LAUSR

reality. Jewish life, alongside the field of Jewish studies, is again finding a home in today’s Germany. In the collection’s final chapter, Irit Dekel considers the transnational phenomenon of diaspora, particularly a loosely defined contemporary German Jewry, focusing on the theme of “[young] Israelis in Berlin” in the mid-2010s. Dekel’s chapter is an intriguing way to close the collection: with a much-watched, arguably disproportionately overreported Jewish return to Berlin. As pointed out, the Israeli and German media extensively covered what was largely interpreted as the re-migration of descendants of Holocaust survivors. Whereas the German media presented a secular group of creatives and intellectuals drawn to the promises of all that Berlin’s cosmopolitan culture has to offer, the Israeli media focused on themes of liberation and economic inequalities as the motive behind the migratorymove. Dekel lays out the complex “both sides” argument. From the Israeli perspective, it becomes easy to see the migration to Berlin (and not, importantly, it should be stressed—a migration to “Germany”) as a statement against inequalities in Israel; from the German perspective, it takes on the quality of assuaging multi-generational German genocidal guilt. Dekel outlines three modes of liberation at play here: emancipation, undoing Zionism, and lamentation and loss (225). By the conclusion, Dekel asks the reader to use this example of “Israelis in Berlin” to think about power, about the struggle over defining the “Other,” and about the boundaries of belonging (241–42). Such an ending provides a provocative framework for understanding the past of German Jewry as well as moving into the future. Unlike many other post-genocidal societies, the German example is generally notable for its relative lack of perpetrators having to live side by sidewith, and thus avoiding themundane daily experience of confronting, their victims. This collection shows that this personal experience is, of course, quite different from the federally mandated experience of governmental decrees, such as reparations or official diplomatic recognition. In the German example, the situation becomes complicated by the impact of divided postwar societies and ColdWar politics. Now, as Geller andMeng highlight, is perhaps themoment that truly tests the bounds of Germany’s post-genocidal reconciliation—and it is a moment that illustrates both the complicated legacy of the steps forward and the steps backward in this process. Rebuilding Jewish life in Germany after the Holocaust—as opposed to commemorating Jewish death—remains a work in progress.