Mark Twain and the Jews

Mark Twain was a literary giant, a great American humorist, essayist, and novelist.  Some have called him a friend to the Jews.  But others have said he was an anti-Semite.  I’ve read and heard both sides.  I set out to form my own opinion.  What I discovered was not straightforward.

In 1897, Mark Twain observed the Austrian parliament in session.  In a magazine article he wrote that its members came from all walks of life, all classes of society.  He added, “They are religious men, they are devoted, and they hate the Jews.” Subsequently, Mark Twain received a letter of inquiry.  “Now will you kindly tell me why, in your judgment, the Jews have thus ever been, and are even now in these days of supposed intelligence, the butt of baseless, vicious animosities?”  Mark Twain answered in an essay “Concerning the Jews,” published in 1899.

It is clear to me that Mark Twain was not anti-Semitic, certainly not when judged in the context of his times.  However, it is less clear that he was a friend.  There are no Jewish characters in any of his fiction.  Except for a single essay, there is little evidence that he gave much thought to the Jews, one way or another.  Mark Twain’s essay about the Jews was filled with respect and praise, but it was also filled with the biases and stereotypes that pervaded gentile America.

Mark Twain admired the strong Jewish family.  He praised Jewish support of charitable institutions.  He acknowledged the disproportionate contribution of Jews to art, literature, science, music, and medicine.

Unfortunately, in offering praise, Mark Twain often resorted to conventional stereotypes.  “The  Jews have the best average brain of any people in the world.  The Jews are the only race in the world who work wholly with their brains and never with their hands.”  Twain urged Jews to unite politically, writing that if Jews organized, as Zionist leader Dr. Theodor Herzl proposed, they would become a “concentration of the cunningest brains in the world.”

In his criticism of the Jews, Twain resorted to unflattering stereotypes.  He saw Jews as disinclined to fight as soldiers, and he repeated an old charge, “you feed on a country but don’t like to fight for it.”  Twain later wrote a gracious apology when he learned of the large number of Jews who had served, fought, and died in the Civil War.

Why are Jews hated?  Mark Twain wrote that economics, not religion, was the source of anti-Semitism.  Jews were hated most in the marketplace.  “The Jew is a money-getter:  and in getting his money he is a very serious obstruction to less capable neighbors."  Twain seemed to be commenting on the relatively affluent and assimilated German and Austrian Jews.  He said nothing about the millions of Jews living persecuted within the impoverished shtetls of Eastern Europe.

Tragically, mistakenly, Mark Twain showed little understanding about anti-Semitism and the vulnerability of the Jewish people.  On the eve of the 20^th century, speculating about their future, he wrote, “I do not think that the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed and raided.  Among the high civilizations, he seems to be very comfortably situated indeed.”