Robert S. Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews. The Dilemmas of Assimilation in Germany and Austria-Hungary by Jerzy Holzer

Summary

R.S. Wistrich's book is an objective study which, based on a solid ground of source material and literature, deals with some aspects of the Jewish question in Germany and Austria-Hungary. I use this rather imprecise formula deliberately, for I regard the concept behind the book as its most controversial or rather least distinct aspect. This is not a book about Jewish assimilation, nor is it a book about the socialist position with regard to the Jewish question (though this subject is quite exhaustively discussed). A large part of the book is taken up with the birth and development of the modern mass anti-semitic political movement. Within the limits of the questions he tackles, the author's work is very interesting and the theses put forward are often original, however I am not sure that the ability to construct a coherent whole is equal to the level of intelligence, erudition and broadness of interests displayed. Perhaps the fault lies with the reviewer who cannot grasp the author's intention?

The most cohesive part of the work seems to be the first section, concerning the Germans. Wistrich shows with great acuteness the dominant attitudes existing among social democrats towards the Jews, beginning with the roots of these attitudes as they appear in the young Marx. The hypostasis of Judaism as capitalist in essence opened the way to a number of interpretations. It consisted, basically, of tolerance towards Jews (as individuals) accompanied by extreme intolerance of Jewishness (as a religion, culture, or separate collective) in other words toleration of the Jew who had ceased to be a Jew. In the German and Austrian sections of the book the author accurately communicates the strength of the attraction such a position had for the intelligentsia emancipating themselves from the Jewish collective and searching for a new lay messianism and a new social identity to overcome their alienation.

To be sure, the views held by social democrats (both Jewish and non Jewish) should not be described as anti-semitic as the term then becomes unfeasibly broad. Wistrich is nevertheless right to indicate the relationship between extreme anti-judaic positions (a better term since the dislike involved is part of the above syndrome and almost an abstraction) and modem, racist anti-semitism, in the process of formulation.