The Jewish Problem

by Bruno Bauer

This reprint is of a very scarce historic document by a prominent Rationalist German philosopher.

56 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2000

About the author

In 1809, Bruno Bauer was born in Germany. Educated at Berlin University, the biblical critic was appointed a teacher of theology. He became professor at Bonn in 1839 but lost his chair in 1842 because of his rationalist views. "In his numerous historical and Scriptural works Bauer rejects all supernatural religion, and represents Christianity as a natural product of the mingling of the Stoic and Alexandrian philosophies," wrote freethought historian Joseph McCabe (A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists.) D. 1882.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bauer

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bauer/

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...

http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmv...

http://www.robertmprice.mindvendor.co...

http://libcom.org/library/bauer-marx-...

Reviews

[AHW · Rating 1 out of 5]

A trivial liberal-Hegelian antisemitic tract, replete with the familiar traits of liberal bigotry against oppressed groups: "but gentiles suffer under the Christian state too!," both-sidesism, complaining of the oppressed group's "special privileges," "they refuse to assimilate to the norms of our society," nationalist bile about the health of the state - and two special markers of antisemitism: "the Jews control us with their money" and "the Jews regard themselves as a special nation that does not need to recognize the laws of other nations." One can recognize the heritage of this reasoning in the racist screaming about immigrants bringing in sharia law, in the neoconservative (again, liberal Hegelian!) "clash of civilizations" thesis, in moaning about the "special privileges" that reformers want to give to LGBT people, non-white people and women, in transphobes pissing themselves about trans people trying to impose a foreign view of life divorced from reality on them by asking to be treated with basic human decency, and so on.

Fascinating point- Bauer characterizes Jews as "oriental" in order to say that we are an unchanging irrational hive mind: we are, like imperial China, an example of the unchanging legalistic irrational Asian essence. This meshes perfectly with Zionist myths that treat "the Jews" and "the Arabs" as static hive minds at eternal war with each other, each of which has a single undying will - so that modern Crown Heights Ashenazim are acting as one with the subjects of Solomon and David.

Choice quotes from this ridiculous book:

“Do the Jews want to become "Citizens" in the Christian state? Ask first whether this state knows "citizens" or only subjects; whether the Jewish quarter is a contradiction if the subjects are divided into special estates according to privilege; whether it would even be remarkable if the Jews were commanded to wear special
attire or special badges, if even the estates when formally represent­ed must wear different clothes.”

“If the Law is to be maintained and Judaism as auch kept alive, then Rabbinic Judaism is the true form of the Law, and life in prison the true fulfillment of the Law.”

“Actually, every scientific exploration or their character is an attack on their privilege, an attempt to deprive them of their happiness, and an annoyance, because their nature is satis­taction or their own personal need and is never looked at as a
free, general character apart trom the anxiety and need of per­sonal self-preservation. They are not free because they never allow themselves freedom.”

*Die Judenfrage* is of historical interest; Marx and Engels established their line of thinking partly by rebutting it and Bauer generally, in *The Holy Family*, "On the Jewish Question" (which is a retort against Bauer's antisemitism), and *The German Ideology*. Those interested in the roots of Marxism, the history of antisemitism and bourgeois atheism (whose representatives now inveigh against Muslims instead of Jews), roots of Zionist crypto-antisemitism, and ideological precedents for the Holocaust should read this.