Part 10

Persecution came to the Jewish nation in its most horrible forms, yet surrounded by every circumstance of petty annoyance that could destroy its grandeur, and it continued for centuries their abiding portion. But above all this the genius of that wonderful people rose supreme. While those around them were grovelling in the darkness of besotted ignorance; while juggling miracles and lying relics were the themes on which almost all Europe was expatiating; while the intellect of Christendom, enthralled by countless superstitions, had sunk into a deadly torpor, in which all love of inquiry and all search for truth were abandoned, the Jews were still pursuing the path of knowledge, amassing learning, and stimulating progress with the same unflinching constancy that they manifested in their faith. They were the most skilful physicians, the ablest financiers, and among the most profound philosophers.

W. E. H. LECKY, 1865.

A PROTEST AGAINST THE AUTO-DA-FÉ OF SEPTEMBER 20, 1761, LISBON

WHAT was their crime? Only that they were born. They were born Israelites, they celebrated Pesach; that is the only reason that the Portuguese burnt them. Would you believe that while the flames were consuming these innocent victims, the inquisitors and the other savages were chanting _our_ prayers? These pitiless monsters were invoking the God of mercy and kindness, the God of pardon, while committing the most atrocious and barbarous crime, while acting in a way which demons in their rage would not use against their brother demons. Your madness goes so far as to say that we are scattered because our fathers condemned to death him whom you worship. O ye pious tigers, ye fanatical panthers, who despise your sect so much that you have no better way of supporting it than by executioners, cannot you see that it was only the Romans who condemned him? We had not, at that time, the right to inflict death; we were governed by Quirinus, Varus, Pilate. No crucifixion was practised among us. Not a trace of that form of punishment is to be found. Cease, therefore, to punish a whole nation for an event for which it cannot be responsible. Would it be just to go and burn the Pope and all the Monsignori at Rome to-day because the first Romans ravished the Sabines and pillaged the Samnites?

O God, who hast created us all, who desirest not the misfortune of Thy creatures, God, Father of all, God of mercy, accomplish Thou that there be no longer on this globe, on this least of all the worlds, either fanatics or persecutors. Amen.

F. M. A. VOLTAIRE, _in ‘Sermon du Rabin Akib’_.

THE BIBLE IN ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND[57]

NO greater moral change ever passed over a nation than passed over England during the years of the reign of Elizabeth. England became the people of a book, and that book was the Bible. It was read in churches, and it was read at home, and everywhere its words, as they fell on ears which custom had not deadened to their force and beauty, kindled a startling enthusiasm. As a mere literary monument, the English Version of the Bible remains the noblest example of the English tongue, while its perpetual use made it from the instant of its appearance the standard of our language. But far greater than its effect on literature was the effect of the Bible on the character of the people at large. Elizabeth might silence or tune the pulpits, but it was impossible for her to silence or tune the great preachers of justice, and mercy, and truth, who spoke from the Book which the Lord again opened to the people. The effect of the Bible in this way was simply amazing. The whole temper of the nation was changed. A new conception of life and of man superseded the old. A new moral and religious impulse spread through every class.

J. R. GREEN, 1874.

FOR THE EMANCIPATION OF THE JEWS

IN the infancy of civilization, when our island was as savage as New Guinea, when letters and arts were still unknown to Athens, when scarcely a thatched hut stood on what was afterwards the site of Rome, this contemned people had their fenced cities and cedar palaces, their splendid Temple, their fleets of merchant ships, their schools of sacred learning, their great statesmen and soldiers, their natural philosophers, their historians, and their poets. What nation ever contended more manfully against overwhelming odds for its independence and religion? What nation ever, in its last agonies, gave such signal proofs of what may be accomplished by a brave despair? And if, in the course of many centuries, the oppressed descendants of warriors and sages have degenerated from the qualities of their fathers ... shall we consider this as a matter of reproach to them? Shall we not rather consider it as matter of shame and remorse to ourselves? Let us do justice to them. Let us open to them the door of the House of Commons. Let us open to them every career in which ability and energy can be displayed. Till we have done this, let us not presume to say that there is no genius among the countrymen of Isaiah, no heroism among the descendants of the Maccabees.

LORD MACAULAY, 1833.

IGNORANCE OF JUDAISM

HE had been roused to the consciousness of knowing hardly anything about modern Judaism or the inner Jewish history. The Chosen People have been commonly treated as a people chosen for the sake of somebody else, and their thinking as something (no matter exactly what) that ought to have been entirely otherwise; and Deronda, like his neighbours, had regarded Judaism as a sort of eccentric fossilized form which an accomplished man might dispense with studying, and leave to specialists. But there had flashed on him the hitherto neglected reality that Judaism was something still throbbing in human lives, still making for them the only conceivable vesture of the world.

GEORGE ELIOT, 1876, _in ‘Daniel Deronda’_.

* * * * *

MOCK on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau! Mock on, mock on! ’tis all in vain: You throw the sand against the wind, And the wind blows it back again.

And every sand becomes a gem Reflected in the beams divine; Blown back, they blind the mocking eye, But still in Israel’s paths they shine.

WILLIAM BLAKE.

THEY ARE OUR ELDERS

NEXT to the selection that has been in operation for centuries, it is, in my opinion, the antiquity and the continuity of their civilization that throws some light upon the Jews as well as upon the place they occupy in our midst. They were here before us; they are our elders. Their children were taught to read from the scrolls of the Torah before our Latin alphabet had reached its final form, long before Cyrillus and Methodius had given writing to the Slavs, and before the Runic characters were known to the Germans of the North. As compared with the Jews, we are young, we are new-comers; in the matter of civilization they are far ahead of us. It was in vain that we locked them up for several hundred years behind the walls of the Ghetto. No sooner were their prison gates unbarred than they easily caught up with us, even on those paths which we had opened up without their aid.

A. LEROY BEAULIEU, 1893.

THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT[58]

HOW strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down.

How came they here? What burst of Christian hate, What persecution, merciless and blind, Drove o’er the sea――that desert desolate―― These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?

Pride and humiliation hand in hand Walked with them through the world where’er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent.

For in the background figures vague and vast Of patriarchs and prophets rose sublime, And all the great traditions of the Past They saw reflected in the coming time.

And thus forever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, Till life became a Legend of the Dead.

H. W. LONGFELLOW, 1858.

THE JEW AS A CITIZEN

I AM glad to be able to say that while the Jews of the United States have remained loyal to their faith and their race traditions, they are engaged in generous rivalry with their fellow-citizens of other denominations in advancing the interests of our common country. This is true, not only of the descendants of the early settlers and those of American birth, but of a great and constantly increasing proportion of those who have come to our shores within the last twenty-five years as refugees reduced to the direst straits of penury and misery. In a few years, men and women hitherto utterly unaccustomed to any of the privileges of citizenship have moved mightily upward toward the standard of loyal, self-respecting American citizenship; of that citizenship which not merely insists upon its rights, but also eagerly recognizes its duty to do its full share in the material, social, and moral advancement of the nation.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, _on the 250th anniversary of the Settlement of the Jews in the United States, November, 1905_.

IN THE EAST END OF LONDON

SOME years ago, when I was living in Europe, I went for six months to reside in the very poorest part of the East End of London, when I made friends with a poor Jewish woman. She took me into the tiny one-roomed tenement where she and her husband and their children lived on the few shillings a week they earned by their joint labour. Though it had all the misery and confinement which extreme poverty means in a great city, I had yet often a curious feeling that it was a _home_. With however much difficulty, a few pence would be saved to celebrate, if it were but in a pitiful little way, the festivals of their people; though it were by starving themselves, the parents would lay by something for the education of their children or to procure them some little extra comfort. And the conclusion was forced on me that, taking the very poorest class of Jew and comparing him with an exactly analogous class of non-Jews earning the same wages and living in the same locality, the life of the Jew was, on the whole, more mentally healthful, more human, and had in it an element of hope that was often wanting in that of others. I felt that these people needed but a little space, a little chance, to develop into some far higher form. The material was there.

Therefore I would welcome the exiled Russian Jew to South Africa, not merely with pity, but with a feeling of pride that any member of that great, much-suffering people, to whom the world owes so great a debt, should find a refuge and a home among us.

OLIVE SCHREINER, 1906.

THE RUSSIAN AGONY[59] I. THE BEGINNINGS

IN 1563 Ivan the Terrible conquered Polotzk, and for the first time the Russian Government was confronted by the fact of the existence of the Jewish nationality. The Czar’s advisers were somewhat perplexed, and asked him what to do with these newly acquired subjects. Ivan the Terrible answered unhesitatingly: ‘Baptize them or drown them in the river’. They were drowned.

P. MILYUKOV, 1916.

II. IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY[60]

FEW facts in the nineteenth century have been so well calculated to disenchant the believers in perpetual progress with their creed as the anti-Semite movement, which in a few years has swept like an angry wave over the greater part of Europe.

The recent movement for proscribing, under pretence of preventing cruelty to animals, the mode of killing animals for food which is enjoined in the Jewish ritual, is certainly at least as much due to dislike to the Jews as to consideration for cattle. It appears to have arisen among the German anti-Semites, especially in Saxony....

The Russian persecution stands in some degree apart from the other forms of the anti-Semite movement, both on account of its unparalleled magnitude and ferocity, and also because it is the direct act of a Government deliberately, systematically, remorselessly seeking to reduce to utter misery millions of its own subjects.

An evil chance had placed upon the throne an absolute ruler who combined with much private virtue and very limited faculties all the genuine fanaticism of the great persecutors of the past, and who found a new Torquemada at his side. He reigned over an administration which is among the most despotic, and probably, without exception, the most corrupt and the most cruel in Europe.

W. E. H. LECKY, 1896.

III. IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

TO lock people like wild beasts in a cage, to surround them with disgraceful laws, as in an immense circus, for the sole revolting purpose to let loose the murderous mob upon them whenever practicable for St. Petersburg――terrible, terrible!

Anti-Semitism is a mad passion, akin to the lowest perversities of diseased human nature. It is the will to hate.

The Emperor Hadrian was an honest anti-Semite. One day, the Talmud records, on his journey in the East, a Jew passed the Imperial train and saluted the Emperor. He was beside himself with rage. ‘You, a Jew, dare to greet the Emperor! You shall pay for this with your life.’ In the course of the same day another Jew passed him, and, warned by example, he did not greet Hadrian. ‘You, a Jew, dare to pass the Emperor without a greeting!’ he angrily exclaimed. ‘You have forfeited your life.’ To his astonished courtiers he replied: ‘I hate the Jews. Whatever they do, I find intolerable. I therefore make use of any pretext to destroy them.’

So are all anti-Semites.

LEO TOLSTOY, 1904.

IV. THE MORAL

THE study of the history of Europe during the past centuries teaches us one uniform lesson: _That the nations which have received and in any way dealt fairly and mercifully with the Jew have prospered; and that the nations that have tortured and oppressed him have written out their own curse_.

OLIVE SCHREINER, 1906.

THE BLOOD LIBEL BRITISH PROTEST, 1912

WE desire to associate ourselves with the protests signed in Russia, France, and Germany by leading Christian Theologians, Men of Letters, Scientists, Politicians, and others against the attempt made in the City of Kieff to revive the hideous charge of Ritual Murder――known as the ‘Blood Accusation’――against Judaism and the Jewish People.

The question is one of humanity, civilization, and truth. The ‘blood accusation’ is a relic of the days of witchcraft and ‘black magic’, a cruel and utterly baseless libel on Judaism, an insult to Western culture, and a dishonour to the Churches in whose name it has been falsely formulated by ignorant fanatics. Religious minorities other than the Jews, such as the early Christians, the Quakers, and Christian Missionaries in China, have been victimized by it. It has been denounced by the best men of all ages and creeds. The Popes, the founders of the Reformation, the Khalif of Islam, statesmen of every country, together with all the great seats of learning in Europe, have publicly repudiated it.

_Signed by_:――

_The_ ARCHBISHOPS _of_ CANTERBURY, YORK, ARMAGH; _the_ CARDINAL ARCHBISHOP _of_ WESTMINSTER, _and the_ HEADS _of all other_ CHRISTIAN DENOMINATIONS.

_The_ BISHOPS _of_ LONDON, OXFORD, WORCESTER, WINCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM, GLOUCESTER, LIVERPOOL, MANCHESTER, _&c._; _the_ DEANS _of_ WESTMINSTER, CANTERBURY, NORWICH, RIPON, _&c._

_The_ DUKES _of_ NORFOLK _and_ NORTHUMBERLAND, _and the_ EARLS _of_ ROSEBERY, SELBORNE, _and_ CROMER; LORDS MILNER _and_ RAYLEIGH; A. J. BALFOUR, SIR EDWARD CARSON, GEN. N. G. LYTTELTON, _&c._

FREDERIC HARRISON, A. V. DICEY, SIR WILLIAM OSLER, SIR FRANCIS DARWIN, SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY; JAMES A. H. MURRAY, NORMAN LOCKYER, J. G. FRAZER, _&c._

SIR OLIVER LODGE, _the_ PRINCIPALS _of eleven_ OXFORD COLLEGES; _the_ MASTERS _of seven_ CAMBRIDGE COLLEGES, S. R. DRIVER, F. C. BURKITT, A. E. COWLEY, W. SANDAY, H. B. SWETE, ESTLIN CARPENTER, A. E. GARVIE, A. C. HEADLAM, KIRSOPP LAKE, _&c._

JUSTICES EVE, WARRINGTON, _and_ VAUGHAN WILLIAMS.

A. C. DOYLE, THOS. HARDY, ANTHONY HOPE, A. QUILLER-COUCH, G. B. SHAW, H. G. WELLS, _&c._

_The_ EDITORS _of the_ _Edinburgh_, _Quarterly_, _Fortnightly_, _Hibbert_, _Quest_, _Spectator_, _Nation_, _Daily Telegraph_, _Manchester Guardian_, _Daily Chronicle_, _Daily News_, _Pall Mall Gazette_, _&c., &c._

JEWISH NATIONALISM

WHEN it is rational to say, ‘I know not my father or my mother, let my children be aliens to me that no prayer of mine may touch them’, then it will be rational for the Jew to say, ‘I will not cherish the prophetic consciousness of our nationality――let the Hebrew cease to be, and let all his memorials be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall paintings of a conjectured race’.

The divine principle of our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us help to will our own better future and the better future of the world――not renounce our higher gift and say, ‘Let us be as if we were not among the populations’; but choose our full heritage, claim the brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with the nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it will be fulfilled.

GEORGE ELIOT, 1876, _in ‘Daniel Deronda’_.

* * * * *

No British Jew would be less British because he looked upon the cradle of his race with pride, and at the religious centre of his faith with happiness and reverence.

SIR MARK SYKES, 1918.

A JEWISH NATIONAL HOME[61]

FOREIGN OFFICE, _November 2, 1917_.

DEAR LORD ROTHSCHILD,

I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:――

‘His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’

Yours sincerely,

ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.

ISRAEL’S PRESERVATION

THE destruction of the Holy City, the ruin of the House of God, the dispersion of the Chosen People into all the kingdoms of the earth, and their continued existence as a nation, notwithstanding every attempt to exterminate them or to compel them to forsake those ordinances which distinguish them to this very day from all other nations, is emphatically one of the strongest evidences we can have of the truth of the Bible. Jerusalem was indeed once a great city, and the Temple magnifical; but the Jews themselves were greater than either; hence, while the two former have been given over to spoliation, the latter have been wonderfully, miraculously preserved. The annals of the world do not contain anything so remarkable in human experience, so greatly surpassing human power and human prescience. Exiled and dispersed, reviled and persecuted, oppressed and suffering, often denied the commonest rights of humanity, and still more often made the victim of ruthless fanaticism and bigoted prejudice, the Jews are divinely preserved for a purpose worthy of a God!

ST. JEROME, 4th cent.

ISRAEL AND THE NATIONS[62]

THE Jew has made a marvellous fight in this world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendour, 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.

MARK TWAIN, 1898.

IV

THE VOICE OF PRAYER

(THE JEWISH YEAR)

_HOW precious is Thy loving-kindness, O God, and the children of men take refuge under the shadow of Thy wings. For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light do we see light._

PSALM 36. 8, 10.

ON PRAYER AND PRAISE

THERE is an old story, invented by the sages and handed down by memory from age to age. They say, when God had finished the world, He asked one of the angels if aught were wanting on land or on sea, in air or in heaven. The angel answered that all was perfect; one thing only he desired――speech, to praise God’s works, or recount them, which would be their praise. And the Father approved the angel’s words, and not long afterwards appeared the race, gifted with the muses and with song. This is the ancient story, and in consonance with its spirit I say: ‘It is God’s peculiar work to benefit, and His creatures’ work to give Him thanks’.

PHILO JUDAEUS, 1st cent.

* * * * *

THERE are halls in the heavens above that open but to the voice of song.

ZOHAR.

ON MORNING SERVICE

LET man strengthen himself like a lion and arise in the early morn to render service to his Creator; as David said, ‘I will awake the dawn’ (Psalm 57. 9).

COMMENTARY: _Strengthen himself._――The root-idea of such strengthening is to prepare himself to resist temptations and evil desires which during this day may assail him: as it is said, ‘Who is strong? He that subdues his passions.’ _Like a lion._――As a lion is the most fearless of animals, so shall he likewise, in the performance of his duties, fear nothing, but rely firmly on his God.

GLOSS: ‘I have set the Lord always before me’ (Psalm 16. 8): This is a leading principle in Religion, and in the upward strivings of the righteous who walk ever in the presence of God. For a man’s mode of life, his demeanour and his deeds, his speech and his movements, when alone in the house or in the intimate circle of his family and friends, are unlike those which he would exhibit when in the presence of a great king. And how much more considered will his demeanour be, if he reflect that there stands over him the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, whose glory fills the whole earth, watching his conduct and surveying his deeds; even as it is written: ‘Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him?’ saith the Lord (Jeremiah 23. 24). Such contemplation must perforce imbue him with a true sense of reverence and humility, prompted by a feeling of unworthiness, before the Holy Name; and he will be heedless of whoever may mock at him because of his devotions.

SHULCHAN ARUCH, 1, § 1. (_Trans. A. Feldman._)

שַׁחַר אֲבַקֶּשְׁךָ

AT THE DAWN I SEEK THEE

AT the dawn I seek Thee, Refuge, Rock sublime; Set my prayer before Thee in the morning, And my prayer at eventime.

I before Thy greatness Stand and am afraid: All my secret thoughts Thine eye beholdeth Deep within my bosom laid.

And, withal, what is it Heart and tongue can do? What is this my strength, and what is even This, the spirit in me, too?