Max Nordau

Max S. Nordau
Nordauc. 1906
Born	Simon Maximilian (Simcha) Südfeld (1849-07-29)29 July 1849 Pest,Kingdom of Hungary,Austrian Empire(nowBudapest,Hungary)
Died	23 January 1923(1923-01-23)(aged 73) Paris, France
Occupation(s)	Physician, author,social critic
Known for	Co-founder ofWorld Zionist Organization
Notable work	Degeneration
Signature

Max Simon Nordau(bornSimon Maximilian Südfeld;29 July 1849 – 23 January 1923) was aZionistleader, physician, author, andsocial critic.

He was a co-founder of theZionist Organizationtogether withTheodor Herzl,and president or vice-president of several Zionist congresses.

As a social critic, he wroteThe Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation(1883),Degeneration(1892), andParadoxes(1896). Although not his most popular or successful work whilst alive,Degenerationis the book most often remembered and cited today.

Biography

Simon (Simcha) Maximilian Südfeld (later Max Nordau) was born inPest,Kingdom of Hungary,then part of theAustrian Empire.His father, Gabriel Südfeld, was a rabbi,but earned his livelihood as a Hebrew tutor.As anOrthodox Jew,Nordau attended a Jewish elementary school and earned a medical degree from theUniversity of Pestin 1872. He then traveled for six years, visiting the principal countries of Europe. He changed his name before going to Berlin in 1873. In 1878 he began the practice of medicine in Budapest. In 1880 he went to Paris.He worked in Paris as a correspondent forNeue Freie Presse,and it was in Paris that he spent most of his life.

Before entering the university, he had begun his literary career in Budapest as contributor and dramatic critic forDer Zwischenact.Subsequently, he was an editorial writer and correspondent for several other newspapers. His newspaper writings were collected and furnished the material for his earlier books. He was a disciple ofCesare Lombroso.

Nordau was an example of a fully assimilated and acculturated European Jew. Despite being raised religious, Nordau was an agnostic.He married a Christian woman of Danish origin.Despite hisHungarianbackground, he felt affiliated to German culture, writing in an autobiographical sketch "When I reached the age of fifteen, I left the Jewish way of life and the study of theTorah... Judaism remained a mere memory and since then I have always felt as a German and as a German only. "Max Nordau was the father of the painterMaxa Nordau(1897–1993).

Nordau's conversion to Zionism was eventually triggered by theDreyfus affair.Many Jews, amongst themTheodor Herzl,saw in the Dreyfus affair evidence of the universality ofantisemitism.

Nordau went on to play a major role in theWorld Zionist Organization;indeed Nordau's relative fame certainly helped bring attention to the Zionist movement. He can be credited with giving the organization a democratic character.

In December 1903 a 24-year-old Russian student attempted to assassinate Nordau at a ParisianHanukkahcelebration. The attacker shouted "Death to the East African" as he fired his gun.

When World War I broke out, as a native of Hungary he was accused of German sympathies. He denied the charge and afterward went to reside inMadrid.

Zionism

Portrait of Nordau byEphraim Moses Lilien

Dreyfus affair

Nordau's conversion to Zionism is in many ways typical of the rise of Zionism amongst Western European Jewry. TheDreyfus affairwas central toTheodor Herzl's conviction that Zionism was now necessary. Herzl's views were formed during his time in France where he recognized the universality of antisemitism; the Dreyfus Affair cemented his belief in the failure of assimilation. Nordau also witnessed the Paris mob outside the École Militaire crying"à morts les juifs!"( "death to the Jews!" ).

His role of friend and advisor to Herzl, who was working as the correspondent for the VienneseNeue Freie Presse,began here in Paris. This trial went beyond a miscarriage of justice and in Herzl's words "contained the wish of the overwhelming majority in France, to damn a Jew, and in this one Jew, all Jews". Whether or not theantisemitismmanifested in France during the Dreyfus affair was indicative of the majority of the French or simply a very vocal minority is open to debate. However, the very fact that such sentiment had manifested itself in France was particularly significant. This was the country often seen as the model of the modernenlightenedage, that had given Europe the Great Revolution and beginnings ofJewish emancipation.

Failure of emancipation

Nordau's work as a critic of European civilization and where it was heading certainly contributed to his eventual role in Zionism. One of the central tenets of Nordau's beliefs was evolution, in all things, and he concluded that emancipation was not born out of evolution. French rationalism of the 18th century, based on pure logic, demanded that all men be treated equally. Nordau perceived Jewish Emancipation the result of "a regular equation: Every man is born with certain rights; the Jews are human beings, consequently the Jews are born to own the rights of man." This Emancipation was written in the statute books of Europe, but contrasted with popular social consciousness. It was this which explained the apparent contradiction of equality before the law. Yet the existence of antisemitism, and in particular 'racial' antisemitism, was no longer based on old religious bigotry. Nordau cited England as an exception to this continental antisemitism that proved the rule. "In England, Emancipation is a truth… It had already been completed in the heart before legislation expressly confirmed it." Only if Emancipation came from changes within society, as opposed to abstract ideas imposed upon society, could it be a reality. Nordau's rejection of the accepted idea of Emancipation was not based entirely on the Dreyfus Affair. It had manifested itself much earlier inThe Conventional Lies of Our Civilisation(Die konventionellen Lügen der Kulturmenschheit)(1883), and in reviling 'degenerate' and 'lunatic' antisemitism inDegeneration(Die Entartung)(1892).

Muscular Judaism

Nordau also, at the 1898 Zionist Congress, coined the term "muscular Judaism"(Muskeljudentum) as a descriptor of a Jewish culture and religion which directed its adherents to reach for certain moral and corporeal ideals which, through discipline, agility and strength, would result in a stronger, more physically assured, Jew who would outshine the long-held stereotype of the weak, intellectually sustained, Jew. He further explored the concept of the "muscle Jew" in a 1900 article of theJewish Gymnastics Journal.

World Zionist Congress

Nordau stamp issued byJewish National Fund,1916

Nordau was central to theZionist Congresseswhich played such a vital part in shaping what Zionism would become. Herzl had favoured the idea of a Jewish newspaper and an elitist "Society of Jews" to spread the ideas of Zionism. It was Nordau, convinced that Zionism had to at least appear democratic, despite the impossibility of representing all Jewish groups, who persuaded Herzl of the need for an assembly. This appearance of democracy certainly helped counter accusations that the "Zionists represented no one but themselves". There were to be eleven such Congresses in all. The first, which Nordau organized, was in Basle, 29–31 August 1897. His fame as an intellectual helped draw attention to the project. Indeed, the fact that Max Nordau, the trenchant essayist and journalist, was a Jew came as a revelation for many. Herzl obviously took centre stage, making the first speech at the Congress; Nordau followed him with an assessment of the Jewish condition in Europe. Nordau used statistics to paint a portrait of the dire straits of Eastern Jewry and also expressed his belief in the destiny of Jewish people as a democratic nation state, free of what he saw as the constraints of Emancipation.

Nordau's speeches to theWorld Zionist Congressre-examined the Jewish people, in particular stereotypes of the Jews. He fought against the tradition of seeing the Jews as merchants or business people, arguing that most modern financial innovations such as insurance had been invented by gentiles. He saw the Jewish people as having a unique gift for politics, a calling which they were unable to fulfil without their own nation-state. Whereas Herzl favoured the idea of an elite forming policy, Nordau insisted the Congress have a democratic nature of some sort, calling for votes on key topics.

At theSixth Zionist CongressNordau was tasked with defending theUganda Scheme.

Nordau died in Paris, France in 1923.

Degeneration(1892)

Portrait of Nordau in April 1895 edition ofThe Bookman

Nordau's major workEntartung(Degeneration) is a moralistic attack on what he believed to bedegenerate art,as well as a polemic against the effects of a range of the rising social phenomena of the period, such as rapid urbanization and its perceived effects on the human body.

InRéflexions sur la question gay(translated into English asInsult and the Making of the Gay Self),Didier Eribonrefers to a whole section in Nordau's book targetingOscar Wildein aggressive terms: "Wilde loves immorality, sin, and crime". According to Eribon, the two volumes ofDegenerationare centred on a description of the artistic and literary currents of an "end-of-century" that was leading society to "ruin". Nordau attackssymbolists,mystics,Pre-Raphaelites,Wagnerism,Aestheticism,Decadentism.HuysmansandZolaare also targeted by him as "neurotics"and" the worst kind of enemies of society ", against whom the latter had" a duty to defend itself ". He sustained that society was" at the highest of a serious intellectual epidemic, some kind of Black Death of degeneration and hysteria, such that it is only natural to hear a generalized, anguished questioning: 'What is going to happen?' "Therefore, he called uponjudges,teachers,politicians,all those who wished to protectcivilization,to organize repression and censorship. As forpsychiatrists,their role would be predominant in such academia of "honest people" in charge of condemning "works that speculate onimmorality".Any artist whom this small cluster of" the most qualified men of the people "might dislike would be doomed, because in such case" both the man and his work would be annihilated ".

Nordau'sDegenerationis cited byWilliam Jamesin his lecture on Neurology and Religion at the beginning ofThe Varieties of Religious Experience.James mocks the author for his "bulky book" on the grounds that he exemplifies the then-current school of medical materialism, stating that Nordau "has striven toimpugnthe value of works of genius in a wholesale way (such works of contemporary art, namely, as he himself is unable to enjoy, and they are many) by using medical arguments ".

Commemoration

Tomb of Nordau, Tel Aviv

In 1926 Nordau's remains were moved toTel Aviv'sTrumpeldor Cemetery.A major Tel Aviv street is namedNordau Boulevard.

There has been a literaryNordau Prizeawarded in Israel.

Published works

• Pariser Studien und Bilder(Paris studies and sketches, 1878)
• Seifenblasen(Soap bubbles, 1879)
• Vom Kreml zur Alhambra(From the Kremlin to the Alhambra, 1880)
• Paris unter der dritten Republik(Paris under the Third Republic, 1881)
• Der Krieg der Millionen,a drama (The war of the millions, 1882)
• Die konventionelle Lügen der Kulturmenschheit,in which he shows what he believes to be the essential falsity of some of the social, ethical and religious standards of modern civilization (Conventional Lies of Society, 1883)
• Paradoxe(Paradoxes, 1885)
• Die Krankheit des Jahrhunderts(The Malady of the Century, 1887)
• Gefühlskomödie,a novel (A Comedy of Sentiment, 1891)
• Entartung(Degeneration, 1892)
• Seelen Analysen(Analysis of souls, 1892)
• Das Recht zu lieben,a drama (The right to live, 1893)
• Die Kugel,a drama (The ball, 1894)
• Die Drohnenschlacht(Battle of the drones, 1897)
• Dr. Kuhn,a drama (1898)
• The Drones Must Die(1899)
• Zeitgenossiche Franzosen(Contemporary French people, 1901)
• Morganatic(1904)
• On Art and Artists(1907)
• Die Sinn der Geschichte(The sense of history, 1909)
• Zionistische Schriften(Zionist writings, 1909)
• Mörchen(Crumbs of ruins, 1910)
• Der Lebenssport(The sport of life, 1912)

See also

• Gustave Le Bon
• Ruben Brainin
• Israel Zangwill
• Basel Program
• Dr. Max Nordau Synagogue

Further reading

• Melanie A. Murphy (2007).Max Nordau's fin-de-siècle romance of race.Vol. 4. NY: Studies in German History.ISBN978-0-8204-4185-6.
• Stanislawski, Michael (2001).Zionism and the Fin de Siècle: Cosmopolitanism and Nationalism from Nordau to Jabotinsky.University of California Press.
• Schulte, Christoph (1997).Psychopathologie des Fin de Siècle. Der Kulturkritiker, Arzt und Zionist Max Nordau.Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.ISBN3-596-13611-3.
• Anna und Maxa Nordau (1943).Max Nordau. A Biography.New York.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Lombroso, Cesare(1896). "La Degenerazione del genio e l'opera di Max Nordau". In Nordau, Max (ed.).Degenerazione [Texte imprimé].Biblioteca antropologico-giuridica. Serie III, 8 (in French) (2a edizione ed.). Torino:Fratelli Bocca.pp. XXXIX-568.OCLC660973767.
• Mason, P.H. (2010). "Degeneracy at multiple levels of complexity".Biological Theory: Integrating Development, Evolution and Cognition.5(3).
• Karola Agnes Franziska Dahmen (2006). "Spurensuche. Der Mediziner, Romancier, Kulturkritiker und Journalist Max Nordau".Seiner Rolle Als Kunstkritiker der Neuen Freien Presse.Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

External links

• Literature by and about Max Nordau in University Library JCS Frankfurt am Main: Digital Collections Judaica
• The personal papers of Max Nordau are kept at theCentral Zionist Archivesin Jerusalem
• Max Nordau Original Letters and ManuscriptsArchived2014-05-11 at theWayback MachineShapell Manuscript Foundation
• Max Nordau pageat theJewish Encyclopedia
• Works by Max NordauatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Max NordauatInternet Archive
• "Max Nordau".The complete guide to Israeli postage stamps from 1948 onward.Boeliem. Archived fromthe originalon 2011-07-08.Retrieved2010-11-07.
• Max Nordau Personal Manuscripts and Letters
• Newspaper clippings about Max Nordauin the20th Century Press Archivesof theZBW
• Video lecture onMax NordaubyDr. Henry Abramson
• Article on Max Nordau in April 1895 edition ofThe Bookman(New York)