Was Karl Marx Jewish?

When I first though about writing this short article, I wondered to myself: 'why bother?'

After all Karl Marx - the founding father of Social Democracy and Marxism - is very well known to have been of jewish origin since his father Heinrich Marx (born (alternatively Hirschel ha-Levi Marx) (1) was the son of a great rabbinical family via Karl Marx's grandfather: Meir ha-Levi Marx. (2)

Marx's paternal grandmother Chage Lwow was the daughter of one of the best regarded of eighteenth-century rabbis: Moses Lwow. (3) Marx's mother Henrietta Pressburg (alternatively Pressborck) was no less illustrious coming from a long-line of Dutch rabbis (4) of Hungarian origin herself (5) and as a mark of her family prestigious rabbinical lineage she wouldn’t convert to the nominal Evangelical Protestantism of her husband until her father – a rabbi himself - had passed away. (6)

It can thus be seen very quickly that both sides of Marx's ancestry betray a purely jewish origin and not only a purely jewish origin, but rather a purely rabbinical line and quite possibly a priestly (Kohanim) one as well. The reason I decided to go ahead and write this short article regardless of the fact that I felt, and still feel, it to be self-evident that Marx was jewish is because I have seen several mentions of Marx as of late which have downplayed his jewishness.

One such example is Muller's point in his 'Capitalism and the Jews' that Marx was not jewish by religion and thus cannot be classed as jewish. (7)

This is not dissimilar to that made by the fraudulent claim by Riis that, based on his alleged discussions with Jenny Marx's maid and Karl Marx's sometime lover Helene Demuth (8) that Marx attended a London synagogue regularly. (9)

Both Riis and Muller are culpable for making a simple schoolboy error: associating jewishness as a religious category as opposed to an ethnic one. Riis and Muller both assume that when we call someone 'jewish': we mean it in the manner of a 'follower of Judaism'.

This isn't true given that a 'follower of Judaism' doesn't actually have to be jewish in Judaism (for example the Noahides or even a simple convert who worships as a jew but isn't considered to be an Israelite by jews), but rather can be someone who follows jewish ways and the precepts of Judaism, but is not classed by Judaism as an Israelite (i.e,. jewish).

Jewishness is far more in terms of meaning than a simple confession of faith, but rather is a cultural and national identity as well as a religious one. Even Judaism ascribes jewishness (i.e., Israelite status) as being a biological not a confessional matter (10) and more broadly one can see such a statement in Israeli definition of jewishness as well as the fact that such logical aberrations (if one is to believe Riis and Muller's thinking) as atheist and Christian jews are frequent occurrences.

Another interesting point to make is that when jewish authors are arguing for the jewish status of individuals who have invented something or received say a Nobel Prize. They assign jewishness not based on ‘culture’ or being an active religious jew but rather purely on the basis of ancestry which is often only half or a quarter jewish (such as Nobel Prize winning chemist Adolf von Bayer who was half-jewish).

Therefore, we can see that those who deny the jewishness of Karl Marx – such as Jacob Kovalio - are often engaging in outright hypocrisy.

As such then we can see that Riis and Muller's position in relation to Marx - that it would be a faith in Judaism that would make him jewish - is completely unfounded because it doesn't acknowledge what Judaism actually believes about who is - and who is not - jewish.

I will close this short article by noting that even the earliest (and friendliest) biographer of Marx - Franz Mehring - acknowledges that Marx was jewish: (11) so why on earth would we not consider him to be jewish?

References

(1) Anon., Yuri Sdobnikov (Trans.), 1989, 'Karl Marx: A Biography', 4th Edition, Progress: Moscow, p. 18; Robert Payne, 1968, 'Marx: A Biography', 1st Edition, W. H. Allen: London, p. 18

(2) David McLellan, 1973, 'Karl Marx: His Life and Thought', 1st Edition, Granada: London, p. 3;

(3) Ibid., p. 3

(4) Payne, Op. Cit., p. 19

(5) McLellan, Op. Cit., pp. 3-4

(6) Payne, Op. Cit., p. 21

(7) Jerry Muller, 2011, 'Capitalism and the Jews', 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton

(8) Payne, Op. Cit., pp. 265-266

(9) S. Riis, 1962, 'Karl Marx: Master of Fraud', 1st Edition, Robert Speller: New York, p. 11

(10) Jacob Neusner, 2004, 'Making God's Word Work: A Guide to the Mishnah', 1st Edition, Continuum: New York, p. 74

(11) Franz Mehring, Edward Fitzgerald (Trans.), 1936, 'Karl Marx: The Story of his Life', 1st Edition, George Allen and Unwin: London, pp. 1-3