Jewish Parents in Literature, workshop by Daniel Soukup and Gafna Váňová
Max Brod noted in Kafka's biography that "parents are the first problem a child encounters, the first resistance they have to deal with; discussing it is a model for all later struggles in life." Together with Hebraist Tereza Gafna Váňová and literary historian Daniel Soukup, we will discuss selected texts to explore the portrayal of Jewish parents in Czech Jewish literature. How is this portrayal relevant today? How do Jewish parents differ from non-Jewish ones? Do literary texts preserve clichés and stereotypes, or do they offer therapeutic tools to address the "first problem"—being the children of our parents? We will seek answers to these questions while reading texts by Egon Hostovský, Jiří Orten, Norbert Frýd, Karol Sidon, Irena Dousková, and Arnošt Goldflam.