Library.Anarhija.Net Antisemitism: Its History and Causes Bernard Lazare Bernard Lazare Antisemitism: Its History and Causes 1894 Retrieved on 2016-10-28 from http://marxists.architexturez.net/ reference/archive/lazare-bernard/1894/antisemitism/index.htm Source: Internet Jewish History Sourcebook, thanks to Paul Halsall, November 1998; CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2006. This book is a reply to Drumont’s confused antisemitism and to its mirror image in the fantasies entertained by many Jews on their own history. Lazare died in 1903, before he could assess the development of Zionism, of which he was both one of the builders and one of the first critcs. lib.anarhija.net 1894 Contents Preface 4 Chapter One: General Causes of Antisemitism 5 Footnotes 19 Chapter Two: Anti-Judaism in Antiquity 20 Chapter Three: Anti-Judaism in Christian-Antiquity: From the Foundation of Chruch of Constantine 33 Chapter Four: Antisemitism from Constantine to the Eighth Century 45 Chapter Five: Anti-Judaism from the Eighth Century to the Reformation 66 Chapter Six: Anti-Judaism from the Time of the Reforma- tion to the French Revolution 86 Chapter Seven: Anti-Judaic Literature and Prejudices 101 Chapter Eight: Modern Legal Anti-Judaism 118 Chapter Nine: Modern Antisemitism and its Literature 133 Chapter Ten: The Race 148 Chapter Eleven: Nationalism and Antisemitism 160 2 Chapter Twelve: The Revolutionary Spirit in Judaism 174 Chapter Thirteen: The Jew as a Factor in the Transforma- tion of Society 184 Chapter Fourteen: The Economic Causes of Antisemitism 202 Chapter Fifteen: The Fate of Antisemitism 216 3 having worked hand in hand with the Jacobins of 1789 and the Lib- erals and Revolutionists of the nineteenth century, this very anti- semitism is acting, in fact, as an ally of the Revolution. Drumont in France, Pattai in Hungary, Stoecker and von Boeckel in Ger- many are co-operating with the very demagogues and revolution- Preface ists whom they believe they are attacking. This antisemitic move- ment, in its origin reactionary, has become transformed and is act- PORTIONS of this book, which at various times appeared in the ing now for the advantage of the revolutionary cause. Antisemitism newspapers and periodicals, received the honour of being noticed stirs up the middle class, the small tradesmen, and sometimes the and discussed. This has induced me to write the few lines that fol- peasant, against the Jewish capitalist, but in doing so it gently leads low. them toward Socialism, prepares them for anarchy, infuses in them It has been my intention to write neither an apology nor a dia- a hatred for all capitalists, and, more than that, for capital in the tribe, but an impartial study in history and sociology. I dislike an- abstract. And thus, unconsciously, antisemitism is working its own tisemitism; it is a narrow, one-sided view, still I have sought to ac- ruin, for it carries in itself the germ of destruction. count for it. It was not born without cause, I have searched for its Such, then, is the probable fate of modern antisemitism. I have causes. Whether I have succeeded in discovering them, it is for the tried to show how it may be traced back to the ancient hatred reader to decide. against the Jews; how it persisted after the emancipation of the Jews, An opinion as general as antisemitism, which has flourished in how it has grown and what are its manifestations. In every way I am all countries and in all ages, before and after the Christian era, at led to believe that it must ultimately perish, and that it will perish Alexandria, Rome, and Antiachia, in Arabia, and in Persia, in me- for the various reasons which I have indicated, because the Jew is diaeval and in modern Europe, in a word, in all parts of the world undergoing a process of change; because religious, political, social, wherever there are or have been Jews such an opinion, it has seemed and economic conditions are likewise changing; but above all, be- to me, could not spring from a mere whim or fancy, but must be the cause antisemitism is one of the last, though most long lived, man- effect of deep and serious causes. ifestations of that old spirit of reaction and narrow conservatism, It has, therefore, been my aim to draw a full-size picture of anti- which is vainly attempting to arrest the onward movement ofthe semitism, of its history and causes, to follow its successive changes Revolution. and transformations. Such a study might easily fill volumes. I have, therefore, been obliged to limit its scope, confining myself to broad outlines and omitting details. I hope to take up, at no distant day, some of its aspects which could only be hinted at here, and I shall then endeavour to show what has been the intellectual, moral, eco- nomic and revolutionary role of the Jew in the world. BERNARD LAZARE. Paris, 25 April, 1894. 4 225 characteristics. The progress of internationalism must bring about the decay of antisemitism. Parallel with the decline of national prej- udices the Jews will witness the economic causes of antisemitism losing their force. At present the Jews are assailed as the represen- tatives of foreign wealth. It is therefore just to suppose that when the animosity against things foreign shall have disappeared, Jew- Chapter One: General Causes ish capital will no longer be an object of attack for Christian capital. Competition will, of course, persist in spite of all this, and those of Antisemitism Jews who persist in maintaining their national identity, will always remain the objects of an hostility based upon this competitive strug- To make the history of antisemitism complete, omitting none of gle. the manifestations of this sentiment and following its divers phases Other events, however, and other changes may bring about the and modifications, it is necessary to go into the history of Israel disappearance of these economic causes. In the struggle which is since its dispersion, or, more properly speaking, since the beginning now on between the proletariat and the industrial and financial of its expansion beyond the boundaries of Palestine. classes, we shall possibly see Jewish and Christian capitalists forget- Wherever the Jews settled after ceasing to be a nation ready to ting their differences to unite against a common enemy. If present defend its liberty and independence, one observes the development social conditions persist, however, such a union of the Christian of antisemitism, or rather anti-Judaism; for antisemitism is an ill and Jewish bourgeoisie can only bring about a temporary truce. chosen word, which has its raison d’etre only in our day, when it From the battle which must inevitably be fought out, the indica- is sought to broaden this strife between the Jew and the Christians tions are that Capital cannot come out the victor. Founded upon by supplying it with a philosophy and a metaphysical, rather than egoism, upon selfishness, upon injustice, upon lies, and upon theft, a material reason. If this hostility, this repugnance had been shown our present society is doomed to disappear. However brilliant it towards the Jews at one time or in one country only, it would be may appear, however resplendent, refined, luxurious, magnificent, easy to account for the local causes of this sentiment. But this race it is stricken with death. It has been weighed morally and found has been the object of hatred with all the nations amidst whom it wanting. The bourgeoisie which exercises all political power be- ever settled. Inasmuch as the enemies of the Jews belonged to divers cause it holds control of all economic agencies, will draw upon its races, as they dwelled far apart from one another, were ruled by resources in vain; in vain will it appeal to all the armies that de- different laws and governed by opposite principles; as they hadnot fend it, to all the tribunals of justice that watch over it, to all the the same customs and differed in spirit from one another, sothat legal codes that protect it; it will not be able to withstand the inflex- they could not possibly judge alike of any subject, it must needs ible laws which day by day are working towards the substitution of be that the general causes of antisemitism have always resided in communal property for the capitalistic regime. Israel itself, and not in those who antagonized it. Everything is tending to bring about such a consummation. Such This does not mean that justice was always on the side of Israel’s is the irony of things that antisemitism which everywhere is the persecutors, or that they did not indulge in all the extremes born of creed of the conservative class, of those who accuse the Jews of 224 5 hatred; it is merely asserted that the Jews were themselves, in part, terialism, opposed to all religious feeling; on the other, our way is at least, the cause of their own ills. towards a state of philosophic and moral unreligion which shall be Considering the unanimity of antisemitic manifestations, it can “a degree higher than religion or civilization itself.”5 At the same hardly be admitted, as had too willingly been done, that they were time while these tendencies are increasing, religious prejudice is merely due to a religious war, and one must not view the strife tending to disappear, and the prejudice of Christian against Jew, against the Jews as a struggle of polytheism against monotheism, and of Jew against Christian, persistent, in its way, as the prejudice or that of the Trinity against Jehovah. The polytheistic, as well as of the Catholic against the Protestant, cannot possibly be the only the Christian nations combated not the doctrine of one sole God, one to remain.