Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/425

Jewish thoroughness they became the most devoted advocates of Germanization and Magyarization. They established the notorious financial German-Jewish and Magyar-Jewish press which for so long controlled public opinion in the Hapsburg empire.

Czech journalism, on the other hand, having realized the weight of this Jewish activity poured out its hatred against all Jewry, often quite unfairly; this is so to some extent even today.

The fact that the Czechs demanded the re-establisment of their historical rights with the help of feudal nobility and Catholic hierarchy tended to add strength to the Czech anti-semitism. Not till the state rights hopes of Czech politicians had suffered disappointment and a spirit of liberalism and progress made itself felt in national politics, was there a change in the sentiments of Bohemian Jews; those living in Czech districts began to favor the Czech cause, and a movement arose favoring assimilation and known as Czech Judaism.

The first herald of this tendency was the poet and physician Siegfried Kapper (1821–1879) who wrote both Czech and German. Even German-Jewish authors born in Bohemia, Moric Hartman and Otto Frankl, were favorable, at least in the earlier days of their literary activity, to Czech national renaissance.

But a firm direction to the Czech-Jewish movement was given by the foundation of the Society of Czech Jewish Academical Students forty years ago. The work of the society was done by personal propaganda of Czech culture in Jewish families, by social contact; other organizations with a similar aim were founded, a weekly paper was started under the name of Czech-Jewish Gazette, and an annual was regularly published by the students’ society with valuable literary contributions. Even the best known Christian authors have been contributors to this annual from its foundation down to the present 38th volume.

Leaders of the Czech-Jewish movement undertook a campaign against German-Jewish confessional (private) schools with such success that in Bohemia at least it ended in complete victory.

The Czech-Jewish movement made itself felt significtantly in political struggles; through the help of the Jewish votes the Czechs captured three decades ago three chambers of commerce and industry, corporations of great economic significance. In Moravia, too, this movement exerted a powerful influence, although here the close neighborhood of Vienna and the lack of strong national positions in the Moravian capital made fight with Germanization more difficult.

If the Czech-Jewish movement cannot show even greater results during the last forty years, the blame must be laid at the door of that part of Czech journalism that could not get rid of its demagogic anti-semitism. These anti-semitic papers are headed by the clerical press. But in spite of attacks Czech-Jewish work gained new successes every year, especially after Prof. Masaryk, now the president, by his indefatigable and noble work began to impress his personality upon the life of the nation, and after he had founded the progressive party, small in numbers, but great in influence.

The Czech-Jewish movement thus saw the fruits of its long labors ripening, when suddenly a new wave of unreasoning anti-semitism swept over the country.

In 1897, after a brief period of a regime somewhat more just to the Austrian Slavs, Germans supported by Magyar and Prussian influences got the upper hand again, and the Czechs were driven into bitter opposition. This anger of the Czech nation manifested itself in anti-Jewish riots. But in 1899 a much more serious calamity overtook the Jews in the Czech lands. Near the small city of Polna in Bohemia, close by the Moravian boundary line, a young girl Anezka Hruzova was found dead. Soon a man named Leopold Hilzner, Jew, without education and almost a tramp, was arrested charged with murdering the girl. Immediately the tale of ritual murder appeared, and so heated became the public opinion in Bohemia about this case that with few exceptions all Czech newspapers sided with those who believed in ritual murder.

Dr. Joseph Osička, formerly instructor of Bohemian in the Harrison Technical High School of Chicago, is now teaching English in the University of Prague. Professor Joseph Pipal, formerly physical instructor and coach in several American colleges, is in Prague as director of athletic activities of the American Y. M. C. A.