Alle zogen, zogen ins Land, zogen vom Land“. Zur Mystik von Raum und Zeichen bei Karl Wolfskehl

The text focuses on the poetic work of Karl Wolfskehl (1869-1948), an exponent of a literary and cultural season specific to the German intellectual climate around 1900. In particular, it investigates one of his poetic collections in which a mysticism of Jewish belonging clearly emerges – after 1933 – which sees in the Jewish Experience of the Exodus and the Diaspora (Galut) the absolutely central moment of identity, full of pathos, because it is the expression of a belonging based on the word and the poetic sign, conceived mystically as a new secret space of the Hebrew. This is why in the text we speak of ‘secret Judaism’ (as a parallel to the concept of ‘secret Germany’, invented precisely by Wolfskehl within the George Kreis).