THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Si Friday, May 2, 1975
Theorist and Essayist Moses Hess Remembered
By SHALOM
BEN CHORIN
April 6, 1975 marked the
100th anniversary of the
death of Moses Hess in
Paris at the age of 63. Inter-
ment took place in Cologne,
but some 10 years ago his
remains were transferred to
Israel whose revival by the
restoration of Jewish state-
hood Moses Hess had envi-
sioned.
Hess was born in 1812,
the son of a Jewish industri-
alist. His first major work
The Sacred History of
Mankind", published in
1837, was permeated with a
Utopian, messianic social-
ism in which no special role
is as yet allotted to the Jew-
ish people.
From 1841 Hess came
under the spell of Karl
Marx. With some friends he
founded the "Rheinische
Zeitung" and became its edi-
tor, and later its Paris cor-
respondent. It was in this
paper that his long theoreti-
cal articles which were later
to be collected and edited
under the name "Socialist
Essays", appeared. How-
ever, it did not take long be-
fore tension developed be-
tween Hess on the one hand
and Marx and Engels on the
other, since Hess who was a
religious socialist could not
subscribe to the purely ma-
terialistic concept of ,com-
munism and this attitude
gained him the nickname of
"Communist Rabbi".
Boris Smolar's
In 1862 Hess brought out
in Leipzig his book "Rome
and Jerusalem," which
established his eminent
place in Zionist history.
The book lacks systematic
order and is somewhat
confused, taking the form
of a collection of letters
and notes, but the lack of
system is more than out-
weighed by his intensity of
feeling and fervor of con-
viction.
'Between You
. . and Me'
Editor-in-Chief
Emeritus, JTA
(Copyright 1975, JTA, Inc.)
ON THE ALERT: The deteriorated American-Israel
_ relations, the Arab economic warfare against Israel and the
American Jewish community will be high on the agenda of
the four-day annual meeting of the American Jewish Com-
mittee which takes place in New York this week.
With the collapse of the negotiations by U.S. Secretary
of State Henry A. Kissinger to bring about an understand-
ing between Egypt and Israel, leaders of the American Jew
ish Committee have been deeply involved in meeting with
high government officials in Washington - including Kis-
singer - and with members of Congress. They seek to coun-
teract the angry and impulsive way in which Kissinger pre-
sented the breakdown of his "shuttle mission" to Cairo and
Jerusalem by blaming Israel, but not Egypt.
. Kissinger takes this breakdown as a personal insult
and does not hide his displeasure with Israel. He makes his
feelings known in various ways, although not in public
statements. However, his utterances in private reach the
public and undermine the feelings of sympathy toward Is-
rael among many non-Jewish friends of Israel in this coun-
try. Furthermore. they help to strengthen the pro-Arab
propaganda in this country. In his anger and frustration,
Kissinger discouraged a suggestion that Israel's Foreign
Minister Yigal Allon should come to Washington to resume
talks with him. However, he received Allon last week when
the latter came to the United States on a private visit for the
United Jewish Appeal.
* * *
THE CRUCIAL ISSUE: Leaders of the American Jew-
-
•
ish Committee, including Max Fisher and former U.S. Su-
preme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg, have held private
talks with Kissinger. Fisher also. met privately with Presi-
dent Ford. The impression now is that Kissinger has mel-
lowed and is beginning to look.at Israel's position with less
personal bitterness.
At present, formally declared non-belligerence by
Egypt still remains for Israel a critical issue.. Egypt is still
adamant in refuSing to make any binding commitment de-
spite Israel's variety of proposals for return of territory. In
the light of this situation the feeling among Jewish leaders
in the U.S. is strong that Egypt, and not Israel. is the stub-
horn party which torpedoed Kissinger's efforts. They can-
not understand Kissinger's wrath against Israel, since the
Israelis have shown their intention to accept compromises
while Egypt remained unbending.
* * *
JEWISH COUNTERACTION: In the intensive review
on the Middle East situation which will be presented at the
American Jewish Committee conclave, some of the discus-
sions will also be centered on the economic warfare now
being waged by the Arab oil countries against American
banks and firms who deal with Israel and who employ Jews.
The size and nature of Arab investment in the United
States - it reached $11 billion in 1974 - the rush of Ameri-
can industry to participate in commercial deals with the
Arab oil countries, and the Arab blackmail of American
firms trading with Israel, as well as the open aggression
against the American Jewish community. raises serious
concerns for American Jewry.
Combatting- Arab economic warfare is now one of the
American Jewish Committee's highest program priorities.
A special advisory committee of lay leaders has been
formed by the AJCommittee and highest government offi-
cials have been contacted to obtain federal action to coun-
teract Arab attempts to impose discrimination against
Jews in this country.
The AJCommittee is also. investigating all reports of
discrimination against Jews resulting from Arab demands,
O1' from the voluntary actions of American corporations dis-
missing Jews in the belief that this will help them to obtain
Arab contracts. It is also gathering information from its
hranches throughout the country as to whether the Arab
anti-Jewish boycott threats to American firms affected
their communities and to what extent.
The first letter in the
book begins with the follow-
ing profession of faith:
"After an estrangement of
20. years I am standing
again in the midst of my
people sharing in its festivi-
ties and mourning, in its
reminiscences and hopes, in
its spiritual struggles
within and with the civilized
peoples among whom it
dwells but with whom it is
unable to merge, although it
has been living with them
and trying to join them for
2,000 years."
In "Rome and Jerusalem"
Hess develops the idea of a
return of the Jewish people
to its historic homeland. He
does not see this return only
from a religious, socialist
and messianic angle, but
also emphasizes the fact
that Palestine forms a
bridge between Asia and
Europe being situated at the
cross-roads to India and
therefore offering adequate
political and economic op-
portunities to the Jewish
people.
Simultaneously with the
return of the first settlers, a
spiritual regeneration will
take place and in this con-
nection Hess had in mind
the establishment of a new
Sanhedrin which would re-
form the ancient laws of
Judaism in the spirit of
modern times.
When a Jewish critic,
Leopold Loew, tried to
prove the impossibility of a
national rebirth by refer-
ring to the multiplicity of
languages used by the
Jews, Hess, who had a
perfect command of
French and German,
pointed to what he called
the "new blossoming forth
of the Hebrew language in
our epoch". The Jewish
people has everything,
said Hess, workers and
intellectuals, capital and
energy; it is lacking in but
one thing - soil of its own,
"La Terre", as he put it in
his French writings.
On May 2, 1901, Theodor
Herzl noted in his diary:
Tuesday I went by train to
Aussee, rented a flat for the
summer and returned yes-
terday. I passed the 19
hours of the journey there
and back in reading "Rome
and Jerusalem" by Moses
Hess. I had started it for the
first time in Jerusalem in
1898, but in the stress and
strain of these years I never
managed to read it to the
end.
"I am filled with enthu-
siasm and admiration.
What a sublime, noble
spirit! Everything that we
are attempting can be found
in this book. Only his Hege-
lian terminology is awk-
ward. The spirit of Spinoza,
the Jewish and national
component are magnificent.
Since Spinoza the Jews have
not produced a greater
spirit than this faded and
forgotten Moses Hess."
It was thanks to Max Bod-
enheimer, herald of Zionism
and faithful collaborator of
Herzl's, that "Rome and Je-
rusalem" was rescued from
oblivion. Hess' family had
arranged, after his death,
for his book which was ob-
noxious to them, since it
was a powerful challenge to
Jewish assimilation, to be
reduced to pulp. Bodenhei-
mer, the first political Zion-
ist in Germany, initiated
the publication of a second
edition from a copy which
came into Herzl's posses-
sion.
In 1950, 75 years after
Hess' death, Martin Buber
wrote about him: "Hess
was the first to explain
comprehensively and in
m'odern language the deep
connection between the
People and the Land of
Israel and to convey the
message and the challenge
resulting from it for our
times. He was a beginner
rather than a precursor,
but a beginner in thought
and word who died before
the beginning of the realis-
ation. Today, 75 years
after his death, the Zionist
movement has not yet fully
arrived at Moses Hess.
This is still true today, 25
years after his rehabilita-
tion by Buber. We have
grown accustomed to seeing
Hess rather schematically
as the precursor of Herzl or
even as one of Herzl's fore-
runners.
This view is tenable only
if' one looks at the history of
concrete events, but much
less so if the figure and
work of Hess are viewed
from the angle of the his-
tory of ideas. He was indeed
a deeper thinker than Herzl;
he was more far-sighted,
but he lacked in organiza-
tional ability. His way re-
mained, to use Baker's
phrase again, "paths in Uto-
pia".
This is true of his socialist
concepts no less than of his
Zionist ideas. Marx and
Engels turned away from
him rather superciliously
and expressly declared that
they would not take respon-
sibility for Hess' writings.
Thus he was attracted more
and more to Ferdinand Las-
salle.
He remained lonely. His
truly prophetic book
"Rome and Jerusalem"
was a voice calling in the
wilderness without echo or
response. However, there
is something like the per-
manency of the spirit. Just
as nothing gets lost in the
world of matter, the spirit
is indestructible and
there is a renewal and re-
vival of original and fertile
ideas.
from Hess' Zionist articles
and essays on socialism
were published in Hebrew
by the "Zionist Library" of
the Zionist Executive's Or-
ganization Department in
1954 and 1956, and on the
occasion of the 150th anni-
versary of his birth, an an-
thology of Hess' writings
Not only ".Rome and Jeru- appeared in his "home
salem" but also a selection town" of Cologne in 1962.
Jewish Tragedy in Nazi Era
Documented by Davidowi(
Thoroughly documented, historically narrated as a
complete record of the Nazi crime against Jewry, "The War
Against the Jews, 1933-1946" by Lucy S. Davidowicz (Holt,
Rinehart and Winston) is a major work exposing the Ger-‘
man crime in the Hitler era. This important volume was co-
published by the Jewish Publication Society of America as
a JPS membership book.
The vast library dealing with the Holocaust indisputa-
bly acquires impressive summation in this work.
The author, who is a distinguished member of the fac-
ulty of Yeshiva University, provides in this volume the re-
sults of extensive research and studies of the horrors that
were perpetrated during the mass murders as well as the
psychological effects of the savageries upon the millions of
Jewish sufferers.
This volume is both historical in content and a study
of Jewish reactions and the experiences of the victims in
the death camps and the ghettoes in which they were
installed by the Nazi criminals.
Providing background material on the legislative proc-
esses which preceded the decisions leading to the plotting of
"The Final Solution," Dr. Davidowicz offers a history of
German anti-Semitism with specific emphasis on the years
1933-1935 and the subsequent plans of the Hitler regime for
the institution of the death camps and the aim for Jewry's
extermination.
The history of the Holocaust, the Adolf Eichmann role,
the villainies that marked the planning of the total annihi-
liation of the Jews who fell into the Hitler traps formulate
the story of anguish that affected the victimized and re-
sulted in the millions of dead in the Nazi grip of terror.
The exact number of Jewish victims who were mur-
dered by the Nazis, as they were outlined at the Nuremberg
war crimes trials and as affirmed by "subsequent censuses
and statistical analyses to have been remarkably accurate,"
is presented by Dr. Davidowicz in this chart:
Estimated Number of Jews Killed
in the Final Solution
Estimated Jewish
Estimated Pre-Final Population Annihilated
Country
Solution Population Number
Percent
3,300,000
3,000,000
Poland
90
253,000
228,000
Baltic countries
90
240,000
210,000
Germany/Austria
90
80,000
90,000
Protectorate
89
75,000
90,000
Slovakia
83
70,000
54,000
Greece
77
140,000
105,000
The Netherlands
75
450,000
Hungary
650,000
70
245,000
SSR White Russia
375,000
65
1,500,000
900,000
SSR Ukraine*
60
65,000
40,000
Belgium
60
Yugoslavia
43,000
26,000
60
Romania
600,000
300,000
50
900
1,800
Norway
50
90,000
France
350,000
26
64,000
14,000
Bulgaria
22
40,000
8,000
Italy
20
Luxembourg
5,000
1,000
20
975,000
107,000
Russia (RSFSR)*
11
Denmark
Finland
Total
8,000
2,000
8,861,800
5,933,900
67
*The Germans did not occupy all the territory of this republic.
The psychological aspects, the Jewish councils, the re-
sistance, the totality of the crime resulting from a war
against the Jews that became a major aspiration in the Nazi
brutalities give emphasis to the horror that resulted from
Hitlerism.
All the experiences of that era, the subsequent defeat
of the Nazi hordes, the Russian actions and the liberation,
are part of the historic outlines of the depressing drama.
Similarly, the aspects of the Nazi rule of terror in all other
European lands are part of the record in this impressive
work.
Authoritatively researched, psychologically analyzed,
treated with historical accuracy, Dr. Davidowicz's "The
War Against the Jews, 1933-1945" will rank among the
most valuable studies for historians and archivists.