Yeshiva University - Masmid Yearbook (New York, NY)

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M A SMID 31 GOETHE AND THE JEWS By Jacob Agushevitz N March 22, 1932, the one hundredth anniversary of Goethe will be celeb- rated. In anticipation of this event, numerous books and articles concerning the life and works of this versatile genius have already been published all over the world. For us Jews it is of special importance to note the attitude of this great European to- ward our people. Though his judgment, like that of all humans, may not be infallible, his view is characteristic of the German intellec- tuals of his generation. For Goethe, the greatest literary, exponent of the nineteenth century, is to the Germans more than their greatest poet; he is their most representative intellectual figure. They regard him as their model, as the man who, in life and works, ideas and ideals, has best expressed their emotions and aspirations. He is, so to speak, the most German of all the German poets. By studying the attitude of Goethe to- wards the Jews, we might be able to cast light upon the attitude of the most enlight- ened German towards his Jewish neighbor in the generation after Mendelssohn. Goethe ' s contact with things Jewish began rather early in his life. In conformity with the general practice of the time, his early edu- cation included also a study of the Bible. His young imagination often centered around Biblical heroes, and the plays and poems of his early life are, at times, drawn from Bib- lical sources. The impression that Goethe seems to have obtained from the Bible was not at all fair to the Hebrew People. The Israelites, as their prophets, judges and lead- ers continually reproached them, were never worth much. Yet the Bible was not the exclusive source of Goethe ' s knowledge of the Jews. In his native town, Frankfurt on the Main, he could not help but come in close contact with the Jews, As a child, he was accustomed to jeer at the quaint, bearded, stooping figures dressed in long Oriental cloaks with those shapeless yellow badges on the backs, that passed hurriedly and timidly through the hostile streets of the city. In his childhood, he imbibed the common legends telling of the cruel Jewish atrocities committed on helpless Christian babes . The narrowness, the dirt, the noise of the Jewish Ghetto, the accent of an unhappy language — all together made the most unpleasant impression. The humanitarianism and tolerance of the poet, however, became apparent very early. He frequently made conscious efforts to free himself from his anti-Jewish prejudices. At the age of twelve, he began visiting the Jew- ish Ghetto with the object of acquainting himself with Jewish customs and manners. For a time he even applied himself to the study of both Hebrew and Yiddish. How- ever, he never quite succeeded in learning Yid- dish. His only production in that tongue, The Jewish Sermon, containing but two Hebrew words and few idiomatic Yiddish ex- pressions, should be regarded, according to Professor Mark Waldman, as an attempt at being humorous rather than as a serious ren- dering of a Jewish legend. In his matured years, Goethe continued to stu dy Jewish history. Riemer, one of the most intimate friends of Goethe, said: Goethe had devoted himself to the study of the Jewish nation from its beginnings, had correctly grasped the typical Jewish char- acteristics and had put in the proper light the peculiar Jewish traits that fashioned its na- ture, constitution, and fate. Though this statement cannot be taken at its face value, yet it is evident that Goethe perseveringly and sincerely endeavored to comprehend the Jew- ish character. While it is indisputable that Goethe con- sciously attempted to fathom the Jewish soul, it is impossible for an impartial judge to agree with Riemer that Goethe succeeded in put- ting the peculiar Jewish traits in the proper light. Goethe ' s idea of the Jewish people is far from justifying Riemer ' s contention. Goethe regarded the Jewish people as a base.

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30 M ASM ID WINTER THOUGHTS By Abraham S. Guterman The dirty gray of long-lying snow greets the eye, broken here and there by the jagged crest of a lonely rock as it juts out from the mantle of nature, as if definatly refusing its inevitable burial. In the distance the black- brown wall of the forest is set against the dull grey sky. and the many shaped trees, welded into one ominous mass of background, rise majestically and sombrely in the distance. Approaching that forest by the difficult snow covered trails, I gradually discern the individuality of the symmetrical fir and the staunchness of the tiny shrub, the strength of the lasting oak, the depth of the mournful willow, the beauty of the upright maple, and the indomnitable persistence of the tiny fern. The blackness takes on new charm. Every tuft of withered grass, every tiny bed of worn and emaciated moss seems to tell its own tale, and seems to cry forth that it could outlast the pine, and fir and maple, that it could withstand the rigor of any clime, and live to feel again the warmth of summer, the pleas- ant rays of color-giving sunshine, the life- giving showers, to hear the mellow song of the birds, and the busy chatter of the beasts. The thoughts of summer seem sometimes like vain groping hopes, hopes which though genuine seem to lose their true ring in the long and seemingly endless anticipation of their realization. But to the shrub, to the fern, to the more impressive rulers of this vas: expanse, patience is a byword. For by what other imaginable quality could they survive that dreary period of cold and storm, of hard- ship and seeming death? Tall, short, stocky, thin, the forest ' s many shapes and sizes stand reared against the dark gray sky solemnly watching the never-ending march of the sea- sons, the constructive and destructive forces C ' f nature at work, the ever-present elements tattling for control and leaving desolation in their wake, the clash of the thunder, the flash of lightning, the angry earth spitting fire when aroused, or the sudden unexpected hun- ger of that earth when it opens wide its mouth and swallows up a part of its none too extensive surface . . . As I gaze at this monument of nature, the panorama of struggling humanity passes be- fore me. All are there, the tall and the short, the large and the small, the proud and the humble, the majestic and the servile. And when we regard humanity from a distance like the forest it seems firm and rock-ribbed with never a flaw in its rising and solid gran- deur. When we come closer, however, we s?e that what seemed a solid mass breaks up into many isolated factors, many individual shoots which despite their common root in Mother Earth struggle for subsistence, each in its own way. The splendor of the panorama would be broken were each shoot, each bush, each tree separated from its neighbors, yet all could still subsist in life even though standing thus alone without beauty or harmony. Indeed, it seems as if some great Guiding Hand ha ' ; joined these in one sphere so that their mutual interdependence may elevate the beauty and culture and life of all. In the arrangement of His plan He provided the changing seasons, the period of boom, and the period of de- pression, of plenty and of want, but He also provided the patience which springs from hope, from ambition, from faith. With all this, however, many a staunch tuft of grass is broken and many a brave heart ' s blood is split in the never-ending struggle for exist- ence. Then too, when a tornado rushes upon the scene, the saplings weather the storm, and though scarred and a little bent, remain firm, while those whose lofty tops seem to scrape the very sky itself fall and crash before the tornado ' s force, and their very resistance helps hew them down like mere tinder wood. Youth welcomes the battle of life and defies all opposing forces, but old age recedes and wilts, and yields under the weight of the vol- ley, gradually breaks with the strain, and in complete surrender finds everlasting peace.

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32 M ASMI D ignoble lot, possessing but few virtues and most of the failings of other nations. ' The Jews, he thought, never understood or ap- preciated their great men. You need only one beggar-Jew in order to deride a God on the cross. The real qualities of the Jew re- mained for him a sealed book. Their human- itarianism, their spiritual strength, their thirst for knowledge, never gained recognition by the poet. To his mind, the Jews were self-seeking and lazy. In spite of his knowledge that the Jews were forced to resort to usury as the only means of subsistence left to them by the Christian rulers, he seems to have regarded usury as the natural occupation of the Jew- ish people. All through his works, a Jew is synonymous with a usurer. Madame Meli- na pawned her things to a Jew from whom she received them for her theatrical perform- ances in return for large payments. Jews are also numbered among Knight Gurt ' s ob- stacles; Then came Jews with notes of old debts. Or as in Faust, The Jew will not spare me, who anticipates beforehand. Again, A Jew and a king can do it (injus- tice) too. This lack of faith in the Jewish people is best displayed in Goethe ' s reluctance to ap- ply to the Jews, in the immediate future, the great principles of toleration and forbearance. Though very Hberal in theory, he was very conservative in practice. He feared the Jewj were still too immoral and too corrupt to en- joy the blessing of equality and citizenship. Thus we find that the poet, — generally a great humanitarian who labored to have the great drama of tolerance Nathan The Wise produced on the German stage, — was capable of approving of the law in Jena that no Jew be allowed to stay there overnight. On the one hand, we hear him saying; May the emotions of tolerance and forbearance ex- pressed in Lessing ' s drama remain cherished and holy to the German people . On the other hand, we find him quite cool with re- gard to the strivings of the Frankfurt Jews for emancipation. Unfortunately Goethe was unequal to the task of completely freeing him- self from the anti-Jewish prejudices which he had absorbed in his childhood. His intel- ligence, so potent in other ways, was only capable of glossing these sentiments over and conferring upon them a semblance of ration- alism. The humnnitnrianism of the poet, how- ever, often found warmer expressions. He thundered incTignantly against those who believed to have no obligations toward a large number of human beings, simply be- cause these were Jewish. He labored to ex- pungate anti-Semitic propaganda from the German stage. It is disgraceful that a na- tion, which has contributed so much to science and art, should be put to the pillory. No hateful emotions towards the Jews are shown or meant in any of his plays; and if Jews were sometimes shown in a ludicous light, it was because no realistic picture of German life in Goethe ' s days could be produced with- out the Jews being painted in comical fashion. The Jews in Germany were then more than a religious sect. They were at the lowest rung in the social ladder identified by their occupation, customs, and manners ar least as much as by their religion. The influence of Jewish thinkers upon Goethe was of special importance. The pan- theistic philosophy of Spinoza became the foundation of his outlook upon the universe: he considered the universe as the living gar- mentof G-d. The name of the Jew E. W. Behrish is never omitted by Goethe ' s biographers. This youthful, congenial and original friend guided him in his first worthwhile attempts at poetry. In justice to Goethe it must be stated that he never allowed his anti-Jewish prejudices to extend to any individual Jewish celebrity. No Jewish poet or artist ever found Goethe ' s doors closed to him on account of his nation- ality. Moses Mendelssohn, as well as Solo- mon Maimon — the great Jewish intellectuals of the time known to the Gentile world — were enthusiastically admired by Goethe. Michael Beer, a Jewish dramatist, was sub- stantially aided by him. Moritz Oppen- heimer. a Jewish artist, found a helping and encouraging hand in Goethe. The Jewish ladies of the aristocracy of Berlin were greatly admired by Goethe for their ready wit and penetrating intelligence. In brief, Goethe ' s view of the Jews was the natural result of his early education. Having been reared in an anti-Jewish atmosphere, his discriminating intelligence coming at matur- ity was unable totally to uproot his already firmly established prejudices. The humani- tarianism of the great poet, however, mani- fested itself in his respecting merit and con- doling suffering no matter where he found it.