They are no nation, they are a kind of supranation, perhaps the anticipation of some future form of nation. The Jews have already lived through all the others: a state, wars, conquests, defeats. They have converted infidels with fire and sword, and many of them also have been converted to other religions, by fire and sword. They have lived through, and emerged from, their primitive periods of “national history” and “civic culture.” The only thing that was left to them is to suffer as strangers among strange peoples, because they are “different.” Their “nationalism” is of no material kind. There is not even an absolute physical identity in common; not even a fixed form of belief. The religion of their forefathers has softened into the common daily life of the descendants; it has become a way of life, of eating, of sleeping and sexual conjunction, of trading, or of working and studying. Only, the conditions of their external surroundings were more tempting and more binding than the laws that were left of their religion. It is impossible to adhere to these laws and live. And, above all the commandments of the Jewish faith, there is the supremely implacable commandment: to live. Every day demands a further concession. It’s not that they fall away from the faith of their fathers — their faith falls away from them. Or: It becomes sublimated in their descendants. It determines the way they think, act, and behave. Religiosity becomes an organic function of the individual Jew. A Jew fulfills his “religious duties,” even if he doesn’t fulfill them. Merely by being, he is religious. He is a Jew. Any other people would be required to affirm their “faith” or their “nationality.” The Jew’s affirmation is involuntary, automatic. He is marked, to the tenth generation. Wherever a Jew stops, a Wailing Wall goes up. Wherever a Jew settles down, a pogrom goes up. .
It should be understood, at long last, that Zionism can only be a bitter experiment, a temporary, opportune degradation of Judaism, or perhaps merely the reversion to a primal, long since outmoded, form of national existence. Maybe it has succeeded in arresting or delaying the “assimilation” of Jewish individuals or groups. But in return it seeks to assimilate an entire people. If it appeals to the warlike traditions of Judaism, then one should counter that the conquest of Canaan is less of an achievement than the Bible, the Psalms, and the Song of Songs; also, that the present of the Jews is greater, possibly, than their past: being more tragic. .
It might even be more “practical” in a “political” sense, if the young Jews who are “going back” to Palestine today, did so as the grandchildren not of the Maccabees, but of the priests and prophets. In the course of my wanderings through the Jewish ghetto in Berlin, I bought some Jewish nationalist newspapers from Eastern Europe. Their reporting of the fighting in Palestine was indistinguishable from the war reports we read in our German newspapers. In the same dreadful Borgis bold type, in comparison to which spilled human blood seems a pretty thin and inconsequential fluid, those Jewish nationalist newspapers report on the Jewish “victories over the Arabs.” And in the war correspondents’ familiar gobbledygook you could read, in appalling black on white, that these were, thank God, not pogroms, but honest- to-goodness “battles.” Here you could finally understand that the view of the Jews as cleverer than other peoples is erroneous. Not only are they not cleverer, they are even sometimes more stupid. They aren’t ahead of the times, but if anything lagging behind. They are aping the recently failed European ideologies. Now,
of all times, they are setting about their original Jewish
steel baths. Of course it’s only natural that they should put up a fight in Palestine. It’s too bad that they were attacked. But to have their heroism confirmed to them in the newspapers — having been uncommonly heroic over thousands of years without journalistic clichés — that furnishes final proof that there are no seven wise men of Zion directing the destiny of the Jewish people. No, there are several hundred thousand idiots of Zion, who have failed to understand the destiny of their people.
Das Tagebuch, September 14, 1929
Part III. Displaced Persons
6. Nights in Dives (1921)
The epicenter of the phenomenon known to us as the dive or joint is the Alexanderplatz station (exit Münzstrasse), from where it spreads over the east end of Berlin, and, from there, ultimately, over the rest of the world. It is also quite unthinkable without Neue Schönhauser Strasse, from whose cobblestones — as if they had been lampposts, or some other organic outgrowth of the street — arise pimps and their prostitutes, and the police station, whose gates are already locked and guarded by a couple of Berlin’s finest. What these two policemen are dreaming of is a cigarette (they aren’t allowed to smoke on duty) or an hour in a red-light bar, instead of a tart you can quickly feel up while her pimp is — unconscionably or conscientiously — detained in some gateway, tying up a cigarette deal. Nor can I imagine nights in dives without Weinmeisterstrasse, whose corners are always thick with bad characters. And certainly not without the police spy, in mufti but uniformed, incognito and unmistakable, the tips of his moustache giving away his loyal service and watchman’s vigilance, authority and certainty in his expression, looking out for anyone with any hesitation about him. And even if he were less obtrusive, better camouflaged than he is, I would still know him by his footfall and his expression, by the fearlessness of his looming up suddenly from a bar or a back wall. The others don’t have that fearlessness — they’re just bold as brass.
Café Dalles
The premises of the Café Dalles at 13 Neue Schönhauser Strasse used to be called the Angels’ Palace. Things change. For a time it was a public dining place, and I think that was probably its original function. Angels’ palaces don’t come purpose-built: Instead they come with long passages whose farther end, like a lake’s opposite shore, is obscured by clouds of smoke, and with another entrance on the left, which may have been used as a chambre séparée for after-hours angels, and today has a roulette table and roulette games on the walls, folksy glass-fronted cabinets, with hand-painted picture postcard backdrops, harmless playthings to encourage an underage public.
Kirsch the burglar and Tegeler Willy and Apache Fritz are sitting at a table together, while the policeman stands and watches. At the bottom of the well-like passage, Elli’s sitting on someone’s lap, because she’s got new stockings today. If you’ve got new stockings, you’ve got to show them off. Her little blond ringlets are combed down into her face. They hang there a little stiffly, like starched ruffles. I really think she wants nothing more from the world than to have half a kümmel inside her, and the knowledge that there is another half to come. Let her have it, please. My friend buys her some bread and butter. Now I think she’s happy beyond dreams. New stockings, a kümmel, and some bread and butter. It really is an angels’ palace.
Though I can’t say what terms Kirsch is on with the police just now — there seems to be a standoff with the policeman at least — Kirsch may be planning some new heist, or he’s talking about some perfectly innocent game of cards, or maybe he’s about to exit left, in the direction of the roulette table. To the right of the entrance, there’s someone playing the piano, and Kirsch passes the hat around for him. Maybe he feels he has to be involved in some way. Everyone gives him something, either out of respect or because they want to contribute, even if they can hardly hear the music. Its thin sounds come swaddled in cigar smoke like cotton wool.