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• • - JEWS
and the German Spirit
By Ludwig Zweig
A Passionate Appeal to the Germany of Goethe is contained in this brilliant article
by one of Europe’s greatest contemporary novelists. Arnold Zweig’s analysis of the
influence of German Jewry on the cultural development of his country, gives a proud
answer to the Hitlerite cry of '‘Down With the Jews.” / his article together with
Mr. Blum’s contribution published in this issue presents a conclusive picture of the
Jewish status in France and in Germany.
O NE cannot discuss Jewish affairs and con
ditions with true anti-Semites. Ordinary
people recognize the values for which the
Jews stand just as they recognize those repre
sented by other races. The anti-Semite, however,
is blind to these Jewish values; for him they are
non-existent in the sense that the magic beauty
of music is non-existent for one
who is really unmusical. The
difference here is that the un
musical do not draw the con
clusion that their failing is a
distinction that sets them above
the rest of the world. But when
it comes to those who blame the
Jews for all the ills of our day,
those who find nothing good in
either the Jewish past—Bible,
Talmud—or the Jewish present
—Einstein and Marx, Freud
and Bergson, Mahler and Trot-
zki, Heine and Landauer—
when it comes to those afflicted
with this complex one cannot
discuss the matter, but only wait
in silence. For inevitably such
complexes must be defeated:
they cannot be maintained.
These people must see their ve
hemence diminish from year to
year, their convictions shrivel
and rot away. And if they want
to fight against this natural de
velopment, if they want to pre
vent their anti-Semitism from
growing pallidly innocuous, they
can only plunge desperately into
hyperbole, always a symptom of
insanity. The Jews, however,
being an age-old people, have
the advantage here: They have
learned the art of waiting.
The Zionist represents a spe
cial case among the Jews. The
case of those who desire to pre
serve the Jewish elements in
that hybrid product known as
the modern Jew”; those who aspire to a concen
tration in Palestine of Jews who believe that Jew
ish spiritual values are as worthy of preservation
and revival in a living community as are the
spiritual values of any other people, that the spir
itual qualities of the Jew constitute a superior
creative force which is in full flower at the present
time, five generations after the Emancipation, and
which can greatly benefit all mankind. It is
biologically inevitable that the spirit of a majority
should penetrate a minority that from generation
to generation the non-Jewish elements should in
crease in the German Jew, the French, British
or Russian Jew unless a protective shell is formed
to prevent this. From the return of the Jew to
his original Mediterranean clime I expect a fun
ffl
ADOLPH
Down with
damental restoration of the imperiled Jewish type
to its essential form.
Only in this sense is the Zionist the bearer of
a national ideal. Otherwise his nationalism is
totally unrelated to the imperialistic, chauvinistic
nationalism so rampant among the peoples today.
His is a protective nationalism that aims to obtain
for the Jews those elements,
necessary for their survival,
which all other nations have:
Freedom of settlement in a
clearly defined and autonomous
region. Thus he hopes to solve
the Jewish question for the
Jews. It is his solemn duty to
regard non-Jews as any sensi
ble man would regard his fel-
lowmen, to display considera
tion toward others whenever his
own soul is not menaced and to
solve his own problems in such
a way that the solution will fit
into the general movement for
the settling of the world’s prob
lems.
When I speak of “the Jew”
or “the Zionist” I emphasize
the concrete concept rather than
the abstract, stress living ideas
rather than isms, refuse to the
orize where only really existent,
questions demand and are en
titled to attention.
Thus a Zionist is a Jew who
intends to emigrate because of
spiritual considerations that to
him are very important, as the
Quakers and Pilgrim fathers of
England emigrated to America;
the task he sets himself trans
cends the personal, demanding
from him renunciation of self,
generalized thinking, devotion
to something far greater than
the individual ego, and nour
ishing these qualities in him.
. , Such thinking possesses selective
and disciplinary force, subordinating narrow sel-
nsh instincts to public service. Into the Jewish
heart, moreover, it brings a certain balance, peace
concerning things Jewish, that serene dignity born
of calm acknowledgment of essential facts. Then
we are rid of the deplorable self-degradation of
those unhealthy minds that try madly to break
away from something that is part of themselves,
whose thoughts seem tinged with the filth thrown
by their enemies; and we are rid also of the ex-
a , e u- , iness those self-styled “chosen ones”
k k t0 . c ? un , teract public insult not by virile
battle but with the emasculated falsetto of self-
praise.
The question arises whether these Zionists are
to be condemned to silence in the public affairs
HITLER
the Jews”
THE DISCARD
By Max KALISH
'‘If only a few of us had survived, you would venerate
us as the Descendants of the Prophets!"
of the political entities into which they were born.
Now the Zionist position in itself provides an an
swer to this question. Yet we shall examine this
point, at the same time touching upon the more
general question of what should be the Jewish
attitude toward the non-Jewish world.
Sociologically speaking the Jew is a member of
a community to which many countries granted
civic rights very late, most reluctantly and often
only formally. In these countries, accordingly, his
position is identical with that of all other groups
which are combated and deprived of their rights
because they differ from the majority in either
their ideology or their descent. In those lands
whose institutions have a democratic basis—Eng
land, the United States, Holland, France, the
Scandinavian countries, to mention only a few—
there is no question as to what part the Jew should
play in public life. Social acceptance is, of course,
an entirely different matter. But the preservation
of social segregation side by side with political
equality, the sobering of political and intellectual
attitudes while the lines marking off the more per
sonal sides of life grow all the more clearly de
fined—these are symptoms of political maturity
well-known to us from certain transitory stages
in British and French life.
To the casual observer the countries I ha ''
amed, with the exception of the 1 nited State\
ppear as closely knit entities. In Germany, ho\\
ver certain circles believe, sincerely and entire
without malice, that their state still is so \oun
nd plastic that its relatively large proportion o
ews may in some as yet undefined way come
onstitute a spiritual menace. . .
Here they have in mind a certain radica v in
lined and energetic manner of criticizing P u
ffairs as well as a distinctly non-German if •
pirit—European, cosmopolitan, detached r0 '
}il—which they fear will retard the e .\ e 0 en
f a people which has not yet found itse , °
tamp it with Jewish characteristics.
This we may answer briefly by pointing ^
hat Jewish radicalism is but pari ot t a ^
uried but still living German rad.cal.sm w "
; nothing less than an ever-living na 10 .
or an equitable solution of the P 10 ■ 5 ^jth
lunal life on German soil. Gentian . e Q ernl an
:s history of ten centuries of sub in ^ r £j er mani c
:rritory, is as fully entitled any aiding
ribe to expend its energies in tl ' g ^ move*
rocess. The more so since the T 1 * 1 .. ra i. re Iigious
lent as it is today derives fro; 1 the Jewish
r Marxist-rationalist sources. _ . ]J)
if
the SOtn .ERN ISRAEL