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T H E SOUTHERN ISRAELITE
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The Easier Faith?
Feel More Deeply Bound To My Race Since It Is Being Persecuted Anew
By EMIL LUDWIG
Noted Biographer and Historian
shorter than I he seemed to be looking
down at me. “Come in, sit down. Why
should you stand here?"
Now, in a spotless room, I saw the table
standing with two candlesticks, and beside
it a woman, Sarah, a legendary figure of
whom mention was sometimes made at
home. She was just as homely as her hus
band, but even more kindly. And as she
came toward me with her wig she seemed
infinitely pathetic. Her gesture toward the
table as she invited me to sit down I saw
again only twenty years after, on one of
Rembrandt’s Jewish drawings. When I left
the couple I felt that suddenly I had been
carried two thousand years and a thousand
miles away. As I came down the stairs I
was filled with confusion and, at the same
time, a certain awe; and later, when I
learned that it is the appearance of the
first star which marks the beginning of the
Sabbath, I seemed to hear again the de
vout and ironic ring of that question:
“What has six o’clock to do with the Sab
bath?”
About this time also, while my parents
were out of the city, I was sent to stay
with friends for a few weeks. There I saw
the master of the house every noon and
evening standing at the table with bowed
head, praying to Jesus.
The morality of both Testaments long
ago became part of us in countless forms,
and every one interprets it in his conduct
in his own way. Their legends, however,
are to me strange Oriental stories, much
less familiar than, say, the story of Rem
brandt. The reading of the letters and
verses of the last two years of Gothe’s life
moves and edifies me much more deeply
than the story of the Passion of Jesus.
When I hear the Seventh or the Ninth
Symphony, Schubert’s Quintette (Opus
163) or Beethoven’s Quartette (Opus 127)
or the great Trio in B Major, Schubert’s
Opus 99 or the brief Duet in Act Four of
“Carmen” or one of Mozart's later songs I
am imbued with much more religious feel
ing than the reading of the Psalms or the
viewing of the Madonnas or Siena can
arouse in me. I wrote my story of Jesus,
“Der Menschensohn,” only that it might
serve as an example for the martyrs of
our time.
A tter the German Empire was well es
tablished anti-Semitism spread with malig
nant rapidity. For whenever the Germans
are too well or too badly off it is always
the Jews who are blamed. Despite this,
however, my father refused to let his chil
dren be baptized; but he found another
wav of serving them.
In 1862 my father, Hermann Ludwig
('ohn—a great pioneer in the then unpop
ular light against eye disease, a great
teacher and entitled to call himself Pro
fessor. but never able to receive a regular
university appointment—went to Rome. On
the trip he had met a Catholic nobleman.
They conversed much, this orthodox man
of ancient German descent and the liberal
Jew; as they waited together before St.
Peter’s for the appearance of Pius IX the
Baron cautiously asked: “You’ll kneel when
he passes?”
“I shall make a gesture of greeting.”
When the ceremony was over my father,
imitating the sign of the cross which the
Pope had made over the kneeling crowd,
said to the deeply moved Catholic: “Did
you see? For every one else the Pope wrote
a plus sign into the air. But for me he
wrote a minus sign!”
Twenty years later this pious Catholic,
a Baron Junker von Oberkonreuth, and
now occupying a high governmental posi
tion, came to my father as a patient. With
much difficulty his sight was preserved.
“And is there anything I can do for
you now?” he asked as he called at my
father’s office for the last time. He expect
ed to hear a plea for academic advance
ment. but to his surprise my father said:
“There is one thing I desire. In Ger
many my name constitutes an obstacle to
progress in any field—that's bad enough. I
'hould like to make my children’s path
easier.”
“What do you want their name to be?”
“Ludwig, which is my middle name and
hat of my brothers.”
Five days later the King had signed an
der of the Cabinet in which we, then
o girls and two boys, were permitted and
mmanded to assume the new’ name. This
s on July 3, 1883; I was tw r o years old.
A man’s name is part and parcel of
nself and of his destiny, and many have
anged theirs of their own volition. This
edom of choice has given us some of
greatest names in the w r orid of art-—
Here, Voltaire, Jean Paul; but a deci-
:1 always had to be made, and doubtless
s tep often w r as a difficult one.
fhe training w T e children received at
:ne w as based on the moral ideas of Less-
Religious atmosphere w’as lacking, but
V s substituted by moral education to
;de our practical lives and by music to
le us the element of mysticism. We w’ere
>ught up on natural-scientific theory,
h! Judaism concerned us as little as
■nstianity—a mental and emotional ten-
According to reports in the press, Emil
Ludwig, outstanding German man of let
ters, has decided to affiliate himself with
the Jewish community and to resume the
use of his patronymic, Cohn. This is the
first time that the famous European biog
rapher, whose Jewishness has been a con
troversial issue for some time, tells of his
Jewish affiliation, of his attitude to his
racial heritage and the reason why he left
the Christian Church, which he had
entered.
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EMIL LUDWIG
Famous European biographer, who
has decided to reclaim his original
name, Cohn, which his father had
changed to Ludwig.
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dency I have retained. I witnessed Jewish
ceremonial practices only at the funerals
of my brother and sister, and was in my
thirties when I set foot in a synagogue for
the first time, at Constantinople. The study
of religion was required at school; but
that subject, while well handled, was pre
sented from the historical point of view.
When I was about thirteen I became ac
quainted, quite by chance, with some of
the to me unfamiliar ritual of Jews and
Christians. Nathan Luftig, who kept a sil
verware shop in the Swingerstrasse, was
small and homely, clever and kindly. On
Saturday his shop, which consisted of a
single ground-floor room, was closed, but
he did not handle money even on Friday
evening. One Friday, my mother having
sent me to fetch a certain salt-cellar, I
rang his bell; the old man opened the door
only a little at first. Finally he opened
it all the way, but his somehow stiff smile
and expectant attitude showed me that the
store w’as already closed.
Rather embarrassed, I stammered: “I
thought—I thought—but it isn’t six yet,
Herr Luftig.”
“W T hat has six o’clock to do with the
Sabbath?” His voice and smile bespoke a
feeling of superiority; though he was
I was forty-one when Rathenau was as
sassinated. In our home religious training
had been relegated to the background. My
ideas of God and nature had been formed
in a natural-philosophic mould under the
influence of my father, and later, guided
by Goethe, had gained in depth. As a stu
dent I had entered the Christian church;
but I determined to leave this community
the moment that the anti-Semitism of the
Germans vented itself in the murder of
one of their best men. I feel more deeply
bound to my race since it is being perse
cuted anew in my native land.
Copyright 193! by S. A. F. S.