Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

Page 28 text:

26 M A S M I D Thus, we find throughout the Passion and Morality Plays the emphasis upon the strength of Christianity as opposed to the weakness of Judaism, and as a consequence of the almost continual victory of the Chris- tians over the Jews we find the latter accept- ing baptism at the close of the play. The Jewish religion is portrayed as ridiculous and false, and only rarely is the fault of the Jews themselves mentioned. If the poets hoped, however, that by means of these plays they might really convert the Jews, they were greatly mistaken, for only very rarely did the Jews take part in the pres- entation, or offer the ideas contained in it. The Jews thus remained un- affected by the Christian influences of the plays. The Christians realized this, however, for they resorted to force to bring the Jews into conflict with them, and a great amount of prose disputations have come down to us in which the Jews defended themselves against Gentile attacks. Perhaps the most famous is the Reuchlin-Pfefferkorn dispute. Johann Pfefferkorn, a Jewish apos- tate, published his Judenspiegel in 1507, in which he demanded the confisca- tion of all Hebrew books on the grounds that they were detrimental to Christian interests, and succeeded in 1509 in extorting from the German Emperor Maximilian an edict for the destruction of all Hebrew books in the possession of the Jews in Cologne and Frank- fort. The Jews appealed and John Reuch- lin. a noted Hebrew scholar, was asked in 1510 to give his opinion on the case. Reuch- lin ' s report was favorable to the Jews. Of the whole mass of Hebrew literature only writings like Toledoth Yeshu, which con- tained blasphemies against Jesus, he consi- dered ought to be destroyed. The Bible, Talmud, Zohar and the various commenta- ries were exonerated. Largely as a result of this report the edict was revoked. These debates ended with Luther who found occasion in his Das Jesus ein gebo- rener Jude sei, to harshly criticise the „hurch for its tactics in endeavoring to con- vert the Jews. He said that had he been a Jew. the example of cruelty set by the Church would have tempted him to become a pig rather than a Christian. This, of course, being the statement of a man who was him- self persecuted by the Catholic Church, loses a great deal of its sincerity and truth — but the stimulus for such strong derogation must have existed in some form. With the advent of Luther, Germany was split into two reli- gious factions which, for a short time, were so busy fighting each other that they had no time to devote themselves specifically to troubling the Jews. The presentation of the plays grew less and less frequent, for the vain endeavors of the poets discouraged them. The Jews would have been content, how- ever, had the anti-Semitism confined itself to literature. Unfortunately the desire to put the Jew in a contemptible position spread into actual practice. During the Middle Ages the Jews were forced to wear special cloth- ing, and the poets immediately proceeded to mock this garment, even though it was forced upon the Jew. Since the time of Pope Inno- cent III the Jews in France, Germany, and Holland had to wear a golden ring on their breast as a sign of identification. Thus, the poets had a definite pattern to follow when describing a Jew. He wore a long coat and a skull-cap and had a bristly beard that shook with every motion of his chin. This indivi- dual form of dress was so prevalent that it was sufficient description of a person to mere- ly say that he was Jewishly clad. The poet Johann Fischart makes specific reference to the golden ring, and Sebastian Brant and Geiler von Kaiserberg, among others, make more generalized fun of the Jewish cloth- ing. Now leaving the Jew for a while, the poets went further to ridicule the Israelites ' ceremonies and prayers. These rituals were so revised as to make them senseless or vulgar, or both. Among the prayers that were thus parodied are Adoun Olam ' in Von der Mten und Neuen Ee. by Hans Folz. and Avinu Malkenu in the Himmelfahrts- spiel ' of the Sterzinger Assemblage. It should be noted that in all of these parodies the Jew speaks a correct German, showing that there was not yet a peculiarly Yiddish dialect. In Hebrew literature the Talmud came in for by far the harshest criticism, perhaps be-

Page 27 text:

M A S M I D 25 The yew in the German Literature of the 15th, l6th and 17th Centuries By Bernard A gloomy picture unfolds itself to our view when we consider the German literature of the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in its relation to the Jew. Hate and prejudice for the Jew are the funda- mental features of the literature during these centuries. The poets, to be tolerated, wrote from the peoples ' viewpoint, and the people were filled with the most venomous hatred for the Jew. Superstition and fanaticism, fanned by the goading and persuasions of the travelling friars and flagellants united to por- tray the Jew as the enemy of Christianity. The first part of the literature to be con- sidered is the Passion Plays. It was the purpose of those plays to show the Jews the weakness of their religion and to strengthen the Christians in theirs. As a result, all men- tion of the Jew in these plays, as well as in the moralities, brings forth a debate over the relative values of Judaism and Christian- ity. Considering the purpose of these plays, the outcome of the debates is obvious. The debates in the Passion Plays occupy a position of secondary importance, being inserted only where they have a bearing on the main theme, and take the form of direct cross-examinations of each side by the other. The participants of the debate are the lead- ers of the Church and the leaders of the Synagogue. When the synagogue puts the questions, they are made simple and easy to answer, but when the church puts the ques- tions, they are complicated and very difficult to answer. The answers of the Christians are generally polite and polished while the answers of the Jews are almost always vul- gar and boorish. The debates almost always end with the victory of the Christians, and some of the Jews accept baptism, while those who don ' t, go off amid the abuse and jeers of the mob. It is interesting to note that only rarely does Jesus appear in personal debate with the Jews, and when he does it is only to say a few short words, at the con- clusion of which the Jews stone him. He. however, is not affected by this, and goes un- harmed. We next encounter the debates in the mora- Greenberg lities. where we find them promoted to a position of primary importance. The debate here finds its inception between two ordinary laymen but ultimately they invoke the aid of theii respective religious orders. Typical of this sort of play is the morality play of Kaiser Constantin, by Hanz Folz. Constantin had gone over from Judaism to Christianity, and his mother was trying with the aid of the Rabbi to bring him back to the teachings of his forefathers. Constantin demands that a Jew and Christian dispute the question before him. A long dispute ensues. Here also the questions are so adroitly framed that the Christians can answer without difficulty, while the Jews can ' t. At the end of the argu- ment, the Rabbi, who had set out to convert the Christians to Judaism, is himself con- vinced of the truths of Christianity, and ac- cepts baptism, as do also Constantin ' s mother and other Jews who were present during the argument. Immediately afterward, the mother and the Rabbi are seen eating swine ' s flesh, thus giving the poet a chance to ex- press his scorn and contempt for them, saying that they accepted Christianity not because they believed in it, but because of their desire for swine ' s flesh. Another interesting incident occurs in this play, revolving about the religious belief that the name of God cannot be mentioned with- out bringing about immediate and powerful results. The Jew deduces from this belief that Jesus cannot be the true God because his name may be pronounced without any consequences whereas if the Jew pronounces the name of his God, the one to whom it is spoken must die. An ox is brought up for demonstration. The Jew whispers some- thing in the ear of the ox, whereupon the ox falls dead. The Christian asserts, how- ever, that the Jew spoke the name of the Devil. Then he declares that he can bring the ox back to life again. He whispers the name of Christ in the ear of the ox, and lo! the ox is revived. All the Jews are convinced by this miracle. This incident may well serve as an example of the manner and means by which the religious strife was carried on.

Page 29 text:

M A S M I D 27 cauce it was least understood. One of the bitterest critics of the Talmud, though, Hans Folz, shows in his poetry what for a non- Jew was an astounding knowledge of the Talmud; but this did not keep him from slandering it. Reuchlin, in his defensi of the Talmud, said that it was not made so that any ig.ioramus who did not understand the Talmud might criticise it a id demand its con- fiscation. In all this storm of contempt for Mebrew literature the poets did not lose sight of the Jew as a character with possit ilities of stimu- lating their hate upon him. Toward tiiis end ihey sought to entertain the public by por.raymg him in ludicrous situations or by distorting his life. The poets in this field were many. In various poems we find Jews portrayed as suckling from a pig, but tlie main efforts of the poets were directed toward picturing the Jewish Messiah as being born a girl. A young Jewess is led into illicit rela- tions with an adventurer or a student in the belief that the latter is hlijah, and that she is to be the mother of the Me::siah. Invariably the offspring is a girl, and the Jewess accepts baptism. Innumerable poetS handled this theme, including Folz, Abraham a S. Clara, Grimmelshausen and Kirchoff. The height of such vulgar means to gain the end of the poets is found in the poem Von einer schwangeren Judin by Joliann Fischart. In the beginning the poem prophesies that on a certain date a Jewe:s in limzwangen will give birJi to two pigs: and, sure enough, on that exact date a Jewess in that town gives birth to two sows which die immediately after birth. It can be seen from this how low the poets stooped in their art to villify the Jews. In general if we examine the literature of this time we see that there is often an endea- vor to attack the inner life, customs and thoughts of the Jews. Some poets like Folz and Grimmelshausen show a remarkable knowledge of Hebrew literature. The poets ceize upon anything that plays any part in the life of the Jew as material for mockery. The Jews are mocked alike for their reli- gibujness and for accepting baptism; and al- thoilgh some poets like Brant and Pauli give the Jtws lukewarm praise for the strict ob- servartce of the Jewish holidays they are only voices crying in a wilderness. In the shifting of the attack from the Jewish religion to the Jew himself the latter assumes the form of a sorcerer and to a very much greater extent that of a usurer — so much so in fact that the terms usurer and Jew came to be synonymous. His form and character are familiar — miserly, brutal, self- ish, demanding and sometimes getting his pound of flesh. Usually the forces of justice and humanity triumph and the usurer receives his just deserts. Some poets like Ayrer, in his Halbnarrischen Wucherer and Gry- phias, in his Horribiliscribrifax , endeavor to vindicate the Jewish usurer because the lat- ter was forced into this lowly profession against his will; and once, even, in Ayrer ' s morality play Vom falschen Notarius mil seinem unwahrhaften Beicht , the usurer be- comes a benefactor — but only rarely does the usurer receive the grace of his clientele. Besides the works of known authorship there existed in Germany at this period a myr- iad of folk-tales and folk-songs that are marked by fierce anti-Semitism. It is in this lore that we find the dread blood libel , the accusation that the Jews used Christian children ' s blood in the Passover ceremonies; and also the accusation that the Jews are the defilers of the Christian sacraments. The Christians out of their hatred of the Jews cought justification for persecuting the latter physically as well as spiritually and found in thece songs and tales of child murder, or water and food poisonings and other trumped up malefactions all the justification they needed for breaking out in riots to mas- sacre the Jews. Only rarely do the more famous poets deal with these accusations. But whatever the source the result was real and destructive. The time was not distant, however, when the position of the German Jew would ex- perience a material betterment. In the mid- dle of the 18th century, when the Haska- lah movement unearthed the culture of the world to the Jew, Lessing wrote his one-act play Die Juden and five years later be- came acquainted with the man who was to become his best friend and the model for Nathan in Nathan der Weise — Moses Men- delsohn. Politically also the Jews achieved greater prominence and gradually the world realized the great injustice that had been done to the Jews. And with understanding came tolerance and respect.