OWER : 
 
 Book by Lion Feuchtrvanger 
 BY MARTIN ZIELONKA 
 
 TEMPLE Mr. SINAI 
 EL PASO, TEXAS
 
 Stack 
 Annex
 
 " 
 
 POWER 
 
 Book by Lion Feuchtwanger 
 By Martin Zielonka 
 
 It might be well to understand 
 what kind of a man Feuchtwanger 
 the author of "Power" is before we 
 consider the book. After all, we can 
 learn much by such an enterprise. 
 When asked, "Do you consider your- 
 self a Jewish or a German writer?" 
 he answered "Neither, but an in- 
 ternational writer whose form has 
 been determined by German influ- 
 ences while his mentality is Jewish." 
 When asked about prevailing anti- 
 semitism his answer was "It would 
 be better if Jews did not take too 
 much notice of Anti-Semites. We 
 must not take too much notice of - 
 Jew haters, because if we do we make 
 them feel important." And when 
 questioned about the course of action 
 for the Jew scattered over the world, 
 his answer was "The essence of the 
 Jewish position is that of being con- 
 sidered an intermediary between Eu- 
 rope and Asia, between Power and 
 Re ignation. I have tried to picture 
 this aspect of Jewish destiny in 
 "Jew Suess" putting a man between 
 Power and i'.s contrary Resignation. 
 It is the fate of the Jew to be so 
 placed and I think because the Asi- 
 atic Influence must go on increas- 
 ing in the world that the position of 
 the Jew will be a favorable one; he 
 has an advantage both over other 
 Europeans and also over Asiatics. 
 That of course implies a cultural 
 and not a political mission." 
 
 This statement gives us the 
 "theme" of Power, the book we want 
 to consider tonight. It gives ug the 
 thought that compelled the author 
 in the writing of the same and it is 
 therefore the thought that we ought 
 to consider. 
 
 What attitude should the Jew take 
 towards the persons and the environ- 
 ment into which he has been born. 
 Even if Zionism were realized be- 
 beyond the wildest dreams of its
 
 most enthusiastic workers, Zion would 
 only supply a foothold for a small 
 percentage of the Jews of the world. 
 The overwhelming majority would be 
 forced to earn a livlihood and estab- 
 lish homes in the socalled Golus 
 lands. This being a fact, then the 
 question naturally arises, since the 
 Jew will always be a small minority 
 in the vast crowds where he may 
 make his home, what attitude of life 
 should he assume in this crowd? For 
 it must be admitted that by his in- 
 nate ability, an ability forced upon 
 him by centuries of persecution, he 
 will rise above the level of his sur- 
 roundings. His ability as a trader 
 will assure him an income that will 
 not only meet his immediate needs, 
 but will give him sufficient to pur- 
 chase some of the luxuries of life, 
 and having purchased these luxuries 
 he will have an oppoi-tunity to display 
 them to the nublic in such a way as 
 to arouse envy and jealousy. Having 
 acquired more than the bare neces- 
 sities of life it is only natural that 
 he should seek to lavish these upon 
 his family and allow this children a 
 higher standard of living and cul- 
 ture than was granted to the mem- 
 bers of his own generation. 
 
 Being gifted with brain power, the 
 inheritance of countless generations 
 of Talmud studying forbears, it is 
 only natural that he should push for- 
 ward in those learned professions, 
 such as law and medicine, where indi- 
 vidual initiative joined to intensive 
 training, will lead him to leadership 
 and thus, as a leader, become the tar- 
 get of the petty spite and jealousy 
 of those who lack this native ability 
 cr have not the will-power to con- 
 quer obstacles. 
 
 Recognizing these facts as axioms 
 (and a study of the Jew in any coun- 
 try of the world will prove them ax- 
 ioms) the question naturally arises, 
 shall the Jew shun these possibili- 
 ties of a broader life, or to put it in 
 a more exact form, shall he hide his 
 potentialities in the limited circle of 
 his co-religionists or blaze them forth 
 to the world at large?
 
 His success will give him Power, 
 it will give him Position, it will give 
 him a Key place in his community, 
 shall this be used quietly or shall it 
 be paraded and thus arouse antag- 
 onism? 
 
 These are the questions that Fe- 
 uchtwanger seeks to answer and he 
 presents the two possible views in two 
 contrasting characters. 
 
 Isaac Simon Landauer, Court Tre- 
 osurer of the Duchy of Wurtenberg, 
 presents one answer. He is a man of 
 power. He is the intimate of nobles. 
 They come to him for loans to meet 
 their "debts of honor," even as gov- 
 ernments come to him to get money 
 , necessary to carry on wars. He is 
 the confidant of many; they have full 
 confidence in him; they trust him 
 with their fortunes, knowing that he 
 will deposit these in foreign lands out 
 of reach of zealous government offi- 
 cials or else he will invest these ad- 
 vantageously and turn over the pro- 
 fits or the capital as they may de- 
 sire. And yet he does not show him- 
 self at public functions, he does not 
 accept their invitations to dine, he 
 does not meet with them *o discuss 
 affairs of state. He is the power 
 behind the throne that casts no shad- 
 ow anywhere: he wears the clothes 
 in which other Jews pass along the 
 street: he wears the Jew-badge pre- 
 scribed by law and even if he did 
 not wear these he would be recogniz- 
 ed by the long-ear locks that are the 
 badge of male Jewry. In the words 
 of our author "He knew that there 
 was only one reality in the world 
 money. War and Peace, life and 
 death, the virtue of women, the 
 Pope's power to bind or to loose, 
 the Estates enthusiasm for liberty, 
 the purity of the Augsburg Confes- 
 sion, the ships on the sea, the co- 
 ercive power of princes, the Christ- 
 ianizing of the New World, love, pi- 
 ety, cowardice, wantoness, blasphemy, 
 and virtue they were all derived 
 from money and they would all turn 
 to money and they could all be ex- 
 pressed in plain figures." That was 
 his philosophy of life as a Jew, liv- 
 ing in an age and a country where
 
 the Jew had no rights except those 
 that he purchased and where he did 
 not know how long those rights might 
 be respected. We may say that it is 
 not a very exalted philosophy of 
 life, one that may not suit our en- 
 vironment, but it was a real prag- 
 matic philosophy it worked. As he 
 watched his friend Reb Joseph Suss 
 he could well say that the latter 
 "did not understand the refined pleas- 
 ure of keeping power secret, of poss- 
 essing it without betraying it and the 
 still more refined pleasure of relish- 
 ing its flavor quietly and exclusive- 
 ly by oneself." He enjoyed that 
 "refined pleasure" and he would not 
 exchange it for the glamor of the 
 court; "he relished its flavor" even 
 though the mob "spat upon his Jew- 
 ish gaberdine." 
 
 Representing the opposite view 
 point was Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, 
 Chief Mininster of Finance of the 
 Palatinate and Treasury Agent of 
 the Spiritual Princes of Cologne. His 
 philosophy of life was that "a Jew 
 today, if he only set about it in a 
 politic manner, could sit down to 
 table with great noblemen. Was not 
 his great-uncle the Viennese Oppen- 
 heimer in a position to boast in the 
 emperor's presence that the victory 
 of the Imperial arms against the 
 Turks was in a great part due to this 
 Jew's assistance?" 
 
 The story of the book is the con- 
 tinued contrast between these two 
 conceptions of Power. 
 
 According to the Jewish Encyclo- 
 pedia Joseph Suss Oppenheimer was 
 the son of R. Issacher Susskind Op- 
 penheimer, a singer and leader of a 
 wandering troupe of singers and 
 players, and Michele the daughter of 
 R. Salomon of Frankfort a/M. He 
 had a brother and sister; who em- 
 braced Christianity and adopted the 
 name Tauffenberger, while Joseph 
 remained faithful to Judaism, re- 
 sisted every effort to force him to 
 apostacy and died with the Sh'ma up- 
 on his lips. 
 
 According to this novel, Joseph 
 was the illegitimate son of Baron 
 and Field Marshall Heydersdorff and
 
 all his extravagances should be trac- 
 ed to this birth. How much histori- 
 cal matter the author had at his dis- 
 posal that was not at the disposal of 
 the writer of the article in the Ency- 
 clopedia I do not know. In spite of 
 the fact that Feuchtwanger has rec- 
 ently said "The publication of the 
 chief Tuebingen documents of the 
 trial of the Jew Suess was forbidden 
 under the Monarchy. The documents 
 had not been published when the 
 book was written, but the se now pub- 
 lished make the presumption very 
 strong that he was the Marshall's 
 son" in spite of this statement, it 
 seems hardly reasonable that he 
 should not have accepted the easy 
 way out, apostasy, just as his brother 
 and sister had done, if he felt there 
 was any doubt about his Jewish or- 
 igin. It seems rather more reason- 
 able to believe that he was the son 
 of a wandering singer and from this 
 singer inherited the love for display 
 even as Heine inherited the same 
 characteristic, the love for the gaudy 
 and a love for the luxuries, from a 
 father of like temperament. 
 
 I shall not enter into the story of 
 the book. It is that of a swash- 
 buckler Jew who takes his place 
 among the nobility and arouses their 
 envy. Of one, whose financial gen- 
 ius brings added income to his patron 
 and because of this income the lat- 
 ter overlooks his many faults; of one 
 who devises devious methods for 
 increasing this income when addi- 
 tional funds are needed and, by these 
 added imposts, increasing the jeal- 
 ousy, discontent and rancor of the 
 masses. Be it a monopoly on chim- 
 ney-sweeping, wine or tobacco handl- 
 ing, he knew how to get the largest 
 returns; be it a change in the coin- 
 age of the realm, he knew how to 
 safe guard same and yet make the 
 largest profit; be it the sale of 
 offices in the state, he knew how to 
 wring the last penny from every ap- 
 plicant, and at the same time he knew 
 how to retain the confidence of his 
 monarch so that the latter issued pub- 
 lic decrees announcing to the public 
 that all rumors were false and that
 
 his confidence in his financial advisor 
 was unshaken. 
 
 And yet, while he enjoyed the so- 
 ciety of the court and especially of 
 the women of the court, while he 
 proudly took his place with the not- 
 ables, he hid away in an obscure place 
 his one priceless treasure, a young 
 daughter, who was growing into 
 young womanhood. He did not want 
 her to taste of Power; he wanted her 
 safeguarded by Resignation to a life 
 far from the turmoil of life and 
 under the supervision of a good wom- 
 an. She was the apple of his eye, 
 and to her he fled quietly when the 
 howl of the mob rose against him. 
 He thought she was safe, but the 
 Duke had accidently run across her 
 on his wanderings incognito. He had 
 become enamored of her: he wanted 
 to add her to his many conquests of 
 women. He pursued her to such an 
 extent that in desperation she com- 
 mitted suicide. "Before the Duke, 
 he (Suss) succeeded in being cour- 
 teous and self-possessed. Alone, he 
 splintered like a piece of glass. The 
 Jew was too much for him. Again the 
 Jew had won. The child was dead. 
 She was not smirched, defiled, crush- 
 ed: she was simply dead: she had 
 escaped unsullied and from the 
 height smiled a lovely apparition. The 
 Jew was no rediculous crumpled 
 beaten pander like him, the Jew was 
 tragic, almost a martyr, his jewel was 
 not tarnished and beslimed." 
 
 This incident changed his nature. 
 He was a beaten man, but he dare 
 not show this in public. The secret 
 urge of his life had disappeared. 
 There was no longer pleasure in the 
 vanities of life. And so when oppos- 
 ition again rose against him, he had 
 not the power to fight back. Being 
 exonerated by his monarch, he asked 
 permission to resign and to re. ire 
 from public life. The scar was great- 
 er than he could bear. But before 
 retiring, his monarch asked him to 
 spend his last night at the palace. 
 And then another tragedy overtook 
 him. 
 
 During that night the Duke be- 
 came seriously ill and finally died.
 
 While he in his death throes Suss 
 finally gives expression to his inner- 
 most thought. He speaks to the dic- 
 ing man, so that he may know this 
 though! "Duke! Brute and simple- 
 ton of a Duke! Stupid, block head 
 Karl Alexander! Now you would 
 stop your ears, wouldn't you? You 
 would like to clear out and hear no 
 more? You would like to pray and 
 get absolution from your confessor, 
 and have the oil of grace trickled 
 over you? But I won't grant you 
 that. I won't let you die until you 
 have listened to me. Roll your eyes as 
 you may, and rattle your lungs, you'll 
 have to listen ! I am speaking quite 
 low, without raising my voice, but 
 what I say is filling your ears and 
 your shameless vilent heart. And you 
 must keep quite still and you dare 
 not die yet, and you have to listen." 
 The crushed heart of a father has 
 thrown all precaution to the wind. He 
 does not realize his own jeopardy, he 
 does not see what a queer prank fate 
 has played him. The palace is in a 
 turmoil: the Duke had died without 
 benefit of clergy. The Jew Suess is 
 the first to realize the skua ion and he 
 turns to Major Roder "You do not 
 see quite clearly, Major, what is to 
 be done in this unusual situation?" 
 And being tired of life and its pomp 
 he tells him "Arrest me: and then you 
 are safe whoever comes out ontop." 
 Suess is arrested for the death of the 
 Duke: all the Jews of Stuttgart are 
 arrested. Suess is put on trial. "They 
 found the Jew guilty of innumerable 
 crimes against the Duke." "The Jew 
 must hang" was the formula of the 
 prosecution. "The Jew must hang" 
 was thudered in parliament and its 
 pulpits, "The Jew must hang" roar- 
 ed the mob. The Duke Regent refers 
 the transcript of the trial to Johan.i 
 Daniel Harprecht, who reported-- 
 "that the accused could not be sen- 
 tenced to death on the basis of the 
 existing laws of the Roman Empire 
 and of the Duchy: What he had un- 
 lawfully acquired should be confis- 
 cated and he should be banished from 
 the country." "You think then that 
 the Commission has sentenced the
 
 Jew rather than the scoundrel?" he 
 is asked and he answers "Yes." The 
 next day the death sentence is signed 
 for it was "better to hang the Jew 
 unjustly than to spare his life just- 
 ly and have more trouble brewing in 
 the land. 
 
 His friends seek to purchase his 
 release by repaying all losses but the 
 offer is refused. Opportunities are 
 given to him to escape but he refuses. 
 Life holds no pleasure for him. His 
 jewel had been taken from him: he 
 had avenged her death in his talk 
 to the dieing Duke: he was ready to 
 die. He is placed in a cage and that 
 cage was to hold his body as it was 
 supended in the air. When the deed 
 was done Karl Rudolph recognized 
 that it was judicial murder "I had to 
 do it. I am ashamed of myself, gen- 
 tlemen," and posterity has concur- 
 red in this verdict. 
 
 Perhaps the last scene is best de- 
 scribed in Feuchtwanger's own words 
 "Ihrough the empty and cruel 
 hubbub there soared another sound, 
 the sound of loud guttural voices 
 crying, "One and Eternal is the God 
 of Israel, Jehovah, Adonai, the Ever- 
 lasting, the Infinite. It is the Jews, 
 the small Jaakob Joshua Falk, the 
 burly rabbi of Furth, the shabby 
 Isaac Landauer. They are standing 
 wrapped in their praying cloaks, 
 they and seven others, making ten as 
 is prescribed: they pay no heed to the 
 crowd, which turns their eyes away 
 from the gallows towards them: they 
 sway their bodies wildly and they 
 stand crying, shrilling, wailing, the 
 prayer for the dying, clear over the 
 broad square, "Hear, Israel, One 
 and Eternal is Jehovah Adonai." The 
 words mount from their lips as white 
 vapor in the strong frost, up to the 
 ears of the man in the cage and the 
 son of Marshall Heydersdorff opens 
 his mouth and cries in answer, "One 
 and Eternal is Jehovah Adonai." 
 
 During the night the body is stol- 
 en from the cage and another is sub- 
 stituted. His co-reiigionists did not 
 want the body mutilated any fur- 
 ther. It is smuggled to Furth, and 
 there laid to rest. 
 
 8
 
 Thus ends the story of one of those 
 remarkable characters that rise now 
 and then among the Jewish people. 
 Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, who re- 
 mained a Jew but did not desire to 
 suffer the restrictions placed upon 
 the Jews of his day. For the latter 
 he paid the penalty and from his life 
 story we gain an insight into the 
 proper place of the Jew in the Go- 
 lus lands! Shall he seek Power, and 
 having gained it, display it to the 
 world? Or shall he practice Resig- 
 nation, while enjoying "the refined 
 pleasure of keeping power secret, of 
 possessing it without betraying it and 
 the still more refined pleasure of 
 relishing its flavor quietly and ex- 
 clusively?" Is it the destiny of the 
 Jew to present to power-loving Eu- 
 rope, the sublime Resignation of 
 Asia and by combining the two pre- 
 sent to the world of tomorrow a fin- 
 er fruitage than it has known here- 
 tofore? That is the question we must 
 ask ourselves and that is the ques- 
 tion we must put to every follower 
 of our faith who, by his I ragging and 
 loud living, calls in question the gen- 
 teelness of our heritage. Amen.
 
 UNIV. OF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANC
 
 A 000 075 262 6