Essay
Source Analysis on Gershom Scholem
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The essay is about the German-Jewish divide on a source written by Gershom Scholem
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In what ways does this source present a divided German Jewish community?The sentiment of the majority of Jewish Germans is echoed through the words of Jakob Wassermann,
a novelist, ‘I am German and I am a Jew’. 1Yet Zionists such as Gershom Schloem disregarded the
idea of the assimilated Jew, who believed their Jewish and German identities to be inextricably
interlinked, thus viewing Germans and Jews as ‘mutually exclusive entities’ 2. Schloem writing
retrospectively on his youth in his book ‘From Berlin to Jerusalem’ refers to his experience in Munich
allowing the reader to identify a divided German Jewish community. Throughout the source
Scholem’s ability to see is juxtaposed with the Munich Jews inability to see. His description of their
‘blindness’ as ‘frightening’ heightens the impending danger that Jews would be subjected to that
Zionists / Schloem hinted at. This notion of being able to ‘see’ highlights his reason for adhering to
Zionism and remaining a Zionist, some 50 years later, as well as justifying and subtly glorifying his
1
Kauders, Anthony: Weimar Jewry, in: Anthony McElliot, Weimar Germany pp. 234-259.
2
Ibid
, decision, and other Zionists, instinctual and timely move to Palestine. In turn showing the Jewish
community in Germany as divided between those who emigrated versus those who stayed.
The source begins by mentioning the ‘incipient Nazism’. Post war Germany saw an increased hostility
towards Jewish community which Nazis exploited. The 1916 census was taken in order confirm the
lack of patriotism among German Jews. The end of the war gave rise to the stab in the back Myth,
perpetuating the idea that there were internal traitors i.e Jews in order to deflect responsibility away
from the German military leadership. These two events gave rise to a national Anti-Semitic response.
Schloem mentions the lack of acknowledgement of both the Nazism and growing Antisemitic stance
in Germany by the Liberal Jewish community in Germany leaving him to associate with a few ‘like
minded people’. Interestingly, the Liberal German Jewish community were facing difficulties on
multiple fronts on holding on to their German identities. The Eastern Jewish immigration comprising
of those who fled from persecution as well as those enlisted by the wartime military government was
19%. The community of Jewish liberals felt that their identity as both German and Jewish would be
threatened as the 19% of foreign Jews would open up the space to further challenge the Jews on their
belief on belonging to the German nation. Thus this ‘jumpy’ and ‘angry’ reaction by ‘Munich Jews’
Schloem noted, when Nazism was mentioned, would have further provoked an identity crisis. As the
Nazis were a group that clearly identified Germans and Jews as different welcoming ‘Germans’ yet
stating that ‘Jews [would] not be admitted’.
The divide between the German Jewish community is further presented in the source through the
mentioning of Munich. The historical significance of Munich to the beginning of the Zionist
movement would have been one familiar to Gershom Schloem. His inability to associate with the
‘Munich Jews’ would have been exasperated by Munich being the same city in which a ‘chorus of
protest arose’ when Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism and an icon to Schloem
who had his portrait hung on a Christmas tree, called for the first Zionist Congress. The congress was
rejected due to a fear that the Zionist movement would suggest a lack of loyalty to Germany. The
language used throughout the source by Schloem of the ‘jumpy’ nature of Munich Jews mirrors the
fear showed, a little over 20 years, prior by the Munich Jews in rejection to the Congress. Schloem
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