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As the exilic experience, initiated in 587 B.C.E., continued over millennia, no one has been able to settle the question of what it means to be a diaspora Jew. Are those who actively participate in non-Jewish life still in a position to claim the heritage of Israel? And what about Jews who actively seek assimilation and renounce their roots altogether: are they still Jews in spite of themselves? Authors, from Joseph Roth to Sholom Aleichem to Chaim Potok, have tried to deal with this issue in light of different diaspora circumstances. One of the most recent perspectives on Jewish identity comes to us through "Sunshine", a powerful film by the Hungarian director Istvan Szabó (1999). Szabó, who wrote the screenplay with Israel Horowitz, tells the story of several generations in one Hungarian Jewish family: the Sonnenscheins. Living at the turn of the twentieth century, the patriarch of the Sonnenschein clan is Emmanuel, a successful distiller who seems to have found a balance between the two exilic extremes: neither complete assimilation, nor a retreat from gentile society.
These […] stories are chosen from anthologies with texts called 'urban legends' (sometimes they are also referred to as 'contemporary legends', or 'urban myths'). Bearing this name in mind, we tend to read these texts as 'Iegendary' narratives that relate ficticious stories of events which never happened. But what if somebody told you these stories as factual accounts of events that really happened to the friend of a friend: wouldn't you believe them to be true – or at least consider seriously the possibility of their truthfulness? Before entering in a discussion of this question, I want to introduce in more detail the kind of narrative I am seeking to analyze.