Anti-Semitism in Europe 1870 - 1914

Introduction

Generally, during the period 1870 — 1914, the Jews enjoyed increasing freedoms in Europe. Only Russia during this period continued to force the Jews to live in ghettos.

Anti-Semitism in France

In France the Jewish population was only 80,000 strong, and the Jews were successfully assimilated into the community. But from the 1880s onwards there was an anti-Semitic movement there. In 1882, after the failure of a bank, Union Générale, Edouart Drumont stared a successful anti-Jewish agitation. In 1886 he wrote La France Juive, which sold over 100,000 copies. It was a sentimental defence of “Old France” in which the Jews were blamed for everything wrong.

In 1891 there was the financial scandal over the Panama Canal. The promoters of the canal included two Jews, Baron Joseph Reinach and Dr. Cornelius Herz, both of whom tried to cover up the impending failure. However, they failed to prevent the company becoming bankrupt. Drumont used this scandal to fuel anti-Semitic propaganda in his periodical La Libre Parole.

Dreyfus was a Jew on the French General staff. The government of Waldeck-Rousseau as committed to safeguarding the constitution and reopening the case. On the opposed side further anti-Semitism developed. For example, Charles Maurras wrote propaganda about a conspiracy of freemasons, Protestants, Jews and foreigners. Also, Maruice Barrrès took the view that Jews should be excluded from French life.

But anti-Semiticsm in France did not deeply affect the life of the Jews in France. An example of this is the career of Léon Blum, who was a typical assimilated French Jew, who became the leader of the Socialist Party after the First World War, and Prime Minister in 1936.

Anti-Semitism in Russia

The Jews in Russia were periodically subject to physical violence. In Russian about 1/5th of the world's Jews lived in a region known as the Pale of Settlement. There were frequent pogroms. For example, at Kishinev in 1903 there were 45 Jews killed. The attacks were sometimes organised by the police. A pamphlet called the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was circulated. It purported to give first-hand evidence of the existence of a Jewish world conspiracy. In Russia anti-Semitic groups originated the idea of the physical extermination of all Jews. Russian Jews emigrated to the East End of London, or to the United States.

Anti-Semitism in Germany

The Agarian League was a powerful pressure group in Germany calling for the conservation of German society based on the land. Theodor Fritsch linked this back-to-the-land call with anti-Semitism. Germans had a tendency to link the reaction against industrial society with a cult of the Volk — the idea of an unsullied national and racially pure stock. Julius Langbehn published Rembrandt as Educator anonymously in 1890 in which there was also a link between racial purity and a rejection of industrial society. He attacked the assimilated Jew as representative of the materialistic, scientific modern spirit against which he was in revolt. He extolled the virtues of physical education and was contemptuous of academic study. He elevated the image of broad-shouldered blond young men.

A Jewish State

The idea of a Jewish State was proposed by the German, Jewish socialist and friend of Marx, Moses Hess. A Zionist organisation was established by Theodor Herzl. He founded the Zionist Congress whose leader, Dr. Chaim Weizmann secured from the British foreign secretary, Balfour, a promise to give the Jews a national home.