Hildesheimer e l’elemento ebraico

The paper investigates Hildesheimer’s relationship to Judaism through the analysis of two main elements. The first one is the correspondence between the author and his parents who lived in Palestine/Israel: it started in the second half of the 1930s and stopped in 1962. The second one is the author’s radio speech Mein Judentum (1978); here, Hildesheimer’s attitude is complex, provocative and paradoxical. Judaism did not play a marginal role in the author’s life; he mainly felt it as Heimatlosigkeit, but also as a belonging to a community that was fated, and often imposed and determined by external pressure and antisemitism.