The second zone includes Austria, Germany, and to a minor degree France, where are settled approximately three millions of Jews. Save in Galicia, where political and racial turmoil is constantly giving the Jewish situation the sombre tinge of a problem, the Jews are finding themselves, for the most part, in a precarious position. Nationalism demands that they surrender their racial identity and proclivities; anti-Semitism declares upon the verdict of science that such surrender is impossible, and substitutes repression, assimilation, or extinction. The Jews in attempting to satisfy the conditions by entering fully into all the activities of national life arouse through their success only greater hostility; and the situation becomes converted into a vicious circle.
France to a large degree and England comprise the third zone, where the Jewish position is identical with that of the fourth zone, the United States, save in one important detail. The Jews in these two zones, numbering only one-and-a-half million, have entered freely into the national life about them, and, except for minor social disabilities which can only make the judicious smile, have been accorded equality, with the result that the Jew qua Jew is exposed to complete assimilation. The distinction between the third and fourth zone is that in England and France, anti-Semitism based on Nationalism is a potentiality (though the recent Aliens Bill and Chesterton trial would suggest that it might be more than this), whereas the open-door theory of settlement which created the United States militates basically against race-discrimination. The Jew of England and America does not face persecution nor repression, but a gradual and apparently pleasant extinction.
The medieval Jew found himself a necessary, well-paying, if not honored, guest in the households of Europe; but the day when the Jew resolved on adopting the life and manners of his host, the host resolved on drawing tightly the family lines. The modern Jew has discovered it necessary either to convince the obdurate host, who points to a scientifically certified chart of the family-tree, that he too is of blood germane, or take himself to lodgings in the cellarage. And yet—a third possibility here insinuates itself—why may not the Jew set up housekeeping for himself?
The Vain Effort of Reform Judaism
THE medieval Jew would have accepted without hope the unfortunate predicament; the modern Jew, nerved with a distillation of the Revolutionary "rights of men" and confident that he was not combating the implacability of a religious hatred, adopted expedient and remedial measures, the chief of which, since they form the opposition to Zionism, will be outlined.
To justify Emancipation before and after it was secured, assimilative doctrines of a peculiar type, known as Reform Judaism,[22] whereby the essentials of Jewish life were to be separated and saved, constituted the main attempt of the Jew to demonstrate that he was a member of the households of Europe and not an intruder. Reform Judaism began as a result of the Haskalah by simplifying and beautifying, according to European standards, the Orthodox religious service (Germany 1810-20), and ended by abandoning the Messianic Restoration, the doctrine that Israel is in exile and that the prophecies are literally to be fulfilled. The expediency of these measures is apparent. To refute the anti-Semitic charge of racial inferiority, the existence of the race as a separate entity was denied, and the necessary scientific backing has lately been secured.[23] To meet the Nationalists, Israel's national hopes were declared void, and it was strongly urged that the basis of a modern nation is citizenship and not race.
The Reformers proceeded further and maintained that the Jewish people were themselves the Messiah, whose mission was "to spread by its fortitude and loyalty the monotheistic truth all over the earth, and to be an example of rectitude to all others,"[24] whose goal was "not a national Messianic State, but the realization in society of the principles of righteousness as enunciated by the prophets;"[25] wherefore, it was not only just that they receive citizenship, but religious duty compelled the Jew to demand it.
The Jewish religion was considered the essential possession of the Jewish people—so essential that it was to be maintained at the sacrifice of assimilation; but nowhere is it made apparent how a religion can be maintained without a people, how a people can be maintained without separation, and how separation can be maintained without abandoning the no-race, no-nation propositions. If these are abandoned, the Jews are precisely where they began—another circle whose viciousness is becoming obvious and is resulting in the constant discarding of Jewish rite and form, until the religion which was to be prized and saved is fast becoming a watery Unitarianism, and its adherents are allowing themselves, where permitted, to become completely assimilated. Reform Judaism which began as a compromise is ending as a surrender. The final and unanswerable objection to Reform Judaism as a solution is that the majority of Jews will not even in theory accept it. The devotion to race, religion, and separation is too strong. The Gentile in asking the Jew to assimilate is undoubtedly right; the refusal of the Jew undoubtedly is not wrong; and the ring of true tragedy becomes audible.
The Palliative Measures of Philanthropy