Glokalisierung

Today’s world is suffering from supply bottlenecks, and don’t tell me the blocked Suez Canal is still the culprit. Some economists blame the Covid pandemic and others that we have reached the end of economic growth. Red Baron is not an expert, but whatever caused the stuttering world economy, we must change from globalization to glocalization.

Think global, act local (©️stock.adobe.com)

Delivery chains are too long and likely to be broken, and transport distances are often enormous and cost lots of fossil energy. So it is pretty natural that industrial companies are bringing home production. Re-shoring and near-shoring will make us less dependent on unpredictable partners and fragile supply chains. In fact, the European Single Market is comparable in size to the US and should become self-sustained.

The European Commission wants to put chip supply on its home feet. The European auto industry is building its own infrastructure for batteries. However, Red Baron thinks that in the future, mobility should be based on hydrogen that, when produced from wind and solar energy, is a zero-emission technology.

All this will lead to sustainability through shorter transport routes, intense technology development, and new local jobs.

Red Baron eats seasonal, local, and primarily meatless as far as his food is concerned. I have given up buying sausages and instead stick to yogurt, eggs, and cheese for my protein. At Freiburg’s Minster Market, I don’t buy grapes in November and don’t need strawberries in April.

My season opens with asparagus grown in the Markgräfler Länd south of Freiburg; later, my choice is chanterelles, mainly from Poland. Then I wait for damsons from the Bühlertal in the Black Forest, prepared as Zwetschenschnitte.

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Glossarium

Traditionally, the news situation is thin at the beginning of a new year. So, on January 2, Red Baron read an article in the Sunday edition of the Badische Zeitung about a General German Glossary.

Well, I wrote about the Allgemeines Deutsches Glossarium already in June 2018, and now four years later, the mammoth project has come to an end. Let us recall:

 

©Basler Universitätsbibliothek

This Allgemeine Deutsche Glossarium is a sensation in the German-speaking world, containing over 100,000 keywords and terms compiled during the first half of the 18th century by Johann Jakob Spreng, a professor in Basel.

Since then, this treasure of compiled words had gathered dust in the university library. It was discovered more by chance in 2014. Linguist Heinrich Löffler had stumbled upon the alphabetical dictionary written on 100,000 slips of paper glued onto 20,000 pages gathered in 20 manuscript volumes. The rest of the paper slips were sorted into envelopes. Thanks to him and numerous helpers and supporters, the mammoth task of editorial indexing was completed and issued in a seven-volume edition for further studies.

 

Red Baron acquired the layman's edition for his browsing entertainment. As my readers know, languages are one of my hobbies.

Although in 1742, Spreng was the founder of the "German Society" in Basel, he had to struggle throughout his life. Educated as a Protestant theologian, he worked as an educator, preacher, and pastor. As late as 1743, Spreng became professor honorarius of German rhetoric and poetry, later of Swiss history and Greek at the University of Basel.

While Latin was still the dominant language in higher education, Spreng advocated courses held in German at the university. But many terms and words did not exist in German. Spreng assumed that in the linguistic vocabulary of all areas of life, there was an appearance of  "common Germanic affinities" to individual languages. So he started to examine words from various sources for traces of Germanic origin, i.e., Old and Middle High German, but also foreign languages and dialects, to make German a scientifically sound and standard language.

Spreng, a linguistic purist, piloted his issue when he Germanized "Latin terms," e.g., Akademie (academy) into Erzschule (arch school), Mathematiker (mathematician) into Wisskünstler (knowledge artist), Studenten (students) into Zuchtsöhne (sons of discipline), and Professor into Hochlehrer (high teacher). This word is pretty close to the modern Hochschullehrer frequently used for professors.

With his neologisms, Spreng stands in the tradition of the Fruitbearing Society during and after the Thirty Years' War.

Students said about the "eccentric" Spreng, "Now he is working on a German dictionary or lexicon of appallingly large size, which, as it is said, gives many folios. Apart from that, he is an oeconomus, has many debts, and it is said that the expenses for books, maps, and other scientific objects will ruin him completely."

Spreng’s Glossarium would have been the largest German dictionary of the 18th century, surpassed only by the "German Dictionary" of the Brothers Grimm. According to Spreng the glossary is „kein trokenes Wörterbuch, (…) sondern mit annemlichen und merkwürdigen Anzügen durchaus versehen, das nicht nur Sprachforschern, sondern überhaubt auch allerley Gelehrten, Standespersonen, Kanzleybeamten, und Liebhabern schöner Wissenschaften nützlich und gleichsam unentbährlich werde (not a dull dictionary, (...) but one that is thoroughly furnished with interesting and strange features which will not only be useful and, as it were, indispensable to linguists, but also to all kinds of scholars, registrars, clerks, and lovers of fine art.)“

Spreng had neither found the public interest nor the money to publish his opus magnum during his lifetime. Too sad.

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FreiVAC

Yesterday again, two demonstrations took place in downtown Freiburg. There was the usual march of the anti-vaxxers. They plan to march every weekend until politics change course and the government caves in on obligatory vaccination. 

Mayor Martin Horn had criticized last Saturday's demo on Facebook, "Yes, we are all corona tired! Yes, everyone is allowed to demonstrate in our country and express their own opinion. But when I see signs comparing police forces to concentration camp guards, it's disgusting and unbearable."

We were all behaving well.

Thus the tone was set for the contra demonstration of FreiVAC, the newly formed Freiburg Alliance against Conspiracy Ideology (Verschwörungsideologie), Anti-Semitism & Corona Trivialization.

Around 3000 participants assembled at the Square of the Old Synagogue while - well separated - the anti-vaxxers met on Friedrichstraße. Organized by FreiSeinFreiburg (Be Free Freiburg), they formed their march for "Freedom, Humanity and Reason" with about 7000 participants.

FFP2 masks and distances were mainly kept.

Hendrik Meyer, the FreiVAC organizer, immediately rolled out the heavy artillery against the anti-corona demonstrators, "They have the infinite audacity to claim they live in a dictatorship. With their lies, they mock the pandemic victims and their relatives. They insult the clinic medical staff and deride the people whose lives got off the rails because of the pandemic."

Spokeswoman Anna Schmidt harped on the anti-Semitic attitude of some Corona trivializers by showing posters with concentration camp motifs but above all in the anti-Semitic narrative of the pandemic planned as a "global world conspiracy," allegedly organized by Jews.

Chantal Kopf, a member of the Green Party elected to the Bundestag, referred to the Square of the Old Synagogue, "We say no, here in this place. Dissent in a democratic constitutional state is not the same as resistance in a dictatorship." She continued, "This pandemic has cost the lives of more than 100,000 people and changed families, so vaccination against the coronavirus is an act of practical solidarity."

Silvia Schliebe of the association "Jewish for All" came down hard on protesters for their closeness to fascists, "We don't care if you think you're good people. If you're marching with the right-wingers, you're not. It's up to all of us to push back this brown plague."

Why does her harsh statement let me think of Louis Armstrong's version of the Whiffenpoof song? In his text, Louis refers to Dizzy Gillespie playing bebop and condemning Dixieland music at the Birdland in New York, "They are poor little lambs who've lost their way, bye-bye bebop, they are little sheep who've gone astray, bye-bye bebop."

Note the heart-shaped balloons carried mainly by children (©ARD)

They were on national television (©ARD)

Initiator Malte Wendt of the anti-vaxxer demo said the march at Freiburg should convey an image quite different from the one portrayed in the media, "Anyone who sees our heart posters will no longer believe the media afterward."

©ARD

Again: Are they just innocent followers, or should one resist brown beginnings?

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SchUM

With all the developments around Corona and during the holiday season, I didn't find time to work on the third part* of my Worms trilogy, the Jewish heritage that figures under the name of SchUM.

*Here are the other parts: Stones Are Talking History and Here I Stand 

SchUM* is an acronym from the initial Hebrew letters of the medieval names of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz. The Romans founded these three cities and named them Noviomagus (later Spira), Wormatia, and Moguntiatum. Diaspora Jews settling with the Romans called the cities Schpira, Warmaisa, and Magenza.

*Schin (Sch ש) for Schpira (Speyer), Waw (U ו) for Warmais (Worms), and Mem (M מ) for Magenza (Mainz)

In the Middle Ages, the three cities had important Jewish communities. Much of their cultural heritage was destroyed over the centuries in deadly pogroms. In 1346, when the plague infested Europe, the Jews being accused of well poisoning were slaughtered.

The "official" beginnings of Jewish life on German territory date back 1700 years. The first mention of Jews arriving in the area between the Danube and the Rhine in the wake of Roman legions is documented in a decree by Emperor Constantine, dated 321. It states that the council of the Colonia Agrippina could force Jews to take up offices (jobs?). How should we imagine Jewish life in Cologne at that time when all traces disappeared soon after that? Only from the 10th century onwards can one speak of the continuity of German-Jewish life.

The history of the Jews in medieval Germany can still be traced today in numerous places. These include gravestones, ritual baths (mikva'ot), and excavations of synagogues, as well as street names such as "Judengasse" or "Judengraben."

But like the life and work of the Jews, their persecution has also left traces. Anti-Jewish slurs are found on church buildings ...

Blindfolded Synagogue	Triumphant Church

... ranging from the juxtaposition of the blinded Synagoga with the triumphant Ecclesia, e.g., at Freiburg's Minster church...

...to depictions of the vile "Judensau" on the Wittenberg City Church.

Of the SchUM communities, Worms is distinguished for its synagogue dating back in its origins to the year 1034. The place of worship was destroyed during the Nazi era and rebuilt after the war.

A statue of Rabbi Schlomo ben Yitzchak
in the courtyard of the Worms Synagogue

The most important Bible and Talmud commentator to this day, Rashi (Rabbi Schlomo ben Yitzchak) from Troyes in northern France, had studied in Worms for a time.

Our group, wearing masks and paper hats instead of kippas, listened to our guide's explanations.

Soon after the war, a Holocaust memorial plaque was placed in the synagogue's vestibule. The erased spots held the names of the Worms Jewish community members who were later found alive.

The reconstruction of the synagogue after the war must have been badly botched. The rear part of the building is currently stabilized with iron girders. The Mikveh in front was inaccessible because of the danger of collapse.

After lunch, the visit to the Holy Sand, the old Jewish cemetery, was the second highlight of the day.

Near the entrance are the two famous Rabbi Meir ben Baruch graves, called of Rothenburg († 1293) and Alexander ben Salomon Wimpfen († 1307). Both matzevahs (מַצֵּבָה) are among the most unique tombstones in the cemetery. They are the destination of many pious Jews from all over the world, who place visitation stones as a remembrance here. Red Baron learned that the Hebrew word for pebble is tz'ror, but the word also means bond.

Look into the Rabbinental (Vale of the Rabbis), the extended burial ground.

View of Worms Cathedral from the cemetery, known as the Martin Buber view. While reflecting on the ties between God and the Jews and between Jewry and Christendom, Buber made this visual axis a must for any visitor.

Yaakov ha-bahur's tombstone is the oldest in the Holy Sand. Not accessible, it is the taller one of the two stones located in the center of the meadow, dating from 1076/1077.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Worms' Jewish community occupied a new cemetery section. It is located on the higher ground formed by the remnant of the outer city fortifications that were destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV of France in 1689 during the Nine Years' War. 

With the emancipation of the Jews in the 19th century, their tombstones stylistically resembled those of Christian cemeteries. Inscriptions were often bilingual in Hebrew and German.

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Looking Back

 Happy New Year again to all my readers.

At the beginning of a new year, one should look forward, but let me look back to 860 blogs published since I wrote my first blog on May 26, 2010.

I would've liked to give you the blog with the most visits, but that would be wrong. In 2016 and 2017, my blog was hacked. You can see this in the long-term statistics of blog views.

Nevertheless, the winner is Pretzelgate, followed by Adenauer, and the "false" bronze medal goes to Super 2017.

As compensation, I am giving you the ranking of the last 12 months for the blog statistics seem back to normal again. Asterix et le. Griffon, Insignificance, and Münster Mapping are all from 2021, but the blog in fourth place, Schopenhauer versus Hegel, is from April 2, 2015.

Otherwise, the outlook for 2022 looks grim, particularly concerning Corona and climate change. These global challenges are flanked by tensions between the three superpowers, with the European Union weakened by internal quarrels as bystanders.

What a world.

Before I leave, here are the latest graphics regarding Corona in the States and Germany:

Covid cases in the US (©NYT)

Covid cases in Germany (©NYT)

It is interesting to note that Germany, as usual, is behind the US in the Covid development. Of the previous Delta variant, the US had its maximum already on September 4, 2021, with 164,000 cases, while Germany had its maximum on November 29, with 58,000 cases. 

Before the Omicron onset, a minimum was reached in the US on November 4, with 70,800 cases, and in Germany on December 29, with 26,500 cases. Red Baron reported.

Looking at the daily figure of 760,000 on January 11, 2022, for the States, I would expect daily figures of more than 200.000 for Germany soon. 

 

It is comforting to know that Dr. Fauci expects case numbers in the US to decrease by mid-February. Do we Germans have to wait until mid-March? 

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