VII.
LAST YEARS.
From year to year Graetz received an increasing number of proofs of the recognition and veneration paid him by a large circle of readers and admirers and a growing band of friends and aspiring disciples. But the enjoyment of his success was not to be unalloyed. In 1879 the feeling against Jews in Germany, always on the point of breaking out, was set free in the shape of an anti-Semitic movement, to serve as an unfailing instrument for political agitation. Heinrich von Treitschke, an historian characterized by patriotic ardor rather than scrupulous adherence to word and truth, a writer with affecting, oratorical pathos and a brilliant style at his command, soon assumed the rôle of challenger in the fray. He was scandalized by the boasting spirit which, he alleged, was in the ascendant in Jewish circles, and was to be regarded as a menace to the German empire. He illustrated his strictures by references to Graetz, who, he maintained, made use of intemperate language in his polemics against Christianity, and in his “History” had been guilty of applying disrespectful expressions to the German nation.[74] Graetz replied, and Treitschke in turn made him the subject of an article,[75] in which he tried to prove his allegations. He quoted passages from the “History,” tearing them from their context, and resorted to all sorts of sophistry. The leaders of the intelligent portion of Berlin Jewry probably did not realize the gravity of the situation. At all events, they were far from having a clear idea of the means necessary for stemming the rapidly swelling tide. They were disinclined, however, to suffer Treitschke’s attacks to pass unrepulsed, for they had reason to suppose them to be more than the venomous utterances of a professor. Thereupon H. B. Oppenheim, a well-known politician and writer on political economy, and highly esteemed for his disinterested and noble character, adopted the mistaken course of sacrificing Graetz to Treitschke’s aggressive charges without examining them. Confessedly he had not read Graetz’s works, yet he disposed of their author summarily as “a man without tact and fanatically one-sided, whose great learning has been rendered nugatory by the absurdity of his practical deductions.”[76] This peculiar defense of Judaism, to be sure, did not excite distressful feeling in any one, but later events prove it to have been symptomatic of the opinions and the mental constitution of the intellectual notabilities of the Berlin Jewish community.
A Berlin Jew had been put at the head of the “Union of German Israelitish Congregations,”[77] when its headquarters had been moved from Leipsic to Berlin. Active and clever in practical affairs, he invested the “Union” with dignity, and stirred it up to work and enterprise. With his help all sorts of useful undertakings were executed; among them, in 1885, a plan to promote the science of Judaism, hitherto wholly neglected, along definite lines. A commission was to be appointed to make means and sources for research into the history of the Jews of Germany available under the protection of the “Union.” The project was hailed with satisfaction by Jewish scholars. It was hoped that it would eventually furnish the center from which other scientific endeavors might radiate. All hopes of this kind were early doomed to grievous disappointment. The leaders of the “Union” lacked perception of the needs of the situation; they permitted an ambitious young scholar of the Jewish faith, an “extraordinary” professor at the University of Berlin, to become the governing spirit. He was familiar with the mediæval government offices, and did valiant service in the study of documents. But he was destitute of the most elementary knowledge of Hebrew, and therefore could have no conception of the peculiar difficulties the writer of Jewish history has to grapple with. Besides, he had so completely identified himself with his specialty and with the academic world of professors that a realizing sense of the condition and needs of German Judaism was out of the question. Under these circumstances serious mistakes were inevitable. In the first place Graetz was disregarded, completely ignored, when the commission which was to organize and superintend the historical investigations was made up. The arbitrary exclusion of the only or, at all events, the most eminent historian the Jews can boast of must be considered a gross offense against good manners. What is more, the good work was thereby deprived of the best and most valuable guarantee of success. Personal animosity may have contributed to bring about the deplorable action, but that does not alter the fact that Graetz was most familiar with the field of work to be cultivated. None recognized more clearly than he the desiderata[78] that occupied the attention and guided the efforts of the scholars interested in Jewish history at the time. Besides, he was an indefatigable, impulsive worker, and his name was one to conjure with. The slight put upon Graetz called forth decided ill-humor among his numerous friends and disciples, a large portion of whom were the rabbinical heads of respected congregations. Their irritation could not long remain without tangible effect. Moreover, though the commission was composed of highly esteemed scholars, among them Christians who were master historians of the first rank, there was not one member who had attained to more than respectable dilettanteism in his acquaintance with Jewish literature, a thorough knowledge of which was indispensable for the proper realization of the plan, and only one member who had given evidence of his special interest in Jewish history by a work of note. This exception was Professor Stobbe, a humane Christian scholar and eminent jurist, who has described the historico-legal status of the German Jews in “The Jews in Germany during the Middle Ages,”[79] a book that has not yet been superseded. The absence of Jewish scholars, specifically of Jewish historians, awakened distrust in the ability of the commission. In fact, its achievements, as displayed in the “Journal for the History of the Jews in Germany”[80] and in separate publications, are far from realizing the expectations awakened by the boastful, arrogant tone of scientific conceit in which the leaders announced the undertaking, and are out of all proportion to the expenditures incurred. The most ambitious production, “Documents on the History of the Jews, etc.,”[81] is a fragment. Quietly, unnoticed, the experiment died one day in the year 1892.[82]
The inconsiderate treatment accorded him by the Berlin coterie or other circles did not cause Graetz much heart-ache, and whatever soreness it may have produced was completely healed by London, whence he received the flattering invitation to open the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition with a lecture. The honorable reception accorded him in the English capital, the persons whose acquaintance he made, and the impressions he carried home with him, all this refreshed him, and put him into a buoyant frame of mind. The visit to England he accounted one of the happiest and most enjoyable events of his life. The experiences gathered there strengthened the hope, to which he had often given expression, that salvation would arise for Judaism out of England and America.
On October 31, 1887, he celebrated the seventieth anniversary of his birth. His disciples and friends made it the occasion for an extraordinary ovation, and from all countries and climes homage was laid at his feet. An overwhelming number of addresses, gifts, congratulatory letters, and poems proved that his achievements were in the mind and his honor in the keeping of the whole body of intelligent Jews. A particularly gratifying surprise came in the shape of a diploma announcing that on October 27, 1888, he, the Jew, who had not dealt leniently with the Spanish nation in his historical writings, had been elected an honorary member of its section in history by the Spanish Academy at Madrid.
Until the very last his body and mind retained remarkable elasticity and vigor; time seemed to pass him by unnoticed. His indestructible working powers and his literary fertility continued to be astonishing.[83] Even after concentrating his efforts on exegetical research, he was a vigilant reader of the monographs in whatever civilized language, bearing, however remotely, on problems of the science of Judaism. He gave the conclusions reached in them a critical examination, and either noted them for the enrichment and correction of a new edition of his “History,” or refuted them in special articles, if they seemed sufficiently important. For, besides his historical and exegetical works, in number and bulk an imposing array, he published numberless essays and Programmschriften on the most various subjects, many of them real gems, models of clear writing and deep scholarship. In some of them daring theories are advanced, as, for instance, the one which he would never abandon, that the Massora originated with the Karaites, from whose literary works the Rabbanites derived it. The conjecture was received with a great display of indignation, but its refutation was not equally emphatic, and it cannot be denied that certain evidences may be interpreted in its favor.
Among his Programmschriften the following deserve to be singled out: “Visigothic Legislation with Regard to the Jews,”[84] in the annual report of the Jewish Theological Seminary for 1858; “Frank and the Frankists,”[85] in that for 1868; and “The Kingdom of Mesene and its Jewish Population,”[86] in that for 1879. In the Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, of which, as mentioned above, he was the editor from 1869, the greater part of the articles issued from his pen. There is but one way of accounting for his numerous achievements: he understood to perfection the art of utilizing every moment.
Five o’clock in the morning found Graetz at his desk. Until nine he gave uninterrupted attention to his literary work. After that hour he was in the habit of devoting himself to his lectures. He carried on an extensive correspondence, found leisure for all sorts of things, and was fond of the innocent gayeties of social life. He retired late, and in general needed but little sleep. His sound, almost invincible nervous system was supplemented by a constitution calculated to supply his extraordinary capacity for work with a proper physical basis. He was of average height, and habitually bent forward his lean and spare, but sinewy, muscular figure, built upon a strong bony frame. His face was somewhat marred by pock-marks, but his head made a massive, unusual impression. Soft, chestnut-brown, later gray hair, in fair though not clustering abundance, crowned his board-like, square forehead. His sharp, observant eyes, grayish-brown in color, betokened the owner’s enjoyment of life, and a somewhat large, prominent nose with its delicate nostrils, quivering like “feelers,” gave his long, oval, bony face its characteristic searching expression. Sometimes sadness played about his lips, but usually they were curled by mockery, irony, and defiance, as though sarcastic words might dart out at any moment. In point of fact, sharp satire occasionally spiced his conversation, which, as a rule, however, was far from fulfilling the expectations aroused by his writings. In his younger years happy moments found him full of jokes and pranks for the delectation of his domestic circle, and at all times he displayed unquenchable zest for life and cheerful optimism. Love of family was a dominant trait in him. Towards his wife his bearing was always tender and attentive, as though the honeymoon had not passed; towards his daughter it was marked by the perfection of gallantry; towards his sons he exercised forbearance and self-sacrificing devotion, and his aged father he met with the filial respect of Talmudic times. He enjoyed and cultivated intercourse with friends. For a friend, for any person or cause that had enlisted his sympathy, he was ready to pledge himself. Deeply moved by the sad conditions prevalent in Palestine, he had brought thence a plan for the education of Jewish orphans in Jerusalem. He and his traveling companions founded a society, and he exerted himself to secure a fund, small though it might be, for the promotion of its object. For this purpose he took journey after journey, delivered lectures, at first much against his inclination, in many cities, and even accepted an invitation to go to Galicia, where he was received with joyful demonstrations and overwhelmed with flattering homage. Encouraged by such successes, he persisted, until he had put the society upon a modest but secure basis, which enables it to continue its good work to this day.
Robust and vigorous as he felt himself, he undertook in his old age a work in which he meant to sum up his Bible studies of a critical and exegetical character. He counted, not upon the sympathy of his contemporaries, but upon the appreciation of a late posterity. All subordinate occupations were dropped. In 1888 he even discontinued the publication of the Monatsschrift, none of his pupils being able then to assume the editorial management. In order to give a clear, comprehensive review of the results of his Biblical text studies, he proposed to print the Hebrew Bible in its entirety with emendations and short notes justifying them. In 1891 all preparatory work was completed, and the printing was begun. How he cherished this life-work of his is evident from the prospectus. Contrary to his custom, he addresses himself to his friends, and requests them to assist him in his venture.
“At the end of my life,” he says in the prospectus, “I have undertaken the laborious task of summarizing the emendations of the text of the Holy Scriptures, the admissibility and justification of which no less than the necessity for which the accompanying prospectus sets forth.... I beg you to aid my efforts ... in order that the pecuniary risk incurred may not too far transcend my means.”