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What is the relationship between language and identity? Does Jewish "identity" always translate into Jewish writing? And if so, how should Jewish writers approach non-Jewish culture and readers?

Such questions were posed to writers from the United States, France and Israel in a panel discussion titled "Reflections on Literature and Identity." Held Sunday at U.C. Berkeley, the event launched the National Foundation for Jewish Culture's conference, "Writing the Jewish Future."

"I have to tell you that this topic seems to me like an exam question," said novelist Max Apple, drawing laughter from an audience of around 300 in Wheeler Auditorium. "Even worse, it feels like an exam for which I didn't study."

Emphasizing that Jewish writers represent a broad spectrum, moderator Menachem Brinker, an Israeli scholar, said the three panelists "could not be more different…in language, gender, country in which they live and genre in which they write."

In addition to Apple, best known for his memoir, "Roommates: My Grandfather's Story," they included French poet Emmanuel Moses and Israeli novelist Orly Castel-Bloom.

Discussing Jewish identity, Apple said, "I know that people are sometimes consumed by who they are, yet this is a struggle I've never felt in my bones. I've always known who we are. In this compact body…there are in fact two, Max and Martely."

While Max was urbane and sophisticated, "a European socialist," the side of himself that he calls Martely was "the son of immigrants. He grew up among Yiddish-speaking parents…in a place called Michigan that he thinks is a province of Lithuania."

The two personas "understand how much they need one another," Apple said. "Without Martely, Max understands that he would be a pale imitator…and Martely alone would be just that — Martely alone. Born into Yiddish at just the moment that murderers were extinguishing it, he would have had the language without the people."

For Moses, a Parisian who was born in Morocco and spent his childhood in Israel, the question of language and identity was more complex and confusing.

"Can a Jew really be at home in a language?" he wondered. "Can't the `at home' transform itself in a flash into an inhospitable, hostile, murderous environment?"

Given this possibility, Moses suggested a radical alternative. Since "silence is a correlative of solitude, which allows one to find oneself again, couldn't we say that it's silence, rather than language, that establishes identity?"

He concluded by quoting German philosopher Martin Heidegger, who said, "There is nothing more Jewish than an ultimate distrust toward the power of the verb, and an intimate confidence in the strength of silence."

Meanwhile, the Tel Aviv-born Castel-Bloom generated a mixed reaction from the audience with a different, but equally radical argument.

"Pluralism should be a part of our daily life and culture," she said. "I have a dream that Jews…will find a way to get rid of that noblesse oblige, the obligations of Judaism that produce nothing but paralyzing guilt feelings and shame."

She saw great hope for Jewish culture in the legions of non-Jewish foreign workers entering Israel, both legally and illegally. "Israel should be a haven for all refugees," she said. "Accept and welcome the foreigner; one day he will surely write good Hebrew literature."

Castel-Bloom's remarks provoked a lively discussion amongst the conference's other presenters, who occupied the first three rows of the audience. While U.C. Berkeley's Chana Kronfeld, who teaches Hebrew and comparative literature, felt that "others may not want to contribute to our [cultural] gene pool," Israeli journalist Hillel Halkin suggested that "we're cultural imperialists if we impose our culture on others, and cultural imperialists if we don't."

For Hungarian writer George Konrad, identity is "a lazy notion" that creates divisions among humanity. "People in the former Yugoslavia adore this word identity…they are all ready to die, and mostly to kill, for it," he said. "But I asked them what it means and never got a good answer."

Celebrated novelist Chaim Potok suggested substituting the word "self" for "identity." "Self is the central word in what we call modernism," he said.

Wrapping up the session, Brinker concluded that "we are born to this or that gender, state, religion, etc." And though these are mostly external factors, perhaps both writers and readers should realize that "some of the things we are, it is not for us to destroy or construct."