Jewish Motehr And Father: Kafka Revisited Poem by gershon hepner

Mutter is the German word denoting mother.
It should not be the Jewish one, Franz Kafka claimed,
and is so inauthentic Jews must use another
so that with far more vibrance they can be named.

Mutter, Kafka claimed, contains a German coldness,
while mother, although not so cold, is far more distant
than Jewish mothers wish to be when showing coldness,
belying claims for filial love that are persistent.

This applies to Vater, German for the father.
Though Jewish fathers have the greatest gravitas,
they are less complicated than are Jewish mothers, rather
more ready for hip-hip hooray than for alas.

Kafka’s insight is becoming obsolete
in families where Jewishness is just genetic,
and Jewish mothers generally conceded defeat,
assimilating like the fathers who’re pathetic.

Kafka wondered whether he was just a circus
rider on two horses, one a Jew, the other
a German-view the Germans soon would check to irk us:
they kicked us off their horse, while ours they tried to smother.