Lessing's Jews

Readings for March 5: Texts written to combat antisemitism 1. Lessing, excerpt from The Jews (1749) 2. Introduction to Lessing, Nathan the Wise (1779) – optional reading 3. Lessing, Nathan the Wise: Act II, Scene 5; Act III, Scenes 5-7 4. Ricarda Huch, “The Jew’s Grave” (1905) 5. Franz Fühmann, “The Jews’ Auto” (1962) Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Excerpt from The Jews (1754) Two servants of a baron, disguised as Jews with fake beards, stage an attack on their master which is thwarted through the energetic intervention of a traveler who happens to be passing by. Full of gratitude, the baron invites the stranger to be a guest at his estate, where the latter meets the baron’s daughter. Blinded by anti-Jewish prejudices, the baron is all too willing to believe that Jews were the criminals. However, the real perpetrators are soon revealed; the noble rescuer is, as it finally turns out, a Jew himself. — This is the tale told by Lessing’s one-act play “The Jews” of 1754, in which the author presented a positive Jewish figure on the German stage for the first time. In the Preface to the third and fourth section of his complete works, Lessing explains what led him to write this play: “It was the result of a very serious meditation on the disgraceful oppression under which a whole people must sigh, a people whom a Christian, or so I would think, cannot regard without a kind of respect. From this people, I thought, so many heroes and prophets have arisen in earlier times, and today people doubt that an honest man could be found among them? . So I soon got the idea of testing what kind of effect it would have on stage if one were to present virtue to the public where they least expect to find it.” Lessing thus writes in conscious opposition to the expectations of the contemporary theater audience. Deviating from the typical form of comedy in the early Enlightenment period, the center of the play is not a character whose faults are exposed to ridicule, but rather a widespread prejudice which is to be corrected by means of an exemplary action aimed at insight and understanding. In this excerpt there appear, in addition to the protagonists, the Traveler’s servant Christoph and the daughter’s maidservant Lisette. The box referred to at the end of Scene 22 had previously been stolen from the Traveler, but through a circuitous route it made its way back into his possession. Scene 6 The Baron. The Traveler. Baron. Wasn’t my daughter with you just now? Why is that wild young girl running away? Traveler. It is an immeasurable good fortune to have such a pleasant and cheerful daughter. She enchants through her speech, in which the most lovable innocence and the most natural wit prevails. Baron. You are too generous in your judgment of her. She has spent little time among her peers, and she has little of the art of pleasing, which one can hardly learn in the country, and which can often achieve more than beauty itself. Everything in her is nature that has been left to itself. Traveler. And this nature is all the more captivating, the less one encounters it in the city. Everything there is distorted, forced, and artificial. Indeed, people there have gone so far as to regard stupidity, rudeness, and nature as synonymous. Baron. What could be more pleasant for me than to see how our thoughts and judgments coincide to such a degree? Alas, if I had only had a friend of your kind for a longer time! Traveler. Surely you are being unjust to your other friends. Baron. To my other friends, you say? I am fifty years old. —I have had acquaintances, but no friends until now. And never has friendship seemed so enticing to me as in the few hours that I have striven for yours. How can I earn it? Traveler. My friendship means so little that the mere desire for it is sufficient merit to obtain it. Your request is worth far more than that which you request. Baron. Dear Sir, the friendship of a benefactor — Traveler. With your permission — the friendship of a benefactor is no real friendship. If you see me in this false shape, I cannot be your friend. Assume for a moment that I really were your benefactor: would I not have reason to fear that your friendship were nothing more than an effective kind of gratitude? Baron. Cannot the two be combined? Traveler. With great difficulty! Gratitude sees a noble disposition as its duty, while friendship demands nothing but spontaneous emotions of the soul. Baron. But how should I — Your all too delicate taste confuses me. Traveler. Do not rate me higher than I deserve. At most I am a person who took pleasure in performing his duty. Your friendship is ample reward for the fact that I took pleasure in it. Baron. This nobility confuses me still more. — But perhaps I am too bold. — I had not wanted yet to presume to ask your name and your station. Perhaps I am offering my friendship to one who — who has the right to despise — Traveler. Forgive me, good sir! You — you imagine — you have far too great an opinion of me. Baron (aside). Shall I ask him after all? He might be offended by my curiosity. Traveler (aside). If he asks me, what will I answer him? Baron (aside). If I don’t ask him, he may think me rude. Traveler (aside). Shall I tell him the truth? Baron (aside). But I want to take the safest course. I will first inquire with his servant. Traveler (aside). If only I could rise above this confusion! Baron. Why so pensive? Traveler. I was just preparing to ask you the same question, good sir! Baron. I know, one forgets oneself now and then. Let us talk of something else. — Do you see that the ones who attacked me really were Jews? Just now our mayor told me that a few days ago he met three of them on the street. The way he described them to me, they looked more like villains than like honest people. A people so intent on profit little asks whether it be obtained justly or unjustly, through deceit or violence. — They seem to be made for wheeling and dealing, or, to put it plainly, for cheating. Their qualities — politeness, freedom, enterprisingness, reticence — would be valuable if they did not use them all too much for our misfortune. — (He pauses a moment.) — Even before this, the Jews have caused me no little harm and annoyance. When I was still in the military, I allowed myself to be persuaded to co- sign a loan for one of my acquaintances; and the Jew to whom I had obligated myself brought me to the point that I not only had to pay him, but even that I had to pay him twice. — Oh! they are the most malicious, the most despicable people! — What do you say to this? You seem quite downcast. Traveler. What shall I say? I must say that I have heard this complaint very often — Baron. And isn’t it true that even the shape of their faces has something about it that ill disposes us toward them? Deceit, lack of conscience, selfishness, deception, and false witness — it is said one can read all this in their features. — But why do you turn away from me? Traveler. I hear from you that you are a great connoisseur of physiognomies, and I fear that mine — Baron. Oh! You wound me. How can you form such a suspicion? Without being a connoisseur of physiognomy, I must tell you I have never found such an honest, noble, and pleasing countenance as is yours. Traveler. To confess the truth to you: I am not partial to generalizations about entire peoples. — Forgive me for speaking freely. — I should think that among all nations there could exist good and bad souls. And among the Jews as well — . Scene 22 The young woman and those from the previous scene. .Baron. Come, my daughter, come! Tie your request to mine: bid my rescuer accept your hand, and with it my fortune. What can my gratitude bestow on him which is more valuable than you, whom I love as much as I do him? Only do not marvel that I can give you such a commission. Your servant has revealed to us who you are. Grant me the inestimable pleasure of showing my appreciation! My fortune is equal to my station, and my station is equal to yours. Here you are safe from your enemies and you have come among friends who will adore you. But you become downcast? What shall I think? The young woman. Are you perhaps troubled on my account? I assure you, I will obey my father with pleasure. Traveler. Your magnanimity astonishes me. From the magnitude of the reward that you offer me, only now I recognize how small was my good deed. But how shall I answer you? My servant did not tell the truth, and I — Baron. If only heaven willed that you were not even that which he gave you out to be! If only heaven willed that your station was lower than mine! Then my reward would be more precious, and you would be less disinclined to honor my request. Traveler (aside). Why do I not reveal myself? — Good sir, your nobility penetrates my whole soul. Only you must ascribe it to destiny, not to me, that your offer is in vain.

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