The Tragedy Of Anti-Semitism

295 Pages·2012·12.23 MB·English

T HE
T R A G E DY
OF
A N T I - S E M I T I SM
By
A. K. C H E S T E R T ON
& JOSEPH LEFTWICH
ANSCOMBE
THE TRAGEDY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
T HE TRAGEDY
OF ANTI-SEMITISM
by
A. K. CHESTERTON
and
JOSEPH LEFTWICH
ROBERT ANSCOMBE & CO. LTD.
L O N D ON
First Edition 1948
PRINTED BY THE ALCUIN PRESS, WELWYN GARDEN CITY, FOR THE PUBLISHERS,
ROBERT ANSCOMBE & CO., LTD., 291/293 GRAYS INN ROAD, LONDON, W.C.1.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface 7
CHAPTER
1. Is ANTI-SEMITISM A RACKET? . .. 9
2. The "ALIEN Slant" . . . .. 19
3. Standing FORTH AS JEWS . . .. 38
4. Jewishness AND ENGLISHNESS . .. 62
5. Jewish INTERNATIONAL POWER . .. 74
6. Legends ABOUT THE JEWS . . .. 92
7. The Wrong SHAPE . 137
8. Powerful JEWISH INFLUENCES 195
9. Popular ANTI-SEMITISM . . .. 229
10. Just BALANCES, Just WEIGHTS . 254
Preface
AS this book is unusual, and cast in an unusual form, the
reader may welcome a word of explanation of its origin.
The idea came to me in the January of 1941. While
preparations were going forward for our attack on Italian
Somaliland and Abyssinia another officer and myself
shared a camp in the jungle overlooking the River Tana.
My companion was a kindly, thoughtful man—and a
Jew. To the accompaniment of the many hostile noises
of the wild, we talked far into each night, more often than
not to find ourselves in complete agreement in our views
about life and death and the state of this troubled world.
It was inevitable that, in due course, our conversation
should touch upon the Jewish question. It would be too
much to say that we agreed on this most difficult and
tremendous question, but I think it can be said that we
both discerned the possibilities of an ultimate agreement
were the exigencies of war to allow us the time. We did
at least discover that it was possible to talk about it
rationally and without emotional discolouration. It
occurred to me that on my return to civil life I might
write a book which would give both points of view and
possibly suggest the best grounds for a common under­
standing. When the time came to carry out the idea,
however, I saw at once that, with the best will in the
world, such a book would become one-sided and that to
preserve the original idea it would be necessary to invite
the collaboration of a Jewish writer who would deal with
the subject from a Jewish standpoint. I thought at once
of Mr. Joseph Leftwich, a man of fearless and inde­
pendent mind, and laid my proposal before him. The
result is the present book. If the reader expects to find
in it a solution of the problem of the often disturbed
relationship between Gentile and Jew I am afraid he will
7
8 P R E F A CE
be disappointed. It cannot be said that we have reached
an agreement, or even come within visible distance of one,
but it may be that other minds will take over the task
where we have left it and perhaps succeed in building the
vital bridge. What the reader will find are essays of great
power and eloquence by my collaborator, and a con­
troversy conducted, in the main, without undue heat.
Mr. Leftwich claims that he will have failed if it should
transpire that he has defended only the Jews and not the
principles of right. In the same way, writing on behalf of
a point of view the public expression of which is most
unfashionable, I too shall have failed if my contribution
should be found to buttress prejudice at the expense of
reason. A. K. C.
CHAPTER ONE
Is Anti-Semitism a Racket?
My Dear Leftwich,
I approach the Jewish problem without personal pre­
judice. This fact is set down for my own satisfaction,
since it will be received with derision by people who
believe that the man dubbed an anti-semite deals in
diabolic prejudices, beyond the reach of reason, justice
and even of ordinary common decency. This attitude
was summarized by a writer in the Jewish Chronicle, who
divided anti-semites into only three groups:
1. Unscrupulous liars.
2. Dupes of unscrupulous liars.
3. Emotional defectives who pick upon the helpless
Jews as a target for their pathological hatred.
I have never met the anti-semite liars or their dupes,
though it is possible they exist. The third seems to me a
more plausible group, since one encounters more potential
or actual madmen among anti-semites than among any
other group of human beings. Even so, it is a mistake to
suppose that the Jews are "picked upon" because they
are helpless. They are the least helpless of all the peoples
on earth.
For my own part, while not running away from the
title of anti-semite, I can truthfully say that it gives me no
pleasure. I would rather not possess it. The concept of
England as a chivalrous and hospitable country is a
precious one, which, other things being equal, I should
like to cherish. Further, if I have energy to spare for
personal hatred, I feel that it would be more usefully
directed against those unconscious traitors of my own race
who for years have been befuddling and misleading the
minds of the British people, thereby furthering their
9
10 THE TRAGEDY OF ANTI-SEMITISM
national disintegration. There are other, more personal
reasons why I deplore what I hold to be the present
necessity for opposing Jewish influences. As a boy-
soldier, slogging and fighting through German East
Africa, my best friend and one of the staunchest of my
comrades-in-arms was an Italian Jew. In this war, as
a man of forty-one, my best friend and most efficient
brother-officer in the Abyssinian campaign was a Jew
from Nairobi. Between the wars I knew a number of
Jews, liked some of them, disliked none so much as I
disliked some Gentiles, received kindnesses from several
and am happy to think that I was sometimes able to do
them kindnesses in return. Neither is anti-semitism a
hang-over from my earlier days, for as a young boy in
Johannesburg I went to school with scores of Jews, and,
so far from being aware of racial antipathy, I not only
had some among my friends but resisted the pressure of
elders who tried to make me give them up. If personal
prejudice were involved, my own would clearly be on the
Jewish side. I am what is called an anti-semite mainly
because I am a nationalist—a nationalist in the sense that
I believe every nation to have its own guiding star which
it must follow, its own ideal pattern which it must trace,
its own integration which it must maintain, its own vision
of the past, its own distinctive character, its own soul.
Nationalism, as I see it, is the dynamic of communal
aspiration and growth, just as its opposite, cosmopoli­
tanism, is the negation of these things, leading to the
uprooting, debasement and decay of spiritual values.
Whether I am right or wrong, that is my belief, and my
further belief—no less firmly held—is that Jewry at almost
every level of contact exerts an influence hostile to this
national ideal. The bad Jew shamelessly exploits it. The
good Jew, no matter how sympathetic he may be, always
tends unconsciously to distort it, and never more so than
IS A N T I - S E M I T I SM A R A C K E T? 11
when he sincerely espouses it. It is not an act of malice on
his part: the phenomenon is entirely due to his essential
separateness—the separateness which his refusal of ab­
sorption through the ages so signally proclaims. The
Gentile not only becomes aware of the distortion, but in
time recognizes it as Jewish, since the Jewish personality
is tremendous and cannot go unrecognized. As every man
wants a home of his own, so does every true man want a
country of his own, and the plain truth is that when
Jewish influence upon the national life becomes too
marked the non-Jew, recognizing the alien slant, begins
to feel a stranger in his own land. Thus is anti-semitism born.
I have said that every true man wants a country of his
own, but non-Zionist Jews are an exception and they are
none the less true men on that account. How can I
picture to them—and to you, my dear Leftwich, who are
one of them—the feeling of a man towards his native land
and its continuing traditions? The most sacred thing in
your life, if I read you aright, is your religion. Suppose
then that, while some of the British people sneered at your
religion and sought to exploit it, others became converts
and rose to high positions as rabbis and elders: suppose
that in the result your doctrines were distorted by a dis­
tinctively British (or Christian) slant, imparted by even
the most orthodox, and that Britons were also prominent
among the schismatists and despoilers: suppose, further,
that Britons gradually abrogated—or seemed to abrogate
—to themselves the right to speak and act on behalf of
Hebraism! Would it be surprising if Jews ceased to feel
that their religion was their own? Could they not be
forgiven, in the circumstances, if they became anti-
British? The analogy, of course, is not precise, since Jews
do not usurp the functions of the Christian priesthood:
my only reason for drawing it is to try and find a parallel
which will illustrate the sense of alienation from his own