Language:
German
Year of publication:
1997
Titel der Quelle:
Tribüne; Zeitschrift zum Verständnis des Judentums
Angaben zur Quelle:
144 (1997) 120-128
Keywords:
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
Abstract:
Refutes the thesis that 19th-century German socialism, under the influence of Marx's "Zur Judenfrage", was antisemitic. In Marx's essay Jews represent capitalism rather than an ethnic or religious group. He harbored the usual antisemitic prejudices of the period, but did not apply them to his theory. In the 1890s, socialists such as Engels and Bebel saw antisemitism as a phenomenon of undeveloped economies in which the pioneering capitalists were mostly Jews and the resentment of the displaced peasants and middle classes was turned against them rather than against capitalism as such. In the fully capitalist society, and certainly in the socialist one, antisemitism would disappear; therefore it was needless to fight it in the interim. Argues that this theory ignores the racist and cultural bases of antisemitism. In practice, the socialists did fight antisemitism; but popular socialist publications were not free of antisemitic stereotypes.
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
Permalink