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Nordau’s analysis of the Jewish psyche is one of victimhood: “Everywhere, where the Jews have settled in comparatively large numbers among the nations, Jewish misery prevails” (Nordau, 1897, p. 1). The Jew is described as being without a home, a land, a nation, a state of his own. Even when he has been emancipated in a country, it has only been by legal terms and not by sentiment: he is still regarded socially as a pariah, an outsider, something foreign to the national body politic. Thus the psyche of the Jew is “Ghetto”—i.e., filled with “shame” and “humiliation” (Nordau, 1897, p. 3). Every Jew is thus psychologically oppressed, downtrodden and crushed and lives in a state of abject misery.
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Nordau compares the Jews to other racial groups by show that only the Jew is barred from polite society: “No Jews Allowed” is the sign they see posted everywhere (Nordau, 1897, p. 4). He could act Italian or French or German on the outside, but on the inside it was known among one and all that he was not of these nationalities or ethnicities. For the Jew was considered by the other races as lacking in honor and honesty (Nordau, 1897, p. 1). The Jew, however, in Nordau’s eyes is still a human being and as a result he deserves his own home land, his own place where he will no longer be marginalized or rejected. The Jews are like a race of people who are permitted to live among others but who are not recognized as equals.
References
Nordau, M. (1897). On the General Situation of the Jews Address to the First Zionist Congress Basel, Switzerland – August 29, 1897
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