Page:EB1911 - Volume 02.djvu/157

 a nightmare to France, and it now modified the whole course of French history. In the ruin of the French Church, which owed its disestablishment very largely to the Dreyfus conspiracy, may be read the most eloquent warning against the demoralizing madness of anti-Semitism.

In sympathy with the agitation in France there has been a similar movement in Algeria, where the European population have long resented the admission of the native Jews to the rights of French citizenship. The agitation has been marked by much violence, and most of the anti-Semitic deputies in the French parliament, including M. Drumont, have found constituencies in Algeria. As the local anti-Semites are largely Spaniards and Levantine riff-raff, the agitation has not the peculiar nationalist bias which characterizes continental anti-Semitism. Before the energy of the authorities it has lately shown signs of subsiding.

While the main activity of anti-Semitism has manifested itself in Germany, Russia, Rumania, Austria-Hungary and France, its vibratory influences have been felt in other countries when conditions favourable to its extension have presented themselves. In England more than one attempt to acclimatize the doctrines of Marr and Treitschke has been made. The circumstance that at the time of the rise of German anti-Semitism a premier of Hebrew race, Lord Beaconsfield, was in power first suggested the Jewish bogey to English political extremists. The Eastern crisis of 1876–1878, which was regarded by the Liberal party as primarily a struggle between Christianity, as represented by Russia, and a degrading Semitism, as represented by Turkey, accentuated the anti-Jewish feeling, owing to the anti-Russian attitude adopted by the government. Violent expression to the ancient prejudices against the Jews was given by Sir J. G. Tollemache Sinclair (A Defence of Russia, 1877). Mr T. P. O’Connor, in a life of Lord Beaconsfield (1878), pictured him as the instrument of the Jewish people, “moulding the whole policy of Christendom to Jewish aims.” Professor Goldwin Smith, in several articles in the Nineteenth Century (1878, 1881 and 1882), sought to synthesize the growing anti-Jewish feeling by adopting the nationalist theories of the German anti-Semites. This movement did not fail to find an equivocal response in the speeches of some of the leading Liberal statesmen; but on the country generally it produced no effect. It was revived when the persecutions in Russia threatened England with a great influx of Polish Jews, whose mode of life was calculated to lower the standard of living in the industries in which they were employed, and it has left its trace in the anti-alien legislation of 1905. In 1883 Stöcker visited London, but received a very unflattering reception. Abortive attempts to acclimatize anti-Semitism have also been made in Switzerland, Belgium, Greece and the United States.

Anti-Semitism made a great deal of history during the thirty years up to 1908, but has left no permanent mark of a constructive kind on the social and political evolution of Europe. It is the fruit of a great ethnographic and political error, and it has spent itself in political intrigues of transparent dishonesty. Its racial doctrine is at best a crude hypothesis: its nationalist theory has only served to throw into striking relief the essentially economic bases of modern society, while its political activity has revealed the vulgarity and ignorance which constitute its main sources of strength. So far from injuring the Jews, it has really given Jewish racial separatism a new lease of life. Its extravagant accusations, as in the Tisza Eszlar and Dreyfus cases, have resulted in the vindication of the Jewish character. Its agitation generally, coinciding with the revival of interest in Jewish history, has helped to transfer Jewish solidarity from a religious to a racial basis. The bond of a common race, vitalized by a new pride in Hebrew history and spurred on to resistance by the insults of the anti-Semites, has given a new spirit and a new source of strength to Judaism at a moment when the approximation of ethical systems and the revolt against dogma were sapping its essentially religious foundations. In the whole history of Judaism, perhaps, there have been no more numerous or remarkable instances of reversions to the faith than in the period in question. The reply of the Jews to anti-Semitism has taken two interesting practical forms. In the first place there is the so-called Zionist movement, which is a kind of Jewish nationalism and is vitiated by the same errors that distinguish its anti-Semitic analogue (see ). In the second place, there is a movement represented by the Maccabaeans’ Society in London, which seeks to unite the Jewish people in an effort to raise the Jewish character and to promote a higher consciousness of the dignity of the race. It lays no stress on orthodoxy, but welcomes all who strive to render Jewish conduct an adequate reply to the theories of the anti-Semites. Both these movements are elements of fresh vitality to Judaism, and they are probably destined to produce important fruit in future years. A splendid spirit of generosity has also been displayed by the Jewish community in assisting and relieving the victims of the Jew-haters. Besides countless funds raised by public subscription, Baron de Hirsch founded a colossal scheme for transplanting persecuted Jews to new countries under new conditions of life, and endowed it with no less a sum than £9,000,000 (see ).

Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end. While there remain in Russia and Rumania over six millions of Jews who are being systematically degraded, and who periodically overflow the western frontier, there must continue to be a Jewish question in Europe; and while there are weak governments, and ignorant and superstitious elements in the enfranchized classes of the countries affected, that question will seek to play a part in politics.

.—No impartial history of modern anti-Semitism has yet been written. The most comprehensive works on the subject, Israel among the Nations, by A. Leroy-Beaulieu (1895), and L’Antisémitisme, son histoire et ses causes, by Bernard Lazare (1894), are collections of studies rather than histories. M. Lazare’s work will be found most useful by the student on account of its detached standpoint and its valuable bibliographical notes. A good list of works relating to Jewish ethnography will be found at the end of M. Isidor Loeb’s valuable article, “Juifs,” in the Dictionnaire universel de géographie (1884). To these should be added, Adolf Jellinek, Der Jüdische Stamm (1869); Chwolson, Die semitischen Völker (1872); Nossig, Materialien zur Statistik (1887); Jacobs, Jewish Statistics (1891); and Andree, Zur Volkskunde der Juden (1881). A bibliography of the Jewish question from 1875 to 1884 has been published by Mr Joseph Jacobs (1885). Useful additions and rectifications will be found in the Jewish World, 11th September 1885. During the period since 1885 the anti-Semitic movement has produced an immense pamphlet literature. Some of these productions have already been referred to; others will be found in current bibliographies under the names of the personages mentioned, such as Stöcker, Ahlwardt, &c. On the Russian persecutions, besides the works quoted by Jacobs, see the pamphlet issued by the Russo-Jewish Committee in 1890, and the annual reports of the Russo-Jewish Mansion House Fund; Les Juifs de Russie (Paris, 1891); Report of the Commissioners of Immigration upon the Causes which incite Immigration to the United States (Washington, 1892); The New Exodus, by Harold Frederic (1892); Les Juifs russes, by Leo Errera (Brussels, 1893). The most valuable collection of facts relating to the persecutions of 1881–1882 are to be found in the Feuilles Jaunes (52 nos.), compiled and circulated for the information of the European press by the Alliance Israélite of Paris. Complete collections are very scarce. For the struggle during the past decade the Russische Correspondenz of Berlin should be consulted, together with its French and English editions. See also the publications of the Bund (Geneva; Imprimerie Israélite); Séménoff, The Russian Government and the Massacres, and Quarterly Review, October 1906. On the Rumanian question, see Bluntschli, Roumania and the Legal Status of the Jews (London, 1879); Wir Juden (Zürich, 1883); Schloss, The Persecution of the Jews in Roumania (London, 1885); Schloss, Notes of Information (1886); Sincerus, Juifs en Roumanie (London, 1901); Plotke, Die rumänischen Juden unter dem Fürsten u. König Karl (1901); Dehn, Diplomatie u. Hochfinanz in der rumänischen Judenfrage (1901); Conybeare, “Roumania as a Persecuting Power,” ''Nat. Rev''., February 1901. On Hungary and the Tisza Eszlar Case, see (besides the references in Jacobs) Nathan, Der Prozess von Tisza Eszlar (Berlin, 1892). On this case and the Blood Accusation generally, see Wright, “The Jews and the Malicious Charge of Human Sacrifice,” Nineteenth Century, 1883. The origins of the Austrian agitation are dealt with by Nitti, Catholic Socialism (1895). This work, though inclining to anti-Semitism, should be consulted for the Christian Socialist elements in the whole continental agitation. The most valuable source of information on the Austrian movement is the Österreichische Wochenschrift, edited by Dr Bloch. See also pamphlets and speeches by the anti-Semitic leaders, Liechtenstein, Lueger, Schoenerer, &c. The case of the French anti-Semites is stated by E. Drumont in his France juive,