Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

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THE DISTINCTION 265 Ruppin's practical activity did not entirely interrupt his theoretical work. In 1926 he was appointed lecturer in "the sociology of the Jews" at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem; thereafter, till his death in 1943, he continued to develop his demographic ideas about the Darwinist struggle of the "Jewish race." Right up until the outbreak of the Second World War, he even maintained academic ties with the eugenicist thinkers who were thriving in Germany. Amazingly, the victory of Nazism did not entirely curtail these contacts. After Hitler's rise to power, the Jerusalem lecturer traveled to Germany to visit Hans Günther, the "pope" of racial theory, who joined the Nazi party in 1932, was the architect of the extermination of the Gypsies, and remained a Holocaust denier to his dying day. 18 This bizarre association with the National Socialists must not be misunderstood. The juxtaposition of ethnocentric nationalism and biology would give rise to a monstrous perversion in the first half of the twentieth century, but most Zionists did not think in terms of blood purity nor did they seek such purification. The project of systematically expelling "aliens" from their midst never came up, because it was hardly needed, especially since the traditional Jewish religion, though no longer a hegemonic religious belief, was still useful in part as the confirmation of a Jewish identity. The secular Zionists continued to recognize, though not to celebrate, religious conversion. It should be remembered that some of the race proponents— from Hess through Nordau to Buber—were married to gentile women of "alien blood." 19 The purpose of Jewish biology was to promote separation from others, not actually to be purified of them. It sought to serve the project of ethnic nationalist consolidation in the taking over of an imaginary ancient homeland. 18 Ruppin noted in his diary in August 1933: "At Dr Landauer's suggestion, on 11 August I went to Jena to see Professor Gunther, the founder of the National-Socialist racial theory. We talked for two hours. Gunther was very affable. He argued that he had no copyright on the concept of Aryanism, and agreed with me that the Jews are not inferior, only different, and that the problem must be resolved fairly," Arthur Ruppin, Chapters of My Life, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1968 (in Hebrew), 223; see also ibid., 181-2. 19 Nordau wrote to Herzl on January 22, 1898: "My wife is a Christian Protestant. Of course, my upbringing makes me oppose any compulsion in matters of sentiment, and to prefer the human over the national. But today I think that it is necessary to place greater stress on the national element, and I regard mixed marriages as quite undesirable. Had I met my wife today, or had I met her in the past eighteen months, I would have resisted mightily my growing feeling for her, and would have told myself that as a Jew I have no right to allow my feelings to dominate me ... I loved my wife before I became a Zionist, and I have no right to penalize her for the persecution of our race by her race." Shalom Schwartz, Max Nordau in His Letters, Jerusalem: Schwartz, 1944 (in Hebrew), 70.
266 THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE Moreover, most if not all of the Zionist supporters of the blood theory rejected the explicit and deterministic hierarchy of "racial groups." In their outlook, the theory about superior and inferior races was marginal. To be sure, there was no shortage of praise and adulation for Jewish genius, no shortage of swaggering about its extraordinary qualities (at times, this resembled anti-Semitic stereotypes). But uttered by a helpless, persecuted minority, this was perceived as more ridiculous than threatening, pathetic but not dangerous. It should be noted, however, that the Jewish blood theory was not held exclusively by the handful of leading thinkers quoted above. It was popular in all currents of the Zionist movement, and its imprint can be found in almost all its publications, congresses and conferences. Young intellectuals of the movement's second rank copied and distributed it among the activists and supporters, and it became a kind of axiom that inspired dreams and imaginings of the ancient Jewish people. 20 The concept of Jewish heredity, and even the theory of eugenics associated with it, was especially prominent among the scientists and physicians who joined Zionism. Raphael Falk's bold book Zionism and the Biology of the Jews recapitulated their story in detail. 21 Dr. Aaron Sandler, a leading Zionist in Germany who emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1934 and became the physician of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, knew that there were no pure races but argued that the Jews had, in effect, become a racial entity. On the other hand, Dr. Elias Auerbach, who settled in Haifa back in 1905, was convinced that the Jewish people had always been a pure race, and that Jews had not intermarried with gentiles since the time of Titus. Dr. Aaron Binyamini, who became, after his arrival in Palestine, the physician of the famous Gymnasia Herzliya, continued to measure and weigh his students to prove the principles of natural selection. Dr. Mordechai Boruchov, who also lived in Mandatory Palestine, argued in 1922 that "in the struggle between the nations, in the secret, cultural' war between one nation and another, the winner is the one who ensures the improvement of the race and the biological enhancement of his offspring." 22 20 On the presence of Jewish racial theory in Zionist circles, see the excellent article by Rina Rekem-Peled, "Zionism: A Reflection of Anti-Semitism: On the Relationship Between Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Germany of the Second Reich," in J. Borut and O. Heilbronner (eds.), German Anti-Semitism, Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 2000 (in Hebrew), 133-56. 21 See Raphael Falk, Zionism and the Biology of the Jews, Tel Aviv: Resling, 2006 (in Hebrew), 97-109. This book is a treasure trove of information about Zionist and Israeli scientists' views on race and heredity, despite some conceptual weakness, especially in the summary. Regarding British and German scientists who searched eagerly for a Jewish race, see also John M. Efron, Defenders of the Race: Jewish Doctors and Race Science in Fin-de- Siècle Europe, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. 22 Quoted in Falk, Zionism and the Biology of the Jews, 147.
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Contents PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH-LAN
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Preface to the English-Language Edi
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PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDI
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CHAPTER FOUR Realms of Silence: In
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Page 325 and 326: Acknowledgments I am deeply gratefu
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316 INDEX Aulus Plautius, 171 Ausch
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3l8 INDEX La Création des identit
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Shlomo Sand, The Invention of the Jewish People - Rafapal

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