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Esperanto and the Jewish Brand of Universalism that Produced It

Oct. 31 2016

In the 1880s, Ludwik Leyzer Zamenhof, a Jewish ophthalmologist in Bialystok who had become disillusioned with Zionism, concluded that the problems of anti-Semitism, prejudice, racism, and war could all be solved were mankind to adopt a universal language. He proceeded to create Esperanto, a simplified tongue based primarily on the Romance languages but with heavy doses of German, Slavic, and even Yiddish. Soon there were publications and annual conferences. Both still exist today, though the movement never achieved the success Zamenhoff hoped for—as Esther Schor recounts in Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language. David Mikics writes in his review:

Zamenhof . . . wrote that “my Jewishness has been the main reason why, from earliest childhood, I gave myself completely to one crucial idea, one dream—the dream of the unity of humankind.” . . .

In 1901, Zamenhof unveiled a universal ethics he called “Hillelism,” to be spread by Esperanto speakers. . . Like those contemporary American Jews who define Jewishness as the devotion to social justice, Zamenhof was straddling a fence. If Jewish tradition was an anachronism, [as Zamenhof firmly believed], why name his universal ethics after the sage Hillel? Judaism could only conquer if the Jews themselves disappeared qua Jews, Zamenhof seemed to be implying. . . . He thought that non-Jews would adopt Jewish moral seriousness if only Jews could divest themselves of nationhood, religion, and cultural identity. To put it mildly, the 20th century did not validate this highly paradoxical fantasy. Zamenhof’s own daughters were murdered in Auschwitz. . . .

[Zamenhof] lived long enough to see anti-Semitic polemics appear in a Polish Esperanto journal called Pola Esperantisto. Zamenhof wrote a letter to the editor condemning the articles, in which he remarked that “the entire sin of the Jews consists only in this, that Jews also want to live and have human rights.” But the editor rejected Zamenhof’s letter and continued on his path of Jew-hatred.

Read more at Tablet

More about: Anti-Semitism, East European Jewry, History & Ideas, Language, Universalism

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic