/lit/ - Literature

I have been reading Joseph Roth's Job. A book about European Jews by a European Jew. The book, so far at least as I am only halfway through, really encapsulates the problem with the Jewry. These people are not shown as caricatures, they are only shown as they are. No comment is ever made on the absurdity of their lives and culture. It is just told to us. The main character is a religious teacher, he refuses to do any other work. To take up a trade or become a farmer is ridiculous to him. When his sons are conscripted into the army it is a terrible event for the family. The Jews mourned healthy children. They would rather have a slightly crippled son than a solider son. One of the two sons does not mind becoming a solider. He associates with the Russian peasants, he leaves his family to work as a stable-boy, he wishes to become a farmer and he finally joins the army. His family thinks he is crazy. Once he has left their home they cease to think of him as a son and brother. A Jew should prefer to live in absolute poverty teaching the Torah to children for a few hours a week. The other son wants to become a merchant. This is acceptable. It is fine for a Jew to travel around profiting off of arbitrage. But you cannot work the land and merely reap the rewards of your own labour. The merchant son flees the country with only two roubles in his pocket. He would rather face the possibility of starving to death, homeless, in a foreign land than serve in the army. The Russian government confined the Jews to living in the pale of settlement. Rather than farm this vast land they consciously chose to live in immense poverty as shoddy parasites. Being confined to the pale limited their ability to widely exploit their way into affluence. This is the reason why antisemitism was so prevalent in Europe. Jews were not forced into being usurious money lenders, victims of irrational and dumb Christian peasants. Their entire culture was built around choosing to live as leeches. If you limited their ability to do so they would prefer to starve to death than change their ways.

Funny how Abrahamics argue God against pessimism, when one of their earlier religious writings, Book of Job(the original one and not the latter corrupted ones), is literally an argument for pessimism.