From Prejudice to Persecution: A History of Austrian Anti-Semitism (51 page)

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Authors: Bruce F. Pauley

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Page 222

Assimilationists accused the Zionists of rejecting liberal and tolerant politics aimed at harmony and compromise, and refusing to make a clear distinction between the common anti-Semitic enemy and the leadership of the Jewish community. Stefan Zweig, who knew Theodor Herzl personally, openly admitted that he disliked the Zionists' "quarreling and dogmatic spirit, the constant opposition." Another famous Jewish author, Joseph Roth, rejected Zionism because he thought its nationalism was the scourge of the twentieth century. In many respects the rejection of liberal and assimilationist values by young Zionists was part of a rebellion against parental authority, including in some cases their parents' religious orthodoxy.

2
Zionists themselves were convinced that it resulted from their clearer perception of the dangers facing the Jewish community.

Zionists did not share the optimism of the liberal assimilationists, whose philosophy was rooted in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The assimilationists in the Union of German-Austrian Jews (renamed the Union of Austrian Jews in 1931) stubbornly held to their belief in the powers of persuasion and in the ultimate reasonableness of mankind, even when contemporary events seemed to be proving the exact opposite. They were determined to defend themselves by uniting with progressive and liberal elements in other political parties and were not about to sacrifice what they saw as a bright future because of a gloomy present. They regarded the revolutionary disturbances of the early postwar years and the disintegration of traditional moral concepts as merely passing phenomena.
3
Most Zionists, on the other hand, were much less sanguine about being able to solve the Jewish problem in Europe and the likelihood of the antiSemites ever changing their views as a result of education and reasonable persuasion. Consequently, Herzl thought that combating antiSemitism was futile. On the contrary, the intensification of antiSemitism would actually benefit Zionism by exposing the assimilationist philosophy as an illusion. However, Zionists tended to be optimistic about their own prospects of creating a separate, prosperous, and culturally creative Jewish society either in their own land, on a temporary basis, or in Palestine. They reversed the logic of the anti-Semitic stigma by rejoicing in the distinctiveness of their Jewishness rather than by denying or minimizing the differences between Jews and gentiles, as assimilationists were prone to do.
4
Indeed, most Zionists were so convinced of the uniqueness of the Jewish people that they considered themselves to be a separate nationality. It was this fundamental belief, even more than their extreme propaganda tactics, that alienated assimilated Viennese Jews. Only baptized and nonpracticing

 

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Jews fell outside the fold as far as the mainstream Austrian Zionist organ,
Die Stimme
, was concerned. However, many Zionists went even further, refusing to regard religion as essential to membership in the Jewish community. Assimilated Jews, on the other hand, regarded themselves as first and foremost Austrians and only secondarily as Jews. Indeed they were probably the most patriotic Austrians of both the monarchy and the First Republic. To assimilated Jews, the Austrian loyalties of the Zionists were very much in doubt. (In reality, Zionists were loyal to Austria both before and after 1918, but unlike the assimilationists they were not devoted to it.)

5

The second fundamental point of conflict between the Zionists and the assimilationists, and one that was related to the first point, was the Zionist desire to establish and preserve a modern Jewish culture that was separate and distinct from the German-Austrian culture, not only in Palestine, but also in Austria and elsewhere. Among other things, this entailed the establishment of Hebrew-language schools, clubs, choirs, literary societies, youth groups, and sporting associations. The demand for separate Jewish schools was especially dear to Zionists because they believed, with good reason, that the public schools of Austria were heavily infused with Catholicism in the textbooks and other teaching materials. Such schools were a harmonious extension of Catholic family life, but not of Jewish values. Austrian Zionists hoped that such "dissimilation" would reduce conflicts with gentiles and would even win their respect. (Such hopes might have actually been realized if Catholic rather than Nazi antiSemitism had prevailed.) Assimilation, on the other hand, they regarded not only as a major cause of antiSemitism, but also as moral bankruptcy and treason toward the Jewish people.
6
Actually the Zionist program was not as radical as it was often portrayed by the assimilationists. Zionists did not propose a complete separation of Jews and gentiles. Jewish schools would at first only be at the elementary level and would be voluntary. Eventually, it was hoped (and finally realized) that Jewish secondary schools (
Gymnasien
) could be created. However, Jews would continue to attend public universities and technical schools in Austria. Zionists, like assimilationists, rejected a numerus clausus in any form. They demanded to be treated as citizens with completely equal rights, including unrestricted access to public jobs. Austrian Zionists were also nearly as acculturated into German-Austrian society as were the assimilated Jews and expected to teach the local language, culture, and history in their Jewish schools. Their adaptation to the Austrian way of life was evident in their unwillingness to leave the country, at least before the depression and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s. In 1926, a year in which some prosperity was beginning to return to Austria, only

 

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thirty-nine Jews left Vienna for Palestine. The next year the number dropped to a mere nine. And because Vienna was something of a jumping off point for the Holy Land, it is quite likely that a majority of these forty-eight Jews were from Eastern Europe rather than from Vienna.

7

The Assimilationist Response to Zionism
Both assimilationist Jews and Zionists in Vienna tended to emphasize differences rather than commonalities. Opponents of Zionism thought that labeling Jews as anything other than Austrian citizens, and particularly calling Jews a national minority, would be but the first step in curtailing the rights of Jews as equal citizens. Identifying Jews as a separate nationality would only confirm what racial antiSemites had been saying all alongthat Jews were an alien people who ought to be segregated from the rest of societyand would lend justification to whatever discriminatory measures they chose to take against Jews, as indeed turned out to be the case.
Die Wahrheit
called Zionism the counterpart of racial National Socialism and thought that the Nazis had borrowed many of their slogans from the Jewish nationalists.
8
The one area where there was at least some agreement between assimilationists and Zionists was Palestine.
Die Wahrheit
sometimes published articles about Arab terrorism in Palestine and warned that there could never be any peace in the Holy Land until there were equal rights for both Arabs and Jews. Nevertheless, the newspaper supported Jewish efforts to establish a homeland there for Jews who could not or were not allowed to assimilate elsewhere. Left unspoken was the desire to rid Vienna of troublesome Ostjuden who might create an anti-Semitic backlash. Prior to a Jewish communal election in 1936 the Union of Austrian Jews raised the constructive work in Palestine to second place in their list of priorities. Of course Palestine could never be the first concern of assimilationists because they never expected to move there themselves.
9
Although the Zionists' policy toward Palestine differed substantially from that of the assimilationists, their practices did not. Palestine was the focus of their attention; it received more space in their newspapers than did events in Austria or Germany. Whereas the assimilationists pointed out the difficulties of life in Palestine, the Zionists tended to minimize them. Nevertheless, most Zionists, in both Austria and Germany, did not expect to emigrate to Palestine at any time in the near future, if ever. And just as Palestine grew more impor-

 

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tant in the program of the assimilationists, so too did expressions of loyalty to Austria by Zionists as the Nazi threat loomed ever larger.

10

Zionist Factionalism
The rise of Zionism did not merely divide Austrian Jews between those whose first loyalty was Austria, both politically and culturally, and those who wanted to develop a distinct Jewish culture. Austrian Zionists themselves were also badly split into a large number of factions that were prone to quarrel even during good times. This is probably best explained by the greater social heterogeneity of the Zionists when compared with the Union of Austrian Jews as well as by the ideological nature of the movement. No doubt Zionist factionalism also simply reflected the divisions within the Jewish community in general. In any event, there were at least four or five different Zionist groups in interwar Austria and, indeed, throughout Europe, since the Zionist organizations were all international. The only thing these factions had in common was their belief that the Jews were a distinct nationality and their desire to help any Jew to emigrate to Palestine who wanted to do so. However, they had almost irreconcilable differences about the form and size of the new Palestinian state, about its social organization, and about the role of religion.
11
Membership in all Zionist political organizations ranged from about 10,000 in the mid-1920s to around 16,000 a decade later. In Austria, most of these Zionists belonged to bourgeois or conservative factions. The middle-of-theroad General Zionist organization included Jews of all religious practices and social backgrounds. Its newspaper had been the
Wiener Morgenzeitung
, the only daily Jewish newspaper in Germanspeaking Europe from its founding in 1919 until its demise in 1927; after 1928 the weekly
Stimme
became the organ of mainstream Zionism represented in the Landeskomitee für Osterreich (State Committee for Austria). The Misrachi (literally: "Of the East") was a group of religious Zionists that was founded in 1901 as a special section within the General Zionist organization. The Poale Zion (Workers of Zion), which had been founded in 1907 and whose newspaper was
Der jüdische Arbeiter
, was a bridge between Zionism and Marxian socialism. It was itself divided as to whether Palestine or a proletarian revolution was the answer to the Jewish question; the organization was dissolved by the Austrian government in 1934 because of its connections to the recently outlawed Social Democratic Party. The non-Marxist People's Socialist Zionists, to which the Hitachduth

 

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(Association) and the Zeire Zion (Youth of Zion) belonged, rejected the class struggle advocated by the Poale Zion and emphasized the importance of agricultural work in Palestine. Minor revisionist organizations included the Zionist Revisionists, whose newspaper was
Die Neue Welt
edited by Robert Stricker; the New Zionist Organization, founded in 1935 by Vladimir Jabotinsky in Vienna, which stressed militancy, strict discipline, ceremonies, and symbols; and the Radical Zionists, with
Der jüdische Weg
as its press organ.

12

Orthodox Judaism in Austria
The third and smallest group of Jews in Vienna comprising approximately 20 percent of the community's total population was the Orthodox. Not much space needs to be devoted to them because they had little to do with either Jewish politics or general Austrian politics. Indeed they did not even participate in politics of the Kultusgemeinde until 1920, being convinced that the communal leadership neglected religious education, Hebrew education, and the needs of poor Jews. Orthodox Jews dropped out of the organization altogether in 1932. Instead they had an unofficial communal organization of their own. They tended to be older than the assimilated Jews and much older than the Zionists. They most frequently immigrated to Vienna from either Hungary or Galicia. They rejected on religious grounds both the idea of a modern secular Jewish state, which only the Messiah could restore, and assimilation into gentile society. Consequently, they tended to be oblivious of what was going on around them, and their newspaper,
Jüdische Presse
, only barely noticed the rise of National Socialism.
13
Jewish Internal Politics and the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde
Much of the intra-Jewish feuding took place within the Jewish communal organization of Vienna, the Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG). From 1888 until 1932 the IKG was controlled by assimilationist Jews organized in the Union of German-Austrian Jews, which had 5,500 members in 1923 but only 3,000 in 1938. Having lived in Austria, or at least some other Germanspeaking area, for at least two generations, they spoke German fluently and considered themselves to be Austrians in every respect. They were by far the wealthiest Jews as well as being older and more "established" than most other

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