Learning and Suffering in Vienna
But if I had still doubted, my vacillation would have been ended by the attitude of part of the Jews themselves. A great movement among them, of considerable extent in Vienna, sharply emphasized the special character of Jewry as a people: Zionism.
To outward appearances, indeed, only a part of the Jews approved this attitude while the great majority condemned, nay inwardly rejected such a limitation. But on closer inspection this appearance melted away in an evil fog of purely expedient excuses, not to say lies. For so-called liberal Jewry rejected the Zionists not as non-Jews, but as Jews who were impractical, perhaps dangerous in their public adherence to Judaism. It made no difference to the inner fact of their oneness.
This seeming struggle between Zionist and liberal Jews very soon disgusted me; after all, it was untrue through and through, sometimes actually untruthful, and little in character with the constantly asserted moral elevation and purity of that people.
The moral and purity of that people was a special chapter anyway. That they were no water-lovers one could tell from their mere exterior—often, I am sorry to say, even with eyes closed. Later I was frequently nauseated by the smell of these kaftan-wearers. In addition there were their unclean clothing and scarcely heroic appearance.
All this was not attractive in itself; but one was positively repelled on suddenly discovering, beyond personal uncleanliness, the moral mud-stains of the chosen people.
Nothing had made me so thoughtful in so short a time as my slowly growing insight into the character of the Jews’ activity in certain fields.
Was there any offal, any form of shamelessness whatever, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not have a part?
One had only to cut cautiously into such an abscess to find a Jew-boy like a maggot in rotting flesh, often quite blinded by the sudden light.
In my eyes a great burden of guilt fell upon Jewry when I came to know its activity in the press, in art, literature and the
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