The Denver Jewish news., 1924-10-09
Problem of Israel
tContlnuntlon)


city life. In the case of the Jews the
effect is ten-fold because of the ten
dency of the Jews to concentrate in
the cities-a process of migration,
which accelerates the disintegration
of the ancient community bonds and
moral standards. As late as 1895,
i2.2 per cent of the Prussian Jews
lived in places with less than 10000
Inhabitants. in 1910 only 2s.4 per cent
were still residents in such places.
The little towns, in which the tradi-
tional Jewish ways of life we're pre-
served, are more and more deserted,
chiefly in favor of Berlin, which al
ready holds half of the Jews of Prus-
sia. The seriousness of this fact
with its inevitable reaction on the
birth rate-becomes apparent when
we reflect on the worldwide character
of this movement of concentration
the irresistible attraction of New
/ York for instance, on the Jewish i'm
migrants to America. The same pro-
cess, which has been at work in Ger
many, is now being repeated on a
much larger scale and more rapidly
in Russia. The movement was hast
ened by the civil war and the
pogroms, which in many a little Tx
raipian town led to the wholesale
! flight of the Jews and the disappear
ance of communities, which had been
in existence for centuries. But the
ordinary process of migration has
been going on all the time. The de-
cay of the Jewish "townlet" in Rus
sia is attested by every competent OBJ
server. Even the bigger provincial
towns are only acting as halting
places on the way to the one great
vortex of Moscow, where the immi-
grants are swiftly transformed into
something very different from the ira
ditional Russian Jew-if, indeed, they
and their children remain Jews in any
sense at all.
Fer what makes the situation men
acing everywhere, is not only the fact
of the falling birth rate; indeed, one
might hope to find some special cir
cumstance, peculiar to Germany,
which might explain the German fig
ures in this respect and thus invali-
date their bearing on the Jews gener-
ally. But no conceivable theory will
; save us from the direct and inevitable
consequences of the disintegration of
social and psychological barriers be-
tween the Jews and their neighbors,
) eliminating in actual racial fusion.
The percentage Of mixed marriages to
the number of purely Jewish mar
; riages grew in Prussia from 9.6 per
, cent in 1S76-18S0 to 26.5 per cent IN
1906-1910; in the whole of Germany
they increased from II per cent in
19OO-1902 to 30.25 per cent in 1912
1913. Only quarter of the children
of mixed marriages are brought up
in Judaism. In Denmark and in Swe-
den the number of mixed marriages is
already almost equal to the number OF
purely Jewish marriages. 1t is too
well-known with what force the same
tendency shows itself in America
(though no statistics are available
there). Having defied the sword and
the stake, will Israel perish by the
kiss of love?
Here, indeed, we come to the funda-
mental error of ordinary Jewish ma
tionalism. When we give the name
"nation" to what is really an isolated
race and seek to preserve the old
thing under new name, we simply
shut out eyes to the facts of the prob
lem. Fusion of blood does not threat
en- the existence of a real nation-for
a real nation is a political or cultural
group, Independent of race. Nay,
racial fusion is one of the chief means
by which nations are created or con-
solidated. 1t is the means by which
isolated races are destroyed. And
thus the Jewish nationalists fight
shadows, and fail to see the real dan
ger. No cultural assimilation" can
threaten the existence of the Jewish
racial group unless it leads to the OBJ
liberation of racial limits. No ina
tional awakening" will stem the in
crease Of intermarriages.
Up to the time of the world war,
these tendencies were restricted to the
minority Of the Jews who lived in
Western Europe, and even there they
were checked by the continuous inflow
of immigrants of the old Jewish type
from seemingly unquenchable foun-
tain-heads Of traditional Jcwry in
Eastern Europe. But the earthquake
of the war and the revolution shatter-
ing the traditional life of the East,
have prccipitated the process.
The situation is serious, indeed but