Purely Commentary
No name has been given, but a story emanating from the daily
newspaper Yediot Achronot in Tel Aviv tells a fantastic story about
a 21-year-old girl who says she is the great granddaughter of Heinrich
Heine, that she wanted to become Jewish since she was 16, when she
witnessed a film depicting the Nazi slaughter of European Jewry, and
that it was then that she learned that her grandfather was a Jew at
birth.
This is an amazing tale. The Tel Aviv Rabbinical Court secretary
gathered the impression that the girl is a "serious personality," and he
recommended that she be converted as she had requested. It is sur-
prising, however, that the young woman should not have known her
great-grandfather's background. He was converted to Christianity in
his youth. He wrote one of the most popular German songs, "Die
Lorelei," which later was used by the Nazis without credit to his
authorship, and a monument dedicated to him in pre-Hitler days
was destroyed by them.
And it was so well known that Heine had deep-rooted Jewish
feelings, that he wrote critically of Germany and the Germans. His
"Rabbi of Bachrach" is one of his very famous stories.
HEINRICH HEINE
• One of his famous essays dealing with "When Germany Goes
Berserk," taken from his "Religion and Philosophy in Germany," was
like a prediction of the coming of Nazism. In it Heine wrote:
Some day there will awake that
fighting folly found among the about the empty arena barking
ancient Germans, the folly that and snapping at each other, before
fights neither to kill nor to con- the hour strikes and the host of
quer, • but simply to fight. Chris- gladiators arrive who shall fight
tianity has— and that is its fairest for life or death.
And the hour will come. As on
merit—somewhat mitigated that
brutal German lust fol. battle. But the tiers of an amphitheater, the
it could not destroy it; and once nations will range round Germany
the taming talisman, the Cross, is to watch the great games. I warn
broken, the savagery of the old you, Frenchmen, keep very quiet
battlers will flare up again, the then, and above all do not ap-
insane berserk r a g e of which plaud. We might easily misunder-
Nordic bards have so much to say stand that and hush you somewhat
and sing. That talisman is brittle. roughly in our impolite way; if in
The day will come when it will the past, in our servile sullenness,
pitiably collapse. Then the old we were sometimes able to worst
stone gods will rise from forgotten you, we could do it far better in
rubble and rub the dust of a the young elation of being drunk
thousand years from their eyes; with freedom. You know your-
and Thor will leap up and with selves what one can do in such a
his giant hammer start smashing state—and you are no longer in it.
Beware! I wish you well; that is
Gothic cathedrals. . . .
Then when you hear the rumble why I tell you the bitter truth. You
and clatter—beware. . . . Don't have more to fear from a "lib-
smile at the visionary who ex- erated" Germany than from the
pects the same revolution in the whole Holy Alliance with all its
material world which has taken Croats and Cossacks. . . . We for-
place in the realm of the spirit. get nothing. You see, if once we
The thought precedes the act, as feel the urge to come to grips
lightning precedes thunder. True, with you we shall not lack valid
our German thunder is a German reasons. In any case, I advise you
too, and not very dexterous; it to stay on guard. No matter what
comes rolling up pretty slowly, but happens in Germany, whether the
come it will—and when you hear Crown Prince of Prussia comes to
a crash as nothing ever crashed in power or Doctor Wirth, keep your
world history, you'll know that powder dry and remain quietly at
the German thunder has finally hit your posts, rifle on arm. I wish
the mark. At that sound the eagles you well, and it almost frightened
will fall dead from the sky and the me recently to hear that your
ministers were planning to disarm
lions in the farthest desert of France.
Africa will pull in their tails and
Being born classicists, despite
slink away into their royal caves.
A play will be performed in Ger- your present romanticism, you
many that will make the French know Olympus. Among the naked
Revolution seem like a harmless gods and goddesses there, making
idyll in comparison. Now, of merry over nectar and ambrosia,
course, all is rather quiet. And you see one who even amid such
if one or the other over there acts joy and sport always wears armor,
a little frisky, don't think these and goes with helmet on head
will soon appear as the real actors. and spear in hand.
It is the Goddess of Wisdom.
They are the little dogs that run
• *
Then there is another of his famous essays, written in 1834, which
could be labeled "On the Coming of Communism" and in which
Heinrich Heine and Great-Granddaughter:
Famous Poet's Declarations on Jews
Heine wrote:
I confess frankly that Commu-
nism, which is so inimical to all
my interests and inclinations, yet
exerts a magic influence over my
soul. . . . Two voices move me
in its favor, two voices which will
not be silenced, and which in their
essence may be quite diabolical.
The first is logic . . . and the sec-
ond . . . is hate—the hate which
I feel for . . . the so-called Na-
tionalist Party in Germany. . . .
I have detested and fought the
latter all my life, and now, as the
sword falls from the hand of the
dying man, I feel myself consoled
by the conviction that Communism
. . . will give them the coup de
grace. It will, however, be no
blow with a club, but rather a
crashing beneath a giant's foot.
Communism will tread on aristo-
cracy as one treads on a vile
toad. . . . Out of hatred for the
champions of nationalism I could
almost love those Communists. . . .
Howl away, ye nationalists! The
time will come when the fatal
tread of the giant's foot will grind
ye to dust! With this conviction I
can calmly leave the world. . . .
(t)
By Philip
Slornovitz
these nations were susceptible that
they so easily took to the Jewish
life, in customs and ways of think-
ing. Perhaps another cause of this
phenomenon is to be found in the
character of the Jewish people,
which always had a strong affinity
to the character of the Germanic
and to some extent also of the
Celtic race. To me, Judea always
seemed like a piece of the West
that had got lost in the middle of
the East. Wit h its spiritualistic
faith, its severe, chaste, and
ascetic ways—in short, with its
abstract inwardness—this land and'
its people always formed the
strangest contrast to neighbor`
and peoples devoted to
the most luxurious and voluptuous
cults of nature, and to a life spent
in bacchantic revels, Israel sat pi-
ously under its fig tree, sang the
praises of the invisible God and
practiced virtue and righteousness,
while in the temples of Babel,
Nineveh, Sidon and Tyre, bloody
and lascivious orgies were cele-
brated whose mere description
still makes our hair stand on end.
Considering these surroundings,
we cannot marvel enough at
Israel's early greatness.
Of Israel's love of freedom, while
slavery was legal and thriving not
in the vicinity alone but among
all nations of antiquity, including
the philosophical Greeks—of this
love of freedom I will say nothing,
so as not to compromise the Bible
with the powers that be. Actually,
there is no Socialist more terroris-
tic than our Lord and Saviour; and
in fact even Moses was such a
Socialist, though as a practical
man he only sought to remodel
existing institutions, particularly in
regard to property.
But one of his most famous essays, also written in 1834, is
Aantitled "Israel Among the Nations." In it Heine wrote:
What we call today the proletar-<>
ians' hate of the rich was once —are they not Hebrews whose
called hatred of the Jews. Indeed, names are biblical throughout,
the latter—barred from owning whose very cant has a somewhat
land and earning a livelihood by Jemsalemitic-Pharisaic ring, whose
handcraft and thus depending religion is a mere pork-eating
solely on trade and on the money Judaism? The same is true in
business which the Church forbade many North German provinces and
to true believers—were legally con- in Denmark; .to say nothing of
demned to be rich, hated, and most of the new communities in
murdered. True, in those days the United States, where the life
such murders still bore a religious of the Old Testament is aped
cloak: it was said that one had pedantically. There, it looks as if
to kill those who had killed Our daguerreotyped; the contours are
Saviour. Odd! The very race that scrupulously correct but every-
gave the world a God, whose en- thing is gray upon gray, and the
tire life breathed only devotion to sunny colorful luster of the
God, was decried as deicide! We Promised Land is lacking. Bid
saw the bloody parody of this mad- some day the caricature will van-
ness at the outbreak of the revolu- ish; the genuine, imperishable and
tion in Santo Domingo—where a true — the morality of ancient
Negro band, devastating the plan- Judaism—will flourish as God-
tations with fire and sword, was pleasingly in those lands as once
led by a black fanatic carrying a along Jordan and on the heights
huge crucifix and screaming blood- of Lebanon. One needs no psalms
thirstily: "The whites killed Christ, and camels to be good, and good-
let us kill all the whites !"
ness is better than beauty.
Perhaps it was not just because
To the Jews, to whom the world
owes its God, it. also owes His
So very Jewish in spirit was Heinrich Heine! Yet a great-grand-
Divine Word, the Bible. They saved daughter was unaware of him!
it out of the bankruptcy of the
But that, too, is possible. Think of the many of our own young
Roman Empire; and in the mad
people who today are unaware of the great heritage. Perhaps the
scuffles during the Migration of great-grandchildren
will arise to defy the negators and once again
Peoples they preserved the cher- restore to Israel the status it must hold among the nations.
ished book, until Protestantism
*
*
sought it out among them and
translated the find into native 'Brilliant But With a Twisted Mind . . .
. . . Our Newspapers' Distortions
languages and spread it through-
In the midst of a tragedy, we have cause to deplore the lack of good
out the world. This circulation has
borne the most blessed fruit, last- judgment on the part of several newspapermen.
In one instance, an editorial writer resorted to such poor taste that,
ing until this day when the propa-
ganda of the Bible Society fulfills giving credence to an imaginary protest by a "genius," in effect abused
a providential mission—more im- an entire community by implying that the wealth inherent in the brick
portant, and in any case apt to and mortar of a synagogue had inspired a "protest." It now develops
have other results, than the pious that it was a Jew and not, as we had written, a non-Jew, Who wrote
gentlemen of this British Christian- that abusive editorial. Which makes matters even worse—indicating
ity-exporting agency are dreaming. anew what damage can be done by one who writes with authority but
They mean to bring a small, nar- functions with a lack of knowledge of his community.
Then came the revelation by a U. of D. professor that the lad who
row dogmatism to power, and to
monopolize Heaven as they did the had triggered a loaded gun on a sacred Bimah had met with her and
sea, to turn it into a dominion of told her in advance that he was planning to commit suicide in a syna-
the Church of England—and lo! gogue.
In both instances, it was glorification of insanity, a condoning of a
without knowing it, they speed the
downfall of all Protestant sects, crime on the basis of building up the idea that the boy was "brilliant
all of which live by the Bible and but had a twisted mind." (Curiously enough, the same newspaper grant-
must dissolve in any universal ed a platform to a Nazi, who was feeding the reporter with false
Biblicism. They are promoting the information, was given the same designation!).
We have no way of proving that the U. of D. teacher, who also was
great democracy where every man
shall be not only king but bishop built up by the Detroit newspaper as a novelist, actually was imagin-
in the castle of his home; in dis- ning a confession by the demented youth regarding his suicide plan,
tributing the Bible over the whole because it made "good copy;" just as she can not prove that what she
earth—in foisting it on all man- wrote was true and that she had witnesses to it—because if she had
kind, so to speak, by commercial witnesses, then they are accomplices to a crime of having heard a
tricks, smuggling or barter, and warning of a planned murder and had done nothing about it! Those ---
handing it over to the exegesis of who knew of the boy's plans and that he had a gun should have acted
individual reason—they are found- to have him isolated from society!
Meanwhile there is the new myth: about the demented who are
ing the great empire of the spirit,
the empire of religous feeling, of described as "brilliant but with a twisted mind!" Is this honest analysis
neighborly love, of purity, and of —especially when the twisted mind turns to destruction?
Oh, yes: the U. of D. analyst and confessor to numerous conversa-
the true morality that cannot be
tions
with the lad glorified him as knowing Camus and being religious.
taught with dogmatic formulas by
parables and examples, as are Indeed: did she ascertain whether he knew Isaiah and Jeremiah and
contained in the beautiful, holy Amos—if he even knew Genesis—whether he really had even an iota
religious feeling in him—else he would have known that it is a crime
book for the education of little of
under Jewish law to commit murder, whether it is the taking of
and big children: in the Bible.
person's life or one's own! Because Jewish law forbids suicide
For the contemplative thinker it another
as much as it does murder!
is a marvelous spectacle to re-
We may hear it again: "brilliant but with a twisted mind!" And in
gard countries where ever since resorting to such new psychology our newspapers have made possible
the Reformation the Bible has ex- the spread in our free society of Nazi ideology and the condoning of
ercised its formative influence on crime!
the natives, and marked their cus-
To top off these inanities, a writer in the local Negro weekly
toms, ways of thought, and emo- newspaper saw fit to interpret the assault on Rabbi Adler as
the
tions with the stamp of the Pales- assailant's concern "about what he felt was hypocrisy among JEWS"—
tinian life as it is manifested - in Jews being capitalized in that article in which our people was accused
both the Old and New Testament's. in a morally low generalization of exploiting the Negroes. The shock
In the north of Europe and Ameri- occasioned by such improper evaluation of a major issue in which
ca—especially in the Scandinavian most Jews are involved as fighters for and supporters of justice to the
and Angelo-Saxon countries, in all Negro was like another gun being triggered in our direction.
Germanic and in some measure
The three issues just alluded to certainly do not lend credit to
also in • Celtic ones—Palestinism the newspapers involved. Important media have lowered the standards
has permeated so far that one fan- required for proper treatment of human values.
cies himself to be among Jews.
The Protestant Scots for example 2—Friday, March 11, 1966
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS