Wir Juden
Wir Juden (We Jews) is a 1934 book by German rabbi Joachim Prinz that concerns Hitler's rise to power as a demonstration of the defeat of liberalism and assimilation as a solution for the Jewish Question, and advocated a Zionist alternative to save German Jews. Holocaust-deniers, anti-Zionists, and anti-Jewish activists have claimed that some Wir Juden passages indicate an affinity between Zionism and Naziism, though such claims are undermined by Prinz's subsequent career as an American Civil Rights leader.[1]
Lost fortunes of liberalism
Written in 1933 and published in 1934, it was, according to historian Francis R. Nicosia a "pointed rejection of the largely assimilationist tradition in German Jewry and a call to all Jews to embrace Jewish culture and heritage".[2] In it, Prinz promotes Theodor Herzl's rejection of assimilation and support of Zionism, and argues that antisemites have done "... more to preserve Jewry and to awaken an active Jewish impulse than the Jews themselves...".[2] Historian Michael A. Meyer writes that "... Prinz argued that the triumph of nationalism over political liberalism should now drive the Jews to the only possible solution of the Jewish question: the acceptance of their own status as a nation".[3] To that end, Prinz proposed "a new law to replace assimilation with the avowal of the Jewish nation and the Jewish race"; Nicosia writes that "Prinz clearly saw little alternative to embellishing the ethno-nationalist basis of Zionism with terminology that the Nazis might find familiar and, perhaps, even appealing".[2]
Prinz theorized that fall of liberalism, as signified by Hitler's ascension, meant the end to practical assimilation of Jews into the larger European community:
- The meaning of the German Revolution for the German nation will eventually be clear to those who have created it and formed its image. Its meaning for us must be set forth there: the fortunes of liberalism are lost. The only form of political life which has helped Jewish assimilation is sunk.[4]
Support for anti-assimilation efforts
Another notable passage concerns Jewish assimilation:
- We want assimilation to be replaced by a new law: the declaration of belonging to the Jewish nation and the Jewish race. A state built upon the principle of the purity of nation and race can only be honored and respected by a Jew who declares his belonging to his own kind. Having so declared himself, he will never be capable of faulty loyalty towards a state. The state cannot want other Jews but such as declare themselves as belonging to their nation.[5]
Practical aims of collaboration
He adds that :
- For its practical aims, Zionism hopes to be able to win the collaboration even of a government fundamentally hostile to Jews, because in dealing with the Jewish question not sentimentalities are involved but a real problem whose solution interests all people’s, and at the present moment especially the German people.[6]
Legacy
Usage by critics of Judaism
Controversial Israeli critic Israel Shahak mentioned Wir Juden in his notorious attack on Judaism, "Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years." Shahak claimed that the book was full of crude flatteries of Nazi ideology and glee about the decline of the ideas of the French Revolution. Shahak accuses Prinz of representing various evils of the Jewish religion.[7] Shahak's accusations against Prinz have been echoed by anti-Jewish activists, such as David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, in his book Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question.[8]
Usage by anti-Zionists
The book has also been controversial because anti-Zionists have attempted to make the case that Zionists like Prinz were not primarily concerned helping Jews to escape Nazi oppression, discrimination, bigotry, and persecution. Anti-Zionists like Lenni Brenner have claimed that Prinz's advocacy for German Jews to escape to a Homeland for the Jewish people is somehow an indication that the Zionists approved of Nazi anti-Jewish values.[9] David Duke's accusations against Prinz, for instance, have been repeated by anti-Zionists to claim that Prinz's Zionism contains fascist and racist elements,[10] even though Prinz's subsequent career in the United States was intimately involved with the Civil Rights movement, the March on Washington, and other anti-fascist and anti-racist campaigns.[11]
Usage by Holocaust-Deniers
Deniers of the Holocaust and groups with neo-Nazi affiliations, such as the Institute for Historical Review, have also repeated unsubstantiated claims that Wir Juden indicates an association between Jewish Zionism and the Anti-Semitic Nazis. They often bolster these claims with quotes taken out of context, and invariably neglect to mention Prinz's long career as a civil-rights leader and anti-fascist.[12]
Subsequent defense of Prinz
Defenders of Prinz say that while he may have been naive at first, he was also a vocal opponent to Nazism. They contrast this with those who did not see the coming danger and add that he saw some ideas as useful only in limited context at best.[13]
See also
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References
 | Constructs such as ibid., loc. cit. and idem are discouraged by Wikipedia's style guide for footnotes, as they are easily broken. Please improve this article by replacing them with named references (quick guide), or an abbreviated title. (March 2010) |
- ^ Wir Juden, by Joachim Prinz
- ^ a b c Francis R. Nicosia (2008). Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. Cambridge University Press. p. 93.
- ^ Michael A. Meyer (1998). "Liberal Judaism and Zionism in Germany", in S. Almog, Jehuda Reinharz, Anita Shapira (eds.). Zionism and Religion. University Press of New England. p. 105.
- ^ Reflections on Zionism From a Dissident Jew
- ^ Ibid
- ^ N. Glaser, Some of my Best Friends are Nazis, New York, Jewish Guardian, Volume 2, Number 2.
- ^ Shahak, Israel. Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight Of Three Thousand Years, 1994
- ^ David Duke, Jewish Supremacism: My Awakening to the Jewish Question, 2003, chapter 22
- ^ Lenni Brenner, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, 1983
- ^ Wir Juden (We jews)
- ^ Glenn Fowler, Joachim Prinz, Leader in Protests For Civil-Rights Causes, Dies at 86, New York Times, October 1, 1988
- ^ Zionism and Anti-Semitism: A Strange Alliance Through History
- ^ Ben Halpern, A clash of heroes : Brandeis, Weizmann, and American Zionism, 1987