India and Israel Against Islamic Terror

69
thoughts and works looked upon the Jews with a jaundiced eye.

ue js quoted to have said: ”The only way I see by which civil

rights can be conceded to them is to cut off all their heads in

one night and to set new ones on their shoulders, which should

contain not a single Jewish idea. The only means of protecting

ourselves against them is to conquer their promised land and

send them there.” Herder, another great philosopher, followed

in the footsteps of Goethe.
The French Revolution was the first silver lining for the Jews

in this anti-Jewish world. By granting them political emancipation,

it was the almost impossible Jewish dream fulfilled, when for the

first time in 1000 years they became the citizens of the states

where they lived. The economic conditions changed completely

and opened vistas of opportunities for the persecuted people.

However, it took some more time for the theory to become a

practice when the Jews could wield more economic power. There

were flips and flops in the Jewish fortunes in these turbulent

days of French Revolution when it was commonly believed, that

no riot is ever complete which does not involve the Jews. As

France emerged from the revolutionary turmoil, with the

Declaration of the Rights of Man, one of the noblest document

in history, Jews were afforded equality before the law. The

practicality of this proposition, however, took some time, as

Mirabeau, Abbe Cregoire, Robespierre and others championed

the Jewish case for equality. Things now moved faster when late

in January 1790, the Portuguese and Avignonese Jews of

southern. France received full citizenship, followed by similar

privileges all over France. The Jews were no longer aliens. The

Jews in turn reciprocated with great fervor by their devotion to

the State and ”la patrie”. They enlisted in the armed forces and

even sold candelabra of synagogues to contribute to the war

fund.
With rapid industrialization and mass production of goods

manufacturers became the kingpins of the market. The

industrialization ushered a levelling process between communities;

enterprise, profit and quick turnover became the key-words.

Individuals with capital and a spirit of enterprise came to the
70 INDIA AND /SRAEL
CHAPTER 3
Iy forefront and the Jews’ industrial talents, capacity for hard work
I ; and possession of capital put them in the forefront of economic
>l activities and power./Gradually industrial power replaced the
fl :; landed aristocracy. The Jews broke through the old feudal
I ;j restrictions and with the expansion of capitalism old prejudices
’ 11 gradually faded away, bestowing political equality on the Jews.
• Noted among the great Jewish entrepreneurs were the
I Rothschilds, the House of Shammai and the House of Hillel.
| i|; j Snide remarks were often heard that a small Jewish clique was
I ! i! controlling the International finance, and dominated the class of
! f capitalists and bankers. This financial clout bestowed political
I! powers to the Jews as they rose up in the social ladder. These
. , financial giants were no selfish preachers but they did their best
>- fS ;| j to improve the lot of the remaining Jews the world over. The
I] ! ’ Montefiores, the Goldsmids, the Salomons in England, the
v\ Pereires in France, the Bischoffsheims in Germany and the
Rothschilds everywhere in Europe, contributed actively and

decisively towards the emancipation of the Jews all over the

1 world. Rothschild, in particular, became the jewel in the crown
1 of his race as he obtained a seat in the Parliament leading to a
(remark by Lord Macaulay,” How was it possible to deny a

Rothschild a seat on the grounds of his race when his signatures

• ” on the back of a piece of paper was worth more than the royal
word of three kings!” Towards the end of 19th century the great

:, Jewish middle class came into being, and the enormous Jewish
; J i enterprise, abandoning its old degraded means of livelihood,
j occupied the centre stage in the world industry and finance, and
no effort of reactionary governments could reverse this process.

The revolutionary spirit in France which had so far helped
’;• ’’ the Jews, however, died down after Nepoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.
, The conservatism returned and the Jews resigned themselves to
a low intensity struggle for democratic reforms of 1830-1848i
However, this period produced some eminent Jews who did
•^ ; their community proud. Disraeli, though a converted Jew by
_, * ,] confession, rose from the lowest rank to become the Prime
#? ” ! Minister of England. After a bright career in Victorian history he
i ’ I became a liberal Tory of distinction. He indirectly helped the
if . ,..
£J^ER2 HISTORY OF ISRAEL 71
cause of the Jews and improved their living conditions, remarking

’ocularly” Sanitas, sanitatum, omnia sanitas”. Another outstanding

ew later ’converted’ was the great poet and philosopher Heinrich

Heine. He broke away from the sedate literary style of his

contemporaries and contributed in a very large measure to the

political discourse of the times. He described himself as a soldier

in the war for liberalism. A fitting tribute to the man was the

following famous epigram from Matthew Arnold:
”The spirit of the world

Beholding the absurdity of men,
Their vaunts, their feats,
let a sardonic smile,
For one short moment, wander o’er his
lips.
That smile was Heine!”
Heinejoved Jewish lore and denounced the” chiropody” of the

so called’nationalists. His ”Confessions” ’ is a vibrant testimony

to his loyalty and genuineness to the Jewish cause. Regarding his

conversion he often said that” I was merely baptized, not

converted”. This” German Aristophanes” rebelled against the

existing institutions with a sharp tongue mainly targeting the

religious hypocrites. Of profound thoughts, he could be fervently

flippant, as he wrote,” AjT_Engnshrmn_l_oves liberty like his lawfully

wedded wife. She is a possession; he may not treat her with

much tenderness, but he knows how to defend her. A Frenchman

loves liberty like his sweetheart, and he will do a thousand follies

for her sake. A Cerrnan loves liberty like his old grandmother”.

The greatest influence in politics and literature on the new liberal

Germany was of one man alone and that man was Heine.

Another prominent Jew of the post-Waterloo era was Karl Ludwig

Borne who like hieing, had a keen incisive pen and a vigorous

style of literary writing, devoted to the cause of freedom. He too

like Heine was a converted Jew, but fumed against the inequalities

heaped on his people when he said,” What you call human

n’ghts, which, it must be conceded, you grant Jews, are only

animal rights. The rights of seeking food, of devouring it, of
72 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 2
^Hii sleeping, of multiplying, are enjoyed also by the beasts of the
^Bll field, until they are slain, and to the Jews you grant no more”.
^11 | The French Revolution inspired him to write, in 1830, his famous
^^^H j I: ”Letters from Paris” in which he made war on social and
^^H || intellectual abuses of the times.
^^^^^^Rt !i !
^^H| | In Hungary the Jews rebelled with the local population against
^^B AustrjjLn_Jule. in 1848 and were treated decently by the
^^H Hungarians. Soon political rights were granted to them but the
^^H[ | freedom was short-lived as Russia and Austria again combined
^^B to suppress Hungary. This bondage continued for a period of
^^H : , two decades, until autonomy was granted by the Ausgleich, and
^^•f ; official equality was proclaimed in 1895-96. However, in Italy
j^^H i freedom came to the Jews piecemeal as Italy struggled to free
^^B | |; , itself from the domination of Austria. The great statesman Count
:^H| i ’ ’ Cavour and the fighter Garibaldi, the heroes of the freedom
|Hl i struggle, greatly helped the Jewish cause.
mi f, II The Jews in England, however, did not suffer severe restrictions
I as in other countries, though denied admissions to the bar, high
11 , rank in the armed forces or positions in municipal offices,
* i I admissions to Oxford and Cambridge and the right to a seat in
I j the Parliament. Struggle went on till 1837 when at the time of
J ,i coronation of Queen Victoria, except for a seat in Parliament,
H | other restrictions were gradually removed. This mainly was due
|1 in to the efforts of Macaulay, Russell and Disraeli. At last, after a
rl ’’ jl decade the Jews were allowed to become members of the House
I ’ ’ of Commons and Lionel Rothschild became the first Jewish
’! I member of Parliament. Later, his son was admitted to the
peerage. The Conservatives of the Victorian period were pleasantly
surprised when Lord Reading, formerly Sir Rufus Isaacs, became
,:* the Viceroy of the Indian empire, while Sir Herbert Samuel, as
High Commissioner in Palestine, was appointed Arbitrator on
£_ \ the disputes of races and religions. Upheavals in social and
^t I economic order changed the lives of men. A number of
| inventions came up to tame nature and provide machines to
.11 *• • replace human labour.
* ’I
-• „ ’ After Ihfi-American Civil War in the eighties a large Russian
^ 11 population migrated to the States bringing their philanthropic
^- 0 HISTORY OF ISRAEL 73
CHAPTER * ^^^____^________^^__^_
. jucational institutions with them. But the tide really started

30 when after the May laws and violent rjpgro.ms tens of
h usands of Jews fled Russia seeking a sanctuary in the United
c tes Around twenty thousand Jews entered America each
ar and after the enunciation of the policy of wholesale
xnulsion, wave after wave of Jews reached the American shores.

Between 1881 and 1900 about 600,000 Russian and Romanian

lews reachecTthe United States soaring their population to more

than a million, and by the violent pogroms, consequent to the

Russian Revolution and slaughter by the Black Hundreds, the

wave turned into a torrent and about a million more Jews

reached the shores of United States. Thus America became a

safe haven and one of the most important settlements of the

Jews in their entire history. The early settlers, two hundred

thousand Sephardic and German Jews, were literally submerged

in the two million migrants from the eastern Europe. While

assimilation was easier for the earlier tricklers, the new waves

had to settle in their own ghettos in the larger towns of the East.

Alarmed by this mass scale of migrants, the American

Administration from 1906 to 1913 legislated certain restrictive

measures, such as literacy tests arid”certificates of character from

the home country. The difficulty of obtaining these certificates

slowed down the process of migration for some time but after

its repeal in 1913 by President Taft and supported by President

Wilson, the flow of the migrants remained unabated. Now tens

of thousands of Jews passed by the Statute of Liberty freely and

sought their living in this new land of opportunity; mostly as

manual workers, middle men and as other artisans. Life remained

a perpetual struggle, but the Jews never gave up. This was their

Promised Land, full of opportunities. The Jewish talent and

ambition could not be suppressed for long and almost the whole

°f textile industry passed into Jewish hands as the capitalisation

ln this sector rose from US $ 60 million by almost fifteen hundred

Percent between 1880 and 1916. Along with these industrial

activities came the era of Trade Unions and movement towards

fair wages and hygienic conditions at the shop floor. The_Trade

union movement of the Jews, radicalism in politics, in economic
74 INDIA AND ISRAEL CHAPTER 2
outlook and religion, and compulsions of new industrial climate

resulted in a loosening of religious hold and emancipation from

rigidities of the Synagogue culture. In Russia. However, for nearly

a century and a half things remained much as before under the

pall of misery and despotic excesses. Hard as steel, not easy to

assimilate, stubborn as ever, most of the Jews in Russia remained

indigestible to the nationalists. Though the problem was

understandably difficult, it did not demand the butchery that

followed which further aggravated the hurt to the Jewish psyche

and permanently alienated them from the Russian despotism.
/V-reYoJulion. in the religious thought of the world almost

exploded like a bomb with the publication of Darwin’s

monumental work The Origin of Species. His thesis agitated all

the countries in Europe and shook the foundations of genesis

and the other allied subjects in the Bible, it was not a frivolous

matter to a generation whose entire life was built around the

Holy Book. The Jewish world was no exception and soon there

was a conflict between those who believed in revelation and

those who changed to the evolutionary view of religion. This

churning of religious thoughts gave an impetus to scientific criticism

of the Bible. Judaism, whose religious genius was perpetually

unfolding itself, could now study the Bible from a new angle. It

was inevitable that the Biblical instances and teachings had to be

reviewed rationally, discarding all dogma and in the process,

reconciling the temple of creed with the temple of science.

Though parts of Bible were discarded under the new scientific

scrutiny, its magnificent ethical writ remains a spiritual repository.

While some miracles and stories were to be viewed in the proper

perspective, the identity of Moses and his laws continued to

inspire ’the Jewish religious system. The Haskalah actually

remained a source of intense nationalism among the Jews,

reinforced as it was by the cultural revival amongst the Jewish

nationality in the Balkans, Italy, Hungary and Ireland. The central

position of Haskalah during these turbulent times became the

precursor of the later day ’Zionism’. As a sequel, the Jewish

cultural renaissance inculcated amongst its youth a love for

Hebrew language, and a sense of Jewishness. This phenomenon
CHAPTER 2 HISTORY OF ISRAEL 75
forms an interesting contrast with today’s India’s hybrid culture

wherein the youth in their blind craze of aping Western values

have lost all sense of national identity and culture. In his book

The Eternal People, Smolenskin, in 1873, for the first time,

made out a thesis that the Jews are a nation and Palestine was

their natural home to develop their genius, and the Messianic

dream could only be realised if the Jews achieved political and

moral emancipation in their own land. Nahman Haym Bialik,

the profoundest of Jewish poets, stirred the conscience of the

Jews through Hebrew language as he gave voice to the painful

longings of his times. The massacre of Kishinev incited him to his

most radical work City of Slaughter, a strong denouncement of

Russian barbarities and torture of his people.