Jews Transform Societies Hess

Rome and Jerusalem a Study in Jewish Nationalism, by Moses Hess, Meyer Waxman (Translator). 2005

Early Zionist Moses Hess: Jews Transform Societies Rather Than Conforming to Them

This book [review based on 1943 reprint] provides a variety of interesting information. For instance, author Moses Hess accepted the Talmud as referring to Jesus Christ, in Sanhedrin, 67a, and Sabbath, 104b. (pp. 204-205). While consistently scorning those Jews who thought of Judaism as only a religion, he also noted that Orthodox Jews can be just as modern as assimilated Jews. (p. 106).

JEWS TRANSFORM SOCIETIES RATHER THAN CONFORMING TO THEM

The author consistently had a high view of France in the wake of the French Revolution (e. g., p. 86, 138, 156, 168, 224-on, 230). However, he seemed to adhere to form of Jewish elitism, as illustrated by the following, (quote) The French people excel in alertness, in the humanistic and sympathetic quality to assimilate all elements; the Jews, on the other hand, possess more ethical seriousness than the French, and in meeting other types, the Jew will rather impress his stamp on his environment than be molded by it. (unquote) (p. 168).

ARE JEWS A RACE? HESS THINKS SO

Moses Hess, a Jew in Germany who wrote this book in 1862, considered the Jews a race. Since the term “race” is an amorphous one, I let the author define the term. He wrote, (quote) Jewish noses cannot be reformed, and the black, wavy hair of the Jews will not change through conversion into blond, nor can its curves be straightened out by constant combing. The Jewish race is one of the primary races of mankind that has retained its integrity, in spite of the continual change of its climatic environment, and the Jewish type has conserved its purity through the centuries. (unquote)(p. 59).

DO NOT BLAME CHRISTIANITY (E. G., DEICIDE) FOR THE HOLOCAUST: EVEN PRE-NAZI GERMAN ANTISEMITISM WAS RACIAL RATHER THAN RELIGIOUS IN NATURE

Writing over 70 years before the Nazis came to power, and long before Hitler was even born, Moses Hess called attention to the fundamentally racial anti-Semitism of the Germans, (quote) Even conversion does not relieve the Jew from the enormous pressure of German anti-Semitism. The German hates the Jewish religion less than the race; he objects less to the Jews’ peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses. (unquote)(p. 58).

Hess also seemed to anticipate the Holocaust in that he saw the Jews and Germans as intense rivals. He commented, (quote) In the organism of humanity there are no two peoples who attract and repel each other more than the Germans and the Jews… (unquote)(pp. 124-125).

The following four paragraphs are direct quotes from Moses Hess. They make it obvious that Jews-as-nationality had long preceded 19th and 20th century movements that were to promote Jewish particularism, such as Yiddishism (Bundism), Zionism, etc.

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Spinoza conceived Judaism to be grounded in Nationalism, and held that the restoration of the Jewish kingdom depends entirely upon the will and courage of the Jewish people. Even the rationalistic Mendelssohn did not know of a cosmopolitan Judaism. (p. 64).

The “new” Jew, who denies the existence of the Jewish nationality, is not only a deserter in the religious sense, but is also a traitor to his people, his race and even to his family. (p. 62).

In reality, Judaism as a nationality has a natural basis which cannot be set aside by mere conversion to another faith, as is the case with other religions. A Jew belongs to his race and consequently also to Judaism, in spite of the fact that he or his ancestors have become apostates…The converted Jew remains a Jew no matter how much he objects to it. (pp. 97-98).

In those countries which form a dividing line between the Occident and the Orient, namely, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Austria, and Turkey, there live millions of our brethren who earnestly believe in the restoration of the Jewish kingdom and pray for it fervently in their daily services. These Jews have preserved, by their belief in Jewish nationality, the very kernel of Judaism in a more faithful manner than have our Occidental Jews. (pp. 76-77).

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The lattermost quote illuminates the concepts of the later Endeks. The National Democrats thought of Jews, with some exceptions, as functionally a separate and foreign nation on Polish soil. This was exacerbated by Jewish economic dominance and the aloofness of most Jews to Polish national aspirations.

Roman Dmowski and some other Endeks also came to object to the ingrained Germanophile orientation of Jews. This, too, was long-standing, as earlier emphasized by Moses Hess, (quote) To our educated German Jews, the feeling of hatred toward the Jews displayed by the Germans has always remained an unsolved puzzle. Was not the entire effort of the German Jews, since the days of Mendelssohn, directed toward becoming wholly Germanized, to thinking and feeling as Germans?…Were they not Teutonomaniacs and French devourers? (unquote)(pp. 71-72).