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The Jewish Ethic and the Spirit of Socialism (review)

The Jewish Ethic and the Spirit of Socialism, by Adam M. WeisbergerThe question raised by Professor Weisberger is a perennial one: How are we to explain the fact that significant numbers of German Jews played prominent roles in the German socialist movement? Weisberger concentrates primarily on the Wilhelmine period, and emphasizes both that German Jews were marginal and that they were influenced by messianic traditions. "Marginality constituted the structural location from which Jews were able to make a commitment to socialism, as the means by which to go beyond their ambiguous position. Secular messianism represented the chief symbolic element upon which Jews drew to legitimize and energize this commitment" (pp. 56-57). The thesis is certainly plausible and helps to explain the views and activities of any number of well-known figures, including not only Gustav Landauer and Ernst Toiler (both of whom are discussed in Weisberger's work, and both of whom came to prominence at the very end of the period which Weisberger has studied most intensively), but also such figures as Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Leo Lowenthal, and Erich Fromm (who are mentioned in passing, or not discussed, in this book). Weisberger, however, attempts to go beyond earlier works which have discussed secular messianism and German Jewish socialists, such as those by Anson Rabinbach and Michael Lowy, by attempting to demonstrate that there are a number of variants of messianism evident in Jewish history -- including a rabbinic, a mystical, and an apocalyptic type -- and that differences paralleling these differences in the Jewish world are observable among Jews who were active in the German socialist world. Thus, according to Weisberger, figures such as Eduard Bernstein and Rosa Luxemburg are best explained by accenting those portions of their thought which purportedly resemble aspects of Jewish messianic traditions. Bernstein's ideas are described as containing "definite spiritual affinities or structural isomorphisms with traditional rabbinic Jewish messianism" (p. 140). From Weisberger's perspective "secular Jewish messianism constitutes the central Jewish element in Bernstein's socialism" (p. 144). Luxemburg, on the other hand, "occupies the prophetic category of secular socialist messianism" (p. 156), and the debates between Luxemburg and Bernstein are described as "a re-enactment of a traditional drama" that is, a re-enactment of debates within the Jewish world between rabbinic rationalism and advocates of apocalyptic revolt. I am unconvinced.My differences with Weisberger do not stem from a debate over whether figures like Landauer, Bernstein, and Luxemburg were influenced by their Jewish backgrounds, for this is not Weisberger's claim. I hasten to add, however, that not only Landauer but also Bernstein and Luxemburg were influenced by their Jewish family origins -- albeit in markedly different ways.My disagreement with Weisberger is also not based on what Luxemburg and Bernstein said or wrote about Jewish issues. I agree with Professor Weisberger that the structure of a person's thought may sometimes be more revealing than its specific content, and that the sources of an orientation may well not be known to the person holding that orientation. It ought to be stressed, however, that Luxemburg was a person of Jewish origin who lived in Germany, not a German Jew, and that the world view of East European Marxists of Jewish descent -- like Luxemburg -- was (in the words of Michael Lowy)"always rationalist, atheist, secular, Aufklarer, materialist. The Jewish religious tradition, the mysticism of the cabbala, Hasidism and messianism were of no interest to them. In their eyes, these were but obscurantist relics of the past, reactionary medieval ideologies which they had to be rid of as quickly as possible in favour of science, Enlightenment and progress" (Lowy, Redemption and Utopia, p. …