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Title: Jews and Israelites Author: Bernard Lazare Date: September 1, 1890 Language: en Topics: religion Source: Retrieved on 2016-10-28 from http://marxists.architexturez.net/reference/archive/lazare-bernard/1890/israelites.htm Notes: Source: Entretiens Politiques et Litteraires. 1st year, No. 6, September 1, 1890; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitch Abidor; CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2006.
If that tragedy that occurred so long ago of a family, worn down by
hunger and poverty and seeking in death the supreme refuge; if that
drama, due to its having occurred so far in the past – nearly two months
– can no longer inspire the pity that the souls of its contemporaries
accorded it for a moment, it can at least still serve as a theme for
useful reflections.
I don’t know if upon reading this story M. Drumont felt the profound
stupor that struck me: Eight people of the Semitic race reduced to
suicide by destitution as perfectly noted as is was insufficiently
relieved. If one person of that confession had come to that extremity it
could have been explained by a certain exaggerated love for paradox, or
by a strange and rare anomaly. But eight? For a moment it didn’t
displease me to see these Hayem as modern Macchabees desirous of saving
some too well-known financiers or poorly regarded politicians by causing
an up-swelling of sorrowful pain among anti-Semites. In order to do this
they showed no hesitation in descending into the scheol haunted by their
ancestors. But it suffices to think about the quality of those who would
have been protected by that heroic sacrifice to reject this thought with
horror. It is painful to suppose that some men are capable of inspiring
such meritorious devotion. And so it is that that there are those who,
though not Aryans, live in misery and, even worse, that there are those
among the Israelites for whom nothing can or does succeed. These Hayems,
who the press spent several days washing of the accusation of Judaism,
were among the lamentable mass of the humble who labor and groan, and
who have as their only goal liberating death. To be sure, they gave a
deplorable lesson: shouldn’t they have known that the society that uses
them by refusing them the right to live also contests their right to
die? For a moment there it was believed that the last survivor of this
fatal family was going to face criminal charges: several men, quite
clear-sighted when it comes to social questions, approved this measure,
which was rejected. Looked at from their point of view, these bourgeois
were right: The knew perfectly well that if these unfortunates, ever
taxable and fit for the corvée despite all modern conquests, were to
liberate themselves from existence there would soon be no one left to
pay taxes. And so I would advise those perhaps too timorous economists
to revive the antique procedures and to hang the Hayem family in effigy:
this will serve as an example. It is true that in this particular case
this act of bourgeois justice can be attributed to special reasons, and
one can argue for a serious anti-Semitism, something that is to be
avoided. Since among those represented as having squeezed within their
hooked hands all the gold in the world there are many who suffer bent
under bitter glebes, many who perish like their Christian brothers,
killed by a hunger too often triumphant, since there is the case of
these anti-Semitism is evil or, at least, it is at one and the same too
little and not sufficiently exclusive.
If we were to interrogate the most ardent of anti-Semites he would find
no difficulty in admitting that there can be found among Israelites men
who are honest, respectable, capable of generous acts, receptive to
great and benevolent thoughts. How many times in La France Juive are
these very ideas not affirmed? It even seems that a reading of the books
of the good Aryan crusader against the infidels reveals that the word
Jew is a simple qualifier, also applicable to Moors, Huguenots, and
Catholics when they act in keeping with a detestable norm having as its
main characteristic the too exclusive and constant pursuit of their
interests to the detriment of their neighbor’s. The Jew is then a
general and universal type, a primordial form in which participate
thousands of beings belonging to diverse races, different countries,
dissimilar religions.
On the other hand, I’m afraid it would be a serious mistake if we were
to see anti-Semitism as a religious manifestation, and this point of
view could only be accepted by those who have in interest in its being
admitted. Faith has become too weak to permit crusades in the absolute
sense of the word. For one thing, Israelites do not have firm
convictions. As Father Ratisbonne said: “They are no longer Jews, but
they are not yet Christians.” For quite a while the Hebraic religion has
fallen into a foolish rationalism, it seems to have borrowed its dogmas
from the declaration of the Rights of Man; like Protestantism it has
forgotten this essential thing: a religion without mystery is like a
straw of wheat from which we’ve winnowed the grain. What is more, the
theological mood of Christians is not such as would permit such
intolerance: The estimable intransigence of Torquemada is no longer in
fashion, and the times can no longer give birth to dreamers like the
illustrious inquisitor. The true cause of anti-Semitism is social; all
those of its party affirm this in perfect good faith; it’s the same
cause that, now that the century is coming to an end, brings into the
streets those who have nothing against those who have too much. This
being the case, there occurs an ambiguity that though simply troublesome
now could one day become very dangerous. It was written in la Derniere
Bataille that “at the hour of the supreme crisis, when there will be
electricity in the air, nothing will bed able to save the Rothschilds.”
I must admit that this perspective affects me little: if that minute
were to arrive I will not be among the improbable Swiss Guards who will
defend the doorways of these new monarchs. But there is something else.
Among many the concept of the Jew as a special being, essentially
capitalist, will prevail, and it is they who will differentiate between
the too cunning banker, the crafty politician, the too adroit journalist
and the Israelite who lives on his labor and loyally carries out his
function as merchant, magistrate, savant, soldier or artist. On that day
Monsieur Renan will easily be able to save a few members of the diverse
academies and Monsieur Cladel a few of his confreres. As for the mass,
the social symbol will become for them the easy to grasp symbol of a
religious confession, and the humble will once again pay for the
powerful. The latter have the right to be defended, and it wouldn’t be
right for them to suffer: they are Israelites and not Jews, for there
are Jews and there are Israelites.
The Jew (many are Jews who have become so without this having been
destined for this by their race but having become so through native
virtues) is he who is dominated by the sole preoccupation of rapidly
making his fortune, which he will more easily obtain through theft,
falsehood, and ruse. He holds virtues, poverty and disinterest in
contempt. The beast that was erected in the desert by the unfaithful
tribes has remained the sole object of his adoration. When the Jew is a
journalist the newspaper is for him a means of obtaining lucre, and he
exploits it every way he can. He has the particular talent of
discovering the most obscure passions and knowing how to flatter,
satisfy, and encourage them, and he glories in the debauching of others.
He knows how to be obscene and how to be chauvinist; he exploits the
popular tendency to withdraw itself from great spirits that frighten
them and uses language within reach of the lowest. He replaces wit with
inept puns, eloquence by phraseology, enthusiasm by epilepsy. The
journalist lies, confuses, unsettles, and when the daily columns no
longer suffice he installs himself in the theatre, where he degrades.
When the Jew is a banker he possesses a powerful organization for evil,
a dark genius. He is proud, greedy, and false. He accumulates frauds
that go from the skillful, and even banal scam to daring theft. He
thinks perpetually of subtle machinations, of daring maneuvers. He can
be found everywhere, for everywhere he extracts gold: from governments
that borrow, from naĂŻve inventers who only create, at the head of
countless companies that he maintains with the lie of his fascinating
eloquence. If disasters occur he is sheltered from them: what use would
be the ability to conquer a fortune if it doesn’t save you from
disastrous consequences? So that apparent justice can always be attested
to there are the weak and the simple, those who are fed crumbs, who are
fattened, who are abandoned, and who save. When the Jew is a politician
he arrives through charlatanry, noise, and flattery. He is a schemer,
fecund in fraud, and in politics he will most often only see the
possibility of paying his debts and becoming rich through manipulation
and speculation. Protests about the grandeur of France, the
glorification of revolutionary principles or even divine right monarchy
will cover all this, and will assist him in trafficking in all that men
consider great. In summary, Jews are those for whom integrity,
beneficence, and abnegation are only words or virtues to be traded; they
are those who make money the goal of life and the center of the world.
But alongside this contemptible Judaism, rotted by cupidity, hating
noble gestures and generous impulses, there are very different beings;
there are Israelites. These latter are not known and are too often
forgotten. They have no history and their names are not known, for they
have never been mixed up in spectacular trials, fiscal adventures, or
spectacular spoliations. They have lived peacefully for years, attached
to the land that gave them birth, where countless generations have
succeeded each other (I am speaking and only wish to speak of the
Israelites of France: the others are indifferent and foreign to me).
They are poor or have just enough money, limited in their desires and
with before them nothing but the narrow horizon of the relative
well-being that is that of that mass. They know that powerful bankers
exist, and they are led to believe that their glory comes from these
bankers. They don’t protest, having the customary bedazzlement of the
people for piled up millions. But they don’t ask to be like these
plutocratic gentlemen: in a confused fashion they understand what tears
these fortunes are made of. Of these Israelites, some are workers,
others small shopkeepers. Some are doctors, and they didn’t choose that
science in order to conquer the secrets of the families they care for,
as M. Drumont one day said, borrowing from Eugene Sue the novelist’s
opinion about Jesuits, and with just as much justice. They are
magistrates, and their integrity cannot be suspected; they are soldiers,
most of them officers living on their salary, lovers of possible wars
since they are descendants of heroes of antiquity. They are artists and
they live in the respect for their art, disdaining the unspeakable glory
of the Jews of vaudeville and the operetta.
And all these Israelites are tired of seeing themselves confused with a
foul mass of frauds and cheats. They are tired of the perpetual
ambiguity that ranks them with rotten speculators, imbecilic music
makers, witless journalists, emaciated chroniclers, talentless
politicians, dishonest phrase-makers who dishonor them and for whom they
feel that just contempt that is universal. Since they don’t see the
danger they remain silent. In any event, they are too simple (why
wouldn’t Semites be simple, Aryans being dissolute?) and precisely
because they are simple it is only right that voices in their favor be
heard, it is right that they be supported. Do they not have faults (I am
still only speaking of the Israelites of France)? Yes; the fault of
allowing themselves to be led by the unworthy, that of believing to be
their superiors those barely worthy of serving them, and the no less
great fault of allowing themselves to have imposed upon them by
interested men a so-called solidarity that assimilates them to
money-changers from Frankfurt, Russian usurers, Polish tavern keepers,
Galician pawnbrokers, who they have nothing in common with. At another
time I will return to this solidarity, which is a Jewish and not an
Israelite solidarity. The Israelites of France must be shown all the
errors they commit. It must be shouted out, since they are napping, that
they must reject far from them the lepers who corrupt them. They must
vomit up the rot that seeks to penetrate them. But the error is venial,
and it would be only right if the anti-Semites, finally correct, were to
become anti-Jewish. They can be sure on that day of having many
Israelites with them.