antisemitism

is, (in Germany 1880) in part the fault of the Jews in that the acceptance of Christianity (which they stubbornly refused) had in Germany become more a token of national loyalty than of religious conviction. In the 1970s, Germans had transferred their allegiance from their native states to the newly established national empire. Why couldn't the jews gesture toward doing the same insofar as they can do so without acting against their conscience'.

Yet Mommsen also felt that anti-Semitic prejudice was at least partly the fault of the Jews themselves. Why did they insist so stubbornly on clinging to their ancestral faith' Could they not see that the acceptance of Christianity had become more a token of national loyalty than of religious conviction' And even if they could not bring themselves to worship in a church instead of a synagogue, why did they have to continue to support various organizations and societies composed exclusively of Jews' After all, only a decade earlier the Hanoverians and the Hessians and the Schleswig-Holsteiners and all the other Germans had transferred their allegiance from their native states to the newly established national empire. Why couldn't the Jews do the same' Why couldn't they make the same sacrifice for the sake of the 'common fatherland'' It was the duty of the Jews, Mommsen concluded, ''insofar as they can do so without acting against their conscience,' to abandon their tribalism, their exclusivity, and 'to tear down resolutely all the barriers between them and their German fellow citizens.'' Surely assimilation was not too high a price to ask in return for emancipation.

Thomas Mommsen

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Thomas Mommsen