Max Czollek (born 6 May 1987 in

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

) is a German writer, lyric-poet, stage performer and curator. He is a member of the "G13" authors' collective.

Life

Czollek was born in Berlin in 1987. His paternal grandfather was a

German Jew The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...

who survived several concentration camps, lived in exile in China for several years, and then returned to East Germany in the late 1940s. His only surviving Jewish relative is his paternal aunt. Max Czollek attended the Jewish Upper School in Berlin, passing his school finals () in 2006. During his time at school he took a year abroad in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Between 2007 and 2012 he studied

political sciences Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

at Berlin. Then, from 2012 to 2016 he worked on his doctorate at the

Center for Research on Antisemitism The Center for Research on Antisemitism (''Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung'', ZfA) at the Technical University, Berlin is a research centre dedicated to "researching and combating anti-Semitism."TU Berlin The Technical University of Berlin (official name both in English and german: link=no, Technische Universität Berlin, also known as TU Berlin and Berlin Institute of Technology) is a public research university located in Berlin, Germany. It was ...

) and at

Birkbeck, University of London , mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck. , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £4.3 m (2014) , budget = £10 ...

. He was supported with a stipend from the

Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Scholarship Fund The Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Scholarship Fund (German: ''Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk'' or ''ELES'' for short) is one of thirteen Federally-funded Scholarship Foundations in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is located in Berlin. The Scholarshi ...

. Since 2016 he has been a member of the producers' collective "Jalta – Positionen zur jüdischen Gegenwart" (''"Yalta - Positions on the Jewish Present"''). Czollek has been part of the lyric-poetry collective G13 since 2009. In 2013 he initiated the international "Babelsprech" lyric-poetry project, in order to network a young German language "lyric scene". Since 2014 he has teamed up with the novelist to organize the literature series "Gegenwartsbewältigung" at the

Maxim Gorki Theater The Maxim Gorki Theatre (german: Maxim Gorki Theater) is a theatre in Berlin-Mitte named after the Soviet writer, Maxim Gorky. In 2012, the Mayor of Berlin Klaus Wowereit named Şermin Langhoff as the artist director of the theatre. History It i ...

(Studio Я). Together with Sasha Marianna Salzmann he was co-instigator of the "Disintegration Congress" (2016) on contemporary Jewish thinking and of the "Radical Jewish Arts Days" (''"Radikale Jüdische Kulturtage"'' 2017). During 2016/2017 he was co-leader with of the

's "Young Berlin Council" project.

Controversy about Jewish identity

Czollek self-identifies as Jewish. In 2021, Jewish writer

Maxim Biller Maxim Biller (born 25 August 1960 in Prague, Czechoslovakia) is a German writer and columnist. Born in Prague to Russian Jewish parents, he emigrated with his parents and sister to Germany in 1970, when he was ten years old. After living for a lo ...

accused Czollek of appropriating a Jewish identity, as, according to traditional

halakha ''Halakha'' (; he, הֲלָכָה, ), also transliterated as ''halacha'', ''halakhah'', and ''halocho'' ( ), is the collective body of Jewish religious laws which is derived from the written and Oral Torah. Halakha is based on biblical commandm ...

, Czollek is not a Jew, having only one Jewish grandfather. In his column in the newspaper ''

Die Zeit ''Die Zeit'' (, "The Time") is a German national weekly newspaper published in Hamburg in Germany. The newspaper is generally considered to be among the German newspapers of record and is known for its long and extensive articles. History The ...

'', Biller compared Czollek to Benjamin Wilkomirski, a Swiss writer who had confabulated his alleged Jewish origins.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Czollek, Max German people of Jewish descent German poets Judaism-related controversies Writers from Berlin 1987 births Living people