Anti-Semitic Reference Guides: Moses Hess' 'Rome and Jerusalem'

Moses Hess is a jewish figure who is not exactly well known, but he was the father of modern Zionist ideology and in particular Labor Zionist ideology. He anticipated Theodore Herzl - the better known founder of modern Zionist ideology - by several decades and was also a close associate of another famous jew Karl Marx during his youth and is also largely responsible for the creation of the ‘Communist Manifesto’. He is the earliest voice of modern Zionism and jewish nationalism that can be explicitly recognised beyond the confines of jewish religious and messianic movements in the historical literature.

He is important to the modern anti-Semite, because - despite being largely unknown in the non-jewish world - he is very well-known - and still widely read along with Herzl - ins the jewish world particularly the part of that world that is called Israel today.

Hess also forms a direct link between the two - historically and currently - most influential political ideologies inside the jewish community: Zionism and Marxism. He in essence forms a bridge through which we may point out that jewish nationalism is quite able to cohabit and even work with Marxism despite the ostensible conflict between the two. The utility of Hess for an anti-Semite is thus rather obvious in that he provides a solid connection between the two and forces ones philo-Semitic opponents onto the back foot and into the intellectually hollow quagmire of claiming that Hess was either unimportant or a lone quack (both of which may be easily demonstrated to be false positions).

Hess is also notable for the modern anti-Semite for the reason that he was - unusually for a jew - very explicit in his opinions and spends a great deal of time attacking and doing down gentiles, while praising the jews to the skies. Hence Hess is eminently quotable for those seeking short, instructive and mainstream references from jewish political and intellectual culture and literature to backup their arguments or reinforce their theses on the jewish question.

Below is a selection of fifty-five quotations from Hess’ principle - and most read - work on Zionism: ‘Rome and Jerusalem’. This research has been undertaken and written up because of the considerable need for anti-Semitic intellectual cribs and this - I hope - will be the function that other anti-Semites put this first part to use as.

Let us begin!

‘Every Jew has within him the potentiality of a Messiah and every Jewess of a Mater dolorosa.’ (1)

‘Already eighteen hundred years ago, a Jew, who has since become a redeemer among the gentiles, found an extra-mundane point of support, from which he wished to lift the world from its poles.’ (2)

‘Even in later Rabbinic Judaism, the Rabbis never separated the idea of a future world from the conception of the Messianic reign. Nachmanides insists, in contradiction to Maimonides, upon the identity of Olom Habbo, “the world to come,” with the Messianic reign.’ (3)

‘With the Jews, solidarity and social responsibility were always the fundamental principles of life and conduct.’ (4)

‘The solidarity of the Jews covers also the Shem, i.e., the name of God. The Jewish law of solidarity: “All Israelites are responsible for one another,” is expressed also in the form of Kiddush Hashem, the Sanctification of God’s name; i.e. the Jew is urged to act in a more unselfish spirit than the law requires, and even to sacrifice his own interests and person, that he may thereby reflect glory upon the name of Judaism and all other Jews.’ (5)

‘True it is, that the “end of days,” when the knowledge of God will fill the earth, is still far off; yet we firmly believe that the time will come when the holy spirit of our nation will become the property of humanity and the earth will become a grand temple wherein the spirit of God will dwell.’ (6)

‘The “pure human nature” of the Germans is, in reality, the character of the pure German race, which rises to the conception of humanity in theory only, but in practice it has not succeeded in overcoming the natural sympathies and antipathies of the race. German antagonism to Jewish national aspiration has a double origin, though the motives are really contrary to each other. The duplicity and contrariety of the human personality, such as we can see in the union of the spiritual and the natural, the theoretical and practical sides, are in no other nation so sharply marked in their points of opposition as in the German. Jewish national aspirations are antagonistic to the theoretical cosmopolitan tendencies of the German. But in addition to this the German opposes Jewish national aspirations because of his racial antipathy, from which even the noblest Germans have not yet emancipated themselves/ The publisher, whose “pure human” conscience revolted against publishing a book advocating the revival of Jewish nationality, published books preaching hatred to Jews and Judaism without the slightest remorse, in spite of the fact that the motive of such works is essentially opposed to the “pure human conscience.” This contradictory action was due to inborn racial antagonism to the Jews. But the German, it seems, has no clear conception of his racial prejudices; he sees in his egoistic as well as in his spiritual endeavours, not German or Teutonic, but “humanitarian tendencies”; and he does not know that he follows the latter only in theory, while in practice he clings to his egoistic ideas.

Progressive German Jews, also, seem to think that they have sufficient reason for turning away from the Jewish national movement. My dear old friend, Berthold Auerbach, is disappointed with me, just as much as my former publisher, though not on the ground of “pure human conscience.” He complains bitterly about my attitude and finally exclaims: “Who appointed you as a prince and judge over us?” It seems that on account of the hatred that surrounds him on all sides, the German Jew is determined to estrange himself from Judaism as far as possible and endeavours event to deny his race. No reform of the Jewish religion, however extreme, is radical enough for the educated German Jew. But the endeavours are vain. Even conversion itself does not relieve the Jew from the enormous pressure of German Anti-Semitism. The German hates the Jewish religion less than the race; he objects less to the Jews’ peculiar beliefs than to their peculiar noses. Neither reform, nor conversion, nor emancipation throw open to the Jew the gates of social life, hence their anxiety of deny their racial descent. Molleshot, in his Physiological Sketches (p. 251), tells how the son of a converted Jew used to spend hours every morning at the looking-glass, comb in hand, endeavouring to straighten his curly hair, so as to give it a more Teutonic appearance. But as little as the “radical” Reform movement – an appellation which characterizes it so well, inasmuch as it lays the axe at the root of Judaism and its national historical cult- accomplished its aim, so little will the tendency of some Jews to deny their racial descent fulfil their purpose. Jewish noses cannot be reformed, and the black, wavy hair of the Jews will not change through conversion into blond, nor can its curves be straightened out by constant combing. The Jewish race is one of the primary races of mankind that has retained its integrity, in spite of the continual change of its climatic environment, and the Jewish type has conserved its purity through the centuries.’ (7)

‘If Judaism owes its immortality to the remarkable religious productivity of the Jewish genius, this genius itself owes its existence to the fertility of the Jewish race.’ (8)

‘And just as it is impossible for me to entertain any prejudice against my own race, which has played such an important role in universal history and which is destined for a still greater one in the future.’ (9)

‘It is a fact which may even come to the attention of our German Jewish reformers, that the Jewish religion is, above all, Jewish patriotism.’ (10)

‘No more did I seek to suppress the voice of my Jewish consciousness, but on the contrary, I carefully followed up its traces and was pleasantly surprised when I found, in my old manuscripts, a passage anticipating my present day Jewish aspirations.’ (11)

‘The way and manner in which the persecution of the Jews in Europe, and even in enlightened Germany, is looked upon, must necessarily cause a new point of departure in Jewish life. This tendency demonstrates quite clearly that in spite of the degree of education to which Occidental Jews have attained, there still exists a barrier between them and the surrounding nations, almost as formidable as in the days of religious fanaticism. Those of our brethren who, for the purposes of obtaining emancipation, endeavour to persuade themselves, as well as others, that modern Jews possess no trace of a national feeling have really lost their heads. These men do not understand how it is possible that such a stupid medieval legend, which was only too well known to our forefathers under the name of Mamserbilbul, should be given credence, even for a moment, in Nineteenth Century Europe. To our educated German Jews, the feeling of hatred towards the Jews displayed by the Germans has always remained an unsolved puzzle. Was not the entire of the German Jews, since the days of Mendelssohn, directed toward becoming wholly Germanized, to thinking and feeling as Germans?’ (12)

‘In vain does the enlightened Jew hide behind his geographical and philosophical alibi. It is of no avail. Mask yourself a thousand times over, change your name, religion and character, travel throughout the world incognito, so that people may not recognise the Jew in you; yet every insult to the Jewish name will strike you, even more than the pious man who is permeated with the spirit of Jewish solidarity and who fights for the honor of the Jewish name.’ (13)

‘Judaism is not threatened, like Christianity, with danger from the nationalistic and humanistic aspirations of our time, for in reality, these sentiments belong to the very essence of Judaism.’ (14)

‘Development of the knowledge of God, through study and conscientious investigation, is not only not forbidden in Judaism, but is even considered a religious duty.’ (15)

‘Differences of opinion in regard to metaphysical conceptions have always obtained among the Jews, but Judaism never excluded anyone. The apostates sever themselves from the bond of Jewry. “And not even them has Judaism forsaken,” added a learned rabbi, in whose presence I expressed the above-quoted opinion.’ (16)

‘A Jew belongs to his race and consequently also to Judaism, in spite of the fact that he or his ancestors have become apostates.’ (17)

‘The converted Jew remains a Jew no matter how much he objects to it.’ (18)

‘After the dispersion, study became, as you can find again in Sachs, an essential and inseparable part of the national cult.’ (19)

‘More reasonable are the attempts of those fusionists who, like my friend Hirsch, of Luxemburg, are utilizing freemasonry as a means to amalgamate all the historical cults into one. The Luxemburg Rabbi, the antipode of his namesake, the Frankfurt Rabbi Hirsch, developed the idea of fusion so thoroughly in his excellent lectures which he delivered at the Luxemburg Lodge, and later published under the title Humanity as a Religion, that, according to him, the matter may be considered closed. All that remains for the rabbis to do is to close up their reform temples and send the school children to the Masonic temples. In truth, the logical consequences of the forms have long since led those who took the sermons of the reform rabbis seriously, toward making such a step; as you, being a resident of Frankfort, well know. In vain did they afterward ornament their fusionist sermons with Talmudic quotations. It was too late and they had to be satisfied to preach to empty pews.’ (20)

‘This people was hardly noticeable in the ancient world, where it was greatly oppressed by its powerful, conquering neighbours. Twice it came near to being destroyed; namely, in the Egyptian and Babylonian captivities; and twice it rose to new spiritual life and fought long and successfully against the mightiest as well as the most civilized peoples of antiquity – the Greeks and the Romans. Finally, in the last struggle of the ancient world, it was this people which fertilized the genius of humanity with its own spirit, so as to rejuvenate itself, along with the regeneration of humanity. To-day, when the process of rejuvenation of the historical peoples is ended and each nation has its special function in the organism of humanity, we are for the first time beginning to conceive the special significant of the various organs of humanity.’ (21)

‘When we observe that every modern people, every part of modern society, displays in its activity as an organ of humanity a special calling, then we must also determine the importance and function of the only ancient people which still exists to-day, as strong and vigorous as it was in the days of old, namely, the people of Israel.’ (22)

‘In the organ of humanity there are no tow peoples which attract and repel each other more than the Germans and the Jews; as there are no two mental attitudes which are simultaneously akin to each other and still diametrically opposed, as the scientific-philosophical and the religious-moral.’ (23)

‘The greatest and most dangerous enemy of the Jewish religion in antiquity was the religion of gross sensualism, the material love of the Semites, namely, Baal worship. In medieval ages, the enemy was represented by the embodiment of spiritualistic love – Christianity.’ (24)

‘I agree with you in your view of human love and believe, also, that moral freedom is the destiny of man as well as of humanity. But to me this goal of humanity is identical with the recognition of God, which Judaism proclaimed at the very beginning of history, and to the spread and development of which it has always contributed, and which, since Spinoza, it has made accessible to all historical nations.’ (25)

‘We Jews have always, from the beginning of our history, cherished the faith in a future Messianic epoch.’ (26)

‘In other words, that History, like Nature, will finally have her epoch of harmonious perfection.’ (27)

‘Then, also, began the history of creation of the social world, which will celebrate its Sabbath after the completion of tits world-historical labor, by introducing the Messianic epoch. Here, in this conception, you can see the high moral value of the Mosaic genesis history, in which supernaturalists have discovered a system of science. As you see, my esteemed friend, the very biblical Sabbath-law in itself inspires us with a feeling of certainty that the uniform, eternal, divine law governs alike both the world of Nature and the world of History. It is only to hose people who cannot conceive the manifestation of the religious genius of the Jews, that the historical development of humanity appears as lawless, indeterminate, infinite “Progress” when contrasted with the life of Nature which, though it has not reached the end of its development, is yet governed by strict laws which are calculable.’ (28)

‘But, thanks to the religious genius of the Jews and its divine Revelation, which continually manifested itself in various forms: first in prophetic utterances, then in mysticism, and finally in philosophic speculation – the human spirit was constantly brought nearer to the recognition of the law.’ (29)

‘The revelations of the holy spirit point to no other future but to the mature age of the spirit of the social world. This age will begin, according to our historical religion, with the Messianic era. This is the era in which the Jewish nation and all the other historical nations will arise again to a new life, the time of the “resurrection of the dead,” of “the coming of the Lord,” of the “New Jerusalem,” and of all the other symbolic expressions, the meaning of which is no longer misunderstood.

The Messianic era is the present age, which began to germinate with the teachings of Spinoza, and finally came into historical existence with the great French Revolution. With the French Revolution, there began the regeneration of those nations which had acquired their national historical religion only through the influence of Judaism.’ (30)

‘In the social sphere, it is not yet completed; it is at present developing its last race and class struggle, in order to bring about a reconciliation of all opposites and to establish an equilibrium between production and consumption, and finally to reach that perfected and harmonious course of life which characterises every age of maturity.’ (31)

‘As an offset to the noble and exalted historical religion of my regenerated Judaism, you oppose the “bloody sacrificial cult” of the ancient Israelites, and claim that orthodox Jews will never agree to a rebuilding of the Temple without, at the same time, reinstituting this ancient cult. You assume, therefore, that my love for my people will not go so far as to consent to the introduction of the sacrificial cult.

I cannot grant you, however, either the supposed condition sine qua non, on the part of orthodox Jews, or your hypothetical conception of the degree of my patriotism.’ (32)

‘Were, really, the sacrificial cult an inseparable part of Jewish nationality, I would unhesitatingly accept it. But as long as I have not learned anything better, I am convinced to the contrary.’ (33)

‘Regarded by itself, the sacrificial cult, as described in the Bible, does not contain anything repellent to the spirit of humanitarianism. On the contrary, as compared with the horrible custom of human sacrifices practised by all the nations of antiquity, the Jewish practice of animal sacrifices was a splendid victory for the spirit of humanitarianism. Be that as it may, whether animal sacrifices are regarded as a concession on the part of the Torah to Paganism, in order to prevent a relapse on the part of the people idolatry, or whether it be maintained that it contains a hidden symbolism, the meaning of which is at present unknown, one thing is well established, that the Jews, in spite of their having brought “bloody sacrifices,” possess greater abhorrence for bloodshed and the eating of the blood than modern nations which consume the blood together, with the meat, without sacrifice or ceremony. But the sacrificial cult has not been practised for the last eighteen hundred years, and therefore our new-fashioned Jews are ashamed of it. And yet it seems that even to the present day, sacrifice is the natural expression of the pious spirit of the child.’ (34)

‘On the other hand, the prophets of old, and even the rabbis of the Middle Ages, never considered the sacrificial cult essential to the Jewish religion as do the modern rigidly orthodox Jews, who look upon it as inseparable from our national restoration. Rabbi Jochanan ben Zakkai declared, basing his utterance on the prophetic saying of Hosea vi, 6, that sacrifices can be substituted by benevolence, and a number of modern rabbinical authorities, who do not recognise the right of the modern descendents of Aaron to the priesthood, have yet declared themselves zealously for the restoration of a Jewish State. The cult that we are going to introduce in the New Jerusalem can and must, for the present, remain an open question. Rome was not built in a day, and the New Jerusalem must needs take time for its construction.’ (35)

‘As the rabbi in the story symbolises our people, so does the knight of the legend signify the French people, which in our days, as in the Middle Ages, sent its brave soldiers to Syria and “prepared in the desert the way of the Lord.”’ (36)

‘What an example! What a race. You Roman conquerors led your legions in battle against the already ruined Zion and drove the children of Israel out of their ancestral land. Your European, Asiatic and African barbarians lent your ear to superstition and pronounced your curse upon them. You feudal kings brand the Jews with the mark of shame - the Jews, who, in spite of all your persecutions, supplied with the necessary gold wherewith to arm your vassals and serfs and who provided your markets with goods. You grand Inquisitors, searched among the children of the dispersed people of Israel, for your richest victims, with whom to fill your prisons and coffers, and in order to feed your auto-da-fe’s – and you revoked the edict of Nantes and drove out of the land the remnant that had escaped destruction of Apostolic fanaticism. And finally, you modern nations have denied these indefatigable workers and industrious merchants civil rights. What persecutions! What tears! What blood you children of Israel have shed in the last eighteen hundred years! But you sons of Judea, in spite of all suffering are still here! You have overcome the innumerable obstacles which the hatred, contempt, fanaticism and barbarism of the centuries have placed in your way. The hand of the Eternal has surely guided you.’ (37)

‘You are an elemental force and we bow our heads before you. You were powerful in the early period of your history, strong even after the destruction of Jerusalem, and mighty during the Middle Ages, when there were only two dominant powers – the Inquisition and its Cross, and Piracy with its Crescent. You have escaped destruction in your long dispersion, in spite of the terrible tax you have paid during eighteen centuries of persecution. But what is left of your nation is mighty enough to rebuild the gates of Jerusalem. This is your mission.

Providence would not have prolonged your existence until to-day, had it not reserved for you the holiest of all missions. The hour has struck for the resettlement of the banks of the Jordan. The historical books of the royal prophets can, perhaps, be written again only by you.

A great calling is reserved for you: to be a living channel of communication between three continents. You should be the bearers of civilisation to the primitive peoples of Asia, and the teachers of the European sciences to which your race has contributed so much. You should be the mediators between Europe and far Asia, open the roads that lead to India and China – those unknown regions which must ultimately be thrown open to civilisation. You will come to the land of your fathers crowned with the crown of age-long martyrdom, and there, finally, you will be completely healed from all your ills! Your capital will again bring the wide stretches of barren land under cultivation; your labor and industry will once again turn the ancient soil into fruitful valleys, reclaim the flat lands from the encroaching sands of the desert, and the world will again pay its homage to the oldest of peoples.’ (38)

‘You have contributed enough to the cause of civilisation and have helped Europe on the path of progress, to make revolutions and carry them out successfully. You must henceforth think of yourselves, of the valleys of Lebanon and the plans of Gennesareth.

March forward! At the sight of your rejuvenation, our hearts will beat fast, and our armies will stand by you, ready to help.

March forward, Jews of all lands! The ancient fatherland of yours is calling you, and we will be proud to open its gates to you.

March forward, ye sons of martyrs! The harvest of experience which you have accumulated in your long exile, will help to bring again to Israel the splendour of the Davidic days and rewrite that part of history of which the monoliths of Semiramis are the only witness.

March forward, ye noble hearts! The day on which the Jewish tribes return to their fatherland will be epoch-making in the history of humanity. Oh, how will the East tremble at your coming! How quickly, under the influence of labor and industry, will the enervation of the people vanish, in the land where voluptuousness, idleness and robbery have held sway for thousands of years.

You will become the moral stay of the East. You have written the Book of books. Become, then, the educators of the wild Arabian hordes and the African peoples. Let the ancient wisdom of the East, the revelations of the Zend, the Vedas, as well as the more modern Koran and the Gospels, group themselves around your Bible. They will all become purified from every superstition and all will proclaim alike the principles of freedom, humanity, peace and unity. You are the triumphal arch of the future historical epoch, under which the great covenant of humanity will be written and sealed in your presence as the witnesses of the past and future. The Biblical traditions which you will revive, will also sanctify anew our Occidental society and destroy the weed of materialism together with its roots.’ (39)

‘Even to-day, the great majority of Occidental Jews pay homage to their ancient religion. Neither emancipation nor Christian proselytism, with its bait of material advantages, has succeeded in estranging the majority of Jews from their traditions. On the contrary, there have appeared of late, even among those who were formerly estranged from Judaism, men who display strong sympathies for the ancient Jewish mode of life.’ (40)

‘The parasitic way of existence has played an important role in the development of human history and is by no means restricted to the Jews.’ (41)

‘Every Jew, even the converted, should cling to the cause and labor for the regeneration of Israel.’ (42)

‘It is in the interest of France to see that the road leading to India and China should be settled by a people which will be loyal to the cause of France to the end, in order that it may fulfil the historical mission which ahs fallen to it as a legacy from the great Revolution.’ (43)

‘”Frenchmen and Jews!” I hear you exclaim. “If so, then the Christian German reactionaries were right in their denunciations of the Jews!” Yes, my dear friend, the animal instinct which scents the enemy in the distance is always infallible. Reaction has everywhere recognized its mortal enemy in those who stand midway between reaction and revolution and who act as the midwife of progress, the giant who is to smite reaction over its head.’ (44)

‘Frenchmen and Jews! It seems that in all things they were created for one another. They resemble one another in their humane and national aspirations, and differ only in such qualities as can only be complemented by another nation, but which are never united in one and the same people. The French people excel in alertness, in the humanistic and sympathetic quality to assimilate all elements; the Jews, on the other hand, possess more ethical seriousness than the French, and in meeting other types, the Jew will rather impress his stamp on his environment than be moulded by it. The French can rule the world because they absorbed the best of the entire human race. The Jews can only be masters of their own flock, and with the holy fire which they have kindled in their own midst, they will warm and enlighten a world composed of heterogeneous elements, and thus prevent this world from disintegrating into its elements and relapsing into the chaos out of which it was raised once before by Judaism.’ (45)

‘For Jewish colonization on the road to India and China, there is no lack, either of Jewish laborers or of Jewish talent and capital. Let only the germ be planted under the protection of the European powers, and the tree of a new life will spring forth by itself and bear excellent fruit.’ (46)

‘On the common ground of Jewish patriotism, all Jewish classes will meet, orthodox and progressive, rich and poor. They will recognize themselves as the descendents of those heroes who fought the mightiest and most civilized nations of antiquity: the Egyptians, Assyrians, Greeks and Romans, and succeeded in carrying on their struggle to the very end of the ancient world, which they alone survived. They will look upon themselves as children of that race which, unlike any other people in history, has suffered a two thousand year martyrdom, and which has always carried aloft the banner of nationality, namely, the Book of the Law.’ (47)

‘Just as after the last catastrophe of organic life, when the historical races came into the world’s arena, there came their division into tribes, and the position and role of the latter was determined, so after the last catastrophe in social life, when the spirit of humanity shall have reached its maturity, will our people, with the other historical people, find its legitimate place in universal history.’ (48)

‘This unified, divine plan of history is, at present, apparently in its last stage of historical development. But in antiquity, when the nations were still in the grip of natural life, it was only one people, the people of Israel, which, thanks to its peculiar genius, was able to perceive the workings of the divine plan in the history of humanity, as well as in the organic and cosmic spheres of life.

If we consider the plan of history, as mapped out in the sacred Scriptures of the Jews, without prejudice, we shall see in it, not only the conception of the unity of mankind, but also the unity of all life, cosmic, organic and social. Our sacred Scriptures presuppose the unity of God, in spite of the apparent variety which the word presents, and the unity of the human genus, notwithstanding the differences of the races; because the total plan of the history of the world seems to have been always present to the spirit of the Jewish people, from the beginning of its history. The entire literature of the Jews is to be conceived only from this genetic point of view. Judaism is a historical religion, a historical cult, in contra-distinction to Paganism, which is a natural cult.

The revelation of the Jewish spirit, which was an isolated phenomenon at the dawn of history of humanity, would have been inexplicable and would appear supernatural, were it not for the fact that there existed originally different tribes, with typically individual mental qualities, which had evolved fundamentally different views long before the revelation of the Jewish spirit. This same remarkable manifestation of individuality is met in the divergent languages of primitive peoples. Primitive religions and primitive languages are, as Renan has rightly observed, race creations; though he himself had hardly conception of the importance of the ancient Jewish historical religion. History corroborates the story of anthropology, that there were originally different human races and tribes.’ (49)

‘This other-worldliness, in the course of historical development, in the measure that the nations approached the Jewish historical religion, assumed more and more of a secular character. And the more Jewish, the more humane the pagan world became, the more could Jews participate in the culture of this world and contribute to its progress. And finally, when after the long struggle between the pagan world of sensuality and barbarous force, on the one hand, and the spiritual, mystic, Jewish view on the other, the sun of modern humanitarian civilization shed its feeble rays upon a better and more perfect world, it was a Jew who was able to signal to the world that the final stage of the process of human development had begun.’ (50)

‘These manifestations of the Jewish genius are not a supernatural phenomenon, but form a part of the great eternal Law which governs all three life spheres, the cosmic, organic and social. The special field of operation of the Jewish genius, however, is the social sphere, and it is due to it that a unified historical development of humanity was made possible. The revelations of the Jewish spirit expresses the universal law in its entirety; its past workings as well as its future operations, using the scientific formula of to-day with the same facility as formerly the proofs of imagination and feeling.’ (51)

‘Spiritual creations, like the organic, have their paleontological and modern epochs, the last stage of which is the age of maturity, in which the development of social life will come to completion. The coming of the future epoch of social life will be hastened by the efforts and energy of the Jews, who have a special calling for conveying to the world revelations affection the social life-sphere.’ (52)

‘What Jewish revelation emphasized most is the unity of the creative spirit, in opposition to the plurality of forces; and this idea has been expressed clearly also by Spinoza. The Bible, stripped of its anthropomorphic expressions, does not offer a single point which expressly contradicts the teachings of Spinoza. Moses himself says that the Knowledge of God is not found either in heaven or in the distances of space, but that the real revelation of God takes place within ourselves in our spirit and heart.’ (53)

‘These politicians and patriots forget, that if Germany were to conquer France and Italy to-day, it would only result in placing the entire German people under police law; and in depriving the Jews of their civil rights, in a worse manner than after the “War of Liberation,” when the only reward granted by the Germans to their Jewish brethren in arms was exclusion from civil life.’ (54)

‘The race struggle is the primal one, and the class struggle secondary. The last dominating race is the German. But, thanks to the French people, which succeeded not only in reconciling race antagonism in its own land, but also uprooted every form of race domination within the borders of France, the race struggle is nearing its end. And along with the cessation of race antagonism, the class struggle will also come to a stand-still. The equalization of all classes of Society will necessarily follow the emancipation of the races, for it will ultimately become only a scientific question of social economics.

Yet it seems that a final race struggle is unavoidable, if the German politicians, failing to grasp the situation, do not attempt to oppose the tremendous current of reaction, which will ultimately involve Germany in a collision with the Romance nations, and will also entrap the progressive German democrats in the net of Romantic demagogy. Medieval reaction succeeded twice during the present century, once during the “War of Liberation,” and for the second time during the Italian war, in defeating the modern efforts of the German people for political and social regeneration, by inflaming race dominance instincts in the hearts of the lords of war, who think themselves lords of the land by divine right, and consider the people as their rightly inherited slaves.’ (55)

References

(1) Moses Hess, 1943, [1862], ‘Rome and Jerusalem: A Study in Jewish Nationalism’, 2nd Edition, Bloch: New York, p. 45

(2) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 47

(3) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 51

(4) Hess, Op. Cit., p.52

(5) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 52-53, n. 2

(6) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 54

(7) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 57-59

(8) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 60

(9) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 62

(10) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 63

(11) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 70

(12) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 70-71

(13) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 75

(14) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 96-97

(15) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 97

(16) Hess, Op. Cit. p. 97

(17) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 98

(18) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 98

(19) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 109

(20) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 115

(21) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 123-124

(22) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 124

(23) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 124-125

(24) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 125

(25) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 128

(26) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 132

(27) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 132

(28) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 132-133

(29) Hess, Op. Cit. p. 134

(30) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 137-138

(31) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 139

(32) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 141

(33) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 142

(34) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 144-145

(35) Hess. Op. Cit., p. 145

(36) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 148

(37) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 155-156

(38) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 157-158

(39) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 158-159

(40) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 164

(41) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 165

(42) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 167

(43) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 167

(44) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 168

(45) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 169

(46) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 169

(47) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 172-173

(48) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 178

(49) Hess, Op. Cit., pp. 181-182

(50) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 211

(51) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 212

(52) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 214

(53) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 215

(54) Hess, Op. Cit., p. 225

(55) Hess, Op. Cit. pp. 226-227