In the 19th Century, Jews and non-Jews generally took it for granted that anti-Semitism was a rational response to the behavior of Jews. Jews and non-Jews were upset with the same types of behaviors by Jews such as cheating in business, pimping, lack of loyalty and concern for the host country, contempt for Gentiles, refusal to learn the language of the host country, etc… Today it is equally taken for granted by all those who want to hold their head high in polite society that anti-Semitism has nothing to do with what Jews do. It’s just some demonic sickness.
In the 19th Century, leading anti-Semites in Germany did not invent hatred of Jews out of whole cloth. Rather, they focused, legitimized and galvanized “feelings that derived from real experiences and long-standing convictions of millions of Germans.”
Jews in response formed a Defense League against Anti-Semitism (Abwehrverein) that tried to refute false charges against Jews and tried “to do something about Jewish vice where it was considered to be real and undeniable.”
Gentiles who joined this movement did not regard Jews as worthy of praise. They agreed with the anti-Semites that Jews should “completely” become Germans and leave aside their Jewish national identity.
When you compare the blatant race hustling and goyim intimidation of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League with Albert Lindemann’s scholarship, there’s a grand canyon of difference between the hucksters and one man’s endeavor to pursue truth.
It’s easier to have a happy life and to make loads of money if you flatter your group and you tell them things that they want to hear, such as that the goyim are evil and Jews are ever righteous victims. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do the same thing for their group.
Professor Lindemann writes: The Abwehrverein’s efforts included an educational compaign to try to prevent further damage by immoral or “undesirable” Jews. For example, peasants were offered advice on how to take out a loan without falling prey to unscrupulous Jewish cattle dealers.
…Jews were blamed for the exploitation that they undertook in the name of the nobility.
* The moderation of late nineteenth-century Germany anti-Semites reflected the substantially different conditions of the time. There was much in the speeches and pamphlets of anti-Semites at this time that large numbers of Jews recognized, both privately and publicly, as justified, if also expressed in a mean-spirited way. Criticism of Jews could be accepted as having some element of truth without arriving at the conclusion that violence should be done to them, or even that they should be deprived of their civil rights.
* “Jews from Moses to Marx and Lassalle have inspired all the revolutions.” (G.B. Shaw)
* “Marxism is not a scientific theory at all, but a piece of clever Jewish superstition.” (Paul Johnson)
* Friedrich Engels wrote in 1890: “We owe a great deal to the Jews. Not to mention Heine and Borne, Marx was of purely Jewish origin; Lasalle was a Jew. Many of our best people are Jews. My friend, Victor Adler… Eduard Bernstein… Paul Singer, one of our best men in the Reichstag — people of whose friendship I am proud, and all of them Jews.”
* Racist theories were logically incompatible with socialism.
* Theodor Herzl observed in 1882 that Eugen Duhring “should be read by every Jew. The slippery slope of Jewish morals and the lack of ethical seriousness that characterize so many (all, according to Duhring) activities of the Jews are being mercilessly exposed and stigmatized. One can learn from this!”
* “Socialists attacked not only racism but what they saw as related beliefs: militarism, nationalism, traditional religion, and local or ethnic particularism.”
* “Socialist opposition to anti-Semitism did not entail sympathy for Jewish religion, nationalism, or ethnic particularism, each of which were viewed as divisive, as hostile to human solidarity.”
