As a Jew, Bloch carried within himself a fragment of
the Orient; was in himself an outpost of the mother of continents. And
he is one of the few Jewish composers really, fundamentally
self-expressive. He is one of the few that have fully accepted
themselves, fully accepted the fate that made them Jewish and
stigmatized them. After all, it was not the fact that they were
"homeless" as Wagner pretended, that prevented the company of Meyerbeers
and Mendelssohns from creating. It was rather more the fact that,
inwardly, they refused to accept themselves for what they were. The
weakness of their art is to be understood only as the result of the
spiritual warfare that threatens to divide every Jew against himself.
There was operative in them, whether they were aware of it or no, a
secret desire to escape their stigmata. They were deliberately deaf to
the promptings of the beings that were so firmly planted in the racial
soil. They were fugitive from the national consciousness. The bourn of
impulse was half stopped. It was not that they did not write "Jewish"
music, utilize solely racial scales and melodies. The artist of Jewish
extraction need not do so to be saved. The whole world is open before
him. He can express his day as he will. One thing, however, is
necessary.
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