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"Subversion"

By Erwin Rosenberger.

Of late a reproach which has, to be sure, long since forfeited the charm of novelty is being raised against the Jews with increased vehemence: books, pamphlets and newspapers make the disclosure that the Jews are to be found in astonishingly rich numbers in the camp of "Subversion." It is pointed out that the leaders of the socialist groups are very frequently baptised or unbaptised Jews, that eminent and path-breaking theorists of Socialism belong to the Jewish stock, that the Jew in general attaches himself by preference to such parties as have in view an undermining of the existing conditions of society.

The books, pamphlets and newspapers explain, with their accustomed acuteness, that the destructive inclinations of the Jews are inborn Jewish faults. A sort of rage for destruction. Out of sheer delight in demolition the Jews ply the crowbar about the foundation-pillars of the social edifice. And men are consistent, and equip Mephisto, the old master of the art of destruction, with the Jewish type; the Evil One has a properly crooked nose and the obligatory little pointed beard.

If there is a Mephistophelean trait in the intellectual physiognomy of the Jews, that has its good reasons.

Men who walk through life laden with an affliction are wont to look upon the world about them with no especially cheerful countenance. Consider those who drag some bodily infirmity about with them; the one-armed man, the hunchback, the club-foot — they all have a common world-hating trait in the face. And the popular tongue ascribes to them strong misanthropic promptings. The laden are natural opponents of that which exists; in each of them there is a bit of Catiline. To be sure, the club-foot will content himself with railing at the perverseness of the social order; he will make no exertion to remodel the world about him to his own advantage, since it would be hard for him to impart club-feet to all his fellow-men. An instructive legend does indeed tell of a Chinese empress who, because she had herself come into the world with crippled feet, gave the command that henceforth the feet of all the maidens of the Middle Kingdom must be deformed. And so it came to pass. Therefore, as is well known, Chinese ladies to this day trip about upon forcibly crippled feet.

The Jews, the heavily laden, are so far at an advantage over the cripples in that they could at least in some measure hope to be freed from their sufferings by a turning upside down of the social order. In their day the yellow badge was pinned upon them and they were penned into the Ghetto; then one day the Jews heard the cry of "Liberty, Equality"; they saw a red flag upon which these words were written — it was, it is true, the banner of "Subversion," but the Jews were overjoyed that henceforth all men should wear the same garments, that the yellow badges should go out of fashion, and they gathered about the dear red flag. In the year '48 they stream in crowds into the camp of the "Revolution."

It would be a rewarding labour to establish from biographical material how far the several heralds of "Subversion" were guided by their Judaism into the path which is to lead to a re-ordering of the present system. There exist diary leaves of Lassalle's — from his youthful years — which would furnish a pretty contribution to the theme. A strong love for Judaism, a candid wrath at the oppression of the Jews, speaks out of these self-confessions. From the situation of the Jews the youth perceives that much is rotten in the social edifice; doubts awaken in him as to the correctness of the present institutions; he begins to probe further with the critical sound, and the "subverter" is developed.