The author of these words, written in 1910, was British journalist W.T. Stead. Such views were not uncommon in early 20th-century Europe. It’s true the race theory that was prevalent then prompted many Christians to believe in the ideology of racial purity and to oppose “contamination of the purity of blood” by Jews. However, a different approach that was widespread at the time, albeit less known in terms of contemporary historical consciousness, was based on an ideology of racial mixture. Belief in that hybridization project was popular in elite circles in Europe, among Jews and Christians alike, particularly Germany in the age of the empire, between the end of the 19th century and the early 20th. Even German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck remarked that “Christian stallions should be mated with Jewish mares” (source: “Jews, Race and Environment,” by Maurice Fishberg). [...]
The ideology of racial intermingling was based on racist assumptions and aspired to assimilate Jews into the European population. At the same time, the fact cannot be ignored that this notion rested on recognition of the Jews’ personality traits, which were viewed as a necessary element in society. From this perspective, the views commonly heard in present-day Israel are more benighted than those espoused in Germany 120 years ago. [...]
Racist segregation is a mainstream stance in Israel. But unlike the situation in the German Empire, in Israel’s ethnic democracy, there was hardly any significant political or cultural force campaigning in favor of mixed marriages between Jews and Arabs. A rare exception was Gershom Schocken, publisher and chief editor of Haaretz from 1939 to 1990. In a 1985 article in the paper, titled “Ezra’s Curse,” Schocken lashed out against Israel’s xenophobia and isolationism, which he claimed were preventing the toppling of barriers between Arabs and Jews. [...]
This is regrettable, because the growing legitimization accorded homosexuality in the past two decades could have served as a model for toppling barriers between Jews and Arabs. Every family in Israel that has a gay or transgender child tends to gradually adopt positive views of the LGBT community. By the same token, we can only imagine how different the attitude toward Arabs would be if tens of thousands of Jewish families in Israel had a Palestinian member.
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