| The Jewish People's
Experience in Christian Europe |
| "It is From This
Point of View That I Would Have You Look at The Zionist Movement" |
| Einstein
reflects on his grandparents' world |
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Note to visitors: The first page of this
project draws on an address in which Einstein surveyed the historical
predicament of the Jewish people. This is Einstein's account of
the background to the rise of Zionism and the attraction the movement
held for him. The year-by-year account begins in the next section.
(1879-1909).
You will find this a work in progress. Some
sections are quite noticably incomplete. Check back again to see
how they improve.
Copyrights: Finally, the material I have
collected over the years comes from web sites, books, magazines,
and newspaper articles. Please read the note on copyright here.
Thank you -- Dan Cutler
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"IT IS FROM THIS
POINT OF VIEW
THAT I WOULD HAVE YOU LOOK AT THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT"
1.
of 5
A
CENTURY AGO...
Einstein Looks at His Grandparent's
World
A
century ago our forefathers, with few exceptions, lived in the
ghetto. They were poor, without political rights, separated from
the gentiles by a barrier of religious traditions, habits of life,
and legal restrictions; their intellectual development was restricted
to their own literature, and they had remained almost unaffected
by the mighty advance of the European intellect which dates from
the Renaissance.
skip
to 2.
addresess delivered during Einstein's
third visit to US (1931-32) reproduced as "Addresses on the
Reconstruction in Palestine" in The World as I See
It p.181
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Einstein: "Our
forefathers...lived in the ghetto"
By law Jews in most major cities
were segregated in ghettos. In some times and places these were
locked at night. Yet even ghetto living was not guaranteed.
In the time of Einstein's grandparents a special residence tax
was required of Jews for the privilege.
Pictured is the Vilna
ghetto in a pre-WWI photograph.
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| Einstein: "They were poor" |
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Jewish Beggars
Legally excluded from owning land or practicing most trades,
by Einstein's grandparents time, "mid-ninteenth century,
half the Jews of Germany were either beggars or a step away
from it, without a permanent right of residence."
more
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Dealers in Second-Hand Clothes
Jewish merchants managed to
eke out some profit by recycling goods.
copperplate engraving
Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki 1780
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Street Peddlers
Small scale retail sales was another typical Jewish occupation.
A merchant might hawk his wares from a street corner like the
depicted figure. Others travelled long distances carrying their
goods on their backs.
Vergameling Mans en Vrouwstaden
1833
Leo Baeck Institute, NY
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%20moneylender.jpg) |
Moneylending
The livelihood most commonly associated
with Jews in Europe over the centuries was lending money at interest,
a practice forbidden to Christians by Church law. Jews were channeled
into the reviled profession as one of the few way left for them
to make a living. Small time pawnbroking at high interest rates
(partly to pay taxes required of Jews only) practically assured
each encounter between a Jew and a destitute loan-seeker would
be bitter and filled with resentment.
Jewish moneylenders portrayed
in a Spanish manuscript from late 1200s.
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Einstein: Our forefathers in the ghetto were "without
rights"
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Property of
the King
Jews were categorized
in a legal standing unto themselves in medieval European society,
separate from the rights and privileges of peasants, nobility,
artisans, etc. They were designated servi camera -- property
of the the local ruler. The ruler was responsible to guarantee
physical safety for his Jews, and to protect their internal autonomy.
In exchange, the community was his to milk for revenue.
Codex Balduinensis
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Einstein: Our forefathers were "separated
from the Gentiles"
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Fourth
Lateran Council text coming
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Distinctive garb
was mandatory for Jews when they
went out of the ghetto to assure they were set apart when walking
among Christians. These Jews are wearing a sort of dunce cap.
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Jews Badge
These sixteenth century German Jews are marked with a yellow
circle. In the twentieth century the German Nazi regime revived
the medieval pratice.
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The Triumph
of Church Over Synagogue
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Triumph of Christianity
over Judaism
Degradation of the Jews is explained
in theological terms on the wall of Strasbourg Cathedral. Depicted
is the crowned Church while Synagogue, blinfolded to the truth
of the Gospels, continues to lean on the broken staff of the Old
Testamanet.
"It
would be licit to hold Jews, because of their crimes [of failing
to embrace Christianity] in perpetual servitude, and therefore
the princes may regard the possessions of Jews as belonging to
the State." [St. Thomas Aquinas: De Regimine Judaeorum]
Church Triumphant over
Synagogue Strasbourg Cathedral c. 1230
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Einstein: Our forefathers
were intellectually "restricted to their own literature"
In the ghettoes of Christian Europe
and those of the Islamic empire, Jewish intellectuals spent their
lives engrossed in the ancient texts, including agricultural laws
of the lost homeland.
Cover page of
Tractate "Seeds", the division of the Talmud including
agricultural laws. Shown here is a nineteenth century printing
of the Jerusalem Talmud (also called "The Palestinian Talmud".
Produced under oppressive Roman rule following the Bar Kochba
Revolt, the Jerusalem Talmud is regarded less authoritative than
the version compiled under the freer conditions that prevailed
in Babylonia.
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"Thousands of Years of
Our Martyrdom"
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Einstein's description evokes the preceding
centuries of precarious existence for a reviled people, what he once described
as the "thousands of years of our martyrdom" which should inform
our Zionist efforts to "solve the problem of living side by side
with our brother the Arab in an open, generous, and worthy manner."
source.
Some of the more lethal prejudices with which
they had to contend:
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The Blood Libel
Jews were accused of kidnapping and
murdering Christian children to use their blood in Passover rituals
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Two depictions of the alleged ritual murder
of Simon of Trent
Simon of Trent, aged two, disappeared around Easter 1475. His
father alleged that he had been kidnapped and murdered by the
local Jewish community. Eighteen Jewish men and five Jewish women
were arrested on the charge of ritual murder - the killing of
a Christian child in order to use his blood in Jewish religious
rites. In a series of interrogations that involved liberal use
of judicial torture, the magistrates obtained the confessions
of the Jewish men. Eight were executed in late June, and another
committed suicide in jail. Leaders of the Jewish community were
arrested, and seventeen of them confessed under torture. Fifteen
of them, including the head of the community, were burned at the
stake.
Top: Gandolfino d' Asti, late 15th century Italian painting (note
the yellow circles on the Jews' cloaks)
Bottom: woodcut print from a facsimile of Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg
Chronicle or Buch der Chroniken, printed by Anton Koberger in
1493
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Jews Burned Alive
Despite the protests of Pope Clement
VI, over 60 large and 150 small Jewish communities were destroyed
as a direct result of blood libel accusations. These included
untold atrocities in Basel, Cologne, Strasbourg, Worms, Zurich
and other cities.
Burning of the Jews
of Nuremberg, woodcut, in Hartmann Schedel's Nuremberg Chronicle
(1493)
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Note:
Zionist writer Echad Ha'am (whose humanistic vision of the Jewish
national movement is similar to Einstein's) drew a unique lesson
from the blood libel: It is indeed possible that the whole world
is wrong and the Jews are right, he concluded. Consider the blood
libel. Despite the widespread acceptance of the malicious myth,
no Jew raised among Jews believes for a moment that any Jewish
community practices cannibalism of Christian blood.
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The Black Plague Libel
Jews were accused of causing Bubonic plague by poisoning
Christians' wells.
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Poisoners of Wells
Jews were accussed of causing
the pandemic that wiped out 1/3 to 3/4 of Western Europe in the
14th century by deliberately poisoning wells.
Triumph of Death, an
allegorical depiction of the Black Death devastation by Pieter
Bruegel the Elder, c. 1562.
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%20German%20law%20codex%20Jews%20bottommost%20class.jpg)
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Jews: The bottommost
class of society
The German law codex on the
left, from the late 1100's, shows Jews at the bottom of society's
ranks. The Jews depicted in the wood cut on the right are still
on society's lowest rung four centuries later.
L: German law codex,
Jews as bottommost class, late 1100s
R: True Descriptions of All the Classes on Earth, Hans Sachs,1568
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Jews: Objects
of ridicule and humiliation
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Marked for scorn, Jews
were often associated with swine
Left: Jew depicted riding
backwards on a sow while another drinks its urine(1500)
Right: Depiction of degrading ritual requiring Jews to take oaths
standing on pigskin (1700)
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Expulsions
Between 1290 and 1550, England,
France, and most of southern and eastern Europe expelled their
Jewish populations, at least once and sometimes several times.
Jews were expelled from Frankfurt on August 23, 1614, an event
depicted in the intaglio print above. The expulsion followed
riots against Jews led by their economic rivals. According to
the text, "1380 persons old and young were counted at the exit
of the gate" and herded onto ships on the river Main.
Georg Keller, The Jews
Expelled from Frankfort, etching 1614
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"The
Mob Came to Regard Physical Attacks on Jews as Permissible"
Encyclopedia Judaica
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1614 Plundering the Jews Street
The Crusades marked
a negative turning point in the history of the Jews in Germany.
According to the Encyclopedia Judaica,
"Henceforth the mob came to regard physical attacks on Jews as
permissible, especially in periods of social or religious ferment.
The city guilds forced the Jews out of the trades and the regular
channels of commerce; this coincided with the stricter appliance
of the church ban on usury in the 12th to 13th centuries. The
combination of circumstances made money lending and pawnbroking
the main occupation in Germany."
In the post-Crusade
period further severe restrictions were imposed on the Jews, demonstrating
their lower status within society. Merchant guilds expelled their
Jewish members. In 1237 the Holy Roman Empire adopted the doctrine
of servitus Judeorum, according to which Jews were serfs
as punishment for their allegedly anti-Christian acts and beliefs.
In 1342, a poll tax was levied on Jews.
Plundering the Judengasse
1614
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| Einstein: "Yet our forefathers had one
great advantage over us." |
"IT IS FROM THIS
POINT OF VIEW
THAT I WOULD HAVE YOU LOOK AT THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT"
2.
of 5
A
CENTURY AGO...
Einstein Looks at His Grandparent's
World
Yet
these obscure, humble people had one great advantage over us:
each of them belonged in every fiber of his being to a community
in which he was completely absorbed, in which he felt himself
a fully privileged member, and which demanded nothing of him that
was contrary to his natural habit of thought. Our forefathers
in those days were pretty poor specimens intellectually and physically,
but socially speaking they enjoyed an enviable spiritual equilibrium..
addresses delivered during Einstein's
third visit to US (1931-32) reproduced as "Addresses on the
Reconstruction in Palestine" in The World as I See
It pg.181
skip to 3
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Einstein: The source of our forefathers' inner
strength: "Each of them belonged in every fiber of his being
to a community"
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In the days of Einstein's
grandparents there was no sense of alienation or devalued worth
among members of the autonomous Jewish community.
The Synagogue at
Furth
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A self-governing
community, seen, and seeing itself, as one outpost of a single
people, dispersed among the nations
Within the confines of the ghetto
Jews as a community had self-governing autonomy. Depicted in this
sixteenth century Dutch etching the local council (kehilla)
makes arrangements to distribute clothes to the poor. The councils
also had power to raise taxes for internal services and to pay
the king, ran its own courts, and represented Jews before non-Jewish
authorities. As a community they were property of the king.
Kahal
(Autonomous Jewish governing council) distributing clothes to
poor
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Einstein: Our forefathers enjoyed "an
enviable spiritual equilibrium"
It was a spirituality strongly inflected
with a sense of common history and a common shared fate
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Ever conscious
of national-religious roots
Commemoration of the destruction
of the Temple and the loss of the homeland was inserted into even
the most joyous occasions. A wedding celebration concludes with
breaking of a glass, symbolic remembrance of the national-religious
loss.
Jewish Wedding
by M. Oppenheim 1861
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Daily
prayers for return to Zion
Facing Jerusalem, Jews
prayed daily for restoration of their scattered nation to Zion
- Jerusalem.
from the Daily Prayer book of
the Jewish Theological Seminary
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Keeping
faith with the homeland
Assuring one another that the end of exile was not far off.
Concluding
prayer of Passover seder
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| A note on Einstein's
observation: " Our forefathers in those days were pretty poor specimens...
physically" |
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Physical
fitness
Centuries of enforced confinement in ghettoes and legacy
of emasculating decrees - such as forbidding Jewish men to carry
arms or ride a horse, led to a cultural depreciation of physicality
among Jews. By Einstein's time Zionism consciously strove to reverse
this. Pictured above are athletes of the German Zionist sports
club Bar Kochba, named for the commander of the doomed Jewish
revolt against Roman rule in the year 135. A tradition of nationalistic
athletic clubs in Germany and Eastern Europe preceded by decades
the Zionist embrace of sports.
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| Einstein: "Then came emancipation..."
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The
French Revolution
A revolutionary concept: Libertie,
Egalitie, Fraternatie - for Jews, too.
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"IT IS FROM THIS
POINT OF VIEW
THAT I WOULD HAVE YOU LOOK AT THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT"
3.
of 5
THEN
CAME EMANCIPATION
Einstein Looks at His Grandparent's
World (cont'd)
Then
came emancipation, which suddenly opened up undreamed-of possibilities
to the individuals. Some few rapidly made a position for themselves
in the higher walks of business and social life. They greedily
lapped up the splendid triumphs which the art and science of the
western world had achieved. They joined in the process with
burning enthusiasm, themselves making contributions of lasting
value.
skip to 4
addresses delivered during Einstein's
third visit to US (1931-32) reproduced as "Addresses on the
Reconstruction in Palestine" in The World as I See
It p..181
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Emancipation of the Jews in Europe began with the 1789
French Revolution's overthrow of the "Divine Right" of kings and
inherited privilege of aristocracy in favor of Liberty!. Equality! Fraternity!
for all citizens.
Legal restrictions on Jews were lifted. Jewish citizens were accorded the
same civil rights as Catholics and Protestants. |
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General Napoleon spreads French revolutionary ideas, including emancipation
of Jews.
After European victories Napoleon sets out to conquer
Holy Land.
Napoleon made plans to "restore the country to the Jews" but
was turned back at Acre by an Ottoman-British alliance.
Napoleon returns to France. Crowns himself "Emperor"
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Emperor Napoleon "reconvenes" the Sanhedrin
Failing to reestablish a Jewish
kingdom in Palestine, Napoleon reconvened a "Grand Sanhedrin",ancient
Israel's supreme court and legislative body. The original Sanhedrin
held court in Jerusalem from the first century BC until its destruction
by the Romans in 70 AD. It then moved to the central Israel town
of Yavneh and then to the Tzippori and Tiberias in the Galilee.
Napoleon's Sanhedrin disbanded after a few years.
Napoleon the Great Restores
the Cult of the Israelites, etching, 1806
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1815
Jewish rights reversed after Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo
After Napoleon's defeat Jewish advances are turned
back everywhere except France and Netherlands. (Along with those two,
only the USA regards Jews as equal to other citizens.)
Congress of Vienna shapes Einstein's grandparents' world : Arch-conservatism
in the name of stability, monarchies restored. "Jewish question"
also on agenda
Agreement:
Jewish rights to be
given "in proportion to accepting the duties of citizenship".
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| The Congress of Vienna by Jean-Baptiste
Isabey |
Rise
of Nationalisms
1846
Congress
of Vienna settlement leaves millions of people disunited
or living under the rule of foreign potentates.
By
mid-century many subject peoples come to feel self-government would best
preserve their political rights and their culture:
Magyar nobility (ethnic
Hungarians) are first to win political rights from German-speaking Catholic
Austrian Empire, hence it becomes known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Germans
nationalists also wanted to free thenmselves from Catholic Empire and
to unite the 30 loosley confedereated German states.
Italians,
too, wanted to throw off the German-speaking Austrians and to forge
their disunited regions into a single country.
Czechs and Serbs seek
self-determination. Other
European peoples expressing national aspirations: Belgians, Norwegians,
Poles. and numerous other ethnic groups making up the Ottoman and Russian
Empires: Slovaks, Croats, Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians.
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1848
- The Year of Revolutions
A series of revolts against autocratic monarchies sweeps Europe
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October 1848 Revolution, Museum der Stadt Wien
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Italy Unites
1870 Garibaldi leads his
men to route Prussian invaders.
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| Germany
Unites ("The Second Reich ") |
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Otto
von Bismark, The
"Iron Chancellor"
He unified Germany, creating
the Second German Reich (Empire)
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Kaiser Wilhelm
Emperor of
the newly unified German Reich
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German states consolidated into a unified
nation, the Second Reich.
Five years later Albert Einstein's parents marry.
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Jewish emancipation throughout all united
Germany
Just eight years after Jews are granted full legal citizenship
Einstein will be born into a world where those rights are far from universally
accepted. |
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| Einstein: Emancipation suddenly opened
"undreamed-of possibilities" to Jews |
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%20Jacob%20Henle.jpg) |
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No longer confined
to studying only their own literature,
Emancipated Jews threw themselves into the general intellectual
pursuits of Europe. In Einstein's Germany the progress was especially
rapid.
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In Education
Women in school!
preposterously imagined as a typical pipe-smoking university
undergraduate, is further caricatured by suggesting she
might even be Jewish.
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In Business
Emil Rathenau
Having bought the European patents for Edison's electric light
bulb, Emil Rathenau set about creating AEG, Europe's largest
supplier of electricity. Shown here is an experimental electric
tram on the grounds of AEG complex.
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In Science
Jacob Henle
Text Coming
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In
the Arts
Text coming
Text Coming
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"IT IS FROM THIS
POINT OF VIEW
THAT I WOULD HAVE YOU LOOK AT THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT"
4.
of 5
THEN
CAME EMANCIPATION
Einstein Looks at His Grandparent's
World (cont'd)
At
the same time they imitated the external forms of gentile life,
departed more and more from their religious and social traditions,
and adopted gentile customs, manners, and habits of thoughts.
It seemed as though they were completely losing their identity
in the superior numbers and more highly organized culture of the
nations among whom they lived, so that in a few generations there
would be no trace of them left. A complete disappearance of Jewish
nationality in Central and Western Europe seemed inevitable.
addresses delivered during Einstein's
third visit to US (1931-32) reproduced as "Addresses on the
Reconstruction in Palestine" in The World as I See
It p..181
skip to 5
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| Einstein: But, emancipated Jews also "adopted
gentile customs, manners and habits of thought " |
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"My religion is that Germanic
faith which is above all else religious"
In delineating his portrait of Jewish
assimilation Einstein may well have had in mind his acquaintance Walther
Rathenau. Eager to distance himself from the community, Rathenau cautioned
his fellow Jews "not to attract so much attention."
"In the the youth of every German Jew,"
wrote Rathenau, "there
is a painful moment, which he will remember as long as he lives
when he realizes fully for the first time that he has been born
into the world as a second-class citizen, and that no virtue
and no merit can free him from this situation."
Heir to the AEG electrical company,
Rathenau became Foreign Minister of the German Weimar Republic. In 1922
graffiti started appearing on Berlin walls:
God damn Walther Rathenau
The dirty, stinking Jewish sow
Months later three "young,
nationally-minded Germans" pulled up along side his car, emptied
their pistols into him, then tossed in a grenade for good measure.
Nachum
T. Gidal, Jews in Germany from Roman Times to the Weimar Republic,
Konemann Verlasgesellschaft, Cologne 1988 p. 327
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| Einstein:
Emancipated Jews "imitated the external forms of Gentile life..."
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Jewish Dueling
Society
Defending one's insulted honor
by challenging to the offender to a fencing duel was a student
fad in late nineteen hundreds Germany. But gentile students refused
"satisfaction" to Jewish challengers on the grounds
that a Jew inherently has no honor to defend.
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| Einstein: "In a few generations there would
be no trace of them left" |
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| As Rathenau discovered, in order to advance in
one's field many Jews found it necessary to distance themselves from the
community |
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"How is it you converted
to Catholicism?
"Because the Protestants have too many Jews ."
cartoon in the German
satirical periodical Simplicissimus, 1898, reproduced
in Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany
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| Einstein:
"A complete disappearance of the Jewish nationality ...seemed inevitable" |
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"Darwinistics"
Einstein's pessimistic view of the inevitable Jewish future is
captured in the original caption to this 1904 cartoon.
1904 cartoon from the German satirical magazine
Der Schlemiel
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"IT IS FROM THIS
POINT OF VIEW
THAT I WOULD HAVE YOU LOOK AT THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT"
5.
BUT
EVENTS TURNED OUT OTHERWISE
Einstein Looks at His Grandparent's
World (cont'd)
But
events turned out otherwise...
addresses delivered during Einstein's
third visit to US (1931-32) reproduced as "Addresses on the
Reconstruction in Palestine" in The World as I See
It p.181
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Hep Hep
Riots
Jealous of the rapid gains made
by people they regarded as inferior, in 1819 German mobs took
out their frustrations by attacking Jews in their homes and
businesses. The attacks became known as the Hep! Hep! riots
for the acronym "Jerusalem is lost" (in Latin) chanted
by the mob. The odd phrase harkens back to the crusades.
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Jews the equals
of Christians? Ridiculous!
In place of the lofty ideals motivating the revolutionaries of
1848 these cartooned Jews rally to the banner of "Profits"
and "Equal Rights with Christians".
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In this 1851 anti-Semitic
cartoon an unscrupulous Jewish stockbroker shrugs off a young
pickpocket,
"No matter. That's how I started, too."
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Moishe Pish from Tranopol changes
his name to Moritz Waterfall, moves to Posen and deals in second-hand
Parissien fashions. Then as Maurice LaFontaine he sets himself
up in Berlin as a art dealer.
cartoon in the
German satirical periodical Simplicissimus, 1904 reproduced
in Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany
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