Rhetorical Analysis Of Attending The German Conference

effectively discusses the reasoning behind her refusal to attend a conference held in Germany on “German- Jewish relations.” Ozick addresses her audience, a professor who extended an invitation to the aforementioned conference, in a formal manner, at first politely, with extended gratitude to the good nature of both his and his college’s pure intentions. Ozick effectively communicates her somber refusal to attend the German conference by efficiently utilizing appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. Ozick opens her argument by vaguely claiming a connection to the German Jewish population by stating herself to be Jewish. She does however, admit herself to be Jewish American, meaning she was not directly impacted by the Nazi political party and
the horrors they evoked upon the people during the Holocaust. This establishes accreditation in Ozick because she has a connection to those who lost their lives in world war ll. She also understood the great injustice taken against her people, ethics, and religion. By sharing this information, the reader (her professor), can gain a better understanding of why she refuses to attend the conference. This creates an appeal to ethos; the audience understands that Ozick feels a sense of connection to her people, even though she was far from the tragedy that had occurred. After Ozick establishes her credibility, she furthers her argument by explaining the impossible task of reconciliation the German people set forth to complete.
Ozick examines the methods German scholars utilize in depth by appealing to the logic of their circumstances; “…I believe that all this—the conscious memorializing of what happened four and five decades ago to the Jewish citizens of Germany and of Europe—is in the nature of things an insular and parochial German task” (Ozick, 363). She explains how ignorant of a task it is to reconcile with Jews after decisively expunging the vast majority of their population. It’s especially illogical to assume that such conferences can reestablish camaraderie between Germans and Jews when Germany was/is devoid of the Jewish population: “a hand held out in friendship to someone who isn’t there? How can ‘relations’ with Jews be achieved in the absence of Jews” (Ozick,
363)? Ozick continues this thought throughout the next few paragraphs with increasing contempt for the idea of such a conference. She begins to employ a tone of facetiousness, furthering the idea of its impracticality. She then employs a metaphor, claiming that native born Jews, with their religion and culture, take on the role of a museum, or the artifacts found in such institutions, rather than merely exist as human beings: “The notion of a Jew as a kind of surprising vestige or anachronism—as, in fact, an actual museum piece—is apparently pervasive in Germany…” (Ozick, 363). Directing the reader’s attention to this concept is enlightening because it supports her argument that the intended camaraderie between Germany and the remaining Jewish population is nearly irrational. Ozick claims that it is an idiotic endeavor to reconcile with Jews and the consequences pertaining to the Holocaust because those who were affected were murdered: as Ozick blatantly states, “…there is no German born Jewish writer who is alive to speak…” (Ozick, 364).
She explains how irrational and insensitive, almost detestable, it is to assume that her, an American Jewish writer, could stand in the place of a murdered Jewish civilian and “reconcile” with the entirety of Germany. She successfully emphasizes this distasteful idea with the concept of “surrogacy” (Ozick, 364). At this point, Ozick directs her argument in a way that appeals to the reader’s emotional conscious. She focuses more on the lost voices of those who lost their lives in the war, and employs specific diction to allow her audience to fully understand the audacity proposed by such surrogacy—the trading places of a murdered Jew and one still
living. Ozick begins to use words and phrases such as “phantoms,” “the missing,” and “the murdered,” which most certainly evoke sorrow and remorse from the reader. This choice of diction strengthens her argument and allows the readers an illustration of the barbarity of the Holocaust.