German Jews Reclaim Leading Position in European Jewry Held in Pre-war Days

“Germany-the Heart of Europe”. On this subject there is broadcast a half-hour’s talk each week by a leading German economist, from the Reich Station. The speaker attempts to show that not only does Germany occupy a central position in Europe territorially, but that also economically, socially, culturally and intellectually it is the organ that regulates the circulation of Europ’s blood. This does sound exaggerated but the exalted idea becomes comprehensible if one but refects upon the Reich that was defeated upon the battlefields only to pass through a devious era of social and financial fevers, coming out since 1924 successfully in its competition with the rest of the world and possessing a voice in the counsel of nations that commands respect.

Similarly among the German Jews the attempt is made to have it believed that just as in former times many fruitful ideas spread from German Jewry to Jews in other parts of the world, ideas such as the Haskalah and religious Progressivism and the Reform Movement, and just as the idea of the Mission of the Jews among the peoples of the earth had its birth here, so it is pretended that Germany is the heart of present-day Jewry. Is there any plausible basis for this belief? Is there any sign of a revival anywhere? Does warm, live blood again flow through the half dried-up veins?

OUTWARDLY WELL ORGANIZED

Outwardly the body of German Jewry is a firmly-knit unified organism. This shows at once an inner lifeforce. But it may be that there is too much organization. The individual communities are joined together in state groups, but all efforts thus far toward realizing a unified organization throughout the Reich, embracing all Jewish congregations in Germany, have been doomed to failure. There are eight state unions (I. The Prussian State Union of Jewish Congregations, headquarters in Berlin. 2. Union of Israelite Congregations of Bavaria, with headquarters in Munich. 3. Union of Religious Congregations of Saxony, in Dresden. 4. Israelite Religious Congregations of Wurtemberg, Stuggart. 5. Israelite Religious Community of Baden, Karlsruhe. 6. Union of Israelite Religious Congregations of Thuringia, Meiningen. 7. State Union of Israelite Religious Congregations, Dessau. 8. Union of Synagogue Congregations of Lippe, Detmold). Aside from this there are numerous provincial unions. The “League of German Congregations True to the Law” with headquarters at Halberstadt, is an organization by itself, which in viewpoint approaches the Agudath Israel. Rabbis and teachers are just now organizing into a society to embrace the entire Reich. In addition there is a union for the entire Reich of Jewish artisans, composed of the individual unions. The Central Charity Bureau of German Jews controls all the charity work of the Jewish communities of Germany, comprising a really notable list of hospitals and sanataria, homes for the aged and for infants, student and apprentices institutes, etc. The Bureau for the Protection of Workmen is subordinate to the Central Charity Bureau, with its many employment and legal aid offices and its central Travellers Aid bureau. Among organizations outside the congregations that cover the entire Reich must be mentioned the German Bnai-Brith Lodge, the Zionist Union of Germany, the Union for Liberal Judaism, the Jewish Conservative Union, the Mutual Aid Union of Germany Jews, the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith, and finally the organizations that originally came from Poland and Russia and which now bear the designation of their state, such as “Ort”, “Oze”, etc.

As an intellectual factor in the whole of Jewry, the German Jews still occupy a respectable position. The cradle of Jewish science is still the home of intensive Jewish research. There are two Rabbinical Colleges in Berlin, another in Breslau and there are two institutes in Berlin devoted exclusively to Jewish research and investigation, and if you add to this a number of teachers’ training schools scattered all through the Reich, there is sufficient proof adduced of intellectual activity kept going apace. It is not by chance that the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has so many German scholars on its staff of instructors. The intellectual, social and cultural life of German Jewry is dominated by Berlin, which contains more than a third of all German Jews, or about 250,000 to 300,000. But every important provincial community likewise constitutes a center for Jewish culture.

BREACH BETWEEN TWO GROUPS

Outwardly, German Jewry appears a unified body. How does it look on the inside? Not so good. Bad in fact. No other country perhaps presents so wide a breach between the two camps of Jewry that exist in practically all countries: Between those who maintain that there exists a Jewish race and stress the bond that links all of the race to their common destiny, and those others who feel that they are part of the people among whom they live and therefore only recognize a common Jewish faith and deny any blood relationship with the Jews of other countries. Nowhere is the dissension so bitter, the weapons used so sharp. An instance: in the “Juedische Rundschau,” the mouthpiece of the German Zionists, they speak of the “existence wrapped in lies” of the non-national Jews; while in the organ of the Central Union the statement appears that they “have nothing in common with the Zionists, the two groups belonging practically to two different faiths.”

ZIONISTS AND NON-ZIONISTS DISPUTE

But it is not alone the idea of Palestine that raises this wall between these groups, nor the question of whether a Jewish people is to be considered to exist or not; it is primarily a question of the feeling of unity among the Jews, the ideal of “kol Yisroel arevim seh boseh.” Non-Zionist Jews in Germany do not like to be reminded of any responsibility toward the fate of Jews in the rest of the world. They are extremely sensitive and shy about coming forward into the light of European publicity on behalf of Jewish rights and in opposition to injustice to the Jew, because this might be interpreted by the non-Jews as an admission of unity among all Jews. For years Germany has now been a member of the League of Nations and has its place in the Council. The fact that millions of Germans reside outside the Reich makes it incumbent on Germany to act as the natural protector of all oppressed nationalities. By reason of her membership in the League of Nations, Germany becomes one of the protectors of the Jewish National Home in Palestine and an important factor in the question of the protection of minority rights. Germany might raise her voice wherever Jews are persecuted and oppressed. One need but recall how effectively the British-Jewish Joint Foreign Committee, the American Jewish Committee, the French Alliance Israelite, have induced their respective governments to intervene on behalf of persecuted Jews. During the regime of the kaiser, which, whatever else it may have been, was friendly to the Jews, there was a central figure like the late Paul Nathan, to often bring the political strength of Germany to bear in favor of the Jews further to the East and in the Balkans. Is there anything like this in our present-day republican Germany, which has been to the Jews like a second emancipation? Not at all. Our German woods are perfectly still. Events in Hungary, Roumania, Lithuania, where the Jews are oppressed and deprived of their rights. are so close to us, yet not a thing is done to call the attention of public opinion and of the leaders of the republic to the violation of treaties by many of these countries, and of the unprotected condition of the Jewish elements there, under the law. It would appear that the fear of acknowledging an “all-Jewish solidarity” has cast the influential groups of German Jewry into a charmed circle, which they are unable to break away from.

This is an historical failure on the part of German Jewry and if the German Jews do not come to realize in time their true mission, the mission of brotherly co-responsibility, this failure will become an historical crime that will be ineffaceable from the pages of history.

“Germany-the heart of Europe”; the German can say this with some reason. But can German Jewry believe it is the heart of European Jewry? At present, no. It has yet to find a heart of its own.