Someone in a posting on the WC-list has commented on Steiner's review in 1888 of the drama Homunculus by a Hamerling. It is commented on by Lorenzo Ravagli on another page on this site.

The Federation of Free Waldorf Schools in Germany has published a study, "Rassenideale sind der Niedergang der Menschheit" ("Racial ideals are the decline of humanity") by Hans-Jürgen Bader, Manfred Leist and Lorenzo Ravagli.

It investigates the by some made allegations of anti-Semitism in Anthroposophy, including the ones based on the review mentioned on the WC-list, in relation to Steiner's documented and general expressed views and standpoints in relation to Jewry, anti-Semitism and Zionism at different times in his life.

As is shown already in the essay by Ravagli, the study demonstrates that Steiner, in contrast to anti-Semitism and National Socialism, fully supported the wish and importance of Jewish assimilation in the countries where they lived, a view that was shared by the great majority of the Jews in the West at the time and all the way up to the Holocaust, 50 years after the review.

The term 'Jewry' in the sense of 'Jews' in the review must be understood in the context of this view of Steiner of the importance of integration of the Jews around the world in the respective countries in which they lived and that it was an unlucky fate of history that that not had been possible.

As in all conflicts, both parties mostly in different forms and to different extent have contributed to it. In the review, the subtext leans somewhat towards a critical view of Jewry to the extent that representatives of it has contributed to this ('Jewry still appears as a closed totality'). When commenting on it in another context he points to anti-Semitism as a main contributing factor in the development of Zionism out of the at times extensive difficulties in assimilating into different countries.

One central inherent potential and partly actualized development of Jewry in the sense of Jews is that of as vanguards of humanity contributing to our ever greater liberation from all forms of bonds to nationality as a way we all ever more have the task to go into the future. On this path, assimilation into different countries is just a transitory stage, but important in contributing to the liberating of also other people from thinking in 'national' terms and enlarging it into thinking in global terms.

To that extent, assimilation into other still existing 'nations' constitutes a form of sacrifice, that anti-Semitism partly has made very difficult to fulfil. Zionism is the counterpicture to this anti-Semitism, both being based on untimely thinking in terms of ethnicity and nationality.

As to Jewry in the sense of Judaism, that Steiner also refers to in the review ('less than positive for Western cultural ideas'), the review makes it clear that it refers to Judaism to the extent that it represents an ethics based on moral precepts, based on revelation and as something given to man from outside, something that Steiner also criticized in Christianity to the extent that it appeared there, and in Kant.

The same criticism can be expressed in relation to fundamentalist Islam, making people uncompromisingly obey external 'authorities' as something standing above man's own individual judgement of what is right and wrong.

The study on an alleged anti-Semitism of Rudolf Steiner, "Racial ideals are the decline of humanity" (still only published in German), has been translated and will be published in English probably before the end of the year. 

A Marcus Schroll, Assistant Rabbi of the Jewish Congregation in Düsseldorf comments on it: "This study can be described as really penetrating and well founded and disproves the stupid accusations of incompetent and destructive persons, who - if they have done it at all - only have taken a superficial interest in the documented sources on the subject."

Sune Nordwall
Stockholm, Sweden

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