ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Alfred Doblin's novel Berlin Alexanderplatz as the intersection, so to speak, of German-Jewish and Yiddish modernism. Franz Bieberkopf is picked up off the ground by Nachum, a Yiddish-speaking, bearded immigrant, and taken inside the latter's dingy apartment. Seemingly too poor to offer Franz food, medicine, or a bed, Nachum begins to entertain his guest with a story. Nachum presents his tale as both a distraction from hunger and an inspirational moral lesson, a practical example that Bieberkopf might learn from. For Walter Benjamin, the storyteller is no longer able to speak to the modern reader because the latter has been more damaged than liberated by modernity. The author of Berlin Alexanderplatz engages with similar questions about the storyteller and the communal audience, about modern alienation, and also about the role of the Jewish writer. The narrator of David Bergelson's story cannot be, refuses to be the storyteller that the protagonist wishes him to be.
