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  • Title: [Deaf Jews in Germany, 1800-1933. A look at the history of a dual minority].
    Author: Söderfeldt Y.
    Journal: Med Ges Gesch; 2014; 32():207-30. PubMed ID: 25134257.
    Abstract:
    This study examines the importance of religious denomination in the German community of deaf people in the 19th century and up until 1933, focusing on the dual minority status of deaf Jews. It shows that the educational system for the deaf and the deaf movement as such were, in structure and content, informed by the Christian, primarily the Protestant, faith. This meant that deaf Jewish people were in danger of facing a conflict between their identity as Jews and their identity as deaf people. In order to resolve this dilemma, Jewish philanthropists and deaf people created a range of complementary structures: schools where deaf Jewish children received tuition tailored to their needs, religious services in sign language and a Jewish deaf association for mutual support and companionship. But being members of two stigmatized and marginalized groups made the Jewish deaf vulnerable from several sides. The discursive association of deafness, Judaism and heredity played a particular part in this. This study comes to the conclusion that deaf Jews did not want to choose between their deaf and Jewish identities but they wanted to belong to both. As a result they suffered from the negative views that some deaf people had of Jews and some Jews of deaf people--as well as from the double discrimination by the mainstream society.
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