ZIONISM

_and_

ANTI-SEMITISM

_Zionism_

AND

_Anti-Semitism_

BY

MAX NORDAU

AND

GUSTAV GOTTHEIL

NEW YORKFOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY1905

_Copyright 1902__FREDERICK A. RICHARDSON_

_Copyright 1903__SCOTT-THAW COMPANY_

_Copyright 1905__By FOX, DUFFIELD & COMPANY_

CONTENTS

 PAGE

ZIONISM. _By Max Nordau_ 9

ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE _By Gustav Gottheil. _ 47

ZIONISM

BY

MAX NORDAU

ZIONISM

Among the persons of the educated classes who follow with anyattention all the more important movements of the times, it would nowbe difficult to find one to whom the word "Zionism" is quite unknown. People are generally aware that it describes an idea and a movementthat in the last years has found numerous adherents among the Jews ofall countries, but especially among those of the East. Comparativelyfew, however, both among the Gentiles and the Jews themselves, have aperfectly clear notion of the aims and ways of Zionism; the Gentiles, because they do not care sufficiently for Jewish affairs to take thetrouble to inform themselves at first hand as to the particulars; theJews, because they are intentionally led astray by the enemies ofZionism, by lies and calumnies, or because even among the ferventZionists there are not many who have probed the whole Zionist idea tothe bottom, and are willing or able to present it in a clear andcomprehensible fashion, without exaggeration and polemical heat. 

I will endeavor to furnish readers of good faith, who are not biased, and have no other interest than that of gaining authentic informationabout a phenomenon in contemporary history, as concisely and soberlyas possible with all the facts, as they really are, not as they arereflected in muddled brains, or distorted and falsified bycalumniators. 

I. 

Zionism is a new word for a very old object, in so far as it merelyexpresses the yearning of the Jewish people for Zion. Since thedestruction of the second temple by Titus, since the dispersion of theJewish nation in all countries, this people has not ceased to longintensely, and hope fervently, for the return to the lost land oftheir fathers. This yearning for, and hope in, Zion on the part of theJews was the concrete, I might say, the geographical, aspect of theirMessianic faith, which in its turn forms an essential part of theirreligion. 

Messianism and Zionism were really, for nearly two thousand years, identical conceptions, and without caviling and hair-splittinginterpretation, it would not be easy to make a distinction between theprayers for the appearance of the promised Messiah, and those for thenot less promised return to the historical home, --both of which standside by side on every page of the Jewish liturgy. These prayers were, until a few generations ago, meant literally by every Jew, as theystill are by the simple believing Jews. The Jews had no other ideathan that they were a people which as a punishment for its sins hadlost the land of its forefathers, which was condemned to live asstrangers in strange lands, and whose great sufferings would firstcease when it was again assembled on the consecrated soil of the HolyLand. 

This gradually changed about the middle of the eighteenth century, when enlightenment first began to find its way into Jewdom, in theperson of its first herald, Moses Mendelssohn, the popularphilosopher. The faith of the Jews became more lukewarm; the educatedclasses, where they did not simply convert themselves to Christianism, began to regard the doctrines of their religion in a rationalistmanner; for them the dispersion of the Jewish people was a final andunalterable fact; they emptied the conception of the Messiah and ofZion of every concrete meaning, and arranged for themselves a singulardoctrine, according to which the Zion promised to the Jews was to beunderstood only in a spiritual sense, as the setting up of the Jewishmonotheism in the whole world, as the future triumph of Jewish ethicsover the less sublime and less noble moral teaching of the othernations. An American rabbi reduced this conception to the strikingformula, "Our Zion is in Washington. " The Mendelssohn teachinglogically developed in the first half of the nineteenth century intothe "Reform, " which deliberately broke with Zionism. For the ReformJew, the word Zion had just as little meaning as the word dispersion. He does not feel himself in any diaspora. He denies that there is aJewish people and that he is a member of it. He desires only to belongto the people in whose midst he lives. For him Judaism is a purelyreligious conception which has nothing whatever to do withnationality. The land of his birth is his fatherland, and he will knowof no other. The idea of a return to Palestine excites him either toindignation or to laughter. He answers it with the well-known, silly, would-be witticism, "If the Jewish state is again set up in Palestine, I will ask to be its ambassador in Paris. "

The thinking Jew did not fail, however, to perceive, in the course oftime, that Reform Judaism is a half measure, a compromise, which likeevery compromise, contains the germ of destruction, as it cannot forone instant resist logical criticism. Whom shall the Reform Judaismsatisfy? The believing Jew? He rejects it with the greatestabhorrence. The unbelieving Jew? He despises it as hypocrisy andphrase-mongering. The Jew who really desires to break with hisnational past and to be absorbed by his Christian surroundings? Forthat Jew, Reform Judaism does not suffice; he goes a step farther, thestep that leads to the baptismal font. Still less does it satisfy theJew who desires to guard Jewdom against destruction and to preserve itas an ethnical individuality. For to him an openly expressedabandonment of all national aspirations is synonymous with aself-condemnation of the Jewish people to a perhaps slow, but sure, death. Reform Judaism without Zionism, that is to say, without thewish and the hope for a reassembling of the Jewish people, has nofuture. At the best, it can only be regarded as a somewhat crookedpath that leads to Christianity. He who desires to reach that goal canfind straighter and shorter routes. 

II. 

And so it has come about that the generations which had been under theinfluence of the Mendelssohnian rhetoric and enlightenment, of reformand assimilation, have, in the last twenty years of the nineteenthcentury, been followed by a new generation which seeks to take up astandpoint other than the traditional towards the question of Zion. These new Jews shrug their shoulders at that twaddle which has beenthe fashion among rabbis and _literati_ for the last hundred years, and which boasts of a "Mission of Jewdom, " said to consist in this, that the Jews must live forever in dispersion among the peoples inorder to act as their teachers and models of morality, and to educatethem gradually to pure rationalism, to a general brotherhood ofmankind, and to an ideal cosmopolitanism. They declare the missionswagger to be either presumption or foolishness. They, more modest andmore practical, demand only the right for the Jewish people to liveand to develop itself, according to its abilities, up to the naturallimits of its type. They have become convinced that this is notpossible in dispersion, as, under that condition, prejudice, hatred, and contempt continually follow and oppress them, and either stinttheir development, or force them to an ethnical mimicry whichnecessarily makes of them, instead of original types with a right toexistence, mediocre or bad copies of foreign models. They thereforework methodically with a view to rendering the Jewish people once morea normal one, which lives on its own soil, and accomplishes alleconomical, intellectual, moral, and political functions of acivilized nation. 

The goal cannot be reached at once. It lies in a future more or lessnear. It is an ideal, a desire, a hope, as the Messianic Zionism wasand is. The new Zionism, which has been called the political one, differs, however, from the old, the religious, the Messianic one, inthis, --that it disavows all mysticism, no longer identifies itselfwith Messianism, and does not expect the return to Palestine to bebrought about by a miracle, but desires to prepare the way by its ownefforts. 

The new Zionism has grown in part only out of the internal impulsionsof Judaism itself, out of the enthusiasm of modern educated Jews fortheir history and martyrology, out of the awakened consciousness oftheir racial qualities, out of their ambition to save the ancientblood, in view of the farthest possible future, and to add to theachievements of their forefathers the achievements of their posterity. 

On the other hand, Zionism is the effect of two impulses which camefrom without, --first, the principle of nationality, which for half acentury ruled thought and feeling in Europe, and governed the politicsof the world; secondly, Anti-Semitism, from which the Jews of allcountries have more or less to suffer. 

The principle of nationality has awakened self-consciousness in allthe peoples; it teaches them to regard their peculiarities asqualities, and gives them a passionate desire for independence. Itcould not, therefore, pass over the educated Jews without leaving atrace. It induced them to remember who and what they are; to feelthemselves, what they had unlearned, a people apart; and to demand forthemselves a normal national destiny. This slow and painful work ofthe recovery of their national individuality was rendered easier bythe attitude of the peoples, who eliminated them from among themselvesas a foreign element, and put stress, without consideration orcourtesy, on the real and imaginary contrasts, or at leastdifferences, between themselves and the Jews. 

The principle of nationality has, in its exaggerations, led toexcesses. It has been led astray into Chauvinism, abased to idiotichatred of the foreigner, degraded to grotesque self-worship. From thiscaricature of itself the Jewish nationalism is safe. The Jewishnationalist does not suffer from self-inflation; he feels, on thecontrary, that he must make tireless efforts to render the name of Jewa title of honor. He modestly recognizes the good qualities of othernations, and seeks diligently to acquire them in so far as theyharmonize with his natural capacities. He knows what terrible harmcenturies of slavery or disability have done to his originally proudand upright character, and seeks to cure it by means of intenseself-training. If, however, nationalism is on its guard against allillusions as to itself, this is a natural phase in the process ofdevelopment from barbaric selfish individualism to free humanism andaltruism, --a phase the justification and necessity of which can onlybe denied by him who has no comprehension whatever of the laws oforganic evolution, and is totally lacking in the historical sense. 

Anti-Semitism has also taught many educated Jews the way back to theirpeople. It has had the effect of a sharp trial which the weak cannotstand, but from which the strong emerge stronger or more confident inthemselves. It is not correct to say that Zionism is but a "gesture oftruculence" or an act of desperation against Anti-Semitism. It is truethat more than one educated Jew has been moved only by Anti-Semitismto throw in his lot again with Jewdom, and he would again fall away ifhis Christian fellow-countrymen would receive him anew in a friendlyspirit. But, in the case of most Zionists, Anti-Semitism only forcedthem to reflect upon their relation to the nations, and theirreflection has led them to conclusions which would remain a lastingacquirement of their mind and heart, even if Anti-Semitism were todisappear completely from the world. 

Be it well understood; the Zionism analyzed above is that of theeducated and free Jews, --the Jewish élite. The uneducated mass, clinging to the old traditions, is Zionist without much reflection, from feeling, from instinct, from distress, and yearning. They suffertoo much from the hardships of life, from the hatred of the peoples, from legal disabilities, and social outlawry; they feel that theycannot hope for any lasting amelioration of their situation so long asthey must live as a powerless minority among a hostile majority. Theydesire to become a nation, to rejuvenate themselves by close contactwith mother earth, and to become once more the masters of theirdestiny. This Zionist mass is still in part not quite free frommystical tendencies. It allows its Zionism to be pervaded, to acertain extent, by Messianic reminiscences, and blends it withreligious emotions. They have certainly a clear idea of the aim, thereassembling of the Jewish nation, but not of the means. Still, eventhey have realized already the necessity of themselves making efforts, and there is a vast difference between their active readiness fororganization and their spirit of sacrifice, and the pious, prayer-indulging passiveness of the purely religious Messianist. 

III. 

The new or political Zionism has had here and there forerunners, whosefirst appearance dates back to the early half of the nineteenthcentury. 

In the beginning of the eighties terrible persecutions broke out inRussia without any apparent reason, persecutions which cost hundredsof Jews their lives, destroyed the prosperity of thousands more, andinduced tens of thousands to turn their backs on the land of theirbirth. This calamity brutally aroused the Jews from theirhundred-year-old illusions and brought them again to a sense ofreality. A Russian Jew, Dr. Pinsker, at that time wrote a smallpamphlet entitled, "Auto-Emancipation, " which was already a prelude tothe modern political Zionism, and sketched all its motives withouthowever developing them symphonically. He, at any rate, it was whogave its watchword to the whole movement: "The Jews are no merereligious community, they are a nation. They desire again to live intheir own country as a united people. Their rejuvenation must be atthe same time economical, physical, intellectual, and moral. "

The Jewish youth of the middle schools and universities of Russia wereprofoundly affected by Pinsker's arguments. They began to foundnational Jewish societies. A number of students who studied at foreignuniversities became in their new surroundings apostles of Dr. Pinsker'sidea, and found adherents here and there, for the most part among theyoung Jews of Vienna. Others preferred action to word, example tosermon, abandoned their studies, and emigrated to Palestine in order tobecome peasants there, --Jewish peasants on historically Jewish soil. Deeply moved by this idealism of a peculiarly enthusiastic élite, cooler headed Jews in Russia and Germany began also to form societiesin order to support from a distance the Palestine settlements of theJewish pioneers. This took place without any combined plan and with noclear notion of the aim and the means. The societies were notconscious of the fact that they felt and acted as Zionists. They didnot perceive the connection between the Jewish colonization ofPalestine and the future of the whole Jewish nation. It was in theircase rather an instinctive movement in which all kinds of obscurefeelings are dimly discernible, --piety, archĉological-historicalsentimentality, charity, and pride of pedigree. At any rate, the mindsof the Jews were prepared, the feeling was in the air, Jewdom was ripefor a change. 

As is always the case in such historical moments, the man alsoappeared whose mission it was to express clearly the ideas obscurelyfelt by many, and to proclaim loudly the word they were waiting tohear. This man was Dr. Theodor Herzl. He published in the autumn of1896 a concisely written booklet, "Der Judenstaat" (The Jewish State), which proclaimed, with a determination that till then had noprecedent, the fact that the Jews are a people who demand forthemselves all the rights of a people, and who desire to settle in acountry where they can lead a free and complete political existence. 

"Der Judenstaat" has become the real starting point of politicalZionism, --the starting point, not the programme. Herzl's book is stillthe subjective work of a solitary thinker who speaks in his own name. Many details in it are literature. It is not easy to draw a sharpboundary line between the sober earnest of the social politician andthe imagination of the prophetical poet. The real programme had to bea collective work which was certainly based on Herzl's book, andinspired by Herzl's visions of the future, but which rid itself of allfantastic details, and was built up solely from the elements ofreality. 

Herzl's book was at once greeted by tens of thousands of Jews, chieflythe young, as an act of redemption. It was not to remain merelyprinted paper, but should be transformed into a practical creation. New societies were founded everywhere, no longer with a view of theslow, petty settlement of Palestine by means of groups of Jewscreeping surreptitiously as it were into the country, but by thepreparation for an emigration "en masse" into the Holy Land, based ona formal treaty with the Turkish Government, guaranteed by the GreatPowers, by which the former should accord the new settlers the rightof self-government. 

The premises of political Zionism are that there is a Jewish nation. This is just the point denied by the assimilation Jews, and thespiritless, unctuous, prating rabbis in their pay. Dr. Herzl saw thatthe first task he had to fulfil was the organizing of a manifestationwhich should bring before the world, and the Jewish people itself, inmodern, comprehensible form the fact of its national existence. Heconvoked a Zionist congress, which in spite of the most furiousattacks and most unscrupulous acts of violence, --the Jewish communityof Munich where the congress was originally intended to be heldprotested against its meeting in that town, --assembled for the firsttime in Basel, the end of August, 1897, and consisted of two hundredand four selected representatives of the Zionist Jews of bothhemispheres. 

The first Zionist congress solemnly proclaimed in the face of theattentive world that the Jews are a nation, and that they do notdesire to be absorbed by other nations. It vowed to work for theemancipation of that part of the Jewish race which is deprived of allrights, and which is dragging out its existence in undeserved misery, and to prepare for it a brighter future. It puts its aims on record ina programme unanimously adopted with the greatest enthusiasm. This ranas follows:--

"Zionism works to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestineguaranteed by public law. 

"For the reaching of this goal the congress proposes to adopt thefollowing means:--

"(1. ) The well-regulated promotion of the settlement of Palestine byJewish agriculturists, artisans, and manufacturers. 

"(2. ) The organization and knitting together of the whole Jewishcommunity by means of proper local and general institutions, inaccordance with the law of the different countries. 

"(3. ) The strengthening of the Jewish self-respect and nationalconsciousness. 

"(4. ) Preparatory steps for obtaining the consent of the governments, which is necessary for the achievement of the aims of Zionism. "

IV. 

The first congress did not separate without having created a lastingorganization. It elected a "Great Committee of Action, " in which allcountries with a somewhat considerable Jewish population arerepresented, and which in its turn selected a smaller "permanentcommittee" with its headquarters in Vienna, under the presidency ofDr. Herzl. It was followed in the three ensuing years by threefurther congresses, in 1898 and 1899, again in Basel, and in 1900 inLondon. The number of the delegates rose in 1898 to two hundred andeighty, in 1899 to three hundred and seventy, and in 1900 to fourhundred and twenty. At every succeeding congress the regulations forelection were more strictly enforced, the mandates more closelyexamined, and at the present moment the congress, which has become apermanent institution of the Zionist Jewdom, and which met for thefifth time in December, 1901, again in Basel, can with justice claimto be the real representative of one hundred and eighty thousandelectors. 

He who desires to know what the Jews who have been represented at thecongress have done up to the present time to realize the programme ofZionism drawn up by the first congress, has only to compare thevarious points of this programme with the facts we are going torecord. 

"(1. ) The well-regulated promotion of the settlement of Palestine byJewish agriculturists, artisans, and manufacturers. "

Zionism rejects on principle all colonization on a small scale, andthe idea of "sneaking" into Palestine. The Zionists have thereforedevoted themselves preëminently to a zealous and tireless advocacy ofthe uniting of the already existing Jewish colonies in Palestine withthose who until now have given them their aid and who of late haveinclined towards the withdrawal of their support from them. TheZionists have also prepared the way for founding factories in the HolyLand, which will give employment to the Jewish workmen there, and haveassured, by according a yearly subvention, the future existence of themodel Hebraic school in Jaffa, which was about to close its doors forwant of funds. They take care that the existing and promisingbeginnings of a Jewish colonization shall be looked after andmaintained till the movement will be possible on a large scale. 

"(2. ) The organization and knitting together of the whole Jewishcommunity by the means of proper local and general institutions inaccordance with the law of the different countries. "

The Zionist Jewish community is at present organized in bothhemispheres in about nine hundred societies, which display greatactivity. In the matter of organization covering the whole of Jewdom, Zionism possesses national federations of its societies, --the "great"and the "smaller committee of action, " and the congress whichmaintains a permanent secretarial office in Vienna. The cost of thisapparatus is covered by the voluntary yearly offerings of theZionists, to which offerings the name of the old Jewish coinage isapplied, and which accordingly are known as "shekels, "--their amountbeing in America forty cents, and in Western lands a unit of thecoinage (one mark, one franc, one shilling, etc. ). The payment of theshekel gives the right of vote for the congress. Zionism possesses itsofficial organ, "Die Welt, " published in German in Vienna. Its ideasare further set forth in about forty other periodicals in the Hebrew, German, Russian, Polish, Italian, English, French, and Roumanianlanguages, and in the Jewish-German and Judeo-Spanish jargons. ItsAmerican organ is the periodical, "The Maccabĉan. " It has foundednumerous schools, Toynbee Halls, and educational institutes, and hasrecently begun to acquire a share in the administration of the Jewishcommunities, in order to devote their resources, more than hasheretofore been the case with the anti-national or unthinking leaders, to the promoting of national Jewish instruction, education, andculture. 

"(3. ) Strengthening of the Jewish self-respect and nationalconsciousness. "

The Zionist societies use every effort that the members and the Jewishmasses in general may know the history of their nation, and becomeacquainted with the sacred and profane literature in the Hebrewtongue. They teach the Jews to hold their heads high, to be proud oftheir descent, and to despise the Anti-Semitic lies, calumnies, andinsults. They care, in the measure of their strength, for theamelioration of the hygiene of the Jewish proletariat, for itseconomic improvement by means of association and solidarity, forwell-directed education of children, and for the instruction of thewomen. They give the young students a goal for their efforts and anideal in life. They preach the duty of leading a faultless, spirituallife, the rejection of a crude materialism, into which theassimilation Jews, on account of the want of a worthy ideal, are onlytoo apt to sink, and strict self-control in word and deed. They foundathletic societies in order to promote the long neglected physicaldevelopment of the rising generation. They give a new impulse to thecelebration of Jewish historical feasts and memorial days. In manyinstances they even make themselves outwardly conspicuous by wearinginsignia. The Zionist regards it as contemptible to conceal hisnationality. He wishes to be recognized as a Jew, and as he alwaysbehaves himself in a natural, unaffected way, plays no comedy ofimitation, wishes to deceive nobody about his extraction and identity, intrudes upon no one under a false flag, his relations to hisChristian neighbors and fellow-countrymen are sounder, truer, morefrank and dignified than those of the assimilation Jew, who makespainful and useless efforts, which disgust every Christian possessinga modicum of good taste, to hide the fact that he is a Jew. 

"(4. ) Preparatory steps to obtain the consent of the governmentsnecessary to achieve the aims of Zionism. "

Several of the governments whose opinion will eventually be decisivein the matter have been, by means of memorials, reliably informed ofthe aims of Zionism; and there has been no want of very importantencouragements and promising expressions of sympathy with itstendencies. 

For the moment the committee of action is trying to obtain from Turkeya charter for the colonization of such land in Palestine as can bedisposed of, and which at present is lying waste, and for the openingof its neglected resources. The exploiting of such a charter is notpossible without considerable sums of money. In order to be armedfinancially for the time that Turkey will accord such a charter, thesecond Zionist congress (1898) decided to found a national Jewish bankinstitute, the "Jewish Colonial Trust, " with its headquarters inLondon. This resolution was carried out the following year (1899). Thebank has been brought into being. Its capital in shares is two millionpounds sterling. It can, by the statutes, start business when oneeighth of this capital, two hundred and fifty thousand poundssterling, has been actually paid up. This has already been done. 

Another financial instrument of Zionism is the "National Fund, "created by the fifth congress (1901), which is raised by voluntarysubscription and which is to amount to two hundred thousand poundssterling. The half of this sum is to be devoted to the purchase ofland in Palestine, the other half to remain an intangible commonproperty of the Jewish people, which will by means of compoundinterest and gifts continually increase, so that at importantjunctures the interest may be used for great national purposes. 

V. 

I have taken pains to show, in as brief and as objective a manner aspossible, what Zionism is, what it desires to do, how it came intobeing, and how it has developed up to the present. I have alsorepeatedly mentioned that its most violent opponents have arisen fromthe Jewish community. 

Many of them content themselves with libeling and insulting theleaders of the Zionist movement. This kind of hostility they who arevilified can afford to despise. Men who, without expecting theslightest advantage to themselves, out of the purest, most unselfishlove for the unhappy ones of their race, out of reverence for theirforefathers, out of a general spirit of philanthropy, have made thegreatest sacrifices in money, time, strength, and health, in order toelevate their people and to free millions of innocent, persecuted menfrom the bitterest misery, have the right smilingly to shrug theirshoulders when irresponsible fanatics or pitiable paid scribesreproach them with self-interest or with vanity. 

Besides these opponents of a lower type, there are others who do notmerely lie and slander, but also seek to argue. They delight incomparing the apostles of Zionism with the false Messiahs like thenotorious Sabbathai Levi, who have appeared only too often in Jewishhistory, and who have always done the greatest mischief to the Jewishpeople they have deceived. To compare Zionism with the vagaries orimpostures of false Messiahs of the Sabbathai Levi kind, presupposesgreat foolishness or great bad faith. Zionism is preciselycharacterized by the complete absence of any mystical element. Itpromises its adherents no miracles; on the contrary, it continuallyimpresses on them that their emancipation from a situation they findintolerable can only be the result of their own work, the fruit oftheir long, strenuous, and combined efforts. 

People declare Zionism to be a dream, and deny that its practicalrealization is possible. To objections of this category the Zionistshave a hundred times given a sufficient answer. This simple negativecriticism can be passed over. Its only real refutation is in deeds, such as the Zionists have already performed and as they intend furtherto perform. 

The one point which probably forever excludes the possibility of anunderstanding between Zionist and non-Zionist Jews is the question ofthe Jewish nationality. Whoever maintains and believes that the Jewsare not a nation can indeed be no Zionist; he cannot join a movementwhich is only justified when it is admitted that it desires to createnormal conditions of existence for a people living and sufferingunder abnormal conditions. He who, on the contrary, is convinced thatthe Jews are a people must necessarily become Zionist, as only thereturn to their own country can save the everywhere hated, persecuted, and oppressed Jewish nation from physical and intellectualdestruction. 

Many Jews, especially those of the West, have, in their heart ofhearts, completely broken with Judaism, and they will probably soon doso openly, and if they do not break away, their children orgrandchildren will. These desire to be entirely absorbed by theirChristian fellow-countrymen. They resent it as a great annoyance whenother Jews proclaim that they are a people apart, and desire to bringabout an unequivocal separation between themselves and the othernations. Their great and constant fear is to be denounced as strangersin the land of their birth, of which they are free citizens. They fearthat this will be more than ever the case, if a large section of theJewish people openly claim for themselves rights as an autonomousnation, and still worse, if anywhere in the world a political andintellectual center of Judaism should really be created, in whichmillions of Jews would be grouped together, united as a nation. 

All these feelings on the part of the assimilation Jews arecomprehensible. From their standpoint they are justified. These Jews, however, have no right to expect that Zionism should for their sakecommit suicide. The Jews who are happy and contented in the land oftheir birth, and who indignantly reject the suggestion of abandoningit, are about a sixth of the Jewish nation, say two millions out oftwelve. The other five sixths, or ten millions, feel themselvesprofoundly unhappy in the countries where they reside, and they haveevery reason for doing so. These ten millions cannot be called upon tosubmit forever unresistingly to their thraldom, and to renounce everyeffort for redemption from their misery, merely in order that thecomfort of two million happy and contented Jews may not be disturbed. 

The Zionists are, moreover, firmly convinced that the misgivings ofthe assimilation Jews are unfounded. The reassembling of the Jewishpeople in Palestine will not have the consequences which they fear. When there is again a Jewish country, the Jews will have the choice ofemigrating thither, or of remaining in their present home. Many willdoubtless remain, and will prove by their choice that they prefer theland of their birth to their kindred and to their national soil. It isbarely possible that the Anti-Semites will still throw the scornfuland perfidious "stranger!" in their face. But the real Christiansamong their fellow-countrymen, those who think and feel according tothe teaching and examples of the Holy Writ, will be convinced thatthey do not regard themselves as strangers in the land of their birth, and will then rightly comprehend the real meaning of their voluntaryrenunciation of a return to a land of the Jews, and of their fidelityto their homes and to their Christian neighbors. 

The Zionists know that they have undertaken a work of unexampleddifficulty. Never before has the effort been made to transplant, peacefully, in a short space of time, to another soil, several millionpeople from various countries; never has it been attempted totransform millions of physically degenerate proletarians, withouttrade or profession, into agriculturists and cattle breeders, to bringtownbred hucksters and trades people, agents, and men of sedentaryoccupation again into contact with the plough and the mother earth. Itwill be necessary to accustom Jews of different origins to oneanother, to train them practically to national unity, and at the sametime to overcome the superhuman obstacles of difference of language, unequal civilization, and of the manners of thought, prejudices, likes, and dislikes of foreign nations, brought severally from thelands of their birth. 

What gives the Zionists the courage to begin this labor of Hercules isthe conviction that they are doing a necessary and useful work, awork of love and civilization, a work of justice and wisdom. Theydesire to save eight to ten millions of their kindred from intolerablesuffering. They desire to free the nations among whom they nowvegetate from a presence which is considered disagreeable. They wishto deprive Anti-Semitism--which everywhere lowers public morals anddevelops the very worst instincts--of its victim. They wish to makeunquestionable producers out of the Jews at present reproached withbeing parasites. They desire to fertilize with their sweat and tillwith their hands a country that is to-day a desert, until it is againthe flowering garden it has once been. Thus will Zionism in an equaldegree serve the unhappy Jew and the Christian peoples, civilizationand the economy of the world; and the services which it can render, and wishes to render, are great enough to justify its hope that theChristian world, too, will appreciate them, and support the movementwith its active sympathy. 

ANTI-SEMITISM

IN EUROPE

BY

DR. GUSTAV GOTTHEIL

THE TRUE NATURE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE

Anti-Semitism would be simply ridiculous if it were not so terribly inearnest. People who make that word a war cry upon a whole race oughtto know its meaning, especially if it is to express the chief reasonfor their hostility. Before they prefix the "anti" to a word theyshould be sure that they understand the "pro, " lest they be found tofight shadows merely, specters of their own creation. But how far isthis the case? How many ever tried to learn the sense of thedesignation under which they have enrolled themselves? Suppose we ask, "What does Semitism mean?" Only this, must be our answer, --that it isa summing up of the ruling dispositions, habits, mental endowments, and moral peculiarities of all the races comprised under the name ofSemites, so named from their supposed descent from the eldest of thethree sons of Noah. So ineradicable are these features supposed to bethat, no matter where the races have lived or are now living, nomatter what stage of civilization they have passed through or havereached now, no matter what influence non-Semitic races have exercisedupon them, they remain essentially the same. What are these features?Who will formulate the precise standard by which a descendant of Shemis unfailingly known and set apart from those of Ham or Japhet? Whenwe consider that we are pointed back for the meaning of Semite toantediluvian times, that is to say, to one of the oldest myths of theworld, we must admit that it would indeed be the wonder of wonders ifa large section of mankind have a family likeness so clear that theyare marked off from the rest. And this, despite the long ages thathave passed since the supposed separation of the sons of Noah andtheir wide dispersion; despite their triumphs and defeats in wars, instate building, and church formation; despite the wide diversitybetween them in their literature, their philosophy, their art, theirtrades and industries. Are the Semites still characterized by the samegifts and tendencies of mind and heart, ruled by the same passions, subject to the same limitations, as were their ancestors in all theirgenerations?

Among them there is a fraction, and that fraction again scattered overvast areas, in various states of civilization, and under diversifiedkinds of governments, enjoying liberty and rights of citizenship inthe one, and groaning under relentless oppression in the other, --arethey still none other than Semites? Are they so permeated with Semiticfeatures that they can never amalgamate with their surroundings andbecome full-weighted citizens of the state where they pitch theirtents, --offer them what inducements you may, --but must be kept atarms length and treated as suspects? Has nature lost all her power inthis instance and become faithless to herself? Will the Hebrew childnot love the land of its birth and feel the kinship with the peoplewhose language and mode of life become its own? But why heap upimprobabilities and impossibilities? The designation fastened upon usas a stigma was a fraud from the beginning, a conscious fraud and amalicious invention. It was "conceived in mischief and brought forthin iniquity. " What was meant was not anti-Semitism, but_anti-Judaism_; but that name had to be avoided because it implieshostility to a religion and a creed; and that, again, might beconstrued as springing from an awakened zeal for the instigator's ownChurch; a suspicion they could not permit to rest upon them. No, it isnot the Jew's religion that makes him obnoxious and a danger to thestate, but it is his descent from the eldest son of Noah. True, theJews have at no time adopted it as a national name. "Semitic" is ofcomparatively recent date, an abstract word intended merely forscientific classification, never meant for discrimination of anyportion of the Semitic races, or to become a hissing and a byword or amask for robbers of human rights and destroyers of human happiness. 

The victims of this crusade are not a nameless horde for whom adesignation had to be coined; they are known to history for threethousand years as Hebrews, Israelites, Jews, and they have no mind toexchange these names for any other. But a new "Hep Hep" was wanted, and so "Semites" was hauled from the world of books, disfigured, andfastened upon the Jewish gabardine in noble emulation of the barbarismof the Middle Ages. The more senseless, the more welcome it was as abugbear to frighten the populace and to stir into flames the sparks offanaticism which are always smouldering in the hearts of the vulgar, whether of low degree or high degree, worldly or ghostly. 

The strangest thing, however, in this learned falsification is thatit should have succeeded so well with people calling themselvesChristians and clinging to that name often after they have given upall its historic substance. Is Christianity not purely Semitic at thecore? Is it not based upon the Semitic conception of the relationbetween man and his Creator? The great efforts to liberalize andrationalize the Church which the last century witnessed, up toProfessor Harnack's recent attempt to sum up "Das Wesen desChristenthums, "--what are all these but endeavors to free it fromforeign accretions and envelopments and to bring its Semitic characterinto greater prominence?

It is the only Asiatic conception of religion that has subdued Europeand America, and that still holds undisputed sway over all its diversenationalities. The very name which symbolizes to them all that isnoblest, purest, and most blessed, points to that source asunfailingly as the needle of the compass to the poles. Harnack claimsthat Christianity is not one religion amongst others, but _TheReligion_, the only one fulfilling all the conditions of its highestideal. The Being in whom that fulness of light was revealed, --was henot a Semite of the Semites? Did he ever deny his origin? Christianitymeans _Messianity_, and the whole idea of a Mashiach, --the anointed, namely, anointed ruler, --is most intensely national and, therefore, intensely Semitic, --from which indisputable fact it follows that theloftiest conception of religion came to the world from that source. Thence came the Bible, --the book of the world which has beentranslated into every living tongue and dialect, and to theelucidation of which hosts of scholars still devote their lives. Painting, sculpture, music, poetry, have attempted their highestflights under its inspiration. From countless pulpits its moral andreligious truths are expounded, week after week, and on every greatoccasion of national significance, --in whatever part of Christendom itmay occur, --the Songs of Zion are awakened as the fittest expressionsof the prevailing sentiment. The Psalter is the most wonderful ofexisting books, --at home alike in the palace of the king and thecottage of the peasant, the inexhaustible theme of our masters ofmusic. Noeldeke, Protestant professor at the University of Strasburg, one of the great lights of Semitic scholarship, declares that "by theside of the Psalms all other religious hymns appear as pale imitationsmerely. " On that field were gathered the sheaves which a master handhas wound together into the One Universal Prayer, in which allChurches join with one accord. And the Universal Day of Rest, --thatone sure blessing of the laboring man, --whence did it come? What otherlegislator had the divine audacity to make its observance one of thefoundation laws of his constitution, and to give it precedence, evenover all moral enactments?

Professor R. F. Grau of the conservative school of theology writes:--

"God is a living, holy, loving Being. He is not first and foremost tobe scientifically comprehended, but worshipped and revered in theheart, and because He is such a Being, the Semites had to be chosen asHis apostles to the whole world. For they had a heart for Him in thebeginning. .. . The Semite has the religion of the Infinite, and as thisis the perfect religion, . .. The Church, as the Community of Christ, has sprung from the Semitic mustard seed, although at present myriadsof Indo-germanics dwell under the branches of the tree. "

In the face of admissions like these by men who have a right to beheard in the matter, and considering that the tree can never changethe nature of the root from which it sprang, the conclusion is notunwarranted that "anti-Semitic" is a synonym for "anti-Christian. "

Its success is due to the still persistent prejudice against the Jewsamong so many Christians, --all their professions to the contrarynotwithstanding. And it continues for several reasons. One is its longduration; it has lasted for ages and is ingrained in their feelingsand ideas. What if it be shown ever so clearly that it is unjust, unreasonable, yea, even unchristian!--that will not materially changethe temper of the great masses of the people. The common man is rarelyswayed by the force of arguments; the power of a principle, so weightywith the thinkers, is of no consequence to him. He belongs to thematerial world, and to make good his place in it is the aim towardwhich all his energies are bent. For things spiritual he has neithertime nor capacity. He is ruled by the sentiments which were implantedin him in his youth and by his immediate surroundings. All thinkingmust be done for him; all new ideas must be presented to him, as itwere, ready made and in tangible form. He does not push himselfforward, but must be led onward by hands that understand him and hisways. But in this instance, his guides are not particularly anxious tobring about a change for the better, --even if we suppose that theyconsider the liberation from prejudice against the Jews a betterment. They have their own theological difficulty to contend with. The Jewsare still unconverted, and the missions established and maintained forthe purpose of winning them over can show no better results now thanin the past. The chief controversy between the Church and Israelstands to-day where it stood when it was first raised at Jerusalemeighteen centuries ago. A judicial sentence of a court at Jerusalemhas grown into a pivotal point on which, as the Church declares, turnsthe salvation of mankind for time and eternity; and if she is right, the Jews must be wrong. Since that fatal occurrence, Christianity, inone form or another, has conquered Europe and America, and has plantedoutposts in almost every part of the earth, but has not been able tosubdue the Jew. Every conceivable means to make him surrender has beentried, including that of the jailor and the executioner and all thehorrors that lie between them, --expulsion, pillage, socialdegradation, impaling in ghettos, and what not--but in vain. The samepolicy is continued to this day as far as the present more civilizedstate of the Christians permits; but still in vain. So far are theirpersecutors from having brought the Jews to their knees, that theself-consciousness of the race, as a whole, has deepened; and theiradvance in general culture enables them to measure swords, intellectually, with their accusers and to give a reason for the faiththat is in them. 

All the conditions of this interminable conflict are against them. Innumbers they are a vanishing minority, and still more weakened bytheir dispersion over the face of the earth, unorganized, without anyecclesiastical authority in their Church that could direct them or actin their name. Every individual Jew must face the world's hostilitysingle-handed, and be, religiously, his own priest, his own pope. Allies he has none, advocates of his cause are few and far between. The favors of his friends are often more humiliating than the attacksof his enemies. Still he holds his own, and if for the last century orso he has carried on a reformation of his ancient rituals, he has doneso from his own initiative and in his own way, which is not that intowhich it has been tried so long to force or to lure him. At the sametime a revival of Jewish literature has taken place which not only hasbrought to light the long-forgotten treasures of the past, but hasshown the large part the Jews have in the general progress of mankind. The ecclesia triumphant has no victory to record in this section ofher battlefields, and it is not in ordinary human nature frankly toadmit a defeat in such an unequal struggle. Only one had a right toexpect that a Church that claims to have regenerated the human raceand to have lifted the slave of his blind instincts into "the gloriousliberty of the children of God" would have risen superior to thecommon weakness. Instead of that, almost throughout Christendom, thecrusade against the Jews is being preached and the policy ofrepression loudly demanded. 

On what ground? It is said that they dominate everywhere--in finance, in law courts, in politics, in art, in literature, in the press, intrade and manufacture. But how do they achieve this astounding feat?How do the Jews succeed in so lording it over the immense majority? Bywitchcraft? Is it by magic that a few bankers and brokers keep alltheir competitors in subjugation and handle them at their will and totheir own profit? Is it by sorcery that they force their way to theuniversities and academies? Are they in possession of secret formulasby which they can direct the currents of trade at their will?Recently, loud complaints were raised in several of the German stateparliaments that there were too many Jewish judges and lawyers intheir lands, and the governments were exhorted to put an end to thescandal. No charges of incompetency or exploitation were raisedagainst the Hebrews that "handle the law. " Only it was declared thata Christian shrunk from taking an oath at the hand of a Jewish lawyer. If this be so, how is it that the people go to them in numbers thatexcite the envy of their non-Jewish colleagues? All the statementsabout the alleged power of the Jews are ridiculous exaggerations, trumped up to scare the imagination of the thoughtless, as has beenproved over and over again. But even reduced to their true measure, they prove, not the possession of magic, but of soundness of mind, ofunimpaired energy, and of all the other needful conditions forsuccess, which the Jews have kept intact despite all the attempts madeto crush the unbelievers into the dust. The outcry against them istheir vindication; people do not fear weaklings, do not raise alarmsagainst perils which can be pushed aside by an effort of the will. Thefew must own inherent sources of strength if the many resort to thecoward's weapon of lies and slander. And in this instance theadmission of the truth is an implied homage to the religion which thevictors in the unequal struggle profess and defend. For it isindisputable that this is the source to which the formation of theJewish mind and heart must be attributed. Let me cite, for one proof, the admission of the most persistent and most powerful oppressor ofthe Jews, the procurator of the Russian synod. Half the number of allHebrews are subjects of Russia. They came under her dominion when sheconquered and incorporated the Polish provinces; they are kept thereunder the most stringent laws, and life is made to them as burdensomeas possible. "The Pale" is a gigantic ghetto where the oldest form ofrabbinism prevails to this day. Yet the same fear of the superiorityof the Jewish mind haunts the government; it is the alleged reason forpractically closing up all the avenues of the higher education forthem. Only _three per cent_ of the total number of students areadmitted to the universities and to the technical schools. But morethan a hundred thousand common soldiers are drafted from the Jewsinto the armies and sent to all parts of the gigantic empire, keptthere during the best part of their lives, without any prospect ofpromotion, and often going only to die in the defense of territorieswhich, if they were civilians, they would not be permitted to enter. The Russian Torquemada, not long ago, openly declared that not asingle Jew should be permitted to settle amongst the peasantry, evenwithin the Pale, because he would be the only sober man amongst apopulation that cannot resist the temptations of strong drink. Strangespectacle indeed! Men banished from places where they wish to livebecause they are too good for their surroundings! forced to remainwhere they can hardly eke out a miserable living. The question, surely, is justified. How did that poverty-stricken mass of oppressedpeople succeed in preserving its freedom from a national vice in acountry where its ancestors have dwelt for long generations? Can agreat virtue be maintained by sorcery? The common experience is thatof the poet--

 "Misery doth bravest mind abate. "

What but their religion made them proof against the arrows of a fatewhich, for duration and cruelty, is without a parallel in history!This conclusion is further corroborated by the fact that the samevirtue of sobriety characterizes them everywhere, and makes them anobject of envy to their non-Jewish neighbors, --nay, forces the honesttemperance advocate to hold them up before his Christian audiences asexamples to shame them into going and doing likewise; rather, let mesay, into staying at home and doing likewise. For one of thewitchcraft mysteries of Judaism is that its home is not in the church, but that the church is in the home. The Jew's salvation is in nowisedependent upon rabbi and synagogue, but upon wife and children. Theyare his congregation to whom he ministers as priest in fulfilment ofthe great charter word of dedication, "Ye shall be unto me a kingdomof priests and a holy nation. " The deepest roots of the Jewish faithrest and are nourished in the domestic soil. The synagogue has nothingto offer to the faithful which he cannot find in his own tent. Ten mengathered together with a Sepher Tora (scroll of the Mosaic law) intheir midst, form a Kahal Hakodesh (sacred body). No man becomes adrunkard with wife and children and aged parents near him for guardianangels. The greatest difficulty the Jewish reformation has to face iswhat to substitute for the old ceremonials where they have becomeimpracticable, and thus to preserve the essentially domestic characterof the ancient faith. Is it thinkable that the Jew would be lessobjectionable to his surroundings were he to lose his sturdy horror ofintemperance, and thus "assimilate" more freely with his neighbors ofdifferent faiths? It is not thinkable when we consider the greatefforts made by Christians everywhere to redeem their people fromtheir bondage to strong drink and the misery resulting from it. TheJew is the _natural ally of the temperance advocates_; and if he isnot found in their ranks, it is simply because he never knew fromexperience the need of that reformation. 

And never will he know, as long as his passionate fondness for homeand his longing for family love abide within him. At present, this, generally speaking, is still the case; the poorest and leastcultivated classes are not excepted; nay, just in that class it is oneof the most noteworthy features. If the uncouth immigrant from EasternEurope stoops to the lowest kinds of peddling, or, for a merepittance, wastes his life in the stifling sweatshop; if he is not veryscrupulous in his dealings with his transient patrons, and does nothold city ordinances as inviolable as those of the "Shulchan Aruch"(code of ceremonials), the central motive is his ever present thoughtof his family; even when he has not yet scraped together enoughpennies to pay for their fare to the new home, they are constantlywith him in his mind. This is not offered as a defense forover-reaching and cannot be allowed by a magistrate as a plea forlaw-breaking; but it is offered to the unprejudiced reader incompliance with Spinoza's golden rule: Human errors must not beridiculed and condemned, but _understood_. _Si duo faciunt idem, nonest idem. _ This wise caution is the more to be heeded in the presentinstance, as, from the same source, devotion to home life, springsanother fine feature of Jewry; go down in the scale as deep as youmay, they are an industrious, toilsome class of people, often turningtheir narrow homes into workshops where old and young ply a handicraftfrom early morn to the late evening hours. Hundreds of men and women, arriving in this country after they have passed the middle life, learntrades and work at them till their trembling hands can hold the toolsno longer or the light fades from their overstrained eyes. Among themthere are not a few that have seen better days at their native places, or are deeply learned in the Law. They are quick in seizing thesecret of a successful trade of paying manufacture, and not rarelybetter the instruction; a skill for which they are hated and despisedby their own aristocracy in the markets, and branded as spoilers ofevery good thing as soon as it appears. If this aptitude and eagernessfor trade be a fault, the Christians have themselves to blame for it. Even a superficial glance at the history of Israel proves that as longas the people lived on their native soil, and could live out their ownlives, they showed neither skill nor desire for mercantile pursuits;that their legislation, their religion, their poetry and prophesying, and their ethical ideas presuppose a nation of shepherds and tillersof the soil. For the great change in the ruling disposition of theJews, since their dispersion, those alone are responsible who nowreproach them for it. The first Christians were Jewish ploughmen andherdsmen; the Apostles mostly Judĉan peasants and fishermen. Thefinest parables and similes in the speeches of Jesus are taken fromthe peasants' occupation and experience. And even to this daythousands of the scattered race are ready to seize again the ploughand the spade, if they are given a chance, and not a few have done soeven under the most disheartening conditions. The fact is, the paganMercury proved a more merciful god to the Jews than the ChristianJesus, as he was taught and practised by the mediĉval Church. Hegloated over the sufferings of those who were of his own flesh andblood. No wonder they sought refuge under the wings of the heathendeity and became adepts in the art which he symbolized. 

But suppose it were true that all the Jews dote on traffic as theirdearest occupation, --what of it? The British have the nickname of "anation of shopkeepers" fastened on them; yet they were and are thegreatest benefactors of the human race, carrying the blessings ofcivilization to half the peoples of the globe. Commerce has done morefor the peace of the world than all the preaching, praying, andprophesying taken together. A great railroad, a steamship line, acable or a telephone wire, a commercial treaty, a tariffconvention, --these are the modern bonds that hold the remotest partsof the earth together, and make them equally abhor war and itsravages. A falling off in the exports, a shrinking of the value ofinvestments, an unforeseen competitor in the markets of the world, cause the rulers of the most civilized nations more anxiety than anyadverse political combination. For the former threaten the peace andwelfare of the home life of the people, on whose contentment they relyfor the defense of their claims in all their political intricacies. Aclass of people credited with the mastery of the art of buying andselling should, therefore, be welcome to every country and given theamplest freedom and encouragement to ply their skill, provided, ofcourse, they do not carry their hoarded profits out of the country andenrich other nations by them. But where do the Jews think of such athing? Their own country, if Palestine may still be so denominated, isone of the poorest in the world, and what little revival there haslately been perceptible is due to the colonies established there byJewish peasants who, under most trying conditions, labor to restorethe soil to its ancient fertility, after the long sleep into which ithas sunk. Jewish wealth can be enjoyed, and is being enjoyed, in noother way than non-Jewish. Its owners are charged by its religiousteachers with being only too willing to imitate the luxuries andextravagances of their neighbors. The same snares are spread for thefeet of their offspring as for those of Gentile birth; the temptersthat lie in wait for them are liberal enough to ignore distinctionsbetween the various creeds. I will not stoop to any defense of my racefrom the vulgar charge that they are cheaters; that each and all willalways try, right or wrong, to secure the best of any bargain intowhich a poor Gentile may enter with them. Those whom the commercialstanding of the Jews, here and elsewhere, has not yet cured of thisslanderous prejudice will not be converted by my pleading. Envy is anincurable disease; jealousy makes blind, and the common saying issurely true, that none are so blind as those who will not see. Butneither have I the least desire to hide or gloss over our realfailings and shortcomings. Those who cannot rest on their own realmerits and accept the blame for their undeniable demerits must notdare to challenge the judgment of the world. The Jew does dare it, andall he asks of his critics is fairness, impartiality, justice. What Ihave said to his praise and for his defense was intended solely toassist the fairminded reader in forming a just opinion of an agitationwhich in Europe embitters, cripples, and darkens thousands of lives, which, under better treatment, would be spent in contentment andgeneral usefulness. 

It is for this purpose only that I will briefly add two more traits ofthe Jews, equally valuable and undeniable. One is their charity; theycare for their poor, their sick, their aged, if destitute, as thenumerous institutions prove, found in every place where they dwell insufficient number to maintain them. Ungrudgingly they assume the heavyburdens which this "exclusiveness" imposes upon them. Blame them forit who may; the right-minded will not, especially when assured thatthis feeling of pity is not the privilege of the well-to-do among themonly. The working classes have always something to spare from theirscanty earnings for "Z'dakah, " the religious term in common use forcharity, which, significantly enough, in biblical Hebrew means"justice. " The idea that charity is an essential part of worship hasbeen bred into them by long tradition, and continues to be regarded assuch, wherever rabbinical Judaism survives in full force. Fromchildhood every Jew knows the saying of Simon the Just, one of thelast men of the Great Synagogue:--

 "The whole world rests on these three pillars;

 Law, Worship, and Charity. "

The other trait is their zeal in the education of their children. 

One of the standard objections to the Hebrews is their "forwardness";socially, it is a disagreeable and annoying fault, but otherwise agift of no little value. Forwardness is the soul of all progress andadvancement. Call it that, call it self-help, call it energy, call itself-reliance, call it by the popular name of wide-awakeness, and youtransfigure the fault into a merit. How the Jew was able to preserveit in any one of its forms is one of the many miracles of his history, seeing that the world has left nothing untried to cast the Jewsbackward to the last depth of self-despair. An exhibition of hisforwardness might be seen at the doors of the public schools in thelower districts of the city, notably at the time of admission of newpupils. The poorest of the Jewish fathers and mothers would be seenwrangling for the registration of their little ones, as if it were fortheir daily bread. And may this not also serve for a proof that theparents are willing to surrender their offspring to the influence ofthese schools, and see them thoroughly Americanized?

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By these signs ye shall know the Jews, wherever ye find them; theymay, therefore, be called racial. In every other respect they areneither better nor worse than other people of the corresponding stagesof life. Every variety of character is found among them; virtue andvice are distributed among them. Let Americans not stigmatize them as"undesirable immigrants, " and close their hospitable gate upon them. They bring with them qualities which are an ample compensation fortheir defects, and their well-to-do brethren are not behindhand inseeing to it that they become no public burden. The American peoplehave repeatedly shown the door to those who came hither for thepurpose of preaching anti-Semitism, thereby publicly testifying thatthey would have none of that disgrace to our age. What exists of itin social life is not worth arguing against. It will and mustdisappear in a country, the civil order of which is based upon theprinciple of equal rights to all law-abiding citizens, to whateverrace or religion they may belong. "A fair field and no favor. " Thisgood old saying comprises all our demands. 

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