Alan T. Levenson. Between Philosemitism and Antisemitism: Defense of Jews and Judaism in Germany, 1871-1932. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004. xvii + 194 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8032-2957-0.
Reviewed by Richard S. Levy (Department of History, University of Illinois at Chicago)
Published on H-German (January, 2005)
Alan Levenson must struggle against readers' understandable inclination to dismiss the subject matter of his work out of hand. "German philosemitism?" No wonder the book has only 141 pages of text. The "definition" of a philosemite as "an antisemite who loves Jews," cited jocularly by the author, may add to the skeptic's problem with the problem under discussion. But it is one of the merits of this collection of discrete, well-fashioned investigations that most doubters are likely to come away with a new appreciation of the subject's importance.
Levenson is the first to admit that this is a small phenomenon, that there is nothing in Germany approximating the philosemitic tradition one might find in the English-speaking world. His essays ponder exceptional individuals who stood out from a culture that he regards as essentially antisemitic. Whatever philosemitism meant in such a context, it cannot represent much more than a poignant reminder of what might have been. Such was the power of antisemitic discourse in the Kaiserreich and the Weimar Republic that even the most well-intentioned defenders of the Jews found it expedient, in order to have a hope of attaining any credibility, to begin by enumerating the defects of the Jews. Many never got beyond an anti-antisemitism that could comfortably accommodate traditional anti-Jewish stereotypes and that, at bottom, could not free itself from blaming Jews for the existence of antisemitism. Most had difficulty believing that Jews--rather than liberalism, the constitution, Christianity, or the rule of law--were the real target of antisemitic attacks. This indifference to the fate of Jewry Levenson accurately attributes to the general liberal expectation that Jews must eventually disappear into the wider German culture, a prediction and a predilection that undermined a defense of the Jews. The defenders of Jewish emancipation proceeded from the principle that there was something wrong with antisemites, not that there was anything particularly right about Jews (p. 19).
The eight essays assembled in this volume have all been published previously. They nonetheless express a consistent point of view and make a coherent contribution to our understanding of a subject that is usually reserved for polemics and politics. What lends the book consistency beyond its broadly construed theme is Levenson's diction--unfailingly sane, reasoned, and balanced. He is not reluctant to pass judgment on his characters, but he admirably refrains from applying to the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries our sometimes paralyzing post-Holocaust sensibilities. We have, perhaps, cast the net of accusation too widely when it comes to hauling in the antisemites of German history. Levenson argues on behalf of moderation and the need to differentiate "between those Gentiles who wish to murder Jews and those who wish to marry them" (p. viii-ix). "The difference between latent antisemitism, which prepares the ground for acquiescence, and ideologically driven radical antisemitism, which galvanizes antisemitic programs," he writes, "is considerable" (p. ix). The historian, Levenson refreshingly asserts, has a right to distinguish attempts at defense from attempts at defamation, even when the defense is mounted in ways that would not altogether please us today.
The introductory essay describes the peculiar characteristics of philosemitic discourse in Germany that effectively placed it in a permanently defensive posture. Antisemitism set the terms of debate and frequently influenced the consciousness not just of its victims but also of its opponents. Philosemites commonly felt called upon to deny "Jewish blood" in themselves because to be suspect in this matter was to invite delegitimation. It was not strategy, however, that can account for the pious wish expressed by so many friends of the Jews that Judentum would someday wholly disappear into Deutschtum. For most, this was the only real solution to the Jewish question imaginable. But, typical of his sense of fair play, Levenson makes a point of including those who got beyond anti-antisemitism, valued distinctly Jewish contributions to German life, appreciated the color Jews added to the German mosaic, defended communal Jewish interests, and could envision a continued presence of Jews in German life (p. 19). These individuals had little to gain from saying positive things about Jews, and their courage, if not their correctness, ought to be acknowledged.
The most substantial essays delineate the ways in which Germans active in Protestant missionizing efforts among Jews and in the German peace movement related to Jewry and Judaism, as well as Jewish individuals. The lives and careers of Ludwig Quidde, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Bertha von Suttner, Karl and Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Franz Delitzsch, and Hermann Strack, among others, are sketched briefly but with due attention to their complex and conflicting views and behaviors. Michael Brenner has suggested that these sorts of individuals created imaginary Jews with whom to have a one-sided dialogue. Levenson disputes this, contending that many of them worked hard to learn about Jews and Judaism and that several succeeded in doing so. An essay on the problematics of philosemitic fiction attempts to rescue from their richly deserved obscurity, a group of German-language authors who wrote favorably about Jews. Again, Levenson strikes a blow for fairness, hoping to counter the common assumption that meaningful contributions to the genre ended with Lessing: "There are sympathetic portraits of Jewish protagonists, some based on considerable knowledge, some not. It is also not true that Christian authors who write about Jews are ignorant of Judaism, Jews, and Jewish traditions" (p. 63). Given the quality of his literary case studies, readers may find the claim of meaningfulness less than persuasive. But Levenson then makes the same point in an engaging plea on behalf of the "Jewishness" of Thomas Mann's Joseph tetralogy, a literary achievement that repays the effort. Two treatments broaden the concept of philosemitism to include the non-Jewish reception of Herzlian Zionism and the conflict between philosemitism and feminism in the work of the convert to Judaism, Ruth Lazarus. Levenson closes with an essay that stretches the concept as far as it will go by considering the surviving Jewish identities of the converts to Christianity, Selig Cassel and Edith Stein. He makes the interesting observation that, unlike most of the famous individuals who preceded them in apostasy, they were neither indifferent nor inimical to their Jewish roots.
What explains these exceptional people? How can one account for their sympathies? Without pretending to have the whole answer, Levenson nonetheless puts great weight on the "contact hypothesis." Almost all the people he so ably discusses interacted with influential Jews either in an organizational, intellectual, or social context. Their sometimes chilly published opinions on the Jewish question often contrasted with warm personal relations to individual friends and collaborators. Personal association, he says, could prompt reevaluation of the whole group, although the process leading to philosemitism was normally a gradual one (p. 144-145).
Maybe. But I am no more convinced by this argument than by its obverse, that antisemitism is the result of (hateful) personal experiences of Jews. Such "intimate knowledge" has been called upon again and again to account for the hostility toward Jews expressed by people as diverse as Voltaire and Henry Ford. In the specific context of German-speaking Europe, ugly run-ins with Jews have been cited as sufficient explanation for the antisemitic careers of Karl Lueger, Otto Boeckel, Eugen Duehring, Hermann Ahlwardt, Max Liebermann von Sonnenberg, Theodor Fritsch, and Adolf Hitler. Quite possibly all of these individuals, and many others who never became antisemites, had unlovely encounters with Jews. But why should Voltaire's dealings with Anthony Mendez da Costa turn him against Jews rather than bankers, and why all Jews, living and dead, instead of just Jewish bankers? We know that most of these individuals also had some cordial relationships with Jews. Yet these positive experiences obviously did not turn them away from Jew-hatred.
Hellmut von Gerlach, once a follower of Court Chaplain Stoecker, was one of the notable converts from antisemitism in this period. Levenson quotes him as an example of the "contact hypothesis": "As a younger man I was an antisemite because I knew no Jews." But Gerlach also said: "Vom Antisemitismus haben mich weniger die Juden als die Antisemiten abgebracht [It was less the Jews than the antisemites who put a stop to my antisemitism]." [1] I suspect that neither epigram can adequately explain such a complex alteration of behavior, that the change in orientation requires not a personal explanation but a broadly cultural one.
There is much food for thought in this worthwhile book.
Note
[1]. Gerlach, Hellmut von. Von Rechts nach Links (Zurich: Europa-Verlag, 1937), p. 114.
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Citation:
Richard S. Levy. Review of Levenson, Alan T., Between Philosemitism and Antisemitism: Defense of Jews and Judaism in Germany, 1871-1932.
H-German, H-Net Reviews.
January, 2005.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10129
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