IETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERj 
 
 HEJEWIvf PUBLICATION SOCIETY (.F AMER
 
 UBRARY 
 
 CAUFOWttK 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 SPECIAL SERIES No. 8 
 
 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 IN THE 
 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 BY 
 
 GUSTAV KARPELES 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 THE JEWISH PUBLICATION SOCIETY OF AMERICA 
 
 1905
 
 JEWS AND JUDAISM IN THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 We are standing on the border line between two 
 centuries, a solemn moment which it behooves us 
 to use for a review of the past and a survey of the 
 future. To review the past will naturally be more 
 profitable than to survey the future. A retrospect 
 can yield instruction, but our view of the future is 
 obscured by enveloping fog and heavy clouds. 
 Sentimental reflections, however, avail naught. A 
 long history overflowing with pain has taught the 
 Jew the truth of what the Preacher uttered from 
 out of the fulness of his experience : " The genera- 
 tions come, and the generations go, the earth stands 
 forever." Nearly the same thought is expressed by 
 one of the archangels in the Prologue to Faust, in 
 his greeting to the dawn of a new day of eternity : 
 
 " The sun-orb sings, in emulation, 
 
 'Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round : 
 His path predestined through Creation 
 He ends with step of thunder-sound." 
 
 Eternity has neither days, nor years, nor seons, 
 but man in his finitude must needs tell off a begin-
 
 8 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 ning and an end on the circle of everlasting life 
 and death, and his divisions testify, not to his fini- 
 tude alone, but also to his arbitrariness. 
 
 And yet few will agree with the learned German 
 professor who calls it the naivete of a child or of 
 a barbarian that makes us see something peculiarly 
 demoniac in the day designated by human device as 
 the beginning of a century. Century festivals go 
 back to remote times. The ancients celebrated them 
 with full consciousness of the serious demands of 
 their day and of the problems awaiting solution. 
 As the Hellenes of days long gone by derived fresh 
 courage for their combats from their civic celebra- 
 tions, so we moderns ought to emerge from the 
 close of a circumscribed, well-defined epoch in our 
 development fortified and reinvigorated for the 
 work with which the future is surcharged. From 
 this point of view an historical retrospect has prac- 
 tical value and ethical significance. 
 
 What has the century just closed given to modern 
 Judaism? When we settle up our account with the 
 century, what is the balance to our credit? These 
 are the questions that require an answer. 
 
 It may safely be assumed that none is inclined 
 to dispute the statement that the nineteenth century 
 was one of the most momentous in the history of 
 Judaism. Perhaps no one century since that of 
 the destruction of the Temple and the birth of Jesus 
 has equalled it in importance. Or, not to go back 
 to so remote a period, can it be gainsaid that since 
 the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, an interval 
 of four hundred years, the inner and outer develop-
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 9 
 
 ment of Judaism has suffered no such radical 
 changes as in the nineteenth century? 
 
 Historians call it the age of growing self- 
 consciousness. This description does not convey 
 exhaustively the significance of its content. At best 
 such historical summing up is a hazardous practice. 
 For definite views and sure results a description of 
 events is more to the purpose. 
 
 A careful examination of the psychic and the 
 external material offered by the century makes it 
 appear that seven great currents flow through its 
 history. They succeed or overlap one another, 
 sometimes their courses intersect, and again they 
 flow along peacefully in parallel lines. 
 
 The first of these currents prevailed in the time 
 of ferment and combat, when apostasy and baptism 
 were the order of the day. The second is denomi- 
 nated the science of Judaism. The third is the 
 struggle for political emancipation. The fourth is 
 marked by religious reform conflicts, the fifth by 
 assimilative tendencies, the sixth by anti-Semitism, 
 and the seventh by the rise and concentration of 
 " Young Israel." For the sake of those who insist 
 upon time limits it may be said that the first two 
 currents characterize the first quarter of the century ; 
 the next two, the middle of the century, and the last 
 three, the closing quarter. But it cannot be repeated 
 too often that all such summaries and divisions are 
 full of pitfalls, against which the student must be 
 on his guard. For our purpose it is more profitable 
 to pass the important events in review, and trace 
 the course of each stream from its source to its 
 mouth.
 
 IO JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 The first point that demands consideration is the 
 appearance of Judaism at the opening" of the nine- 
 teenth century. The mass of the Jews lived an 
 unthinking routine life. Of the transformation 
 about to take place, they had scarce a suspicion. 
 The religious attitude was on the whole what it had 
 been three or four hundred years earlier. Religious 
 customs were rigidly observed, in the synagogue and 
 in the home alike. Of spiritualization, of an inner 
 exalted feeling, there was not a trace. No one had 
 heard of the ethical mission of Judaism. Political 
 oppression was but little less galling than before ; in 
 the countries of the East, indeed, it weighed even 
 more heavily upon the Jews than formerly. Yet 
 a breath of the new time had stolen its way into 
 the narrow Jew streets. The young people were 
 familiarizing themselves with secular culture, and 
 they were beginning to nurse religious doubts. 
 
 The rapid progress of the Jew in modern living 
 is astounding. Scarcely ten years after the death of 
 Moses Mendelssohn there were Jewish circles in 
 Berlin, Breslau^ and Konigsberg, even in Vienna 
 and in Paris, in which the new attitude toward the 
 problems of life had completely established itself. 
 From the Jewish salons in Berlin and Vienna a 
 generation fared forth which had armed itself for 
 war against the old order. The Jewish women 
 pointed the way, the full-grown men were not yet 
 able to follow them, the only ones that kept pace with 
 them were the young enthusiasts who had greedily 
 drunk in Lessing's Nathan and the ideas of Voltaire 
 and Rousseau.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY II 
 
 Affairs in Berlin were typical of the Jewish condi- 
 tions of the day. The Prussian capital was the centre 
 of Jewish life, the meeting place of the West and the 
 East, of the Slavic element with the Teutonic ele- 
 ment. These two elements were still mutually exclu- 
 sive, instead of complementary, as they are in reality, 
 seeing that the one exercises conservative force 
 within modern Judaism, and the other creative force. 
 Put the two names Hirschel Lewin and Rahel Levin 
 next to each other, and the whole abyss yawning 
 between the old and the new is uncovered. Hirschel 
 Lewin, the chief rabbi of the Berlin community 
 at the beginning of the century, is the representa- 
 tive of the old ; Rahel Levin, the wife of Varnhagen 
 von Ense, is the typical representative of the new. 
 These two did not speak the same language. From 
 Rahel's salon, in which noted diplomats, princes of 
 the intellect, members of the royal family, poets, 
 and warriors, moved on a footing of intimacy, no 
 bridge led to the Synagogue of the Heidereuter- 
 gasse, where the services were conducted entirely 
 in Hebrew, with as strict regard to tradition as in 
 the remotest corners of Russia or Galicia. Com- 
 promise was out of the question, an agreement not 
 to be thought of, a separation inevitable. 
 
 An attempt to signalize the inner division by an 
 outer, visible act had been made by a disciple of 
 Moses Mendelssohn. The well-known David Fried- 
 lander has frequently been held up to reprobation 
 for his letter to the Provost Teller (1799), in which 
 he announced his determination and that of his fol- 
 lowers to accept Christianity, provided the Church
 
 12 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 would exempt them from subscribing to her histori- 
 cal doctrines. They were prepared to accept the 
 Christian doctrines of the reason, but they could 
 never go the length of the dogma of a Son of God. 
 On the other hand, they held in common with 
 Christians the belief in the unity of God, the in- 
 corporeality and immortality of the soul, and the 
 destiny of man to aspire to perfection and happiness. 
 The reader of history knows with what scorn the 
 petitioners were repulsed. 
 
 In their despondency at the rebuff no alternative 
 presented itself but the extreme measure of accepting 
 Christianity in the gross, historical truths and all 
 the rest. Friedlander and his confreres, indeed, did 
 not arrive at this logically correct conclusion, but 
 their children and grandchildren did. A veritable 
 mania for baptism began to manifest itself. It 
 possessed not only the ladies of the salons, but also 
 the less aristocratic circles, the circles of the clerks 
 and servant-maids. In the first quarter of the 
 century a large part of the Jewish community of 
 Berlin, in the opinion of some authorities fully half 
 its members, were converted to Christianity. The 
 same happened in Konigsberg, Frankfort, Breslau, 
 and other large cities. 
 
 With baptism immorality increased. The Jews 
 but followed the example set them by their non- 
 Jewish environment. " Vices prevailed among us," 
 is the text of one lamentation, " which our fathers 
 had not known, and which were purchased dearly 
 at any price. Irreligiousness, debauchery, and 
 effeminacy, the weeds that sprout up out of the abuse
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 13 
 
 of enlightenment and culture, have, alas, taken root 
 among- us. Especially in the capital cities we are 
 exposed to the peril of having the austerity and 
 simplicity of our morals swept away by the stream 
 of luxury." Of the converts the same author says, 
 that " they resembled the moth fluttering about the 
 flame until it is finally consumed." But a contempo- 
 rary of this writer consoles himself with the 
 reflection that the converts " are but chips shaved off 
 from an unwieldy colossus; the colossus is only 
 strengthened by their removal." Time has proved 
 him right. 
 
 This "Berlin religion" naturally became the horror 
 of the pious, who, bearing its excesses in mind, 
 were all the more solicitous to keep themselves aloof 
 from modern educational movements. So it was in 
 Berlin, so in Vienna, so also in Paris where, by the 
 doctrine of the " rights of man," Jews were trans- 
 formed in the twinkling of an eye into full-fledged 
 citizens. In France, accordingly, the gap between 
 the civil and the social position of the Jews was not 
 so great as in Germany. By convening a Jewish 
 Assembly of Notables and, following close upon it, 
 a Synhedrion to exercise jurisdiction as the supreme 
 ecclesiastic authority over the Jews of France and 
 her dependencies, Napoleon created new institu- 
 tions in Judaism, and at first sight it seemed great 
 and important institutions for the Jews. In a decree 
 dated May 30, 1806, the Emperor ordered that, in 
 the month of July of the same year, a conference of 
 " the most prominent among the Jews be convened." 
 To this body the Emperor communicated his wishes,
 
 14 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 Its other function was to formulate, for the Imperial 
 representatives, a plan considered effective " in stim- 
 ulating the Jews of the Empire to take up the prac- 
 tice of arts and crafts, in order that they might learn 
 to substitute dignified callings for the disgraceful 
 occupations to which for generations and centuries 
 they had largely devoted themselves." The enthu- 
 siasm with which the Jews greeted this decree can 
 hardly be imagined. Little lacked and they had 
 journeyed from the various countries of Europe to 
 Paris to pay homage to the Emperor as a new 
 Messiah. 
 
 On July 26, 1806, it was a Saturday, the hun- 
 dred Notables who had been summoned assembled 
 in the Hotel de Ville. Some came on foot, and their 
 ballots had been filled out before the Sabbath ; others 
 came- in carriages, and ostentatiously wrote out their 
 ballots at the meeting. So the crass opposition be- 
 tween the representatives of the old and the repre- 
 sentatives of the new within Judaism stood revealed 
 from the first. 
 
 The Emperor put twelve questions to the assem- 
 blage: Are Jews permitted to practice polygamy? 
 Does the Jewish law permit divorce ? May a Jewess 
 marry a Christian ? Are Frenchmen brethren in the 
 eyes of the Jews, or strangers ? What is the attitude 
 of Jews toward non-Jews prescribed by the Jewish 
 religion ? Do the Jews born there consider that they 
 owe allegiance to France? Who appoints the Rab- 
 bis? What jurisdiction do the Rabbis exercise over 
 Jews? Is the authority of the Rabbis regulated by 
 written laws or by tradition ? Are certain vocations
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 15 
 
 forbidden to Jews by their religion ? Does the Jew- 
 ish law prohibit usury in dealings with Jews, and 
 enjoin it in dealings with non-Jews? 
 
 The Notables had no difficulty in answering these 
 questions satisfactorily. They went so far as to de- 
 clare mixed marriages as permitted. When the sixth 
 question was read, inquiring into the patriotic senti- 
 ments of Jews, and whether they considered them- 
 selves called upon to defend France in the hour of 
 her peril, the whole assembly to a man sprang to its 
 feet, and cried out with enthusiasm : " Unto death ! " 
 
 Napoleon was pleased. In order to have the reso- 
 lutions passed by the Notables ratified and invested 
 with binding power, he summoned a meeting of 
 forty-six Rabbis and twenty-five laymen at Paris. 
 The assembly was to bear the name and play the part 
 of the Great Synhedrion. 
 
 This imposing gathering met for the first time on 
 February 9, 1807. On the whole it confirmed the 
 resolutions of the Notables, only the mixed mar- 
 riages clause failed to receive unqualified assent. 
 The Synhedrion maintained that from the point of 
 view of Judaism such marriages could not be con- 
 sidered valid. But the right of Rabbis to persecute 
 the parties to a mixed marriage was denied; espe- 
 cially, the ban of excommunication could not be pro- 
 nounced against them. The sessions of the Syn- 
 hedrion lasted a whole month. Examined to-day, a 
 century later, in the light of history, the resolutions 
 of this Synhedrion and its whole activity reveal 
 nothing of supreme importance or authoritativeness 
 in the development of Jews and Judaism, unless an
 
 l6 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 exception be made in favor of the one point, that it 
 was the first occasion on which Rabbinical authori- 
 ties enunciated a distinction between the unchange- 
 able character of the moral law given at Sinai and 
 the changeable law applicable only to definite times 
 and conditions. 
 
 This differentiation involved several fundamental 
 fallacies, which were to bring forth troublesome con- 
 sequences. The principle laying down the right of 
 a given generation to inaugurate a spiritual reform 
 had been connected by the Synhedrion with an ex- 
 ternal purpose, with civil emancipation. This was a 
 concession fraught with serious possibilities. A sec- 
 ond mistake was even more dangerous. The Syn- 
 hedrion had given color to the notion that the law 
 could be abrogated by some human authority, which 
 thus could exercise binding and absolving power 
 over the adherents of Judaism. 
 
 The whole episode was practically without effect 
 upon the modern development of Judaism. In 
 France itself it left a trace in the institution of the 
 consistories, which with some modifications remain 
 in force to the present day. After a century's trial 
 it may be said that the institution has not redounded 
 to the good of Judaism in France. To the observer 
 it is apparent that ecclesiastical government by con- 
 sistory is " not a factor encouraging the development 
 of an independent religious life growing out of the 
 religious consciousness of the community." 
 
 Salvation had to be looked for from other quarters. 
 
 A heavy crisis impended over Judaism. Not as
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 17 
 
 development takes place in nature, slowly, steadily, 
 in imperceptible gradations, but by leaps and bounds, 
 in wild haste, the spirit released from the shackles of 
 the middle ages rushed into the new paths leading to 
 extreme changes. There had been timid reforms by 
 sober architects like Israel Jacobson and his asso- 
 ciates. They had ventured so far as to introduce 
 organs into the synagogues, and German prayers, in 
 the effort to repair the roof, though the very pillars 
 of the house were tottering. The younger genera- 
 tion in its zeal outstripped them by far. The more 
 sensible of them admitted that a perilous abyss was 
 yawning between the young people and the traditions 
 of their forebears. It could not be bridged over. 
 The state of the case was simple: the old was de- 
 fended by the Old Guard the guard that may die 
 but never surrenders and even the new was no 
 longer new enough for the new generation. 
 
 The reform of the synagogue ritual introduced 
 between 1815 and 1819 in Cassel, Hamburg, and 
 Berlin, was imitated in other urban centres. This 
 reform was at best but a timid attempt to reach out 
 for the better, for knowledge, for a return to the 
 essence of what had been abandoned. What it lacked 
 was a most important element. It had no solid his- 
 torical basis, no scientific foundation. Other efforts 
 to raise Judaism and reinstate it in the esteem of its 
 adherents likewise bore no result. Two periodical 
 publications in German and one in English were 
 known only to small circles of Jews. They were 
 patterned after the " moral weeklies." All the lit- 
 erature produced by the school of Mendelssohn con-
 
 1 8 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 sisted of belles-lettres and of articles advocating 
 emancipation and defending the Jews against their 
 steadily increasing enemies. The value of these pro- 
 ductions was inconsiderable, and even in the combat 
 itself they cut no figure. Only the preachers who 
 with their modern education and their oratorical 
 ability entered the lists as the champions of Judaism, 
 only they succeeded in awakening religious senti- 
 ment in the educated classes, who had felt disgraced 
 by their religion and their co-religionists. 
 
 From self-respect to self-liberation was an easy 
 step, and it was made easier by the events of the day. 
 Aspiring minds conceived the idea of achieving the 
 culture of the Jew through what was peculiarly his 
 own. On November 17, 1819, three young enthu- 
 siasts in Berlin formed the " Society for the Culture 
 and the Science of the Jews." The purpose of the 
 society was nothing less than to " connect the Jews 
 with the age and the countries in which they live, by 
 means of a course of education which shall proceed 
 from within outward." The founders were three 
 young men, Edward Cans, a jurist, Moses Moser, a 
 merchant with philosophic culture, and Leopold 
 Zunz, a Jewish scholar. They were joined by many 
 men of education throughout Germany. The first 
 achievement of the young society was the " Journal 
 for the Science of Judaism" (1822), under the su- 
 pervision of Zunz. In the very first issue there ap- 
 peared an essay clearly defining the concept " Science 
 of Judaism." The object of this science was stated 
 to be " the presentation of Judaism first from the 
 historical point of view, its gradual development and
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 1C) 
 
 growth, and then from the philosophic point of view, 
 its essential meaning and thought; but before all a 
 knowledge of Jewish literature must be arrived at 
 through philological channels." 
 
 Here was a something new and great, a something 
 hitherto unknown, this " science of Judaism." The 
 extravagant notions of culture harbored by " Young 
 Palestine," were, of course, only castles in the air. 
 The society and the journal perished after a short 
 existence, but germs had been scattered which were 
 destined to develop. Contrary to rule and custom 
 the captain had been the first to desert the sinking 
 ship and seek safety in port. For a time the situa- 
 tion seemed gloomier than ever before. In those 
 days one of the three founders wrote memorable 
 words to a despairing friend : " The only imperish- 
 able possession that emerges from this deluge is the 
 science of Judaism, for this science lives though no 
 finger has stirred in its service for centuries. I con- 
 fess that, barring submission to the judgment of God, 
 the cultivation of this science is my consolation and 
 my refuge. Upon myself the storms and experi- 
 ences I have undergone shall not exercise an influ- 
 ence likely to drive me into dissension with myself. 
 I did what I considered it my duty to do. Seeing 
 that I was preaching in the wilderness, I ceased to 
 preach, but not to become faithless to what I pro- 
 claimed Nothing is left for the members to 
 
 do but continue, faithful to their ideals, to influence 
 those who come in contact with them, and commit 
 the rest to God." 
 
 It was Leopold Zunz (1794-1886) who wrote
 
 2O JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 these remarkable words. Not only was he the 
 founder of the science of Judaism, he remained its 
 chief exponent even after the task marked out by 
 him had enlisted friends and capable promoters. 
 "A man of speech and of action, he created and 
 wrought, while others dreamed and lost courage." 
 In those gloomy days of the deluge, Zunz withdrew 
 to his quiet, world-removed ark, and created a work, 
 " The Devotional Homilies of the Jews " (Die 
 gottesdienstlichen Vortr'dge der Juden), that laid 
 the foundations of the science of Judaism. His aim 
 was to show that the living word of instruction had 
 at all times been heard in Israel. His clear, com- 
 prehensive, systematizing mind introduced light and 
 order into the jungle of the Haggada. His work is 
 a veritable classic. Down to our own day its author- 
 ity continues undisputed. In three later works he 
 sought to trace the fortunes of Israel's devotional 
 literature, from its birth thousands of years ago, 
 through the mazes of Jewish liturgical poetry. Zunz 
 was the first to survey the whole field of Jewish lit- 
 erature, and lay down the lines of demarcation indi- 
 cating its development. He assembled its isolated, 
 disjointed investigations and works, constituting 
 them a science that compelled the respect of scholars 
 in kindred departments. He is the creator of a 
 scientific style in Jewish literature. Thus a move- 
 ment radiated from him which brought about, in 
 Jews and in non-Jews, a total change of front with 
 regard to Judaism. He taught his co-religionists 
 self-knowledge and led them to self-respect. 
 
 Our admiration for his achievement suffers no
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 21 
 
 diminution though it be admitted that almost at the 
 same time and independently of Zunz others were 
 doing- the same pioneer work. Zunz was joined in 
 his endeavors by one born in a country in which the 
 study of the Talmud had taken refuge from the 
 storms of the modern era. This was Solomon Ju- 
 dah Rapoport (1790-1867), of Lemberg. He be- 
 longed to a circle of Galician humanists whose spir- 
 itual leader was Nachman Krochmal (1785-1840), 
 one of the most profound thinkers among Jews. 
 Rapoport was the first to show how a rich store of 
 Talmudic scholarship can be applied to the tasks and 
 purposes of Jewish science. The great influence 
 which he exercised upon the development of Jewish 
 science until the end of his life lay in the felicitous 
 union in his mind of Talmudic with secular knowl- 
 edge, of the power of acute combinations with the 
 power of historical criticism. 
 
 By a fortunate coincidence the time in which the 
 interest of the general public in Judaism seemed to 
 have died out produced even a third investigator, 
 who aided Zunz and Rapoport in their task of level- 
 ling new paths. He hailed from Italy, the land in 
 which the traditions of a classic past continued to be 
 silently operative, and from a family to which Jew- 
 ish literature had been indebted, long and frequently, 
 for poets and thinkers. Samuel David Luzzatto 
 (1800-1865), f Trieste, devoted himself primarily 
 to Bible exegesis and the history of literature. His 
 spirit was related to the free spirit of the Italian 
 scholars of the Renascence. At once liberal and 
 religious, he possessed, besides, a rare faculty of
 
 22 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 keen-witted discernment. In every department of 
 Jewish science his activities had a stimulating effect : 
 in Bible exegesis, in Jewish history, in the history of 
 Jewish literature, and in Hebrew grammar. In the 
 last he did pioneer work in putting it on a scientific 
 basis. 
 
 A trio of investigators like Zunz, Rapoport, and 
 Luzzatto, were well able to rekindle the dying embers 
 of love for Judaism in the hearts of its adherents, 
 and clear the encumbered paths for disciples and 
 successors. From the appearance of these scholars 
 in the arena dates a renascence of the science of Ju- 
 daism, which continues to this day to produce results 
 and present new aims. Scores of zealous and com- 
 petent workers have contributed their solutions of 
 the problems it propounds, and their achievements 
 go to swell the stream of general culture. It is as 
 the German poet says : " Far off in the East the 
 dawn is breaking, the olden times are growing 
 young ! " The rise of the science of Judaism marked 
 the end of the time in which the young found sal- 
 vation only in one-sided negation, or sought salva- 
 tion only beyond the limits of their religious com- 
 munity, in regions in which the Jew was ashamed 
 to be a Jew, was ashamed to call himself a Jew.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 23 
 
 II 
 
 The course taken by self-knowledge and self-re- 
 spect in Judaism was by no means short or rapid, 
 though such may have been the impression obtained 
 from what I said in the previous section. It was a 
 long time before the realization of a change in life 
 and morals penetrated the consciousness of the Jews, 
 or before they entered freely and without restriction 
 into the movements contemporaneous with them. 
 The history of this development is properly classed 
 as part of general history or of the history of those 
 conflicts between progress and reaction, between 
 revolution and counter-revolution, which took place 
 from 1815 on in every civilized country, in all fields 
 of public and political life. At the same time, the 
 history of this current of events naturally forms part 
 of Jewish history as well. 
 
 The subject has two aspects, one of which is the 
 self-emancipation of the Jews, the other is their 
 emancipation as dwellers among other nations. Of 
 our self-emancipation we may assert with just pride 
 that it was accomplished long before the other 
 emancipation was even thought of ; while the politi- 
 cal and legal enfranchisement of the Jew had a his- 
 tory of quite other character. 
 
 An historian of keen insight justly called it that 
 emancipation by which the states and peoples freed
 
 24 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 themselves from the errors and prejudices of their 
 past, in the same way as the Jews had already eman- 
 cipated themselves in all fields of thought. How 
 they came to have a wider, freer life among the peo- 
 ples of the civilized world is only an incident in the 
 general progress of humane feelings and in the de- 
 velopment of a sense of justice among the nations 
 of the present day. 
 
 It would be interesting to follow the very slow 
 evolution of this sense of justice. It is difficult to 
 realize how ideas so fundamental could take root 
 and sprout so slowly in the countries of highest cul- 
 ture, though in some lands, notably America, they 
 conquered public opinion at one blow. Various 
 causes contributed to the fact the narrow-minded- 
 ness of the learned, factiousness, the inflexibility of 
 public opinion, blind adherence to principles, politi- 
 cal orthodoxy, and much else. Science including, 
 it must be stated, theology as well as history poli- 
 tics, and the press, were equally powerful factors in 
 retarding the progress of liberalism. Such is the 
 only explanation that throws light upon the deter- 
 mined stand taken against the emancipation of the 
 Jews in the period between 1815 and 1840 by the 
 most learned historians and the most open-minded 
 politicians. They tried to demonstrate by historic 
 precedent that emancipation was not necessary for 
 the Jews, and that their enfranchisement would be 
 most dangerous and fraught with ruin to the Chris- 
 tians. The leader of the South German liberals, 
 Karl von Rotteck, came out quite openly against the 
 emancipation of the Jews so late as 1831-1832, dur-
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 2$ 
 
 ing the session of the Chamber of Baden. Hot op- 
 ponents were found also in the world of belles-let- 
 tres, and counted among their number men like 
 Gustav Pfitzer and Wolfgang Menzel. Even lib- 
 erals, such as the author Karl Gutzkow, entertained 
 many doubts concerning the Jews, from which they 
 could not free themselves. And if the intelligent 
 and the learned were so narrow and one-sided in re- 
 gard to this question, what was to be expected of the 
 people at large? With such an example furnished 
 by men such as these, what must public opinion have 
 been? If the salt of the earth have lost its savor, 
 with what were things to be salted? Lessing's 
 ideas found many friends, it is true, but few be- 
 lievers. People were not ashamed to justify their 
 opposition to the emancipation of the Jews from a 
 juridical and rational standpoint. The birthright to 
 religious freedom, which was the first aspect of the 
 movement to come into consideration, was brought 
 to the fore by only a few ; and again and again it be- 
 came necessary to remind the Jews themselves of 
 the rights due them and the justice of their demands. 
 To prepare the way for the emancipation of the 
 Jews was most difficult in the very states which first 
 granted full religious liberty, and adopted an atti- 
 tude of complete tolerance in religious matters. A 
 notable example is Prussia. As is known, Frederick 
 the Great on his assumption of the government ad- 
 dressed a rescript to the Minister of State Von 
 Brandt. It was a model document in all but spell- 
 ing proclaiming that all religions were to be toler- 
 ated, and the state should see to the one thing only,
 
 26 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 that no one work harm to his neighbor ; " for here 
 each must be happy after his own fashion." And 
 so the Prussian common law guaranteed every in- 
 habitant of the state complete freedom in matters of 
 conscience and religion. Nevertheless, up to 1847 
 the provisions of the law left much to be desired in 
 regard to the emancipation of the Jews. 
 
 Even during the debates that were carried on in 
 St. Paul's Church in Frankfort concerning the fun- 
 damental rights of the German people, voices were 
 raised against the enfranchisement of the Jews. A 
 well-known liberal deputy brought up the question 
 as to what vote the Jew would cast, if the unity of 
 the German states should come up for consideration. 
 A Jewish deputy, indignant, gave the eloquent an- 
 swer : " He will cast a vote determined by the deep- 
 est conviction, by the knowledge, won at hard cost, 
 of all the vulgarities, all the petty misdeeds, which 
 are fostered by the political disruption of Germany, 
 by the pitiful, narrow-minded, mean-spirited acts 
 of a contracted little state. No one in Germany has 
 experienced this with such force, so vividly, as we 
 have; no one has such daily insight into all these 
 matters as we have. If you offer me, on the one 
 hand, emancipation for the Jews, and my dearest 
 wishes are directed toward their emancipation, on 
 the other hand, the realization of a beautiful dream, 
 the political unity of Germany, and, involved therein, 
 its political freedom given this choice, I would take 
 the second offer without hesitation ; for I am of the 
 firm conviction that the second carries the first offer 
 in its train.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 2? 
 
 
 
 " Is the German as an individual, in his private 
 life, less benevolent, less unselfish, less proud of his 
 country than the Frenchman? No German, how- 
 ever unprejudiced, would be willing to admit that 
 this is true. Then, why is it that when the question 
 of emancipation as well as other questions concern- 
 ing monopoly and equality before the law are dis- 
 cussed here in Germany, why is it that low consid- 
 erations arise, of self-seeking, of malevolence, of the 
 mean-spirited desire to clog the powers of others? 
 No trace of such a spirit manifests itself in France, 
 where the problem of emancipation was solved with 
 the rapidity of thought, with the resoluteness of con- 
 viction. And in England, too, such a spirit is for- 
 eign to all discussions. One must not draw the in- 
 ference that in these countries pettiness is less char- 
 acteristic of the individual than in Germany. The 
 nature of man does not vary to such an extent. But 
 in France and England, public and political life, the 
 legislative element, is too dignified, too exalted, has 
 too high a standpoint, not to banish the merely per- 
 sonal, petty, and low from its consideration, or, at 
 least, impose silence upon the importunities of the 
 mean-spirited. The very passions given play, fos- 
 tered, in fact, by political life of such kind are of a 
 nobler and more magnanimous character. They 
 spring from power conscious of itself and seeking to 
 defend itself, while the passions excited in small 
 states arise from a feeling of impotence. Here they 
 are more unyielding, even if not more dangerous, 
 than where the stage is broader ; for they never ex- 
 haust themselves, but grow in size as public power
 
 28 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 
 
 wanes. Vulgarity is the mother earth from which 
 these passions trodden to the ground draw fresh and 
 unconquerable strength. Contrast with this the 
 wealth of intelligence from which choice can be made 
 in a great nation constituting a living political entity, 
 when the time comes to elect representatives and 
 make laws; contrast with it the elevated spirit, the 
 fine culture, presented by a people rich in endow- 
 ments of mind and soul, and standing on the highest 
 rung of political life. How different the question 
 of justice and freedom in this state of affairs from 
 the aspect it wears in the narrow confines of a petty 
 state, where prosperous mediocrity and narrow- 
 minded conceit often wield the sceptre. Let us 
 fight out the issue of emancipation in an assembly 
 which represents thirty million Germans, and I'll 
 pledge my life that emancipation will triumph." 
 
 The man who spoke in this wise was the leader 
 of the German Jews in their struggle for freedom. 
 Next to the Jewish scholars, who gave their co- 
 religionists insight into the essence and fundamental 
 doctrines of Judaism, as well as into its historical de- 
 velopment, he was the most powerful agent in arous- 
 ing the sentiment of self-respect among the German 
 Jews. He was the bravest champion of their civic 
 rights. Gabriel Riesser (1806-1860), who first re- 
 stored the name of Jew to honor, was at once a Ger- 
 man and a Jew, at once an enthusiastic patriot of 
 the fatherland and an energetic defender of his 
 race. He refused to sacrifice one jot or tittle of his 
 religion for the sake of political liberty, nevertheless 
 he demanded unrestricted freedom for all professing
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 29 
 
 the Jewish religion. His word and example elec- 
 trified the youth in Jewry. His contemporaries 
 came to look upon equality before the law, not as a 
 gift to be obtained by begging, but as a right to be 
 demanded. Unlike David Friedlander and his com- 
 panions, however, they did not offer by way of re- 
 quital to perform acts that would involve harm to 
 their Judaism. This, it must be admitted, was a 
 long step forward, and we are indebted for it chiefly 
 to Gabriel Riesser, who all his life, by the spoken 
 and the written word, took the part of the Jews, and 
 defended their rights against every attack. Next to 
 the classic works of Ludwig Borne, Riesser's writ- 
 ings rank as the most important contributions to the 
 large literature of the emancipation question. They 
 are distinguished for enthusiasm in the cause of the 
 Jews, for patriotic sentiment, and, by no means least, 
 for force and absolute truthfulness. 
 
 The idea of emancipation, it is true, did not origi- 
 nate in Germany, but in England. A century and a 
 half before, John Toland, the spokesman of English 
 deism, had proclaimed the right of the Jews to 
 equality before the law. Other freethinkers fol- 
 lowed him in England and France in France after 
 the new spiritual movement had been transplanted 
 thither. In Germany it was poets like Lessing and 
 Herder, philosophers like Wolff, Thomasius, and 
 Baumgarten, who took up the cudgels against the 
 old superstitions in the name of pure reason. All of 
 them, directly or indirectly, furthered the growth of 
 the new ideas, and cleared the ground for the 
 recognition of the rights of man.
 
 30 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 Certain external events contributed to give these 
 ideas form and life. In 1781 Emperor Joseph II 
 issued his famous edict for Austria; the independ- 
 ence won by the United States in 1783 guaranteed 
 religious freedom to all comers ; in 1791 the complete 
 equality of the Jews with the other citizens was de- 
 clared in France; and in 1796, together with the 
 entry of the victorious French troops, emancipation 
 was introduced into Holland. The Italian states 
 and England soon followed. In Russia and Poland 
 emancipation was not yet to be dreamed of. Thus, 
 only Germany remained; and here, under unfavor- 
 able external conditions, self-emancipation among 
 the Jews preceded their political emancipation by 
 many years. Although they fought bravely in the 
 War of Liberation, the famous Edict of Hardenberg 
 (1812), which granted citizenship to all Jews of 
 Prussia, was never put into effect. From 1815 to 
 1850 they had to undergo many severe conflicts, not 
 only with the German chauvinists, but with the reac- 
 tionaries as well. 
 
 In all these struggles Gabriel Riesser was the 
 man to fire his co-religionists with courage, and to 
 convince the just-minded German that emancipation 
 was a moral duty. The details of the struggle con- 
 stitute a melancholy chapter in modern history. 
 While in the early " thirties " the city of London 
 elected Lionel Rothschild as its representative in the 
 House of Commons, the Jews in various German 
 states were still passing through severe conflicts in 
 order to gain the most elementary rights. 
 
 The best characterization of the position of the
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 3! 
 
 Jews in West European countries is afforded by the 
 Damascus affair (1840), which unfortunately came 
 to be of great significance in the century. In the 
 winter of 1840 the superior of a Capuchin monas- 
 tery and his servant disappeared from Damascus. 
 The crime was laid at the door of the Jews, not 
 through the agency of natives, but through the 
 French Consul at Damascus. As the murder took 
 place before the Passover, the rumor spread without 
 opposition. Prominent Jews were imprisoned and 
 tortured; the Jewish quarter was plundered. As a 
 result of the confessions wrung from victims on the 
 rack, the unfortunate Jews were condemned to death 
 on the charge of ritual murder. 
 
 One can easily conceive that this event produced a 
 sensation in Europe. England and Austria came 
 out against France, whose leading statesman, Thiers, 
 was ogling the Jesuits in order to strengthen his 
 country in the Orient. But the spirit of self-con- 
 sciousness and self-respect had been awakened in 
 the European Jews. They came to the defense with 
 no faltering step. At their head were Adolphe Cre- 
 mieux (1796-1880) and Moses Montefiore (1784- 
 1885), for whom the Jews will cherish abiding grati- 
 tude. Cremieux and Montefiore undertook the 
 journey to Egypt, and succeeded in convincing 
 Mehmet AH of the innocence of the Jews, and in 
 prevailing upon him to set them free. The passage 
 of these two men through Europe was nothing short 
 of a triumphal procession. 
 
 The Damascus event itself fell into oblivion, but, 
 as the end of the century has shown, and to the hor-
 
 32 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 ror of all friends of culture and progress, the super- 
 stition came to life again in various European coun- 
 tries, in the very centre of European culture, and 
 brought confusion and evil upon wide circles of so- 
 ciety. One good, however, has been the result. The 
 Jews became fully convinced of the need for self- 
 defense, and this conviction led, twenty years later, 
 to the foundation of the Alliance Israelite Univer- 
 selle, which has for its object the assistance of Jews 
 wherever they suffer because they are Jews. In 
 connection with the Alliance Israelite Univcrsellc, 
 similar societies were later formed in London, New 
 York, and Vienna. These institutions had the effect 
 of strengthening the feeling of solidarity among 
 modern Jews, which is in itself a noble feeling of 
 brotherly community in joy and sorrow, and is not 
 to be confounded with the sentiment imputed to the 
 Jews by their opponents, that the Jews hold them- 
 selves liable for all errors and mistakes committed 
 by their co-religionists. 
 
 The storms of the year 1848 brought help to the 
 German patriots struggling for liberty, and thus to 
 the Jews as well. In France, Germany, Austria, 
 and Italy the people rose in a body to demand their 
 rights, and in all these struggles Jews took sides 
 with the fighters for liberty. Soon after, however, a 
 political reaction set in which nullified to a great 
 extent the successes of the liberals in the year 1848. 
 It was only after much parleying and wavering that 
 the Prussian constitution adopted in 1850 finally de- 
 clared civic rights to be independent of creed in 
 Prussia. Some of the German states had already
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 33 
 
 accepted this principle, others shortly followed the 
 lead of Prussia. Nevertheless, not until the adop- 
 tion of the German constitution of 1871 was com- 
 plete equality granted to the Jews throughout Ger- 
 many. Austria had preceded Germany by twelve 
 years in taking this step. 
 
 Complete emancipation was much more easily ob- 
 tained in America. The liberation of the Colonies 
 from the yoke of England brought freedom to the 
 Jews. Even before the seventeenth century Jews 
 had gone with the English and Portuguese discover- 
 ers to North and South America, stimulated, in part, 
 by the fact that America was then reputed to be the 
 home of the Ten Tribes. In the eighteenth century 
 the Jews took part in the Revolution of the Colonies, 
 and in the nineteenth century their number in the 
 United States grew from some twelve thousand to 
 over a million. America is the great land of free- 
 dom, in which " an ideal is in itself powerful enough 
 to triumph over arrogance and wrong-doing, with- 
 out the exercise of arrogance and wrong-doing.'' 
 
 No less powerful than the struggle for freedom 
 was a second movement, which took its course 
 through the middle of the century alongside the 
 purely scientific movement and the fight for civic 
 equality. This was the conflict carried on between 
 the advocates of reform and of traditional Judaism, 
 the smoldering fires of which leapt into flames in 
 the " forties." The opposition between the two 
 parties may rightly be taken as a sign of renewed 
 religious self-consciousness.
 
 34 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 Now the representatives of traditional Judaism 
 also stepped forth from their retirement, and took 
 their place on the field of battle, like their op- 
 ponents clad in the armor of modern culture. They 
 arrogated to themselves the distinction of absolute 
 correctness in matters of religious belief. They have 
 since borne the name of "Orthodox" (really neo- 
 Orthodox) in opposition to the Reform party. The 
 most eminent representatives of these two tendencies 
 were Abraham Geiger (1810-1874) and Samson 
 Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888). The one embodied 
 the principles of progress, the other, those of ortho- 
 doxy. Both were saturated with modern culture; 
 both were penetrated by profound love for Judaism ; 
 both wanted to steer Judaism through the rough 
 waters of the time, and give it a new and enduring 
 form; both proceeded in their activity with intelli- 
 gence, and learning, and depth of sentiment yet 
 the two arrived at almost antipodal goals. 
 
 Geiger's conception of Judaism was not of blind 
 subjection to a precept, but of " a free development 
 of inward moral strength," which rather opposes 
 adherence to established forms. Hirsch believed the 
 duty of the Jew to reside in unqualified submission 
 to the law, in complete surrender of his life to 
 religion. Yet Hirsch himself did not desire blind 
 obedience, but thorough comprehension of the true 
 content of the law, a divine service always practiced 
 with complete consciousness of the meaning of the 
 act, through which the Jew would arrive at moral 
 perfection. Hirsch, too, wanted reform, but not a 
 reform of Judaism ; he wanted a reform of the Jews
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 35 
 
 themselves; he wanted a reformed education which 
 would bring them back to the Torah. Geiger, on 
 the other hand, recognized the perfect right of each 
 generation, including the present, to carry on reli- 
 gious construction in its own spirit, to discard rigid 
 forms, and continue to develop the idea of Judaism. 
 No two differences of opinion could be more oppo- 
 site in character; and yet Geiger and Hirsch be- 
 longed to the same racial and religious community ; 
 their starting-point was the same, and at bottom they 
 sought the same ends. 
 
 If proof were necessary, the existence of these 
 two bold minds would furnish evidence, that Juda- 
 ism permits its followers full and unlimited freedom 
 of thought, and that it is not a religion of dogmas, 
 but of historic perception and moral sentiment. In 
 the Talmudic academy of old the Heavenly Voice 
 sought to reconcile absolutely opposed views by pro- 
 claiming : " These as well as those are the words of 
 the living God." These words of comfort might be 
 applied to the different principles which split Juda- 
 ism into two parties in the last century. However 
 dark the prospects at that time may have seemed, 
 however violent may have been the opposition be- 
 tween the two antagonists, however threatening the 
 danger to the unity of Judaism, for the cry for 
 division repeatedly echoed from both camps, those 
 whose vision penetrated deeper beneath the surface 
 perceived scarcely any danger from these conflicts 
 and controversies. They saw in them only signs of 
 a newly-awakened religious life, of inner soundness, 
 of renewed mental activity after a dreary period of
 
 36 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 stagnation, when desertion was general, a spirit of 
 one-sided negation prevailed, and Jews blindly imi- 
 tated the stranger. The mere existence of two such 
 men as Geiger and Hirsch had an inspiriting, leav- 
 ening effect. The older generation roused them- 
 selves out of their torpor, and realized that unquali- 
 fied acceptance of modern culture not only does not 
 endanger Judaism, but rather furthers its develop- 
 ment; while the young learned to know Judaism 
 from a point of view new to them, and began to 
 respect and love their religion. And this was true 
 progress, such as the timid changes advocated by 
 the preachers in the pulpits of Reform Temples 
 would never have produced. 
 
 Moreover, Abraham Geiger was the first to con- 
 ceive a Jewish theology. His Zeitschrift fiir wis- 
 senschaftliche Theologie (1835) gathered all the pro- 
 gressive elements in Jewry about its banner, the 
 motto of which was historic criticism. The same was 
 done for the orthodox by Samson Raphael Hirsch. 
 The note struck by him in his Neunzehn Brief e ilber 
 Judenthum (1839) was loudly echoed from the 
 camp of the pious. In order to create a new au- 
 thority for the reform of Judaism, Geiger endeav- 
 ored to found a Jewish theological faculty and 
 convoke conferences of rabbis. The faculty was 
 not established until later, and the rabbinical con- 
 ventions took place at Brunswick, Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, and Breslau, in the years 1844, 1845, an( l 
 1846. Though rabbis and congregations were stim- 
 ulated to endeavor, the institution did not last, and 
 it failed to provide a unifying centre for the reform
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 37 
 
 activities of the rabbinate. The scientific founda- 
 tions had not yet been built sufficiently sure and 
 strong for Jewish theology to erect upon them a new 
 structure of reform, and the congregations began 
 only later to enter into the religious reform move- 
 ment. 
 
 The movement was essentially strengthened by 
 the Jewish press, which developed to a remarkable 
 degree in the nineteenth century. Ludwig Philipp- 
 son (1811-1889), who in his Allgemeine Zeitung 
 des Judenthums provided a vehicle for the expres- 
 sion of all Jewish activities, may be considered the 
 father of Jewish journalism. Other men soon fol- 
 lowed his example, and founded papers in London, 
 Paris, New York, and elsewhere, all having the 
 same end in view. 
 
 When the congregations began to participate in 
 the reform movement, a certain opposition against 
 even the modern rabbinate became apparent here 
 and there. For those who were passing through a 
 period of stress and storm the reforms of the rabbis 
 were proceeding too slowly. They wanted a definite 
 whole, even at the price of a schism in Judaism. In 
 this spirit the Frankfort Verein der Reformfreunde 
 was founded in the autumn of 1842. It adopted the 
 following three principles: (i) We recognize in the 
 Mosaic religion the potentiality of unlimited devel- 
 opment. (2) The collection of controversies, trea- 
 tises, and precepts usually called the Talmud has 
 for us no dogmatic authority. (3) We neither await 
 nor desire a Messiah who will lead the Israelites 
 back to Palestine. We recognize no fatherland ex-
 
 38 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 cept the one to which we belong by birth, or stand 
 in the relation of citizens. 
 
 Naturally, the proclamation of these ultra-radical 
 reform doctrines sent a thrill of excitement through 
 the Jewry of that time. But it is clear that the state- 
 ments, being entirely negative in character, contain 
 nothing to connect the religious consciousness of the 
 present with the Judaism of all ages. After a short 
 period of life the Verein der Reformfreunde came to 
 an end through lack of support. 
 
 The endeavors of the Berlin Reformgemeinde 
 (1845), whose spiritual head was Samuel Holdheim 
 (1806-1860), enjoyed a longer lease of life; but 
 this association remained isolated, at least in Europe. 
 However, a fertile field for similar endeavors offered 
 itself in America. 
 
 It seems necessary, therefore, to consider the prin- 
 ciples of the Reformgemeinde more closely. As the 
 leaders of the movement themselves admitted, its 
 principles were not in a line of logical development 
 with the school of Mendelssohn or with the purely 
 negative aims of the Reformfreunde in Frankfort. 
 The first appeal of the Gemeinde to the Jews of 
 Germany may be taken as the foundation of a new 
 structure. The Berlin Reformgemeinde proclaimed : 
 " We want faith ; we want a positive religion ; we 
 want Judaism. We adhere to the spirit of the Bible. 
 We recognize the Bible to be evidence of the Divine 
 revelation by which the mind of our fathers was 
 illuminated. We cling to everything that pertains to 
 true worship of God in keeping with our religion. 
 We are convinced that the Divine teaching of Juda-
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 39 
 
 ism is the eternally true one, and we believe in the 
 promise that this knowledge of God will in time to 
 come spread to all mankind. But we want to inter- 
 pret the Holy Scriptures in its Divine meaning; we 
 can no longer sacrifice our Divine freedom to the 
 tyranny of the letter ; we cannot truthfully pray for 
 a Messianic kingdom on earth which will lead us, 
 as from a strange country, out of the father- 
 land to which we are bound by all the ties of love, 
 back to the land of our forefathers. We can no 
 longer observe rules and customs which have no 
 spiritual hold upon us, and we cannot regard as an 
 unalterable code one that bases the essence and 
 teaching of Judaism on unswerving adherence to 
 forms and precepts originating in times long past 
 and under conditions that will never reappear. Pen- 
 etrated though we are by the holiness of our religion, 
 we cannot preserve it in the form in which we have 
 inherited it, and still less are we able to hand it on 
 in the same form to our posterity. And so the trum- 
 pet notes of the time thrill us as we stand between 
 the graves of our fathers and the cradles of our sons, 
 the last to win a great inheritance in its old form, 
 and the first who, with undaunted courage and in 
 brotherly accord, will by word and deed lay the cor- 
 nerstone of a new edifice, for ourselves and for 
 following generations. But we do not want to tear 
 ourselves away from the community to which we 
 belong. Rather, we will extend the hand of love 
 and tolerance to all our co-religionists, even to those 
 who do not share our views. We do not want a 
 rift in our unity. You, however, who think as we
 
 4O JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 do, of you we confidently demand union. Let us be 
 truthful in our relations with each other, and show 
 forbearance toward those who are not of our num- 
 ber, remain steadfast in our conflicts with others 
 and loyal to ourselves." 
 
 This was a frank, honorable declaration, which 
 should have struck an answering chord in the oppos- 
 ing ranks. If reform failed to win wide sympathy 
 for this affirmation of its principles, the blame is to 
 be put upon various factors that cannot be dealt 
 with in detail in the present work. 
 
 Between the two extreme tendencies, between or- 
 thodoxy and reform, a mean had necessarily to be 
 established. The further the science of Judaism 
 and the idea of a Jewish theology were developed, 
 the more natural it was that the desire for a middle 
 course should have manifested itself among the Jews. 
 A strong point in favor of the policy of compromise, 
 which would neither entirely discard the old nor 
 entirely repudiate the new, was that it had the pros- 
 pect of becoming more powerful in Europe than 
 either of the other courses, and gaining ground 
 among the rabbis as well as in the congregations. 
 
 Such a policy could, of course, not be realized un- 
 til the two extremes had each attained complete 
 spiritual expression. Its basis is historic Judaism, 
 the scientific knowledge of which it has been the 
 most efficient agent in promoting to this day. 
 
 The exponent of this middle course was Zacha- 
 rias Frankel (1801-1875). He came forward with 
 his program at a time when the more progressive 
 among the rabbis had put themselves into friendly
 
 41 
 
 relations with the Reformvereine in Berlin and 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main. In his articles and books 
 Zacharias Frankel defended his principles with 
 moral earnestness, disinterested piety, and, at the 
 same time, comprehensive learning and entire free- 
 dom from extreme views and visionary enthusiasm. 
 His manner was such as to arouse warm sympathy 
 even among those who differed with him. A 
 large number of cultivated rabbis and Jewish 
 scholars who shared his views grouped themselves 
 about Frankel. The Jewish Theological Seminary 
 founded by him at Breslau was the first alma mater 
 of Jewish learning in which the principle of historic 
 Judaism attained full expression. The other rab- 
 binical seminaries and high schools, at Berlin, 
 Vienna, Paris, London, and Cincinnati, adopted this 
 principle in slightly varying degrees. 
 
 As a matter of course, the different policies 
 and parties had to maintain a long struggle for 
 existence ; but the details of the conflicts among 
 reform, orthodoxy, and conservatism as yet form no 
 part of history, since it appears impossible to fit ideas, 
 while they are still in the rapid flux of historical 
 development, and before their ultimate goal can be 
 discerned, into the Procrustean bed of critical cat- 
 egories and scholastic concepts. Only this can be 
 said with certainty, that all three tendencies have 
 a definite group of adherents, that each has found 
 representatives in the field of literature, and that 
 each in its province has accomplished much that 
 is important and good. It would be absurd to say 
 that one party has been the conqueror. Such judg-
 
 42 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 ment would be contrary to the spirit of history. To 
 the unbiassed observer, raised above party issues, it 
 seems like an indisputable fact that in Europe eft 
 least the party of more moderate reform has gained 
 greatest headway. One thing cannot be denied, 
 that three great achievements accomplished solely by 
 this party have through it worked for the common 
 weal of the whole body of religious Jews. The three 
 achievements are : a well-regulated public service, 
 sermons delivered in the language of the land, and 
 systematic religious instruction. One cannot esti- 
 mate these achievements too highly, for after a 
 period of utter degeneration, Judaism, through 
 them, was brought back to introspection and a self- 
 conscious purpose. 
 
 Another result not to be despised is that the vari- 
 ous parties exist peaceably alongside each other, 
 and, with petty exceptions, have learned to respect 
 each other. It is true that we have attained this 
 end only through severe and bitter conflicts ; but we 
 have reached a point for which we should be grate- 
 ful, a point from which we can look down with scorn 
 upon a reform that has learned nothing and an 
 orthodoxy that has forgotten nothing. To-day we 
 want only to be Jews, honorable Jews, true to our 
 convictions, and conscious of our history with its 
 great, long past, yet looking freely into the needs 
 of the present and the demands of the future. Such 
 Jews there are in America as well as in Europe ; but 
 in Europe it was the Jews of Germany who were 
 most deeply stirred by the spiritual conflict. Weak 
 endeavors at reform, it is true, led to a schism in
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 43 
 
 London, but in general the reform of the ritual 
 was effected in England, France, and even Austria 
 with comparatively little effort. Radical reform, as 
 I said before, found most adherents among the Jews 
 of America, though the conservative element also 
 counted enthusiastic representatives. Opposed to 
 Isaac Leeser, leader of the conservatives, stood Isaac 
 M. Wise (1819-1899), a man of uncommon energy 
 and ability, who, together with men such as David 
 Einhorn, Samuel Hirsch, and S. Adler, won victory 
 for the cause of reform in the United States. The 
 significance of the reform movement in America is 
 that the principle has been established for the country 
 once for all. 
 
 But raised above every individual endeavor is the 
 great duty of bringing before our eyes more and 
 more clearly the significance of Israel's history in 
 the past and the present and its import for the 
 future, its great moral lesson, and its exalted 
 mission. We should make fast for all times the 
 high and sacred bonds which have always joined 
 the Jews into one religious community, and we must 
 never voluntarily yield the consciousness that we 
 each and all of us belong to a united Israel.
 
 44 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 III 
 
 The review of facts in the two previous sections 
 leads us up to the threshold of the present, and 
 the nearer we get to our own times the more difficult 
 the way becomes. For there is no harder task than 
 an objective presentation of incidents that one has 
 lived through oneself. Nevertheless, such a presen- 
 tation is an urgent necessity. In the buzz and whirr 
 of everyday affairs, in the haste of modern existence, 
 we seldom reach a resting-place from which we can 
 gain an all-embracing view of actual events. 
 
 The year 1870 opened up a new era. The last 
 third of the nineteenth century began under favor- 
 able auspices for the Jews. With slight exceptions 
 all European legislatures were earnestly endeavoring 
 to grant the Jews political emancipation; and even 
 social emancipation had made great progress. The 
 constitution of the Confederation of North German 
 States, which was later adopted throughout the 
 German realm, even if it did not remove every 
 restriction put upon the Jews, set aside all laws 
 denying them political rights. After the battle of 
 Koniggratz, the period of liberal political views 
 began in Austria; Hungary was granted "home 
 rule " ; in both lands the last barriers 'were torn down 
 that had hemmed in emancipation ; and in Italy, too, 
 after the triumph of the Piedmontese, the Jews were
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 45 
 
 granted all civic rights. Even Russia adopted 
 milder regulations for the Jews. In the practice 
 of their religion and from an economic standpoint, 
 they were allowed to develop themselves freely. 
 In fact, during the decade from 1870 to 1880 great 
 advances were made in the spiritual and social 
 status of the Jews in Russia. 
 
 There is no doubt that the formation of the new 
 German Empire established and strengthened the 
 dominion of liberal ideas throughout Europe. " In 
 all cultivated circles it was ' good form ' to oppose 
 religious fanaticism, to stigmatize, as mediaeval, 
 brutality, intolerance toward those who profess 
 another belief, notably, toward a minority which in 
 no case strives for undue power. A child of the 
 nineteenth century should not be guilty of such 
 intolerance, in so far as he would not set himself in 
 opposition to the humane ideas of the time." The 
 following incident is characteristic of the spirit 
 which prevailed in the early years after the founda- 
 tion of the German Empire. When the Evangelical 
 Church issued an intolerant decree against apos- 
 tasy to Judaism, the Jewish community protested, 
 and, what is very much more, prominent Christian 
 citizens of Berlin addressed a letter of appreciation 
 to the trustees of the Jewish community thanking it 
 for the protest, and declaring that " far from sharing 
 or countenancing the hateful thoughts laid bare by 
 the decree, they absolutely and entirely repudiated 
 them." 
 
 A spirit of religious forbearance and general 
 humanity pervaded unified Germany, in fact, the
 
 46 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 whole of Occidental Europe; and it is readily con- 
 ceivable that the Jews should have given eager 
 expression to their gratitude in an attempt at com- 
 plete assimilation. This endeavor to identify their 
 ideals with those of the nations among whom they 
 lived is one of the characteristic tendencies of the 
 time. Despite exaggerations and excesses, it incon- 
 testably accomplished much that was good. A liv- 
 ing proof is provided by those Jewish men who 
 attained to high rank in the political, economic, and 
 spiritual life of Germany, France, England, and 
 America. Gustav Freytag justly designates, as 
 one of the finest achievements that German history 
 can record, the fact that for one hundred and fifty 
 years the German Jews, preserving their strength 
 as a race, have steadily raised themselves, and, with 
 each step forward in culture and humanity, have 
 bound themselves more closely to the German nation. 
 " In that time they [the Jewish German and other 
 German citizens] gradually became allies, friends, 
 co-workers in all fields of practical and ideal life. 
 Innumerable are the names of those Jews who 
 deserve honor for their patriotic and their benevo- 
 lent activity in their capacity of thinkers, scholars, 
 artists, or as influential business men and simple 
 citizens. It may be asserted with truth, that each 
 advance made by our legislature toward the assur- 
 ance of all their civic rights was also a step toward 
 the complete incorporation of their mind and soul 
 into German life." 
 
 Evidence of this sort from men like Freytag is 
 certainly one of the most valuable historic documents
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 47 
 
 in favor of the assimilation of the Jews about to be 
 consummated. 
 
 However, there was another side to the shield. 
 In their ardor to merge themselves completely with 
 the nation at large, many Jews went too far. Here 
 and there, one found persons who believed that com- 
 plete identification was possible only if the Jews gave 
 up the peculiar religious character that distinguished 
 them from others. These persons overlooked the 
 fact that in Germany and in other countries repre- 
 sentatives of various religions lived peaceably side 
 by side, undisturbed by differences in religious views 
 and customs. They forgot that nearly fifty years 
 before a man like Gabriel Riesser had demanded 
 emancipation without reserve, and had wanted it to 
 be granted without reserve. He rejected with indig- 
 nation the idea of buying the sacred right of freedom 
 at the price of religion. He said : " That we con- 
 ceive right and freedom differently, that we are 
 striving with all our might to attain a higher liberty 
 in a different way from the one indicated by others, 
 and that we are determined so to strive with the 
 last breath of our being this it is which makes us 
 worthy to be Germans and to be called Germans. 
 The sonorous tones of the German language, the 
 songs of the German poets have kindled and 
 nourished the sacred fire of German freedom in our 
 breasts. We want to belong to the German father- 
 land, we will belong to it in all respects. It can 
 and may demand of us everything that it is justified 
 in demanding of its citizens. We will sacrifice 
 everything to it willingly only not religion and
 
 48 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 faith and truth and honor ; for Germany's heroes 
 and Germany's scholars have not taught us that one 
 becomes a German through a sacrifice of this kind." 
 
 These words are different from the words of 
 those who called for assimilation at any price, and 
 who a generation later came with plans and 
 propositions, the only analogy to which is found 
 at the time of the great conflict in Palestine between 
 Judaism and Hellenism, when the so-called " rich 
 Jews " had no higher aim, no more ardent desire 
 than assimilation with the Greeks. The name given 
 the tendency at that time was epimixein. 
 
 Moreover, the ethnologic aspect of the question 
 was also completely overlooked. Some great inves- 
 tigators maintain that the Jewish race is one of the 
 primary divisions of the human kind, which will go 
 on reproducing its distinctive type despite the most 
 varied climatic influences. They say that in the 
 course of centuries the Jewish type has remained 
 the same. Others assert that the peculiar physi- 
 ognomy of the Jews and their manner of life, instead 
 of being a racial phenomenon, is rather the result 
 of social compulsion, which has pressed upon them 
 for hundreds of years. These two views can hardly 
 be reconciled ; but so much is certain, that it is 
 scarcely possible to deny or disavow each distinctive 
 sign of the specific Jewish type. No sort of assimi- 
 lation will make the hooked nose straight, no 
 baptismal water will smooth out the curly hair. 
 Heinrich Brugsch, the celebrated Egyptologist, was 
 fond of calling attention to the fact, that the Egyptian 
 monuments discovered by him on the western side
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY $) 
 
 of the mountain at Thebes, which date from the 
 time of Moses, show the same types in the Jewish 
 slaves and taskmasters as are found among the 
 Jews of the present day. And Jacob Moleschott 
 tells in his physiological notebook of the son of a 
 baptized Jew who could not be gotten away from his 
 mirror in the morning, because he was untiring in 
 his efforts to change his curly hair into straight 
 hair with his comb and other instruments. 
 
 Even intermarriage, which was urged by the 
 assimilationists, can do little toward wiping out the 
 differences between Jews and others. Ethnologic 
 investigators adduce remarkable examples in proof 
 of this fact. One of them says : " As is well known, 
 when there is a cross between the Indo-Germanic 
 and the Mongolian races, the Mongolian type pre- 
 vails. The Russian aristocracy, in whose veins there 
 is a slight admixture of Mongolian blood, still bears 
 marks of the Mongolian. Among my colleagues, 
 there is a Russian nobleman, who, like all genuine 
 Russian boyars, betrays his Mongolian origin by his 
 figure, and his Indo-Germanic origin, by his intellect. 
 He married a Polish Jewess, and had a number of 
 sons by her, who all have a strikingly Jewish appear- 
 ance." 
 
 Thus, it is evident that Jews have not succeeded in 
 throwing off their earmarks by means of baptism, or 
 even baptism by immersion, as it were, in the 
 ocean of races that surrounds them. For the 
 Jewish type is indestructible, and the Jews may boast 
 of their noble physiognomy, full of character, which 
 hardly differs from that of the ancient Greeks. In
 
 5O JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 fact, the Jewish face surpasses the Greek in its 
 expressiveness and in moral earnestness. To the 
 unprejudiced observer it will remain as a distinct im- 
 press of the most ancient aristocracy among the peo- 
 ples of the earth. 
 
 The over-zealous assimilationists have disregarded 
 this point ; and I recall exactly how one of their 
 leaders in a public address told his auditors, who 
 were in an attitude of undivided attention, that we 
 must liken ourselves to our non-Jewish co-citizens 
 in all externals, even in our walk and our gestures. 
 He overlooked the fact that all trees do not bear 
 the same bark, and ethnologic differences that 
 have maintained themselves for thousands of years 
 cannot all of a sudden be decreed out of existence. 
 
 This very excess of zeal in time necessarily called 
 forth a violent reaction. The same people who had 
 advised complete assimilation for the Jews suddenly 
 felt that their endeavors for it were arrogant and to 
 be deprecated, that they were an intrusion into the 
 sphere of national affairs, and the like. The preva- 
 lence of humane ideas had been merely a brilliant 
 episode; and the last manifestation of the humane 
 spirit was the decision of the Berlin Congress, that 
 Roumania was to be independent only if it gave its 
 citizens equal rights with one another regardless of 
 religious belief. 
 
 Now began, slowly but surely, that terrible move- 
 ment called anti-Semitism, the most fateful in the 
 historic development of modern Judaism. The 
 movement, it is true, has reached its highwater mark. 
 Whatever one may say about it when considering
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 5 1 
 
 it from an historico-philosophic or from an economic 
 standpoint, it is and remains that ancient agony, 
 Jewbaiting, Jew-hatred, which has broken forth ever 
 and again since the Crusades, and now assumes a 
 different form in its manifestations on account of the 
 different conditions of the time. Persecution of old 
 was more clearly defined : the Jews were robbed, or 
 killed, or forced to adopt Christianity. Naturally, in 
 our times, the weapons of anti-Semitism are not 
 rapine and murder; but in substituting other 
 weapons, anti-Semitism becomes far more fearful 
 and implacable. It investigates genealogies, even of 
 Christians, and traces them back to some far distant 
 time ; it declares that a stain rests upon even the re- 
 motest posterity of intermarriage between Christians 
 and Jewish converts to Christianity. A German 
 historian put the matter very well when he said that a 
 German who maintains ideas of this kind, does not 
 take into consideration the fact that he lays upon 
 his own ancestors the heavy guilt of having " tor- 
 tured " certain faults into the Jewish character. 
 
 It is not my purpose, however, to refute the pre- 
 judices and ward off the attacks of anti-Semitism, 
 but merely to consider in a few words the historic 
 development of the movement within the last quarter 
 of a century. Of course, the causes and grounds for 
 anti-Semitism, its methods of warfare, and its aims, 
 must be discussed at the same time ; and the causes 
 and grounds for another movement, called philo- 
 Semitism, cannot be excluded from consideration. 
 The origin of anti-Semitism dates as far back as 
 1875. Germany was then undergoing the throes of
 
 52 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 an economic crisis, which was hastened by swindling 
 schemes, by hazardous financial enterprises, and the 
 like. On February 7, 1873, Eduard Lasker de- 
 livered his famous speech against these mischievous 
 evils. Without doubt, the fight begun by Lasker 
 originated in the noblest motives, the purest 
 sentiments, and a courage rare in Germany at 
 that time. On the other hand, it cannot be disputed 
 that Lasker was not able to carry the purifying pro- 
 cess he had undertaken to a conclusion ; and from 
 this fact developed the first germ of a new hostile 
 movement. Its chief champion was Otto Glagau, 
 who created a sensation at the time by his essays 
 upon the manipulation of stocks and the dishonest 
 formation of companies in Berlin. At the same time 
 five famous articles appeared in the Kreuz- 
 seitung of Berlin, the organ of Junkerthum, the 
 party with whom hatred of the Jew was a deep- 
 seated prejudice. The five articles were written 
 upon the Bleichroder-Camphausen-Delbruck regime. 
 The Catholic Germania called them " Articles upon 
 the Jewish management of affairs in Prussia and 
 Germany," and followed them up in its own num- 
 bers by a series of articles upon the Jews. 
 
 Without a doubt the movement was called into be- 
 ing after 1875 by the Junkers and clericals, and the 
 assertion of the historian Treitschke is false, that he 
 had seen the movement begin to grow a decade 
 earlier. According to him, it would have dated from 
 the latter half of the " sixties ; " and this seems to 
 rest upon an entirely unhistorical basis. 
 
 After Glagau had cleared the way, a varied array
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 53 
 
 of veteran liberals, Catholic priests, German judges, 
 and Protestant court ministers, followed him to the 
 battlefield armed with their screeds against the Jews. 
 Die goldene Internationale (" The golden inter- 
 national ") was the watchword of modern Jew- 
 baiting, which ever assumed greater proportions. 
 The wealth of Bleichroder, which was surely not due 
 to Jewish influence, was the rallying cry of those 
 who entertained the most violent hatred and envy of 
 the Jews. 
 
 This animosity was fanned into flames from var- 
 ious sides. There were Catholic clergymen, like 
 August Rohling, who came out against the Talmud 
 and against the Jewish religion, and even dared 
 dish up again the old fable of ritual murder. This 
 was the religious aspect of anti-Semitism; besides, 
 there was economic anti-Semitism, which was di- 
 rected against manipulations on the stock exchange, 
 against dishonest " promoting," and against the 
 political influence of the Jews. Finally there devel- 
 oped the so-called philosophic hatred of the Jew. 
 This had its root in the works of Schopenhauer ; and 
 with Eugen Duhring and his colleagues it may fairly 
 be said to have reached the level of savage fa- 
 naticism. 
 
 Despite these various phases, the foundation of \ 
 anti-Semitism in all its aspects was economic and so- /' 
 cial. This is proved by the turn taken by affairs 
 in the following years. After the liberal economic 
 policy came the agrarian policy, concerning itself 
 with social conditions and questions of revenue. 
 Liberalism was attacked, the religious and clerical
 
 54 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 element came to the front, and the economic troubles 
 of the young empire as well as the alarming acces- 
 sions to the Social Democratic party sounded the 
 warning to wide circles of people, that it was im- 
 perative to put up a new social and political pro- 
 gram. This necessity, combined with conservative 
 interests in Church and State, led to the foundation 
 of the Christian Social Workingmen's Party. In 
 the foreground of the new movement stood the 
 court preacher Adolf Stocker, who was the author 
 of the fateful words : " All the evils of our eco- 
 nomic life, .... which have matured the noxious 
 fruit of Social Democracy, are to be traced in the 
 last resort to the Jews." This dictum made a deep 
 and widespread impression. Attacks upon the 
 Christian Socialists from the side of the liberals 
 provoked violent opposition in turn. Judaism was 
 supposed to lurk behind the mask of liberalism, and 
 all acts of aggression against liberals were directed 
 also against the Jews. 
 
 Anti-Semitism did not continue to be confined 
 to the press and to workingmen's meetings. In 
 1880 it began to extend to the lecture rooms of the 
 universities, and the students became the standard- 
 bearers of the bitter persecution. It seemed good in 
 the eyes of the persecutors to clothe their movement 
 in the mantle of patriotism and the German national 
 spirit. It was H. von Treitschke who uttered the 
 fateful words : " The Jews are our misfortune." 
 Treitschke was a high-minded man, of pure inten- 
 tions, but one-sided and of passionate impulses,which 
 blinded him to many phenomena in modern life. The
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 55 
 
 words scarcely uttered, the people seized upon them, 
 and the opposition between Jewish and German 
 ways became the battle-cry and watchword of the 
 parties in the political strife. In the same year 
 (1880), the Anti-Semitic League was founded at 
 Berlin, an'd a petition to the Chancellor was circu- 
 lated, which was called the first political step toward 
 " the restraint of Jewish power." In March inter- 
 pellations upon the Jewish question were introduced 
 in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies and in the 
 German Reichstag, on which occasions it became 
 apparent how little the leaders of the various anti- 
 Semitic factions were in accord with one another. 
 
 The petition, it is true, had no success ; the Chan- 
 cellor would not even receive it ; but it became the 
 point of departure for all endeavors whose object it 
 was to limit or withdraw the political liberties of the 
 Jews, which all of a sudden people were inclined to 
 regard as a mistake. 
 
 In other countries than Germany, popular opinion 
 in regard to the movement was at first rather skepti- 
 cal ; but soon the seed of the evil began to sprout on 
 non-German soil as well. Even in America a society"' 1 } 
 for the suppression of the Jewish race was founded, ' 
 and its first article of faith was : " We reject the Ten 
 Commandments given us by the Jew Moses, and 
 we promise not to attend any church in which the 
 name of Jesus Christ is mentioned." 
 
 The same year brought about the first attempts at 
 self-defense on the part of the Jews. Three long, 
 anxious years the Jews of Germany had borne all 
 persecution and all attack, ever hoping and trusting
 
 56 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 that it was only a passing storm. Not until 1880 
 did the conviction come upon them that they had a 
 mighty and profound movement to deal with, the 
 outcome of which was still incalculable. Professor 
 Moritz Lazarus performed a service which, in my 
 opinion, has not been sufficiently recognized. Two 
 of his speeches and various confidential discussions 
 had the effect of steadying the Jews by leading to 
 the organization of their efforts at resistance. It 
 must not be forgotten that at just this time the 
 Crown Prince Frederick, later Emperor Frederick 
 III, before the door of the new synagogue at Berlin, 
 said to Magnus, city councillor, and at that time 
 president of the Jewish community : " Anti-Semi- 
 tism is the disgrace of our century." Despite many 
 doubts to the contrary, it has been proved that the 
 author of this sentence was actually the Emperor, 
 who thus adequately characterized the movement in 
 the eyes of all friends of progress and liberty. 
 
 In the following year the movement was car- 
 ried over into Austria, where in the course of time 
 it has assumed a threatening aspect. It is not 
 too much to say that in Vienna the Jews are politi- 
 cally and socially outlawed. Here, the effects of 
 the financial and economic crises, the conservative 
 turn in politics, the self-assertion of the non-Ger- 
 man portion of the nation, the unfortunate quarrel 
 over language, radical Teutonism, the vacillating 
 attitude of the liberal party, the growth of Social 
 Democracy, and, finally, the rise of new ideas, prac- 
 tical as well as theoretic, regarding economic af- 
 fairs all this created indescribable excitement in
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 57 
 
 Austria, especially in Vienna. Yet, however wide 
 the gaps existing between the various views and 
 tendencies of Austrian politics, all parties are agreed 
 on one point, on anti-Semitism ; and singular accord 
 reigns in this regard among the Catholic Ultramon- 
 tanes, the Hussite Czechs, the Knights of the Ger- 
 man Kaiserblume, and the Heralds of the Wotan 
 Cult. 
 
 The saving doctrine of anti-Semitism now went 
 the rounds of Europe. It reached Russia as 
 an import from Germany; and there, in accord- 
 ance with the degree of culture attained in this coun- 
 try, it led to those bloody excesses which began at 
 Elizabethgrad in May, 1881, and for two years 
 visited various parts of the empire like a plague. 
 The history of the middle ages partially repeated it- 
 self. Hundreds of Jews fell a prey to the fury of 
 the goaded mob, hundreds of thousands were thrown 
 into misery and poverty, Jewish women and girls 
 were violated, Jewish houses of worship were de- 
 stroyed. In the following year began the first ritual 
 murder trial, at Tisza-Eszlar in Hungary. Although 
 it ended in the complete and honorable acquittal of 
 the accused Jews, it was the commencement of a 
 series of similar trials, which, it is to be feared, have 
 not yet ended with those of Xanten, Konitz, and 
 Polna. In so far as Hungary is concerned, the trial 
 was a turning point for the better ; not so in regard 
 to other countries. On the contrary, anti-Semitism 
 was only beginning to feel its power, and after 1886 
 the Allgemeine deutsch-antisemitische Vereinigung 
 constituted the focus for the persecution of the Jews
 
 58 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 in the German Empire. At the elections to the 
 Reichstag in 1890, the anti-Semites secured five 
 members. Stocker, who had been discharged from 
 his position as court preacher, opened up his cam- 
 paign anew and with greater violence after the dis- 
 missal of Bismarck. On the other hand, the Verein- 
 zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus was founded in 
 Germany, and, in conjunction with the older 
 body, the Comite zur Abwehr antisemitischer 
 Angriffe, and the Centralverein deutscher 
 Staatsbiirger judischen Glaubens, it has repre- 
 sented the interests of the Jews for more 
 than a decade. The worst manifestation is 
 the union of the Conservatives and the anti- 
 Semites ; and it is a distressing phenomenon that the 
 Conservatives have not been disturbed in the least 
 by the grotesqueness of the anti-Semitic leader Her- 
 mann Ahlwardt. Now people began " to get at the 
 real kernel of anti-Semitism, to pick out what 
 there was of truth and justice in it, to force the 
 course of the mad current into a fixed channel, and 
 so to make its strength useful in the life of the Ger- 
 mans." This was the task set the Conservatives for 
 the immediate future. 
 
 Finally, anti-Semitism encroached upon France, 
 too, where it made its first appearance, it is true, 
 in the form of prejudice against the Germans. Now, 
 in full flower and fanned into activity by the Drey- 
 fus affair, it constitutes one of the saddest incidents 
 in the history of modern culture. 
 
 The final aim of anti-Semitism is the complete 
 separation of the Jewish from the German element.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 59 
 
 The absurd master of ceremonies of the anti-Semitic 
 party, Hermann Ahlwardt, himself betrayed the 
 final aim of anti-Semitism, when in a people's meet- 
 ing, where he was decorated with a crown of laurels, 
 he availed himself of a quotation from a would-be 
 liberal journal to say that the laurel wreath would 
 not be entirely merited until the last Jew had 
 boarded the last ship. And the anti-Semitism of the 
 Berlin streets betrays the same final aim, when one 
 of Ahlwardt's mob forces into the hands of Jewish 
 passers-by tickets to Palestine with the return for- 
 bidden. 
 
 Anti-Semites lost no time in pointing to the ex- 
 clusion of the Chinese from the United States and 
 using it in all seriousness as an example which 
 would gradually prepare the way in public opinion 
 for sentiment in favor of the expulsion of the Jew. 
 This radical, ranting anti-Semitism has seen its 
 day. But far worse and more dangerous is the anti- 
 Semitism of moderation. It does not wish to do 
 away with the emancipation already granted the 
 Jews ; but, within the limits prescribed, it endeavors 
 to keep Jews out of office and political life in gen- 
 eral. It does not want Jewish judges to administer 
 .the oath to Christians, and it seeks to close the 
 gates of the empire to Jewish new-comers. Unfor- 
 tunately, this partial anti-Semitism is with us still 
 in the new century, and the time cannot yet be seen 
 when it will once more yield ground to the high 
 power of humanity, to the sacred doctrine of univer- 
 sal love of man for man. But it is our firm hope, 
 our steady goal for the new century, that some time
 
 60 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 it will have to yield. We trust the German poet, 
 who in the worst moments of the movement said 
 with prophetic certainty: "The message from Judaea 
 will conquer the hatred that exists between race and 
 religion, so that posterity will smile at it as at an old 
 historic legend."
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 6l 
 
 IV 
 
 In such gloomy days it was an important duty 
 to encourage and console the disheartened hosts of 
 Israel in all lands whither the plague of anti-Semi- 
 tism had spread. Like a prophet on the watch- 
 tower, scrutinizing the phenomena of his time, ap- 
 peared Chayim Steinthal, the never-to-be-forgotten 
 exhorter and comforter. He said to Israel : " ' Fear 
 not, thou worm Jacob,' so spake the Prophet of 
 consolation in his early brief addresses delivered 
 when the Jews of Babylonia thought they saw, 
 thought they had seen, certain destruction before 
 them. Defend thyself, O Jew. If there never was 
 so unfortunate a people as thou art, yet there never 
 was a people with so gentle a comforter as he who 
 began, nay, who begins : ' Comfort ye, comfort ye, 
 my people.' ' Fear not, thou worm Jacob.' Be 
 proud in God, and in none but Him. What is 
 pride in God? Humility. Let no idle words of 
 what you are or are not confuse you. If their re- 
 proach strikes home, examine yourselves, and mend 
 your ways ; if not, proceed calmly in the old paths. 
 If it strikes home, but you decide, after careful in- 
 trospection, that it does not matter much, that on 
 the contrary your conduct is good and proper, then 
 persist. One thing, however, consider : We are sur- 
 rounded by enemies, who spy out our weak points,
 
 62 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 But Israel is a woman, and of women we are told 
 that she is best of whom least is said. Well, then, 
 be seen as little as possible, and do as much good as 
 possible. Be not afraid for the terror of threaten- 
 ing night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day 
 (frankly brutal anti-Semitism), nor for the pestil- 
 ence that walketh in darkness (hidden, more refined 
 anti-Semitism), nor for the destruction that wasteth 
 at noonday (the apostasy of the faithless) : God 
 watcheth on high." Such exhortations and warn- 
 ings were urgently needed, for discouragement had 
 seized upon many circles. No sooner was there a 
 slight abatement in the virulence of anti-Semitism 
 than many took refuge in flight, not shrinking from 
 the dishonor the world fastens upon the deserter 
 on the eve of battle. However, the defection turned 
 out to be less grave than at the time it threatened 
 to become. 
 
 This explains why particularly the younger men, 
 in despair over shattered ideals, were thrown into 
 a state of excitement by the new catchword of Zion- 
 ism cast into the maelstrom in 1896 by Theodore 
 Herzl, a clever journalist. In my opinion Zionism 
 is not a main current of Jewish history, but un- 
 deniably it has the importance of an underset ac- 
 companying the main current, as in the spring time 
 a cold and a warm stream mingle in the rivers. 
 Zionism is the expression of despair. It seeks the 
 solution of the Jewish problem and the end of all 
 confusion, not in the steady, victorious advances of 
 humanity and liberty, but solely and alone in the 
 restoration of Jewish nationality, that is, in self- 
 liberation.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 63 
 
 In Judaism all such questions must be dealt with 
 from the religious point of view and in an historical 
 spirit, not under the stress of passing needs and 
 temporary phenomena. Israel is still what it always 
 was, a religious brotherhood. Herein lies its pecu- 
 liarity, its individuality. In remote antiquity Israel 
 conceived its task to have been expressed in the 
 prophet's admonition, to be " for a light to the Gen- 
 tiles," and bring " salvation unto the end of the 
 earth " (Isaiah 49 : 6) . More than this, it is par ex- 
 cellence the historical task of Judaism to combat the 
 tendency toward national particularism. Granted 
 the brief premises here adduced, and there can logi- 
 cally be but the one conclusion : were Judaism 
 to revive the national sentiment in its adherents, 
 it would commit suicide. The lowest stage of re- 
 ligious development is the stage of a national reli- 
 gion, the highest the stage of a world-religion. 
 We Jews having mounted from step to step, now 
 being close to the desired goal of a world-religion, 
 Zionism would have us return to the primitive stage 
 of a national religion. If that is not self-destruction, 
 then historical development is other than I take it to 
 be. Since the overthrow of the Temple, Israel's 
 vocation consists in influencing mankind spiritually, 
 and hastening the Messianic age of reconciliation be- 
 tween nation and nation. Even in the middle ages 
 the ideal of Judaism was the Malchut Shaddai, the 
 kingdom of God on earth. For the realization of 
 this ideal, the Jew prayed on the most sacred festi- 
 vals of the year he prayed that God unite the whole 
 of mankind in the desire to accomplish the will of
 
 64 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 God. From this point of view the history of the 
 Diaspora is one of the most glorious portions of 
 Jewish history, for during the long dispersion 
 Judaism has demonstrated its indestructibility, and 
 proved itself far more than a mere national forma- 
 tion.. 
 
 The revival of Jewish consciousness coincided with 
 efforts to colonize Palestine ; but these two move- 
 ments have nothing in common with each other. 
 Indeed, it is beyond dispute that Zionism has in- 
 flicted considerable injury upon the idea of coloniza- 
 tion, which before its advent had borne good fruit. 
 In the cause of the colonization of Palestine all 
 Jews can grow enthusiastic, but not all can endorse 
 the Zionist movement, and so Palestine coloniza- 
 tion must suffer through being identified with Zion- 
 ism. Those of us who cannot accept the reading of 
 history suggested by Zionist philosophy, continue 
 to hope and work for the realization of the pro- 
 phetic word that raises Israel's task high above all 
 national barriers into the rare atmosphere of univer- 
 sal ideals : " And the Lord shall be king over all the 
 earth: in that day shall the Lord be one and His 
 name one." 
 
 But a little more and we shall have completed our 
 journey through the nineteenth century. Before we 
 take leave of it, let us pass in review all the various 
 movements which, mingling with the last of the 
 seven currents, fill out the frame of the period. 
 
 To the calmer vision of the historian who with- 
 draws himself from the breathless bustle of daily life
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 65 
 
 and examines it, it would seem that Israel has passed 
 its crisis successfully. A separation has come about 
 between Jews and Jews. The dry leaves, the speckled 
 fruit, have dropped from the tree. Those who have 
 weathered the storm, and have emerged from its 
 fury steadfast adherents of the Sinaitic faith, have 
 attained to the tranquillity and exaltation of spirit 
 that are a pledge for the future of Judaism. But, 
 alas ! it must be borne in mind that the fallen leaves 
 were not all dry, not all withered. A glance at the 
 great " valley of bones," to use the Prophet Ezekiel's 
 figure, shows an astonishing array of strength and 
 power of which we have been stripped by apostasy 
 and baptism in the course of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury a wealth of intelligence and spiritual capital 
 lost and lost irrevocably. 
 
 Statistics on the subject vary curiously. The mis- 
 sionaries put the number of Jews baptized in Eu- 
 rope in the last century at a hundred thousand ; 
 professional statisticians, whose interest in the sub- 
 ject is merely scientific, at twelve thousand. The 
 former obviously exaggerate, the latter as obviously 
 underestimate. Trustworthy results are out of the 
 question, because no figures can be obtained for the 
 Roman Catholic or the Greek Catholic Church, nor 
 for freethinkers and dissidents of all kinds. Such 
 figures as I can marshal here represent no more than 
 a torso, though none the less interesting and signi- 
 ficant for being a torso, for it is unfortunately a fact 
 that apostasy in the nineteenth century occurred 
 most frequently among the Jews of Germany, and 
 the statistics of conversion to Protestantism are 
 fairly accurate.
 
 66 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 For the years between 1816 and 1843, 3 2 73 cases 
 of baptism of Jews are recorded, 121 annually, in a 
 population of 160,000. To these Berlin contributed 
 a large number, one hundred cases in the single 
 year 1825. For the years 1844-1871 we have no 
 figures, but the number could not have been less 
 than two thousand, including 725 for Berlin alone. 
 In the years 1872-1888 we have 2195, that is, an 
 annual average of 129 in a population of three hun- 
 dred thousand in round numbers, Berlin maintain- 
 ing its unenviable pre-eminence. Between 1816 and 
 1888, 8300 Jews were baptized in the whole of Ger- 
 many, Berlin claiming three thousand of the total 
 number, and to these conversions to Protestantism 
 we must probably add four thousand conversions to 
 Catholicism. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in the period of anti- 
 Jewish demonstrations, that is, the last quarter of the 
 century, there was a perceptible diminution of the 
 tendency toward apostasy and conversions. In the 
 fourteen years from 1874 to 1887, the flood-tide of 
 anti-Semitism, nineteen hundred Jews turned their 
 backs on Judaism, 135 annually, fully one-half of 
 them in Berlin. 
 
 The investigator of this class of phenomena must 
 not neglect to take into account a peculiar modifica- 
 tion. A special canon has been established: It ill 
 becomes a Jew, the would-be renegade reasons, to 
 change his faith ; on the other hand, it is folly to 
 bring up children in a faith that has long become in- 
 different to the parents, who fail to abandon it 
 merely because they happen to have been born into
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 67 
 
 it. One's children, however, ought to be spared 
 difficulties and the martyrdom involved in being a 
 Jew. What will not parents do for their children? 
 The silliness and insincerity of such argumenta- 
 tion need no exposure. Is it better to do wrong 
 than to suffer wrong? Is it proof of one's aris- 
 tocracy to toady to a class of persons who now ex- 
 clude Jews from their circles and admit them the 
 instant they utter a lie? Does society sanction the 
 conduct of a man who, having suffered a wrong, 
 makes no attempt to protest against it, but yields his 
 ground, and slinks away like a coward, only to lead 
 his children into the camp of those who wronged 
 him? It is unjust to relieve one's children of the 
 necessity of independent action, presumptuous to 
 regulate their religion and their future autocratically. 
 These are concerns to be left to their mature deci- 
 sion. Add to this pedagogic consideration the fact 
 that the life of the baptized Jew has not been made 
 particularly pleasant by anti-Semitism. Race-hatred 
 pursues the " Jew descendants " unto the third and 
 the fourth generation. Finally, if a father, to make 
 life comfortable for his children, repudiates his own 
 fathers because they were persecuted, how can char- 
 acter and a sense of honor be generated in the chil- 
 dren, and when the children have attained to sub- 
 stance and rank in a state that continues to put a 
 premium on apostasy, what shall prevent them from 
 repudiating their aged father and mother in turn? 
 The prophet has depicted such conditions : " The 
 son dishonoreth the father, the daughter riseth up 
 against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her
 
 68 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 mother-in-law " (Micah 7:6). They who might have 
 been united in soul and spirit are torn asunder and 
 estranged by religion, the very factor that should have 
 been the bond of union transcending all differences. 
 The father of to-day must suffer the presence of the 
 scoffer at his own table, must submit to the desecra- 
 tion of his sanctuary by members of his household 
 whom he has reared to manhood and womanhood, 
 those whom he supported with the sweat of his 
 brow and the sacrifice of his blood, and established 
 in a dignified position by his blessing. That is the 
 fate many of our brethren have suffered in our days, 
 the fate that is inflicting the most pitiful sorrow upon 
 the best in Israel. We have seen children deny their 
 dead fathers, abjure the old faith, and remove, as 
 though it were a blemish and a stigma, the name that 
 had been borne in honor, and this has happened to 
 the proudest and best-known names in Israel, of 
 good repute in all parts of the world. Then it is 
 not astonishing to find many a one who harbors 
 anger in his heart against his living father on 
 account of the attachment and the affection he still 
 feels for the old faith. He counts the days until 
 the time of mourning for his father shall come, 
 when all constraint will be put aside, and he may 
 rend and cast off the weak bonds that link him 
 to his p.eople and their religion, and, assuming 
 the new God and the new religion like a new 
 garment, make his peace with the world, while 
 he stands by his father's open grave. Such .is 
 the promise held out by the fashionable baptism of 
 minor children. But no, the baptismal water trans-
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 69 
 
 forms no Jew into a German, so say the anti- 
 Semites; and the certificate of baptism is not an 
 admission ticket to European culture, so say all men 
 of humane views. 
 
 There can be no objection to conversions from 
 conviction. Every creed exacts and deserves re- 
 spect. The Jew deems it presumptuous to speak 
 in derogation of any religion and its ceremonies. 
 Every religion is a sanctuary, to every religion the 
 Scriptural sentence may be applied : " Put off thy 
 shoes from off thy feet, for here is holy ground." 
 Our anger and our scorn strike only those who are 
 absolutely destitute of ethical feeling, and change 
 their faith for materialistic reasons and from prac- 
 tical considerations. It is a sad fact, but one that 
 must be set down in clear words, that the over- 
 whelming majority of conversions in the nineteenth 
 century can be traced to such ulterior motives. 
 With frivolity that is downright 'frightful, faiths are 
 changed to-day as one changes clothes. The levity 
 of the converts is at last beginning to arouse anxiety 
 in the clergy themselves, they who once rejoiced 
 over the Jew-converts. For instance, the late chief 
 court preacher at Berlin, Dr. Rudolf Kogel, a 
 Protestant, relates in his " Reminiscences : " " With 
 all signs of impatient haste, a Jewish banker entered 
 my room : ' I wish to be baptized.' ' May I ask 
 you to state your motives for the step ? ' I replied. 
 ' Motives ! Suffice it to say that I have given serious 
 thought to the matter.' ' But as a clergyman I must 
 be acquainted with the motives for your resolve ; 
 I have no desire to add one more to the number of
 
 7O JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 those who are Christians only in name ; as it is, there 
 are more than enough of them.' ' Very well/ said 
 the Jew, aggrieved, and rising from his seat, ' I shall 
 apply to some other clergyman who takes his voca- 
 tion less seriously.' " The reporter of this incident 
 was an earnest and trustworthy man. Instances of 
 such frivolity might be multiplied indefinitely. They 
 have become the subject of popular wit: they tell of 
 a clergyman in Berlin who advertises that he will 
 perform baptisms painlessly with laughing gas. 
 
 Fifty years ago Abraham Geiger remonstrated 
 with a Jew who was arranging for his own and his 
 children's reception into the Church in this non- 
 chalant way. " You are a business man," he said. 
 " Suppose an honorable broker were to submit a 
 lucrative business proposition to you. In spite of 
 your confidence in him, would you not investigate 
 the matter carefully ? And that is only a question of 
 money. Yet in a matter of conscience, in a question 
 affecting your whole life, you would yield blind 
 obedience to the clergyman-mediator ? " 
 
 Christianity requires a sort of faith to which the 
 Jew by birth finds it hard to subscribe. We cannot 
 utter the faintest reproach against the Jew whose 
 conscience permits him to pronounce the apostolic 
 confession of faith. We can only express the hope 
 that the new religion will grant him the happiness 
 he apparently sought in vain in the old religion. But 
 the Jew who frivolously and for frivolous reasons 
 swears allegiance to the Christian faith, is a perjured 
 rascal. At all times and among all nations perjury 
 has justly been regarded as a most serious, a most
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 7! 
 
 dishonoring- crime. There can be nothing more 
 shameless than the solemn invocation of God, the 
 Almighty and All-Knowing, to witness the utterance 
 of a word which for him who utters it contains a 
 conscious lie. And how threadbare the reasons with 
 which they gloss over their actions ! They say there 
 are Christians who pronounce the Christian confes- 
 sion of faith without believing in it. They choose 
 to overlook the difference between the members of 
 a community by birth, and the individual who dis- 
 tinctly takes measures to enter into the community. 
 The first is part of it without a formal explanation 
 of his relation to it. Within the community he has 
 the right to urge his views, be they never so far re- 
 moved from the prevailing views. With the recent 
 convert it is quite otherwise. He must express his 
 adherence to the prevailing views in order that the 
 portals of the new religion shall be opened for him. 
 He would enter with an unjustifiable lie, were he to 
 make a lip-confession that finds no echo in his heart. 
 He has no right to join a community with the in- 
 tention of shaking the foundations of its faith. 
 
 Christianity itself is beginning to complain of the 
 corroding, disintegrating influence of the neophytes 
 a corroboration from outside of the view of our 
 sages, who warned Judaism against every form of 
 missionary effort. " Proselytes," they said, " are 
 leprosy for Israel." 
 
 We can ill afford, however, to concern ourselves 
 with the conditions, the thought-currents, the cares 
 that perplex other religious communities, seeing we 
 have more than we can deal with in our own camp.
 
 ^2 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 It lies with us to prevent our religion from becoming 
 an object of barter to our children. We must see 
 to it that they abandon the faith of their fathers 
 neither from vanity, nor from the desire for a high 
 social position and for titles, nor, worst of all, for 
 the sake of material gain. By upright dealing with 
 our fellow-men, by honorable conduct, by strength 
 and purity of character, we must make ourselves 
 exemplars for the younger generation. No oppor- 
 tunity should be allowed to pass by without empha- 
 sizing the Jew's capacity for development within the 
 modern life. We must constantly reiterate for the 
 benefit of our children what the modern poet says to 
 his friends : " O, I understand well how for very 
 pride the proud lion throws off his royal robe of fur, 
 and disguises himself in the crocodile's iridescent, 
 scaly coat of mail. It has grown fashionable to be 
 a whining, sly, voracious crocodile. But if the 
 lion hides his identity, what shall become of the 
 lesser beasts ? Take heed, Don Isaac, thou wert not 
 created for the crocodile's element. Water thou 
 knowest whereof I speak is thy misfortune, and 
 thou wilt sink in it. Not in the water is thy realm. 
 The slenderest trout can flourish in it better than the 
 monarch of the forest." 
 
 For the rest, if discouragement seizes upon us 
 when we observe the defection about us, we must 
 resort to the prophet for consolation : " And if 
 there be yet a tenth in it, and it return, and the holy 
 spark be kindled in it, then, as the terebinth and 
 the oak when they are felled put forth new shoots, 
 a holy stock will keep within it its [Israel's] sub- 
 stance " (Isaiah 6: 13).
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 73 
 
 It is not going too far to say that in a measure 
 the prophecy of Isaiah has been fulfilled. From out 
 of the midst of troubles, aberrations, and confusion, 
 there rose triumphant, in all parts of the globe, in the 
 last quarter of the nineteenth century, the idea of 
 the re-birth of Judaism. This is the last of the cur- 
 rents we shall have to consider to complete the 
 history of the century. 
 
 What Prince Bismarck once called " practical 
 Christianity " has its effective counterpart in the 
 Jewish world. Self-knowledge has stimulated the 
 Jewish communal conscience. The Jews the world 
 over have come to recognize that centralization 
 of force, concentration of effort, is imperative as 
 an antidote to threatening decline. The recognition 
 of this necessity lies at the root of a variety of 
 endeavors, which present a pleasing vista of creative 
 activity. Jewish communities everywhere, whether 
 autonomous or under state control, are working 
 zealously for the welfare and advancement of con- 
 gregational life. The three great Alliances with their 
 affiliated branches are safeguarding the interests of 
 Jews in all parts of the world where they suffer as 
 Jews. Unions of congregations reinforce the bond 
 holding together the scattered members of the Jew- 
 ish communion. Countless elementary and higher 
 schools provide systematic instruction in the Jewish 
 religion. Numerous associations are devoted to the 
 cause of popular education, award stipends, and 
 raise funds for libraries and schools. An equal 
 number of associations aim to spread the knowledge 
 of Jewish history and literature, and their efforts are
 
 74 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 reaching ever-widening circles of interested mem- 
 bers. Seminaries for rabbis and teachers replenish 
 the ranks of our spiritual leaders. Besides all these 
 there remain to be enumerated religious schools ; 
 conferences of rabbis and teachers ; funds and asso- 
 ciations for the benefit of communal officials ; en- 
 dowed institutes for the promotion of trades and 
 agriculture among Jews ; labor bureaus ; secret 
 orders for the intellectual and moral elevation of the 
 Jewish community; institutions for the professional 
 education and the betterment of the position of 
 women ; orphan asylums ; homes for the aged and 
 the infirm ; hospitals and sanitariums, whose support 
 entails a sacrifice of means and personal effort that 
 is beyond praise; training schools for nurses, socie- 
 ties for temporary relief and against itinerant men- 
 dicancy, etc. All this the Jews have created out of 
 nothing, as it were : governments did not aid them, 
 with one exception they owe nothing to a great 
 Maecenas. The exception may not be passed over 
 in silence. Baron Maurice de Hirsch's care of the 
 persecuted Jew, by institutions and funds, in Argen- 
 tine, in North America, in Russia, and in Galicia, 
 must be classed with the greatest achievements in 
 philanthropy in the nineteenth century. But the 
 bulk of the newly-created charitable and educational 
 institutions on both sides of the Atlantic have their 
 origin in the self-denying generosity of the com- 
 munity as a whole. And the end of this develop- 
 ment is not yet. Every day brings forth new plans 
 and projects, new institutions and achievements. 
 Everywhere there is life and movement ; a thousand
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 75 
 
 forces are active in the interest of our communal 
 welfare. 
 
 We may justly attach great hopes to this last of the 
 spiritual currents which the nineteenth century has 
 bequeathed to the twentieth. It presages a regen- 
 eration. With a wise recognition of the modern 
 spirit it has directed all its force toward the social 
 field, on which the final, titanic conflicts to be waged 
 by mankind will reach their settlement. 
 
 To some it may seem not a little curious that 
 so tiny a community as the Jewish community is, 
 should have the courage to enter the lists for the 
 great social combat impending. A glance at the 
 appalling upheavals of our time might well suffice to 
 rob the Jew of courage. What mighty forces are 
 unchained, what demoniac powers are raging with- 
 out cease! How many forms and materials, how 
 many movements and currents, our time has 
 gathered up into its bosom! How they will be 
 poured into one mould, it remains for a dark future 
 to show. The bonds of religious reverence have 
 long been relaxed ; the very forces of nature seem to 
 be unbound, and from her eternal secrets the seven 
 seals are about to drop. All the political problems 
 that have ever perplexed mankind again affright the 
 present generation, and will not be banished. To 
 the calm of days within the memory of some still 
 alive has succeeded a precipitate activity, a feverish 
 unrest with no promise of quiet. The whirr of 
 machinery, the snort of steam, the quiver of the 
 electric wire passing through the very heart of the 
 present, all combine to strike terror to our inmost
 
 76 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 souls. And like an awful sphinx at the portals 
 of the new century stands the hollow-eyed spectre 
 of the social question, admonishing, cautioning, 
 threatening 
 
 What will be the end ? The various epochs in the 
 history of mankind show no synchronistic develop- 
 ment. Therefore must we tremble. At any mo- 
 ment, no one knows when, the great decisions may 
 be rendered which will give birth to the religion 
 and the life principle of the future. This religion 
 of the future shall not be born without our 
 assistance. The Jews must be present. The future 
 lies dark before us. No one can be certain that it 
 will establish the reign of light. But in no circum- 
 stances can Israel's record be lost. It will remain 
 clear until the end of time, for " Israel was the 
 first to give articulate form to the people's cry of 
 distress, the first to satisfy the complaints of the 
 poor, the obstinate claims of all who panted after 
 justice, the first to give the slave the opportunity 
 of speech." Israel's program will be executed only 
 when justice prevails in every spot on earth. And 
 this answers the question about the future of Juda- 
 ism and its mission. 
 
 The miracle of Israel's preservation during a 
 period of three thousand years, throughout a 
 sequence of at least a hundred generations, has 
 never ceased to arouse the admiration of thoughtful 
 men. A Catholic preacher of the last century in 
 France on one occasion exclaimed ecstatically: 
 " Build a tomb for the Jew, seal it with impermeable 
 cement, surround it with sentinels, he will but mock
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 77 
 
 at you, and will emerge once more to prove that his 
 race is of a spiritual substance which you do not 
 possess, and that matter has no power over spirit." 
 And a Protestant preacher in Germany says : 
 " Israel as a whole has always been and still remains 
 indestructible and invincible. It is more than a 
 tangible object, more than a mortal person or nation ; 
 it is equal to an abstract concept, an immortal being. 
 It may be abjectly despised of men and persecuted 
 with virulence, but they cannot eradicate it." Both 
 the Protestant and the Catholic, the German and the 
 Frenchman, read the message aright, but of its 
 fulfilment, seeing that they were orthodox Christ- 
 ians, they had no vision. 
 
 This mission of Israel is at the root of the whole 
 matter. It is not too much to say that the belief in 
 it is the base supporting the greater part of our 
 literature, from the first verses of the Pentateuch 
 to the last of the great orations of our prophets. 
 They all are instinct with the spirit of the verse in 
 Genesis : I have called him because " I know him 
 that he will command his children and his household 
 after him to keep the way of the Lord, to do justice 
 and judgment" (Gen. 18:19). More than three 
 thousand years have passed since the promise was 
 given to Abraham, and, during that period, how 
 often did Israel fail to perform his mission. But 
 his defections did not hinder his great leaders from 
 pointing to his mission again and again, and express- 
 ing the hope of great results to follow from its 
 accomplishment. Defection is, indeed, not a new 
 phenomenon with the Jew. Twenty-five hundred
 
 78 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 years ago one of the greatest of the prophets put into 
 vivid words the contrast between the ideal set before 
 a people charged with a mission and the reality 
 known to backsliding Israel: 
 
 Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see. 
 Who is blind, but my servant? or deaf, as my messenger 
 that I send? Who is blind as he that is at peace with me, 
 and blind as the Lord's servant? Thou seest many things, 
 but thou observest not; his ears are open, but he heareth 
 not. It pleased the Lord, for his righteousness' sake, to 
 magnify the law, and make it honorable. But this is a 
 people robbed and spoiled ; they are all of them snared in 
 holes, and they are hid in prison houses : they are for a 
 prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, 
 Restore .... Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to 
 the robbers? (Isaiah 42: 18-22; 24). 
 
 Here we have striking proof that Israel had 
 attained to. self-knowledge in early times. Appar- 
 ently the conditions that called forth the prophet's 
 admonishing words were not very different from 
 those that prevail at present. The exponent of the 
 God-idea is deaf to-day as he was then ; of scorn a 
 greater portion falls to his lot now than twenty-five 
 hundred years ago. Neither obtuseness within nor 
 contempt from without prevented the prophet from 
 believing firmly in the future of his people. In 
 inspired words he proclaimed their mission to them : 
 
 Behold my servant, whom I uphold ; my chosen, in whom 
 my soul delighteth: I have put my spirit upon him; he 
 shall bring forth judgment to the nations. He shall not 
 cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. 
 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax 
 shall he not quench : he shall bring forth judgment in truth.
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 79 
 
 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judg- 
 ment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law 
 (Isaiah 42: 1-4). 
 
 According to this, as a brilliant historian aptly 
 remarked, the apostle of the God-idea and of the 
 moral law of Sinai is to be at once priest and sacri- 
 ficial victim. Whenever, in gloomy days, a doubt 
 assailed me, and I questioned whether our confi- 
 dence was not misplaced, our hope vain, our martyr- 
 dom useless, the prophet's holy message always re- 
 stored my faith in the future of Israel and in his 
 historic mission. Here is the perspective the 
 prophet discloses to our mind's eye: 
 
 Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye peoples, from 
 far : the Lord hath called me from the womb ; from the 
 bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name ; 
 and he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the 
 shadow of his hand hath he hid me ; and he hath made me 
 a polished shaft, in his quiver hath he kept me close : and 
 he said unto me, Thou art my servant, Israel, in whom I 
 will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain, I 
 have spent my strength for naugkt and vanity: yet surely 
 my judgment is with the Lord, and my recompense with 
 my God. And now saith the Lerd that formed me from 
 the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him, 
 and that Israel be gathered unto him: (for I am honorable 
 in the eyes of the Lord, and my God is become my strength :) 
 yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be 
 my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore 
 the preserved of Israel : I will also give thee for a light to 
 the nations, that thou mayest be my salvation (Isaiah 49: 
 1-6). 
 
 In sublimer, in holier terms the future of Israel 
 cannot be thought. So long as religions will exist,
 
 8O JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 Judaism shall exist ; and when, at the end of many 
 days, the great hope of all poets and prophets will 
 be fulfilled, and all religions will be united in one, 
 then this must be our firm, unshakable hope this 
 one religion will be the religion of the Jew, purged 
 of all dross and externalities. This hope that I am 
 expressing is not personal or particularistic. The 
 greatest thinkers of modern times, the most eminent 
 investigators in the field of comparative religions, 
 have given eloquent expression to the same view. 
 Ernest Renan says : " The true founders of 
 Christianity are those great prophets who proclaimed 
 a pure religion, divested of all crass forms, living in 
 the heart and mind of its professors, a religion, then, 
 which may and should belong to all mankind alike, 
 an ideal religion, consisting in the promulgation of 
 God's kingdom on earth and in the hope of an era of 
 
 justice for wretched man The glory of 
 
 Christianity is the glory of Judaism. The world 
 became Jewish in the measure in which it was con- 
 verted to the laws of mildness and humanity incul- 
 cated by the disciples of Jesus. And now, seeing 
 that these great things have been accomplished, we 
 may say with confidence: Judaism, which served 
 us so well in the past, will serve us equally well in 
 the future. It will promote the cause of truth, the 
 
 cause of progress, and of the modern spirit 
 
 The founders of the liberal dogma in religion, I 
 repeat, are your old prophets, Isaiah, the authors 
 of the Sibylline books, the Jewish school of Alex- 
 andria, the early Christians, the successors of the 
 prophets they are the genuine originators of the
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 8l 
 
 spirit of justice in the world. In one word, the pure 
 religion which we dream of as the bond that shall 
 in days to come hold together the whole of mankind 
 in one communion, will be the realization of the 
 religion of Isaiah, the ideal Jewish religion, freed 
 from all admixture of impurity." 
 
 It were beside the mark to believe such views the 
 peculiar property of Catholic freethinkers. Pro- 
 fessor Berner, a consistent Protestant, and at the 
 same time a prominent German jurist, says in a 
 lecture on the future of Israel held before the 
 German Society of Protestants : " Down to the 
 present time the Jews have been the pioneers of 
 monotheism. They have always cherished mon- 
 otheism faithfully, for this service let them continue 
 to be what they are. The renegades who are com- 
 ing to us from them have no value for us religiously 
 or morally. Every case of apostasy from Judaism 
 is to be looked upon as detrimental to the develop- 
 ment of religion to the highest degree of purity 
 and truth. Judaism in its religious separateness 
 has done humanity the greatest service. The religion 
 of the future will be a Christianity from which all 
 dogmatic padding and polytheistic alloy will have 
 been removed, and which will be refined into pure 
 monotheism by the renewed intervention of Juda- 
 ism." 
 
 Such witnesses may well give support to our hope. 
 Paradoxical as it may seem, the exalted ideas that 
 form the original sources of Judaism have not yet 
 been fully realized. In ancient days monotheism 
 could not take root, and later the rise of Christianity
 
 82 JEWS AND JUDAISM 
 
 forced the leaders of Judaism to build a fence about 
 the law. The Arabic-Aristotelian philosophy purged 
 away some of the dross, but at the same time 
 burdened Judaism with alien elements. Then came 
 the Cabbala with its twilight of fantastic mysticism. 
 Oppression and isolation paralyzed the tendency 
 toward universalism. In short, Judaism in suc- 
 cessive ages lacked the light, the great free spaces, 
 which are indispensable for a full, symmetric 
 unfolding of all forces and ideas. The Jewish race 
 has never been placed in the position in which it 
 could develop unhampered all its innate capabili- 
 ties while its faults were polished away, and the 
 contrasting forces that impel it were welded into a 
 complete unity. In spite of such adverse fortunes 
 this race is without a doubt called upon to play an 
 important part in the great, final decisions between 
 races and nations with which the new century is 
 big. That is the opinion of a famous ethnographer 
 who describes the Jewish race with the following 
 happy antitheses: A race which is able to live 
 scattered on the five continents, under all skies, 
 among all peoples ; which is equipped with the most 
 remarkable talents, wonderfully blended with each 
 other : with a woman's heart and a man's intellect, a 
 lively fancy and an acute mind, unlimited receptivity, 
 alert appreciation for what is new and strange, and 
 practical discernment, wit, and earnestness, ardor 
 and stability, enthusiasm and discretion, pathos and 
 sobriety, pliability and defiance, subjectivity and 
 capacity for devotion, pride and humility, the gener- 
 osity of a gentleman and the frugality of a day-
 
 IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 83 
 
 laborer, the firmness of the rock and the fluidity of 
 water, the resistance of steel and the malleability of 
 gold ; which unites in itself Semitic, Hamitic, and 
 Japhetitic elements ; which has produced an endless 
 line of lawgivers, prophets, psalmists, gnomic poets, 
 jurists, casuists, philosophers, physicians, statesmen, 
 publicists, political economists, musicians, philo- 
 logians, historians, merchants, bankers, manufac- 
 turers such a race, when once it attains to a 
 position of peace and security, in which it may freely 
 unfold its powers, smooth down the asperities of its 
 mental make-up, and give its mind the severe dis- 
 cipline of systematic thought, such a race is able 
 to climb to the highest round of the ladder of human 
 development, for it is the designated mediator be- 
 tween two worlds, the world of the Orient and of 
 the Occident, whose harmonization is a task for the 
 future to accomplish. When this harmonization has 
 been effected, only then will the Jewish race have 
 fulfilled its mission. 
 
 aftfmore 
 
 THE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY 
 BALTIMORE, MD., U. 8. A.
 
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