The War from a Jewish Standpoint
By Richard Gottheil
RICHARD GOTTHEIL (born in Manchester, England, in 1862; came to New York in 1873), educated at Columbia and at German Universities; since 1887 Professor of Semitic Languages and Rabbinical Literature at Columbia. Apart from his scholarly labors, Professor Gottheil has devoted himself body and soul to many Jewish causes, notably Zionism, in which he has been a leader in America from the beginning. He was among the first to extend an encouraging hand to the Menorah movement and has responded generously to repeated calls to lecture before Menorah Societies. The present article is based upon an address recently delivered before the Cornell Menorah Society.
THE war in Europe presents problems for the Jews which must be faced no matter what the consequences may be. These problems are of two kinds, due to the fact that we are members of a race that is scattered over the whole earth, and the units of which are to be found in the four corners of the globe. In this way a double set of duties is entailed upon us. On the one hand, we have to take our rightful place as citizens of the different countries in which we live: to accept all the burdens that go with such citizenship, and to partake of the joys and sorrows that are its inevitable accompaniment—in a word, to take the advice of the Rabbis of old and "seek the welfare" of the country in which we live. But this obligation is so self-evident, and the problems raised by it solve themselves so naturally, that they need no further thought. In point of fact, the patriotism of the Jews for the lands in which they live has been demonstrated on so many occasions that only blind ignorance or wilful misrepresentation can call it into question. At the present moment, in all the armies that are at the front, our brethren are doing service even beyond their numerical proportion.
The Toll Paid by the Jew
IT is to the second set of problems that I venture to call attention—those Jewish problems that concern ourselves in particular, that deal with our relations to and with our fellow Jews—problems which I am afraid are not always present in our minds. For one reason or another, they are apt to be forgotten, to slip into the background through sheer negligence. Indeed, in many cases we are fain to put them intentionally into a corner and remove them discreetly from sight. It has needed a great world event at this time, as it has in the past, to bring many of us to reason and to a realization of our duty. The titanic struggle in which so many of the nations of the world are engaged has come to remind us also of our position as Jews and to recall to us our relations with the past, our connections with the present, and our hopes for the future. It is indeed true that none of the great political movements that have affected the world have passed by without in some special manner affecting the Jewish people. As we look back through history and allow our thoughts to run down the highway of the ages, we perceive the effects such struggles have had upon the Jew. We think of the time when ancient Babylonia stretched out its arm from the East to gain a foothold on the Mediterranean and to grasp the power of the world. What was the effect upon the Jews? The Babylonian captivity. Many hundreds of years after, Rome—the Babylonia of the West—lunged out toward the East in the same search for universal dominion; and we still observe the Ninth of Ab in commemoration of the destruction of the Temple at Jerusalem. Again some centuries passed us by, and we come to the inevitable conflict between Christianity and the rising power of Islam. Who was it but our own Jews who suffered most as the crusading hordes moved through Europe—our own Jews who were driven before them from the Rhine into what at a later time became the great national Ghetto in Poland? And now in this twentieth century, as a people, and in proportion to its numbers, which body of men, women and children is paying the most exacting toll to the forces of destiny? Again it is the Jew.
"The Belgians of All History"
WE all have the greatest possible sympathy for the Belgian people and for the Belgian land. Yet how much greater has been the suffering of the Jewish people—the Belgians not of a day but of all history? In Eastern Europe, in Poland, in Galicia and in parts of Russia, at least two or three millions of Jews have suffered from the ravages of a war waged with a bitterness that exceeds all bounds. Invading armies have passed and re-passed over their homes—miserable as they were even in times of peace. False accusations have been launched against them so that they have been regarded as enemies by both sides and treated as such. Thousands have been driven from their homes to congest villages already filled to overflowing or to increase the want and suffering indigenous to towns and cities. An amount of anguish and pain has been caused such as the Jews have never known in all their long tramp through the ages. What have we done, we Jews in America, to assuage even a part of this pain? What measures have we in view, when once the war shall be over, to regain for these people the possibility of living, to bring back for them a little of that which they have lost through no fault of their own and in no cause which is theirs? In most cases the only right permitted to them is the right to suffer, and they must in addition pay the price of that suffering. As we think of all these circumstances, is it not proper and meet that we should ponder the whole situation in which we Jews find ourselves today?
I believe that it is eminently the moment to do so. We refuse to believe that the great waste of human life and energy now going on in Europe is a waste pure and simple. We refuse to believe that some purification is not to result from the fire through which mankind is passing, and that some sanity in handling human affairs is not to follow the evident insanity with which we are now confronted. Something a little more stable because a little more reasonable must appear at the end to replace the inconstancy and unrest which have up to now characterized the relations of peoples to each other. And as we hope this for the world at large, we are hopeful too that full attention will be given to those problems which concern the Jews specifically. I wish then to indicate the chief among these problems, in order that we may ourselves see clearly the road that must be taken.
The Prospect in Russia and Poland
FIRST and foremost, of course, rank the questions that concern the Jews in Russia. Quite apart from any consideration of the general problems affecting that country, the case of the Jews in Russia and Poland demands a settlement that shall make existence bearable for them, and which at the same time shall not run counter to the real and vital interests of the Russian people. Nay more; such existence must not only be bearable. It must be of a kind that will place the Jews upon a level with the other inhabitants of the Empire and will give them the necessary opportunity to develop whatever talents or capabilities they possess. It is not for us to prescribe in what manner and by what means this shall be accomplished; and I use the word "must" not in the sense that any compulsion is to be applied to Russia in this respect, but rather as an expression of the certainty that the trial through which the Czar's land is now passing is of such a kind as to purge her necessarily of all traces of national and religious intolerance. This feeling cannot be expressed in better words than those used by M. Bourtzeff, the well-known reactionary, when he said, "We are convinced that after this war there will no longer be any room for political reaction and Russia will be associated with the existing group of cultured and civilized countries."
Proof that such feelings are making their way among the most intelligent portion of the Russian population is shown by the remarkable document put forth some weeks ago over the signatures of noted Christian professors, litterateurs, and members of the Duma, in which the plea is made for the removal of all restrictions that at present shackle the Jews. "Let us understand," they say, "that the welfare and the power of Russia are inseparably bound up with the welfare and liberties of all the nationalities that constitute the whole Empire. Let us then conceive this truth. Let us act in accordance with our intelligence and our conscience, and then we are sure that the disappearance of all kinds of persecution of the Jews and their complete emancipation, so as to be our equals in all rights of citizenship, will form one of the conditions of a real constructive imperial policy." And we are the more persuaded that these views will prevail when we remember that Russia has been brought into closer contact with just those nations of Europe where Jewish emancipation has been most perfect and has brought forth the best fruits. It is unthinkable that these nations should fail to put their influence on the side of Jewish freedom in Russia when European accounts are finally balanced.[B]
The Broken Faith of Roumania
IN the second place, any regulation of the Jewish status in Europe must of necessity include Roumania. The injustice of the Government's attitude in that country is even more pronounced than it is in Russia. For Roumania is bound to a certain course by a "scrap of paper." At the Berlin Congress of 1878, one of the conditions upon which statehood was granted to Roumania was that the rights of free citizenship should be conferred upon the Jewish inhabitants in the principality—who, it may be remarked in passing, were among the oldest residents there. Roumania gave her solemn promise to carry out this condition; but by political subterfuge of the most brazen kind she has circumvented the whole spirit of the demand. The Roumanian Chamber passed a law to the effect that only Jews who had been naturalized by it were entitled to citizenship; and as the Chamber refused to naturalize more than a handful each year, the provisions of the Berlin Treaty have been as good as void. When quite recently—in 1913—during the progress of the last Balkan War and prior to the intervention of Roumania, the Roumanian Jews volunteered to serve in large numbers, the proposal was brought forward to grant the rights of citizenship to all Jews who had entered the army. Yet this proposal was voted down; and the condition of the Jews has remained as it was prior to 1878. They are inhabitants in a country, subject to its laws, liable to all duties placed upon citizens—but they are themselves prohibited from becoming citizens. It is intolerable that such a condition should be allowed to continue; and if right is to take the place of might in the inevitable re-arrangement of the community of European nations, the status of the Roumanian Jews must be one of the Jewish problems to be solved.
The Hope of Regaining Palestine
THERE is a third Jewish problem the importance of which perhaps even transcends the two just mentioned; transcends because of the interest that attaches to it and because of its vital import to every Jew the world over. I refer to the problem of Palestine, which is wrapt up with the very existence of the Jews and which symbolizes the hopes that have been nurtured throughout the centuries. We know that the Jew in his inevitable march westward has kept his face turned towards the East; that in prayer and in meditation his gaze has rested upon that country which enshrined at one and the same time his origin and his future aspirations. It is true that up to within some forty years that aspiration remained in large part a pious wish; and that though it was cherished as coming to realization "quickly and in our day," very few attempts were put through to arm the Almighty with human effort. At best, God-fearing and pious Jews removed to Palestine, either to immerse themselves there in study and contemplation, or to end their days in the odor of sanctity.
But the last twenty-five years have witnessed a conscious effort to make of Palestine a rallying point for the Jewish people, a place where Jewish life may be lived to its fullest extent and which may serve as a beacon light to all parts of the Diaspora. Many a waste place has been made to blossom again; and much of the culture and learning acquired by the Jews in the long centuries of toil and effort has been made available to revivify the Land of Promise. With infinite pains and untold sacrifices the Jewish pioneers went forward in their peaceful effort to regain the soil of their forefathers. Colonies have been founded there; primary schools, high schools and technical institutions have been established, and many of the forces have been started that make the foundation for a permanent settlement. This conscious effort can not have been put forth in vain. Palestine represents the goal of our endeavor. And any settlement after the war that has in view the general problems involved will be forced to take cognizance of the just hopes that we Jews place in the future of that country and the just rights that the Jewish people believe they possess and have acquired there. The form in which such rights shall be expressed is not a matter for discussion at present. The fact alone is of importance. In the past the world has applauded the fight made by the Poles for their national existence; it has followed with interest the Greek War of Independence, the Italian striving for unity, the Irish endeavors for racial autonomy, and the Alsatian effort after independent expression. It must and will appreciate and esteem the attempt made by the Jews to re-fashion their anomalous status and to re-create the statehood that they lost nearly two thousand years ago.
The Collapse of Principles Held Sacred by the Jews
OUR concern, however, in the present world conflict goes further than our own immediate affairs, and meets those interests which we have in common with the rest of humankind. Much as we deplore the wanton destruction of property, much as we bewail the reckless loss of life, we mourn especially the diminution of ethical standards and the perversion of our whole outlook on life. For this means the lapse of much for which our own teachers have stood, the forfeit of many a principle which has been dear to the Jewish heart. Let me touch lightly upon three points out of the many that come to mind.
First of all, what we must deplore most is the defiance to law and to its reign which has become so marked a characteristic during the present war. The agreements arrived at in conventions, the bases of treaties, the binding character of compacts, and the sanctity of engagements—all seem to have been thrown into one melting pot. The mere fact that the expression "a scrap of paper" has become a household word, bandied about by orators and scribblers, shows the distance we have descended into the abyss. The whole structure of our international relations seems to have fallen to the ground and the labored work of centuries to have been undone in a few months. Now, the Jews have been from the earliest times a people that have laid the greatest possible stress upon the rule of law; so much so, that their own laws were supposed to have divine sanction. In olden Jewish times everything was regulated by law—man's relation to his fellow men, to the state, and to God; to such a degree that we have been blamed often for being a law-ridden people. We cannot, therefore, remain oblivious to the fact that the sanctity of law has now been rudely called into question and its authority greatly weakened. As Jews we must be deeply concerned in assisting the European world back to a full consciousness of the majesty and eminence of the rule of law.
But more than that, it was part of our earliest teaching that "thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." What clouds of hatred have not been blown from one line of trenches to the other! What volumes of spleen have not been sent from one country to the other! In countless speeches, in newspapers and in books, the doctrines of dislike, of animosity, of deepest malice have been preached. Men have been taught to look upon certain neighbors as born enemies, to see in those who do not speak their own tongue not only a stranger but an enemy. Back of the soldiers under arms, back of the cannons with their deadly missiles, stand millions of loathing men and women shooting darts of odium that reach further than any shell and that are more poisonous than any gas. When shall we be able once again to preach the beautiful teaching of the prophet, "Have we not all one Father; hath not one God created us all?"
And lastly, we must bear in mind that the Jews have been opposed from of old to the rule and reign of might as represented by the God of War. In a syllabus on the history of the Peace Movement just published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, it is passing strange to find that the Old Testament is entirely overlooked and that from the first point, "The Cosmopolitan Ideal among the Greek Philosophers," the jump is made at once to the second, "Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace." And yet we know that in the outlook of our greatest teachers and philosophers the vision of peace loomed large and powerful. "Ye shall not teach war any more," said one of our greatest. And for another the true sign of his prophetic mission is that he preached peace. How sadly these teachings have been belied in the present war we know only too well.
Is War Necessary and Good?
IN many circles it has been held that development is possible for the human race only with the concomitance of war. What wonder—when modern teachers have preached just such a necessity? Even so great a religious leader as Luther said, "War is a business divine in itself, and is as necessary as eating or drinking or any other work." Should we then wonder that a historian such as von Treitschke has added, "War is the last revealer of power. God will see to it that war always recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race,"—or that another historian, Delbrueck, should have said, "What beauty was to the Greek, holiness to the Hebrew, government to the Romans; what liberty is to the Englishman, war is to the Prussian." Nietzsche, one of the greatest of modern apostles, has based many of his theories upon "a violent repudiation of any faith or tradition which recognizes a power of right and justice lying beyond our impulsive nature; an identification of self-restraint with degeneracy and of self-assertion with health; a search for happiness in the conquest of others rather than in self-conquest; a substitution of the Will to Power for the Darwinian Will to Live, with the consequent intensification of the unconscious and instinctive struggle for existence into a battle for conscious mastery; and a sharpening of the competition of life, with its self-observed rules of fair play or its traditionally imposed limitations, into a glorification of war as the supreme test of strength, obtaining its justification in success."
In a very remarkable article which appeared in the Nineteenth Century for last September, written by a man evidently most religiously minded, appears the following: "Is the heart of England still strong to bear and to resolve and to endure? How shall we know? By the test? What test? That which God has given for the trial of people—the test of war. The real court, the only court in which this case can and will be tried, is the court of God. This twentieth century will see that trial, and whichever people shall have in it the greater soul of righteousness will be the victor. The discovery that Christianity is incompatible with the military spirit is made only among decaying people. While the nation is still vigorous, while its population is expanding, while the blood in its veins is strong, then on this hope no scruples are felt. But when its energies begin to wither, when self-indulgence takes the place of self-sacrifice, when its sons and daughters become degenerate, then it is that a spurious and bastard humanitarianism masquerading as religion declares war to be an anachronism and a barbaric sin."
The Jewish Answer
THE Jewish attitude in regard to this great problem before the world can be dealt with in a very few words. These words have already been given to us in the twentieth chapter of Exodus: "If thou wilt make an altar, thou shalt not wave thy sword over it; for if thou wavest thy sword over it thou hast polluted it." It has been emphasized by the prophet Jeremiah when he said, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might. Let not the rich man glory in his riches; but let him that glorieth, glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the Lord who exerciseth loving kindness, judgment and righteousness on the earth." To this I will add only one single word of the Rabbis: "The whole Torah exists solely for the sake of the ways of peace." This ideal of peace has been the guiding star of Israel for which the Jew has prayed morning, noon and night, and I trust that the young men of the Menorah will be true to that which the Menorah typifies, and will assist in the spreading of its light by upholding the reign of law, the reign of love, and the reign of peace.
FOOTNOTE:
[B] In the last number of The Menorah Journal, Mr. Jacob H. Schiff ventured to suggest the reverse influence, and to intimate that the association of England with Russia was having an adverse effect upon the Jews in England. While Mr. Schiff does not tell us upon what evidence he bases his views, I venture to guess that it consists largely of the mistrust and ill-will caused in England by a small coterie of German-born bankers and their following. But Mr. Schiff must know that this ill-will is in no way connected with the fact that the men referred to are members of the Jewish race. Most of them have never taken the least interest in Jewish affairs, some even have ostentatiously kept themselves quite apart from any connection with them. And what is more, the feeling against them is shared by Jews as well as by non-Jews in England.
Perhaps more serious still is Mr. Schiff's presentment concerning German anti-Semitism. To speak simply of "a certain anti-Semitic tendency in Germany" is to coat the truth with so much honey as almost to reverse its meaning. Anti-Semitism in Germany, and especially in Prussia, has kept the Jews far from any positions of importance in university life, on the bench, and in all state and military affairs. And to add that the war "will crush out most of this anti-Semitic tendency" is to fly in the very face of well-ascertained and authenticated facts of very recent occurrence. In Harper's Weekly for February 6th of this year (p. 122), a series of such facts is adduced. Nor can Mr. Schiff forget that forced conversion away from the Jewish faith and communion has nowhere taken on the dangerous proportions it has in the Fatherland. Russia, it is true, has martyred many Jewish bodies; German "Kultur" has quenched too many Jewish souls. History will have to decide which has done the greater hurt to the Jewish cause.