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203 Alfred Nossig (1864–1943) was born in Lemberg (Lvov), in Galicia. A writer, artist, and social scientist, he was also active in Zionist politics, first in Poland and then in Central Europe. He wrote poems, plays, and an opera libretto. He also received acclaim for his sculptures. Nossig was one of the earliest proponents and practioners of a Jewish social science. In 1902 he brought together individuals committed to the cultural wing of the Zionist movement in order to create a working group for a statistical study of the Jewish people. In 1904 this became the Bureau for Jewish Statistics in Berlin. Its journal, the Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, became one of the main venues for the publication of articles dealing with Jews and race. See the entry in the Encyclopedia Judaica, 2nd edition, 15:314. [i] The idea of the chosenness of the Jews and of its influence on their intellectual, moral, and physical development allows for a thoroughly different interpretation than that given it by Curt Michaelis in the previous issue of this journal.21 The subject is so comprehensive that I must confine myself to offering only highlights here. First of all, let us review Michaelis’s major points. According to the Jewish view of the world (Weltanschauung), on which their moral account of history rests, the history of the Jews is the product of a divine will. Even someone like Isaiah still was of this opinion, and thus barred his own Volk from taking an active role in world history. Modern historiography, influenced by the natural sciences, explains the fate of peoples as the product of their particular abilities and demands, always under the influence of heredity and adaptation. In Jewish 27 | The Chosenness of the Jews in the Light of Biology Alfred Nossig “Die Auserwältheit der Juden im Lichte der Biologie,” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden 1, no. 3 (1905): 1–5. 21. [Curt Michaelis, “Die jüdische Auserwählungsidee und ihre biologische Bedeutung ,” Zeitschrift für Demographie und Statistik der Juden, vol. 1, no. 2, 1905, pp. 1-4. Michaelis was a German anthropologist and ethnologist, and a proponent of antisemitism.] 204 | P O L I T I C S , P O L E M I C S , A N D A P O LO G E T I C S history, however, the influence of adaptation is nonexistent. For by virtue of the idea of chosenness—which, taken to this level of bizarre caricature, is an af- fliction particular to the Jews—their racial character has been condemned to eternal stagnation. Thus, the history of the Jews is only tradition, not progress. The idea of chosenness stems from the racial pride of the Jews. Emboldened by this concept, the racial pride of the Jews became biogenetically fatal. It brought about isolationism, strict laws of endogamy, and contempt, cruelty, and hate for all other peoples. For its practical realization, this relied on the primitive legal principle of “an eye for an eye.” Over the course of history, this principle was also applied to the one occupation open to the Jews—trade. The Jew became a haggler. This racial trait was passed on unalterably. This led to the confinement of the Jews in ghettos and is reflected in the low opinion that other nations have of the Jews. In this succession of thoughts and deductions, there is hardly a point that does not contradict the true historical facts and relations, and that cannot easily be refuted. It is not worth going into the conclusions in detail here. They exemplify a popular, long since refuted, anti-Jewish distortion of history. Every non-Jewish child educated without prejudices today knows that the Jews did not become “hagglers” because their law commanded it, but—as Michaelis himself says—because they were locked out of every means of livelihood other than trade. They were not confined to ghettos because they hated every other nation or people. On the contrary, if they were filled with resentment toward other peoples, it was a result of being treated so barbarically—a resentment, by the way, that, immediately upon [Jewish] emancipation, was replaced by a feeling of love and a hopelessly optimistic sense of solidarity with these peoples. But let us concern ourselves with the major points [of Michaelis’s argument]. Those researchers who wish to analyze the essence and the history of Jewry from a...

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