We shall not again touch on those causes which are a result of
temperament, prejudice and narrow views, but shall here restrict
ourselves to political and economical causes alone. Modern
Anti-Semitism is not to be confounded with the religious persecution
of the Jews of former times. It does occasionally take a religious
bias in some countries, but the main current of the aggressive
movement has now changed. In the principal countries where
Anti-Semitism prevails, it does so as a result of the emancipation of
the Jews. When civilized nations awoke to the inhumanity of
discriminatory legislation and enfranchised us, our enfranchisement
came too late. It was no longer possible to remove our disabilities in
our old homes. For we had, curiously enough, developed while in the
Ghetto into a bourgeois people, and we stepped out of it only to enter
into fierce competition with the middle classes. Hence, our
emancipation set us suddenly within this middle-class circle, where we
have a double pressure to sustain, from within and from without. The
Christian bourgeoisie would not be unwilling to cast us as a sacrifice
to Socialism, though that would not greatly improve matters.
At the same time, the equal rights of Jews before the law cannot be
withdrawn where they have once been conceded. Not only because their
withdrawal would be opposed to the spirit of our age, but also because
it would immediately drive all Jews, rich and poor alike, into the
ranks of subversive parties. Nothing effectual can really be done to
our injury. In olden days our jewels were seized. How is our movable
property to be got hold of now? It consists of printed papers which
are locked up somewhere or other in the world, perhaps in the coffers
of Christians. It is, of course, possible to get at shares and
debentures in railways, banks and industrial undertakings of all
descriptions by taxation, and where the progressive income-tax is in
force all our movable property can eventually be laid hold of. But all
these efforts cannot be directed against Jews alone, and wherever they
might nevertheless be made, severe economic crises would be their
immediate consequences, which would be by no means confined to the
Jews who would be the first affected. The very impossibility of
getting at the Jews nourishes and embitters hatred of them.
Anti-Semitism increases day by day and hour by hour among the nations;
indeed, it is bound to increase, because the causes of its growth
continue to exist and cannot be removed. Its remote cause is our loss
of the power of assimilation during the Middle Ages; its immediate
cause is our excessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot
find an outlet downwards or upwards--that is to say, no wholesome
outlet in either direction. When we sink, we become a revolutionary
proletariat, the subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties;
and at the same time, when we rise, there rises also our terrible
power of the purse.