''The Operated Jew'' (german: Der operirte Jud’) is a satirical
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
book published by the German physician
Oskar Panizza
Leopold Hermann Oskar Panizza (12 November 1853 – 28 September 1921) was a German psychiatrist and avant-garde author, playwright, novelist, poet, essayist, publisher and literary journal editor. He is best known for his provocative tragicomedy ...
in 1893. Written from a supposedly medical perspective, it exemplified the
scientific racism
Scientific racism, sometimes termed biological racism, is the pseudoscience, pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support or justify racism (racial discrimination), racial inferiority, or racial superiority.. "Few tragedies ...
characteristic of the era.
Plot summary
A young
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
doctor is caused by antisemitic pressures to escape his Jewishness, which he seeks to do by submitting himself to violent and painful
ethnic plastic surgery
Ethnic plastic surgery, or ethnic modification, is plastic surgery intended to change an individual's appearance to look more or less like a particular race or ethnicity. Popular plastic surgery procedures which may have an ethnically-motivated c ...
. He has stereotypical Jewish features: black curly hair, oily skin, thick lips, a
large hooked nose, an effeminate voice, poor posture, and
orthopedic
Orthopedic surgery or orthopedics ( alternatively spelt orthopaedics), is the branch of surgery concerned with conditions involving the musculoskeletal system. Orthopedic surgeons use both surgical and nonsurgical means to treat musculoskeletal ...
impairments. He arranges to have all of his bones straightened out, his hair dyed blonde, and his
larynx
The larynx (), commonly called the voice box, is an organ in the top of the neck involved in breathing, producing sound and protecting the trachea against food aspiration. The opening of larynx into pharynx known as the laryngeal inlet is about ...
altered to change his voice. He is then placed in a bathtub and given a
blood transfusion
Blood transfusion is the process of transferring blood products into a person's circulation intravenously. Transfusions are used for various medical conditions to replace lost components of the blood. Early transfusions used whole blood, but mo ...
by pure
Aryan
Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ' ...
virgins. Having been seemingly cured of his Jewishness, the doctor marries a blonde German woman. However, just as he is about to deliver a speech at his wedding, his voice takes on a high pitch and all of his previous Jewish features resurface. He eventually becomes a gelatinous puddle on the floor.
Analysis
The book incorporates the elements of racial antisemitism of the era: the expression of desire on the part of the Jew to escape his
cultural identity
Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity, or their self-conception and self-perception, and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality or any kind of social group that has its own distinct cultur ...
, the lengths to which he will go to transform himself, the pornographic quality of the attempted transformation, and the impossibility of it all. The author sought to illustrate an idea that Jews cannot escape their race, and attempts to do so will result in them becoming subhuman or ''
untermensch
''Untermensch'' (, ; plural: ''Untermenschen'') is a Nazi term for non- Aryan "inferior people" who were often referred to as "the masses from the East", that is Jews, Roma, and Slavs (mainly ethnic Poles, Serbs, and later also Russians). The ...
''. The image of the Jewish man melting into a puddle at his wedding signifies that Jewishness cannot be overcome by attempts at
cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is the process in which a minority group or culture comes to resemble a society's majority group or assume the values, behaviors, and beliefs of another group whether fully or partially.
The different types of cultural assi ...
.
See also
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Ethnic plastic surgery
Ethnic plastic surgery, or ethnic modification, is plastic surgery intended to change an individual's appearance to look more or less like a particular race or ethnicity. Popular plastic surgery procedures which may have an ethnically-motivated c ...
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Racial antisemitism
Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from ...
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Self-hating Jew
Self-hating Jew or self-loathing Jew, transliterated in Hebrew as auto-antisemitism, is a term which is used to describe Jews whose views are perceived as antisemitic. The concept gained widespread currency after Theodor Lessing's 1930 book ('' ...
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Passing (racial identity)
Racial passing occurs when a person classified as a member of a racial group is accepted or perceived ("passes") as a member of another. Historically, the term has been used primarily in the United States to describe a black or brown person ...
References
1893 German novels
1893 German-language novels
Antisemitic novels
Antisemitism in Germany
Plastic surgery
Passing (sociology)
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