at the beginning of the war there were many who ascribed the world conflagration to a conflict of races. at present there are many who would either belittle the rôle of race as a factor in history or eliminate it altogether. these people describe the theories of race as "race mythology" and consider them the invention of scholars rather than facts of objective reality.
among a certain section of the jewish people this negation of race theories is very popular. if there are not races in this world, then assimilation is the easiest and best way to solve the jewish question.
it may or may not be true that race is a biological category, but it is true beyond a doubt that the consciousness of race among all peoples always was and will be an historic factor of prime importance. therefore, it matters little whether or not race is a biological fact. history and its interpretation are concerned only with consciousness of race.
if consciousness of race were to be recognized only because it exists and has always existed, people might say: "so other superstitions have likewise existed." the fact, however, is that the consciousness of race has a definite psychological basis, although we know next to nothing about its biological foundation. we see that the co-existence of like individuals in a definite place and during a long period of time, who are held together by a common ancestry, by a common destiny and interest, and the interaction resulting from such co-existence produces new phenomena and radiates creative energies which cannot be simply reduced to the qualities and forces of the individual minds. these energies radiating from the co-existence of a group of individuals are new, original and creative. they are more than actualized potentialities, and are to the individuals sharing in the co-existence as are sounds which the great artist draws from the violin to the violin itself. the energies emanating from this co-existence often assume shape and form which differ from the energies of the separate individuals. they appear rather one-sided and unbalanced. for instance, the separate individuals have[59] about an equally large or small amount of religious or æsthetic desire, an equally large or small sense of justice or morality.
if the energies radiating from the co-existence would comprise and express the will of the individuals only, the culture of the ethnic group would necessarily consist of equal portions and exhibit a proportionate amount of logic, aesthetics and ethics. but we see that every great culture gravitates in a certain direction. hellenism tends towards the artistic-philosophical, judaism towards the religious-ethical, and romanism towards the political-legal. we thus see that the manifestation of the mind of the race being one-sided is more than the sum total of the expression of all the individual members of the race, and as soon as we recognize a certain psychological or psychical unity, of a certain group of people, we must also recognize that this unity is modeled and shaped by time. in course of time this psychological or psychical unit becomes enveloped in traditions and experiences which make it stronger from day to day. as in biology many think that the function in time creates an organ, so the new energies radiating from the co-existence of a group of people become in course of time something organic in the mind of those people. this is the psychological basis of race consciousness and since earliest time the various peoples, all of whom had an outspoken race consciousness except those savages who cannot count, have recognized or felt that their consciousness of race was more than belief—that it was a psychological reality.
of all the ancient peoples none had more marked race consciousness and racial feeling than the jews and greeks. it is very characteristic of greek race consciousness that greek philosophers, when discussing ethical or political subjects, have only the hellenic people in mind. their notions of justice and peace were applied only to the hellenic people. the ancient jews were not so one-sided. yet they, too, had a well developed race consciousness which showed not merely in the religious idea that they were the chosen people, but in a very general acceptance of the belief that they were a distinct unit. even the call to righteousness uttered by the prophet is colored by racial motives: "hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness; ye that seek the lord. look unto the rock whence ye are hewn and to the[61] hole of the pit whence ye are digged." another of the prophets, ezekiel, even speculated as to the origin of the jewish race. all the terms, ger, nakhri, akum and others used by ancient jews to describe non-believers characterized non-jews with reference to race also. the feeling of racial consciousness among jews to the present day and the consciousness of the isolation of that race are best expressed in the popular hebrew term, "umoth ha-olam," the people of the world. the "umoth ha-olam" are the non-jews, as the "barbaroi" were the non-greeks. this throws light on the mental disposition of the jews. while, in the eyes of the greek, the non-greek is an inferior, being a "barbaros," in the eyes of the jews the non-jew is simply different and not necessarily inferior. even the term goy, which is so much abused by anti-semites, means only non-jew. but while the jew never held the non-jew in contempt merely for differences of race, he had always and still has intense feeling for his own race.
in theological periods of history the fight against judaism was perhaps a conflict of theologies only. today, however, a fight against judaism is inevitably a fight against the jewish race. in times of old the religious motives of judaism seem to have been the prime factors in jewish life. today the driving powers in jewish history are not so much religious as race and national consciousness. it is, therefore, characteristic of those jews whose jewish backbone is broken to deny the existence of the race and to scoff at race consciousness in general.
race consciousness is not a myth invented by the professors, but a fact of life.
