[...] By a curious quirk of fate I also met here the man who is preparing the vocal score of Parsifal, since considerations of climate had persuaded him, too, to winter in the south. As a result I am, so to speak, playing into his hands, which means that I am making excellent progress on the work. The man in question is the curious figure of Joseph Rubinstein, who first approached me ten years ago while I was at Triebschen, begging me to save him from the Jewishness of which he was a part. I allowed him to have personal dealings with me - he is, in any case, an outstanding musician - although it must be said that he - no less than the good Levi - has caused me a good deal of trouble. What both these unhappy men lack is the basis of a Christian education which instinctively enables the rest of us to appear similar in kind - however different we may in fact be - and the result, for them, is the most painful mental anguish. Faced with these circumstances - and very often having to combat their tendency towards suicide - I have had to exercise the most extreme patience, and if it is a question of being humane towards the Jews, I for one can confidently lay claim to praise. But I simply cannot get rid of them: the director Angelo Neumann sees it as his calling in life to ensure that I am recognized throughout the world. There is no longer anything I can say to all this, but simply have to put up with energetic Jewish patronage, however curious I feel in doing so, for - I can explain my exalted friend’s favourable view of the Jews only in terms of the fact that these people never impinge upon his royal circle: for him they are simply a concept, whereas for us they are an empirical fact. If I have friendly and sympathetic dealings with many of these people, it is only because I consider the Jewish race the born enemy of pure humanity and all that is noble in man: there is no doubt but that we Germans especially will be destroyed by them, and I may well be the last remaining German who, as an artist, has known how to hold his ground in the face of a Judaism which is now all-powerful. -
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 489