Concerning the Jews

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Concerning the Jews
first page of 1934 reprint
Author	Mark Twain
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre	non-fiction
Publisher	Harper's Monthly
Publication date	1898
Media type	Print
Pages	26 pp
ISBN	NA
Preceded by	Following the Equator
Followed by	Is He Dead?

Concerning the Jews is a short essay by Mark Twain. Twain had lived in Austria during 1896, and opined that the Habsburg empire used scapegoats to maintain unity in their immensely diverse empire, namely Jews. In 1898 he published the article "Stirring time in Austria".

Twain’s account generated several letters, and one poignant response in particular from an American Jewish lawyer who asked Twain "Tell me, therefore, from your vantage-point of cold view, what in your mind is the cause. Can American Jews do anything to correct it either in America or abroad? Will it ever come to an end? Will a Jew be permitted to live honestly, decently, and peaceably like the rest of mankind? What has become of the golden rule?"^[1] In response, Twain penned "Concerning the Jews," which Harper’s also published in 1898.

The essay included the statement that Jews did not do their part in terms of fighting in America's armed forces: "He is a frequent and faithful and capable officer in the civil service, but he is charged with an unpatriotic disinclination to stand by the flag as a soldier - like the Christian Quaker." However, when War Department figures revealed that Jewish Americans were actually represented in the nation's military in a larger percentage than their share of the population, Twain issued a retraction and an apology^[2] entitled, "Postscript - The Jew as Soldier."

The essay also included a somewhat positive account of the Jewish People, with regard to their survival: "The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out,and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" - Mark Twain, “Concerning the Jews”, Harper’s Magazine, March, 1898 ^[3]

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Concerning the Jews

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Concerning the Jews

v t e Works by Mark Twain

Novels	The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today The Adventures of Tom Sawyer The Prince and the Pauper Adventures of Huckleberry Finn A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court The American Claimant Tom Sawyer Abroad Pudd'nhead Wilson Tom Sawyer, Detective Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc A Double Barrelled Detective Story A Horse's Tale The Mysterious Stranger Hellfire Hotchkiss

Short stories	"The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" "General Washington's Negro Body-Servant" "My Late Senatorial Secretaryship" "Some Learned Fables for Good Old Boys and Girls" "A Literary Nightmare" "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage" "The Invalid's Story" "The Great Revolution in Pitcairn" "1601" "The Stolen White Elephant" "Luck" "Those Extraordinary Twins" "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" "A Dog's Tale" "Extracts from Adam's Diary" "The War Prayer" "Eve's Diary" "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" "My Platonic Sweetheart" "The Private Life of Adam and Eve"

Short story collections	Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance Sketches New and Old A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches The Library of Humor Merry Tales The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories The Curious Republic of Gondour and Other Whimsical Sketches The Washoe Giant in San Francisco

Plays	Is He Dead?

Essays	"The Awful German Language" "Advice to Youth" "English As She Is Taught" How to Tell a Story and Other Essays "Concerning the Jews" "A Salutation Speech From the Nineteenth Century to the Twentieth" "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" "To My Missionary Critics" "Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany" "What Is Man?" "Queen Victoria's Jubilee" "The United States of Lyncherdom" "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses" Letters from the Earth

Non-fiction	The Innocents Abroad Roughing It Old Times on the Mississippi A Tramp Abroad Life on the Mississippi Following the Equator What Is Man? Is Shakespeare Dead? Queen Victoria's Jubilee Autobiography of Mark Twain Mark Twain's Notebook King Leopold's Soliloquy The Private History of a Campaign That Failed Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire The Bible According to Mark Twain Christian Science

Speeches	Votes for Women

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Concerning the Jews

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