The Trouble with Love

Sexual Crises and the Young Jewish Woman in Lilly Fenichel’s Diaries and Novellas 1915-18

Abstract

English abstract: This article examines sexual crises of the young Jewish woman during the fin-de-siècle period as discussed in Lilly Fenichel’s (i.e. married Alice Aschner, 1894- 1925) unpublished diaries and novellas written between 1915 and 1918. Her writings draw on Freudian psychoanalysis and Zionist tropes, pointing to the triple sexual burden of the young Jewish woman as adolescent, Jew, and woman. With a focus on social implications, Lilly Fenichel addresses sexual trauma and agency, as well as female desire and problems of disembodied sexuality, issues that also fueled heated feminist debates about the New Woman at that time. In her novellas, Lilly Fenichel creates young female Jewish characters who are ultimately driven to suicide by love trouble.