Trudy Gold
The Strange Tale of Eisenmenger and its Repercussions

Trudy Gold - The Strange Tale of Eisenmenger and its Repercussions

- Okay, thanks very much. Trudy, over to you. The strange tale of Eisenmenger.

• The strange tale of Eisenmenger and its ramifications.

• [Wendy] Okay, thank you. Well, I hope that is enough of a teasey title for you all, because remember the period we’re looking at. We’re looking at the clash between the enlightenment values and the values of really the old world, and the Eisenmenger case in many ways sums everything up and also, it’s going to project us forward. So let me talk… Can we see the first slide, if you don’t mind? Let’s find out who Johann Andreas Eisenmenger actually was. He was born in 1654. He died in 1704. And his work is going to tail in to what I was talking about last time, which is, of course, Wertheimer and Oppenheimer. And you’re going to see that there’s going to be a clash and it’s very interesting. So his father was an official in the service of the Elector of the Palatinate. And this was the man who, back in 1673, had offered Spinoza a chair in philosophy at Heidelberg. Of course, we’ve already discussed Spinoza in various classes, because Spinoza, was he the great philosopher? Was he part of the Jewish world? Of course, he was excommunicated. On one level, he’s seen as the father of many branches of modern philosophy. To the extreme Jewish community, he is seen as a traitor. And it’s fascinating that he’s actually offered a chair in philosophy in Heidelberg. So Eisenberger, Eisenmenger, beg your pardon, he receives a good education. This is the time of the development of education, but the majority of education was religious, of course. He went to the Collegium Sapientiae, which means the college of wisdom. It was a proprietary academy.

It’s later a theological college. Very bright. And he showed great zeal in studying Semitic languages and Hebrew. And remember, this is a Christian theologian now studying Hebrew. As I said, he was very bright. He masters Hebrew, he masters Arabic and Aramaic. And he is given the money to go off to further his study. So where does he go? He goes to London. Think about the Amsterdam Jewish community in London. He meets up with rabbis there. But he finishes up in Amsterdam where he’s absolutely shocked to discover that three Christians are converted to Judaism. Now, this will cross reference you into the presentations I gave on Amsterdam, because suffice to say, Amsterdam was a very forward thinking trading centre where Jews were living a far more egalitarian life than they were in other parts of Europe. So he’s in Amsterdam and he’s absolutely horrified. So he persuades some rabbis to teach him under the pretext that he’s thinking of converting to Judaism, because, of course, Judaism is not a proselytising religion and they have to take you very seriously. Anyway, he studies for 19 years. He studies Talmud. He studies midrashic literature. And he then takes a post at Heidelberg University. Now, he then is about to publish a very important book, which is going to have catastrophic impact on the Jewish community. It’s called “Judaism Unmasked”.

You can see the copy of it there. And in 1699, the Jews of Frankfurt learned that he was about to publish this book, and he was going to publish it in German and not in Latin. And they were terrified that it would actually inflame the local population against them. There already been anti-Jewish rights in Bamberg and in Franconia. Remember, in all those German city states where there’s huge tensions as society evolves, the Jew was the non, that was really the only non-Christian minority of any note. So consequently, also in the great wars between Christianity, Protestantism, and Catholicism, the Jewish at the centre. Now, because of the intervention of Wertheimer, the community in Frankfurt get in touch with Wertheimer and Oppenheimer and they ask them to intervene with the emperor. And as a result of that, the emperor demands that it’s looked through properly. And so rabbis and Catholic theologians were allowed to look at the text. Remember, he is a Protestant. And the point was it also offended the Catholics. So the book was stopped. The emperor decides… The Habsburg emperor decides to ban the book. Now, how much was it to do with Oppenheimer and Wertheimer? How much was it actually to do with the fact that it was insulting to Catholicism? But I want to read you now, because this is going to become a very, very important book, because what happens is this. The after Eisenmenger’s death, his heirs petition, the King of Prussia to have the book printed, and he allows it to go ahead. And as a result, 30,000 copies were made and it becomes a real talking point. And now I’m going to read you a few scholarly comments on it.

This is from Professor Lawrence Rose of Pennsylvania State University, because the point about this particular book, he’d studied the Talmud for 20 years, and what he does is he takes Talmud at quotations, he puts everything out of context to give a terribly, for it to sort of seem that the Talmud is saying terrible things about Christianity. So this is Professor Lawrence Rose. Eisenmenger proceeded to amass quotations from the Talmud and other Hebrew sources revealing to all how the Jewish religion was barbarous, superstitious and even murderous. All this was done in an apparently scholarly unreasonable way that belied the author’s evident preoccupation with tales of Jewish ritual murder. Here, you have it again, the story of the blood libel. Luther, by the way, talked about the blood libel. It was so deeply entrenched now in the law of Europe that people actually took it seriously. And tragically, when I talk about this case, remember, it’s ramifications, I’m going to talk about how this book is going to appear again in the 19th century. And please don’t forget, there have been blood libels throughout the 20th century. I’m not just talking about the Nazis. And , they still appear from time to time tragically in the Arab world. So going on with Lawrence Rose.

With tales of Jewish ritual murder of Christian children and poisoning of wells. Whilst previously, while paisley insisting that the Jews must not be converted by cruel methods, Eisenmenger frequently and blithely recommends abolishing their present freedom in trade, which was making them lords over Germans. And a further very strange element, which obviously later on is going to be taken up by crazy race theorists in the 19th century, which I’ll be talking about later on in a few weeks. There’s this other… He actually came up with the argument that the Germans were a distinct people within Christianity and they were descended from the Canaanites who the Jews had been intent on destroying. So he goes to the book of Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy chapter seven. And of course, the destruction of the Canaanites when Joshua conquers the kingdom. And he says, today, just as they tried to destroy the Canaanites, then now they are trying to destroy the Germans. Now, one of the problems. it’s a polemical work. It’s a work of scholarship, but it’s a work of twisted scholarship. This is Jacob Katz.

He was acquainted with all the literature in Jewish and all the literature a Jewish scholar would’ve known, he surpassed his non-Jewish predecessors in his mastery of the sources and his ability to interpret them tenaciously. He does not falsify his salsas. Now, Heinrich Graetz, who, of course, was that very great Jewish historian of the 19th century, he basically said Eisenmenger and he never munched, he never minced his words. Eisenmenger belongs to that class of insects which sucks poison even out of flowers in confidential converse with Jews and pretending that he desired to be converted to Judaism. And in the profound study of their literature, which he learned from them, he sought only the dark side and to destroy them. And, you know, it’s interesting. This book, it became such a kind of cause celebre that Heinrich Heine once asked a friend to loan it to him. And ironically, Heinrich Heine’s maternal grandfather was involved in the suppression of it. Anyway, so this is Eisenmenger’s book. And can we have a look at Charles Louis, the Elector, because he’s the man that Eisenmenger petitioned to allow it to go ahead. And I thought I’d include him because he’s very, very interesting and I’ll tell you why. He’s very, very interesting because he was married, those of you who like English history, he was married to Charles, the first sister, he’s known as the Winter King. She’s known as the Winter Queen. And their son, Rupert of the Rhine, of course, was one of the great cavaliers in the English Civil War. It’s very good looking chap, isn’t he? Anyway, so having said for a while that Wertheimer and Oppenheimer did manage to suppress the first 2000 with the larges of the Emperor. Consequently, it is published in Berlin.

It spreads through the Palatine. And not only that, two Jewish converts to Christianity brought charges against their further co-religious. So there was a really hot issue at the time. So this is the time I’m talking about now, but the ramifications are going to go on into the 19th century. And that’s what I really want to turn to. Let’s have a look at Eisenmenger’s book. I think we have a… Yes, there it is. Later on, this is going to be used by the Nazis. And I’m going to explain how that happened, how that happened. And I’m turning you right on into the 19th century. So know that the book was published. It had quite a wide readership. It became a discussion point and the notion developed that there was something very poisonous in the Talmud. It was very, very anti-Christian. And also, as I said before, it’s about the blood libel. It’s about poisoning of wells. And this was the kind of atmosphere about it. Now, of course, turning onto the 19th century, which we will be covering in a lot of depth. When this book was first published, there weren’t many Jews living in the Habsburg empire just as there weren’t that many Jews in the whole of Germany. The bulk of the Jewish population is actually still in Eastern Europe. And the numbers in Vienna are actually very, very small. It’s only when Poland is partitioned. And I’m going to show you maps next time we meet. And a large chunk of of Poland, Galatia, comes under Habsburg rule that over 200,000 Jews are now going to become subjects of a Habsburg empire. And by the time we come to the period I want to discuss the middle of the 19th century, a lot has happened. But don’t worry, we’re going to do it in a lot of detail.

I just wanted to carry this story through because I think it’s a very important thread. Franz Joseph, of course, ascended the throne in 1848, and he ruled over this vast Habsburg empire. The point was in the 19th century, which is such a complicated century because on one level, you still have the autocratic rulers, but you also have a huge amount of technological progress, educational progress. These autocratic states need to create the kind of kingdoms that can deal economically in the world, but they are still autocratic. But the point about Vienna, more and more Jews are going to come to Vienna. Vienna is going to explode as the centre of a multinational empire. And by the 1870s, 1880s, 1/10 of Vienna is going to be Jewish. If you think about it, Jews coming from Bohemia, coming from every part of the empire. They’re coming from Eastern Hungary. They’re coming from Slovakia. Why they come to Vienna? Because that is where the action is. And, of course, we’re going to spend a lot of time dealing with the fact that Vienna becomes one of the most exciting cities in the world. But the Janus face of Vienna, this is the dark side too. Never forget that as the Habsburg empire develops, and we’re talking, of course, about the period of the enlightenment, absolutist enlightenment, you’ve got these competing forces. What force would in fact come to the fore? And one of the problems was, of course, the Jewish at the centre, the non-Christian, the other, with this terrible 2,000 year history. And I’m sure you all listen to Helen Fry’s lectures.

And I really think we have to put the majority of the blame actually at the feet of the Catholic church, which is a problem. I know that. Now, whether we’ll be able to come to terms with that later on in this course is a very interesting one. And now, I’m going to talk about a man called August Rohling. Can we see his picture please? Yeah. Hasn’t that a nice benign face? So many of these nice benign faces actually hide monsters. He was born in Westphalia. He’s a very, very bright. He studies at Munster and Paris. He becomes a professor at Charles University in Prague, which, of course, is part of the Habsburg empire. It’s the third city. Vienna, Budapest, Prague. He becomes a professor of Semitic languages. He, of course, is a very staunch Catholic. Now, look at his dates. So 1839 on the papal throne, for much of the 19th century was Pius IX. Pius IX was one of the most reactionary popes. He’s think of everything he’s trying to combat. We’ve already explained how important, I’m sure most of you know this, you’ve studied this, how important it was for the Catholic Church to sort of break off all opposition. It was one of the most, it is still one of the most extraordinary corporations in the world. And it’s an organisation of huge secrecy. It doesn’t take any prisoners. Now, the point about the Catholic church in the 19th century, what is it up against? It’s up against Protestantism. It’s up against liberalism. It’s up against socialism. It’s up against anarchism. It’s up against all these kind of ideas that it finds to be absolutely abhorrent. And who is blamed for many of these ideas? It’s fascinating. The Jews don’t invent liberalism. They don’t invent socialism. They don’t invent many of the ideas that are causing problems in the empire.

But what is also true is that many Jewish individuals or people of Jewish birth are going to get involved. And the anti-Judaism of the period I was talking about has changed. By the time you get to the 1860s, 1870s, there are new forces at work in the empires of Europe. Are the Jews the perfect scapegoat? Because, of course, what I’m talking about is the transmission of the virus from anti-Judaism to anti-Semitism. Never forget that anti-Semitism is a modern racial term. It was first coined in Germany by a German journalist called Wilhelm Marr. However, the sentiment predates it. What it says is that the world is divided up into various races. This is the nationalisms of the old empires. Just think about the Habsburg empire. One family ruling over 13 different national groups. This is the period of further education. It’s the period, as I’ve said before, of all the forces of modernity. Why should the Hungarians be ruled? Why should all these other people be ruled by the Habsburgs? It takes nationalism to its next stage. And what you see developing is my group is better than yours. My group by blood is better than yours. And what determines people is race. It’s also sparked off by social Darwinism, taking the ideas of Charles Darwin, distorting them, applying applying them to groups of people and saying, what matters is the survival of the fittest. It’s about blood, it’s about race. So you have this whole concoction that by the time we get to August Rohling and his infamous work, which is going to be based on Eisenmenger, already there is the notion of anti-Semitism and it’s racial. That means if you are born a Jew, it doesn’t matter whether you convert to Christianity. It doesn’t matter whether you are a Hasidic Rebbe or whether you are a Sigmund Freud, not yet born. Sigmund Freud, of course, is going to be born in 1859. It doesn’t matter who or what you are. Whether you are a Karl Marx. Karl Marx scorned his Jewish roots, but you’re a Jew. And consequently, antisemitism is a very, very potent force.

And Pius IX, he spoke out so often against the Jews. He saw them as spearheading all the forces of modernity. He was so reactionary that he was the pope that introduced the doctrine of papal infallibility plus the cult of the Virgin Mary. He decided papal encyclical that Mary herself was born without sin, without sex. So consequently, you have an incredibly reactionary pope. And many of the theologians within this Catholic Habsburg empire, they’re very, very conservative and they want to hold back the forces of modernity. And to them, modernity is Jewish. So he is not just anti-Jewish, he’s also anti-Protestant. It’s interesting because he takes Eisenmenger, who was a Protestant, remember? And he’s going to take his book and he’s going to distort it even further. And he wrote the book called “The Talmud Jew”. And this is to quote Robert Wistrich, a vulgar rehash of the earlier work by Eisenmenger. Now what gives it legs? And it was a blood libel that gave it legs. And can we turn please to the next slide, Judy? Tisza Eszlar Affair. In 1882, one of the Hungarian representatives in the Hungarian diet, by now, you have the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Victor von Istoczi, he was a violent antisemite. He believed that the Jews should be thrown out of the empire. Ironically, he was in favour of Jews going to Palestine. But anyway, during his electoral campaign, this terrible event occurred. And what’s going to happen is the Tisza Eszlar Affair, the story, and we’ve heard it so often before, it uses the old Christian theological hatred in modern anti-Semitic terms. So it’s the story of the blood libel, but now it’s being used by antisemites. You see what’s happened. Theological ideas, theological ideas, anti-Jewish theological ideas are now adding to the canon of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is modern and racial, but it brings in with it the well poisoning et cetera.

And one of the reasons I’ve decided to set the atmosphere today, and I also want to say that when we look in depth in the next few weeks at a monarchs like Joseph II and Franz Joseph and his wife, the Empress Elizabeth, they were not antisemites. You’ve got to see all forces at work within the empire. And as William and I have discussed with you, there is no linear path it could have gone any way, but don’t forget it’s into this atmosphere that many racist politicians are going to earn their spurs. And by the turn of the 20th century, the young adult Hitler is going to come to Vienna and he’s going to be so aware of all these kind of theories. So you already know that there’s anti-Semitic agitation both in the… Because Tisza Eszlar is in Hungary. It’s a remote little village in Hungary with 25 Jewish families. Once the Habsburg empire, if you think about the Habsburg empire, you’ve got the Jews of Vienna who are more and more turning to German and German culture. You’ve got the Jews of Budapest who are turning more and more to Hungarian and German culture. The Jews of Prague, do they send their children to the Czech University or to the German University? Jews in the capitals in the cities tend to turn to what they see as high culture. And one of the problems for the Habsburgs in this multinational empire is what is the real culture of the empire? Whereas the Jews of Eastern Hungary, they were Yiddish speaking, they were far more traditional the further away you go for the centres. It’s what I discussed with you the other day about the modern world. The danger and the opportunity. On one level in the big cities, you’ve got all the opportunities of conquering the world, but the danger is, on one level, the danger of the hostility of the outside world and the other danger of losing your Jewishness.

So Tisza Eszlar, there’s already antisemitic agitation in the Hungarian diet. And this is a small village in Hungary. And what happens is it was a Shabbat, there’s only a small synagogue. They don’t have a rabbi, they only have a cantor and a shohet. And on April the 11th, 1882, an audition was held for the post of shohet. And we also know that the bet din was called because they had to call in a bet din because there was a dispute between two community members. And we also know that on that Shabbat, four destitute Jews. Remember, the majority of Jews in Eastern Europe were dirt poor, and that applies to Eastern Hungary. So a group of destitute Jews also arrived in the town begging for a Shabbat meal. So that same day, a young Christian servant girl disappeared. Her name was Esther Solymosi. Now, the mob is whipped up. Suspicion falls on the Jews, and they are accused of ritual murder. Jewish children, the mob is whipped up. There’s nationalists further anyway. The Jew is the other. And the children were bribed with sweets to tell on their parents. And a man called Jozsef Bary, a notorious antisemite was appointed judge. And what happened was 14 Jews from the community were arrested and a young Jewish boy, Moriz Scharf, was relentlessly questioned. He was taken away from his parents and he was mentally tortured until he said he held the hand of the little girl and during the ritual murder. So he turns on his own father. There are more and more allegations. And the leaders, at this stage, the leaders of Hungarian jury found a very good defence lawyer, because there’s also liberalism, a man called Caroli Osfos.

He is a Calvinist. And meanwhile, the body of a young girl has been found floating in the Danube evidently. And she was examined and she died of natural causes. However, that’s not going to affect the prosecution. And it’s getting an incredible amount of publicity, which is being whipped up by rolling with his new book, “The Talmud Jew”, which is based on Eisenmenger. So you see how it all comes together and it becomes such an important case. Remember, we’re in the era of telecommunication now. Think about it, I shouldn’t have said telecommunication, but there certainly is telegraph now. There are letters, there’s communication, there are newspapers. And it becomes a really big story. And this is what the lawyer for the prosecution said, the God of the Jews demands the shedding of Christian blood, quoting, the Talmud Jew. Anyway, it’s whipped up by all sorts of aspiring politicians, but in the end, the jury finds the Jews not guilty. This is fascinating because the ordinary jury decide that the case was not proven. And the 14 Jews were released, and Moriz Scharf never went back to his family. And the remainder of the family and the Jews, they all left the town. But the problem was the reactionary Catholic press continued to exploit this story. Fascist members of the Hungarian Parliament to this day still tell the story of the Tisza Eszlar blood libel. So it’s fascinating. I take you all the way back to the 1600s. I’m dropping you then in the 1800s. And then I’m bringing you right up to date when this is an event that’s still mentioned in the parliament in Budapest today.

It’s like when there’s economic and social and political disunity, you cannot get rid of these horrible calumnist. It’s absolutely extraordinary. However, there was a man and I love heroes and it’s about time, and I think Wendy will appreciate this, because it’s about time we brought a hero into the story, because there is going to be a man who’s going to go up against Rohling, who’s going to go up against all the antisemites and he’s also going to go up against the Jews of Vienna for cowardice. And that is Rabbi Samuel Bloch. So let’s see his face please. Let’s look at a real hero. He was born in 1850. He comes from Galatian Jewry, that jury that is later incorporated into the Habsburg Empire, which I’m going to be talking about next time. And he came from a very, very poor family. But, again, he was incredibly bright. Now, what did you do with a bright young boy if you lived in Galatia? Well, there’s only one path, isn’t it? It’s the yeshiva. And he goes first to the yeshiva in Lemberg and then in Preston. And his rabbi, Saul Nathanson, he actually mentions this 15 year old boy as his most gifted student. So we know that he’s a very bright boy. Yiddish would’ve been his first language. He’s a Talmudist and he’s a serious, serious student. But times are changing. So he completes his studies at the gymnasia in Magdeburg. He goes onto the University of Munich and Zurich, he gets a PhD in philosophy, because we’re going to see, as I go through the… Look, Joseph II is going to open up universities to Jewish kids. So this is a man who can walk the world.

He has a very strong Jewish education. And now, he is having an education of the outside world, which gave him this very bright, interested and interesting man. He had a very broad knowledge of European culture. He had the mastery of the German language. And so he also at the university emerges with great polemic skills, so he can debate. He’s a master of the German language. He’s soaked in Jewish culture. He has a doctorate in philosophy. This is a man who walks both worlds, but he becomes a rabbi. And he becomes a rabbi first in a suburb of Vienna called Floridsdorf. And he also teaches in the school. He was also very aware because think of the period, we’re now in the 1870s, 1880s, he’s also aware of the poverty of many of the gentile population, because in order to service a new economy, you need a working class. And they were bad. The wages were bad. It was a very tough time for ordinary folk. We’ve spent a lot of time on this and I’m sure we will spend more time on this. And because he wanted to help them, and also he didn’t want them to turn against the Jews, he began a series of lectures, he’s a brilliant lecturer, to the tradesmen of the suburb, teaching them all sorts of things, and also teaching them Jewish history.

He wanted them to understand the Jews really as a counter to anti-Semitism. And I know this is my particular hobby horse, but I think one of the problems we have today, and I’m talking of England, but I know the same is true in America. The Jewish experience is ripped out of history. If Jews appear on any syllabus, in the main, it’s the show up. And I’m going to say something very contentious. It’s being more and more the Judah eyes. We can discuss this later on. Or it’s the Arab-Israeli conflict. There’s no putting the Jews back into their own history. Now, this man who is a big hero of mine, by the way, he understood in the 19th century that you can’t rip the Jews out of Jewish history. What do you think is happening by the 19th century to Jews in Vienna or in the big cities? They are at the forefront of all these movements, and it’s an incredible success story. How do they cope with the growth of antisemitism? What do they want for themselves? The kind of dilemmas they face, we face. How can you be a Jew in the modern world? Anyway, the publication of the Talmud Jew of Rohling, particularly after the Tisza Eszlar Affair, it became such a best seller and he’s very well aware of it. It was, in fact, we know over a hundred thousand copies were sold. And a Catholic and a very right wing Catholic organisation actually distributed 38,000 copies free. So Bloch is aware of what’s going on, how they’re not just fighting the Jew on the level of antisemitism. They’re going back to “The Talmud Jew” and saying, what is it in Judaism that wants to destroy Christianity? Let me reiterate. The well poisoning, the blood libel. He loathed the fact that they were rehashing these appalling calumnist.

And what Dr. Bloch does to the workers of Vienna, he tells them that they must fight it. Now, remember, Rohling was awarded the post of Professor of Theology at Prague. And during at Tisza Eszlar Affair, he actually offered to substantiate the blood libel under oath. Now, the leading Austrian, the leading figures in Austrian Jewry, including rabbis, they issued a brief denial. They said, look, it doesn’t exist, but they didn’t fight it. They wanted so much to be good citizens of the empire. But Rabbi Bloch, who at this time was only really an obscure Galatian Jew, he believed that what was needed was a full rebuttal. So he started writing a number of articles, denouncing Rohling as a fraud, saying that he’s perjure the Jewish people and he’s utterly ignorant of the Talmud, not even able to translate a single page. He based it, you see on Eisenmenger, but he didn’t have the same… He hadn’t spent 19 years studying with Jews. And Bloch, absolutely, he really pins him. And it becomes a sensation. The liberal press in Vienna take Bloch up. Remember the Janus face? There’s great liberalism in Vienna too. That was one of the tragedies, which force would come to the fore. And his polemic against Rohling sold over a hundred thousand copies in one day. And it meant that Rohling had to respond. And after delaying, he actually chose to withdraw. Thus, he’s really admitting that he was defeated. And as a response to this book, “The Talmud Jew”, and Block becomes a really important topic in the coffee houses of Vienna and in the coffee houses of Budapest. People are talking about it. And consequently, he’s got a new mission.

He decides he’s got to become political. Now, the richack, the Austrian parliament was very interesting because every national minority had seats in the richack. And basically later on, Hitler was going to call it a total rubble. And there were Jewish representatives. And what he decides he wants to do is actually become part of the Austrian parliament. And not only that, he wants to publish a liberal weekly where he’s going to put the case for the Jews. And he finds a sponsor, a Gentile, a very good liberal Gentile called Barron Scher. And he’s going to pay for him to uncompromisingly attack antisemitism and show how ludicrous it is. And Bloch also, he has a real go at the liberal Jews of Vienna. And he carries on the fight in the Austrian parliament. He’s a member three different times. And then there was another case where a man called Joseph Deckert, who was an Austrian Catholic priest, very much an antisemitic agitator, he also published the story of a blood libel. It was the story of Simon of Trent, another terrible blood libel back in Trento, which had been part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1742. And basically, he basically said it was still going on. Now, what happens is Bloch actually, he calls him out, he said, “Either confirm that the blood libel is real or withdraw.” And of course, the man had to withdraw. So Bloch is really standing up as a defender of his people. And this is actually a speech. Can we go back to Bloch’s face, please, Judy? This is some of the speeches he actually gave in the parliament. So he’s founded a weekly magazine, remember? And also, he wants to fight for Jewish rights, but he sees it within the struggle for other rights within the Austrian empire. He was a strong supporter of the Habsburgs.

So many Jews were. Franz Joseph, ironically, he becomes an emblem of many Jews living in the Austrian empire. This is one speech he made. Our clever politicians and able parliamentary men whose task, he’s talking about Jews, whose task it should have been to be the protagonist in the fight against the mediaeval ghosts, they who ought to have made fiery speeches with ardent words and savantry and ever spreading brutality who ought to have unrolled the glorious flag of Jewish humanity In the public assemblies, their eyes are blinded by the faithful nationalist strife, which makes men unfit to see or judge events correctly. They do not protect the cause of Judaism. They make matters worse. They forget that they were Jews and throw their enemies and thought therefore their enemies would not remember it either. He becomes a hero of particularly of the provincial Jewish communities. The Jews of Vienna in the main are trying very hard to be citizens of Vienna. It’s very complicated when you talk about identity in the Habsburg empire, when you get particularly after 1871, because, of course, in 1871, Bismarck unifies Germany and many Austrian, Germany-Austrians within the Empire turn to Germany. And how do the Jews fit in? I mean, cynics said the Jews probably were the only citizens of Vienna, because if you think about it, the Hungarians in Vienna, they wanted Hungary, the Czechs in Vienna wanted Czech independence. And so it went on. Anyway, he appeals to the Jewish public to create a self-defense organisation. He was so crossed with the Jewish leadership. He said, you are impotent in the face of antisemitism. He says this, all parties are in a state of war against us. Our leaders are sitting with folded arms leaving the rest of providence. And this was a talk he gave to an organisation called Kadima.

Kadima was a young Jewish students organisation in Vienna, which I’ll be talking about later on in the course. Hold your heads high, stand up for your rights. Take all the intellectual weapons at our disposal to fight the battle. And this was a speech he gave in the Austrian parliament. He’s defending the Talmud. He made a huge impression on many of the more liberal, non-Jewish deputies. In dealing with us Jews, now, this is very important, I want you all to listen to this very, very carefully. I’m sorry, I get very excited. In dealing with us Jews, all ideas of right and wrong, a virtue and vice are turned in reverse. That which is virtue in everyone else, when noticed in Jews becomes a vice. Gentleman, the aspiration towards culture is acknowledged to be a virtue. In Jews, it’s considered a crime. We are accused of sending a disproportionate number of children to school. What is a virtue to Christians is a vice for Jews. Nothing can help the Jew. He can never give satisfaction. If he spends too much, he is ostentatious. If too little, he is a miser. If he keeps aloof from political life, he is lacking in public spirit. If he takes part, he is an intruder. And then there was… This is by this time, liberal parliamentarians were laughing with him. If he joins the government, the Jews is always on the side of the pals that be. If he joins the opposition, he is an element of dissatisfaction in political life. And he said, national antisemitism is madness. And this is really… And he was given the standing ovation. This is the first time in the Austrian parliament that a Jewish deputy actually thrashed the antisemites. He received thousands of telegrams throughout the empire. He was constantly defending the Jews. There was another attack. There was an attack on Shaquita.

He had to defend them on that. Now, what about Zionism? What about Zionism? Because don’t forget that Theodore Herzl came to Vienna when he was 19 years old. He was at the university. And much more about him later on. But on the 5th of November, 1895 at one of those wonderful cafes in Vienna, Herzl and Samuel Bloch had a meeting. From the letters, we know that they very much liked each other. They very much respected each other. And they both believed that antisemitism was uniting Jews. Bloch actually went as far as to say the extraordinary intellectual achievements of the Jews in Vienna are a response and a consequence of Christian anti-Semitism. They push us forward. You know, this is a very interesting debate in Jewish history. Is anti-Semitism the key to Jewish survival? And he says, what happens is there’s a permanent challenge to the Jews. So as a response to that, we have to get sharper and sharper and unwittingly, our enemies have erected the foundations for our survival. Now, what is the key to Jewish survival? Bloch worries about this. He thinks about it, so does Herzl. Intellectuals. Intellectuals always thought about this. What is the key to Jewish survival? Think about it. Danger, opportunity. What does Jewish survival mean? Does it mean the survival of the Jew as an individual? Does it mean the survival of the Jewish people? But you see Herzl though, he respected Bloch, but he had no time for his battle with the antisemites. By the time they met, Herzl was more and more convinced that you would never change the attitude of the antisemites. He believed, to quote Pinsker, it’s a 2,000 year old disease and it is incurable. And he was already moving towards what becomes the Jewish state.

Because although Bloch had addressed Cadi Marr and he was sympathetic to the Zionist, he was not a Zionist. What he wanted was the Jews to live as loyal subjects of Franz Joseph with almost hyphenated identity within the empire. And he refused to regard the Jews as a separate nation, whereas Herzl did. But it’s fascinating that they both come together. Both of them despised the intellect, I suppose, the Jewish class in Vienna, which was trying so hard to be accepted. They said, you know, we have a great heritage too. So consequently, to go right back to the beginning, you have this extraordinary story of Eisenmenger who writes this book, which is ghastly in its time. It lies dormant and then it’s pulled up again by this man, Rohling, and it explodes into the anti-Semitism of the 19th century. But as I said, I did want to give you a hero. And to me, Rabbi Joseph Samuel Bloch is one of the special heroes. He survived until the ‘20s. To the end of his life, he was one of those really, really good men. During and after World War I, he worked on behalf of the masses of Galatian Jewish refugees who fled to the Austrian capital. Just think of the horror of the First World War. And he died in 1923. And his memoirs were published in German and later translated into English. If you can get hold of them, it’s really worth reading. I don’t know if they’re still in print, but who knows with the net, you might be able to get hold of them. And remember, he was a man of his time. You cannot predict the future. He looked at the facts as he saw them, the duality of life in Vienna. And think what he did in the Austrian parliament, he managed to get the non-Jewish deputies on their feets screaming for the Jewish cause. You know, it could have gone either way. So as William has said to you many times, you can’t use the past to predict the future. But what I think is fascinating that both Herzl and Bloch pointed to, which I do feel very strongly about, I think antisemitism has been one of the keys to Jewish survival. You just have to look what happened to the Jews of China. So let me stop there and let’s have a look at questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Yes, people are saying that the 92nd Street Y programmes are good. Oh my goodness. Tibo is asking for one book for an overview of these topics in period. For modern, Tibo thought, I would still go… There’s no book that gives you a full overview of the Jews of the Habsburg lands. I would recommend, because we are really coming into this in the next few weeks, Robert Wistrich, “The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph”. He won the Austrian State Prize for that. I think that’s the best book on it. Is Victor Eisenmenger a descendant? Do you know? I don’t know, Bruce. I don’t know.

Q: Is Arlene saying blood libel was still ?

A: Yes. Alive in the world.

And Mitzi is saying, charging the Talamud with anti-Christian prejudice, what amazing act of projection. There are some one or two passages in the Talmud which are not very favourable, but you’ve got to remember when it was written, but certainly not the kind of horror that Eisenmenger put forward.

Q: Who invented socialism?

A: That’s a very, very good question. Who invent? Well, you’d have to go back to Saint-Simon and Furier, the French Encyclopaedia. That’s where the roots are. But, of course, the man who pulled it all together, I suppose you would have to say it was Karl Marx, the grandson of rabbis on both sides, said his detractors.

Q: What is the English title of Eisenmenger’s book?

A: It’s “The Talmud Unmasked”.

Oh, this is interesting from Tibo. The 92nd Street Y cancelled longstanding lectures because of his disagreements with his recent intellectual activities. This is a clear case of censorship. Interesting. And also, his supposed involvement with Jeffrey Epstein. And don’t forget that William will be talking about woke. It’s fascinating this argument, isn’t it? I’m going to stand by Heinrich Heine. Any people who burns books will one day burn people. And it’s a fascinating question this. If you find someone’s arguments totally reprehensible, do you ban them? If they’re an incitement to race hatred, there are laws that cover it, if they’re enforced. It’s a very, very naughty problem of our time. And the question I ask myself sometimes is that I’ve always been speaking personally, I’m against any ideology which thinks it’s right against every other. I would prefer a far more nuanced approach to the world. And as I said, I’m lucky I come from that liberal generation that was educated in the late '60s, early '70s in London. If in Britain, if you were lucky enough to come from that world, you really did believe in the enlightenment. And you really did believe in freedom of speech. Now, it takes us into so many other areas, doesn’t it? It’s a very complicated one.

Mitzy, in the New Testament decentralises the Jews in one Jew is every Jew. When Jesus says, you’re of the father of the devil. Yes, look, Mitzi, Helen Fry dealt with this. The problem with going back to the Christian Bible, you’ve got to remember that it was written many years after Jesus’ death. St. John’s gospel was actually written about 110 years after Jesus’ death, by which time Christianity has been dejudaized. And the Jew, Christianity, by this time has superseded Judaism and, of course, has divorced itself from Judaism and the day side.

So yes, you do find some appalling texts in the Christian Bible. What are we going to do about it? We can’t ask them, can we to alter their texts? Can you imagine if we were asked to do the same? It’s how can we come live with each other, I suppose, in a very honest way. And yes, Mitzi, of course Dante place Judas in the lowest circuit of hell. Hyam Maccoby in his book, “Judas Iscariot and the Roots of Jewish Evil”, I think it’s called that, check the title. He actually believes that Judas was a contrived character to represent the Jew. I went to a wonderful Dura exhibition the other day and one of his paintings shows the Jews really hideous and there was a little plaque on the side explaining that. Yeah, the negative stereotype. There is not a positive image of a Jew anywhere in European culture until Lessing wrote his play, “The Jews”, in 1743. And it fails on the Berlin stage because no one remembers can imagine that a Jew is a hero. The first positive is Nathan the Wise. And please, don’t throw “Merchant of Venice” at me because I think Professor Piemer has dealt with that very well.

No, Switzerland was not part of the Habsburg empire. Why is there a blood libel at all? Lilly. Here, we have a lady who wants what? She believes in rationality. Yes, it is completely irrational. The origins of the blood libel I do know about pagan ritual. Pagans would sacrifice the child to the earth. It’s a horrific story. In fact, there are some who believe Stonehenge itself was sacrificial. And in the first three centuries before Christianity codified itself, the various cults would accuse each other of murdering babies and virgins. It’s this sort of holy blood. Anyone who knows anything about the Jews will know that blood is taboo. It’s first turned against the Jews when? It’s first turned against the Jews, remember in England, in 1144, the first blood libel. And when does it happen? It comes in an English Civil War when the Barons are in debt to the Jews and it happens at Easter, and that’s when it turns against the Jews and it becomes part of European history.

Q: Did Bloch? have any ?

A: Yes, Adrian. You asked that question before I talked about it. Yes.

Who are the heroes who raise up their voices today, such as against the big lie?

Well, that is the problem, isn’t it? We’re frightened. People are frightened of raising their voices because of losing their jobs, et cetera, et cetera. It’s inappropriate to bring politics on this thread. I don’t think I’m speaking politically actually. I’m not speaking politics.

Q: Did Eisenmenger start his 19 year study of Talamud with the sole purpose of attacking the Jews?

A: Yes, Susan, he did. Because he saw three Christians convert and upset him.

Yes, could somebody find… Elliot, could someone find out about the Eisenmenger syndrome? There’s a hole in the heart, or that’s clever. I like that. Rabbi Bloch sounds exactly like Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Michael, sometimes I agree with you. Did you mention that many Jews were in no board? Yes, and I’ll be talking about that again. My presentation on Monday is going to be about Maria… No, on Tuesday, William’s going to be talking about Maria Theresa and Joseph II. And I’m going to be talking about Maria Theresa and Joseph II and the Jews. And I’m going to be talking about that at that time. So let me go on.

Q: What happened to the Jews of China?

A: Howard’s answered that they assimilated and disappeared.

Q: Is Eisenmenger’s book still in print? Do you know?

A: I would imagine you can get it in obscure bookshops. I know Robert had a copy of it.

James Carol Constantine, sawed Adrian Wolf is recommending and Adrian’s a good historian, a history of church anti-Semitism.

This is from Ruth Dith. My father was a member of Kadima and said to me that little antisemitism is a good thing. Now I know why.

Q: Why is there no middle way to survival between antisemitism and total assimilation, including marrying up?

A: Ruth, if we could only answer that. No, you can walk both worlds, but it takes an incredible amount of effort. And I think one of the problems of walking both worlds, and I’ve been discussing this a lot with friends about their grandchildren, their children, they have to have both. They have to have a strong Jewish education that also means Jewish history. They have to have a great sense of self and they’ve got to know about the outside world, because never forget there is a lot that the outside world has to offer. And a lot of the outside world is very, very good. The question is, can we walk? I still think we have to walk a tightrope. It’s complicated, isn’t it? Whoever said it was going to be easy, I like that question, Ruth.

So your father was a member of Kadima. Jews flourished in the Ottoman Empire without antisemite. Yes, Joe. There’d be many periods in Jewish history that were good. When was the Ottoman Empire good. When it felt itself to be incredibly secure. Jews tended to live better under Islam than Christianity, but they couldn’t rule over Islam. It’s an important point that will come up, no doubt, when we look more at the Arab-Israeli conflict. The history of Jews in Arab lands is full of murder and anti-Semitism. When? Look, it depends who’s doing the comparison. If you look at the Ottoman Empire and you compare it with what’s happening in Christianity, I think you’ll find that the Ottoman Empire was better. But, of course, when you come to the modern period, it becomes appalling. And there were periods in Arab history, the Al Maha Days for example. Well, fanatical. And it was hard. You see this is the issue of the Jews surviving under other people. Are we a religion? Are we a nationality? Are we a people? Better is a relative word, yes. I think I’ve answered the story of the blood libel.

Look, Betty, may I suggest you read “The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph”?

Q: Any thoughts why there wasn’t the same kind of antisemitism in England in the 19th century?

A: Ian, that is a very, very long, complicated question. I have covered it actually. I’ve done a lot of settings on England. If you want me to be cynical, there were only 60,000 Jews living in England until 1880 and they came to England, the Sephardi, because they were useful. And England ruled the world before they came in any great number. There are more political questions about Trump.

Q: Was this the case in other Protestant states? What about Lutheran?

A: That’s a very important question, Ian. I think my answer to that would be that Lutheranism, there is terrible anti-Judaism, as you know. In the main, in the main, Protestantism was less horrific than Catholicism. But it depended whether it was threatened or not.

John Dunn preached the blood libel a few years before Shakespeare wrote . Yep. Look, it was part of folklore. It was… Look, just think about the… Those of you who love in the old days, remember we used to travel the capitals of Europe. We could look in the great churches. Look at the image of the Jew. It’s this negative stereotype. What are we going to do about it? Well, as I said to you, walking the tightrope, it’s not that comfortable. But I’ll tell you something. Personally, I find it quite satisfying. I like to be part of the outside world, but I also feel very much that I want to be part of the Jewish world as well. But it takes a lot of effort. And then how do we transmit it to our children? How do we transmit it to our grandchildren? Because there is so much positive in the Jewish experience.

Q: Was there a rebuttal to the protocols of the elders of Zion by Bloch or any of the other Vietnamese Jews? Did he specifically answer the protocols?

A: I’d have to check that for you, Robert. The protocols of the elders of Zion. There were rebuttals. There’d been a lot of court cases about the protocols actually, but it just hasn’t gone away, because look, think of the world we live in at the moment. Think of the world we live in. Don’t an awful lot of people believe in conspiracy theories. And the protocols of the elders of Zion is a butte. It’s basically that all the Jews of the world are plotting to take over the world, and it means that it covers everything basically. It is so ludicrous. You know, the notion of Jewish power never fails to astound me. The show must be one of the greatest examples of powerlessness in history.

Okay. This is Brian. I’m learning that Judaism teaches the town which not be talked to non-Jews. Assuming… I don’t know the answer to that, Brian, but I’m going to try and find out for you.

Q: What about Rembrandt painting?

A: Yes. Amsterdam was a beacon of light. I was talking about the written word, but yes, you are right. The Jewish bride and his other paintings. Yes. Yes, exactly. But that was in Amsterdam, and we discussed that a few weeks ago, how Amsterdam was becoming more and more liberal.

Q: Oh, this is from Tony. Austrian medical doctor, Victor Eisenmenger, was personal physician to Francis Ferdinand became famous. Is he a descendant of Eisenmenger?

A: I have no idea. You know, there’s a film called “The Illusionist”. It’s fact. It’s faction, but the Jewish hero in it is actually called Eisenmenger. So be careful.

Q: Can’t the blood libel will also be a deliberate inversion of the laws of .

A: Sure, yeah.

Q: Do we need anti-Semitism?

A: Monty, that was the question that Ruth brought up. Is anti-Semitism the key to Jewish survival? Is there someone on trial now for racial hatred for claiming that the grandfather disaster was a Jewish. I don’t know. I don’t know. But you see, this is the kind of conspiracy theory that you hear all the time. King John Sobieski was grateful to the Jews for saving Europe from the Ottoman Empire. He was very supportive of the Jews in his realm. His essence were constantly undermined by the Jesuits who were very powerful. Yeah, thank you for that. And she recommends Jacob’s books about the Frankies in Poland. Thank you very, very much for that. Yes. Look, you’ve got to remember that when he’s fighting the Jews of Poland, it’s the largest Jewish community in the world, but it’s at a time that it’s in decline. We visit. We visited town in China where still on the doors, but the resident didn’t know why. That’s interesting.

Oh, this is from Phil saying, my late father was born with Eisenmenger syndrome. Valerie, I’ve just heard about . Can you talk about that? It won’t be me, but I have a friend who is an absolute expert and I hope she’s listening.

Josephine, there was a stained glass window in Lincoln’s cathedral dedicated to a child who was said to be murdered by the Jews that was taken down in fairly recent times because of protest.

Oh, this is actually quite… Because I’m Jewish, I’m going to tell you a funny story. Yes, there was a blood libel in Lincoln. Sweet Hugh of Lincoln, which is immortalised in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, which is written when there are no Jews living in England. The plaque was taken down in 1959. And I remember Robert Wistrich, and I were on a tour and we went to Lincoln, and Robert demanded to see the original plaque and they became very, very embarrassed. So yeah, 1959, the plaque was removed. Monique, Henry Ford was successfully sued and forced to publish an apology. Yes, Monique, for the protocols. Yes, there were many court cases. There was one in Switzerland. There was one in South Africa against the protocols. I believe, high invites. Many gave evidence at that. Yeah, there’d been about half a dozen trials. But you see that’s the problem.

Oh, this is for those who are not South African. Kadima in Johannesburg is a marvellous Jewish charitable branch of the giving employment to physically, mentally restricted people, including people of all races. Thank you very much for that information.

Oh, this is Ilan. On an optimistic note, I was sent from Israel to speak on behalf of UJRA in the US after 67 and 73. I stopped in Vienna to see the trains coming and the Austrian soldiers on the platform were using Israeli machine guns. Isn’t it extraordinary how the world goes in circles?

This is Peter. I am racially Jewish for an atheist. My best friend has Catholic ancestry, but is also an atheist. Neither of us believe we have assimilated. I have not become Catholic. He has not become Jewish. We both believe we have philosophically evolved to identify with empiricism rather than with any ideology. Fine, fine. Philosophically involved, if only people, we could all evolve, that’s a… In hindsight, might it be better if Judaism was a proselytising religion? Oh, that’s a complicated one, isn’t it, Gay? Judaism is a proselytising religion. It’s much more complicated to be a Jew, I think, than to be a Muslim or a Christian in terms of the orthopraxy.

Q: Is there still a memorial for you in Lincoln Cathedral?

A: It’s been taken. Well, the plaque’s been taken down. And actually in 1965, all these blood libel saints were no, they’re not canonised anymore. That was in Nostra Aetate. Anyway, I think that’s all the questions. Yes. Yes, I think we finished all the questions. So Judy, are you there? Wendy, are you there?

• [Wendy] I’m here Trudy. Thank you so much.

• So shall we say goodnight everybody? And I’ll see you next week. And have a very good week and take care. Bye.

• [Wendy] Thank you, Trudy. Thanks. Bye-bye.

• [Trudy] Bye, darling.