A Jewish State. Theodor HerzlЧитать онлайн книгу.
of writing down so trite a remark. Even if we were a nation of promoters—such as absurdly exaggerated accounts make us out to be—we should not require another nation to live on. We do not depend only on the circulation of old commodities, because we produce new ones.
We possess slaves of extraordinary strength for work, whose appearance in the world has been fatal to the production of hand-made goods: these slaves are the machines. It is true that workmen are required to set machinery in motion; but for this we have men in plenty, in superabundance. Only those who are ignorant of the condition of Jews in many countries of Eastern Europe would venture to assert that Jews are either unfit or unwilling to perform manual labor.
But I do not wish to take up the cudgels for the Jews in this pamphlet. It would be useless. Everything rational and everything sentimental that can possibly be said in their defence, has been said already. New arguments in favor of a certain condition of mind or of feeling answer no purpose. If one's hearers are incapable of comprehending them, one is a preacher in a desert. And if one's hearers are broad and high-minded enough to have grasped them already, then the whole sermon is superfluous. I believe in the ascent of man to higher and yet higher grades of civilization; but I consider this ascent to be desperately slow. Were we to wait till average humanity had become as charitably inclined as was Lessing when he wrote "Nathan the Wise," we should wait beyond our day, beyond the days of our children, of our grandchildren and of our great-grandchildren. But the world spirit comes to our aid in another way.
This century has given the world a wonderful renaissance by means of its technical acquisitions; but at the same time its miraculous improvements have not been employed in the service of humanity. Distance has ceased to be an obstacle, yet we complain of insufficient space. Our great steamships carry us swiftly and surely over hitherto unvisited seas. Our railways carry us safely into a mountain-world heretofore tremblingly scaled on foot. Events occurring in countries undiscovered when Europe confined the Jews in Ghettos, are known to us in the course of an hour. Hence the misery of the Jews is an anachronism—not because there was a period of enlightenment one hundred years ago, for that enlightenment reached in reality only the choicest spirits.
Now, I am of opinion that electric light was not invented for the purpose of illuminating the drawing-rooms of a few snobs, but rather for the purpose of throwing light on some of the dark problems of humanity. One of these problems, and not the least of them, is the Jewish question. In solving it, we are working not only for ourselves, but for many other over-burdened and oppressed beings also.
The Jewish question still exists. It would be useless to deny it. It is a remnant of the Middle Ages, which civilized nations do not even yet seem able to shake off, try as they will. They certainly showed a generous desire to do so when they emancipated us. The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain so, even in those most highly civilized—France itself being no exception—till the Jewish question finds a solution on a political basis. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying Anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America.
I believe that I understand Anti-Semitism, which is really a highly complex movement. I consider it from a Jewish standpoint, yet without fear or hatred. I believe that I can see what elements there are in it of vulgar sport, of common trade jealousy, of inherited prejudice, of religious intolerance, and also of pretended self-defence. I think the Jewish question is no more a social than a religious one, notwithstanding that it sometimes takes these and other forms. It is a national question, which can only be solved by making it a political world-question to be discussed and controlled by the civilized nations of the world in council.
We are a people—One people.
We have honestly endeavored everywhere to merge ourselves in the social life of surrounding communities, and to preserve only the faith of our fathers. It has not been permitted to us. In vain are we loyal patriots, our loyalty in some places running to extremes; in vain do we make the same sacrifices of life and property as our fellow citizens; in vain do we strive to increase the fame of our native land in science and art, or her wealth by trade and commerce. In countries where we have lived for centuries we are still cried down as strangers, and often by those whose ancestors were not yet domiciled in the land where Jews had already made experience of suffering. The majority may decide which are the strangers; for this, as indeed every point which arises in the commerce of nations, is a question of might. I do not here surrender any portion of our prescriptive right, for I am making this statement merely in my own name as an individual. In the world of today, and for an indefinite period it will probably remain so, might precedes right. Therefore it is useless for us to be loyal patriots, as were the Huguenots who were forced to emigrate. If we could only be left in peace. . . .
But I think we shall not be left in peace.
Oppression and persecution cannot exterminate us. No nation on earth has survived such struggles and sufferings as we have gone through. Jew-baiting has merely stripped off our weaklings; the strong among us were invariably true to their race when persecution broke out against them. This attitude was most clearly apparent in the period immediately following the emancipation of the Jews. Later on, those who rose to a higher degree of intelligence and to a better worldly position lost their communal feeling to a very great extent. Wherever our political well-being has lasted for any length of time, we have assimilated with our surroundings. I think this is not discreditable. Hence, the statesman who would wish to see a Jewish strain in his nation would have to provide for the duration of our political well-being; and even Bismarck could not do that.
For old prejudice against us still lies deep in the hearts of the people. He who would have proofs of it need only listen to the people where they speak with frankness and simplicity: proverb and fairy-tale are both Anti-Semitic. A nation is a great child, which can certainly be educated; but its education would, even in most favorable circumstances, occupy such a vast amount of time that we could, as already mentioned, remove our own difficulties by other means long before the process was accomplished.
Assimilation, which implies, in addition to external conformity in dress, habits, customs, and language, identity also of feeling and manner—assimilation of Jews could only be effected by inter-marriage. But the need for mixed marriages would have to be felt by the majority; their mere recognition by law would certainly not suffice. The Hungarian Liberals, who have just given legal sanction to mixed marriages,[1] have made a remarkable mistake, which one of the earliest cases clearly illustrates; a baptized Jew married a Jewess. At the same time the struggle to obtain the present form of marriage accentuated distinctions between Jews and Christians, thus hindering rather than aiding the fusion of races. Those who really wish to see the Jews disappear through intermixture with other nations can only hope to see it come about in one way. The Jews must previously acquire economic power sufficiently great to overcome all social prejudice against them. The aristocracy may serve as an example of this, for in its ranks occur the proportionately largest numbers of mixed marriages. The Jewish families which regild the old nobility with their coin, become gradually absorbed. But what shape would this phenomenon take in the middle classes, where (the Jews being a bourgeois people) the Jewish question is of far more consequence? A previous acquisition of power would be synonymous with that economic supremacy which Jews are already erroneously declared to possess. And if the power they now possess creates rage and indignation among the Anti-Semites, what outbreaks would not an increase of power create? Hence the first step towards absorption will never be taken, because this step would involve the subjection of the majority to a heretofore scorned minority, possessing neither military nor administrative force of its own. I think, therefore, that the absorption of Jews By means of their prosperity is unlikely to occur. In countries which are now Anti-Semitic my view will be approved. In countries where Jews are now tolerated, it will probably be violently disputed. My happier co-religionists will not believe me till Jew-baiting teaches them the truth; for the longer Anti-Semitism lies in abeyance the more fiercely will it break out. The infiltration of immigrating Jews, attracted to a land by apparent security, and the ascent in the social scale of rising Jews, combine powerfully to bring about a revolution. Nothing