The Anti-Journalist

In turn-of-the-century Vienna, Karl Kraus created a bold new style of media criticism, penning incisive satires that elicited both admiration and outrage. Krauss spectacularly hostile critiques often focused on his fellow Jewish journalists, which brought him a reputation as the quintessential self-hating Jew. The Anti-Journalist overturns this view with unprecedented force and sophistication, showing how Krauss criticisms form the center of a radical model of German-Jewish self-fashioning, and how that model developed in concert with Krauss modernist journalistic style. Paul Reitters study of Krauss writings situates them in the context of fin-de-sicle German-Jewish intellectual society. He argues that rather than stemming from anti-Semitism, Krauss attacks constituted an innovative critique of mainstream German-Jewish strategies for assimilation. Marshalling three of the most daring German-Jewish authorsKafka, Scholem, and BenjaminReitter explains their admiration for Krauss project and demonstrates his influence on their own notions of cultural authenticity. The Anti-Journalist is at once a new interpretation of a fascinating modernist oeuvre and a heady exploration of an important stage in the history of German-Jewish thinking about identity.