A Book of Jewish Thoughts. Various
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a man has been persuaded to suspect himself unjustly—what can he do? Our greatest need is emancipation from self-contempt, from this idea that we are really worse than all the world. Otherwise we may in course of time become in reality what we now imagine ourselves to be.
ACHAD HA’AM, 1891.
ANTI-SEMITISM
I
JEWISH misery has two forms, the material and the moral. In Eastern Europe, in those regions which shelter the vast majority of our race, we see a painful fight for the maintenance of a bare existence. In Western Europe, the Jew has bread; but man does not live on bread alone. His misery is moral. It exists in the constant wounding of self-respect and honour.
MAX NORDAU, 1897.
I REMEMBER when I used to come home from the Cheder11, bleeding and crying from the wounds inflicted upon me by the Christian boys, my father used to say, ‘My child, we are in Golus (exile), and we must submit to God’s will’. And he made me understand that this is only a passing stage in history, as we Jews belong to Eternity, when God will comfort His people. Thus the pain was only physical; but my real suffering began later in life, when I emigrated from Roumania to so-called civilized countries, and found there what I might call the Higher Anti-Semitism, which burns the soul though it leaves the body unhurt.
S. SCHECHTER, 1903.
II
NOT rarely a Jew is heard to murmur that we must learn from our enemies and try to remedy our failings. He forgets, however, that the anti-Semitic accusations are valueless, because they are not based on a criticism of real facts, but are merely due to the psychological law according to which children, savages, and malevolent fools make persons and things against which they have an aversion responsible for their sufferings.
Pretexts change, but the hatred remains. The Jews are not hated because they have evil qualities; evil qualities are sought for in them because they are hated.
MAX NORDAU.
MY grandmother, the beautiful daughter of a family who had suffered much from persecution, had imbibed that dislike for her race which the vain are too apt to adopt when they find they are born to public contempt. The indignant feeling that should be reserved for the persecutor, in the mortification of their disturbed sensibility, is too often visited on the victim; and the cause of annoyance is recognized not in the ignorant malevolence of the powerful, but in the conscientious conviction of the innocent sufferer.
BENJAMIN DISRAELI, 1848.
III
ANTI-SEMITES accuse the Jewish people of an incapacity for forgiveness and love. Let these preachers of love first practise it. Let them refrain, at least, from incendiary slanders against Israel who, among all the peoples of the world, has agonized and suffered most from hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness at the hands of others. Let such preachers of love remember the Mosaic Law: ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’.
J. H. HERTZ, 1919.
NOT one man alone has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation there rise up against us those who seek to destroy us; but the Holy One, blessed be He, delivers us from their hands.
PASSOVER HAGADAH.
NO weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgement thou shalt condemn.
ISAIAH 54. 17.
THE JEW AS A PATRIOT
EVERY student of the Hebrew language is aware that we have in the conjugation of its verbs a mood known as the Intensive (Piel) Voice, which by means of an almost imperceptible modification of vowel points intensifies the meaning of the primitive root. A similar significance seems to attach to the Jews themselves in connexion with the people among whom they dwell. They are the intensive form of any nationality whose language and customs they adopt.
EMMA LAZARUS, 1882.
LOYALTY to the flag for which the sun once stood still, can only deepen our devotion to the flag on which the sun never sets.
Col. A. E. GOLDSMID, 1902.
THE JEWISH SOLDIER
MOTHER England, Mother England, ’mid the thousands
Far beyond the sea to-day,
Doing battle for thy honour, for thy glory,
Is there place for us, a little band of brothers?
England, say!
Long ago and far away, O Mother England,
We were warriors brave and bold;
But a hundred nations rose in arms against us,
And the shades of exile closed o’er those heroic
Days of old.
Thou hast given us home and freedom, Mother England,
Thou hast let us live again,
Free and fearless, ’midst thy free and fearless children,
Sharing with them, as one people, grief and gladness,
Joy and pain.
For the Jew has heart and hand, our Mother England,
And they both are thine to-day—
Thine for life and thine for death—yea, thine for ever!
Wilt thou take them as we give them, freely, gladly?
England, say!
ALICE LUCAS, 1899.
THE JEW’S LOVE OF BRITAIN12
IS it a matter of surprise that so goodly a number of our brethren offered themselves willingly among the people? One of the masterpieces of eloquence bequeathed to us by classic antiquity is the funeral oration delivered by Pericles on those who had fallen in the Peloponnesian War. He dilates upon the sources of Athens’ greatness. He portrays in glowing colours how justice is there equally meted out to all citizens, from the highest to the lowest, how all are under the aegis of freedom, and all equally inspired by obedience to law. And he continues: ‘Such a country well deserves that her children should die for her!’ The members of the House of Israel have always faithfully served the country of their birth or their adoption. But surely England deserves that we, her Jewish children, should gladly live and die for her: since here, as in no other country, the teachings of Holy Writ are venerated and obeyed.