Zionist Studies
(Reviews of Books)
"THE JEWS IN THE MODERN RACE-THEORY."
A Pamplet by Dr. Max Besser. . .
GERMANY, the land of science and method has reduced anti-semitism to a "science" whose chief exponent is the Germanized Englishman Houston Stewart Chamberlain. In his "Foundations of the 19th Century" he ascribes all the good of this world to the Teutons by virtue of their inherent race- superiority, and all the evil to the other races, principally the Jews, by virtue of their inherent race-inferiority, a phantasmagoria which has become the Gospel of modern anti-semitism. King David and Jesus, according to Chamberlain, must have been Teutons: they were blondes (and Dr. Fishberg would agree with him!). Too many Jews, confronted by this predju- dice reduced to "science" have been ready either to acquiesce to this judgment of their natural inferiority (always, of course, making of their particular selves some prodigious exception), or, what is worse, denied the racial or national existence of the Jews.
It is in order to conserve Jewish legitimate pride and self-respect that Dr. Besser proves the absurdity of that theory in his pamphlet. He shows how the Teutonmaniacs "mock at themselves and do not know it," when they disparage Jewish cultural productiveness, because the foundations of all modern culture are Hebraic, and even Goethe might have been different were it not for Spinoza. The fruition of the natural capacities of a race, as
well as the particular form which this fruition takes, is shown to be essentially dependent on the historic and social environment of that race, and if the fact that the present-day cultural achievements of the Jews do not equal those of the Germans were proof that the Jews are inherently inferior to the Germans, then the fact that the Jews evolved the flowers of their genius when the Germans were a horde of howling savages were much more conclusive proof that the Germans are vastly inferior to the Jews. Give the Jews the healthy conditions for cultural achievement which the Germans have and then the contest, if it be one, will have a basis of fairness, a quality so proudly claimed by the Teutons for themselves exclusively.
Dr. Besser’s pamphlet is timely and convincing, and deserves speedy translation into English.
"THE LANGUAGES OF THE JEWS."*
*"Die Juden in the Moderne Rassentheorie" von Dr. Max Besser, Jüdischer Verlag, Köln.
FROM the title of this book we understand that not only will the historic position of Hebrew as the permanent language of the Jews be discussed, but also that the history of all the languages in which the Jewish people have thought and spoken will be treated. The book projects beyond a mere history of the language. In spite of its modest assurance that it proposes to discuss only the progress of the languages among the Jews, it really constitutes a
*"Die Sprachen der Juden," von Deinrich Loeve, Jüdischer, Verlag Köln.