“Gelegentlich einer Rassentheorie,” Die Welt 17, no. 12 (1913): 365–67.
Robert Weltsch (1891–1982) was a Zionist writer and editor. He was born in Prague, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1920 he was appointed editor of Die jüdische Rundschau, the official organ of the Zionist Federation of Germany. He remained in that position until 1938, when he emigrated to Palestine. See the entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd edition, 21:9–10.
Zionism rests on the fact that all Jews around the world feel some sense of belonging together as Jews. This feeling of unity, which is rooted in the historical origins of contemporary conditions, generates not only a historical but also a living connection, which one might designate as nation, Volk, tribe, race, or whatever one likes. Someone can always come along and say, for instance: “I understand the word ‘nation’ to refer only to those groups that share a common language; thus, the Jews are not a nation.” The fool! He assumes he has contributed something vital, while he has only ventured into a question of terminology. May whoever has the time and inclination enter such a discussion. However, those who are interested in getting to the essence of things will not pay much attention to words. When it comes to the unity of the Jews, there is one irrefutable proof: the consciousness of this unity, which is an inner experience that every individual Jew possesses.
I have an insurmountable mistrust of any attempt to trace back an intellectual or spiritual disposition to material causes; the same holds true for all racial theories, which derive consciousness from anthropological facts and thereby seek to ground consciousness in natural science. As if such a spiritual fact requires a “natural scientific” foundation, as if its very existence were not in itself the most powerful proof! It was one of the most pathetic errors of an age, worshiping natural science as its false god, to seek to explain the wonder of the human spirit by means of zoology. It is also true that in the past half-century, not a year has passed without some racial theory being overturned and a new one put in its place; yet human consciousness remains unstirred by such things. If, on occasion, a particular racial theory, such as Chamberlain’s, found its way into public opinion [literally, into the thinking of the Volk], this was not a consequence of its (nonexistent) scientific nature; rather, it was a consequence of the fact that it corresponded with the instincts of the Volk, out of which it may even have been derived.
I recently got hold of a book [called] The Racial Traits of the Jews, by Dr. Maurice Fishberg.47 The author says in the introduction: “For the scientific anthropologist race is a biological concept, which means in general the same thing it does for the zoologist and the botanist: a group of animals or plants connected by common descent. The primary or most important indicator of race is type—similarity or uniformity.” He then warns against the confusion of race with “ethnic unity” and goes on to say: “That I will encounter opposition in circles that take a common or shared religion to be a mark of racial identity is as irrelevant to me as is the opposition I anticipate from certain European racial thinkers who see race not merely as a zoological category, but also as a historical and ethnic one.” Considering these programmatic statements, I would have expected to have agreed with the author: for isn’t he very insightful, sticking with what he knows best, zoology? The fact that the Jews ought not to be conceived of as an independent “race,” but only as “a genealogical unity, which can no longer be accounted for anthropologically but merely historically” had, of course, been already established by Zollschan. And yet [Fishberg’s] entire book again offers proof of the nonexistence of the Jews as a race, and ends with the following stupefying sentence: “Judaism was and remains a religion—it was never a race.” Quite a zoological conclusion indeed!
The book offers an abundance of extremely interesting material. It deals in specific chapters with a number of alleged racial traits, and demonstrates through a comparison of different Jewish types that one would not be able to speak of any homogeneity. Anthropological traits such as skin color, cranial size, body shape; physiological characteristics such as somatological development and fertility; pathological traits such as particular diseases, alcoholism, nervous disorders, idiocy, suicide—all these undergo examination. The author then arrives at the unobjectionable position that “race” proves attractive as an explanation for a phenomenon when other hypotheses, such as the influence of milieu, have been rejected. The section on “Jewish anthropological types” is very interesting; the types are illustrated through a large number of very successful artistic representations. Whether or not the enormous amount of statistical material is truly exhaustive, I cannot judge. I doubt, in fact, that such compilations can ever really be complete and reliable. But I will take Dr. Fishberg’s representation on blind trust. He demonstrates, not only in regard to the myriad different anthropological types but also historically, that there occurred an infusion of foreign blood into Jewry. Thereby, in the author’s view, the racial pride of those Jews, who thought of themselves as part of a 4,000-year-old tradition, is destroyed. “At the same time, this also makes the firm ground beneath antisemitism vanish, since its basic assumption is that Jewish blood cannot mix with the blood of others, and that the Jews remain an undesired ‘foreign’ element in Western countries.”
Is this not a tilting at windmills? That Jewish blood can, speaking in strictly zoological terms, mix with the blood of non-Jews our own Dr. Ruppin has already demonstrated in his work; and we have gratefully received this wisdom. But Dr. Fishberg overlooks something entirely: indeed, the physical possibility of such intermixing is there, but not the will. Fishberg mentions Zionism in only one place (the original English version, which I unfortunately do not have at my disposal, is supposed to contain a more extended discussion of Zionism); there [in that one place] it is said with regard to intermarriage (p. 75): “It has been demonstrated statistically that after three or four generations of this sort of intermarriage, one rarely finds an adherent of the Jewish religion among the descendants. Thus, on account of this, those Jews who desire the continuity of their faith protest against intermarriage; and the colonization idea propounded by Zionism appears in no small measure to rest on the belief that, as things now stand, intermarriage cannot be hindered or prevented. Therefore, we see the desire to isolate the Jews through colonization. One may allow oneself to have a healthy skepticism, however, about whether Judaism can be ‘saved’ in this way.”
In any case, one “may.” Not a soul can prevent our Don Quixote from doubting, and maintaining with satisfaction, the unrecoverability of Jewry. We nonetheless believe that world history is made not by zoologists, but by ideas. In his thick book, Dr. Fishberg proves that the Jews can and must disappear; indeed, he proves that Jews do not even really exist. I’m afraid that the entire theory will make very little impression; we do not want to disappear, and we in fact do exist, however much one might try to talk us away. Quod (non) est in actis, non est in mundo [what is not in the documents does not exist].
However, the author does impose limitations. If there is no zoological type of Jew, one must nonetheless still explain the fact that a differentiation is made between Jews and non-Jews. “What is it, then, that marks one as a Jew and another as a non-Jew? It is not the body, but the soul. In other words, a type is not defined anthropologically or physically, but socially and psychologically.” In a somewhat unusual use of the term, the author labels this characteristic “religion,” offering a pars pro toto [a part for the whole]. He will have little understanding of the fact that it is not zoology that is important to us, but this “spiritual” type; that we do not feel a sense of unity on account of our cheekbones, but because of a feeling of unity that is deeply rooted in our nature. Moreover, we know that one should not falsely generalize and declare this or that to be “Jewish” per se, as the antisemites do when they ascribe certain things they have noticed about one Jew or a group of Jews to the collective. We know that within the Jewish Volk, alongside the prophets, the heroes, and the martyrs, there can also be found hagglers, cowards, and traitors. Even Dr. Fishberg shows, albeit unintentionally, just how different from each other the Jews are. Some dedicate their entire lives to the rebirth and renewal of their downtrodden nation, taking on themselves the task—both immensely difficult and burdened with responsibility—of the reconstruction of a new Jewry. Others write books in which they offer proof to the antisemites that there really are no Jews, and that their blood is in fact “capable” of mixing with that of others. Dr. Fishberg could have presented this possibility far more blatantly: Go forth, get baptized, and “disappear” as quickly as you can. It is well known that there were periods of Jewish history when great masses of Jews deserted; the fundamental stock remains. The fundamental stock will remain this time as well.
There is today a vitality within Jewry that has not been seen in many decades. Anyone who is not partaking of this vitality may imagine that Jewry is dead. Whoever possesses this powerful, warm, and throbbing feeling of life will chuckle at such scholarship [that posits the death of Jewry] and not even get upset about it. I live: this reality requires no authentication. Jewry is not a mineral, it is an organism; with organic beings it is not matter but the “vital force” (Lebensschwungkraft) that counts.
Zionism is not something that can be explained “scientifically.” We know that Judaism lives in us; this knowledge is the most powerful proof of Judaism’s hold. We seek to build a new, purer house for this [vital] Judaism; this will is the only reason we need to give for our action. [. . .] Zionism is not a science, it is a way of life; it does not require knowledge, but spirit; it is above all not about cogitation, but about will. [. . .] The great works of mankind have all been the product of spirit, not the result of materialist developments. In the realization of such great works, such as the renewal of Jewry, one requires the powerful force of an idea. [. . .] Zionism is the faith in the spirit that exists in us. Zionism is enthusiasm.
47. Die Rassenmerkmale der Juden, Munich: Ernst Reinhardt, 1913.