Policy in Changing Conditions

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 "The Jewish Question'3
A Semantic Approach
BY JACOB TOURY

A political catchword does not emerge by chance.1 Sometimes it evolves

laboriously and undergoes several transformations of form and conno-
tations before its acceptance by the general public; sometimes it seems
to spring into life fully fledged and ready for use — but whenever a new
term catches on and gains wide recognition, a turning point in the
development of the phenomenon which it describes seems to have been
reached.2 Hence, when the emergence of a catchword is scrutinized, it may
reveal some aspects of the phenomenon which were previously obscured,
and thus may help to gain new insights into its character. Such appears
also to be the case with the slogan "The Jewish Question".

One would expect to meet with the "Jewish Question" as early as the
middle of the eighteenth century, when the passage of the Bill of Natu-
ralization in England and its quick repeal aroused a formidable public
clamour. During those months of excitement in 1753, a catchword seems
to have been in the making, probably inspired by the quite commonly
used term "Jew-Bill".3 There is at least one printed testimony: a pamphlet,
entitled Reply to the famous Jew Question*
What was the "famous question" then raised? Was it analogous
to the question asked in the title of another contemporary pamphlet,
i.e. "The Question, whether a Jew, born within the British Dominions
was... a person capable by Law to purchase &: hold lands etc."5 Or
was it the then actual "Question relating to the naturalization of the

»Cf. Robert Weltsch, Introduction to LBI Year Book IX (1964), p. ix, and R. Koebner &
s
H. D. Schmidt, Imperialism (Cambridge 1964), p. xv seq.
Cf. Alex Bein, ,,Von der Zionssehnsucht zum politischen Zionismus", Robert Weltsch
zum siebzigsten Geburtstag, (Tel Aviv 1961), p. 33 seq. And compare the semantic scrutiny
of "The Term "Jewish Emancipation" " by Jacob Katz in Studies and Texts (vol. ii),
Institute of Advanced Judaic Studies, Brandeis Univ., Cambridge Mass. 1964.
3" 'Jew Bill'.. . was the name generally applied to the measure at the time." Perry,
Thomas W., Public Opinion, Propaganda and Politics in Eighteenth-Century England
4
(Cambridge, Mass., 1962), p. vii.
[Grove, Joseph] Reply to the Famous Jew Question etc. (London 1754). For a fuller
description of this and similar pamphlets cf. Roth, Cecil B., Magna Bibliotheca
Anglo-Judaica (London 1937), no. B. 1, 120 (hence: MBAJ).
*The Author was Philip C. Webb. Cf. MBAJ, no. B. 1, 114.

85

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 86 Jacob Toury
Jews," as formulated in the title of still another pamphlet of the period?6
Yet, even if "the famous Jew Question" comprised both the problems
of naturalization and of land-holding, its contents did not correspond to
the whole extent of the later "Jewish Question", but pertained to partial
aspects of the question only. Thus it may be stated that during the
first formative stage of our catchword, the nature and the scope of the
"Jewish Question" was not fully recognized and therefore, no compre-
hensive term for it evolved.
In looking for proof of this contention, one may scan the titles and
contents of pamphlets and articles that appeared outside England. There
too, certain questions concerning the Jews and their status began to
interest the enlightened public, such as the literary feud between Isaac
de Pinto and Voltaire in France and the Lavater-Mendelssohn dispute
in Germany and Switzerland. With Ch. W. Dohm's essay on the "Civil
Improvement of the Jews" (1781) and Joseph II's "Patent of Toleration"
(1782) some political significance was lent to the discussion even on the
Continent. But although some partial questions were then formulated,
the complex "Jewish Question" remained as yet undefined, and hence
nameless.
As the German language seems to have been most widely used in
arguing the case for and especially against the Jews, it might be profitable
to mention some German publications of the eighteenth century, that con-
tained one or more partial aspects of the question. It was asked, "whether
the Jews were by right admitted by the Christians, and whether it
were more useful or harmful for a Commonwealth, if they were permit-
ted full commerce and traffick in the country?"7 Somewhat later an
essay posed the "question, whether under certain conditions... toleran-
ce be attainable by the Jews"8, and another one asked: "To which
trade or profession should the Jews be compelled."9 Still another raised
a point of political education: "Whether it be advisable for humanity's
sake or necessary for reasons of State to grant to the . . . Jewish Nation . . .
participation in the institutes of education."10 And finally, the pamphlet-
eers spent much time on the problem, "whether a Jew should become
a soldier."11
There is only one booklet among the lot, the title of which seems
to comprise more than a partial aspect of the question, by inquiring into
'[Western, Edward], Diaspora, Some Reflections upon the Question etc. (London 1754).
Cf. MBA], no. B. 1, 122. There appeared at least two additional pamphlets, including
7
"question" or "query" in their titles, cf. MBA], no. B. 1, 93 and 98.
For the full title of this and other pamphlets cf. Eichstadt, Volkmar, Bibliographic zur
Geschichte der Judenfrage (Hamburg 1938), vol. i. no. 75. (hence: Eichstadt).
^Eichstadt, no. 87.
^Eichstadt, no. 158.
w
Cf. Eichstadt, no. 159. This was part of a prize-question.
"Cf. Eichstadt, no. 215-218. This question was occasioned by the recruitment of Jewish
soldiers in the Hapsburg Monarchy (1788-1789).

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 "The Jewish Question" 87
12
the advisability of Jewish civil liberty, for were not equal civil rights
the lodestar of Jewish hopes?
Even so, what civil rights were there to be attained on the continent
of Europe before the outbreak of the French Revolution? Did not Emperor
Joseph II's "Patent of Toleration" then seem to be the optimum attainable,
both from the point of Jewish aspirations and from the point of Enlight-
ened Absolutism? Did civil rights in the 1780's really include more than
a precarious personal liberty and a carefully regulated permit to a
restricted pursuit of happiness? Anyhow, in the framework of an absolu-
te state, no political rights were attainable, and it seems therefore, that
the measure of "civil liberty" under discussion may be summed up
in the words of the most famous partial aspect of the question then rais-
ed: The Prize-Question set by the Royal Academy for the Sciences and
Arts in Metz, on the means for making the Jews happier and more
useful to the State.13
In other words, the abolition of the existing restrictions of Jewish
settlement and commerce in imitation of Emperor Joseph II's "Patent
of Tolerance," the furtherance of general education among the Jews,
their admission to the arts and crafts, and probably their recruitment
into the army were then thought to be the best means of making them
happier and more useful to the state, and these measures constituted at
the same time the highest degree of "civil liberty" that was obtainable
under a restrictive absolute regime.

II
Why were such comparatively simple demands denied? If we return
to the controversy on the English "Jew-Bill," we may easily discern
three sets of arguments that were then used against the Jews.14 In the
first place, even the slight betterment provided by the bill was consider-
ed as inconsistent with the Christian Religion and as repugnant to the
Constitution and it was held "that they never can be incorporated with
us, whilst they remain Jews or we - Christians." In the second place,
the Jews themselves "do not desire to be incorporated,"15 as they
were in the main as expectant as ever of a sudden summons by their
Messiah to return to Zion. Moreover, their voluntary isolation under
talmudic and rabbinic law and their connubial and convivial segre-

"Cf. Eichstddt, no. 107.

ia
Est-il des moyens de rendre les juifs plus utiles et plus heureux en France? The prize-
winning essays were by Abb6 Grdgoire, Zalkind Hourwitz and Adolphe Thiery. Both the
last-mentioned incorporated the question into the title of their essays.
"The importance of the Bill as a weapon in party-politics and electioneering, which has
15
been ably demonstrated by Perry, op. cit., may be neglected in our context.
[Hanway, Jonas], A Review of the Proposed Naturalization of the Jews (London 1753),
MBA], no. B. 1, 80, pp. 29 seq. and 61.

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 88 Jacob Toury
gation not only set them apart from their fellow-men, but also perpetuat-
ed their obnoxious characteristics and rendered them incorrigible.16
The third and most significant set of arguments then used, pertained
to the actual or potential economic harmfulness of the Jews. It was raised
on several levels: The landed gentry allegedly feared that, once natural-
ized, the Jews would become "possessed, not only of all the wealth, but
of many, perhaps most, of the land-estates in the Kingdom," and in
consequence, would "lord it over Englishmen and Christians."17 Certain
classes of merchants considered Jewish competition harmful to their enter-
prises, and especially to the trade with Spain and Portugal.18 Small
shopkeepers were made aware of the alleged danger that "if Jew shop-
keepers should increase, the Christians must diminish in number."19
Finally, "poor Journeymen and Day-Labourers" were frightened by
the spectre of Jewish immigration to follow under the bill: the newcomers
would harm them by "lowering their wages and reducing them to a
starving condition."20
The last argument seems to be of no mean significance. For, at least
outside London, Jews were "only represented by a handful of travelling
pedlars, and it followed naturally that ninety-nine out of every hundred
Englishmen were as ignorant of a Jew's humanity and aspiration as their
ancestors had been."21 Therefore it should not be surprising that the com-
ponent of the poor Jew formed a more important part of the discussion
than hitherto considered. It was remarked that the "proportion of poor"
Jews, already in the country, was "very great" and that they imposed "a
burden to a nation", because their needs tended "to raise the price of
provision." Moreover, these poor Jews did not deign "to learn any art or
practice any manual labour" in order to better themselves. In short, they
were in the main not only poor but immoral,22 and when considering the
problem of bettering the Jews, one had to take into account "not only rich
Jews," but also "the poorer souls."23 As long as the unreconstructed bulk of
the Jewish population was made up of "a train of hawkers and pedlars and
traffickers" and of the very great number of the destitute poor,24 who

i«Weston, op. cit., p. 51. Quoted: Hertz, Gerald B., British Imperialism in the xviiith
century (London 1908), p. 99. Likewise, this is the main argument of William Romaine
17
(MBAJ, no. B. 1, 102), especially p. 34 seq. Cf. note 23 infra.
Sir Edmund Isham during the debate in the Commons, and Jackson's Oxford Journal,
June 9, 1753. Quoted: Perry, op. cit., pp. 82, 85.
"According to the petitions of London merchants against the Bill, ibid., p. 54 seq.
"Sir John Barnard of London during the debate in the Commons, ibid., p. 84.
2
°Tucker, Josiah, A Letter to a Friend Concerning Naturalizations (London 1753),
MBAJ, no. B. 1, 109, 2nd ed., p. 10.
aiHertz, op. cit., p. 68.
22Hanway, op. cit., p. 68 seq., 87.
2
3[Romaine, William], An Answer to a Pamphlet entitled 'Considerations on the Bill...'
etc. (London 1753 ii), MBAJ, no. B. 1, 102, p. 22. In the original, those expressions
4
appear in a slightly different context.
* Hanway, op. cit., p. 67.

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 "The Jewish Question" 89
threatened to "eat up" the provisions of the country,25 their spectre ne-
cessarily entered the considerations of the Jewish case at least as much as
did the spectre of the rich Jews and their alleged threat of establishing a
"Jewish tyranny."26
Yet, as long as the problem of poor and rich Jews constituted only a
part of the compound political issue of the Jew-Bill, and as long as the
Bill did not envisage a total absorption of the Jews in the population,
but proposed, at the most, to give only a partial answer to the demands
of a small fraction of Jewish merchants and bankers for privileges — in
short, as long as conservative Christian ideologies and a mediaeval image
of the Jew prevailed, no modern "Jewish Question" and no slogan of a
"Jewish Question" could emerge.

Ill
But what happened when liberty and religious freedom turned into the
rallying-cry of a revolution? In France, the idea of equality and the
de facto abolition of all and every privilege and class-distinction seemed
to put an end to the old restrictionist and conservative Christian concepts
of state. The theoretical insight into the indivisibility of freedom urged
the revolutionaries into granting full civil rights to the Jews. Did this
development of the French Revolution give rise to the slogan of the
"Jewish Question?"
The protocols of the National Assembly reveal that at one point of
the debates on Jewish Rights the formation of a catchword was immi-
nent. The problem in hand was sometimes referred to as I'affaire des
juifs21 and occasionally as la question sur I'Stat des juifs,28 or, shorter
still, as la question sur les juifs.29 Especially in the session of February
26, 1790, during a debate on a point of order, some short phrases of that
kind were repeated several times and their repetitious character might
have given rise to a new slogan, but "the question was adjourned,"80
before it turned into a question juive.
Why did no slogan emerge? Was the scope of the French question sur
les juifs, which had been raised as a central legislative problem, not
broad enough to give rise to a catchword? Moreover, the French debate
on the question relative aux juifs was aggravated by serious social unrest
in Alsace-Lorraine. The Alsatian Jews were mostly poor Ashkenazis,
"Tucker,
26
op. cit., p. 8.
Gentleman's Magazine xxiii, p. 468. Quoted: Hertz, op. cit., p. 67. Similarly Romaine,
27
op. cit., p. 36.
Halphen, Achille E., Recueil des lois concernant les Israelites en France (Paris 1851),
e.g. session of September 3, 1789 (p. 180), session of September 28, 1789 (ibid.), session of
April 15, 1790 (p. 217).
*»ibid., p. 192.
"ibid., p . 195.
*>ibid., p . 216.

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 <?o Jacob Toury
who neither spoke the language of the country nor showed marked
eagerness to learn it. Despite their low social standard they were suspect-
ed of robbing the country by their usury, and, thus, they were an even
more controversial factor in France than the "poor Jews" had been
in England. Hence, one of the most potent arguments of the French oppo-
nents to emancipation was the contention that such a liberal step would
certainly lead to pogroms in Alsace.
If under these challenging social and political conditions the catch-
word of a question juive did not emerge, it ought to be assumed that
neither a tense social situation nor party politics, nor even ideological
altercations between conservatism and liberalism were at the root of the
later concept of a "Jewish Question."

IV
The last statement may furnish an explanation of the fact that also
during the public discussions of Jewish Rights in Central Europe, both
before and after the Congress of Vienna, no "Jewish Question" was
raised. Once again, partial aspects of the question were broached, and
although their scope was somewhat wider than during the eighteenth
century and more often than before pertained to the granting of full
civil rights,31 no general Judenfrage was formulated. However, during
the 1820's one or two questions were asked, whose scope was so broad that
they might almost be regarded as forerunners of the definite Judenfrage:
If, for instance, one writer asks: "What should one do with the Jews?"32 —
he seems to have been not very far both from the contents of the term
Judenfrage and from a definite concept of its "final solution."
Although the German Judenfrage ultimately did emerge some fifteen
years after the last-mentioned question, it was not in Germany that
the term was first used. In 1833 there appeared in Paris a pamphlet that
bore the title Question des Juifs Polonais, envisagee comme Question
Europeenne, by Jean Czynski. Czynski was of Jewish extraction, but was
born and educated as a Polish Catholic. He took an active part in the
Polish uprising of 1830, and after its suppression emigrated to Paris,
where he joined the Phalansterien movement of Fourier. In his pamphlet
Question des Juifs Polonais he rebuked the Poles for having discouraged
Jewish participation in their uprising, although now alleging that the
Jews had remained passive. He stated his conviction that the Jews could
not fail to excercise a great influence upon all the political changes which
were imminent in the North and in the East of Europe, and that it only
depended upon the Poles to find in that people a strong ally. While he
conceded that the mass of Polish Jews still regarded themselves comme

f. Eichstadt, nos. 225, 312, 383, 456, 545a, 606, 669, 735, 749, 792, 793 etc.
»2Biinau, V., Was ist anzufangen mit den Juden? (1822).

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 "The Jewish Question" 91
une emigration . . . en attendant Vavenement du Messie, and were "under
the yoke of superstition and under the influence of fanatical rabbis,"
he nevertheless stressed the fact that there lived in Poland considerable
numbers of Jews, ready and eager to make every sacrifice in order to
gain the status of citizens "and to change the name of Juif Polonais into
that of Polonais de la religion de Moise!"zs
The short summary of Czynski's argument shows that his Question
des Juifs was connected with the dichotomy between the mass of unrecon-
structed and poor "old" Jews and the already considerable element of
"new" Jews, who were at least partially integrated in their non-Jewish
surroundings. In this respect he hardly innovated anything in comparison
with the English "Jew Question" of 1753 and the question sur les juifs
of the French Revolution, except his assertion of the growing numbers of
"new" Jews and his use of the very term Question des Juifs.
But perhaps there is some significance just in these slight additions.
And perhaps one may construe a connection between the increase of
"new" Jews and the emergence of the catchphrase "Jewish Question."
Czynski himself lends weight to such an assumption by stressing the
potential strength of the already integrated Western Jews. He even re-
gards them as a growing influence and a rising political power in Western
Europe.34 And in fact, Czynski was not the only person who held
such opinions. In Germany, too, it was argued as early as 1821, that
the Jews, by their literary and journalistic activities, intended "to
establish a full domination over the world of ideas."35 Somewhat later
it was alleged that it was not only the world of ideas, but also the
material world that was at their mercy: "The most potent of powers
that sway our times, the power of money, lies in the hands of the Jews
and is apt to open before them all the roads, whose most secret and dark
bypaths are in any case known to them." It was stated that they decisively
influenced international politics by juggling the dette publique, and
especially the House of Rothschild was held responsible for this feat.36
Thus it seems that during the 1830's, anti-Jewish sentiments were no
longer concentrated on Betteijuden and pedlars,37 and not even on usury
and commercial competition. Nor was the now emerging Judische Frage
a mere Emanzipationsfrage.ss Jews and pro-Jewish gentiles, who regarded

s'Czynski, Jean, Question des juifs polonais (Paris 1833), pp. 3 seq. and 25. On Czynski cf.
the bibliography by Duker, Abraham G., "Polish Frankism's Duration", JSS, xxv (1963),
4
p. 304 seq.
s Czynski, op. cit., p. 25.
S5,,um eine voile Herrschaft iiber die Ideenwelt zu erringen". Hoist, Ludolf, Das Juden-
thum, in alien dessen Theilen ... betrachtet. (Mainz 1821), as quoted in Ludwig Borne's
critical essay Der ewige Jude.
*6(anon) ,,Die judische Frage", Munchener Historisch-Politische Blatter fur das katholi-
sche Deutschland", vol. ii (1838), p. 390 seq.
37Cf. Eichstddt nos. 275, 814.
»8Cf. Eichstddt no. 997.

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 92 Jacob Toury
civil equality as a remedy for all Jewish difficulties, might define it as
such — and in fact, the first essay in German, which bore the catchword
"Jewish Question" as its caption, advocated a gradual emancipation.89
But even if at first, a question des juifs or a Jiidische Frage was formul-
ated by partisans of Jewish rights, like Czynski and the German author
of the first Jiidische Frage, nevertheless, the "Jewish question" as a
slogan did not take roots until it had established itself as an anti-Jewish
battle-cry.
A point in favour of this contention is the translation of Czynski's
pamphlet into English. Although the English edition appeared in 1834,
when the admission of Jews to Parliament and to municipal honours in
London was a burning problem, it did not bear the caption "The
Jewish Question" or something similar to it. Its title was noncommittal,
and this may be taken as an indicaton for the absence of a "Jewish
question" in the continental sense in England.40
But on the Continent, and especially in Germany, a "Jewish quest-
ion" was definitely at hand, and the catchword once formed was readily
absorbed and spread. In the year of its first appearance in Germany
(1838), two lengthy essays bore the heading Die Jiidische Frage*1 With
the second publication of this name, by an anonymous Catholic author,
an entirely negative tenor towards emancipation and towards modern
trends in the development of the Jewish community seems to have been
established. However, the initial form of the slogan Jiidische Frage did
not catch on immediately. Four years elapsed, until the emergence of
the terse version Judenfrage paved the way for the ultimate popularisa-
tion of the catchword.
V
The final breakthrough coincided with the heated public controversy
on the legal position of the Jews in Prussia after the accession of King
Friedrich Wilhelm IV to the throne. The King's intention to bestow upon
his Jews the status of a corporation would have perpetuated their legal
position as aliens in the framework of a Christian State and, despite
the projected augmentation of Jewish autonomy, would have deprived
them of their rights as equal citizens and excluded them from military
service and from public offices.
39A. M., ,,Beitrage z u r Losung der judischen Frage", Deutsche Viertel-Jahresschrift i
(1838), p. 248.
40
"An Enquiry into the Political Condition of the Polish Jews, considered in Relation to
the General Interests of Europe", MBAJ, Addenda no. 187a. There are, nevertheless,
some indications that sometimes the "Jewish question" was spoken of privately, as
in the following letter, by P. Thompson of the "Westminster Review" to Francis H.
Goldsmid: "I shall be exceedingly happy to be of any service to the Jewish question . . . "
(University College London, MSS., Letters by and to Sir Isaac L. Goldsmid, torn. I,
No. 324, letter dated February 12, 1833).
41
As quoted in notes 36 and 39 above.

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 "The Jewish Question" 93
Numerous essays and pamphlets for and against the projected Juden-
gesetz were published, and at the height of the discussion during the
year 1842, at least five publications, all of them against Jewish equality,
displayed the new catchword Judenfrage in their captions,42 thus making
it into a household-word, first in Germany and very soon also abroad.
Two of the essays, — Hoffmann's Zur Judenfrage and Bauer's later
famous Die Judenfrage — were re-edited and issued as booklets. They
aroused a widespread literary controversy and lent additional weight to
the final onslaught of the slogan on the sensibilities of the public.43
During 1843/44 the catchword was diffused in ever-widening circles by
its reiteration in various newspaper-reviews, and in addition it was
included in the captions of many new publications. Amongst them were
essays on Jews as army-physicians, pamphlets by virulent Jew-baiters,
apologetic utterances by Jews and polemic evaluations by socialist think-
ers, the most important of the latter being Karl Marx's Zur Judenfrage.
A striking fact at this stage of the development was the uncritical
acceptance of the new slogan by the Jews themselves. One Jewish periodical
immediately adopted it into its name,44 and various Jewish writers
used it freely. Only Ludwig Philippson, editor of the Allgemeine Zei-
tung des Judentums, seems to have hesitated for a certain period, until
he, too, like all the others, submitted to the convenient short term.45
If Philippson actually hesitated before using the catchword, was it
because he had a suspicion of its dangerous connotations? For the under-
lying meaning of the now definitely launched new term was indeed
charged with explosive.
VI
It has already been suggested that its roots were neither in party politics
nor in economic and constitutional controversies and not even in the
ideological struggle between conservativism and liberalism. Hence, might
it not be that the acceptance of the slogan was less dependent upon the
circumstances of the non-Jewish surroundings than upon the develop-

42
It is impossible to ascertain which one was the first, and the following order is based
on general impressions only:
a) Hoffmann, Johann G., ,,Zur Judenfrage", Allgemeine Preussische Staats-Zeitung
(Berlin 1842) and later as a pamphlet. The caption ,,Zur Judenfrage" appears only
in the pamphlet.
b) Die Judenfrage, ,,Aus den Papieren eines Berliner Burgers" no. i (Berlin 1842).
c) J. Fr. Die Presse und die Judenfrage', Kgl. Priv. Berlinische Zeitung (1842) no. 174.
d) Brand, Theodor, Die Judenfrage in Preussen (Breslau 1842).
e) Bauer, Bruno, Die Judenfrage, Deutsche Jahrbucher fur Wissenschaft und Kunst,
vol. v, (1842), and later as pamphlet (Braunschweig 1848).
*3Cf. Eichstadt, nos. 1201, 1215, 1261-1280, 1844, 1845 et. al.
"Freund, Wilhelm, (ed.) Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland, Berlin-Breslau 1843-1844.
^Philippson used the term at first only when quoting from other authors. Only in AZdJ
1844, p. 445 it appears in his own usage.

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 94 Jacob Toury
46
ment of the Jews themselves? And in fact, it has been stated above with
regard to Czynski's pamphlet, that the emergence of a new type of Jews,
who were more or less integrated into their surroundings, had something
to do with it. This is borne out by an examination of some points that
were raised in the first German publications, which drew attention to the
new catchword.
Hoffmann's Zur Judenfrage is mainly a compilation of official statistical
material on the Jews in Prussia, and as such it is of no mean value.
Only as an afterthought the author adds certain remarks on the devel-
opment of the Prussian Jews during the preceding thirty years. He
complains that they had not seized the opportunity granted to them
by the Prussian edict of 1812 and had not changed their economic activi-
ties to an appreciable extent. They still avoided manual labour, prefer-
red peddling and any other kind of retailing, or — with some more
credit at their disposal and with some better education — they took
to money-lending and exchanging and acted as agents and distributors
for various commodities. Thus he makes it appear as if he still dealt
with the "old" Jews. But he is fair enough to mention, even in this
context, that "with still more capital at their disposal, they add to all
their other activities also industrial enterprises of considerable scope,
which are operated by Christian labourers." In other words, although
Hoffmann endeavours to paint a picture of unchanging conditions, he
has to admit that a certain change has taken place. And once conceding
this, he also admits that money, as a key to higher learning, and through
it to freer realms of the social life, has enabled the Jews to enter the
one and only learned profession then open to them — the medical pro-
fession. He even stresses the fact that roughly 15 % of all the physicians
in Prussia were Jews or recently baptized Christians, whereas only 1.3%
of the population were Jewish. Consequently, he continues to defeat his
own argument concerning the lack of change in Jewish life: "There is
no doubt that the Jews would turn in the same proportion to Law and
Political Sciences, once a chance of equal preferment in the Civil Service
were granted to them. In general, one gains the impression that the
Jews occupy even now a more extended place in the middle ranks of the
social scale, than they would have occupied according to their numerical
strength, if they were not influenced in the choice of their occupations
by their religious usage."
In short, although Hoffmann endeavours to explain the Jewish de-
ployment into capitalist enterprises and intellectual professions as an
outcome of the Jewish religion and of old Jewish disabilities, he has to
concede a new Jewish pre-eminence in those economic and intellectual
4
«If so, this might be the cause of the immediate acceptance of the term by the Jews.
Another explanation is that there existed two different "Jewish questions". This
possibility will be examined later on.

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 "The Jewish Question" 95
spheres, which had not previously been occupied by them. But how-
ever contradictory his premises — his conclusions are clear: No equal
rights should be granted, neither to the old and unchanging Jews, nor
to the "new" and ambitious Jews, because the "disaffection, which is
already now visibly fomented by this ambition, would then unavoidably
increase to such a magnitude and power, that the Jews would be far
more seriously affected by the onslaught of public opinion, than they
are now by the disabilities not yet removed by governments."47
Ludwig Philippson, in his rebuttal of Hoffmann's contentions, set out
to discredit them as semi-official utterances, intended to whitewash the
restrictive tendencies of the impending new Jew-Law in Prussia.48 But
the "Jewish question" was not merely a legal or a legislative problem.
Another eminent Jewish spokesman, Moritz Veit, who wrote against Hoff-
mann, stressed a different and more important point of Hoffmann's
argument: "Before now, one could opine that every useful and honour-
able occupation would be regarded as a welcome element of 'Civil So-
ciety'. Yet we stand corrected with regard to the Jews: the free devel-
opment of all faculties is a fable; a man and a citizen is valued only as
a member of the corporation to which he belongs, viz: the Jew only as
member of Jewry."49
VII
This was really the crux of the matter. The "Jewish question" thus
defined reads as follows: Is the Jew an element of "Civil Society" or
does he belong to an extraneous community? In other words, the
emerging "Jewish question" was not the question of individual rights
and of equality between private citizens, but rather the question of the
corporate status of Jewry as a whole. Sharp and unequivocal language
in favour of this conception was used by the anti-Jewish author, Theo-
dor Brand, one of the first to employ the term Judenfrage:50 "Don't
bother us with the folly that the Jews are merely individual Prussians —
we won't accept it."
At the same time, the anti-Jewish authors were now ready to contend
that the Jews constituted a separate community quite apart from their
adhering to a different religion. Thus, although the old religious argu-
ment that the Jews could not be elevated to full citizenship in a primar-
ily Christian society still wrought some influence, especially in Austria,
Prussia and other German principalities, its value became progressively
smaller and lost its importance: "Our time is no longer so ardent in its
faith, the traditional rancour invests itself with modern phrases and

"Hoffmann, op. cit., pp. 25-29.

^AZdJ 1842, p. 364, in connection with a partial reprint of Hoffmann's essay.
*Hbid., p. 397, Veit's Article is not listed in Eichstddt.
50
Brand, op. cit., p. 21. Original italics.

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 96 Jacob Toury
the hooligans in the beerhouses and in the Chambers of Deputies hold
forth with mercantile, industrial, scientific, of philosophical arguments"
wrote Heinrich Heine at a time when the first essay on the Judische
Frage began to appear.51 And, indeed, as we have seen, even the Catholic
author who first used the term Judische Frage, and the Prussian statis-
tician Hoffmann, offered commercial and industrial reasons as proof for
their anti-emancipatory conclusions. But whereas they still stressed the
religious moment as the root of all the differences, Theodor Brand
made an entirely different case for his opposition to Jewish equality:
Although Prussian Jews had been granted full citizen's rights in 1812,
they had not used them to good purpose. They declined to imitate
the "Christian national life," and continued to cling to their separate
"national life." And if the Jews pleaded for more time and more latitude
in order to resume their "development," they certainly laboured under
a misconception with regard to their goal: "The Jews are convinced
that the development of Jewry ought to be as follows: 'A steady evolve-
ment of an elevated rank of the population. The Jews ought to become
and to be merchants, artists, scientists, officers, writers, officials, industrial-
ists, factory-managers, country-squires, landlords and proprietors of real
estate', with humble Christian manservants and maidservants being at
their beck and call." Against such a picture Brand remonstrated: "Citi-
zens consist not only of merchants, retailers, hawkers and traffickers."
Thus, according to Brand, the Jews had missed the essential point of
their emancipation. They attempted to become equal citizens of the
state, but did not care to equalize their position with regard to the nation
(Volk). Yet, Jewry ought to be concerned not with statehood, but with
Christian nationhood. And just the latter they had neglected, by dispar-
aging the value of "national labour" (Volksarbeit). "So long as the
Jews do not eat and work like us — so long should those people not
look askance at our suspiciousness toward them... Even in our modern
times they do not at all desist from their presumptiousness and do
not deign to take upon them the national labour. We do not need the
Jews, the Jews need us! If suddenly all the Jews disappeared... could
the country and its inhabitants exist without the Jews? Most decidedly,
yes! But if in the same circumstances the Christian population suddenly
disappeared, could the Jews (without Volksarbeit) subsist? Most decided-
ly, not- This 'could' and 'could not' constitutes the Jewish question!"™
Although it may be a coincidence that the nationalistic terms Volksar-
beit and Volkstum in the above pamphlet are coupled with the mention
of the silencing of Jewish writers and of the possible disappearance of
the Jews, nevertheless, Brand's brazenly nationalistic presentation of
the Judenfrage seems to foreshadow later racial theories.

^Shakespeares Madchen und Frauen - Jessica.

, op. cit., pp. 6, 18 seq., 21 seq. Italics partly original, partly mine.

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 "The Jewish Question" 97
VIII
With lesser national or racial bias, yet with a greater show of "scien-
tific" and dialectic brilliance, Bruno Bauer attempted his analysis of
the Judenfrage, in order to prove that collective Jewry could not be
emancipated. As Bauer's arguments seem to have played a most impor-
tant part in the diffusion of the anti-Jewish slogan and its new contents,
it might be necessary to scrutinize his pamphlet somewhat closer, not
so much as a philosophical and historiosophic tract, but rather as a
decisive contribution to the concept of the modern Judenfrage.
Although Bauer endeavoured to present " . . . the Jewish question on-
ly [as] a part of the large and general question" to be solved by his
contemporaries,53 he, nevertheless, set it apart from the general problem
by attributing to the Jews certain traits not inherent in non-Jews.
He chose as illustration for his assertions not so much the old Jews,
hidebound in their petrified traditions,54 but rather the new Jews, whose
link with traditional Jewry had been severed and who had progressed
successfully toward their goal of secular acculturation: "All assertions,
even by the most enlightened Jew, that he does not envisage an indepen-
dent nationality of 'his people' — however sincerely made — are illusory.
Uttering them, he must revoke and forswear them in the same instance
and with the same words with which they were uttered. As long as he
wants to remain a Jew, he cannot and durst not renounce his essence,
the exclusiveness, the idea of a special mission, of ultimate domination
(Alleinherrschaft) — in short, the chimera of a most monstrous privile-
ge." And just at this junction, "when the nationality of the Jew, and
everything that makes him a Jew, seems to have disappeared, the
Jewish essence reveals itself in its highest potence, because it continues
to exist despite its affliction. Thus it renders emancipation impossible,"
for in that instance in which the Jew seems to have come closest to
emancipation, the unrelenting chimerical idea of a Jewish mission remov-
es him "the farthest from it."55 If this was rather obscurely put, Bauer
clarified it later on: "The Jew who in the present circumstances, with
his enlightenment and his social aspirations, still wants to remain a Jew,
he is the true Jew and exemplifies most clearly the strength and verity
of Judaism (Judentum).. ,"58
To put it succinctly, the new acculturated and socially ambitious
Jew, who nevertheless cannot be totally absorbed, and does not want
to be totally absorbed, because he clings to an "illusion" of Jewry,57
53
Bauer, op. cit., p. 3.
54Yet, he also dealt with Jewish religion and attacked both its lack of logic and its
exclusiveness and fanaticism, ibid., p. 35 seq.
&Hbid., pp. 28-30.
**ibid., p. 74 seq.
"ibid., p. 78 seq.

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 98 Jacob Toury
constitutes the real "Jewish question-" Thus, "the emancipation of
the Jews in a radical and successful manner is only possible, when they
are to be emancipated not as Jews, i.e. as beings that must always remain
alien to Christians, but when they (turn) themselves into human beings,
who are not any longer kept apart by whatsoever barriers — not even
by seemingly essential ones — from their fellow humans." Consequently
Bauer has also to postulate the final dissolution of Christianity in human-
ity, because Christianity, too, is based upon privileges, exclusiveness and
prejudice.58 Therefore he sees the universal emancipation, i.e. the erection
of a "free world, destined to liberate the slaves of Prejudice," as the
real problem of the time, whereas the "Jewish question" is only a part
of the whole and as such not separately solvable.59
But alas, from the lofty heights of radical Young-Hegelian philosophy
Bauer quickly descended to the dangerous depths of his own anti-Jewish
prejudices. For him, Eisenmenger had yet to be refuted.60 Not content
to castigate Jewish exclusiveness as intolerance and obscurantism, he
reverted to the mediaeval image of the Jew as "a demonic, a diabolic
beast fighting the forces of truth and salvation,"61 in short, as an arch-
enemy of rational historical development: The Jew "negates history
[and] its progress: by proclaiming his illusory Judaism as the highest
principle of morality, he conducts a war of annihilation against his-
tory . . . This is a war against mankind as a whole — but in such a war
there lies the truth and the fulfillment of Judaism."62
This concept of a Jewish war for world domination was not merely a
dialectic or poetic explanation of the clash between spiritual forces. Bauer
himself had to concede that "men never wrought historical deeds for
pure religious reasons... If they thought they suffered for God's sake
alone,... they were always inspired and directed by political interests
or their aftermaths of their forerunners." And again, in Bauer's view,
Jewry incorporated to a higher degree than any other community the
"indivisibility of political and religious prejudice," whereby "political
and civic prejudice constitutes the kernel, which is enclosed and protect-
ed by religious prejudice."63 From such premises Bauer finally arrived
at a political and economic definition of the Jewish question that was
scarcely different form the contentions of the less methodical and "scien-
tific" pamphleteers: "It is indeed a deceitful state, when in theory the
Jew is excluded from political rights, while in fact he is possessed of
an immense power, and though his political influence be curtailed in small

*Hbid., p. 59 seq. This thesis was readily acceptable to Jewish Young-Hegelians. Cf.
Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland 1844, p. 369.
S9
Bauer, op. cit., pp. 60 and 114.
«oibid.} p . 86.
•"Trachtenberg, Joshua, The Devil and the Jews (Philadelphia 1961), p. 18.
«2Bauer, op. cit., p. 79.
*Hbid., pp. 94, 96.

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 "The Jewish Question" 99
details, he wields it on a large scale. The Jew who, for example, is only
tolerated in Vienna, decides by his money-power the destinies of the
whole Empire. The Jew, who may be deprived of his rights in the
smallest German principality, determines the fate of Europe. Guilds and
corporations may exclude the Jew or dislike him, yet the audacity of in-
dustrial [enterprise] mocks at the obstinacy of mediaeval institutions."64

IX
Bauer's argumentation was reversed in Karl Marx's essay Zur Juden-
frage. According to Marx, the essence of Judaism resided not in its
spiritual exclusiveness, but on the contrary, in its social — or in Marx's
term — "anti-social" inclusiveness.65 "Real Judaism" was "trafficking
and money," and the "de-facto Jew spirit had become the de-facto spirit
of the Christian people." Thus the granting of civil rights to Jews was
an unimportant detail and not objectionable by itself, as "the Jews had
already emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians had become
Jews." The real problem of emancipation therefore was, in Marx's eyes,
"the emancipation of mankind from Judaism," i.e. from the entire
anti-social elements of bourgeois society.
Despite Marx's dialectics and despite his rejection of Bauer's image
of the Jew and of his consequent enmity to civil equality, Marx retained
some important features of Bauer's "Jewish question": Marx, like
Bauer, treated it as part of a general problem, and thus only solvable
in conjunction with the solution of the larger one. He, too, stressed
the importance of Jewish participation in modern "capitalistic" devel-
opment and accorded to his "Jew"-image the comprehensive and collect-
ive traits of the arch-capitalist, that did not yield to individual attempts
at their disintegration. For Marx, as for Bauer, the social and economic
drive of the acculturated Jew was the real crux of the Jewish question.
Only, where Bauer imagined a war of "illusionary Judaism against
mankind," Marx envisaged a class struggle between capitalism, imbued
with "Jewish" spirit, and the emerging new forces of the proletariat as
bearers of a classless society.
Marx's essay on the Jewish question was soon forgotten and only
later rediscovered. If it had any influence at the time of its appearance,
it certainly did not weaken the impact of Bauer's theses. On the con-
trary, despite its different conclusions, it tended to strengthen just those
of them that were relevant to the anti-Jewish tenor of Bauer's "Jewish
question." Hence it is understandable that Ludwig Philippson applied
to Bauer at the time of his death in 1882 the term der eigenliche Vater

«*ibid., p. 114.
•sQuoted according to the German edition of Marx-Engels, Werke (Berlin DDR, 1958),
vol. i, p. 372 seq.

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 ioo Jacob Toury
des Antisemitismus, because his "essay Die Judenfrage contained in
nuce everything inimical to the Jews that has developed from then on
in Germany-"66
Yet, this was an overstatement. The emergence of modern antisemitism
cannot be explained by the influence of one essay or of one man. But
on the other hand, the slogan Judenfrage, whose establishment was
decisively advanced by Bauer's essay, indeed initiated a new phase in
the development of anti-Jewish bias. Its ideological connotations fore-
shadowed the development of those forms of antisemitism that became
rampant in Western Europe at the end of the nineteenth century. Their
common denominator was to be the insistence upon the alien character
of the Jews as a group, whose utter consistency did not lend itself to
easy dissolution in its surroundings.
Little did it matter that the essence of the Jewish group-character was
inconsistently, and sometimes even contradictorily defined by the various
disciples of Bauer. What mattered was that conservative Christians as
well as Young-Hegelians, romantic nationalists as well as socialists, could
adapt the Judenfrage into their ideologies, as a question transcending
the scope of individual integration of would-be citizens into the political
framework of existing states, and touching upon the corporate relation-
ship between a small, but allegedly powerful minority group and the
numerically strong, but otherwise vulnerable and unaware majority.

X
It was precisely at this last point, that the Jewish and the anti-Jewish
viewpoints clashed most violently. When, during the French Revolution,
civil equality had first been granted, the Jewish spokesmen in France
and in the countries of French revolutionary influence had perfectly
understood and readily accepted its immanent conditions: The abandon-
ment of collective adherence to the traditional way of Jewish life and
the undertaking of individual acculturation to their non-Jewish surround-
ings- Although these terms of emancipation had at first been carried
out only by a small, but active and "enlightened" minority, they be-
came successively acceptable and even desirable to ever-growing circles
of Jews in Western and Central Europe and finally embedded themsel-
ves during the half-century that elapsed between the French Revolution
and the emergence of the Judenfrage in Germany, into the newly develo-
ping Jewish emancipatory ideology: Jewish collectiveness was sublimat-
ed into purely denominational and spiritual concepts of "Judaism",
that imposed only a minimum of duties and loyalties upon the indi-
vidual confessor, thus enabling him to identify himself in his day-to-day
life with his French, German etc. fellow-citizens.
<*AZdJ, 1882, p. 282.

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 "The Jewish Question" 101
Yet, this ideological development was conditional upon certain prin-
ciples of rationalistic doctrine, as propounded by the enlightened think-
ers of the eighteenth century and established by the constitutional
precedents of the French Revolution: The concepts of Human Rights,
of Individual Liberty and Equality, of the Rule of Law, and — last not
least — of the separation between State and Church. And indeed, the
vast majority of Jews in 19th century Europe firmly believed in these
doctrins and founded their hopes of total emancipation upon their practic-
al realization. Moreover, the Jews accepted and propounded certain
rational definitions of nationhood and statehood that suited their "will
to belong," and gave an ideological backing to their goal of civil equali-
ty: They defined the nation as a cultural entity and the state as a
voluntary and secular association of citizens abiding by its laws. Insofar
as existing states did not correspond to these concepts, the Jews hoped
and trusted that historical development would overcome the difficulties
and that states and nations, in the walk of human progress, would finally
conform to the desired ideological pattern.
Thus, from their premises, the Jews could not concede the existence
of a "Jewish question" in the same sense as their adversaries, i.e. as a
question of collective relationships of irrationally determined groups-
But as the Jews quickly accepted the catchword and freely put it to
their own use, it follows that they put into it an entirely different meaning.
And indeed, the Jewish definitions of the Judenfrage, insofar as defini-
tions were forthcoming,67 stressed quite another aspect of the matter.
Jews explained the "Jewish question" as a question of "monopolistic
pettiness,"68 of "freedom of religious belief,"69 "freedom of conscien-
ce,"70 "equality before the law,"71 and perhaps more generally as a
"constitutional problem". Consequently, they utterly denied the existen-
ce of a "statehood of guilds, of commerce, of religion" with the same
vehemence as they denied the existence "of a Jewish nation and of a
Jewish national character."72
But just this persistence of the Jewish spokesmen in embracing liberal
and individualistic concepts was at the root of the Jewish dilemma with
regard to the Judenfrage. Not only were they at cross-purposes with
their adversaries and could not or dared not face the ultimate consequen-
ces of the Judenfrage and its solution, as envisaged by their opponents,
but they even denied to themselves the possibility of recognizing the

67
In order to remain within the framework of this essay, the following definitions were
taken only from Jewish authors who used the slogan in their heading or repudiated
anti-Jewish essays on the "Judenfrage".
8
8Einhorn, Ignaz, Zur Judenfrage in Ungarn (Ofen 1848), p. 75.
**Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland, 1844, p. 367.
™AZdJ, 1844, p. 445.
nibid., p. 447.
™Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland, 1843, Introduction, pp., iv-vi.

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 io2 Jacob Toury
true aspects of their own quandary.73 They readily accepted the slogan
for their own use, but shunned the consequence that there really exist-
ed a Jewish Judenfrage, which had nothing in common with the anti-
Jewish one, except the historical circumstances of its emergence and its
name.
XI
The Jewish Judenfrage like the non-Jewish one, had its roots in the
eighteenth century, but came to its first point of culmination, as docu-
mented by the adoption of the German catchword for internal Jewish
use, only in the middle of the nineteenth century. As long as "Jewish-
ness was a uniform and self-evident" form of life and as long as "Bible
and Talmud gave comprehensive answers upon all their questions,"74
no Jewish problem was in existence, apart from the question about
the duration of Galuth and the time of deliverance from it. But with
the enlightenment of the eighteenth century, a new sceptical approach
to Galuth and to the monolithical character of Jewish life and its Law
had made itself felt. Enlightened Jews tended to become "Sceptics and
Hedonists," or, possibly, men who on the one hand did not want to
undermine traditional faith, but who on the other hand denied their
responsibility to Jewry as a whole and its political ties, in order to find
as much comfort as possible in their Heimat, the Golah. The latter found
their justification in the scriptures, for instance by explaining the words
of Jeremiah (Cap. 29, 7) as a definite order to remain in the diaspora
and thus widened the rift between religious concepts of deliverance and
their concrete components, the People and the Promised Land. Thus it
may be held that "the Jews in general, of whatever religious colour,
had undergone a certain change of faith. They had by no means absorb-
ed the elements of European culture into their separate religious-national
organism, but had forsaken essential parts of the latter in favour of
other ways and concepts of life."75 It was precisely in this situation that
the Jews adopted the catchword Judenfrage for their own use.
What were the connotations of this Jewish Judenfrage} In addition
to its short and insufficient definition as "a human, moral, legal"
problem and as a "question of emancipation"76 there exist only one
or two significant aphorisms, coined by Jewish antagonists of Bruno
Bauer, that are worth scrutinizing a little further. One was Ludwig
Philippson's utterance, criticizing Gabriel Riesser's argumentation against
73
Consequently, such statements as follows are rare: "The more the old Jew with his
sometimes ridiculous aspects fades away, the more increases Jew-hatred. One disdained
the Jew who made one laugh, but one tolerated and often even liked him; but one
74
hates the Jew in equal position and with equal rights." AZdJ, 1855, p. 418.
Stern, Selma, Der preussische Stoat und die Juden (Tubingen 1962), vol. ii, p. 146 seq.
75Baer,
76
Jitzchak F., Galut (Berlin 1936), pp. 96-99.
[Cohn, Eduard], Die Judenfrage vor Hamburgs erbgesessener Biirgerschaft, von einem
fremden Juden (Hamburg 1843), p. 4.

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 "The Jewish Question" 103
Bauer's pamphlet: "Riesser has relinquished the defence of Judaism
and strives only to defend the Jews."77 The other aphoristic definition
of the "Jewish question" was by Wilhelm Freund, who incorporated the
term Judenfrage in the name of his periodical and used it freely in its
pages. Freund once termed the Jewish problem haphazardly, but rather
poignantly: "a liberal national question."78 Though he intended only
to declare that the solution of the Jewish problem was a question of a
liberal and national policy in Germany, he unwittingly furnished a
definition that fitted also the Jewish nucleus of the question in its
twofold meaning: The problematic character of the Jewish ideology of
individual emancipation, as against the former group — adherence to a
"Jewish nation,"79 and the problematic character of Jewish political
and philosophical rationalistic liberalism, in relation to the former —
and partially continuing — religious traditionalism and in relation to
Jewish protestations of political loyalty with regard to non-liberal forms
of government.
The first part of this dilemma was recognized to a certain degree
by Philippson, when he accused Riesser of defending only individual
Jews and not Judaism as a whole. For Philippson, although denying
the existence of a Jewish "national" character, accorded to Judaism
certain, if only spiritual, traits of collective responsibility.80 And just
with this concept of the progressive spiritualization and denominalization
of Judaism, as gleaned from relevant parts of the Holy Scriptures, he
could attempt to explain away the second part of the dilemma, by de-
claring the essence of Judaism to manifest itself in its steady historical
development, which had now arrived at the pure and rational form of
humanitarian monotheism. This brand of Judaism could be adapted to
non-liberal forms of government by stressing its adherence to scripture
and its historical aspects; but by stressing the progressive development
of Judaism towards the pure manifestation of its rational humanitarian
character, it could with still greater ease be adapted to liberal politics
and liberal ideologies. From the same premises could Philippson descri-
be his position as the truly traditional one, because it was the historical
outcome of organic evolution and thus the authentic adaptation of the
Law to the changing demands of the circumstances, in contrast with the
anachronistic petrification of the Law and its "spiritless" observation
by the ultra-orthodox wing.
But, whereas the latter saw in Philippson only one of the many
"modernizers", bent upon destroying the "fence of Law", other reform-
], 1844, p. 448. ™Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland, 1844, p. 211 seq.
79
The term "nation" is used here in its archaic connotation as applying to various groups
of foreigners. Cf. Elbogen, Ismar, ,,Die Bezeichnung 'Jiidische Nation' ". MGWJ 1919,
p. 200 seq.
sophilippson, Martin, Neueste Geschichte des jildischen Volkes (Frankfurt a.M. 1907), vol. i,
p. 186 seq.

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 J04 Jacob Toury
ers regarded him as hesitant and inconsequent. Thus the above-men-
tioned Wilhelm Freund, who did not conceal his sympathies for the
reform-societies of Frankfurt and Berlin, propounded radical-liberal ideas
that left Philippson's moderate views far behind them. Freund and
other radicals wanted to distill out of Judaism only "its purest and most
subtile conception" by divesting it "of all the historical, religious and
national trappings" in order to show once and for all that there existed
"two concentric categories of human conscience", the religious and
the political, which, just because of their being concentric, never over-
lapped. Thus, in Freund's view, no dilemma existed between the indi-
vidual adherence to Judaism and the loyalty to a non-Jewish political
corporation, between the private spiritual circle of "religious man" and
the public, social and political circle of the "man of the state."81
It seems as if Freund and his like, having formulated the "liberal
national Jewish question" had also solved it by severing all links between
the general political and the individual religious sphere- But he and all
the other "new" Jews were in reality begging the question. Political
and civic and even cultural attachment was not considered sufficient by
anti-Jewish spokesmen to prove the adherence of the Jew to the father-
land of his choice. Especially, liberal politics were generally considered
"unpatriotic" in Continental Europe. Moreover, was it not a fact,
that Jews collectively defended their rights and even asked for certain
modifications in the existing laws in compliance with their group-tradi-
tion?82 All this could be used by their adversaries as proof of their unaba-
ting group-character. On the other hand, the Jews in their majority did
not at all embrace the "most subtile conception" of Judaism, as expound-
ed by Freund and other extremists. Indeed, even most reformers con-
ceded a certain collectiveness in religious Judaism, and the farther one
receded from extreme reform, the more pronounced became the collect-
ive element in the Jewish ideology. To be sure, almost nobody in Western
European Jewry talked any longer of a "Jewish nation", but there
were certain expressions like "historical Judaism," "common roots,"
or at least the concept of a common "mission" to mankind, that hinted
at a reminder of collective features in Western Jewry, quite apart from
its common problems when facing the Judenfrage in its various versions.
Moreover, acculturated Jews felt an affinity to other Jews equally accul-
turated, or — on the other hand — an irrational hatred for less accul-
turated "co-religionists" that came rather close to self-hatred, and neither
the feelings of affinity nor those of hatred could be explained without
conceding the existence of certain group-characteristics.
sl
Zur Judenfrage in Deutschland, 1844, p. 211 seq.
82As extreme reformers were quite willing to renounce for themselves the strict observance
of the Sabbath and neither strove to establish a consistorial organization nor wanted to
uphold dietary laws, precious little remained. Nevertheless, even they had to ask for
certain, exemptions, e.g., in the Courts of Law on High Holidays.

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 "The Jewish Question" 105
In other words, it was not enough to proclaim oneself a Jewish
denominationalist of reformed, neo-orthodox or deistic persuasion; it
was not enough to declare oneself a German, French or European citizen
of loyalist or liberal or radical political colouring; it was not even enough
to join the ranks of those apologists83 who sincerely believed in the
common cause of the struggle for general and Jewish rights and conse-
quently regarded all Gentile propounders of a Jewish question as arch-
enemies of progress. No purely apologetic or purely denominational or
purely political definition did serve as a substitute for the former com-
mon frame of reference that had been fragmentated-84 There always
remained the dichotomy between the single "Jew" and collective "Je-
wishness", between individual emancipation and acculturation and die
continuing group-situation in the material sphere of economics and po-
litics, as well as in the non-material sphere of secular and spiritual norms
and loyalties.
XII
Hence, it seems permissible to speak of this side of the problem as of the
"individual Jewish question", which might be defined as the quest for
combining the heterogeneous components of the "new" Jew into a
homogeneous personality.85 Yet this definition does not exhaust the
meaning of the "individual Jewish question," because it presupposes
at least a certain clarity about the various and heterogeneous traits in
the mental make-up of the indidividual Jew. But this clarity was absent,
at least with regard to the Jewish component (or components) of the
emancipated and acculturated Jew. Nor did the Jews attempt to clarify
the issue for themselves by a thorough analysis of the "individual
Jewish question." As its emergence in Western and Central Europe coin-
cided with the propagation of the anti-Jewish version of the "collective
Jewish question",86 the Jews themselves were loath to accept the validity of
any and all collective group-characteristics,87 especially since they thought
to be on the verge of overcoming them in their entirety. Nevertheless
the individual Jewish question was deeply felt especially by intellectuals
among Western Jews. Its essence was, despite all protestations to the con-
trary, the perplexity as to the validity and the meaning of their group-

83Moreover,
M
their apologetic approach further obscured the issue.
Even total defection by baptism did not immediately submerge the group-stigma.
ssin this sense spoke Sigbert Feuchtwanger, Die Judenfrage (Berlin 1916), p. 39, of "the
individual Jewish question", as separate from the collective one. Cf. note 86.
Mibid. The existence of such a collective Jewish question as a burning issue was then
openly recognized by most of the Jews in the countries of Jewish mass-settlement,
87
whereas they scarcely noticed as yet the existence of the "individual Jewish question."
But not so much in Anglo-Saxon countries, where the existence of a Jewish group-
character was neither vigorously denied by the Jews, nor viciously attacked by
significant parts of the non-Jewish citizens.

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 106 Jacob Toury
characteristics. It was, in fact, the quest for marks of renewed self-
identification, for a new interpretation of the continuing old identity,
whose meaning had been obscured.

To sum it up: The catchword Judenfrage emerged at the crossroads

between old and new Jewry and between traditional Jew-hatred and
new extreme antisemitism. In its anti-Jewish context it denied the feasibil-
ity of emancipation, or — where emancipation had been granted — its
capability of solving the problem of Jewish integraton. It flaunted the
danger of Jewish political, economical and intellectual domination and
even hinted at a total Jewish war upon mankind. It alleged the abuse of
political concepts like "progress" and "development" by the Jews as
means for furthering their own purposes. It preoccupied itself less with
the religious differences between Jews and non-Jews, than with collective
socio-economic, national and even radical distinctions that separated the
Jews as a group from their neighbours.
The Jewish connotations of the Judenfrage, even more than the non-
Jewish ones, arose as a concomitant to the emergence of the "new Jew".
Although they manifested themselves in the discussion on reform and
its scope, on the terms of individual emancipation and acculturation,
these manifestations were only phenotypes of a more fundamental issue,
viz. the quest for identifying marks, that might restore to Jewishness its
obscured meaning and to the continuing group-identity its lost raison
d'etre.
But although the impact of this "individual Jewish question" was
never absent from the mental make-up of emancipated and acculturated
Jews, nothing was done to define its scope, except perhaps by isolated
individual thinkers who found no echo, and hence most Western Jews
turned deaf ears to its practical implications. Just as they had deceived
themselves with regard to the meaning of the collective Jewish question,
they deceived themselves with regard to the individual Judenfrage. They
accepted the anti-Jewish slogan, but not its contents, and by using it for
both the Jewish and the anti-Jewish aspects of the problem, they still
more confused the difficult points at issue. It was not until the first
Zionist thinkers purported to clear the atmosphere with a re-definition
of the Judenfrage *s that a new approach to the problem was opened
up to Western Jewry.

88Moses Hess started the work of re-defining by giving to his essay Rom und Jerusalem
(1862) the subtitle "the last question of nationalities" and by talking explicitly of ,,die
jiidische Nationalitatenfrage" (ibid., preface). Leon Pinsker, in the opening lines of
his "Auto-Emancipation" (1882), carefully defined "the age-old problem of the Jewish
question" and based his suggestions for the solution of the problem upon this
definition. In a similar vein, the subtitle of Theodor Herzl's Judenstaat (1896) revealed
the aim of his booklet as Versuch einer modernen Losung der Judenfrage.

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