A Study On The Assimilation Phenomenon Of Jewish Women In Modern German Salons

As a product of the Renaissance, Salon was always the focus of the upper-class’s spiritual and culture life in the Western Europe during almost five centuries. It tends to disappear from the scene in the20th century. The distinguished feature of salon is its conversation which covers literature, philosophy, political affairs, and music and so on. In the end of Eighteenth century, because of the French Revolution, social environment became very upheaval and made the already matured salon lost its vital force and it gradually spread to the surrounding countries and regions, to German and Berlin in particular. It was a noteworthy phenomenon both in the German history and Jewish history in that Jewish women were the main founder of German salons, especially considering the fact that the Jews at that time had not received the civil rights. The emergence of such phenomenon benefited from German’s special social circumstances. First, Prussia’s rising accepted some Jews and put them in an important position, which made these Jews gain huge economic success that helped them maintain the high consumption the running of a salon involved. Second, Prussia’s social hierarchy was very strict and did not allow the existence of high brow social places. They are badly in need some places like salon, and meanwhile the Jewish women also need salon as an intermediary to help them integrate into the host society. Third, Jewish women’s wisdom and brilliant education catered salon’s demands for women.Jewish women got enormous attention and tight connection with German nobles because of the salon. Four of the most famous Berlin Jewish salon women chose assimilation in the end. Although their assimilation scenarios were different, they represented an assimilation model of the time, that is, fleeing from Judaism and embracing conversion and intermarriage. At the back of such behavior lies some deep-seated reasons. Because of the Jewish tradition that prefers boys to girls, women cannot get as much attention as men in many aspects but they got more secular teachings, so it is not surprise for women to embrace non-Jewish culture. Moreover, various thoughts in salon also influenced women and constantly reminded them that they did not belong to this country, which further deepened these low social-status women’s strong eager to become "the true German"These salon Jewish women aspired to integrate themselves into German society at the cost of assimilation which, however, led to the crisis of identity and deepened the anti-Semitism current in German society. Jewish salon women improved their social status and strengthened the interaction between the Jewish and German society. The Jewish salon, which emerged in the wake of the Jewish Emancipation, is a harbinger of the modernization of German Jewish society. However, Jewish salon women were failed in negotiating their own identity between Jews and Germans, which indicated an unsuccessful modernization in the beginning, while at the same time indicating the general failure of the Jewish society in Germany.