The Kosher Bookmark:Marx and the Jews of Jerusalem

We would like to call attention to and welcome Alan Jay Gerber’s new column in the Jewish Star: The Kosher Bookmark, a review of Jewish-themed essays.

Recently I came across an out of print copy of “Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Judaism” [Littman Library, 1978] by Prof. Dr. Julius Carlebach, himself a victim of National Socialism and whose parents Rabbi Yosef Zvi Carlebach and Charlotte Carlebach were murdered at their hands.

This book closely examines Marx’s absolute hatred of the Jewish people and religion, and goes into great detail in explaining the various methods employed by Marx to justify his bigotry in terms of class warfare and economic philosophy.

Other facets of Marx’s, as well as his latter followers’, attitudes towards Jews are given in great scholarly detail that, in historical perspective, help to explain the left’s hatred for all things Jewish while attempting, unsuccessfully, to avoid the smear of ideological and genocidal anti-Semitism. This includes the World Socialism of the USSR and the National Socialism of Nazi Germany.

However, the most fascinating episode presented to us by Dr. Carlebach in this work is chapter 19 entitled, “Excursus: Marx and the Jews of Jerusalem.” Much of its basic premise is to be quoted below, please follow along:

“Edmund Silberner [the noted historian of Marxist anti-Semitism] noted: ‘In the whole work of Marx there is, to my knowledge, only one passage in which he speaks of a group of Jews without any derision and even with a certain friendliness.’ This passage, in an article published, without a heading, in the New York Daily Tribune of 15 April 1854, in which Marx described the plight of the Jews of Jerusalem, their poverty and misery and the hostility to which they were subjected by Moslems and Christians although, numerically, they represented even then a majority of the city’s population. Silberner thought that ‘this is the only text where Marx shows any sympathy for a group of Jews’ and accordingly described it as ‘an exception to the rule,’ which was without ‘deeper meaning’.”

This fascinating tidbit of historical detail is given further greater play and detail by Dr. Carlebach later on in his book. As to the motivation for Marx’s behavior and attitude here, only, in my view, speculation reigns on the part of the author and others. As far as Marx himself, I, too, can only speculate. Consider that Marx himself never did visit the holy land or Jerusalem. His familiarity with its Jews is based upon others’ reportage. Nevertheless, his regard was sympathetic and out of character.

Prof. Carlebach goes on to further explore the ideological vagaries of Jewish self-hatred, basically finding Marx without personal fault on this narrow issue inasmuch as he never saw himself as a Jew especially since he was born and raised as a member of the Christian faith. His detestation of his family roots was of no political or religious concern to him.

A LESSON TO BE LEARNED AND APPRECIATED

Nevertheless, the observation made in this book of the sympathetic literary connect by Marx with the Jews of Jerusalem is absolutely fascinating and inexplicable. This should in some manner serve to chasten us in regard to our feelings toward the sacredness of Jerusalem. Through this attitude by Marx we should all learn to better appreciate what we now have available to us in the increasing accessibility of Jerusalem to us, something that was denied to us until just very recently, and something all our adversaries wish to deny us in the near days to come. Yom Yerushalayim should serve for all of us as an opportunity to thank G-d for the miracles of 1967 and to thus learn from others foreign to our beliefs and morals to better appreciate the divine in our lives.