The “Jewish” Spirit in Science

Abstract

IN July of last year, several correspondents sent us copies of an article entitled “Weisse Juden' in der Wissenschaft”, from the German periodical Das Schwarze Korps of July 15. The main theme of the article was that it was not sufficient to exclude all Jews from sharing in the political, cultural and economic life of the nation, but to exterminate the Jewish spirit, which is stated to be most clearly recognizable in the field of physics, and its most significant representative to be Prof. Einstein. “There is one sphere in particular,” the article says, “where we meet the spirit of the ‘White Jews’ in its most intensive form and where what is common between the outlook of the ‘White Jews’ and Jewish teaching and tradition, can be directly proved, namely, in Science. To purge science from this Jewish spirit is our most urgent task. For science represents the key position from which intellectual Judaism can always regain a significant influence on all spheres of national life. Thus it is characteristic that in a time which brings fresh tasks to German medicine and which awaits decisive achievements in the fields of heredity, race-hygiene and public health, our medical journals should, in the space of six months, publish from a total of 2,138 articles, 1,085 from foreign authors, including 116 from Russians of the U.S.S.R. These articles of foreign origin scarcely concern themselves with those problems which seem so urgent to us. Under cover of the term ‘exchange of experience’ there lurks that doctrine of the internationality of science which the Jewish spirit has always propagated, because it provides the basis for unlimited self-glorification.”