "ästhetisch am Teetisch," 6 the allusion is quite clear:

Sie saßen und tranken am Teetisch

Und sprachen von Liebe viel
Die Herren, die waren ästhetisch,
Die Damen von zartem Gefühl. 7

Else's second husband, who made her suffer by leaving her for another wo-
man, receives the name of one of Heine's suffering lovers, in a manner of
inversion typical of Else's writing. Thus, in her novel Mein Herz, Herwarth
Waiden becomes Wilhelm von Kevlaar. 8 In another passage of this novel,
consisting of letters to Norway, Else laconically writes to her addressees,
Herwarth Waiden and his travelling companion: "Wenn Ihr eine Rose seht,
sagt, ich laß sie grüßen," alluding to "Leise zieht durch mein Gemüt," not
from the Buch der Lieder, but still one of Heine's most famous poems, set to
music by Felix Mendelssohn. 9 In 1909, Else wrote in a letter to Jethro Bitell:
"Sehen Sie wie Ratcliff aus? Ich finde den Sir Ratcliff von Heine, wenn er
nicht so pathetisch geschrieben wäre, wundervoll." 10 Else was probably allu-

3 "Gesichte" (1913), Der Prinz von Theben und andere Prosa (dtv 10644), 153. Heine,
Vol.l, 47.
4
"Ichundich" (written in 1940/41, publ. 1970), Die Wupper und andere Dramen (dtv
10647), 268. Heine, Vol.l, 39.
5
"Ich räume auf! Meine Anklage gegen meine Verleger" (1925), Der Prinz von Theben ,
345. Heine, Vol. 1, 146.
6 "Gesagtes und Beantwortetes," Konzert, 77.
7
Heine, Vol. 1, 93.
8
Mein Herz (1912, dtv 10642), 59. In 1905, Else had dedicated her poem "Weltende" to
Herwarth Waiden. In the collected edition of her poems in 1917, she changed the dedi-
cation thus: "H.W. Wilhelm von Kevlaar zur Erinnerung an viele Jahre." Else refers to
Heine's poem "Die Wallfahrt nach Kevlaar." Heine, Vol.l, 168.
9
Mein Herz, 32. Heine, Vol. 2, 9.
Lieber gestreifter Tiger. Briefe von Else-Lasker Schaler. Erster Band (Margarete Kupper,
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On Else Lasker-Schäler's Relation to H. Heine 115

ding here to Heine's drama, rather than to the poem "Ratcliff' in the Buch
der Lieder. So far for a first glance.
It seems that Sigrid Bauschinger, in her book about Else, did not consider,
except very superficially, her relation to Heine. She writes that she came to
know "Goethe, Schiller, and Heine already as a child in her parents' house,"
in order to point out that Else did not have any thorough literary erudition,
and that she was not a "poeta doctus." 11 In another chapter, dealing with
Else's vague knowledge of Judaism, Bauschinger writes: "Die Mutter er-
zählte ihr von Goethe, Heine und Napoleon, aber nicht aus der Bibel." 12
Though Bauschinger does not state her sources, she surely relates here to the
following passage from Ich räume auf, Else's polemic against her publishers:

Nichtlesen war immer mein Manko. Heute noch. Desto hinge-

bender berauschten mich meiner Mutter Erzählungen, ihre Napo-
leonschwärmerei, der mit dem Schwerte den Völkern eine Welt-
geschichte schrieb. Er war ihre große Liebe gewesen. Auch
lauschte ich auf ihre Ehrfurcht zu Goethe und weinte, wenn sie
mir von dem Hungertode Heinrich Heines erzählte. Sie war's, die
den Keim vertrauend in mein stürmisches Kinderherz pflanzte,
aufzuräumen! 13

Else often writes about her beloved mother's veneration for Goethe and Na-
poleon, 14 but this is the only passage where she explicitly mentions Heine as
someone her mother admired and told stories about. In the context of Else's
attack against her publishers, the "story-telling mother" is mainly mentioned
for the sake of the argument leading to Heine, who according to Else, suf-
fered as she did, from his publisher's bad treatment. Furthermore, "cleaning
up," the way she does in her polemic, Else most probably learnt more from
Heine than from her gentle mother. At the same time, the way Else describes
her desolate reaction as a child to the story about Heine's famine seems to in-
dicate that she had a more intimate relation to Heine than to Goethe and Na-
poleon, who were closer to her mother than to herself.
How close she was to Heine, as a poet and as a human being, Else shows
in her own way quite clearly in the tractate "Vom Himmel":

Was wissen die Armen, denen nie ein Blau aufging am Ziel ihres
Herzens oder am Weg ihres Traums in der Nacht. Oder die
Enthimmelten, die Frühblauberaubten. Es kann der Himmel in

Ed.), (München: 1969), 30. The poem "Ratcliff" in Heine, Vol.l, 156; the drama
"William Ratcliff" in Heine, Vol.l, 377ff.
11
Bauschinger, 68.
12
Ibid., 165.
13
"Ich räume auf!", 321.
14
The most significant story in this context is Else's Im RosenholzJcästchen. Zu Goethes
lOOjährigem Gedenktag. See especially the opening sentence: "Meine von mir bewun-
derte Mama besaß neben ihrer Napoleonsammlung auch eine schwärmerische Verehrung
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116 Uta Shedletzky

ihnen kein Licht mehr zum Blühen finden. Aber Blässe verbreitet
der Zweifler, die Zucht des Himmels bedingt Kraft. Ich denke an
den Nazarener, er sprach erfüllt vom Himmel und prangte
schwelgend blau, daß sein Kommen schon ein Wunder war, er
wandelte immerblau über die Plätze der Lande. Und Buddha, der
indische Königsohn, trug die Blume Himmel in sich in blauerlei
Mannigfaltigkeit Erfüllungen. Und Goethe und Nietzsche (Kunst
ist Reden mit Gott) und alle Aufblickenden sind
Himmelbegnadete und gerade Heine überzeugt mich, Himmel
hing noch über ihn hinaus und darum riß er fahrlässig an den
blauen Gottesranken, wie ein Kind wild die Locken seiner Mutter
zerrt. Hauptmanns Angesicht und auch Ihres, Dalai-Lama, wirken
blau. Den Himmel kann sich niemand künstlich verdienen, aber
mancher pflückt die noch nicht befestigte, junghimmlische Blüte
im Menschen ab. Das sind die Teufel. Ihr Leben ist ohne
Ausblick, ihr Herz ohne Ferne. 1 5

According to her premise, "Die Gottheit Himmel im Menschen ist Genie," 16

Else, in this passage, evaluates the relation of certain prophets and poets to
heaven, in declining order from the highest level of inspiration to the lowest.
After the prophets Jesus and Buddha, she names five poets: Goethe,
Nietzsche, Heine, Gerhart Hauptmann, Karl Kraus (Dalai-Lama), and be-
neath him, the devils. Heine appears in the third place, after Goethe and
Nietzsche, as a poet with an authentic and, therefore convincing, relationship
to heaven. In the case of Hauptmann and Kraus, Else sees no more than a
dim reflection of heaven, an artificial impression of inspiration; their faces
are not actually blue, they merely give a blue impression. The tractate "Vom
Himmel" is at its core a polemic against Karl Kraus. Else presents it in her
novel Mein Herz (1912) as the copy of a manuscript she had sent for publi-
cation to Kraus, the editor of the periodical Die Fackel. In 1910 Kraus had
published Else's poem "Ein alter Tibetteppich." In his famous footnote to the
poem he plays off Else against Heine, very much to the latter's disadvantage:

Das hier aus der Berliner Wochenschrift "Der Sturm" zitierte Ge-
dicht gehört für mich zu den entzückendsten und ergreifendsten,
die ich je gelesen habe, und wenige von Goethe abwärts gibt es,
in denen so wie in diesem Tibetteppich Sinn und Klang, Wort und
Bild, Sprache und Seele verwoben sind. Daß ich für diese neun-
zeilige Kostbarkeit den ganzen Heine hergebe, möchte ich nicht

für Goethe." Konzert, 57.

Mein Herz, 46. Bauschinger quotes this passage, but her interpretation is rather out of
context. She is not even aware of the central position among the inspired poets granted by
Else to Heine: "Die fremden Religionsstifter sind für sie [Else] wie Goethe, Nietzsche
oder sogar Gerhart Hauptmann und Karl Kraus, 'Himmelbegnadete,' große Künstler."
See Bauschinger, 167.
16
Mein Herz, 47.
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On Else Lasker-Schiiler 's Relation to H. Heine 117

sagen. Weil ich ihn nämlich, wie man hoffentlich jetzt schon
weiß, viel billiger hergebe.17

In December, 1910 Kraus decided to write all the articles for Die Fackel by
himself without any other contributions. Else refused to accept this decision.
She continued to hand in manuscripts for publication and resented their re-
jection by Kraus. 18 Therefore, in her tractate "Vom Himmel," Else aims to
peeve Kraus by his own method. She evaluates poets as he does, "from
Goethe downwards," but now she plays off Heine against Kraus, much to the
former's advantage.
But, Heine, of whom Else paints such a lively picture in her tractate, not
only serves her argument against Kraus. The poet Heine, who "recklessly
pulls God's blue tendrils like a child wildly tugging his mother's curls," ap-
pears here as a playmate of the poetess Else, who once in "Im Anfang" had
been "God's rascal":

IM ANFANG

(Weltscherzo)

Hing an einer goldenen Lenzwolke,

Als die Welt noch Kind war,
Und Gott noch junger Vater war.
Schaukelte, hei!
Auf dem Ätherei,
Und meine Wollhärchen fütterten
ringelrei.
Neckte den wackelnden Mondgrosspapa,
Naschte Goldstaub der Sonnenmama,
In den Himmel sperrte ich Satan ein
Und Gott in die rauchende Hölle ein.
Die drohten mit ihrem grössten Finger
Und haben "klumbumm! klumbumm!"
gemacht
Und es sausten die Peitschenwinde!
Doch Gott hat nachher zwei Donner
gelacht
Mit dem Teufel über meine Todsünde.
Würde 10 000 Erdglück geben,
Noch einmal so gottgeboren zu leben,
So gottgeborgen, so offenbar.
Ja! Ja!
Als ich noch Gottes Schlingel war! 19

Quoted in Else Lasker-Schüler, Dichtungen und Dokumente (Ernst Ginsberg, Ed.),

(München: Kösel, 1951), 566.
18
Bauschinger, 129-130.
19
Styx (1902), Gedichte 1902-1943 (dtv 10641), 74.
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118 Uta Shedletzky

In Das Hebräerland (1937), Else calls her poem "Im Anfang" (1911) "meine
Ballade, vom 'mir' handelnd."20 She cites it once more in her last, unfi-
nished work, the drama "Ichundlch." Thus, Heine, the wild child playing
with God, is part of one of Else's favorite and most personal legends. In her
case, this can only mean that she felt very close to Heine, poetically and spi-
ritually.
When Else gave the title Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona to a story
published in 1921, she alluded to the title of Heine's Der Rabbi von
Bacherach. She chose Barcelona as an alliteration to Bacherach, thus hinting
at the connection between the two stories which, in fact, reveals itself to the
attentive reader. Otherwise, "Toledo" would have been more adequate.
Heine's Rabbi Abraham studies there for seven years, and during this time he
became acquainted with Don Isaak Abarbanel, the main figure in the third
and last chapter of Heine's story. In the popular Jewish tradition, Toledo,
more than other Jewish centers in Spain, is the legendary place of Marrano
persecutions and tales of miraculous salvations. Else herself writes in Hebrä-
erland : "Oft blickten beim Abendrot meiner Mama prachtvolle spanische
Augen ganz weit in die Ferne ... ich glaube, nach Toledo." 21
It is easier to answer the question how Else read the Rabbi von Bacherach
than to determine when she did it. It is unlikely that this story was read and
told at her parents' house. On the other hand, Else might well have
conceived the image of the miraculous rabbi in her childhood, the way she
describes it in her story Das erleuchtete Fenster:

Das dritte erleuchtete Fenster aber war ein großes Bogenfenster

gewesen im Treppenhaus, vom Treppenhaus unserer Flur aus ge-
sehen, über unsere Gasse hinweg in einem fremden Birnengarten.
Mit Allerleifurcht blickte ich durch den mysteriösen Bogen, da-
hinter ein altes Mütterchen die Wäsche der Familie des Hauses
wusch. Aber ich verwandelte die greise Wäscherin in einen Wun-
derrabbiner, von dem ich erst vor einigen Jahren ein Büchlein
schrieb, in dem die Juden einen sicheren Palast Ihm bauten, des-
sen Kuppel Ihn schütze vor Ungemach.22

Right after this passage, Else continues: "Vierteljahrhundert gährte diese

Dichtung in meinem Herzen, wurde ein Weinberg, alter, spanischer Wein,
sternenjährige Judenrebe." 23 If we take Else at her word and count 25 years
back from 1921, when the story was published, we come to the nineties of
the last century, when Else came to Berlin and became acquainted with mem-

20
Das Hebräerland (1937, dtv 10646), 160. Else also included this poem in the second
edition of her Hebräische Balladen (1913).
21
Das Hebräerland, 96.
22
Konzert, 119-120.
23
Ibid., 120.
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On Else Lasker-Schüler's Relation to Η. Heine 119

bers of the Young-Jewish Zionist movement. The encounter with Martin Bu-
ber and his circle surely influenced Else's first poetic reflections on her
Jewish origins and her relation to the Jewish people. Her earliest "Jewish"
poems, "Das Lied des Gesalbten" and "Sulamith" were first published in
1901 in the newly founded periodical Ost und West. Monatsschrift für mo-
dernes Judentum, a year before they appeared in Styx, Else's first volume of
poetry. The opening article in the first issue of Ost und West was Buber's
programmatic essay, "Die Jüdische Renaissance." Buber also was one of the
founders of the publishing house, "Jüdischer Verlag" in 1902. The fact that
one of the literary almanachs and anthologies published by the "Jüdischer
Verlag" contained poems by Else Lasker-Schüler may be connected to the
relationship between her and Buber. 24 The Zionist movement also engen-
dered a new evaluation of Heine as a Jewish national poet. 25 His Hebräische
Melodien and Der Rabbi von Bacherach were celebrated above all as being
the quintessence of "Jewish poetry." It might have been in this context that
Else got to know Der Rabbi von Bacherach and that, while reading the story,
the old image of the "Wunderrabbi" was somehow amalgamated with the fi-
gure of Rabbi Abraham and the rhythm and structure of Heine's tale. Else
certainly read Der Rabbi von Bacherach, but she did not do so in the usual
sense of the word "reading." At least in this respect we may accept the full
validity of her often repeated avowal to illiteracy. 26 She read Heine's story as
she read the Bible or Goethe's Faust or other works which inspired her own
writing, for example, the Bible for her Hebräische Balladen and Faust for
her drama "Ichundlch." She absorbed texts, as it were, straight into her own
world, creating visions out of hints and gestures, transforming given meta-
phors into new images in an indigenous process of transmutation. In this
context, the following passage from a letter to Paul Goldscheider is quite il-
luminating. Else probably wrote it during a railway trip: "Ich lese nie im
Zug, ich lese überhaupt nur manchmal und dann gehe ich direkt mit dem In-
halt gemeinsam spazieren. Ich habe immer wenig gelesen, warum auch, da
die Welt doch das große Bilderbuch ist. " 2 7
In her story Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona, Else goes "directly on a
joint walk with the contents" of the first chapter of Heine's Der Rabbi von
Bacherach. She lets herself be guided by her own motifs, as if she were tra-
cing them in the "read" text. Thus, she transmutes central as well as marginal

On the relationship between Else and Buber, see Jakob Hessing, Else Lasker-Schiller.
Biographie einer deutsch-jüdischen Dichterin (Karlsruhe: Loeper, 1985), 77-86.
25
Itta Shedletzky, "Zwischen Stolz und Abneigung. Zur Heine-Rezeption in der deutsch-jü-
dischen Literaturkritik," in Hans Otto Horch and Horst Denkler (Eds.), Conditio
Judaica. Judentum, Antisemitismus und deutschsprachige Literatur vom 18. Jahrhundert
bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg. Erster Teil (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1988), 208.
26
See, for example, the two quotations in this paper (notes 13 and 27).
27
Briefe (note 10), 199.
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120 Itta Shedletzky

matters from Heine's world and time into her own, often placing new or
stronger accents. She tells a new story with a structure and a statement of its
own, but at the same time manages to expose and illuminate hidden facets in
Heine's story. 28
Else's preference for the visual must have drawn her attention to the eye
motif in Heine's Rabbi and to the central role of the "eye-language" in the
communication between Rabbi Abraham and his beautiful wife Sara. 29 Tra-
ces thereof may be found in Else's story in the "Jerusalemaugen" of the
Jewish women of Barcelona30 and in the "Judenaugen," which, in the view
of the Christians, symbolize the suspicious otherness of the Jews:

Die Gebote der Gebetbücher der Juden wurden von außen nach
innen gelesen, ihre Judenaugen mußten darum vom Beginn ihrer
Ausgeburt anders wie die der gesamten Völker gerichtet worden
sein. Augen, die sich nicht am Ziel zu bleiben getrauten, Augen,
die sich versteckten in des Buches Heftung, sich flüchteten immer
zurück in den Spalt. "Augen, die stehlen" - meinte der Bür-
germeister betonend zu seinem erbleichenden Sohn. 31

Else surely was attracted by Heine's picture-book-synopsis of the Bible, that

is, the way he presents it in his story as seen through the eyes of the beautiful
Sara, who, at the Seder table, now and then glances at the pictures in her
Passover Haggada. She notices:

wie Abraham die steinernen Götzen seines Vaters mit dem Ham-
mer entzweiklopft, wie die Engel zu ihm kommen, wie Moses
den Mizri totschlägt, wie Pharao prächtig auf dem Throne sitzt,
wie ihm die Frösche sogar bei Tische keine Ruhe lassen, wie er
Gott sei Dank versäuft, wie die Kinder Israel vorsichtig durch das
Rote Meer gehen, wie sie offnen Maules, mit ihren Schafen, Kü-
hen und Ochsen vor dem Berge Sinai stehen, dann auch wie der
fromme König David die Harfe spielt, und endlich wie Jerusalem
mit den Türmen und Zinnen seines Tempels bestrahlt wird vom
Glänze der Sonne. 32

28
As an aside and without giving much thought to the matter, Bauschinger mentions the
possible influence of Heine's Rabbi on Else's "Wunderrabbiner," referring uncritically to
the rather problematic article by Andri Meyer, "Vorahnungen der Judenkatastrophe bei
Heinrich Heine und Else Lasker-Schüler," Bulletin des Leo Baeck Instituts 8, 29 (1965),
7-27. See Bauschinger, 181.
29
Heine, Vol. 5, 413-414, 416, 417, 419, 420. Thus, for example, in the most striking
passage in this context: "Derweilen nun die schöne Sara andächtig zuhörte und ihren
Mann beständig ansah, bemerkte sie, wie plötzlich sein Antlitz in grausiger Verzerrung
erstarrte [...] und seine Augen wie Eiszapfen hervorglotzten, — aber fast im selben
Augenblick sah sie, wie [...] seine Augen munter umher kreisten [...]." (417)
30
Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona, (1921) dtv 10644, 291.
31
Ibid., 294-295.
32
Heine, Vol. 5, 414.
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On Else Lasker-Schiller's Relation to H. Heine 121

Several important allusions are made in Else's story to the Biblical Moses
mentioned by Heine. For example:

Es lebte eine Dichterin im Judenvolke Barcelonas, Tochter eines

vornehmen Mannes, der mit dem Bau der Aussichtstürme der
großen Städte Spaniens betraut war. Arion Elevantos im Wunsch
nach einem Bauerben erzog Amram, seine Tochter, wie einen
Sohn. 33

Amram was the father of the Biblical Moses. Like Jussuf and other names
Else adapted for herself, this name is connected with the figure of a prophetic
leader. In Else's story, Amram compares herself to Moses, who had killed
the Egyptian, while telling her friend Pablo that she had "den Schneider mit
ihrem kleinen Dolch ermordet und ihn in den Sand verscharrt." 34 This was
his punishment for his assaults on Jewish children. The tale about Schneider,
"den dünnbeinigen, knochigen Zuckerwarenhändler," who violated Jewish
children in his cellar, is to be understood as Else's provocative, accusing in-
version of the Blood Libel.
According to Else's story, the Jews of Barcelona celebrate every year "am
7. des Monats Gäm" 35 the birthday of the "Wunderrabbi." This is probably
an allusion to the 7th day of the Hebrew month of Adar, designated by the
Talmud as the birthday and deathday of Moses, which, in the cabbalistic
tradition, is celebrated as a holiday.
The first sentence of Else's Wunderrabbiner touches on the sore spot in
Heine's story: the absence of the Rabbi during the persecution of his commu-
nity: "Die Bevölkerung von Barcelona befleißigte sich in den Wochen, die
Eleasar in Alt-Asien in frommen Betrachtungen verlebte, die Juden zu ver-
folgen." 36 Interpreters of Heine have difficulties in coming to terms with
Rabbi Abraham's secret flight from Bacherach, escaping the threat of a near
pogrom without warning his community. Jeffrey Sammons speaks about an
"unresolved tension" which, in his opinion, accounts for the aesthetic defi-
ciencies of the story. 37 But, Rabbi Abraham's irritating behaviour definitely
makes sense, if it is understood as a conscious or unconscious indication, that
Heine, deep down and after all, considered his conversion to Protestantism as
an act of treason and desertion.
The unspoken question of guilt underlying Heine's Rabbi becomes the
main issue in Else's story. Her Rabbi Eleasar is quite an ambiguous figure.
The validity of his pious contemplations and prophetic gifts is seriously put

33
Der Wunderrabbiner, 292.
34
Ibid., 295.
35
Ibid., 291.
36
Ibid., 290.
37
Quoted in Hartmut Kircher, Heinrich Heine und das Judentum (Bonn: Bouvier, 1973),
200.
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122 Uta Shedletzky

into question by the obvious lack of real consideration for his endangered
community. The Jews of Barcelona decide to inform their rabbi about their
precarious situation, of which he is not aware, and they ask for his
permission to emigrate. The "wonder rabbi" has nothing more to offer them
than the rather elusive consolation: "Wer das gelobte Land nicht im Herzen
trägt, der wird es nie erreichen." 38 At a later point, Rabbi Eleasar refuses to
receive the mayor of Barcelona, thus giving the insulted population of
Barcelona a reason to start a pogrom: "In der Nacht, durch die Weigerung
des Wunderrabbiners aufgereizt, die Christen fühlten sich nun berechtigt, der
Pogrom." 3 9 During the pogrom, Rabbi Eleasar sits in his palace "blättert im
Atlas der Schöpfung" 40 and meditates about God's love for his chosen
people. He persists in his fatal ambiguity: "Er hatte seine Menschen lieb und
immer wieder beantwortete er ihre Frage nach der Heimat mit
Ausflüchten." 41 With this background, the apocalyptic dimensions of the last
scene in Else's story seem rather ironic. Rabbi Eleasar fights with God like
Jacob and then dies like Samson, crushing the Christians of Barcelona under
the ruins of his palace. 42
In the story Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona, Else expressed her
conflict with official Judaism and with leading figures like Martin Buber.
Another reason for the striking implacability of this story, quite unique
among Else's "Jewish" writings, might be connected with the impact of anti-
Semitism in the post-war period, mainly following the murder of the Jewish
socialists Gustav Landauer, Kurt Eisner, and Rosa Luxemburg in 1919.
According to Jakob Hessing, Else alludes to them when talking about those
Jews of Barcelona "die sich mit ihrem Erlösergeist breit machen in den
unteren armen Schichten der Stadt." 43 A letter to Karl Kraus reflects Else's
mood at that period:

Cardinal:
Ich habe mich nun zum wiederholten mal erhängt - wer schnitt
mich immer ab - kleine grobe Fäden hängen nun an mir mit dem
Preis. Ich lach, ich bin nix mehr wert. Ich malte Ihnen mein
Selbstportrait zum Neujahrsfest - soll ich es senden? Es ist gut.
Ich bin alle, ich hasse das Erwachen am Morgen, da ich die Welt
hasse, ich mag nicht schlafen, da ich von der Welt träume. Ich

38
Der Wunderrabbiner, 291.
39
Ibid., 297.
40
Ibid., 298.
41
Ibid., 299.
42
Ibid., 300.
43
Ibid., 290. See Hessing, 144.
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On Else Lasker-Schiiler's Relation to H. Heine 123

hasse die Juden als David, ich erwürge den Christen als Indianer-
jude. Was soll ich?
Jussuf. 44

But, already in 1914 Else had used similar terms in a letter to Martin Buber:

Verehrter Herr von Zion.

Ein Wolf war bei Ihnen - ein Oberpriester mit gepfeilten Zähnen,
ein Basileus mit einem Wildherzen, eine Faust die betet, ein Meer
ohne Strand, ein Bett das sich auftrank - und - Sie sprachen von
Literatur - Sie lasen Gedichte und ich mag das nicht. [...] Ich has-
se die Juden, da ich David war oder Joseph - ich hasse die Juden,
weil sie meine Sprache mißachten, weil ihre Ohren verwachsen
sind und sie nach Zwergerei horchen und Gemauschel. Sie fressen
zu viel, sie sollten hungern. 45

In Else's story, the question of guilt also concerns the Jewish poetess,
Amram, and her Christian lover, Pablo. As a result of their joint escape from
Barcelona on a mysterious ship, the animosities against the Jews increase and
turn into the most cruel persecution. One of the main victims is Amram's
father, the master builder Arion Elevantos:

Sie knebelten ihn; er aber lachte in seiner Bestürzung, wie er als

Knabe aufzujauchzen pflegte, wenn ein Spielgefährte ihn packte
im Räuber- und Gendarmspiel; bis das Weib des Bürgermeisters
nahte und die schon betroffenen Leute aufpeitschte, den Vater der
Judentochter, die ihren Sohn entführt habe, zu töten. Sie selbst
riß dem unschuldigen Opfer das Herz aus der Brust, einen roten
Grundstein zu legen, daran die herrenlosen Hunde ihr Geschäft
verrichten sollten. Und die Juden, die an den Namen Jehovahs
immer von neuem erwacht waren, lagen alle verstümmelt, zerbis-
sen, Gesichte vom Körper getrennt, Kinderhände und Füßlein,
zartestes Menschenlaub auf den Gassen umher, in die man die
Armen wie Vieh getrieben hatte. 46

The big ship, which stood one day on the market place of Barcelona, 47 is
Else's version of the boat on the Rhine, an allusion to the escape of Heine's
Rabbi Abraham and his wife Sara to Frankfurt.
Both Heine and Else projected the experience of early sorrow into the love
stories of their tales as wishful ideals of happy fulfillment. Unlike Heine him-
self, Rabbi Abraham succeeds to marry his beautiful cousin, Sara, against the
will of her rich father, and they become a happy couple. The fact that their
marriage remains childless might indicate the chimeric quality of this love

44
Else Lasker-Schüler, Briefe an Karl Kraus (Astrid Gehlhoff-Claes, Ed.), (Köln, Berlin:
Kiepenheuer & Witsch, [1959]), 88.
45
Briefe (note 10), 117.
46
Der Wunderrabbiner, 297.
47
Ibid., 295.
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124 Itta Shedletzky

relation. In Else's idealizing picture of the love between the Jewess Amram
and the Christian Pablo, the autobiographical context is more obvious and of
greater significance for the whole story. Pablo and Amram get to know and
love each other as children. One day, Amram climbs the scaffold of the
"holy building," which her father constructs for the "wonder rabbi." She
tumbles down, but Pablo is there to receive her lovingly:

Beim Herabsteigen der Leiter, die von der noch unbefestigten

Krone führte, stürzte die voreilige kleine Amram vom heiligen
Bau auf sandigen Hügel, worauf Pablo, des Bürgermeisters Söhn-
chen, spielte. Und der Knabe dachte, die bleiche Amram sei ein
Engel, der vom Himmelreich aus einer Wolke gepurzelt sei, und
staunte sie an. Seitdem lächelte Amram im Traum, immer wenn
Pablo an sie gedacht hatte. 48

In Else's childhood reminiscences, the fall from the tower has the signifi-
cance of a traumatic experience, most probably connected with outbursts of
anti-Semitism at school, which her parents, especially her mother, were not
able to cope with. This conclusion may be drawn from the events Else de-
scribes in her autobiographical story Der letzte Schultag. The mother
disappears one day and the little girl climbs to the tower of their house in or-
der to look for her. She sees her deeply sad mother at a distance and jumps
down towards her from the top of the tower. The girl becomes ill soon after
and leaves school for good:

Ich hatte den Veitstanz bekommen. Onkel Doktor meine: die

Folge des Schrecks! Er nannte mich seitdem: "Springinsfeld!"
Aber ich wußte, ich hatte den Veitstanz bekommen von etwas
ganz anderem - vom ersten Schmerz meines Lebens, den auch das
schönste Elternhaus nicht hat verhindern können. Aber - dafür
brauchte ich nicht mehr - in die Schule gehen. "Von Schule gehen
kann keine Rede mehr sein", sprach, sogar noch dazu im
diktatorischen Tone, Onkel Doktor. 49

The same event is mentioned once more in Else's essay, "Der Antisemitis-
mus":

Ich erlebte als Schulkind schon einige antisemitische Aufstände

auf dem Heimweg nach Schulschluß. Weinend betrat ich unser
schönes Haus. Selbst meiner teuren Mutter Liebe vermochte mich
nicht zu trösten. Doch von unserem hohen Turm wehte immer
fröhlich die Fahne. Was mir schon damals in den Kindeijahren

48
Ibid., 292-293.
49
Konzert, 112.
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On Else Lasker-Schiiler's Relation to H. Heine 125

auffiel, mir unverständlich, der Aufständischen banaler Grund der

furchtbaren Grausamkeit.5"

The imprinting substance of Else's early woe is not confined, as in Heine's

case, to the private sphere of unhappy love. Rejected by the Christian en-
vironment, she was at the same time confronted with the helplessness of her
parents vis-ä-vis anti-Semitism. There are historical reasons for the diverse
substance of Heine's and Else's decisive childhood experiences. Around the
year 1880, at the age of eleven, Else experienced anti-Semitism in a trauma-
tic manner. In 1811, at the age of fourteen, Heine saw "with his own eyes"
Napoleon's visit to Düsseldorf, which he described as a seminal event in his
Ideen. Das Buch Le Grand.51 Although Heine anticipated in his later years
the fatal course of German history, he did not personally experience the de-
velopment from Stöcker to Hitler, as did Else. She was, so to say, a grand-
child of Napoleon, daughter of a mother who, like Heine, adored Napoleon,
but who was quite lost, when her belief in assimilation and integration of the
Jews was shattered by the historical reality of modern anti-Semitism.
To her much admired and beloved mother, who adored Goethe and Napo-
leon, Else dedicated her last work, the drama lchundlch.52 But, this drama
seems to be an hommage to Heine as well. Along with Goethe, Heine pro-
bably inspired her with his Der Doktor Faust. Ein Tanzpoem. In a central
passage of the fourth act of Else's drama, Heine is mentioned and quoted in
connection with both Goethe and Napoleon. Right at the end of the drama,
there is a most significant allusion to Heine, although it is implicit. It is quite
possible, that not only the dance scenes in lchundlch, but also the appearance
of King David, lead back to Heine; the latter figure appears in the following
passage in the second act of the "Tanzpoem":

Der Herzog wendet sich endlich gegen Faust und verlangt, als
eine Probe seiner Schwarzkunst, den verstorbenen König David
zu sehen, wie er vor der Bundeslade tanzte. Auf solches aller-
höchste Verlangen nimmt Faust den Zauberstab aus den Händen
Mephistophelas, schwingt ihn in beschwörender Weise, und aus
der Erde, welche sich öffnet, tritt die begehrte Gruppe hervor:
Auf einem Wagen, der von Leviten gezogen wird, steht die Bun-
deslade, vor ihr tanzt König David, possenhaft vergnügt und
abenteuerlich geputzt, gleich einem Kartenkönig, und hinter der
heiligen Lade, mit Spießen in den Händen, hüpfen schaukelnd
einher die königlichen Leibgarden, gekleidet wie polnische Juden
in lang herabschlotternd schwarzseidenen Kaftans und mit hohen
Pelzmützen auf den spitzbärtigen Wackelköpfen. Nachdem diese

"Der Antisemitismus," Verse und Prosa aus dem Nachlaß (dtv 10648), 68-69.
51
Heine, Vol. 4, 170-172.
52
Ichundich, 237.
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126 ltta Shedletzky

Karrikaturen ihren Umzug gehalten, verschwinden sie wieder in

den Boden unter rauschenden Beifallsbezeugungen.53

In the fourth act of Ichundlch, when talking about Goethe's encounter with
Napoleon, Mephisto quotes the latter's famous exclamation: "C'est un
homme!" Thereupon, Faust starts singing: "Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefan-
gen!" Mephisto comments: "Ich sprühte weiland aus dem Moselwein, als der
Edeljude, der Autor dieses Liedes, und es schmerzlich seine Freunde, Heines
Heinrich, sangen." 54
At the end of the last scene of Ichundlch, in the garden of the eye surgeon
Dr. Ticho in Jerusalem, the poetess dies. The journalist Adon Swet reports
that she is dying, and the scare-crow, the alter ego of the poetess, adds the
comment: "Und ohne Geistlichkeit, Rav, Scheik, Pastor." 55 These last words
surely are an allusion to Heine's famous poem "Gedächtnisfeier" and its often
quoted first stanza: "Keine Messe wird man singen, / Keinen Kadosch wird
man sagen / Nichts gesagt und nichts gesungen / Wird an meinen Sterbeta-
gen." 56 Only, in Else's case, as it suits the reality of Jerusalem, the repre-
sentative of Islam is mentioned among the absentees.

"One does not escape Jewishness." This is the title Hannah Arendt gave to
the last chapter of her book on Rahel Varnhagen.57 The chapter ends with the
encounter between Rahel and Heine in Berlin, a hundred years before Else
published her story, Der Wunderrabbiner von Barcelona. Rahel, similar to
Else, "hailed Heine with enthusiasm and great friendship." 58 Unlike Rahel,
but similar to Heine, Else suffered the ambiguity of those who "wanted to be
Jews and at the same time not be Jews." 59 Hannah Arendt defined "Heine's
affirmation of Jewishness" as "the first and last resolute affirmation which
was to be heard from an assimilated Jew for a long time." 60 In this sense,
Else Lasker-Schüler's "affirmation of Jewishness," after that "long time," is
indeed the last one, at the end of a violently closed chapter of German-Jewish
history and literature.

53
Heine, Vol. 10, 43.
54
Ichundlch, 267-268.
55
Ichundlch, 299.
56
Heine, Vol. 3, 122.
57
Hannah Arendt, Rahel Varnhagen. The Life of a Jewess (London: East and West Library,
1957), 176.
58
Ibid., 185.
59
Ibid., 180.
60
Ibid., 185.
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