Although Gershom Scholem, one of the leading Judaic studies scholars of modern times, was born and raised in Germany, he consistently represented himself as an un‐German Jew. Rejection of Germany and ...Germanness was a leitmotif of Scholem's self‐presentation, particularly after immigrating to Jerusalem in 1923. Scholem became a central figure in the Jewish intelligentsia of mandate‐era Palestine and later the state of Israel, and he helped shape Jewish discourse around the world. However, a re‐examination of his unpublished and published correspondence, youthful journals, writings and interviews, and actual actions demonstrates that Scholem must also be seen as a German intellectual whose lifelong intellectual, political, social, and cultural predilections were the products of the German Jewish bourgeoisie and the German intelligentsia at the turn of the twentieth century. Long after emigrating from Germany, Scholem remained marked by Germanness and an ongoing relationship with Germany.
Background: While on duty abroad developmental aid workers (DAWs) are at risk of being traumatised. We investigated the prevalence of traumatic events, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and ...subsyndromal PTSD as well as associations with duty features and the psychological variable of social acknowledgement as victim or survivor.
Method: A total of 312 developmental aid workers from the governmental German Development Service (DED) were surveyed by use of a trauma list, demographic questionnaire, the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) and the Social Acknowledgement Questionnaire (SAQ). In addition, participants answered an open question concerning the amelioration of the DED's care provision.
Results: Some 47% of the surveyed DAWs had experienced and 7% of them had witnessed traumatic events while on duty abroad. A total of 16% developed either full or partial PTSD with the highest conditional PTSD probability after rape (33%) and life-threats (23%). Experience of traumatic events was correlated to duration of duties and number of duties, while PTSD symptomatology was associated with self-perceived general disapproval as a trauma victim.
Conclusions: DAWs on duty in foreign countries experience more traumatic events compared with other German representative population samples. PTSD prevalences are also higher than those of German population samples. The association between rejection as a victim of trauma and PTSD severity indicates a possible starting-point for the development of PTSD prevention specific to this profession. Implications of the study are discussed with regard to participants' suggestions on how to handle traumatic experiences while on duty abroad.
ABSTRACT
Aims To investigate changes in measures of frequency of general alcohol and beverage‐specific alcohol drinking in eastern and western Germany between 1991 and 1998.
Design, setting and ...participants Data come from two nationally representative health surveys, one conducted in 1991/1992 and the other in 1998. The earlier sample comprises two separate surveys, a 1991 western German survey (n = 5255) and a 1992 eastern German survey (n = 2211); the sample from 1998 contains information from 5463 people. The two 1991/1992 samples were merged to produce a single data set, comprising 7466 cases. The 1998 sample was limited to people aged 25–69 years, the age range of the 1991/1992 surveys.
Measurements The surveys included measures of current drinking, current beverage‐specific drinking, weekly drinking, daily drinking, heavy drinking and mean amount consumed per day.
Findings The prevalence of almost all measures of drinking frequency declined in both regions of Germany and for both genders. Decreases were larger in the East and especially for frequency of current spirits drinking and daily drinking. Despite the decreases, western women consistently consumed at higher levels than eastern women, as did eastern men in relation to western men. Moreover, gender and regional differences within the country decreased.
Conclusions Overall frequency of consumption has declined in Germany in the 1990s and drinking behaviour in the two regions has become more similar.
With the break-up of the Soviet Union, emigration from its successor states has increased considerably since the beginning of the 1990s. The most important receiving country of this outmigration has ...been Germany, which admitted approximately 1.63 million ethnic Germans and 120,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union between 1990 and 1999. In this article I explore the background and the implications of this recent emigration movement of Germans and Jews from the former Soviet Union to Germany. First, the migration movement of ethnic Germans and Jews will be described in the light of the German admission policy. Second, the social and cultural background and the emigration motivation of German and Jewish migrants will be examined. Finally, the integration of these recent immigrant groups from the former Soviet Union into Germany will be explored, with reference to the concept of segmented assimilation.
