Jewish Success- A Sad Catch-22

People are unified by hatred. Hatred isn’t the only way, of course, but it’s a strong one. Germany shows this early and often. For example, the Franco-Prussian War meant German unification under Prussia. Even though Southern German states loathed that idea, they loathed the French even more. So they mobilized and helped crush Napoleon III’s France, rubbing salt in the wound with a declaration of unification in the Versailles Palace. Napoleon III himself knew France suffered from domestic ailments that only hawkish foreign policy could redeem. Uniting the people through hatred of outsiders is one thing, namely nationalism (jingoism). But when a war doesn’t seem imminent, people are prone to seek enemies within. This is where German anti-Semitism has its roots.
It’s interesting that Germany was not the European hotbed of anti-Semitism in the late 19th century. Kitchen notes that “France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary far outbid Germany as centers of anti-Semitism, and the sneaky underhanded English brand of anti-Semitism was probably even more pernicious.” This conjures images of Russian pogroms and the notorious Dreyfus Affair. Jews were protected by the law in Germany, and were thus able to make their way up the social ladder through institutions like banking, the stock market, and the media. In 1908, 10 of the top 11 wealthiest citizens of Berlin were Jewish.
In a cruel catch-22, it is that very allowance of capital gain that spawned hatred for the German Jew. A successful community that always has the label of “the other” will naturally garner envy and insecurity. Envy and insecurity lead to fear, and fear leads to hatemongering. The mongering took off with a new kind of scientific anti-Semitism, which took the place of the traditional religious brand. Eugen Duhring’s ”The Jewish Question as a Racial, Moral and Cultural Problem,” published in 1881, embodies such ridiculous pseudo-science, in which the Jewish populace is viewed as biologically threatening. The classic role of scapegoat was also quite prominent. Jewish speculators were blamed for the 1874 stock exchange crash, and capitalism itself was denounced as Jewish. Fear of modernity led to hatred of the Jew.
Despite isolated violence, and the anti-Semitic theorizing of the day, the German Jewish community was doing well up to and after the turn of the 19th century, as “their rights were guaranteed by the law, upheld by the government, and supported by most political parties.” German Jews achieved prominence in society and wealth, embracing their German heritage all the while. Their success and doom rings of the government’s relaxation and censorship of years prior. The door was opened, (relaxation) and many Jewish people took advantage, becoming the wealthy sector that they did. Once they became wealthy, jealousy pervaded and they became the scapegoat for social ills. Needless to say, the turn the resulting “censorship” took has become the archetype of all historical horror.