Jewish question

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For other uses of "Jewish question", see Jewish question (disambiguation).

The so-called Jewish question was an issue discussed and debated, particularly in western and central Europe, during the French Revolution and into the nineteenth century by societies, politicians and writers on issues of Jewish legal and economic disabilities, emancipation and assimilation. The term became closely associated with the rise of modern antisemitism in the 1870s.

By far the most well-known use of this expression was by the Nazis in early twentieth century, culminating in the implementation of the Final Solution during World War II.[1] [2]

According to Holocaust scholar Lucy Dawidowicz, the term "Jewish Question" as introduced in western Europe was a neutral expression for the negative attitude toward the apparent and persistent singularity of the Jews as a people on the background of the rising political nationalisms and new nation-states. Dawidowicz writes that "the histories of Jewish emancipation and of European antisemitism are replete with proffered 'solutions to the Jewish question.'"[3]

Contents

[edit] Early usage

An early use of the expression "Jewish question" appeared during the Jew Bill of 1753 debates in England.[4] According to Otto Dov Kulka[5] of Hebrew University, the term became widespread in the 19th century when it was used in discussions about Jewish emancipation in Germany (Judenfrage).[4]

[edit] Bruno Bauer - The Jewish Question

Main article: The Jewish Question

In his book The Jewish Question, published in 1843, Bauer argued that Jews can achieve political emancipation only if they relinquish their particular religious consciousness, since political emancipation requires a secular state, which he assumes does not leave any "space" for social identities such as religion. According to Bauer, such religious demands are incompatible with the idea of the "Rights of Man." True political emancipation, for Bauer, requires the abolition of religion.

[edit] Karl Marx - On the Jewish Question

Main article: On the Jewish Question

Karl Marx replied to Bauer in his 1844 essay On the Jewish Question. Marx focused on religious differences by seeing a corrupt capitalist nature to be essential to Judaism, and thus to prevent Judaism's assimilation.[6]

Marx uses Bauer's essay as an occasion for his own analysis of liberal rights. Marx argues that Bauer is mistaken in his assumption that in a "secular state" religion will no longer play a prominent role in social life, and, as an example refers to the pervasiveness of religion in the United States, which, unlike Prussia, had no state religion. In Marx's analysis, the "secular state" is not opposed to religion, but rather actually presupposes it. The removal of religious or property qualifications for citizens does not mean the abolition of religion or property, but only introduces a way of regarding individuals in abstraction from them.[7] On this note Marx moves beyond the question of religious freedom to his real concern with Bauer's analysis of "political emancipation." Marx concludes that while individuals can be 'spiritually' and 'politically' free in a secular state, they can still be bound to material constraints on freedom by economic inequality, an assumption that would later form the basis of his critiques of capitalism.

[edit] After Marx

Werner Sombart praised Jews for their capitalism and presented the 17–18th century court Jews as integrated and a model for integration.[8] By the turn of the 20th century, the debate was still at large raised to prominence by the Dreyfus Affair in France. Some favored political engagement in Europe[citation needed] while others, such as Theodore Herzl, proposed the advancement of the Zionist cause.[9]

[edit] The Final Solution

Main article: Final solution to the Jewish question

In Nazi Germany, the term Jewish Question (in German: Judenfrage) referred to the antisemitic, racialistic theories and policies of the Nazi Party. Upon achieving power in 1933, Hitler and the Nazi state began to implement increasingly radical measures aimed at segregating and ultimately removing the Jewish people from Germany and (eventually) all of Europe.[10] The first stage was persecution of Jews and the stripping of Jews of their citizenship through the Nuremberg Laws.[11][12] Later, during World War II, it became state-sponsored internment in concentration camps[13] and finally, the systematic extermination of the Jewish people (The Holocaust),[14] which took place as the so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Question.[15][1][16]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Stig Hornshoj-Moller (1998-10-24). "Hitler's speech to the Reichstag of January 30, 1939". The Holocaust History Project. http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/hitler-19390130.shtml. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  2. ^ Furet, François. Unanswered Questions: Nazi Germany and the Genocide of the Jews. Schocken Books (1989), p. 182; ISBN 0805240519
  3. ^ Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945 (New York, 1975), pp. xxi-xxiii.
  4. ^ a b "Essay based on the introduction to The ‘Jewish Question’ in German Speaking Countries, 1848–1914, A Bibliography, in The Felix Posen Bibliographic Project on Antisemitism (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1994); retrieved 2008 March 25.". http://sicsa.huji.ac.il/bibkulka.html. 
  5. ^ As of 2008 Otto Dov Kulka's works are out of print, but the following may be useful and is available on microfilm: Reminiscences of Otto Dov Kulka (Glen Rock, NJ: Microfilming Corp. of America, 1975), ISBN 0884555984 and 9780884555988, OCLC 5326379.
  6. ^ Karl Marx (February 1844). "On the Jewish Question". Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  7. ^ Marx 1844:

    [T]he political annulment of private property not only fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinctions, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state. Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation, to act in their way – i.e., as private property, as education, as occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political state and asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements of its being.

  8. ^ Werner Sombart (1911). "The Jews and Modern Capitalism" (PDF). Batoche Books. http://mailstar.net/sombart-jews-capitalism.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  9. ^ Theodor Herzl (1896). "Der Judenstaat: Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage" (in German). M. Breitenstein's Verlags-Buchhandlung. http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Der_Judenstaat. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  10. ^ David M. Crowe. The Holocaust: Roots, History, and Aftermath. Westview Press, 2008.
  11. ^ Adolf Hitler; Wilhelm Frick, Franz Gürtner and Rudolf Hess (1935-09-15). "Nuremberg Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor". http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/gerblood.htm. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  12. ^ Adolf Hitler; Wilhelm Frick (1935-09-15). "Reich Citizenship Law". http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/documents/citizen.htm. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  13. ^ Doris Bergen (2004–2005). "Germany and the Camp System". Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State. Community Television of Southern California. http://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/40-45/background/ideology.html. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  14. ^ Niewyk, Donald L. The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust, Columbia University Press, 2000, p.45: "The Holocaust is commonly defined as the murder of more than 5,000,000 Jews by the Germans in World War II." Also see "The Holocaust," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007: "the systematic state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish men, women and children, and millions of others, by Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. The Germans called this "the final solution to the Jewish question."
  15. ^ Gord McFee (1999-01-02). "When did Hitler decide on the Final Solution?". The Holocaust History Project. http://www.holocaust-history.org/hitler-final-solution/. Retrieved on 2008-03-25. 
  16. ^ For some extra depth, the interested reader might read Wannsee Conference as well.

[edit] Further reading

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