ABSTRACT
The children’s texts seek to change the stereotypical set of negative traits that were attributed to the Jews by a long history of anti-Semitic tradition and particularly by Nazi propaganda. They aspire to combat anti-Semitism and correct its distortions. In their campaign against stereotypical patterns of the portrayal of Jews, the books create another set of patterns based on traits borrowed from a reservoir of Jewish depictions, in which both anti-Semitic and philo-Semitic traditions mingle. The convergence of these two traditions is not surprising, because both assume the existence of distinct and opposing categories between Jews and Germans. Both tacitly assume that there is a fundamental difference between Jews and Germans whereby “Jews” are not “Germans” and “Germans” are not “Jews.” In effect, the books do not acknowledge the possibility of a hyphenated “German-Jew.”
