Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette History Faculty Research and Publications History, Department of 1-1-2005 Rudolf Steiner and the Jewish Question Peter Staudenmaier Marquette University,
[email protected] Published version. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2005): 127-147. Permalink. © 2005 Oxford University Press. Used with permission. Antisemitism 128 Peter Staudenmaier writings.3 An overvie w of Steiner's shifting perspective onJudaism and antisemitism may provide some insight into these enigmati c questions. What follows is a brief and necessaril y schema tic attempt to summa rise Steiner's protean stance on the 'J ewish question", that fa teful topi c comma nding such intense interest a mong Steiner's contemporaries. RUDOLF STEINER AND THE 'JEWISH QUESTION" The subject of anthroposophy's relationship toJews and Judaism is a complex and contentious one, in part because of the widely dispa ra te viewpoints represented among past and present a nthroposophists. A number of Steiner's followers came fromJe\vish backgrounds; the early Zionist leader Hugo Bergmann, for example, was for a time a devoted student a nd admirer of Steiner. At the same time, both Steiner's immediate predecessors a nd colleagues, the theosophists, and several of his successors within the first generation of anthroposophists promoted a sharp contrast between '1\ryans" and "Semites" tha t systematically privileged the former while systematically denigrating the latter. 4 Steiner's collected works, moreover, totalling more tha n 350 volumes, contain pelvasive inte rnal contradictio ns and inconsistencies on racial and national questions. Alternating betvveen patently racist and a nti-racist precepts, his overall racial theories a re somewhat difficult to reconstruct, much less summa rise adequately.