Wagner's Judaism in Music: a guide and commentary

I must confess to having avoided a thorough study of this essay, and tended to downplay it as an aberration, even mistake, that represented the old fashioned, politically incorrect attitudes of Wagner's generation. Some apologists point out that even if you take this essay out of Wagner's complete written works, there still remains some ten volumes left, thus making nonsense of the idea that anti-Semitic thoughts were all that occupied his mind. While this is certainly true, it does smack of an attempt to sweep his most notorious essay Das Judentum in der Musik (Judaism in Music) under the rug, rather than to confront it full on.

The alleged influence of this essay has also been grossly exaggerated, with at least one non-historian writing speculative allegations that National Socialist policies on the Jews were entirely based upon this essay. However, no less an authority on this era than Sir Richard J. Evans tells us that:

[Wagner’s] influence on Hitler has often been exaggerated. Hitler never referred to Wagner as a source of his own antisemitism, and there is no evidence that he actually read any of Wagner’s writings. 

Evans: The Third Reich in Power (my emphasis)  

Neither Hitler, nor any other senior figure in the Party ever cited or quoted from Wagner's essay. No evidence even exists that Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, Streicher, or Rosenberg, just to focus on figures that left a substantial body of written material in the form of books or diaries, even knew of the existence of Wagner's essay. It is an understatement to say that it is a gross exaggeration and distortion to state that the entire Party based its policies on an essay they seem not to know the existence of.

With that, I decided to take on what I merely assumed would the rather sordid task of reading das Judentum in der Musik in its original German version. The results were a total revelation to me. The key is to realise that the discourse on ethnicity must be read according to the social standards of the mid-nineteenth century rather than retrospective reading according to the values of a post-Holocaust era.

What is particularly noteworthy is that Wagner's is not a universal attack against all Jews. It is often stated that Wagner talks of only two Jews in his essay: Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn. It is conveniently overlooked that he talks about four Jews: Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, Heine, and Börne. Two of these Jews are singled out as examples of bad Jews for being rich and right-wing. The other two are given as examples of good Jews because they are left-wing. So in fact, Wagner's essay is more about good Jew vs. bad Jew. This stands in marked contrast to the National Socialist view of a left-wing "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy to take over the world with their "Marxist faith", a concept intended to suggest that the political left were "un-German" and an alien "other" who did not belong to decent society. Heinrich Heine was a friend of Karl Marx.

Here is the full original version of the essay (fortunately, these days you can just download the German version, even if your library only stocks the English translation):

http://mydocs.strands.de/MyDocs/05845/05845.pdf

I had always been a bit lazy and had never made the effort to source the original German version, and had tended to take the easy route of reading the English translation. Of course, that was a huge mistake, since most of the English language literature on Wagner is deeply contaminated with the monstrous distortions wilfully placed into the translation by Chamberlain's henchmen. The end result is that with very few exceptions: you cannot trust any English translation of Wagner's written works. Most English translations represent the view of Wagner seen through the distorted filter of H.S. Chamberlain's ultra-right wing distortions.  Naturally, for varying reasons, there will be those who welcome these distortions and will fight tooth and nail against every effort to debunk them as myths.

Even in his own commentary to the essay added thirteen years later, Wagner himself dismisses as a misrepresentation, the view of his essay as being little more than an incitation to "mittelalterlichen Judenhaß-Tendenz" (tendency towards Medieval Jew hatred).

The problem is that then, as now, all you had to do is mention ethnic tensions, and before long the situation would explode into an emotional shouting match. Just look at the Middle East today, and you will see that little has really changed. Next, add in the fact that Wagner's writing style is in the old fashion German academic style—impenetrably dense, thick and sprawling. Wagner here is infinitely worse than the notorious Hegel, who seems a walk in the park to read by comparison. Some will tell you that Marx is a hard read, but what of das Kapitel I have read in German is the very paragon of clarity compared to Wagner. This is the worst possible example of the old German academic style that simply invites those who are unable to read this sort of thing to imagine all sorts of bizarre perversions lurking in its depths: doubly so if you want to find these perversions in there. It is also a style that has its modern inheritors such as Derrida and Heidegger about whom even the linguist Noam Chomsky once wrote that he cannot comprehend a word, such that he feels like he himself had a "gene missing"! Fortunately, I don't seem to be missing that gene.

This is why I am going to discuss some remarkable points mentioned in the text, one issue at a time, untangled from the dense web of ideas in the original essay.

1. Wagner Supported the Creation of the State of Israel

When I read this in the essay, I was gobsmacked. Here is what Wagner wrote:

wir gönnten ihnen selbst die Errichtung eines jerusalemischen Reiches

Literally, it means: "we have not even begrudged them [the Jews] the formation of a Jerusalemic realm". It means nothing less than Wagner's support for the state of Israel.

In case you do not believe me, here is a scan of the original 1869 publication of the text of the words jerusalemischen Reiches:

Wagner then goes on to take a swipe at the Jewish banker von Rothschild for his failure to use his influence to support the creation of a Jewish State—with himself as head of state. Wagner is rather sarcastic at this point, suggesting that the capitalist banker is too busy making money out of the monarchs of Europe to devote himself to the creation of the state of Israel, for the sake of his own people. He could have been "the King of the Jews," says Wagner, but instead he is content to be the "Jew to the Kings". Yes, there is a nasty touch of anti-Semitism in the stereotype of the capitalist Jewish banker, which in those days was assumed to be a consequence of the long mistreatment of Jews by Christians causing "degeneration" by being forced into "usury"—a point that was even accepted amongst Jews such as Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism. Although that way of thinking is totally outdated today, it is intermixed with the extraordinarily enlightened view that there was a need for the Jewish people to have their own homeland. Herzl argued that if the Jews had their own homeland, it would help the Jewish people regain their lost nobility as a people.

This is indeed a theme that comes through strongly in Wagner writing on the Jews: the theme of profound alienation and homelessness. Wagner's fundamental insight here is that the Jews were eternal wanderers uprooted from their home soil, and that their awkward position in Christian Europe was conditioned by the "tragic" Jewish destiny and history (tragische Geschick). A recurrent theme in Wagner's writing is that this profound alienation and homelessness of the Jews could never be righted by legislation that grants equal rights in law alone—hence the need for a "Jerusalemic homeland". Nor does it seem that Wagner felt that this sense of deep alienation, stemming from the tragic Jewish historical plight could ever be readily erased just by them taking on the superficial garb of the language or cultural sensibilities of an adopted country. Without their true homeland, the Jews were cursed—like Ahasvar—with eternal alienation. Redemption from that curse was not something that could be attained lightly, and certainly not merely by legislation.

2. Wagner Supported the Need for the Emancipation of Jews in Europe

As we fought for the emancipation of the Jews, we were nonetheless fighters for an abstract principle 

Als wir für Emanzipation der Juden stritten, waren wir aber doch eigentlich mehr Kämpfer für ein abstraktes Prinzip 

As you can see, Wagner counts himself as one of the original fighters for the emancipation of the Jews.

3. Wagner Sympathised with the Tragic Plight of the Jewish People throughout History

For example:

...the misery of the Jews through history and the predatory bestiality of the Christian-Germanic power-brokers towards the Sons of Israel 

... das geschichtliche Elend der Juden und die räuberische Rohheit der christlich-germanischen Gewalthaber den Söhnen Israels

Yes, Wagner says that the way the Germans have historically behaved towards the Jews should be condemned as being nothing less than "predatory bestiality". Once again, I was gobsmacked to have read this. If you doubt my translation of these words run "räuberische Rohheit" through Google translator.

These are clearly not the words of a man who believed that an escalation in predatory bestial behaviour by the Germanic power holders would in any way, shape or form be redemptive for anybody.

4. Wagner Believed that Despite Legal Emancipation the Jews Remained Spiritually Alienated and Homeless in Europe

That is to say, that legislation that granted equal rights in law is not full spiritual emancipation. The Jews themselves still do not feel at home in Europe—the legacy of the "tragic history" (das tragische Geschick) of the Jews leaves them feeling just as profoundly alienated, and uncomfortable in what is still a foreign world to them. Merely calling an adopted Christian land "home" does nothing to quell the sense of deep yearning for their true spiritual roots, or the sense of painful uprootedness from their Abrahamic soil.

Gustav Mahler said that he was thrice homeless: once as a German amongst Czechs, twice as an Austrian amongst Germans, and then as a Jew everywhere.  This alienation manifests, according to Wagner, in the form of their speech (presumably a Yiddish accent) and in their overall personal demeanour:

The Jew speaks the language of the nation in which he lives from inheritance to inheritance, but always as a foreigner. 

Der Jude spricht die Sprache der Nation, unter welcher er von Geschlecht zu Geschlecht lebt, aber er spricht sie immer als Ausländer.

This is to do with the fact that no matter how hard Jews might try to put on an outward appearance of being integrated—even allowing themselves to be baptised—they cannot truly obliterate their true spiritual roots.

However, Wagner goes on:

...we ought to refrain from the denunciation of Christian civilisation, which has kept the Jews in their violent detachment [gewaltsamen Absonderung ie their profound state of alienation]. On the other hand,  on no account do we have any intention of blaming the Jews for the success of this alienation [Absonderung], that we have hereby touched on.  

...[wir] dürfen eben so die Anklage der christlichen Zivilisation unterlassen, welche den Juden in seiner gewaltsamen Absonderung erhielt, als wir andererseits durch die Berührung der Erfolge dieser Absonderung, die Juden auch keinesweges zu bezichtigen im Sinne haben können.

That is to say, that this entrapment in a state of alienation is not the fault of the Jews, but a by-product of centuries of discrimination by the "predatory bestiality" of their Christian oppressors.

Wagner alleges that this historical discrimination and alienation means that Jews never grow up feeling a true spiritual kinship or belonging to the communities in which they find themselves.  The Jew is forever left feeling like an outsider peering in, and no amount of legislature can emancipate them from this. Even the language of their adopted countries feels like an alien garb to them, for their language of their inner spiritual identity—Hebrew—has become a dead one. 

A language, its expression and its higher education, is not the work of a single individual, but that of a historical community: only that person who has grown up unknowingly in this community can take part its [artistic] creativity. The Jew stands outside of this community, alienated with his Jehova in fragmented, groundless national roots. As a result of which all their developments misfire, as the peculiar (Hebrew) language of this tribe remains dead to them. 

Eine Sprache, ihr Ausdruck und ihre Fortbildung ist nicht das Werk Einzelner, sondern einer geschichtlichen Gemeinsamkeit: nur wer unbewußt in dieser Gemeinsamkeit aufgewachsen ist, nimmt auch an ihren Schöpfungen teil. Der Jude stand aber außerhalb einer solchen Gemeinsamkeit, einsam mit seinem Jehova in einem zersplitterten, bodenlosen Volksstamme, welchem alle Entwicklung aus sich versagt bleiben mußte, wie selbst die eigentümliche (hebräische) Sprache dieses Stammes ihm nur als eine tote erhalten ist.

That is to say, the Jews, violently uprooted from their spiritual soil, are condemned to a state of perpetual alienation, which denies them a genuinely communal participation in the lands they have adapted. Nor do they any longer have a spiritual mother tongue to give artistic expression to the Jewish soul. It is, of course, the sort of painful unrootedness and alienation that finds expression in Franz Kafka. And ultimately it found its supreme expression in the foundation of the modern state of Israel, where the spiritual rebirth of Hebrew has meant that instead of Hebrew being threatened with becoming a dead language, Yiddish is dying out.

5. Despite the Recognition of their Legal Equality Most People Subconsciously Harbour Discriminatory Feelings towards Jews

These feelings are hidden under a hypocritical cloak of civility and politeness which hides the fact that Jews, in reality, are not genuinely accepted as equals at an emotional or spiritual level. Jews sense this and it contributes to their historically conditioned feelings of painful alienation and not belonging to the foreign world in which they find themselves trapped, due to their being deprived of both their true spiritual homeland as well as their spiritual mother tongue.

Much of this probably remains deeply relevant regarding the attitude towards all ethnic minorities or in ethnic conflicts in all countries. However, they refuse to acknowledge it, a great many Jews (and Christians), for example, in the environment of today's ethnic conflicts, probably harbour similar such irrational antipathy and subconscious disgust towards Muslims. To overcome such ethnic tension is, as Wagner says, a massive undertaking that requires an enormous amount of dedication and sacrifice on both sides. Just take a look at the difficulties in overcoming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today.

6. Newly Emancipated Outsiders Become the Tasteless Nouveau Riches

This is a rather nasty accusation, but one that is even today levelled against migrants who become successful in a new land, or against formerly oppressed people who flourish as a result of new found freedoms eg the Russian oligarch who buys himself a tiger skin rug, or the rich Chinese factory owner who buys rhinoceros horn aphrodisiac.

Wagner levels this against European Jews of his time. He says, that these recently emancipated and educated wealthy Jews tend to look on art as a decorative commodity to be traded  as "Luxuskunst" or "luxury art"—an inessential luxury of snob value to show that they have "made it", rather than something wrought out of a profound creative necessity that rises to become the voice and conscience of the nation, deeply rooted in the soul of that nation. Wagner's comes remarkably close with his idea of Luxuskunst to the thought of Theodor Adorno and his thoughts on "commodity art".

In particular, he accuses Mendelssohn of being someone who just shows off what an expensive traditional musical education his parents could afford through the use of "proper" learned, formal textbook musical structures of the sort Wagner thought were totally passé in their reactionary conservativeness. In the end, however learned he may be, he thinks Mendelssohn is more dazzlingly decorative than profound, and certainly not the conscience of the Zeitgeist.

Densely packed in with each other, we see the hoarding together in colourful Chaos, the peculiarities of the forms of all schools. 

Dicht neben einander treffen wir da im buntesten Chaos die formellen Eigentümlichkeiten aller Schulen angehäuft.

In other words, Mendelssohn is just a pastiche of stylistic features of the composers he has formally studied rather than anything unique. It must be kept in mind that Mendelssohn's compositional style was, compared to late Beethoven or Berlioz, frightfully conservative and reactionary.

Wagner thinks Mendelssohn is more a spiritually alienated nouveau riche migrant foreigner trying to pretend he belongs by showing off his rich wares, but who cannot ever escape his true spiritual roots, which never feel at home in his adopted German soil, nor able to be express the Geistgeist of his world.

Of course, it's another way of dismissing Mendelssohn as an expensively educated capitalist and elitist brat, given that he was the son of a wealthy banker, and a favourite of the Prussian conservative order. Wagner rather labours this point, and his (basically anti-capitalist, anti-monetarist, anti-"usury", and anti-banker) polemic goes on and on ad nauseam. As far as Wagner was concerned, being a highly popular composer who was representative of the arch conservative and reactionary musical camp, as well as being the son of a rich Jewish banker was totally beyond the pale. Wagner then throws in a "ditto for Meyerbeer", whose operas had been something of a smash hit with the public of the day—and very rich as a result. Wagner's contemptuous attitude towards Meyerbeer may have been something he got off Heinrich Heine, after Wagner met Heine in his Paris apartment. In fact, Heine originally had been reluctant to receive Wagner as a guest:

When Heinrich Heine heard that Meyerbeer had given Wagner introductions, he doubted the abilities of the newcomer. Heine was strongly biased against Meyerbeer and distrusted his sincerity. 

Ferdinand Praeger: Wagner as I Knew Him p.92

It is often said that Wagner is treacherous for having turned on Meyerbeer, but it is likely that it was Heine that was responsible for Wagner's change in attitude towards him.

It is at this point that the saying comes to mind that "der Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus der dummen Kerle"—anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools. Yet you also see that Wagner's underlying anti-Semitism here comes from the opposite side of politics to that of the Nazis—the socialist, liberal and anti-capitalist side that Hitler hated with a violent passion. Edmund Vermeil has shown that the Nazi anti-Semitism was more an attempt to attract the working class away from such socialist aspirations with a hatred that was purely racially based.

7. Wagner Argues that Legal Rights Should be Restricted to Assimilated Jews

This is, without doubt, the only somewhat backward notion in his attitude to the Jews—backward that is relative to the thinking of the period (rather than by comparison to modern standards, where it looks positively Jurassic). This is an idea that Wagner articulated first in Judaism in Music but which he also was to repeat in Know Thyself towards the end of his life. In the latter essay, Wagner implies that civils rights should be denied to anyone who was of the wrong confession (religious faith). He would probably have said the same thing about Muslims and probably non-Protestants Christians (Catholics and Orthodox Christians).

The argument Wagner alludes to, which would have been understood by the audience of the time, one widely accepted by liberals and conservatives alike, was that the Jews had "degenerated" as a consequence of their barbaric mistreatment at Christian hands, and this had forced them into base trades such as usury. As an anti-capitalist, Wagner regarded monetarism and making money from lending, bonds and shares to be monstrously unethical, because monetarism was the root of all evil. He regarded the prominence of Jewish bankers and traders to be evidence that Jews had not yet sufficiently overcome the "degeneration" induced by centuries of mistreatment to have earned the right to full civic status.

...here we rather feeling the necessity to fight for emancipation from the Jews. The Jew is, in the current state of the world, already more than emancipated enough: he rules and will rule as long as money remains that power before which all our deeds and striving lose their potency.  

da wir vielmehr uns in die Notwendigkeit versetzt sehen, um Emanzipierung von den Juden zu kämpfen. Der Jude ist nach dem gegenwärtigen Stande der Dinge dieser Welt wirklich bereits mehr als emanzipiert: er herrscht, und wird so lange herrschen, als das Geld die Macht bleibt, vor welcher all unser Tun und Treiben seine Kraft verliert.

Full and proper assimilation, or else nationhood through the founding of a sovereign Jewish state, were regarded as two possible cures to the fallen state into which the Jews had lapsed due to many centuries of mistreatment, compounded by a deep sense of alienation and homelessness. Of course, in many ways, Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were both at least outwardly assimilated, and Christian by conversion, but Wagner branded them as "bad jews". Wagner's hostility is based on his attitudes to their artistic conservatism, and the fact that they were rich and wildly successful: too capitalist, too Jewish is, hence, the dismissal of Wagner, the financially struggling liberal-progressive artist.

8. Wagner Admires the Jewish Poet Heinrich Heine

Wagner's handling of two other liberal Jews could hardly contrast more starkly with his attitude towards two examples of whom he regards as model Jews. This should not be neglected: Jewish artists could be the object of Wagner's admiration. For example, Wagner greatly admired Fromental Halévy, the composer of opera, La Juive (The Jewess). In a series of articles on Halévy published the Gazette Musicale during 1842, Wagner gushingly praised La Juive, as well as La Reine de Chypre for his ‘pathos of high tragédie lyrique’. As late as 1869, while dictating his autobiography, Wagner says that the example of Halévy "justifies the participation of all Jews in our public life". Wagner may have taken the idea of having an organ in Act I of Die Meistersinger from La Juive, as well of that of Hans Sachs's cobbling from Eléazar's tapping while working.

Returning to Judaism in Music, the bizarre thing is that Wagner says that Heine exposes the "Jesuit babblings" of other poets of his generation. Wagner hated Catholicism—not withstanding his friendship with Franz Liszt (as well as his close friendship with Jews and later marriage to a woman who was raised as a devout French Catholic). In fact, when evoking conspiracy theories, Wagner had the habit of talking about "Jew and Jesuits" in one breath.

It is here Wagner says one of the most enigmatic things in the whole essay:

[Heine] was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the bad conscience of our modern civilisation. 

[Heine] war das Gewissen des Judentums, wie das Judentum das üble Gewissen unsrer modernen Zivilisation ist.

The difference in his attitude to Heine, who had provided Wagner with the artistic inspiration for both The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, was that, as compared to Mendelssohn, Heine was one of the heroes of a more socially and politically liberal Young Germany. During the reactionary period in Germany, following the fall of the Napoleonic Empire, Heine's works were banned and Heine eventually died in exile in Paris, where he longed for his German Fatherland, while socialising with fellow liberals in exile.

While in exile in Paris, Wagner visited Heine after being introduced through a mutual acquaintance, the liberal revolutionary thinker, Heinrich Laube. On meeting, Heine had heard that Wagner had come with an introduction from Meyerbeer, which instantly lead Heine to have low expectations of Wagner, since Heine had a poor opinion of Meyerbeer. Heine, who usually never thought much of musicians, was surprised to come across a lively and politically liberal mind:

I cannot help feeling a lively interest in Wagner. He is endowed with an inexhaustible, productive mind, kept almost uninterruptedly in activity by a vivacious temperament. From an individuality so replete with modern culture, it is possible to expect the development of a solid and powerful modern music.

From Wagner as I Knew Him by Ferdinand Praeger.

Besides Wagner, another visitor to Heine in Paris was Karl Marx, who, like Wagner, was a great admirer of the poet. Marx had just had one of his publications banned in Germany. Marx and Heine became friends, even if Heine was rather ambivalent about communism. The Prussian government, angry at the publication of Vorwärts, put pressure on France to deal with the growing flock of German dissident thinkers who had congregated there, and in 1845 Marx was eventually deported to Belgium. Heine could not be expelled from France because he had the right of residence in France, having been born under French occupation.

So you can see how in Paris, Wagner mingled with prominent German dissident liberals in exile from the reactionary order that ruled the Germany of the day. Eventually, Wagner himself was to end up a liberal dissident in exile for his radical left-wing political activism.

Wagner's opinion about Heine is shaped by Heine's liberalism and his German patriotism. To understand the stark contrast between Wagner's views on Heine, on the one hand, with those Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, you need only look at their politics. Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer were conservative and wealthy. Politics—not race—is what is driving Wagner's polemic. The other great Jewish writer, who together with Heine, was regarded as the liberal hero of Young Germany was Ludwig Börne.

The final section on Börne helps us understand things even better.

9. Wagner Admires Karl Ludwig Börne and Offers him as a Reason the Divide Alienating Jew from and Non-Jew Must be Torn Down

From Wikipedia:

After the July Revolution (1830), he hurried to Paris, expecting to find society nearer to his own ideas of freedom. Although to some extent disappointed in his hopes, he did not look any more kindly on the political condition of Germany; this lent additional zest to the brilliant satirical letters (Briefe aus Paris, 1830–1833, published Paris, 1834), which he began to publish in his last literary venture, La Balance, a revival of Die Wage. The Briefe aus Paris was Börne's most important publication, and a landmark in the history of German journalism. Its appearance led him to be regarded as a leading thinker in Germany.

From the Jewish Encyclopedia:

When the Jews of Frankfort were relegated to the "Judengasse," the difficult problem was presented of what was to be done with Börne, the only Jewish official in the service. Every trick and device was resorted to in order to induce him to resign, but he refused; so at last but one course remained open, and he was dismissed. What Börne felt at this time can be well discerned from a perusal of the satirical sketch "Jews in the Free City of Frankfort" in "Fragmente und Aphorismen" ("Gesammelte Schriften," ed. 1840, vol. iii.). At the request of the Frankfort congregation he prepared a monograph entitled "Aktenmässige Darstellung des Bürgerrechts der Israeliten in Frankfurt," and two pamphlets, "Für die Juden" and "Die Juden und Ihre Gegner," the latter of which was written at the suggestion of his father, by whom, however, it was suppressed on account of its bitterness.

What Wagner says about him is truly fascinating:

From his special position as a Jew he appeared before us seeking Redemption (Erlösung): he found it not.  

Aus seiner Sonderstellung als Jude trat er Erlösung suchend unter uns: er fand sie nicht

Wagner goes on to explain what he did need if he were to attain that Redemption (the emphasis is Wagner's own):

he was forced to realise that it [Redemption] could be found only if it came along with our own Redemption into a genuine humanity ["zur wahrhaft Menschen" literally means "into truthful/veritable people"] 

er . . . mußte sich bewußt werden, daß er sie nur mit auch unsrer Erlösung zuwahrhaften Menschen finden können wurde. 

That is to say, redemption for the Jews from their alienation had to be accompanied by the redemptive transformation of non-Jew back into "true humanity". That is, non-Jew oppressors had dehumanised themselves by the "predatory bestiality" of their past behaviour towards the Jews—so non-Jew too had to go through their own painful redemptive rebirth from blond beast back into genuine humane beings. 

"Join us in the community of man" means to the Jew nothing less than: stop being Jews. That Börne fulfilled.  

Gemeinschaftlich mit uns Mensch werden, heißt für den Juden aber zu allernächst so viel als: aufhören, Jude zu sein. Börne hatte dies erfüllt.

Wagner says that he learned that this process of reconciliation between Jew and non-Jew was equally difficult, and required self-sacrifice on both sides:

But right here Börne also learned that redemption cannot be attained in the state of cosy comfort, but, just as it does for us, it would cost sweat, distress, fear and be full of pain and suffering.  

Aber gerade Börne lehrt auch, wie diese Erlösung nicht in Behagen und gleichgültig kalter Bequemlichkeit erreicht werden kann, sondern daß sie, wie uns, Schweiß, Not, Ängste und Fülle des Leidens und Schmerzes kostet. 

The key word here is "wie uns", literally "as for us" — or in better English, "just as it does for us". The painful process of realising redemption from a "tragic history" had to be shared by Jew and Gentile alike.

Wagner ends the essay with the following rousing call for the overcoming of the historically wrought painful divide alienating Jew from the rest of society:

Ruthlessly take part in this work of redemption through self-denying [self-destructive/self-annihilating] rebirth, so that we are united [einig] and without difference [ununterschieden]! 

Nehmt rücksichtslos an diesem durch Selbstvernichtung wiedergebärenden Erlösungswerke teil, so sind wir einig und ununterschieden! 

Yes, you read that correctly: "so that we are united and without difference!"

so sind wir einig und ununterschiden!
Scan from the original 1869 publication

That is what the final ideal espoused within this essay is.

The final sentence is the most famous and deeply misunderstood:

Consider, however, that only one thing can be the Redemption from the curse that burdens you: the Redemption of Ahasver, the Untergang [going under/destruction/apocalypse] 

Aber bedenkt, daß nur Eines eure Erlösung von dem auf Euch lastenden Fluche sein kann: Die Erlösung Ahasvers, der Untergang!

Keep in mind, that the painful task of Redemption is something Wagner has just emphasised that all of us must share in—non-Jew and Gentile alike. When he speaks to the Jews "the curse that burdens you" he uses "Euch" the familiar plural form of "you". He is speaking to the Jews as friends and brothers in the community of man. Just as Schiller said: "alle Menschen werden Brüder." 

The redemptive apocalypse (Untergang) is a Utopian one, that all mankind must "go under" (untergehen) so all humanity can become "united and without difference".  Of course, too many polemicists crave to read this as saying that Wagner thought that the Jews were totally beyond redemption and therefore had to be exterminated in an Untergang or Holocaust: such readings are denied, and are here shown up for the rhetorical distortions that they are. In reality, the extreme diametric opposite is true. For it is about the destruction and overcoming of alienation to realise the true oneness of humanity. Admittedly, it occurs within the context of an assimilationist ideology, that stands in contrast to the multicultural ideals that are mainstream today. However, multiculturalism was never as widely accepted a liberal ideal during Wagner's time. 

Then, as of now, that process of reconciliation between peoples is a hard-won struggle that is never achieved by legislation alone, for it is ultimately a spiritual journal of humanity e.g. the American Civil Right's movement that followed abolition. That spiritual journey and struggle to realise the spiritual unity of all humanity is also the true story of Wagner's art.  One day that story will be told for what it really is.