Nietzsche’s Prediction About the Jews

[yankeedoodle]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNzW0zN7XzM
Apollonian Germ
Published on May 14, 2018
A fascinating section of "Daybreak". Take away from it what you will.

P.S. I don't think this prediction is pro or anti-semitic. Nietzsche is just telling what he thinks

https://archive.org/stream/dawnofday029675mbp/dawnofday029675mbp_djvu.txt

205.

THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL. One of the spectacles
which the next century will invite us to witness is

THE DAWN OF DAY. 211

the decision regarding the fate of the European Jews.
It is quite obvious now that they have cast their
die and crossed their Rubicon : the only thing that
remains for them is either to become masters of
Europe or to lose Europe, as they once centuries ago
lost Egypt, where they were confronted with similar
alternatives. In Europe, however, they have gone
through a schooling of eighteen centuries such as
no other nation has ever undergone, and the ex-
periences of this dreadful time of probation have
benefited not only the Jewish community but, even
to a greater extent, the individual. As a conse-
quence of this, the resourcefulness of the modern
Jews, both in mind and soul, is extraordinary.
Amongst all the inhabitants of Europe it is the
Jews least of all who try to escape from any deep
distress by recourse to drink or to suicide, as other
less gifted people are so prone to do. Every Jew
can find in the history of his own family and of his
ancestors a long record of instances of the greatest
coolness and perseverance amid difficulties and
dreadful situations, an artful cunning in fighting
with misfortune and hazard. And above all it is
their bravery under the cloak of wretched submis-
sion, their heroic spernere se sperni that surpasses
the virtues of all the saints.

People wished to make them contemptible by
treating them contemptibly for nearly twenty cen-
turies, and refusing them access to all honourable
positions and dignities, and by pushing them further
down into the meaner trades and under this
process indeed they have not become any cleaner,
But contemptible ? They have never ceased for a

212 THE DAWN OF DAY.

moment from believing themselves qualified for the
very highest functions, nor have the virtues of the
suffering ever ceased to adorn them. Their manner
of honouring their parents and children, the ration-
ality of their marriages and marriage customs, dis-
tinguishes them amongst all Europeans. Besides
this, they have been able to create for themselves a
sense of power and eternal vengeance from the very
trades that were left to them (or to which they were
abandoned). Even in palliation of their usury we
cannot help saying that, without this occasional
pleasant and useful torture inflicted on their
scorners, they would have experienced difficulty in
preserving their self-respect for so long. For our
self-respect depends upon our ability to make
reprisals in both good and evil things. Keverthe-
less, their revenge never urges them on too far, for
they all have that liberty of mind, and even of soul,
produced in men by frequent changes of place,
climate, and customs of neighbours and oppressors,
they possess by far the greatest experience in all
human intercourse, and even in their passions they
exercise the caution which this experience has
developed in them. They are so certain of their
intellectual versatility and shrewdness that they
never, even when reduced to the direst straits, have
to earn their bread by manual labour as common
workmen, porters, or farm hands. In their manners
we can still see that they have never been inspired
by chivalric and noble feelings, or that their bodies
have ever been girt with fine weapons : a certain ob-
trusiveness alternates with a submissiveness which
Is often tender and almost always painful.

THE DAWN OF DAY.

Now, however, that they unavoidably inter-marry
more and more year after year with the noblest
blood of Europe, they will soon have a considerable
heritage of good intellectual and physical manners,
so that in another hundred years they will have a
sufficiently noble aspect not to render themselves,
as masters, ridiculous to those whom they will have
subdued. And this is important ! and therefore a
settlement of the question is still premature. They
themselves know very well that the conquest of
Europe or any act of violence is not to be thought
of; but they also know that some day or other Europe
may, like a ripe fruit, fall into their hands, if they
do not clutch at it too eagerly. In the meantime,
it is necessary for them to distinguish themselves
in all departments of European distinction and
to stand in the front rank : until they shall have
advanced so far as to determine themselves what
distinction shall mean. Then they will be called
the pioneers and guides of the Europeans whose
modesty they will no longer offend.

And then where shall an outlet be found for this
abundant wealth of great impressions accumulated
during such an extended period and representing
Jewish history for every Jewish family, this wealth of
passions, virtues, resolutions, resignations, struggles,
and conquests of all kinds where can it find an
outlet but in great intellectual men and works ! On
the day when the Jews will be able to exhibit to us
as their own work such jewels and golden vessels
as no European nation, with its shorter and less
profound experience, can or could produce, when
Israel shall have changed its eternal vengeance into

214 THE DAWN OF DAY.

an eternal benediction for Europe: then that seventh
day will once more appear when old Jehovah may
rejoice in Himself, in His creation, in His chosen
people and all, all of us, will rejoice with Him !