The Modern World
1840-1940
76. [Moses
Montefiore]. Translation of a Letter Addressed by Sir
Moses Montefiore . . . to the Jewish Congregations in the Holy
Land. London: Wertheimer, Lea and Co., 1874.
Montefiore, a financier and philanthropist who devoted much of his
life to aiding oppressed Jewish communities around the world, was
one of the most prominent English Jews of the nineteenth century.
Although greatly concerned with the growth of the Jewish community
in the Holy Land, he did not regard that settlement as the sole
solution to the Jewish question. But he did want to help develop
the agriculture and industry there. In an open letter to the native
Jewish community, he asked how this might be done. That letter and
the responses he received appear in this pamphlet.
77. John C.
Gawler. Letter . . . to Sir Moses Montefiore . . . on
the Subject of the Promotion of Agriculture in the Holy Land.
London: Wertheimer, Lea and Co., 1874.
Gawler, a Christian, inherited his interest in Jewish settlement of
the Holy Land from his father. Both thought a Jewish State was the
answer to the problems of the newly emancipated Jews of Europe, and
both outlined plans by which this goal might be accomplished. In
this letter, addressed to Montefiore, Gawler stated his main
recommendations on the question of developing the Holy Land and
proposed the establishment of a society which would concern itself
with the advancement of agriculture and the utilization of natural
resources.
78. L'Alliance israélite
universelle. Paris: La Société, 1885.
Despite the still existing problems of anti-Semitism and poverty,
cooperation among major Jewish communities declined during the late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In 1860 in France, the
Alliance Israélite universelle, the first modern
international Jewish organization, was formed. It sought to assist
emigrants, promote Jewish education, and aid oppressed Jews through
diplomatic channels. The Alliance marked its twenty-fifth
anniversary with this volume describing the society and its
accomplishments.
79. Adolphe
Crémieux. Persécutions contre les juifs
de Damas ... recueil des documents. Paris: Bureau de
l'observateur des tribunaux, 1840.
In 1840, when a Capuchin friar and his servant disappeared in
Damascus, several Jews were forced to confess to ritual murder. The
accusations shocked world Jewry and sparked a revival of
anti-Semitism in Europe. The French attorney Adolphe
Crémieux accompanied several other prominent Jews to
Damascus to intercede on behalf of the accused. His
Persécutions contre les juifs de Damas gives
details of the case as well as a refutation of the whole concept of
ritual murder.
80. Adolphe
Crémieux. Autograph letter signed. Bordeaux,
January 29, 1871. 1 page.
In addition to his many activities supporting the Jewish community,
Crémieux was the outstanding Jewish participant in French
public affairs during the nineteenth century. Early in life he
became well known as an attorney and went on to defend a number of
liberal causes. He served as minister of justice during the Second
Republic and again during the Third Republic. During his second
tenure in office, he wrote this letter acknowledging a private
contribution to the defense of France during the Franco-Prussian
War.
81. [Joseph
Ritter von Wertheimer]. Die Juden in Oesterreich.
Leipzig: Mayer and Wigand, 1842. 2 volumes in 1.
Wertheimer was a central figure in the struggle for emancipation in
Austria. A merchant and philanthropist who worked tirelessly for
the rights and welfare of the Jewish community in Austria, he wrote
Die Juden in Oesterreich as a call for Jewish equality.
Although it was published anonymously, since such works were
prohibited at the time, his efforts on behalf of the Jews were
recognized twenty-six years later by the emperor with a title of
nobility.
82. Ludwig
Bamberger. Deutschthum und Judenthum. Leipzig: F.
A. Brockhaus, 1880.
While anti-Semitism had always been present in Germany, in modern
German intellectual circles it was considered a vulgar prejudice.
Then in 1879 the Prussian historian Heinrich van Treitschke
published an article attacking the Jews as an alien element in
society, justifying anti-Semitic agitation, and coining the slogan
"the Jews are our misfortune." This attempt to legitimize
anti-Semitism among intellectuals provoked many responses,
including The German Nation and the Jewish People, a
defense of the Jews written by Reichstag member Ludwig
Bamberger.
83. Moritz
Frühling. Biographiches Handbuch der in der K.
und K. Oesterr-Ungar. Armee und Kriegsmarine . . . Offiziere . . .
jüdischen Stammes. Vienna, 1911.
Attitude toward military service presented one of the surest
indications of national loyalty, since in time of war Jews could be
called upon to kill Jews of other nations. Austria opened the ranks
of its army to Jews in the late eighteenth century, and the
response was so positive that by 1893 they formed eight percent of
the officer corps. Prefaced with a strong affirmation of loyalty,
this catalogue of famous Jewish members of the Austro-Hungarian
military demonstrated to the Jews themselves and to the outside
world the extent to which they had been assimilated.
84. Bruno
Frei. Jüdisches Elend in Wien. Vienna and
Berlin: R. Lowit, 1920.
During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, large numbers
of Jews migrated to Vienna from Bohemia, Galicia, and other
provinces of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Between 1854 and 1923,
the Jewish population of Vienna rose from fifteen thousand to two
hundred thousand. Like other migrants, these Jews were attracted by
hopes of a better life in an economically expanding city; however,
many of them, uneducated and unskilled, remained in extreme
poverty. Describing the state of the Jews, Frei's Jewish
Poverty was written to criticize the prejudices directed at
them.
85. Lewis
B. Namier. The Jews. London: Macmillan.
Offprint.
Born in Galicia, educated at Oxford, and eventually professor of
history at the University of Manchester, Namier was acutely aware
of his Jewish background and always considered himself an outsider.
In this essay, reprinted from Conflicts: Studies in
Contemporary History (London, 1942), these personal feelings
color his analysis of the situation of all Jews. Namier asserted
that assimilation was ultimately impossible, that no matter what a
Jew did he would always be seen as different, and that the only
place a Jew could lead a normal life would be in a Jewish
State.
86. Max
Vorobeichic. Ein Ghetto im Osten (Wilna). Zurich
and Leipzig: Orell Fussli, 1931.
Called the "Jerusalem of Lithuania," Vilna was a major center of
Jewish culture in Europe from the early seventeenth century to the
early twentieth century. Especially known for its Hebrew printing
presses and talmudic scholarship, the city became a center of the
haskalah ("enlightenment") and of modern Jewish literature
in Yiddish and Hebrew. By the late nineteenth century, it had also
become a center of Jewish socialism and Zionism. Ein Ghetto im
Osten (Wilna) is a photographic essay of lewish life in Vilna
made just a decade before the Jews of Vilna were obliterated in the
Nazi holocaust.
87. Sigmund
Freud. Autograph letter signed to Isaac Landman.
Berchtesgaden, August 1, 1929. 1 page.
Freud encountered anti-Semitism as a medical student in Vienna.
Nevertheless, while not considering himself a religious believer,
he persisted in identifying himself as a Jew, and later in life
became a loyal member of the Vienna B'nai B'rith. In this
letter, Freud reveals his ambivalent feelings about his Jewish
background. When asked to contribute to a special edition of the
periodical The American Hebrew, he responded that he could
really send nothing more than a friendly greeting since he had no
firm attachment to Judaism.
88. Albert
Einstein. Typewritten letter signed to Harry Deutsch.
Pasadena, February 24, 1933. 1 page.
Einstein was an ardent Zionist and much of his time not devoted to
science went to the support of Jewish causes. He perceived Jewish
problems in terms of the larger question of human dignity–a
theme developed in this letter. Written during the Nazi rise to
power, it expresses skepticism about politics and asserts that the
highest pursuits–art among them–are those which enable
man through indirect means. For Einstein, the real worth of any
endeavor lay in the striving and not in the results.
89. Gustav
Mahler. Autograph letter signed to Dr. Fritz Löhr.
[Hamburg, 18957].4 pages.
As the last great representative of the symphonic tradition of
central Europe and an experimenter with new musical techniques,
Mahler stands at a major turning point in the history of music. In
this letter he complains that his Jewish religion bars him from a
conducting position but consoles himself by reflecting on the
moribund state of contemporary culture. Mahler later converted to
Catholicism in order to become director of the Vienna court
opera.
90.
Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Die heilige
Familie. Frankfurt am Main: Literarische Anstalt (J. Rutten),
1845. First edition.
Some Jews rejected any attempt to solve the problems of
emancipation in Jewish terms; for them, the problems of the Jews
were part bf a larger social issue. Karl Marx is the most famous
representative of this position. Denying the importance of religion
and ethnicity, he attempted to develop an empirical and scientific
approach to social questions. Die heilige Familie, written
with the help of Engels, is a youthful attack on the Hegelian
philosopher Bruno Bauer and his "holy family" of followers. The
work contains the earliest statement of Marxist communism.
91. Karl
Marx. Das Kapital. Hamburg: Otto Meissner, 1867.
Volume 1. First edition.
Das Kapital, the exposition of Marx's mature system, is
the fundamental work of modern socialism. It is here that Marx
develops his economic arguments in support of his sociological
analysis and his evolutionary theory of history. Marx had planned,
but did not live to complete, three additional volumes treating the
circulation, movement, and history of capital. The work was later
completed by Engels from Marx's papers.
92.
Ferdinand Lassalle. Die indirecte Steuer und die Lage
der arbeitenden Klassen. Chicago[?]: Charles Ahrens,
1872.
Lassalle's efforts on behalf of the German working-man covered only
a few short years, but his accomplishments established him as one
of the founders of German socialism. Believing that the working
classes were oppressed because their new freedom as individuals had
destroyed their solidarity as a group, he advocated the formation
of workers' associations and universal suffrage. The Indirect
Tax and the Situation of the Working Classes is the transcript
of a trial in which Lassalle was accused of inciting the lower
classes to violence by maintaining that indirect taxes were
regressive in nature.
93. Rosa
Luxemburg. Die Akkumulation des Kapitals. Berlin:
Paul Singer, 1913. First edition.
As a founder of the Social Democratic party of Poland and Lithuania
and a major figure in the German Social Democratic party, Rosa
Luxemburg is one of the most important women in the history of
socialism. Her political activities were complemented by extensive
research and writing, and her Die Akkumulation des
Kapitals forms a major contribution to Marxist thought. A
strict economic determinist, she wrote that the insufficiency of
home markets would make expansion and imperialism the guiding
principle of capitalist foreign policy.
94. Victor
Adler. Schwurgerichtsverhandlung gegen Dr. Viktor
Adler. Vienna: Ignaz Brand, 1905.
Adler received a medical education but gave up the practice of
medicine to become one of the early leaders of the Austrian Social
Democratic party. The government attempted to obstruct his early
political activities, bringing him to trial several times. The
stenographic report of the most famous of these trials, during
which he was acquitted of disturbing the peace through political
agitation, is presented in this pamphlet. It was published in the
same year that Adler began his struggle for what one year later was
to be his greatest political victory–the institution of
universal suffrage in Austria.
95. Gustav
Landauer. Autograph letter signed to Julius Bab. Krumbach
(Swabia), June 1, 1917. 3 pages.
Landauer's concern for society was matched by an interest in
literature and philosophy, the insights of which colored his
socialist theory. He broke with the Marxism which dominated central
European socialism and proposed a new cooperative society based on
individual action. Landauer differed from many German Jewish
socialists, too, in finally regarding Judaism favorably. His
thoughts on literature and drama form the body of this letter,
written two years before his murder at the hands of soldiers in the
military suppression of the Bavarian Republic.
96. Kurt
Eisner. Typewritten letter signed to Kommerzienrat J.
Mayer. Munich, November 10, 1918. 1 page.
Eisner was a left-wing-socialist journalist who in November of 1918
led an uprising which established the Republic of Bavaria. He
became prime minister of the republic, continuing in that office
until his assassination. His indifference to Jewish sentiments in
the pursuit of his political ideals is clearly shown in this
letter, where he maintains that suggestions that he resign from
office come from anxious Jews who are afraid of repercussions, and
where he insists that it is his duty to remain as the living symbol
of republican freedom.
97. Leon
Trotsky. Typewritten letter signed to Herr Boris.
Buyukada, January 6, 1931. 1 page.
Trotsky's leading role in the Russian Revolution is attributable to
his intellectual brilliance and his administrative skills. He stood
on the left wing of the Revolution, propounding a theory of
"permanent revolution." Like other socialists of Jewish origin, he
considered Jewish problems part of larger class issues; but with
the rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930s he became willing to
consider the idea of special solutions to the problem. In this
letter, the exiled Trotsky discusses some minor details relating to
the publication of his masterful History of the Russian
Revolution.
98. August
Rohling. Der Talmudjude. Münster: Adolph
Russel, 1871. First edition.
Rohling's Der Talmudjude is one of the seminal works of
modern anti-Semitic literature. A priest and university professor,
Rohling compiled his attack on the Talmud from corrupted
quotations, forgeries, and fanciful assertions. Challenged on a
number of occasions, he was finally discredited in a libel suit
which he attempted to bring against one of his detractors, Dr.
Joseph Bloch of Vienna. Nevertheless, Der Talmudjude
remained popular, later becoming a central source book for Nazi
propaganda.
99. Ernest
Renan. Le judaisme comme race et comme
réligion. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères,
1883.
Renan, who spent his life studying ancient Near Eastern languages
and history, wrote a five-volume history of the ancient Jews which
asserted that the monotheism of the Semitic peoples was inherent in
their character. However, disturbed by anti-Semitic attacks which
held the Jews to be an alien race, he responded in Le
judaisme that although the Jews had once formed a distinct
racial group, in modern times they encompassed a multiplicity of
races and constituted a valuable part of the population in modern
European states.
100.
Edouard Drumont. La France juive. Paris: C.
Marpon & E. Flammarion. 2 volumes.
Although originally a left-wing journalist, Drumont became one of
the leaders of the anti-Semitic movement in France. La France
juive, which appeared in over one hundred editions, is a sharp
attack on the Jews, claiming that they control modern French
social, political, cultural, and economic life. Drumont went on to
edit the rabidly anti-Semitic daily Libre parole and later
became a member of the Chamber of Deputies.
101. Outrages upon the Jews in Russia:
Report of the Public Meeting at the Mansion House.... London:
Council of the Anglo-Jewish-Association, 1882.
When in March of 1881 Tsar Alexander II was assassinated, the
government, in its anti-liberal reaction, applied discriminatory
policies to the Jews and tried to direct popular discontent against
them. A number of anti-Semitic riots, or pogroms, then erupted,
their brutality shocking the world and sparking widespread protest.
Outrages upon the Jews in Russia contains the minutes of a
meeting convened by the lord mayor of London to denounce the events
in Russia, and also includes the several statements of concern
submitted by major political and cultural figures of England at the
time.
102. Der Process van Tisza-Eszlar.
Stuttgart: Levy & Muller, 1883.
Tisza-Eszlar, a village in Hungary, was the scene of a
ritual-murder accusation which formed a major event in the rise of
Hungarian anti-Semitism. Following the disappearance of a Christian
girl_proven later to have been a case of suicide–a Jewish
youth was tricked into confessing that he had seen her murdered in
the synagogue. Although the acquittal of all the Jews charged was
upheld by the Supreme Court, anti-Semitism was raised to a feverish
pitch, setting off anti-Jewish riots. Der Process van
Tisza-Eszlar gives a pro-Jewish account of the trial and the
events surrounding it.
103.
Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Die Grundlagen des
Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1899. 2
volumes. First edition.
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century served as a key
work in the formation of Nazi racial theories about the Jews.
Chamberlain, an English Germanophile and son-in-law of Richard
Wagner, here summarized nineteenth-century thought and culture and
expounded his concept of "Germanism": the Germans constituted a
superior race destined to rule the world, while the Jews were a
mongrel race and the corruptors of German culture. Chamberlain's
ideas marked the inception of the virulent type of modem
anti-Semitism whose logical outcome was the extermination of all
Jews.
104.
Thomas G. Masaryk. Die Nothwendigkeit der Revision des
Polnaer Processes. Vienna: "Die Zeit," 1899.
The publication of Masaryk's Die Nothwendigkeit was a
major event in the Polna, or Hilsner, case–a major
ritual-murder incident in Bohemia. This pamphlet points out that
like other accusations of ritual murder, the Polna case was based
on scanty and inconsistent evidence and that a proper reexamination
of the facts would help to eradicate this superstition. At the
time, Masaryk met stiff opposition from government circles. But the
calumnious nature of the charges was eventually exposed, and his
moral stand as a true liberal was enhanced.
105. Emile
Zola. "J'Accuse. . . !'' L'Aurore, Paris, January
13, 1898.
In 1894 a Jewish French army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, was accused
of espionage. Thus began one of the most famous anti-Semitic
episodes in modern history. Dreyfus was actually innocent, but the
prosecution was carried forward by reactionary army officers with
political motives. "J'Accuse" was an open letter from the novelist
Emile Zola to the president of France which charged the army and
the government of suppressing the evidence. Zola's attack was
instrumental in the eventual exoneration of Dreyfus in an affair
that was to mark a major turning point in the history of the Third
Republic.
106.
Moritz Steinschneider. Jüdische Schriften zur
Geographie Palästina's. Jerusalem: A. M..Luncz, 1892. One
of fifty copies. .
Throughout the centuries of exile and dispersion, Eretz
Israel, "the Land of Israel," remained deeply ingrained in the
Jewish consciousness. While largescale repatriation seemed beyond
reach, the Jews nevertheless maintained a keen interest in their
historic homeland, as evidenced by this bibliography of Jewish
writings concerning Palestine. Compiled by Moritz Steinschneider,
an exponent of the "science of Judaism" and one of the most
important bibliographers of Judaica, the work lists and
characterizes travelers' accounts and geographical descriptions by
Jewish authors from the ninth through the nineteenth centuries.
107. Moses
Hess. Rom und Jerusalem Leipzig: Eduard Wengler,
1862. First edition.
A thoroughly assimilated Jewish socialist and close associate of
Marx, Hess reasserted his Jewish identity later in life, calling
for the reestablishment of a Jewish State in the Holy Land. His
Rom und Jerusalem is a classic of Zionist literature which
sets forth his concept of Jewish nationhood and sketches the
outline of a Jewish State based on socialist principles. Although
the work attracted little attention when first published, it later
influenced Herzl, who described Hess as "the greatest Jewish spirit
since Spinoza."
108. [Leon
Pinsker]. "Autoemancipation!" Mahnruf an seine
Stammesgenossen von einem russischen Juden. Berlin: W.
Issleib, 1882. First edition.
Until the Russian pogroms of 1881, Pinsker, a physician and leader
of the Odessa Jewish community, had been a firm believer in the
assimilation of the Jews into Russian society. This outburst of
violent antiSemitism, however, forced him to reconsider his
position, and "Autoemancipation!" argued for a separate
Jewish national home. Pinsker reasoned that the Jews were
persecuted because their separate ethnic identity caused them to be
perceived throughout the world as aliens.
"Autoemancipation!" made an immediate, major impact in
Jewish circles, establishing Pinsker as a leader of the young
Zionist movement.
109.
Theodor Herzl. Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen
Lösung der Judenfrage. Leipzig and Vienna: M.
Breitenstein, 1896. First edition.
Herzl gave up the practice of law for joumalism, and his coverage
of the Dreyfus trial in Paris led him to two conclusions: Jewish
assimilation was impossible and the Jewish question required a
political solution. Originally he had hoped to influence the
Rothschild family to support the building of a Jewish State, but
when this plan failed he turned to the general public. Der
Judenstaat, an elaboration of his Address to the
Rothschilds, sets forth his proposal for a Jewish State.
Although critically received by assimilated and Orthodox Jews, the
work made Herzl the undisputed leader of the Zionist movement.
110.
Theotor Herzl. Altneuland. Leipzig: Hermann
Seemann, [1902]. First edition.
Herzl's trip to Palestine in 1898 inspired him to write
Altneuland, a Zionist novel giving expression to the
yearning of the Jews for their historical homeland. The novel
attempted to predict what could be accomplished in the next twenty
years and stressed both the use of science and technology in
developing the country internally and the need for toleration among
all peoples in the area. The motto of Altneuland became
the watchword of the Zionist movement_"If you will it, it is no
fairytale."
111.
Ludwig Ernst. Kein Judenstaat sonders
Gewissenfreiheit. Leipzig and Vienna: Literarische Anstalt,
1896.
Herzl's scheme was clearly at odds with the dominant liberal
doctrines of emancipation and assimilation. Thus it is not
surprising that Der Judenstaat aroused a good deal of
hostile criticism. Ernst's No Jewish State–Rather Freedom
of Conscience is an example of the debates within Jewish
communities that Zionist ideas evoked. Ernst maintained that since
the Jews were an integral part of Europe, their primary duty was to
unite and fight for their rights and for universal justice, rather
than to abandon the struggle and concentrate their efforts in the
Zionist cause.
112. Zionisten-Congress in Basel . . .
Officielles Protocoll. Vienna: Verein Erez Israel, 1898. First
edition.
Herzl created the Zionist Congress, which was to serve as the
highest authority of the movement. At the first meeting of the
congress, in Basel in 1897, the eastern and western European
Zionist movements became united and adopted a common program.
emphasizing large-scale migration and international assistance.
This volume records the minutes of that important meeting. Herzl,
who served as president of the congress until his death, summed up
the first session in his diary when he wrote, "At Basel I founded
the Jewish State."
113.
[Marlin Buber, Berthold Feiwel, and Chaim Weizmann].
Eine jüdische Hochschule. Berlin: Jüdischer
Verlag, 1902.
Herzl's political endeavors on behalf of the Zionist movement were
complemented by the activities of another group concentrating on
cultural affairs. Among this group were Martin Buber, Berthold
Feiwel, and Chaim Weizmann, who in Eine jüdische
Hochschule proposed the founding of a Jewish university. To be
located preferably in Palestine, the school was to be free of the
quotas of European universities and was to educate Jewish youth in
both Jewish and general subjects. This plan was presented in 1901
to the Zionist Congress, where it was favorably received, and on
July 24, 1918, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem was founded.
114. Adolf
Hitler. Mein Kampf Munich: Franz Eher, 1925-27. 2
volumes. First edition.
Written during his imprisonment in 1924, Hitler's Mein
Kampf eventually sold ten million copies, making the author
both famous and rich. Autobiographical and visionary, the work
contains Hitler's theory of anti-Semitism and his personal
sentiments about the Jews. He depicts the Jews as a corrupt race
and the mortal enemy of the superior Aryans, and he conceives of
them with a pathological fear and hatred as infectious organisms
which should be quarantined from German society.
115. Die Nürnberger Gesetze.
Reichsbürgergesetz . . . 1. Verordnung.... Nuremberg:
Reichsausschutz für Volksgesund Heitsdienst, November 14,
1935.
The Nuremberg Laws, publicized in this poster, were the most
sweeping pieces of Nazi anti-Jewish legislation. Officially
promulgated during the National Socialist party convention in 1935,
they clearly bear the imprint of Hitler's views as set forth in
Mein Kampf. Considered incapable of being citizens of the
Reich and as dangerous sources of contamination, Jews were to be
isolated from "true" Germans. A key aim of the "Nuremberg Laws" was
thus the prohibition of marriage and sexual relations between Jews
and non-Jews. These laws of 1935 were later supplemented by others
whose cumulative effect was to exclude Jews totally from German
society.
116.
Elvira Bauer. Trau keinem Fuchs auf grüner Heid
und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid! Nürnberg: Stürmer,
1936.
The task of whipping up anti-Semitic passions among the German
masses belonged to an emotionally disturbed Swabian school teacher
named Julius Streicher. As editor of the weekly Der
Stürmer, he pursued his goal with a ferocity that often
offended even high Nazi officials. This collection of anti-Semitic
poems and cartoons, published under the auspices of Der
Stürmer, epitomizes the type of propaganda in which
Streicher dealt. Don't Trust a Fox in a Green Meadow or a Jew
on His Oath! depicts the Jews as devils, racial inferiors,
enemies of humanity, and defilers of the Aryan race.
117.
Hermann Cohen. Briefe. Berlin: Schocken,
1939.
Although much of the existing structure of Jewish community life
was suppressed after 1933, the imposed isolation turned the German
Jews inward to reexamine their own history and heritage. The
Bücherei des Schocken Verlags, devoted to the
heritage of German- Jewish literature, published a voluminous
number of books, of which this collection of letters by the
philosopher Cohen was one of the last.
118. Gemeinschaftsarbeit der jüdischen
Jugend. Berlin: Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in
Deutschland, 1937.
Attracted by the youth movements which were so popular in the early
decades of this century, the Jews in Germany also formed their own
groups. The Jewish youth movement saw itself as an integral part of
German society, but the rise of the Nazis slowly cut the Jews off
from the non-Jewish world. Gemeinschaftsarbeit der
jüdischen Jugend describes the activity of Jewish youth
during the early years of the Nazi regime. Although the tone of the
report is calm, the admission that for the first time help was
required from the outside world reveals the pressures under which
the movement was laboring.
119.
Jüdisches Museum in Berlin. Gedenkausstellung Don
Jizchaq Abravanel and Akiba Eger Ausstellung. Berlin:
M. Lessmann, Chanukka and June, 1937. 2 volumes.
Despite the sophistication of the city's inhabitants, the Jewish
community of Berlinúthe largest in Germany_suffered the fate
of all German Jews. Excluded from business and professions and
faced with a number of other restrictions, the Jews of Berlin
experienced a remarkable upsurge in cultural and religious life.
These catalogues from two Jewish Museum-exhibits, part of this
development, honor the philosopher Isaac Abravanel and the talmudic
scholar Akiba Eger, who as representative of the worldly leader on
the one hand and the spiritual leader on the other symbolized for
the Jews two alternative strands of Judaic life.
120.
Joseph Jacobsen and Erwin Jospe. Hawa
naschira! (Auf! lasst uns singen!). Leipzig and Hamburg: Anton
J. Benjamin, 1935. Image
Singing and music were means by which scattered Jewish communities
found a measure of solidarity and comfort. Intended for use in the
school, club, and home, this songbook brings together religious and
secular material primarily from traditional and folk sources.
German, Yiddish, and Hebrew songs are represented, with German
translations provided where necessary, and several melodies from
various holiday services are also included.
121.
Werkleute Bund jüdischer Jugend. Vom Werden des
Kreises. Berlin: H. M. Dobrin and Son, 1934.
The Werkleute Bund was a Zionist youth organization
encouraging Jewish self-assurance and promoting aliyah,
"emigration to Palestine." This 1934 report, On the Origin of
the Group, includes articles and letters reissued from earlier
publications which discuss the status and obligations of the German
Jew. The last correspondence, dated April 1933, is fully cognizant
of the ominous change in Germany, considering aliyah no
more a question of "whether" but one of "how."
122. Fur unsere Auswanderer. Die Arbeit des
Hilfsvereins der Juden in Deutschland. Berlin, 1937.
The Relief Organization of German Jews, founded in 1901 along the
lines of the French L'Alliance Israélite
universelle, had by the 1930s almost three hundred chapters
throughout Germany. Its original efforts were directed toward
Jewish victims of pogroms in the East, but after Hitler came to
power, it turned its attentions to helping Jews emigrate from
Germany. As conditions worsened, relief efforts were increased.
Between 1933 and 1941, more than ninety thousand persons were
assisted in leaving Germany under the organization's auspices. This
annual report concludes by emphasizing the obligations of all Jews
throughout the world to support the activities of the
Hilfsverein.
123.
Abraham Joshua Heschel. Don Jizchak Abravanel.
Berlin: E. Reiss, 1937.
One of the most respected Jewish theologians and religious scholars
in the United States, Rabbi Heschel was continually active in New
York Jewish affairs until his death in 1972. Born in Warsaw, he
received his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1933, and
shortly thereafter published three works of Jewish interest,
including this study of Abravanel. In 1937 Heschel became an
instructor at a Jewish school in Frankfurt under the directorship
of Martin Buber, and fled Germany one year later.
124. Zu Martin Bubers 60. Geburtstag.
[Berlin: Reichsvertretung der Juden in Deutschland, 1938.]
In 1933 the philosopher Martin Buber was expelled by the Nazis from
his professorship in religion at the University of Frankfurt.
During the following years, he traveled widely throughout Germany,
lecturing, teaching, and encouraging his fellow Jews, creating a
spiritual resistance to Nazism with which many Christians
empathized, if only in secret. On his sixtieth birthday, in the
same year he emigrated to Palestine, Martin Buber was presented by
Leo Baeck and others with this small remembrance volume honoring
his work, his dedication, and his travail.
125.
Michael Cardinal Faulhaber. Judentum, Christentum,
Germanentum. Munich: A Huber, [1934].
An outspoken critic of the doctrine of racial exclusiveness and a
bitter opponent of the anti-Semitic brutalities of the Third Reich,
Cardinal Faulhaber was one of the few German Catholic prelates to
speak out against Hitler. His sermons, delivered to overflowing
crowds in St. Michael's Church in Munich are collected in this
volume. A firm believer in the validity of Catholic doctrine,
Faulhaber decries the rise of a new paganism and stresses the
continuum between the Old and New Testaments.
126.
Julius Ludwig Israel Seligsohn. Die Einwanderung nach
U.S.A. Berlin: Jüdischer Kulturbund in Deutschland,
1940.
By 1940 Germany was at war and the conditions for those Jews left
behind became critical. Deportations of German Jews had already
begun, as had mass executions of Eastern European Jews in the newly
conquered territories. This emigration handbook is the last legal
Jewish publication out of Nazi Germany. Its author, having
struggled in a tightening net to help his people escape, eventually
returned from America to aid in the efforts of the final days and
perished in the concentration camp at Oranienburg.
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