The Operated Jew and the Operated Goy: Two Tales of Anti-Semitism

Originally published in English in 1991 and now reissued with a new Preface by Jack Zipes, this book presents and examines the work of two little-known writers, Oskar Panizza and Mynona (Salomo Friedlaender). In Panizza’s chilling story, The Operated Jew (1893), a turn-of-the- century Jew undergoes a series of disfiguring operations that transform him into a ’European’. The tale mingles loathing with compassion for its title character. Thirty years later, Panizza’s tale was answered by Mynona, an urbane German Jew who turned the story’s tables in The Operated Goy (1922). In his introduction and essays, Jack Zipes explores some of the myths of modern anti-Semitic thought. He also examines parallels between the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe and the violence of Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East, issues which have an enduring relevance and are as pertinent in the 21st Century as when the book was first published.

Jack Zipes is Professor Emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota. He has published widely on German Jewish topics in such books as Germans and Jews since the Holocaust (1986)and the Yale Companion of Jewish Writing and Thought in German Culture, 1066-1966 (1997) with Sander Gilman. Most recently he has published Ernst Bloch, The Pugnacious Philosopher of Hope (2020) and Bambi. The Story of Life in the Forest (2022). He is currently working on an anthology of European Jewish tales from the Golden period (1870-1933) of Jewish literature.