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No. 46. — Vienna, 14 November 1902 — 14 Marcheshvan 5663. — 6th Year

Viennese Elections.

A coincidence has brought two electoral proceedings in Vienna close together in time, which may influence the fortunes of Viennese Jewry — less through the result of the elections themselves than through the lessons we may draw from the events of the day. And, Viennese Jews being what we are, we have naturally worked ourselves up far more over those political proceedings which can touch us only indirectly, the elections to the Diet, than over those others which bear quite directly upon our interests: the elections of the Jewish Community.

There was great excitement among the Viennese "Liberals" last week, when the various species of Lower Austrian antisemitism contended with one another for the seats in the Diet. And the Jews took up a very peculiar position in this electoral contest. Some years ago they were still wont to wax enthusiastic over the Liberal candidate, who was obliged to assure them in grand words that he, too, sided with those authorities who hold the Jew to be a normal human being. And the Fundamental Law of the State, with its theoretical "equal rights," was the favourite quotation of Jewish or mixed-Jewish electoral meetings. It never occurred to the Jews — obvious as the thought was — that the hostilities pressing upon them from every side called for quite special Jewish counter-measures. That Jewry, by reason of its inner constitution and of the external circumstances superadded to it, had needs of its own, Jewish needs — of this such a candidate was not permitted to know at all. For thereby the fiction of belonging to the perfectly "equal" society of the State would have been shaken. With a modesty such as no other body of electors had ever possessed, they demanded of their representative merely that he should not go over outright into the ranks of their enemies. And this in a parliamentary body which regards itself as a composition of representatives of interests, in which every deputy is nothing but the embodied "demand" of those who stand behind him. The curious situation arose that, in the struggle of two forces, the assailant was met not by the defender, but that, with a suicidal enthusiasm for justice, one merely sent the "impartial man" into the lists. The answer to a blow was — an attempt at reconciliation.

Those were the old times. The Jews were enthusiastic for people whose merit was that they were not antisemites. But this time things no longer went so well with Viennese Jewry. A success of the Liberal party was hardly any longer to be reckoned upon. That Liberal press, to be sure, whose task it is to lull the Jews to sleep and on no account in the world to let them come to a clear understanding of their situation, sought to persuade them up to the very last moment that the age of antisemitism was once again past. And it really succeeded in suggesting to people the fallacy: the enemies of my enemies are my friends. That Dr. Lueger is an antisemite was, after all, not difficult to prove. And since the German People's Party and the Pan-German party wished to wrest the seats from the Christian Socialists, the Jews actually grew enthusiastic for those people who wished to put the small-town or the German-Bohemian colouring of antisemitism in place of the Viennese variety. This came about through the theatrical stroke whereby everything that was opposed to Lueger allowed itself to be designated by the collective name of the "parties of freedom." The Viennese antisemites were turned into "Clericals." And the Jews let themselves be led into the fight against clericalism. They did not in the least perceive that it was a family quarrel which did not concern them at all. No greater favour could have been done the Christian Socialists than that the Jews, too, should stand on the side of their opponents. For thereby they were all stigmatised as "Jews and servants of the Jews," and the catchword for the campaign was found. The victory of the "antisemites pure and simple" was complete. And in future the "men of freedom" will take good care not to awaken even the appearance of friendship towards the Jews.

Now it is plain and clear: antisemitism is master in the land. It will make use of its dominion, which through the winning of the majority in the Diet has now become absolute, because it must make use of it