The Riddle of the Jew's Success
Page 25
Thus writes Sombart on page 327. In reality, the Hebrew possesses so little of what we call character, that he is ready at all times to barter his honour and self-respect for material advantage. An old proverb says:
“The Jew will wade through seven puddles, in order to possess one groschen more.”
[Page 215] With the help of the Talmudic schooling, the Hebrews are educated to become cunning pettifoggers, for, from youth upwards, the practice of dissimulation is enjoined upon them, practically as a command. There is, accordingly, little cause for surprise when they distinguish themselves later on in life as lawyers, journalists and actors. The art, of being able to transpose one’s self quickly into a strange world of ideas, is absolutely essential to speculative dealing; if the Jew did not possess it, how else would he gain respite for himself, entirely dependent as he is on the exploitation of other men, and on the misuse of law and thought? The advantages, possessed by the Jew, mirror his weaknesses; these are shiftiness, evasion, adroitness in escaping from embarrassing situations, all of which he requires in order to conceal his failings from us.
There is a well-known contradictory principle in Nature, whereby she endeavours to conceal and compensate for prominent defects by other qualities. She provides weak, defenceless creatures with properties or qualities, which serve as a means of protection against the pursuing enemy. Thus Nature protects the young birds in their nests by their revolting ugliness, other animals by an obnoxious smell or by a disagreeable secretion, the snail, for instance, by a nasty slime. And, in the same way, Nature dispenses properties to a section of mankind, burdened with hereditary weakness, which must serve as a protection. Even the evasive intelligence, craft and cunning are protective qualities of this order, and they are to be found amongst the weak and the criminal. Men of great bodily strength are, for the most part, open and upright, good-natured, patient and obliging. They can put up with a good deal, without losing their tempers, because they know that when the decisive moment arrives, they can rely upon their good, natural strength, which, if required, will sweep every obstacle out of the way. This good-nature and this indulgence, which are sometimes taken for weakness, but which are, in reality, only an expression of self-confidence or assurance, are occasionally displayed also by men of mind and character. On the other hand, it is a matter of common knowledge that weakly and deformed beings display a sharp mental activity, which can even become caustic, and which represents, in their case, a means of defence to protect them against unexpected attacks.
[Page 216] The situation of the Hebrew, when he finds himself in the presence of honest men, is analogous. He, the weakling, who is incapable anywhere of shaping a life for himself by his own exertions, whom political incapacity has condemned to lead a parasitic existence amongst other nations, he, who is wanting in all the higher mental powers necessary to produce an imaginative and creative culture: he, it is, who has been equipped with a cunning intellect, and with boundless impudence and slyness as a means of defence. In reality, the Hebrew is the mental cripple amongst mankind, the type of intellectual deformity. The Jew represents the lower side of human nature.
Let those wonder at him who will: we should only feel sorry for him if he did not happen to be, at the same time, a poisonous snake, which endangers the peace and safety of honest humanity everywhere.
But the slyness of mind, and the threadbare morality are still not sufficient to assure him of prosperity; he requires yet another weapon for defence and attack, in order to outwit and overcome honest people. As a substitute for the natural ability, which he does not possess, he has created for himself a principle, in which an almost demoniacal force resides, viz Money-Capital. Money plays so great a part in the existence of the Jew, that the individual sinks into insignificance when compared with material possession. “Whoever does not pay to me my money, deprives me of my honour”, wrote old Amschel Mayer Rothschild to the Elector William II. (see page 37), and the socialist leader, Carl Marx, who was himself of Jewish origin, admitted that “money is the real secular deity of Jewdom”. From an allegorical point of view it is worthy of note, that the Hebrews erected a golden calf on Mount Sinai, and arranged a dance around it. This is also recognised by Sombart.
“ Money, and the increase of money, must always be the centre of interest for Jews, just as it is for capitalism. Not merely because its abstract nature is congenial to the equally abstract nature of the Jew, but, above all, because the appreciation of money is in conformity with another leading trait in the Jewish character viz teleologism. Money is the absolute means: it has but one meaning with regard to the purpose to be realised.”
[Page 217] Sombart expresses himself as above in his scientific German, and thereby recognises money as the highest potential in all Jewish endeavour.
Money is, however, an imaginary value, an artificial creation of human speculation. It has nothing to do with nature, nothing to do with organic things; it has no inner relation to the being of mankind. Money does not make a man stronger, wiser or nobler; the capability alone, conferred on it by the human imagination, of possessing, not only buying power, but — in the form of loan capital — power to produce interest, has invested it with an almost supernatural might. And this imaginary might has been recognised by the Hebrew, as the correct means to provide him with a substitute for his deficient powers. Money places the sub-man in the position to pose almost as a super-man, and to force all human affairs under his yoke. Of what then does the renowned Jewish superiority consist? In reality, of a kind of mental provocation and harassing. It is precisely because the distinctive nature of the Hebrew is averse to Nature, that he is destined to deceive and over-reach the man who thinks naturally. It is because the Jew does not think organically, and consequently does not think naturally, that the unspoilt and unaffected man is unable to keep pace with his speculations. Whilst we are accustomed to think straightforwardly, the Jew thinks, as it were, “round the corner”; his mental process is perverse, warped, subverted. Consequently his conclusions confound all natural logic. It frequently happens that a man, who has been overreached by a Jew, is unable to restrain a feeling, akin to admiration, for the cunning deceiver. The unnatural sequence of Jewish thoughts confuse a natural brain, so that it loses the power of thinking logically while under the influence of the seductive language of the Hebrew, and falls into a kind of stupor, a condition in which, a weak-willed man, or a man who is unable to think quickly, is inclined to succumb to the influence of an external will.
[Page 218] This power of suggestion, which operates by imposing one’s own will upon another, is one of the most dangerous means employed by Hebrewdom to infatuate, not only individuals, but whole nations. There is scarcely any other way to explain this extraordinary state of infatuation, in which the civilised nations of to-day find themselves, when confronted with Hebrewdom, than by describing it as the result of a kind of suggestion or mesmerism. Indeed, both states and their populations scarcely know what is really happening to them since the Hebrew, in addition to the demoniacal power of money, has also enlisted that gigantic power to deceive and mislead, which the public press possesses, in order to hypnotise everybody and to paralyse their mental activities.
Perhaps, however, it only requires an unmasking of the hypnotic agent, and a thorough exposure of his dishonest expedients, to break the spell for ever.
[Page 219]
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XV.
Origin of the Jewish Entity.
1. Descent of the Jews.
Sombart searches around to discover the origin of the Jewish race, and raises the question: whence does it come, and whither is it proceeding? He does not hesitate to describe the Jews as a kind of freak, as a lower order of humanity, of entirely different blood to the nations amongst whom they live. We add to this: difference in blood means also difference in mind and spirit, for, amongst the most important disclosures of the science of race, must be included the fact that certain mental qualities
are firmly and inseparably united with a certain kind of blood. In accordance with general acceptation, Sombart believes that Israel, as well as Judah, originated from a mixture of various oriental peoples. This notion is contradicted by the fact, that all Jews regard themselves as the descendants of a common tribal father (Abraham or Jacob), and that already at a very remote period, the Jews were prohibited by strict laws from mixing with other nations. Actually, one can only begin to speak of Jewdom, from the moment when a particular caste arrayed itself in conscious opposition to the rest of humanity, and declined either to mix with the same or to entertain any feelings in common with it. It is precisely the exclusion of their stock from any consanguinity with the remainder of mankind, which makes Jewdom what it is. That Bedouin, that is to say, Semitic tribes have provided the ground-floor of the structure of Hebrewdom, is universally accepted, and Adolf Wahrmund, in his frequentlyquoted work:
“The Law of Nomadism and the present-day domination by the Jews ” has provided convincing proof of the spiritual affinity of Hebrewdom with the Semitic desert tribes. Nomadism and changeableness are common to both; the conception of a firmlyfounded state is foreign to both, and both seek their salvation in continual wandering and peregrination.
[Page 220] They graze the pastures bare, and then move on to where fresh booty beckons to them. Both practise the sudden method of attack, allow no quarter, and exterminate; both are animated by the spirit of the desert, which leaves a train of burnt-out settlements along its track. Amongst the civilised nations, however, our Hebrews have altered the methods of their predatory expeditions. They no longer slay with the blade of the sword, but throttle their adversary with the golden noose of capitalism.* The surprise and slaughter of the opponent is accomplished, in its modernised form, on the Stock Exchange. There the dice are cast, which determine victory and dominion; there the economic fortunes and the economic freedom of the nations are gambled with; and as Judah plays with loaded dice, it is assured of victory. There the strangler of nations twines the golden snares, in which he entangles, not only the economic, but also the spiritual and political life of the peoples.
But one must certainly not any longer speak of our Jews of to-day as pure Semites; they have also taken up all manner of foreign national elements; and it is truly remarkable to what a complete extent they have assimilated the same. One is entitled to ask whether the Talmudic spirit alone has rendered this complete adaptation possible, or whether a few drops of Jewish blood have sufficed to give an unvarying stamp or impression — at least mentally — to the entire mass. Externally the Jews of to-day present marked differences in their appearance; Negroid and Turanian (Mongolian) types can be discerned amongst them as well as Semitic. Even amongst the Hebrews, who hail from Russian Poland, one not infrequently comes across blond and wateryeyed examples.
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* We find here a parallel with the Indian Thags or Thugs (= Robbers), who consider that they can best serve their God by strangling as many victims as possible. Perhaps these Thugs also stand in relation to the old rejected caste of the “Tschandala” (see page 182).
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[Page 221] It is practically certain that the people, who were formerly called the Chasaren, and who are regarded as belonging to a Finnish-Tartar stock, and who, about 800 years after Christ, formed a separate empire in the South of what is now Russia, went over to Jewdom and were completely absorbed. The Jews themselves are conscious of this racial distinction, for the western Jews, who have come across Spain, call themselves “Sephardim” (if baptised: Marannen), and have NorthAfrican blood in their veins, describe the Eastern Jews as “Aschkenasim”, and look down on the latter with a certain amount of contempt. In spite of this, the Talmudic law embraces them all, and the Rabbinical despotism welds them into a close caste, absolutely united in its hostility to all non-Jewish peoples.
If, therefore, the Jews of today are not to be regarded as a united race from a physical point of view, all Jewry is inspired, nevertheless, with the uniform racial spirit of Hebrewdom. And — one must not forget this — the spiritual entity is of higher importance to the racial idea than the purely physical, which may well play a part in all manner of chance externals without prejudicing the racial ground-work of blood and soul.
If an explanation is required of what is understood by the expression “Race”, it can be formulated on the following lines:
Race denotes a community, which, starting from a common ancestor, is based on blood-relationship and exhibits, for that reason, a number of physical and mental characteristics. One must also reckon with the fact that, with the blood, the attributes of the mind and disposition, of the temperament and character, are inherited equally with the bodily properties. The purer and more united the race is, the more stable and constant is this inheritability. Through admixture with other raceelements, racial peculiarities are partly masked, the external ones more so than the internal, but they assert themselves again, often after generations, with astonishing distinctness. One is therefore entitled to say: a race characterises itself by means of a complex of unvarying, transmissible qualities.
[Page 222] The German people of to-day represent a mixture of Germanic, Slavonic and Romanic (Celtic) — or, according to modern methods of indication, of Northern, Alpine and Mediterranean elements, which have melted into a certain sort of homogeneity after the lapse of centuries, at least to the extent, that scarcely any doubt can exist as to the uniformity of German thought and German feeling. It is only comparatively recently, after distinct signs of degeneration have become visible, that it appears as if these racial constants are about to be resolved into their original elements, and, in the course of this process, to release a multitude of mongrel-products (degenerationforms) which cannot be classified racially.
If the existence of a separate Jewish race is disputed, as Felix von Luschan, amongst others, attempts to do, the contention may, perhaps, have a certain amount of justification, as there was not an original Jewish race; it appears to me much more likely that the Hebrews arose out of a mixture of the dregs of all kinds of races (compare page 194), a mixture, however, which has been welded by thousands of years of in-breeding into a racial type.
In the meantime, whoever is searching for the anthropological peculiarity of the Jews, will find this rather in the constitution of mind and character than in definite physical relations. It is quite correct that the Sephardim are preponderatingly longheaded, that the Aschkenasim or Chasaren Jews are roundheaded, and that the profile of the face passes through a great variety of gradations. Perhaps, shortness of limb can be regarded as the most noticeable physical feature of the Jewish race. Nearly all Jews possess remarkably short arms and legs and a proportionately long trunk. Whilst the normal European, and especially the German fathoms more than the entire length of his body, in the case of the Hebrew it is the reverse. The inferior development of the arms might certainly be accounted for by the fact that the race in question has never occupied itself with honest manual labour, has employed neither weapon nor oar, and, for these reasons, has failed to develop the arms properly. Other unmistakable physical features include the relation and position of the ear to the nose; amongst the pure Aryans the ear and the nose, on an average, are of equal length and are on the same level; in the case of the Jew, variations and startling irregularities in both of these respects are noticeable.
[Page 223] As a matter of fact, however, the Jewish racial constancy is stronger at the present day than is the case in any other human strain, and this is also confirmed by the declaration of Professor Gans, which has been already quoted on page 204. That the peculiar mental tenacity of the Jewish people was already in evidence in the remotest period, is testified to by the excited references of the ancient prophets to this “stiff-necked and stubborn” people.
Jewish peculiarity may also acquire exceptional solidarity from the fact, that this nation, more than any other, possesses a religion entirely suited to its nature, a
nd which occupies itself at the same time, in the most painstaking fashion, with laying down the most detailed precepts for the conduct of ordinary life. Race, religion, nationality, mode of living, and business behaviour are all cast in the same mould as far as the Hebrews are concerned; these are all the uniform expression of the same fundamental nature. The mentality and character of this people, owing to uniform schooling and tense discipline, and owing to the mode of living, which has become strengthened by inbreeding and habitual by the practice of thousands of years, must have established and incorporated itself to an unusual degree so that the Jews are less susceptible to outside influence than any other race of mankind, which is capable of culture and development.
The voluntary segregation of this race, and the consciously fostered aversion to all other peoples, all contributed to maintain Hebrewdom in its singularity. It must be repeated with emphasis: the segregation, so far as the Jews were concerned, was voluntary — just for the preservation of their singularity and their singular rites. Sombart insists that the Jews have not always been “half-citizens” in the strange states, but, on the contrary, in olden times, were frequently actually endowed with peculiar rights and privileges (compare pages 25 and 176).
[Page 224] They held themselves aloof, however, of their own free will, from all participation in civic and state affairs; they did not accept their share of the spiritual and political destiny of the nation; they regarded themselves everywhere merely as visitors and foreigners, and were always ready to fasten up their bundle, so that — laden with gold and silver, after the manner of their forefathers — they could slip over the frontier.