Rundschau Denies Nazis’ View Being Jewish Constitutes Defect

To be a Jew is no defect, the Juedische Rundschau, official organ of the German Zionist Federation, asserts in an editorial on the action brought by the Tietz department store against the Westdeutscher Beobachter because of a charge made by the latter paper that the concern is still Jewish.

“The department store was founded by a Jew whose gifts of organization built up a great enterprise giving employment to thousands,” the Rundschau says.

“After the change of regime in 1933, there was a reduction of Jewish participation, and the question now is whether the firm is Jewish or not. The Cologne Chamber of Industry and Trade expressed doubts. Arguments were put forward pro and con. We can understand anyone fighting for his livelihood.

“The Aryan principle does not apply in economic life, but this idea about non-Aryans has penetrated deep, even into economic life. The Westdeutscher Beobachter and other party organs argue that the party is as much as over opposed to department stores.

“If that is so, we fail to see what part the Jewish question plays in this action, since the fight against the department stores would have to be waged no matter who the owners.

“But we are concerned with the moral, not the economic aspect,” the Rundschau continues, “with the fact that it is necessary to bring an action to clear oneself of the reproach of being Jewish, as if being of Jewish origin, or connected with Jews, were a defect, which must be repudiated.

“People do not always realize what a humiliation such a state of things is for the Jews. We often hear people say that we Jews chase after money and profits—a false view. It is only a particular class of Jews that is so attracted to money-making, exactly like the same class of non-Jews.

“And as among non-Jews, so too there are among Jews a vast number of people who are very bad business men, who do not understand a thing about money-making, idealists, dreamers, seekers after wisdom, or just plain common folk.

“The Jewish people as such certainly does not place material values first, and even if some who are called Jews think in the first place of the loss to their business, the Jew as such feels the hurt more deeply. He knows that being a Jew is a hard fate, but no defect.

“Our Jewish origin links us with numberless generations, with a glorious and creative past, a unique history among the nations, and though often suffering, we have retained our unique existence.

“We have the marks of our various roads upon us. We sought to adjust ourselves and to give the best that is in us. We contributed the toil of our hands and the achievements of our brains to the tasks of the surrounding world, including its economic life.

“The exclusion and disqualification in 1933 sorely affected us spiritually, for although those with insight among the Jews knew that the Jewish question exists and demands to be cleared up, and demands perhaps also social sacrifice on the part of the Jews, no one was prepared for this abrupt break.

“What hurts us is not the economic loss, it is the sudden change of attitude of so many fellow citizens, the new valuation that has led people to seek to establish publicly, through the law court or otherwise, that they have nothing to do with Jews. We always knew that we Jews have a separate status, because we are Jews. We always knew that on this basis Jewish life must be built up on new forms.

“This naturally requires keeping a certain distance in all those spheres of life which the German nation regards as originally belonging to its own national tradition. We believe today, too, that only on this basis will it be possible to build up anew our relations with our German fellow citizens, with emphasis on our Jewish separateness.

“We are not speaking now of questions of legislation, but of every day human life. Even today we can still hear in certain Jewish quarters the opinion that there is no Jewish question, that Christian and Jewish Germans are not distinguished from each other in any essential points, that the only difference is purely formal, the fact that we are treated in law as non-Aryans. If this legislation were repealed, these people think that every difficulty would disappear.

“This idea is dangerous to the Jewish public, because it means shutting its eyes to the most important task which now lies before us, the conversion of the Jewish community into a living organism.

“Many Jews have become conscious Jews only in the last year, but it would be dangerous if they were to consider themselves only as Jews by the grace of anti-Semitism.

“We are Jews, not only non-Aryans. We Jews are very far from wanting to proclaim our Judaism provocatively, and we repudiate also the method of glorifying for spite.

“We live in a world which believes it to be a defect to be a Jew. We must shake off this idea from ourselves, and therefore it is indispensable that every Jew must become acquainted with all that still remains of Jewish life, adjust himself to it, and, above all, assume full responsibility for things Jewish.

“It is not enough to accept the pride of Judaism, because there is no other way. We must learn to feel not only the pride, but also the shame of Judaism, in order to prepare the spiritual ground for its renewal.

“We are still at the beginning of a new, a long and a difficult, but very joy-giving road.”