The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/The Jewish Question

by Eduard Lederer

The Jewish Question

By Dr. EDWARD LEDERER.

(Concluded)

Masaryk with a small circle of like-minded men made a determined fight against this superstition; having examined in his usual thorough manner both the question of ritual murder and the circumstances of the Polná murder he laid before the Czech public a clear proof of the absurdity of the superstition. The anger of the people was then turned against Masaryk and his party; in the end, however, the champion of justice gained victory. The excitement passed away, and social and political conditions recovered after the anti-Jewish fever. Nevertheless, this affair had a lasting effect on the Jewry of the Hapsburg Empire.

If we cannot trace the rise of Zionism directly to the Hilzner affair, it can be at least said that its growth was thereby accelerated and strengthened. It becomes necessary at this point to discuss this Jewish movement; but in order to do that we must take note of developments in the German Empire, the birth-place of German nationalistic and racial anti-semitism based, as one expects from the Germans, on their well-known scientific methods.

In Germany the growing imperialism had need of a war cry of national superiority and divine mission so as to inculcate in the German people the conviction that the age-long Drang nach Osten—more recently a push into all corners of the world—is the natural, historical mission of the German nation. German imperialism did not find a home merely in the shadow of the Hohenzollern tree; it had penetrated into the head and heart of nearly every German through the instrumentality of the school and the barracks, science and pulpit, literature and music and fine arts.

Marx who is called the father of the International was just as passionate Pangerman as any Hohenzollern, Prof. Mommsen, the great historian of Rome, shared Pangerman ideals with Bismarck, Richard Wagner, the composer, agreed with Adolf Wagner, professor of political economy who in 1870 was among the foremost and first advocates of annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.

After 1871 this national megalomania knew no limits, it became an insane faith. What more was needed, except a proof of German racial superiority and special mission?

Count Gobineau wrote in 1854 his “Essai sur linégalité des races humaines.” He, a Frenchman and a nobleman, flattered the Germans as a specially gifted race. German scholars found his work most remarkable, and it became a text of innumerable books and pamphlets. A flood of newspaper articles spread the good tidings of German superiority over all other nations, above all their Slav neighbors. And the most zealous apostles of this new gospel were German-Jewish journalists. Their colleagues in Hungary applied this doctrine to Hungary and its nations by spreading the doctrine of the special mission of the Magyar nation. The logical conclusion of this doctrine was plain: denationalization of non-German and non-Magyar nations, whatever may be the means used, is in the interest of higher culture, therefore in the interest of those denationalized, in the interest of humanity itself.

But the German Michel cannot be charged with lack of thoroughness. When he believes, he believes blindly and deduces from his faith all the consequences. He is superior by being born a German, called to rule others, elevated above the Slavs who are of lesser worth, above the degenerate Latins, perfidious Anglosaxons, kinsmen to be sure, but given to pursit of gold instead of following lofty idealism like the Germans. But is not German idealism endangered by the Semites who know nothing but despicable pursuit of wealth and in their debased materialism can have no conception of German idealism and its historical mission?

Michel who likes to have all his opinions properly authenticated by science had science furnish him the necessary arguments against the Jews. Germany has a wealth of universities, professors and instructors, printing shops and paper. German science demonstrated to Michel promptly that the Jew—Semite—is a worse enemy of the pure-blooded Aryan—German—than the Slav; nay, the more does the Jew put on the appearance of patriotic German, the more dangerous is he. Not only from the standpoint of race! The Slav at least worships the same God as the German, the God of love, whereas the Jew knows only his God of vengeance who is inferior compared with Jesus Christ, just as the Semite is inferior compared with the Aryan German.

Prejudice grew, when German science uncovered the secrets of Talmud which—so it was claimed—millions of Jews had heretofore cleverly hidden, secrets declaring a war of extermination by the Jews against the Christians and culminating in direct inculcation of ritual murder. Eisenmenger of the 18th century found an imitator in Prof. Rohling of the 19th. Is not all Jewry the world over in reality a secret society aiming at the subjugation of the Christian world and its culture, the highest flower of which is the German Kultur?

In 1882, seventeen years before the Polná affair a similar sensation occured in Hungary in Tisza-Eszlar. A Christian girl of fourteen years, named Esther Solymossi, disappeared and was said to have become a victim of Jewish ritual murder. A few years after the Polná mystery a similar story was concocted in Prussia over the killing of a young student by name of Winter. German science was ever ready to prove the crime to have been ritual murder, and Czech anti-semitic press, chiefly clerical, swallowed the learned accounts with avidity.

However, the glory of such science did not last long. Normal conditions were re-established, Slavs grew stronger and held their own against German-Magyar pressure, their cultural and economic wealth increased; in the Hapsburg realm everyone realized that the artificial dualism was bound to collapse sooner or later, and in the Bohemian lands national consciousness, and with it Czech-Jewish movement, acquired strength. The years 1897 and 1899 were being forgotten; there was a rapprochment between Christians and Jews in the Czech lands. Social relations between them were growing better. There was hardly a city or town without Jewish membership in the council, and even in villages this was not unusual. In other autonomous corporations, in all societies, even those of the most pronounced national character like Sokols, Jews were members. There were no entertainments or celebrations in which the Jews would not participate as arrangers or at least guests, and this not merely in purely Czech territory, but also among Czech minorities in Germanized parts of Bohemia.

As against that the German anti-semite was very reserved and narrow-minded in his relations with the Jew. He would not receive the Jew into his purely German societies, boycotted him socially not merely in districts where Germanism was in full control, as in the north of Bohemia, but even where the Jews with great generosity helped to support German minorities. So it was for example in Prague, where the Jews furnished scholars for the many German schools from the common grades to the university and polytechnic, supported the German theater and other German cultural institutions. The same thing is true of Pilsen and Budějovice, Brno, Olomouc and other Moravian cities. In many such cities German minority managed to retain control of the city hall only through the help of the Jews and by artificial franchise restrictions.

Such a situation furnished food for reflection to the best of the Jews who had been brought up as Germans and looked upon themselves as German. How much the Jews had done for Germanism! It was not a question of political support only; but how many great Jewish authors, scientists, artists, journalists, actors, how many talented financiers and political economists have contributed richly to the cultural and material wealth of the German nation, even long before the Jews received the rights of citizens; how great a number of Jewish enthusiasts in the cause of Germany’s greatness fell in the war of 1870–1871.

This was German gratitude! There was bitterness in the heart of many German-Jews, when they saw themselves turned down by their fellow-Germans, because they lacked baptismal certificate; they were not allowed to participate in the joys and sorrows of the nation which they served faithfully, far more faithfully than many of those Christian Germans who could only yell: Hurrah for Germania.

This feeling of bitterness breaking out at first only in occasional complaints and charges finally found qualified spokesmen. In the Hapsburg realm these spokesmen were two authors and journalists who both happened to be on the staff of the Vienna Neue Freie Presse. This, was a journal which by its boundless anti-Slav and particularly anti-Czech agitation, by its lack of morality and by its support of German and Magyar nationalistic imperialism incurred great responsibility for the fall of the Danube Monarchy of which it had claimed to be the greatest supporter.

Theodore Herzl and Max Nordau, both authors of wide reputation, became the creators of central European Zionism. Both were born in Budapest, Nordau in 1849, Herzl in 1860; at that time Budapest was still very largely a German city. Both these men were thus by education and sentiment Germans and became Jewish nationalists only after German racial anti-semitism in Austria grow violent and excommunicated from German fellowship all those who could not produce baptismal certificate or were willing to swear to the divine mission of the pagan-Aryan race. Nordau through journalism, Herzl more through poems, gave expression to the pain which thousands of hearts of their German-Jewish fellows felt. Herzl depicted this bitterness in a drama “Das neue Ghetto”, and his Zionistic plan he brought out in an essay “Der Judenstaat” in 1896, in which he sees the only solution of the Jewish question in the establishment of a separate Jewish state in Palestine. In his novel “Alt-Neuland” written in 1902 he describes the visionary Jewish state, as it splendidly flourishes twenty years after its foundation.

Of course it is an Utopia. But what Utopia would not at this time find its believers and apostles. Zionism was thus launched in Austria and found adherents principally in German and Polish districts. With the Czech-Jewish assimilation movement it came early into conflict, but it did not affect its strength.

Then came the world war. The entire population of the civilized world was thereby astounded, but it may be safely said that of the Hapsburg subjects the Jews were most completely without bearings. They who through age-long traditions of the Ghetto developed such strong sensitiveness to happenings in the world of intellect, specially in the sphere of political economy and art, were veritable illiterates in politics. The average Jew is known to be an industrious and thorough reader of newspapers, but only of his own papers. He will believe everything his own journal tells him, because he found it very reliable in business matters; surely it could not be fallible in politics.

His journal preached every day that the rulers of the Central Powers wished nothing except to secure to humanity perpetual peace, but that there was danger from the decadent French, the insatiable British and the barbarous Russia which is in alliance with them. Woe to humanity, should these states win, and with them their small allies; woe to the Jews, should the white czar with his Cossacks invade the soil of Austria. Russian pogroms would be insignificant in comparison with pogroms which the Cossacks and other Russian savages were preparing against the Jews who live under the double-headed Hapsburg eagle.

This consternation fell even upon a large part of Czech Jews. With their German daily which they had read for its carefully compiled financial section they ran now from neighbor to neighbor, looking forward to the future with anxiety. Suppose the Germans and Magyars are defeated; no need to regret that, for they have been parasites on the labor of the Czechoslovaks. But will not the czar then come with his Cossacks and slaughter the Jews?

Their German fellow-believers sized up the situation much more simply; they were German nationalists, in fact they wanted to prove that they were good Germans by being super-German fanatics. And Zionists, too, forgot German-Aryan superiority; they welcomed every official report announcing victory, for to them defeat of the Entente meant primarily defeat of Russia, liberation of five million Jews from czarist barbarism and the establishment of the Palestinian state under the protection of the two German dynasties. They could seenothing for the Jews except open adherence to the German side; why, out of 14 million Jews about ten use the Yiddish which is substantially German dialect.

Today German Zionist literature written during the war is kept carefully hidden as much as possible. It would not be wise to recall unpleasant memories at a time, when the victorious Entente is building in Paris if not an independent Jewish state, at least a Palestinian home for the Jews. Undoubtedly, too, the leading men among German Zionists were honest in their adherence to the cause of the Central Empires during the war in the interest of their own cause; and besides they were convinced that the Germans would be victorious.

What was taking place in the meantime in the minds of the great majority of the Czech nation and of those Slovaks who had a developed national consciousness and remained faithful to their nation? That is impossible to describe; it can only be likened to the terror which gripped the Romans under the rule of their insane emperors.

The entire Czechoslovak and Jugoslav nations were under military control. Every word uttered by a Slav could be used as pretext for a charge of high treason. No one could be sure that he would not be in jail before the day was over. Conscripts were sent to the front like cattle to the slaughter house. Non-participation in enforced loyalty demonstrations was prosecuted as criminal. Czechs of Prague clinched their fists and kept watch over their tongues, while the German minority made “patriotic” cemonstrations in the streets, and in these demonstrations the German-Jewish youth took a prominent part.

Indignation was intensified by the fact that silence had to be preserved. A German Jew denounced a well-known Czech lawyer for his harmless remark about soldiers departing for the front, and the anger of the silent Czech people was boiling over. A rumor was spread of thousands of denunciations made by Jews against the Czechs, and although it was untrue it was believed in throughout the war.

The whole German press of the Hapsburg Empire raged against the Slavs, but the Czech public cherished particular hatred against the German-Jewish press. All Germans and Magyars, their educated and semi-educated classes, and the workingmen as well, raged against the Czechoslovak nation, but nothing worked up Czech public opinion so much as the behavior of the various Benedicts and Kisches who led the German-Jewish press. Shortly before the overthrow of Austrian rule accusations were widely spread that thousands of Jews asked permission to assume Czech names and that they chose mostly names of famous men of the nation.

How are we to explain this peculiar anti-Jewish hatred? Apparently the psychological foundation of it lay in the following reasoning: Only two or three generations ago, you, Jews, were enslaved, and now so many of you side with the oppressors! Then again the people saw only the acts of the Austrian-minded Jews and ignored thousands of other Czech Jews who suffered under Austrian police rule equally with the entire Czech nation. Whatever the reason, Cezch anti-semitism was kindled, fed on unjust sweeping charges and awaited the day of vengeance.

Came the revolution, and anti-semitism heretofore kept under cover by the pressure of the Austrian rule now dominated public sentiment.

It cannot be said that riots that took place in some cities of the Czechoslovak Republic were exclusively due to the hatred of the Jews. Hunger and occasional manifestations of Bolshevism were contributing causes, for some Christian stores were plundered as well. But some of the newspapers began to publish as a regular feature anti-semitic charges in a_highly objectionable form. Among the loudest Jew-baiters were some journalists and writers who under the Austrian regime were particularly careful to keep their mouths shut.

Anti-Jewish sentiment among the masses of the people was increasing during the first few months after the revolution. But this was not so among leaders who realized their responsibilities. Our president remained faithful to his noble record as an apostle of humanity. In his first presidential message he laid emphasis on friendly co-operation of all citizens regardless of religious and racial differences. The cabinet followed his example; it is enough to point out that in the ministry are two members of Jewish descent and that several prominent Jewish experts were given important posts under the government.

But anti-semitic press could not be prevented from troubling public opinion, for freedom of press is guaranteed under the republic. Fortunately already there are signs that the influence of this anti-Jewish agitation is growing less.

The average Czech gets soon tired of reiterated charges that are too general in character and are never substantiated; he has enough intelligence to observe what is going on around him and who makes a business of patriotism. For anti-semitism is not a movement based on a great idea; it is generalizing hatred which shouts the more, the less real evidence it has. It is a step back into barbarism which may for a time sweep the masses off their feet, but cannot retain them under its baneful influence. Today Czech anti-semitism is moribund; it may assume the guise of a-semitism for a while, and then it will expire, as I believe, for good.

I base my optimistic judgment on the real good nature of the Czech people and the desire of the Jew for lasting rest. For a transformation is going on in his soul; he has realized that nationalist zeal of German Jew and Magyar Jew did not save him from injustice, and that for the future his place must be on the side of those who are wronged and not those who commit the wrong; he will never again be found among the jingoes. But what about the Zionists? Is their movement in the Czechoslovak Republic breaking up? On the contrary they gained many supporters after the revolution, especially in Moravia and Slovakia from the ranks of those Jews who want to be no longer Germans or Magyars, and cannot be Czechs or Slovaks by reason of their upbringing and political past. These men will be full of enthusiasm for a Palestinian state, will contribute to various Zionist funds, but they will not go themselves to Palestine. The final outcome, however, must be that children of the present Zionists will succumb to Czech environment—most of them in the first and second generation, while in Slovakia the completion of the process may extend into the third generation.

That does not mean that Zionism lacks an ethical foundation. In it humanity protests against insults based on difference of religion and descent. But this is after all negative; Zionism, at any rate in Western Europe, is merely a reaction against anti-semitism. Whether that will be sufficient for creative activity remains to be seen. Perhaps Zionism will create in Palestine a new culture of a new tongue out of various new ethnical elements, and will call it the re-born culture of the old Hebrew nation. There is no need to discuss that. Even if a new culture is created, only the Palestinian Jew will have a part in it, and not Jews living outside of Palestine, especially those of Western Europe.

In this connection we should notice instructive figures given in a statistical essay of Dr. Felix Theilhaber; he attempts to prove by them that Jews in Germany will become fused in the mass of the German people, unless Zionism saves them. But it will not accomplish that either in the West or in our Republic. They are fusing into one body with the rest of the citizenship, to their own benefit and to the benefit of the nation whose members they feel themselves to be. Neither anti-semitism nor Zionism can prevent it.

Whatever may be the differences in our Bohemian lands between the Jews and their Christian fellow-citizens, flocks of Jewish refugees from Galicia who during the war flooded the Bohemian lands convinced all unprejudiced observers that the difference between the Jew of Bohemia and the Jew of Poland is far greater than between the Czech Jew and Czech Christian. The Czech-Jewish assimilation movement has been in existence only forty years and so many obstacles were placed in its way; and yet what a large number of Jews have already had a part in the new Czech culture, whether they were gained over directly through the influence of this movement or fused with the national organism simply through their Czech environment.

Let me name here, beside Siegfried Kapper, Dr. Zucker, late professor of criminal law in the Czech University of Prague, Dr. Arnost Kraus, professor of Germanic languages in the same school, Dr. Victor Vohryzek who died in the fall of 1918, a physician and a philosopher, the deepest thinker of the Czech-Jewish movement, who searched for a synthesis of Jahvism and the Gospel, Dr. Bohdan Klinenberger, lawyer and philosopher, Vojta Rakous who described in bright colors the life of old country Jews, journalists Mor. Schonbaum, Penížek, Hlaváč; of the younger men Dr. Otto Guth, Dr. Victor Teyta, Otto Fisher, essayist Dr. Jindřich Kohn, musical critic Dr. Lowenbach, educator Dr. Karel Velemínský, Jindřich Fleischner, author of engineering works, Dr. Eugen Stern, author of social studies, Dr. Alfred Meissner, member of National Assembly and his brother Dr. Emil Meissner, author of books on commercial law. Among the younger authors and poets we find Richard Weiner, Dr. Otakar Fischer, Dr. Frant. Langer and a host of other talented men. As far as the activity of Czech Jews in other fields is concerned, it must be said that in commerce and industry they belong in large numbers to the leading men of our Republic, and that among them are some persons of such size that they must soon assume significant places in public life.

If under the Austrian regime clericalism was the hotbed of antisemitism, under the republic clericalism at least lost all governmental support. Thus anti-semitism loses its strongest root. During the Austro-Hungarian rule Jews in the Bohemian lands fell under the influence of Germanism and in Slovakia were protagonists of Magyarization. Today the Jews of the Republic will be faithful to the nationality to which they are inclined by sentiment and education. They will surely no longer stand against the efforts of the Czechoslovak nation. Even chauvinists will have no fault to find with the Czech Jews in the future, and thus another strong root of anti-semitism will fall away.

Leaving the old churches will be now easier and more common, after there is separation of church and state. In the schools there will be introduced training in religious morality which will unite scholars of all confessions, whereas the present eccleciastical instruction in religion brought in difference of religion from the first days of primary school. Civil marriage will make easier mixed unions and social relations of re-united society will make such marriages more common.

Finally cultural and economic efficiency of the Jewry in our Republic is such that the Jews are sure to attain whatever they go after. So far Jews in our Republic have brought forth no genius, if we except the great composer Mahler who by training was a German. But they are great consumers of culture, lovers of books, music, theater and patrons of that domestic luxury which sustains fine arts.

Such qualities make it inevitable that they secure recognition everywhere, where rough demagogy is not supreme, wherever there is an atmostphere of national tolerance and world-wide view.

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