Israel Among The Nations A Study Of The Jews And Antisemitism

29 69,5

AMONG THE NATIONS

A STUDY OF

THE JE V ^ AND ANTISEMITISM

BY
r JLE LEROY-BEAULIEU

TRANSLATED BY

FRANCES HELLMAN

AUTHORISED EDITION FOR THE UNITED STATES
AND EUROPE

NEW YORK

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1895

COPYRIGHT, 1895

BY

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationer's Hall, London

Sbe ftnfcftetttcfter pro*, flew ttocftelle, , $.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH VERSION . . XI

PREFACE ........ xvii

CHAPTER I.

NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OP THE JEWS IN
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES ....

Their Emancipation by the French Revolution A
I/arge Number are still Subject to Special I/aws The
Centre of Gravity of Israel How the Historic Currents
of Jewish Migrations have been Turned back Revival
of Hatred against the Jews Antisemitism The Three
Principal Aspects of the Jewish Question.

CHAPTER II.

THE OLDEST GRIEVANCE AGAINST THE JEWS,

THE RELIGIOUS GRIEVANCE ... 13

I. Accusations Brought against Judaism and the Tal-
mud Characteristics of Judaism Its Moral Code
The Talmud; its Origin, its Authority The Mishna
and the Ghemara The Halakha and the Haggada
The Hatred of the Goim and the Two Moral Codes of
the Jew What the Talmud has been to Judaism H.
and Superstitions Hostile to the Jews
Murder.

iii

iv Contents.

CHAPTER III.

PACK

THE JEWS, CHRISTIANITY, AND MODERN IDEAS . 43

I. In a Sense, Antisemitism is the Counterpart of Anti-
clericalism Antisemitism is Another Kulturkampf

II. What Share have the Jews in the Evolution of
Modern Society? Are they the Main Factors in the
De-christianising of Nations? The Jew, Hebraism,
and the Revolution As Regards Social Tendencies
the Modern Jew is Receptive, not Originative III. The
Conservative Spirit of the Great Jewish Communities
The Modern Spirit Insinuates itself into them from
the Outside The Jew is De-judaising himself at the
Same Time that the Christian is De-christianising him-
selfIn what Respect our Civilisation is a Peril to
Judaism For this Reason it is Impossible that Modern
Society should be Judaised.

CHAPTER IV.

THE JEWS AND THE NATIONAL GRIEVANCE

ARYANS AND SEMITES 72

I. Israel Threatens to De-nationalise the Modern Na-
tions Why did the Antisemitic Movement Originate
in the New German Empire ?~The Jew Regarded as a
Stranger Antiquity of this Grievance II. Why did
the Jews, after their Dispersion, still Continue to
Form a People ? Analogous Instances Identification
of Religion and Nationality in the East III. Can Race
and Nationality be Regarded as Identical in the West?
Are Any Modern Races of Unmixed Blood ? Are the
Semites the only Non-Aryan Element among us?
What do we Mean by Semitic Race IV. Of the An-
tagonism between the Aryan and the Semitic Spirit
What the Difference between them Amounts to Has
a Christian the Right to I^ook upon the Semites as an
Inferior Race ?

Contents. v

CHAPTER v.

FACE

ARE THE JEWS PURE SEMITES . IOO

I. Israel's Blood does not Seem to be Free from All
Admixture Proselytes in Olden Times Their Import-
ance, their DiffusionOther Converts: The Khazars
The Fear of Conversion to Judaism as One of the
Causes of the Restriction of the Jews Judaising Sects
II. The Semitic Type It is not Equally Pronounced
in All Jews ; there are at least Several Sub-Types
Karaites and Samaritans Jews by Religion who do not
Appear to be Jews by Race Sephardim and Askenazim :
How and Why they Differ The Modern Jew is the
Artificial Product of the System of Sequestration.

CHAPTER VI.

THE JEW IS THE PRODUCT OF HIS TRADITION

AND HIS LAW 123

I. The Influence of the Jewish Law and Observances
on the Race Judaism is as much a Religion of the
Body as of the Soul Ceremonial Rules and Legal
Cleanness II How the Talmud, as well as the Ghetto,
Tended to Strengthen the Tribal Spirit In what Man-
ner their Rites Isolated the Jews from the Gentiles In
Order to Become a Modern Man, the Jew must "De-
Rabbinise" Himself IIL Gradual Transformation of,
Judaism How it Emancipated Itself, Little by Little,
from Talmudic Formalism Conditions and Difficulties
of this Religious Evolution IV. An Analogous Trans-
formation is Taking Place in the Jewish Life and
Family.

CHAPTER VII.

PHYSIOLOGY Otf THE JEW I4 8

I. External Appearance of the Race The Kind of
Selection that has Produced it Demography of the

vi Contents.

PAGB

JewsTheir Longevity Their Fecundity Birth- and
Death-Rates To what is the Superiority of the Israel-
ites to be Ascribed II. Alleged Immunities of the
Jews The Shekhitah and the Dietary Laws Moses
and M. Pasteur Vitality of the Race and the Causes
of its Apparent Deterioration Poor Physique of a
Large 'Portion of the Jewish Race in. Maladies and
Infirmities Ascribed to the Jews Disproportionate
Development of their Nervous System Causes and
Effects of their Nervosity Frequent Lack of Balance
between their Psychic and Muscular Functions Pre-
cocity of the Jews ; its Causes Israel's Civilisation the
most Ancient of all.

CHAPTER

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JEW ..... 176

I. His Intelligence His Ruling Faculty, the Faculty
of Adaptation and Assimilation Qualities Inherited
from his Two Ancestors, the Money-Changer and the
Rabbi The Lucidity, Precision, and Pliancy of his
Mind How Study has ever been Honoured by the Jews
With them Education was Compulsory The Gym-
nastic of the Talmud II. The Jew's Character Why
his Soul is often Inferior to his IntellectHow, from
a Moral Point of View, his Extreme Suppleness Be-
comes a Defect Age-long Debasement of the Jew
How his Conscience sometimes Became Warped Why
the Sense of Honour is more rarely Found in him The
Education Given him by the Centuries Frequent Re-
tention of the Impress of his Ancestors' Occupations
His Family Virtues His Good and Bad Qualities are
alike largely Contributory to his Successes III. As
Regards Character also, the Jew is Tending towards a
Transformation Parvenu Traits among the Jews The
Degradation of the Race by no Means Irretrievable.

Contents. , vii

CHAPTER IX.

PACK

JEWISH GENIUS 225

I. Is there still a Jewish National Genius ? Where is
it to be Found ? The Relatively Large Number of Jews
who have Distinguished themselves in Art, Science,
and Literature II. For which Arts and Sciences, have
they Shown the Greatest Aptitude ? Whence do these
Aptitudes Seem to Come ? HI. Is the Jew, the Semite,
always Lacking in Originality ? The Ancient Hebrews,
the Modern Jews, and the Inventive Faculty Jewish
Poets and Artists Jewish Music Qualities and Facul-
ties most frequently Encountered in the Jews Spirit
of Combination Jewish Irony Quickness to Compre-
hend and Assimilate the Distinctive Aptitudes of
Different Nationalities.

CHAPTER X.

JEWISH SPIRIT ...... 263

I. Is There a Jewish Spirit Radically Different from
Ours? What we Understand by Jewish Spirit is, in
Most Cases, not Distinctively Jewish Where are the
Signs of the Jewish Spirit in French Arts and Letters ?
Gr&culi et Judaiculi The Jews and the French
Operette The Jews and Pornography II. Jewish
Writers in Germany The Jewish Woman In Ger-
many and Throughout Europe there have been Disin-
tegrating Forces Other than that of the Jewish Spirit-
Ill. The Lowering of our Ideals Are the Jews Really
to Blame for it? Is the Semite Incapable of Ideals?
The Jew and the Jewess in Art, Fiction, and Life IV.
In what Respect the Jewish Ideal Differs from Ours
It is Neither Chivalrous nor Mystical A Humanitarian,
Earthly Ideal The Messianic Conception How it is
Interpreted by Modern JewsThe Jewish and the
Christian Spirit, the Semitic and the Aryan Ideat

viii Contents.

CHAPTER XL

PAGE

THE DURATION AND THE SIGNS OF JEWISH PAR-
TICULARISM 301

I. Reasons for the Persistence of Israel's Particularism
The Spirit of Clanship and Religious Minorities II.
The Jewish Garb ; Is There a National Jewish Garb ?
Polish Jews, Oriental Jews Was it Always the Jew
who Wished to Distinguish Himself from the Gentiles
by his Dress ? The Yellow Wheel of the Middle Ages
III. Language and Dialects of the Jews Why Does
the Jew Frequently Speak a Different Language from
that of his Christian Neighbours ? The "Jargon"
or Jewish-German and Jewish-Spanish IV. Jewish
Names Family Names and First Names Askenazim
and Sephardim How, in this Respect also, They are
Endeavouring to Nationalise Themselves.

CHAPTER XII.

NATIONALISATION OF THE JEW . . 330

L The almost Universal Tendency of the Jews to
Nationalise themselves In which States is their As-
similation most Complete? The Necessity of Distin-
guishing, in the Same Country, between the Indigenous
Jews and the Emigrants The Patriotism of the Jews
Only the Emancipated Jews can be Patriotic The
Naturalisation of Strangers How, in France, it has
Become an Advantage not to be of Native Stock H.
[Can the Jews still Form a People and a State*J*vThe
Persistence of National Aspiration in Israel The Con-
nection between the Religion of the Jews and their
Faith in the Re-establishment of Judaea The Ritual
and the Reunion of the Dispersed "Next Year in
Jerusalem" III. What it is that, in Certain Countries,
Leads the Jews back to their Bxclusiveness Is it pos-
sible to Re-establish a Jewish State in Palestine?
How, even if it were Possible, such a State could In-

Contents, ix

PAGE

elude only a Small Minority of the Jews The Great
Current of Jewish Migration Flows towards the West,
and not towards the Bast Instead of Dra-wing Closer
together, the Jews are, more than ever, Becoming Dis-
persed over the face of the Globe How this Facili-
tates their Nationalisation.

CHAPTER XHI.

COSMOPOLITANISM AND THE FRATERNISA-
TION OF THE ISRAELITES .... 358
I. Reasons for the Persistent Solidarity of the Jews
The Psychology of Religions Minorities Reverted to
again The Spirit of Solidarity often Survives the Jew-
ish 3?aith All great Religions are, in a Certain Sense,
Cosmopolitan Anticlericalism and Antisemitism again
Compared The International Organisation \vhich
Modern Peoples have Cause to Fear. II. Is it True
that the Jews Try to Separate the Nations ? -Judaism
and Human Brotherhood The Spirit of Judah is a
Spirit of Peace The Messianic Dogma Reverted to
again The New Jerusalem. On this Point, the Spirit
of Israel is in Accord alike -with the Modern and with
the Christian Spirit.

........ 377

INTRODUCTION
TO THE ENGLISH VERSION.

OUR age will constitute a critical, a supreme epoch
in the long history of Israel. To-day the prophecies
of the seers are at last approaching their fulfilment,
and Israel is really being scattered to the ends of the
earth. We are witnessing a new diaspora, the great
and final dispersal.

The tree of Israel, the ancient vine of Judah, trans-
planted to the Sarmatian plains, has again been rudely
shaken by the blast of persecution ; its branches have
fallen and its seeds have blown afar, over the hills and
across the deserts and oceans.

As in earlier times, the wrath of their persecutors is
forcing Jews and Judaism into countries where the
Sabbath-lamp has never yet been lighted. The spec-
tacle witnessed during the Renaissance and at the end
of the fifteenth century, in consequence of the edicts of
Isabella of Castile the exodus of a people driven forth
without means of existence, from the land of its an-
cestors because it clung to the faith of its fathers, this
spectacle disgraces the closing years of our nineteenth
century, in consequence of the ukases of a Russian
Czar.

What will be the verdict of history as to the effects
upon Judaism of the harsh policy of Alexander III. ?
Possibly in years to come, when the tears of her exiles
and their present sufferings shall be forgotten, the his-
torians of Israel may affirm that the Russian autocrat

xi

xii Introduction.

contributed, more than any other man, to the expan-
sion and renovation of Judaism.

The Jews who are driven from the Slavic soil by the
law or by their own poverty, are forced to begin a new
life tinder kindlier skies and in freer lands. They are
torn from the old Jewries where, closely herded to-
gether, they had barely air enough to breathe ; and
this painful expatriation may well prove of equal bene-
fit to their souls and their bodies.

The majority of these exiles have gone to America,
and especially to the United States. To their brethren
already established between the Atlantic and the Pa-
cific this sudden influx of a whole people, in the main
poor and ignorant, who demand from them shelter and
support, must indeed prove a veiy heavy burden. The
Jews of the United States have been confronted here
with an enormous task, to which, however, they have
shown themselves equal. Fortunately, the most try-
ing years seem to be over. The accession of the young
emperor, Nicholas II. , to the throne of Russia gives
rise to the hope of some mitigation of those antiquated
laws which, under Alexander III., had furnished offi-
cial intolerance with the means of hypocritical per-
secution. The stream of emigration, whose volume is
already lessening, will probably slacken. It will not
wholly cease, for free America will long continue to
attract the victims of persecution.

I, for one, do not believe that the United States
ought to view this Jewish immigration with any dis-
quietude ; I cannot see what there is to fear from it.
Among all the races and nations that have furnished the
United States with colonists and have thus helped to
advance its marvellous growth, I can find none more
intelligent or more industrious ; nor can I find any that

Introduction. xiii

is more capable of assimilating American civilisation
and of introducing into it a useful competition.

I am told that one of the charges brought against
the Jews of America is that they frequently manifest
leanings toward socialism ; or rather toward anarch-
ism. This may be the case with many Russian and
Roumanian Jews, we have some in Paris who show
such tendencies, but the fact is due less to the racial
character of the Jews than to the conditions under
which they have long been forced to live in Burope,
and to which they are still subjected in Russia and
Roumania. If Lassalle and Karl Marx were the
prophets of German socialism, one of the causes of
their revolt against the old social order lay in the sort
of life which that order imposed upon the sons of
Israel, even in Germany. This is still more evident in
the case of the Jews who have been infected in Russia
by the germs of nihilism and anarchy. The Jew of
the old secluded Jewry is as I have shown in this
book essentially conservative. If, in the past twenty
or twenty-five years, a certain number of young Jews
and Jewesses have joined the ranks of the nihilists, if
some of them have been concerned in the conspiracies
against the person or the authority of Alexander II.
and Alexander III., this is due to the social conditions
imposed on the Jews by the Russian laws. This I
think I have conclusively proved, both in my present
volume and in my larger work : The Empire of the
Tsars.

Only the most systematic vexations and humiliations
could have aroused the children of Abraham to this
spirit of revolt, to these political conspiracies, so op-
posed to Jewish ideas and traditions. A further proof
of this, which ought to appeal to the most furious An-

xiv Introduction.

tisemites, is that in Russia conspiracy can lead to
nothing, as yet, but transportation or the gallows.

'Moreover, I have often noticed that all the Israelites
implicated in political trials were what I call " de-ju-
daised " Jews that is to say, Jews who have renounced
the beliefs and practices of Judaism. It was Christian
contagion that gave the Jews their revolutionary ideas.

Some of the Jewish emigrants from Russia and other
parts of Europe have been obviously degraded and
corrupted by centuries of oppression. Many years
perhaps one or two generations will be needed to raise
their moral plane, to imbue them with a sense of honour
and dignity. It is a great mistake to believe that this
moral uplifting can be facilitated by detaching them
from their religion. On the contrary, the least praise-
worthy Jews that I have met have generally been
" de-judaised" Jews, those who had ceased to observe
the Mosaic law. The Jew such, at least, is my opin-
ion stands in even greater need of religious support
than the Christian ; and, as a rule, he can find that
support only in the faith of his fathers. There are,
indeed, Israelites who become converts to Christianity.
But, in order to be morally efficacious, such conver-
sion should be genuine and disinterested. Its object
should be to find favour, not in the eyes of society or
of man, but of God. Now, it is well known that
such true conversions are rare, and this accounts for
the fact that the baptised Jews are often the least
commendable.

" "1 must confess that, in many cases, the Christian
missionaries are to blame. They are too often satisfied
with purely external, nominal conversions, and, for the
winning of souls, they too often employ means that are
neither holy nor honest, I have been told that there are

Intro d^tct^on. xv

missionaries mainly of the Protestant faith in I,on-
don, New York, and the East, who angle for Jewish
souls with the coarse bait of worldly benefits, taking
unfair advantage of the poverty, abandonment, and
loneliness of immigrants driven out of their country by
want or persecution, to lead them to the Christian font.
These conversions by seduction, if I may venture so to
call them, are not a whit less odious than conversions by
force. Such proselytising is unworthy of the Christian
ministry and is a disgrace to the churches that encour-
age it. It can result only in making bad Christians
and in educating bad citizens.

I need say little, in addressing my English-speaking
readers, of the fear entertained by some persons that
the Jewish new-comers are likely to monopolise the
national wealth. Although such apprehensions are
quite common among the simple souls of the old world,
I do not imagine that they have crossed the channel or
the Atlantic. Englishmen and Americans have too
much faith in themselves to share such visionary fears.
However great may be the commercial talents of the
Jews, the Anglo-Saxons feel themselves by no means
inferior to them; and when it comes to ee making
money, " the Yankee does not fear the competition of
the Semite.

Nor do I believe that, in extending hospitality to the
sons of Israel, the United States, or Australia, or even
old England herself, has reason to apprehend what
German Antisemites call the "judaising" of modern
society.

This expression is often used in Europe to indicate
the growing ascendancy of material interests and the
encroachments of the mercantile spirit. I do not think
that the Jew can be held responsible for this tendency,

xvi Introduction.

and I shall attempt to show this in my forthcoming
work : Le Rlgne de V Argent. What the Antisemites
call the " judaising " of society might, as I have taken
the liberty of asserting, be more correctly called the
" Americanising ' ' of morals. I trust that this remark
will not bring down upon me the resentment of my
American readers. That would be unfair, for I am, in
many respects, a sincere admirer of their great Repub-
lic. If I have ventured to speak of the " Americanis-
ing " of modern society, it is simply because the typical
characteristics of democratic industrial society were first
revealed in the United States, and have there been de-
veloped on a larger scale than in any other country.
This form of social organisation, new to history, is
gradually becoming dominant in all parts of the old
world, as well as in the new. If it has its advantages,
it has also its faults, which we are all in duty bound to
strive to correct. The ascendancy of material interests,
the greed for money, the frantic race for wealth, arc
the most deplorable characteristics of our modern in-
dustrial and democratic society. ThCvSe are not social
characteristics ; they are peculiar neither to the Yankee
nor to the Jew, although they sometimes seem to be
most pronounced in the Jew and the Yankee. They are
the result of our social conditions, and it is not by pro-
scribing any particular race or any particular faith, but
only by appealing to moral forces and by bringing all
such forces to their highest development that our
modern democracies can escape from the practical
materialism that threatens to engulf them.

T A.I,.B.

PARIS, June, 1895.

PREFACE.

THE author of this book is a Christian and a French-
man. As a Christian he is one of those who believe
that a spirit of intolerance is repugnant to Christianity,
and nothing appears to him less consistent with the
Gospel than race-hatred. Be it a war of races or a war
of classes, popular jealousy can never screen itself be-
hind the robe of Christ. Be it Aryan or Semitic, a
nation should never purchase its' salvation at the cost
of another's rights.

As a Frenchman, the author is one of those who are
convinced that France ought to remain true to her tra-
ditions of justice and liberty. They are the only glory
and the only wealth which the fortunes of war cannot
wrest from her. The more severe the trials that she
has undergone, the more menacing the dangers that
await her, the more essential is it to her honour that
she should remain herself and not belie, in the eyes
of the nations, those great ideas which she was the first
to proclaim. To abjure them would be not only an act
of apostasy, but a forfeiture of her place in history.
A France that should stoop, more than a century after
1789, to abridge religious and civil liberty and to estab-
lish among her inhabitants distinctions based upon
name or birth, would no longer be the France that the
world has thus far known.

The inheritance of the Revolution, which we have
come to regard with so much reverence, may possibly

xvu

xviii Preface.

include rash postulates and exaggerated inferences that
tend to intoxicate, almost to madness, a people infatu-
ated with its title of sovereign ; but surely neither
religious liberty nor civil equality is likely to produce
such effects ; neither the one nor the other can have
any tendency to turn the people's heads ; and, after
having been the first to preach these principles to
Europe, Prance will not disavow them now, when,
thanks to our propaganda or our example, they have
conquered almost all the countries of both hemispheres.
On others be the shame of such a recantation !

Antisemitism is consistent with neither the principles
nor the genius of our nation. It came to us from the
outside, from countries which have neither our spirit
nor our traditions* It came to us from across the
Rhine, from old Germany, always ready for religious
quarrels, and always imbued with the spirit of caste ;
from new Germany, all inflated with race-pride and
scornful of whatever is not Teutonic.

Antisemitism may be traced also to Russia, to that
huge and shapeless Russia, which, with its steppes and
forests, has remained isolated from the great currents
of modern life ; to holy, Orthodox Russia, half Oriental,
half Asiatic, which endeavours to find its national unity
in its religious unity, and which regards the Catholic
and the I/utheran with little more favour than the Israel-
ite ; to that autocratic Russia, which differs from us in
all its institutions, as well as in all its conditions, be
they economic, political, religious, or social. Whatever
sympathy we may feel with the Slavonic mind or the
Russian spirit, the Russians, who have so often emu-
lated us, would be greatly astonished to see us copying
them ; as well might one propose to the Czar to model

Preface* xix

the government of Ms moujiks and cossacks on that of
the French Republic;.

Men of my age, who have grown up under the Second
Empire and in the worship of liberty it was fashion-
able then among the young, have witnessed many
distressing sights. How often was the lie given to our
youthful faith in right and justice ! How many truths
which we thought established for ever were again
called into question by the selfish passions or the ignor-
ant claims of new generations ! How many of the
conquests won by reason and liberty were we unable to
maintain against the encroachments of power or the
delusions of political sophistry ! Popular rights trodden
underfoot in the name of the principle of nationality,
everywhere heralded as a principle of emancipation ;
European states transformed, for half a century, into
entrenched camps and separated once more from each
other by custom-house barriers and ramparts of preju-
dice almost as high as the Wall of China ; freedom of
thought and religious toleration cynically overridden
or hypocritically evaded by those very political parties
that professed to be their champions ; laws passed to
the detriment of special persons ; decrees of exile or
confiscation, promulgated in the name of liberty, within
so-called free countries and by self-styled liberals ;
appeals to secular power, demands for legal restriction,
for paternalism, addressed to the government by all
manner of clashing interests and passions. And all
this, not only in Eastern Russia, buried neck-deep in
the Middle Ages or rather in the ancien regime, but in
the West, in France, in Germany, among nations said
to be the most advanced of ancient Europe. Oh, how
old she is, this ancient Europe, and how difficult it is

xx Preface.

for her to slough her skin and regain her youth ! What
an effort it is for her to strip off her old prejudices and
practices and clothe herself in the spirit of a new age !

And this new age, the age that we have so ardently
invoked, what will it bring us and how will it fulfil its
boastful promises ? To judge by the methods and the
teachings extolled by those who proclaim themselves
its representatives, this new age is in great danger of
reviving the worst practices of the past. Men who
boast of being the pioneers of the future openly praise
deeds of absolutism, and smile sanctimoniously at legal
brutalities borrowed from the ancien regime by the
jurists of the Revolution. Visions of the future and
mediaeval prejudices ; Utopias conceived by dreamers
deluded with misty ideals and belated memories of a
superannuated past ; unceasing race-competition and
ever-recurring class-jealousies, all these have become
confused and entangled in the minds of the learned as
well as in those of the masses. And something of all
this is contained in Antisemitism ; something of the old
and of the new, of the far-off Middle AgevS and of vision-
ary socialism, of reactionary instincts and of revolution-
ary passions ; and it is because of this that Antisemitism
finds an echo in such different quarters, from the draw-
ing-rooms of society to the grog-shop of the working-
man.

Let us confess it once again : we have presumed too
much on reason, and relied too confidently on civilisa-
tion. This brilliant civilisation, wliich inspired our
idlers with such ludicrous pride, is often shallow and
unsound, even in the most advanced countries of the
continent. In our proudest capitals it is barely thicker
than a light veneer, underneath whose surface, if we
scratch it ever so little, we shall find all the ignorance

Preface. xxi

and savagery of the ages that we deem barbarous.
Thus, in Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, the close of our
century suffers the disgrace of seeing measures of pro-
scription and confiscation advocated by people who are
really good-natured and ordinarily harmless.

It must not be inferred from what has been said that
the complaints of the Antisemites are wholly imaginary.
By no means. Whether they attack our private or our
public morals and customs, many of their complaints
are but too well founded. Abroad, as well as at home,
and most especially, perhaps, in our republican France,
they are right, these noisy Antisemites, in loudly de-
nouncing certain governmental methods, certain prac-
tices which seem about to take root in the life of
modern nations. Antisemitism may have been, in its
time, a protest, on the part of public conscience, against
culpable concessions of men in office, against the venal-
ity of politicians, and the domination, at once mysteri-
ous and contemptuous, of stock-jobbing interlopers.
Despite its excesses and outrages, Antisemitism is
within its rightful province when it assails the worship
of money, the scandalous barter of political influences,
and the shameless exploitation of the people by the
men whom they have elected ; or, again, when it un-
masks the hypocritical intolerance of inconsistent free-
thinkers, who have erected irreligion and corruption
into a method of government.

Modern society is ailing indeed, more ailing than, the
most honest Antisemite imagines. The error of An-
tisemitism lies in its misapprehension of the origin and
the seat of the evil. It sees, or is willing to see, but
one of the symptoms, and it calls this symptom the
cause of the disease. Antisemitism is essentially
1 ' simple-minded, " in the literal sense of the word. It

xxii Preface.

fails to grasp the complexity of social phenomena.
But this failure, which should prove its ruin, is largely
the cause of its success with the masses, who in their
simplicity are always carried away by that which they
deem simple.

Even if the Jews had all the vices and all the power
which the hatred of their enemies sees fit to ascribe
to them, it were none the less childish to discover
in a handful of Semitics the source of the evils that
afflict modern society.

It is not true that, in order to restore it to health, we
need but to eliminate the Semite, as the surgeon's
knife eradicates a cyst or a malignant excrescence.
The extent and gravity of the evil are of a different
nature. The evil is in ourselves, in our blood, in the
very marrow of our bones. To cure us, it will not be
enough to remove a foreign body from our flesh.
Though every Jew be banished from French soil,
though Israel be swept from the face of Europe, France
would be not one whit more healthy, nor Europe in
any better state. The first condition of a cure is a
knowledge of the nature of one's malady. Now,
Antisemitism deceives us ; it blinds us to our condi-
tion by trying to make us believe that the cause of the
evil is external, instead of internal. There is no more
dangerous error. We are afflicted with an internal
trouble, due to our constitution and our entire mode of
living; and the Antisemites insist upon telling us,
over and over again, that it is but a superficial ailment,
brought on by chance, and foreign to our race and our
blood. Even when they boast of exposing our secret
wounds, they misconstrue their nature ; consequently,
instead of furnishing a cure for them, they are in great
danger of inflaming them still more.

Preface. xxiii

Such will be, I doubt not, the feeling of every reader
who is sufficiently thoughtful and independent to base
his opinions upon reflection, and not upon the antipa-
thies of the mob. Antisemitism, even when most justi-
fied in its complaints, is mistaken as to the source of our
evils. It would be easy for me to prove this conclusively,
could I, in this volume, have treated of finance, capital,
and the ascendancy of the stock-exchange. Unfortu-
nately, I have been obliged, for the present, to omit a part
of my subject, that which in these days of subserviency
to material interests so completely engrosses the public
mind, the money-question. I had intended at first to
devote one or two chapters to it. But this money-
question has assumed so prominent a place in our
democratic society ; it so easily takes the lead every-
where, is so complex, and so liable to give rise to con-
fusion, that it seemed to me worthy of separate treat-
ment. Therefore this volume will be followed by
another, in which I shall attempt to define the r&le
played by money among the nations of to-day. On
that occasion I shall take up again some of the views
set forth in my book on Papacy, Socialism, and Democ-
racy. There may, perhaps, seem to be no connection
between these two subjects. That is a mistake, for
Antisemitism, too, is a social question. And as for
myself, in studying the influence of the Jew and of
modern Israel, as well as in examining the teachings
of the Pope on socialism and democracy, I have
always the same object in view : religious liberty and
social peace. Caritas et Pax, such is ever my motto ;
and, if I mistake not, it is a Christian motto, not unbe-
coming 1 a Frenchman.

A. I,. B.

PARIS, April, 1893.

ISRAEL AMONG THE NATIONS

CHAPTER I.

NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE JEWS IN-
DIFFERENT COUNTRIES.

Their Emancipation by the French. Revolution A Large Number
are still Subject to Special I/aws The Centre of Gravity of
Israel How the Historic Currents of Jewish Migrations
have been Turned back Revival of Hatred against the
Jews Antisemitism The Three Principal Aspects of the
Jewish Question.

THERE are in the world seven or eight millions of
Jews, scattered amongst five or six hundred millions of
Christians and Moslems. The whole of the so-called
Semitic question lies in the relation between these two
figures. In this democratic age, when numbers would
count for everything, the Jew shows that numbers do
not always count for so much. This is a dangerous
lesson for him who teaches it. The " Semites," in
view of their small number, occupy almost too large a
place. I seem to hear the crowd saying to them : * * You
take up more than your share. ?>

Over a century has elapsed since the emancipation of
the Jews proclaimed by the French Revolution. The

2 Israel Among the Nations.

decree that enfranchised them was rendered on the sytli
of September, 1791, the date of the last sitting but one
of the Constituent Assembly. 1 On that day, as usual,
the French Revolution thought that it was, indeed,
enacting laws for humanity. In this instance, at least,
its boast was not vain. The decree of the Constihtante
has made the round of the world. From the Ksour of
the African Maghreb to the encampments on the
steppes of Asia, the tents of Jacob have resounded to
the echo of the Salle die Manage. That 2?th of
September, 1791, which recalls nothing to us Christians,
is one of the world-important dates of the Revolution.
It is the i4th of July of an entire race ; the bastille, over-
thrown on that bleak autumn day, had walls older and
higher than those of the Faubourg Saint Antoine. Of
all the centennials bequeathed to us by the Revolution
there is, perhaps, none that has been celebrated in a
greater number of languages.
For good or ill, the initiative taken by France in

1 The emancipation of the Jews -was the corollary of the
first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man : " Men are
born, and remain, free and equal in rights." The Jews of
France, led by Cerf Beer and Beer-Isaac Beer, were quick to
understand this. They had, in the Assembly, many and powerful
advocates : Mirabeau, the Abbe" Grgoire, Talleyrand, Clermout,
Tonncrre, Robespierre, Duport. The opposition was not less
pronounced, on the part of Rewbell, and, especially, of the
deputies from Alsace. This was the reason why the Constitu-
ante did not decide to recognise the rights of Jews as "active
citizens," until on the eve of its dissolution. See, Abbe* Joseph
I/e*mann's La Preponderance Juive> first part: SesQrigincS) ch.
iv.-ix., Paris, 1889. Graetz, Gescfnchte dcr yndtn, vol. xi., cli.
v. Theod. Reinach, Histoire des Israelites, book v., ch. iL
Bug. Simguerlet, Strasbourg Pendant la. JR&volution t Paris,
1886.

Number and Distribution of the Jews. 3

September, 1791, was followed, successively, by almost
every other nation. To be sure, they were not in a great
hurry to act. The majority of them copied us only after
a long interval, returning to the task over and over again
as though it were a distasteful one. England did not
completely emancipate its Jews until 1849 an< l ^58 ;
Denmark only in 1849 ; Austro-Hungary only in 1867 ;
Germany in 1869 and 1871 ; Italy in 1860 and 1870;
Switzerland in 1869 and 1874; Bulgaria and Servia in.
1878 and 1879. Russia and Roumania at one extremity
of Europe, Spain and Portugal at the other, are the
only countries that have not yet followed our example.
However tardy or timid the action of foreign govern-
ments may have been in this respect, the question was
settled conclusively not only for us Frenchmen, but
for the whole world as well. It was and none would
dare deny it one of the results attained by the Revolu-
tion. There was no longer, in our opinion, a Jewish
Question ; and lo, hardly a century later, that which
seemed to have been conceded by almost all modern
states was once again loudly called into question in our
midst and all around us. Another problem, thought
to have been for ever solved by preceding generations,
had loomed up again before the eyes of their descend-
ants. As is often the case, the reaction against the work
of the Revolution set in at the very hour when that
work seemed completed and to have become a part of
the national life. 1 This reaction was due to the fact
that, once again, passion and selfish interests had re-
belled against the decree of abstract reason.

1 See, in tne volume called La Revolution et le Liberalisms
(Hacnette, 1890), our study ori " The Miscalculations of Liber-
alism,"

4 Israel Among the Nations.

" On the 27th day of September, 1791, a man dad in
ancient garb, an old man, with snowy beard, with eye
as weird and fixed as that of a marble statue, listened
breathlessly " at the door of the Constituent Assembly,
as though a simple word uttered in that chamber were
to put an end to his sufferings and grant repose to his
old age after a ceaseless wandering of two thousand
years. In this fashion, under the legendary aspect of
the Wandering Jew, a German poet ' has depicted the
yearning of Israel for the day of her emancipation.
Ahasuerus, to whom France had said : " Rest," must
he again take up his wanderer's staff? When he had
thought to have found a fireside and a country, must
he set out anew upon his eternal wanderings, a stranger
for ever on the face of the earth ?

It is widely believed that almost all the Jews in the
world, at any rate all European Jews, enjoy civil
liberty and equality. This is a mistake. The Israelites
who enjoy the rights of citizenship are probably still in
the minority. A large number of the descendants of
Abraham are still subject to special laws.

There remain in Europe but two states which refuse
to grant to the Jews the rights accorded to the Chris-
tians * ; but these two states, Russia and Rotunania,
contain more Jews than all the rest of Europe together,
One of them, the Russian Empire, holds, perhaps,
fully one half of all the Jews in the

Wihl, according to Jos, I^mann*s La Preponderance
e f first part, p. 244.
2 Here we omit Spain and Portugal, where there are no more
indigenous Jews. Although, in those two slates, there exist no
longer special laws against the Israelites, and although some
Jews have returned from abroad to these countries, they would
not yet be permitted to open a synagogue there.

Number and Distribution of the Jews. 5

The total number of Israelites is not exactly known,
It may be estimated, we believe, at eight millions, or
at nine millions at the most, of which six or seven mil-
lions belong to Europe alone. Of this number Russia
has three or four, some say five, millions. The exact
number of Russian Jews is not known. 1 Were it as-
certained, we might determine, within a few hundred
thousand, the numerical strength of Israel. /^ **"

The Russian territory was still forbidden to the Jews
tinder the first Romanoffs 2 ; to-day Russia contains
more Jews than any other state. They are a legacy
from Poland, which, toward the end of the Middle
Ages, became the centre of Israel. After the Russian
Empire, the states of Europe containing the greatest
number of Israelites are those two other powers that
have divided Poland: Austria and Prussia. Austro-
Hungary alone has seventeen hundred thousand Jewish
subjects ; Galicia has about seven hundred thousand ;
Hungary six hundred and fifty thousand ; Bohemia
one hundred thousand. After Austro-Hungary comes
the German Empire with six hundred thousand
Israelites, of whom two thirds inhabit the Kingdom of
Prussia.

The descendants of Jacob are far less numerous in
the other Western and Eastern states. England con-
tains over one hundred thousand ; France several thou-

1 See D Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iii. : La Religion,
book iv., ch. iii. The Russians, apparently, like to exaggerate
the number of the Czar's Israelitish subjects. The situation in
which the Russian Jews have been placed by the increasing
rigour of the laws has, moreover, brought about an emigration
which, must already have diminished their numbers in Russia.

s See, for example, Orchanski, Rousskoe Zakonodatelstvo o
Evreiakh, pp. 179, 180.

6 . Israel Among the Nations.

sand less, probably about eighty thousand, of whom
three fourths live in Paris ; Holland nearly a hundred
thousand, one half of whom are to be found in Amster-
dam ; Italy, fifty thousand, of whom the majority in-
habit the northern and middle portions of the country.
There are hardly ten thousand Jews in Switzerland,
six or seven thousand in Belgium, five thousand in
Denmark, three thousand in Sweden, several hundred
in Norway. 1 In Spain and Portugal where, prior to
the fifteenth century, there lived, perhaps, half a mil-
lion of Israelites, the native Jews were driven out or
baptised ; fifteen or sixteen hundred of them returned,
and these found shelter in Gibraltar, under the English
flag. In Eastern Europe there is Turkey, that contains
about one hundred and twenty thousand Jews ; Greece
five or six thousand, most of them in Corfu ; Bulgaria,
twenty thousand ; Servia, five thousand ; Roumania,
less than three hundred thousand according to the
statements of the Israelites, and over four hundred
thousand according to that of certain Roumanians. 2

*See, notably, in the Noiweau Dictionnaire de Geographic
Universelle (Hachette), the learned article "Juifs,"by Isidore
Loeb. If the figures given here are somewhat higher, it is be-
cause we thought it necessary to make allowance for the imper-
fection of statistics in certain countries in Russia, for instance ;
and in others, as in England or I^rance, for the recent increase
of Israelites by immigration. As for France, the figures col-
lected by the census gave the number of Israelites as only
sixty-eight thousand, to which must be added about forty thou-
sand Algerian Jews. But among the Jews who have long ago
settled in France or lately emigrated to that country, there are
those who have broken loose from the synagogue without,
however, having become Christians.

* The figure of four hundred thousand seems decidedly exag-
gerated ; it appears to be disproved by the number of Jewish
deaths recorded in the official statistics.

Number and Distribution of the Jews. 7

In the other portions of the globe : in Asia, the
cradle of their race ; in Africa, where they had colonies
already before the Christian era; in America and
Oceanica, to which countries they emigrated in our
wake, the number of Jews is considerably less. The
whole of Asia contains scarcely three hundred thou-
sand, of whom the greater number live in the Ottoman
Empire, in Asia Minor, in Syria, in Palestine itself,
where the Jews, who have gradually returned from the
West, again preponderate in Jerusalem. Ethnologists
have discovered several thousand of them in Persia, in
Central Asia, in India, and even in China, where, in
some mysterious way, have been preserved a few rem-
nants of old Jewish colonies. In America, where
thousands of Jewish emigrants annually seek refuge,
there are already about half a million of Israelites,
mainly in North America. 1 As for Australia and the
Pacific islands, the Jews are but beginning to settle
there ; they do not yet number twenty-five thousand,
and all of them have landed within the last third of a
centriry.

^ * It will thus be seen that at no period was Israel as
widely scattered as she is at present. Never was she so

1 Provided the colonisation schemes of Baron Hirsch are car-
ried out, North and South America will soon have more than a
million of Jewish inhabitants. Within a twelvemonth, from July,
1891, to July, 1892, about a hundred thousand Jews landed in
the United States. It is doubtful whether the immigration of
Russian Jews into North America can maintain itself at so high
a figure for long. It is well known that the United States are
not very- willing to receive pauper-immigration. It appears
that the Russian government has sanctioned the scheme of 3MC.
de Hirsch, in regard to the gradual emigration of the Jews of
that empire, covering a period of twenty-five years. This is a
gigantic undertaking, difficult of entire realisation.

8 Israel Among the Nations.

ubiquitous ; in some way she is present everywhere, at
least in all civilised countries. It was as much for the
circumcised Jew as for the baptised Christian that
Columbus and de Ganaa discovered new worlds. The
Jew has mounted to the deck of our ships and, in our
company, is circumnavigating and conquering the
world. It will be seen, at the same time, that, taken
all in all, the Jews are to-day an essentially European
population, by far the greater portion of them inhabit-
ing Europe or the colonies of Europe, and in many
parts of Asia or Africa, just as in Palestine, the ma-
jority of Jews have come from Europe, bringing with
them European languages.

All of these figures, even those of Europe, are but
approximations. One fact alone seems certain : never
have there existed so many JewsjK Almost everywhere
their numbers are on the increase, not only actually,
but relatively, in proportion to the number of Chris-
tians. In Eastern Europe the Jewish population is
augmented by the constant excess of births over deaths.
In Western Europe, as also in America, the increase in
the population is due mainly to immigration, to the
influx of Jews drawn from the East to the West, from
the countries where they are most numerous to the
countries where their numbers are smallest, and where
they are allowed greater liberty either by the law
or by the customs of the land. They are attracted
to the West by a double magnet its wealth and its
freedom.

Israel's centre of gravity is in ancient Poland and the
adjacent countries of Russia, Roumania, and Austro-
Hungary. In 1772 the official census gave 308,500 as
the entire Jewish population of Poland and Lithuania,
A Polish writer estimated the number of these Jews as

Number and Distribution of the Jews. 9

in reality 450,000. l To-day the descendants of these
450,000 Jews are ten, perhaps twelve, times as numer-
ous. Their posterity, in the three empires that have
come into the possession of Poland, can scarcely be
estimated at less than four or five millions. If we are
to judge of the near future by the most recent past, the
extinction of Judaism is by no means close at hand.
There is, in the centre of Europe, a vast reservoir of
Jews whose overflow tends toward the West.

These children of the East, aboriginals of Asia, have
arrived directly from the West. a They came from
Germany at the end of the first half of the Middle
Ages, fleeing from the persecutions that had arisen
against them all along the paths of the Crusades. They
have multiplied in the shade of the Vistula and the
birches of the Niemen, as in the time of the Pharaohs
and the Ptolemies beneath the palms of the Nile. One
of the characteristic traits of the race, and one which is
explained, no doubt, by its successive migrations, is its
faculty of adaptation to any climate. The Jew can live
and multiply everywhere.

In considering the present distribution of the Israel-
ites we are led to believe that Mazovia must have been
their cradle 3 Only the most absolute historical evi-
dence can remove this conviction. And, -indeed, if

1 T. Czacki, Rosprawa o Zydach, Vilua, 1807, p. 216. Cf.
Brafmann, Kinga Kagala, vol. i., p. 307.

2 We shall see that in Poland, or in Little-Russia, these Wes-
tern Jews have possibly intermingled with Jews or Jewish
proselytes settled in the Russian steppes. Cf. chap. v.

3 The province of Warsaw. One can hardly escape this impres-
sion -when looking at the maps which show the relative density of
Israelitish population on our continent. See, for instance, the
map published by the Anglo-Jewish Association (Report for
the year 1888).

i o Israel Among the Nations.

Polish soil lias not been the historic starting-point of
Israel, it has become her geographic centre. From the
midst of this new Sarmatian Judaea, the modern Jews,
goaded by annoyances and sufferings scarcely less cruel
than those which their forefathers had to endure, came
swarming into Europe and America. The gale of per-
secution which for centuries past has swept Israel's
dust to and fro from Orient to Occident and from Occi-
dent to Orient, is again carrying before it the remnants
of the tribes ; only now the wind has veered. After
having driven the fathers from West to East, from
South to North, from France to Germany, from Ger-
many to Poland, the tempest flings their sons back
upon the "West. The old currents of Jewish migration
are beginning to change their course. The path toward
the East, the far East, of our continent is barred by a
solid embankment the Russian laws which, like an
artificial dike, shuts off the interior of the Empire from
the Jews ; * and so they must needs flow back toward
the West. The old European and especially the
young American states thus run the risk of being
suddenly swept by a long tidal wave of Jewish immi-
grajfion.

**Un proportion to the growing number and import-
ance of the Jews, the jealousy and hatred directed
against them increases. ^Thence comes Antisemitism.
In the West, not less than in the East, in Germany,
Austro-Hungary, even in France, as well as in Russia,
Roumania, and Algeria, the question, pedantically
called " Semitic, " has loomed up before generations
who never dreamt that they could be drawn into such
quarrels.

1 See L?Empire dcs Tsars et Us Russes* vol. iii, book Iv.
chap. iii.

Niimber and Distribution of the Jews. 1 1

In the West as in the East the question has several
aspects. It may be considered chiefly from three points
of view, the importance of which varies according to
different countries and different periods. It is at once
a religious, a national, and an economic or social ques-
tion. To its very complexity is due its intensity.
Between the Jew and the Christian, between " the Se-
mite and the Aryan, " rise simultaneously, or succes-
sively, religious intolerance, national exclusiveness,
mercantile competition, that is to say, everything most
calculated to inflame men.

Antisemitism is at once a war of religions, a conflict
of races, and a struggle of classes. It has a threefold
hold upon the people. This accounts for its simultane-
ous appearance in so many different countries at the
end of the century that produced a Pasteur and a
Jtenan.

^ Antisemitism is not wholly a sign of retrogression,
nor the result of atavism, although, according to the
assertion of I/ombroso, it is due, in part, to atavism,
that instinctive repugnance inherited from one's an-
cestors. If it be, indeed, the ghost of a former age, it
has not found any difficulty in donning a modern garb.
Everything about it is not old or superannuated. It is
quite up to date, it knows the jargon of the day, it has
been through the German Universities, has studied
Darwin, and served under Bismarck; it has some
knowledge of Malthus and the Economists, especially
of the " Socialists of the chair " ; it delights in appeal-
ing to the " laws of history " ; it can, at a pinch, quote
the fashionable authors, and does not disdain, when
occasion demands, to play the pedant. Its hostility to
the Jew is not merely a pose, an affected attitude ; it
is sincere in what it professes. It is the first to believe

i 2 Israel Among the Nat-ions.

in its own. danger-signal. We must indeed confess that
the hatred of the Jew has found fresh nourishment in
the new ideas. In politics, natural science, and eco-
nomics, our modern theories have placed within its
reach weapons which we should never have thought
fashioned for its use.

It so happened that Jewish emancipation, brought
about by the Revolution, was indirectly threatened by the
very conflicts and passions that grew out of that Revolu-
tion. What has filled the history of our nineteenth
century, but religious, national, and economic strug-
gles? By all these Antisemitism. is intimately con-
nected with the history of our times. And, as this
triple conflict of belief, race, and class seems not yet
. about to abate, it may be foreseen that Antisemitism.
will also outlive the nineteenth, perhaps even the
twentieth century. Some say it will last as long as
the Jews themselves. At any rate, it is worth study-
ing, less for itself perhaps, than for the questions that
arise on its path, for it is closely related to many, and
to the very gravest problems.

CHAPTER II.

THE ODDEST GRIEVANCE AGAINST TH JEWS, THE
REI/IGIOUS GRIEVANCE.

I. Accusations Brought against Judaism and the Talmud
Characteristics of Judaism Its Moral Code The Talmud :
its Origin, its Authority The Mishna and the Ghemara
The Halakha and the Haggada The Hatred of the Grim
and the Two Moral Codes of the Jew What the Talmud
has been to Judaism II. Legends and Superstitions Hostile
to the Jews Ritualistic Murder.

I.

/

RELIGIOUS differences are no longer the cause of the
hatred of the Jew. Perhaps they never wereJX In the
Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella as in the France of
Philip the Fair, or in the England of John Lackland
and of Edward the First, religion seems often to have
been the mask behind which lurked very worldly pas-
sions affecting the Jews. In our day, on the other
hand, the contrary is apt to be true ; fanaticism has
gone out of fashion. If the Antisemites still at times
feel any concern in divine matters, they take good care
to conceal it. The majority profess to be free from all
sectarianism, and we must take their word for it.v.
Nevertheless, after all has been said, a residue of
religious antipathy is left at the bottom of Antisemitism,
whether it be that of the masses or the cultured. With
the Christian and the Israelite, especially in Central

14 Israel Among the Nations.

and Eastern Europe, certain beliefs, legends, and super-
stitions survive which help to foster mutual aversion.
Neither the sceptical nor the indifferent can always
escape these influences. It is mainly from this point
of view that the aversion toward the Jew may be called
a legacy from our ancestors, one of the facts of heredity,
an atavistic trait. Succeeding races preserve for a long
time, by mere instinct, aversions for which they can no
longer well account.

The Middle Ages believed themselves justified in
considering the Jew an object of reprobation. To
molest the Jews seemed the act of a good Christian.
Several times did the Popes have to take them under
their protection. To this very day the Cross of Calvary
projects its shadow over dispersed Israel. It is scarcely
more than half a century since Westminster found
orators ready to maintain that to emancipate a Jew was
to belie the divine oracles. 1 Have not the Jews said :
1 ' His blood shall be avenged on us and our children ? ' '
There may still exist some Christians who believe it
their duty to make the Jew expiate the old crucifige.
Do they not remember, those forgetful Christians, that
Christ called from the cross, to his heavenly Father :
' ' Forgive them, for they know not what they do ? ' ' Jesus
spoke the truth, and it is not for his disciples to doubt his
word. The Gospel has never taught the vendetta, and
shall man usurp God's place in dealing out punish-
ment ? So have reasoned the saints most deeply im-
bued with the precepts of the Gospel. Antisemitism
cannot shield itself behind Christianity. The hatred
of the Jew springs not from the Christian soul, but from
anti-Christian instincts.

a See Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays, No. I., Civil
Disabilities of the Jews*

The Oldest Grievance. 15

Indeed, the cross of Golgotha does not constitute the
entire grievance of the Christian against the Jew. A
revengeful spirit, and pious rancour against the execu-
tioners of the Son of Man, do not constitute the only
handle that religion offers to the enemies of the Jews.
When the Gospel fails them, they fall back on the
Talmud. Many of them profess to find in Judaism the
food for their hatred which is denied them by Christi-
anity. They attack the traditions of the Jews, their
rites, nay, even their moral code.

It were a confession of ignorance to deny the im-
portance to the Jews of their religion and traditions.
To be sure, the majority of them in the West are
gradually falling away from the practices of their creed.
And what alarms the rabbis is that in contradistinc-
tion to what obtains in the Christian churches reli-
gious indifference among the Jews is perhaps still more
pronounced in the case of the women than of the men.
Frenchmen, who know only the Parisian Jew, readily
believe that the day of Judaism as a religion has passed
away. Nothing of the sort.

Jews who believe in and practise their faith, " judai-
sing ' ' Jews, still abound ; and, in Europe, they are per-
haps even in the majority. Despite its thirty or forty
centuries, the old Law is neither dead nor dying. To
see how much life it still possesses we need but to step,
at sundown, on a Friday, into the grimy synagogues
of Hungary or Poland, all ablaze with light, while the
hazzan, with the talet over his head, intones the Sabbath
chant. However inconvenient the Jewish rites and
ceremonies may be, they are perhaps more strictly
observed than those of any Christian Church, although,
for reasons similar to those that prevail among the Chris-
tians, the Jews are gradually losing their reverence for

1 6 Israel Among the Nations.

religious forms. 'If we go to the heart of Jewish life, we
may say that the Jew is perhaps still the most religious
of men. 1 i It is true, that, in order to transform him
into the most indifferent, we have often merely to
change his environment.

It is Judaism, I make bold to say, that has created
the Jew. It is the mould into which, for centuries, the
sons of Israel have been cast. Therefore, if we would
thoroughly understand the Jew, we must understand
the religion that has made him, the Judaism of the
Talmud, with its beliefs, its traditions, and its minute
ritual. This study were worth our while ; perhaps we
shall attempt it one of these days. It would be
interesting to examine in what respect Judaism and
Jewish ethics differ from Christianity and Christian
ethics. Like the Old and the New Testament, they
have points of similarity and dissimilarity. Even when
they agree, when both assert the same thing, there is,
between the old and the new Law, a difference in
tone ; there is a subtle shade of greater tenderness,
of greater gentleness, in the daughter than in the
mother. A Jew would say that one is more womanly,
the other more virile ; that if the new Law has more
heart and feeling, the old Law has more intellect. At
any rate, the hereafter is less prominent in the old
Law. Herein lies perhaps, in regard to ethics, the
main difference between them.

The one looks more toward heaven, the other's gaze
is turned more towards the earth. Judaism has less
bent for mysticism, less inclination towards asceticism;
it has never shared the passion of the Cross and the en-
thusiastic renunciation of the world. Its faith is pre-

1 See D Empire des Tsars et les fiusses, vol. iii,, book iv v
ch. iii.

The Oldest Grievance. 17

eminently practical. Therein lie at once its superior-
ity and its inferiority. Its ethics, its worship, even its
ritual, deal solely with this life. Its observances seem
to be, for the greater part, nothing but simple sanitary
practices, easily transferred into hygienic rules. "Have
your sons circumcised; they will thank you for it,"
said a Jewish physician who believed in nothing but
science; "and if you wish to avoid tuberculosis
and the parasitical diseases, eat no meat that is not
Kosher."

There have been many discussions as to whether the
ancient Hebrews believed in the continuance of human
existence beyond the shades of SheoL Whether or no
the Sadducean Cohanim were the representatives of tra-
dition, the immortality of the soul and the resurrection
of the body figure already in the Talmud as tenets of
the Synagogue. 1 Nevertheless, the TJwra, as com-
pared with the Gospel, seems more concerned with the
present life than with the life to be. Contrary to the
new Law, the Mosaic I/aw deals with this earth and our
sojourn upon it. The mysterious abodes of the elect
are less conspicuous in the vision of the prophet than
in that of the apostle. The one beguiles us, more than
the other, into dreams of what no eye has seen and no
ear has heard. It is of no avail for the Talmud to tell
the Jew that this earth is but a wayside inn ; the earth
seems to him more real and more lasting than it does
to the Christian ; it is not merely a passing show. Nor

I. The belief in immortality and resurrection has its place
in the profession of faith observed, since the time of Mai-
monides, throughout the Jewish world. It forms the thirteenth
and last article, which I find thus specified in an Israelitish
catechism : (I believe) " that the soul is immortal and that a
day will come when God will call the dead back to life."

1 8 Israel Among the Nations.

does his religion command him to scorn earthly pleas-
ures and possessions ; it does not hesitate to promise
them to him as a reward. It seems made for every-day
struggles. Consequently, it has its share in the success
that falls to the Jew in the struggle for existence. The
Jews owe a great part of their strength to their Iaw.
The gifts which it promised, it has given.

This fact is not what, in Judaism, offends the politi-
cian or the philosopher. Quite the contrary ; modern
utilitarianism would be grateful for it ; it would be
quite willing on this score to place Judaism above
its great off-shoots, Christianity and Mohammedanism.
And yet it is just this Jewish code of morals that we
dare impeach, and why ? It seems blasphemous to hear
Christians tax with immorality the very religion which
gave them their Decalogue, the I^aw whose precepts
Christ and the Apostles so scrupulously observed. This
seeming contradiction may be explained in two ways.
In the first place, a distinction must be made between
ancient Hebraism and modern Judaism, between the
Talmud and the Bible. In the second place, as regards
the old Law itself, a Christian can prove that it was,
above all, a national Law, peculiar to the Jews, founded
on a covenant between God and Israel, on an alliance
betweeen Javeh and his people. In this respect, it
might be said that the mission of Christianity was not
so much to perfect the I^aw as to spread it among all the
nations. Hence, there arises against the Jews and
Judaism a twofold charge, which, however, ma}' be
summed up tinder one head ; for the main reproach
made against the Talmud is that it tended to in-
tensify the national exdusiveness already taught in
the Thora.

What, then, is the biblical moral code? It is the

The Oldest Grievance. 19

Decalogue ; it is even more, for the commands of the
Decalogue have almost invariably a negative character,
and the moral code of the Bible rises, especially in the
Prophets, immeasurably above that. Some Israelites
have discovered, among stray fragments of the Old
Testament, the Sermon on the Mount almost in its en-
tirety. 1 The great commandment which is the es-
sence of New Testament ethics : " Love thy neighbour
as thyself/' is to be found already in the Pentateuch. 2
And this love of one's neighbour has been preached in
the Synagogue by the doctors and the rabbis ever since
Hillel. 3 In this respect, the Talmud is even in advance
of the Old Testament. It comes nearer to the Gospel,
spiritually as well as chronological!}' . But, it is argued,
the word (f neighbour* 3 is of doubtful meaning on the
lips of a Jew. In the mouth of a Christian, free from
all tribal feeling, no doubt the word means a man of
any race whatsoever, Jew, Greek, or barbarian. In the
mouth of the Jew, neighbour means Jew. The stranger,
the gher or the goi, is no neighbour. That which it is
forbidden to do to a Jew, is permitted toward a non-Jew.
Thus, lending out at interest, or usury, forbidden by
the Pentateuch toward the sons of Israel, is permitted

1 As, for instance, M. Rodrigues : Les Trois Filles de la
Bible.

3 Leviticus xix., 18.

3 The doctors, in the time which produced the Talmud,
were, as is known, divided into two rival schools: that of Scha-
mai, more rigorous; that of Hillel, more liberal. A pagan had
said to Schamai: "I will join thy religion if thou canst teach it
to me while I stand in front of thee, upon one foot." Scha-
mai rejected him. The pagan made the same request to Hillel,
who replied : "Do not unto others what thou wouldst not that
they should do unto thee ; this is the whole law ; all the rest is
but its complement and commentary." Moise Schwab, in Le
Talmud de Jerusalem, introduction, p. xxxix.

20 Israel Among the Nations.

toward the stranger * ; and so on with the rest of the
code. m .

'* The bearing of this accusation is obvious. It is
maintained that the Jewish Law concedes to the Jews
alone the human quality, the rights inherent in human
individuality. The Gentiles, thegozm, have no rights
in the eyes of Israel, and towards them the Jew has no
duties. How do the Jews answer this? " Open the
Bible" they say, " and you will find the refutation of
this lie. Do you want texts ? What could be more ex-
plicit than this verse : "But the stranger that dwelleth
with you shall be unto you as one born among you,
and thou shalt love him as thyself ; for ye were
strangers in the land of Egypt. ' J a

This command is repeated several times, in solemn
words. Human brotherhood fills every page of the Old
Testament, where it is made to prevail from the begin-
ning to the end of time ; and is found in the accounts
of the creation as well as in the Messianic hopes.^It
might be called one of the vital doctrines of Hebraism.
Judaism is, perhaps, the least exclusive of all religions.
It proclaims a belief in the salvation of all good men,
regardless of their faith. 3 The spirit of national exclu-
siveness, seemingly impressed on certain pages of the
Bible, should not mislead us. For, here we must dis-
tinguish between political and religious laws, between

1 Even this is denied by more than one commentator. See
Rabbinowicz, Legislation Civile du Talmud, vol. iii., intro-
duction ; and Kayserling Der Wncher und das Judenthum,
Pesth, 1882.

8 I/eviticus xix., 34. Of* ibid., xxiv., 2 ; Deuteronomy x.,
18-19.

*The Talmud itself (Kama, fol. 38) says expressly: "The
non-Jew who observes the law of God is no less than the high-
priest." S. D. Luzzata's // Guidaismo Illustrate ; Marco Mon*
tara, // Pensiero Israelitico, p. 156. (Mantua, 1892.)

The Oldest Grievance. 21

that which pertains to the Jewish state and that which
pertains to the Jewish faith. 1 " Granted, as far as the
Bible is concerned," people will say, <f although it may
not always be easy to preserve such fine distinctions.
But how is it with the Talmud ? Has not Rabbi Simon
ben Johai said: "The best of the golm, kill him."
Nor is this the only passage of its kind.

"It is true/' reply the Jews, "in the Talmud may
be found, here and there, words inspired by a national
fanaticism ; but before drawing any conclusions from
them, you should know what the Talmud is. Do you
know it ? Have you any conception of the MisJma 9
and the Ghemara ? Do you know the difference be-
tween the Halakha and the Haggada, ? You seem to
imagine that for us Jews of Babj-lon or Jerusalem the
Talmud is an inspired book, or at least a manual of
faith. Nothing of the sort. The Talmud is but a vast
compilation of opinions, often contradictory, that have
come from many different schools and epochs. Around
the Mishna a collection of ancient rabbinical decisions
has been heaped tip, under the name of Gheinara,
an enormous and incoherent pile of commentaries, an-
notations, glosses, and discussions of all kinds. If you
would quote the Talmud, you must understand its
worth ; you must not endow it with greater authority
than we ourselves ascribe to it."

On this point the rabbis are quite right. If we wish
to appeal to the Talmud, we must know what it means,
whence it comes, what value it has. The best way to
acquire this knowledge would be to read it. But just

1 This distinction between the political regulations, by then-
very nature temporary and soon inoperative, and the religions
laws given to Israel for all ages and all countries, has been sol-
emnly confirmed by the great Sanhedrim, which met Tinder
Napoleon.

22 Israel Among the Nations.

here lies the difficulty. There is no book less accessi-
ble. In order to master the original, often written iu
obscure and composite language, partly in Hebrew (the
Mishna], partly in Aramaic of different periods (the
Ghemara), it is not enough to know Hebrew. The
Russian and Oriental Jew, whose life is spent in the
study of the Talmud, deciphers rather than reads it.
Its translations into modern languages are incomplete
or imperfect ; and in view of the manifold difficulties
of such an undertaking, it were rash to expect anything
much better, for a long time to come. We have in
French in 12 volumes in Svo a recent version of the
Talmud of Jerusalem, the oldest, but also the most ob-
scure, the least comprehensive and the least widely read,
the one that carries with it the least authority. 1

When we attempt to penetrate into the vast labyrinth
of the Mishna and the Gkemara we find that they con-
tain a little of everything : theology, ethics, politics,
jurisprudence, medicine, and casuistry. We meet also
with fables, legends, and magic formulas. It is the
shapeless encyclopedia of the religious and legal tradi-
tions, and also of the visions and the prejudices of van-
quished Israel, in the form of official reports of meetings
held by the rabbinical academies. Dissimilar opinions
are often recorded in its pages ; it is not surprising to
find contradictions, rubbish, childish or senile notions
side by side with sublime thoughts many pebbles

1 Translation, by M. Moise Schwab, of the BibliothSque Na-
tionale, Paris, Maisonneuve, 1878-1890. The Talmud, said to
be of Jerusalem, is the work of the schools of Palestine ; the
Talmud, supposed to be of Babylon, is the work of tlae schools
of the Euphrates. The Mishna (repetition of the law, Deute-
rosis) is the same in both Talmuds ; the commentary, the
Ghemara (complement) alone varies.

The Oldest Grievance. 23

mingled with a few pearls. Let us, for a moment, im-
agine the works of our scholars of the Middle Ages, of
our canonists, our hagiographers, our casuists of the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, and our golden legend,
all thrown pell-mell, without criticism or discrimina-
tion, into a kind of corpiis. Would such a collection of
theological writings, whether or not sanctioned by the
Church, always coincide with our modern views of right
and justice? Would the Jew, who presumed to dis-
cover in them the Christian ethics, be at a loss to ex-
tract from them offensive statements ? Have not, for
instance, some theologians been willing to teach that
princes were not bound to keep their word with a here-
tic ? And has the application of this inhuman doctrine
never been insisted on by the priests of Christ ?

Have we forgotten how the wit of Pascal disposed of
the subtleties of our casuists ? What wonder if the
Talmud, already fifteen centuries old, contains maxims
which shock our modern conscience ? Not the errors,
the puerilities, the acerbities of the Mishna or the Gke-
mara should surprise us, but rather the refinement and
loftiness of some of their ideas, the ingenuousness of
their discussions. If we would pass judgment on these
old Talmudic monuments, we must set them back into
the framework of their times ; we must compare, for
instance, the jurisprudence of the rabbis of Babylon or
of Tiberias with the laws of the Franks and the Visi-
goths, or, still better, with the Pandects of Justinian ;
for the Talmud is pre-eminently a corpus juris. We
shall then be compelled to confess that the odds are not
invariably on the side of the Christian. 1

The Ghemara presents to us, on the whole, the ap-
1 However, the influence of the Roman law can often be de-
tected in the decisions of the rabbis of the Talmud.

24 Israel Among the Nations.

pearance of a boundless sea of discussions, digressions,
narratives, and legends, 1 Under the surface of this
"Talmudic sea," as the doctors call it, may be dis-
covered two currents, now running parallel, now counter,
to each other, but crossing each other in every direc-
tion. The first is called Halakha^ rule, norma ; the
second, Haggada, legend, saga ; a collection of mis-
cellaneous hearsays touching upon every possible sub-
ject. Only the Halakha can be considered as I,aw.
Whether in regard to worship, doctrine, ethics, civil or
religious Law, it alone speaks with authority, as the
expression of the oral Law which completes the written
I/aw ; of that oral Law which, like the written Law, the
doctors pretended to trace back to Moses and Sinai,
and which, we are told, was forbidden from being
transferred to writing until after the close of the Jewish
schools. The Haggada, on the contrary, in its infinite
variety, with its edifying narratives, its parables, its
oriental fables, its homilies, its scientific curiosities, its
anatomical and medical discussions, its magical and
pharmaceutical prescriptions, the Haggada, which to
us is the most interesting portion of the Talmud, has
no authority in the eye of the Jew. It could not be Law
to him. ' ' The Haggada settles nothing, ' ' thus says the
Talmud itself. According to it, one cannot tc permit
or prohibit, nor pronounce clean or unclean." The
importance of this distinction between the Halakha and
the Haggada is obvious ; whosoever would quote the
Talmud should beware of confounding them, either
from ignorance or design. 3

1 As&ne Darmesteter's Reliques Sdentifiques, "The Tal-
mud," Cerf, 1890.

s See, for example, Derembourg's art. " Talmud," iu LSEncy*
clop&die des Sciences Religieitses of Licit tenberger.

The Oldest Grievance. 25

On more than one page does the Talmud give evi-
dence of scant liking for the -027/2 / but who are these
gowt execrated by the Talmud ? They are the Greek
subjects of Antiochus, the Roman subjects of Titus and
of Hadrian, the magi of the Sassanid Kings. Israel,
persecuted in her religious and national rights, set her
face rigidly against the enemies who threatened to ex-
terminate her. A number of the decisions that have
brought much censure upon the Talmud are to be
looked upon less as rules of conduct, or as moral pre-
cepts, than as war-cries hurled at the destroyers of the
Temple and the oppressors of Judah. * We must always
bear in mind that the Babylonian Talmud was com-
posed between the fall of Israel and the persecution of
the Jews by the fanaticism of the magi. Itsgozm are
not so much Christians as heathens, from Rome or
Persia. When Simon ben Johai exclaims : "The best
of the goim s kill him ; the best of the serpents, crush
its head," the^m to whom the Rabbi alludes are the
Romans of the time of Hadrian, those who had defiled
the holy city, and whose cruelties his eyes had wit-
nessed; in invoking death upon their heads, he is
acting in self-defence ; he is only applying to them the
law of retaliation. It cannot be denied that such
utterances possess a certain Semitic harshness. Not

1 See the Revue des Etudes Juive$> i., 1880, pp. 256-259. Isidore
I/oeb's, La Controverse sur le Talmud sous Saint Louis*

2 The text published by M. Berliner (Raschii in Pentateii-
chum CommentariSy Berlin, 1886) reads : " The best of the
Egyptians." It is really, in connection with the ExodTis and
the passage of the Red Sea, that the Rabbi uses these words. In
the treatise of the Soferim (xv., 10), R. Simon B. Johai says :
"The best of the gown^in times of war one is permitted to
kill him.". See Isidore I^oeb, ibid.

2 6 Israel A mong the Nations.

in this fashion were their executioners denounced by
those who confessed the Christ, by Saint Polycarp be-
fore the pro-consul of Smyrna, or the virgin Blandia in
the circus of I/yons. But the aged bishop and the
youthful slave were Christians, and we reserve the
right of believing in the superior^ of Christianity.
There was, futhermore, another dissimilarity between
the Christian martyrs and the refractory Jew of the first
and second century : the Christian thought only of his
God, the Jew thought of his people no less than of his
religion. That which spoke from his lips was as much
his ruined country as his outraged faith ; and, although
faith can afford to forgive, a patriot may not always
find it permissible to do so.

Among the confused mass that goes to make up the
Talmud, passages may, however, be selected in which
the Jew is not more tenderly treated than the goL Thus
Rabbi Johannan says : "A man of the Jewish people
rend him like a fish." The Talmud contains a
quantity of such exaggerations which it would be ridicu-
lous to interpret literally. How can we take offence
at the fact that the Jews of the Middle Ages, held in
bondage and despoiled by the people, should have ap-
plied to their Christian persecutors the imprecations of
the Talmud against the heathen oppressors of Israel ?
From whom should they have learned how to treat
them as brethren ? In passing judgment upon the teach-
ings and conduct of the Jews with regard to ib&gozm it
were scant justice to forget the action of the Christians
toward the Jews.

vOur Christian ethics make no distinction between the
Christians and the adherents of other faiths. 1 Can we

1 He wno cares to examine the Gospel closely will see that it
is not always quite free from the national or religious exclusive-

The Oldest Grievance. 27

therefore say that we have always treated the Jew as our
neighbour ? Have the Christians never permitted them-
selves to do to the Jew what they would not have done
to each other ?>, "Have our ancestors practised towards
the Jew even that degree of Christian charity that a St.
Francis extended to "our brothers, the beasts of the
forest and the birds of the skies " ? If the Jew has
sometimes likened the goim to unclean animals, has
the Christian remained far behind with his " dog of a
Jew ' ' ? Scarcely a century has elapsed since, in France
and in almost the whole of Europe, the Jews, on en-
tering the towns, were subject to the same toll as the
cattle. 1 And this was but natural, considering the low
esteem in which our fathers held those Jews. During
hundreds of years our Christian feeling of brotherhood
toward the Jews had been evinced only through pillage,
the yellow wheel, the iron gates of the Ghetto, and the
fires of the auto-da-fe. How many really imagined that
they were doing a pious act in tormenting the Jew?
How many, in disavowing their obligations towards
the Jew, honestly believed that to defraud him was not
to fail in one's neighbourly duty? Need we recall the
story of the forged receipts of Alsace which created such
a great sensation on the eve of the Revolution ? a The

ness which is charged to the Jews. It contains passages like
the following : Non est bonum sumerepanem filiorum et mif~
tere canibus (Matth., xv., 26 ; Mark, vii., 27). And these words
of Jewish inspiration, pronounced in favour of the Jews, nave,
more than once, in the Middle Ages, been turned against
them.

1 This duty, or Leibzott> was not abolished until the reign
of Louis XVI. See, for instance, M. TAbb6 Jos. L^mann's
DEntrte des Israelites dans la Sod&tt Frang aise, 1886, chap. i.

2 See G-raetz, Geschichte der Juden von den altesten Zeiten>
vol. xi., ch. ii. Jos. I^mann, ibid^ book i., chap. ii.

2 8 Israel A mong the Nations.

rabbis have often been charged with having taught,
contrary to the Law of Israel, that the Jew was not
bound by his oath to the gotm. 1 Has not the same
reproach been made against the Catholics in respect to
heretics? Although, to my knowledge, no Christian
has inculcated such a doctrine in regard to the Jews,
how many Christians have felt little scruple in lying
where a Jew was concerned? To this very day, in
Hungary, Poland, Russia, and Roumania, when a Jew
appears in court, the judge is frequentty obliged to warn
the Christian witnesses that they are bound to tell the
truth, even should that truth be favourable to the Jew.

In such matters religious or moral precepts are less
powerful than is custom. The blame must be laid, not
on the teachings of either rabbi, priests, or Russian
popes, but rather on the perversion of the Jewish as
well as of the Christian conscience, through centuries of
rancour and mutual ill-will. Before assuming the right
to ask the Jew to treat us as brothers, it were well that
we should practise towards him a little of that Chris-
tian charity wherein are embodied the Law and the
prophets.

Those wise men who take such trouble to discover in
the Talmud traces of Jewish hatred, forget too frequently
both the time at which the Talmud was composed and
the manner in which it was compiled. The Talmud,
as we have said, is only an official report of the rabbini-
cal schools that existed between the first century B.C.,
and the fourth or fifth century A.D. What we must
look for in it is the Jewish spirit that prevailed on the
eve and directly after the fall of Jerusalem. In the

1 This is contrary not only to the law and the Talmud, but to
the teachings of Maimonides and the doctors ; see, amongst
others, Marco Mortara's H Pensiero Israelitico (1892), p. 130.

The Oldest Grievance. 29

whole course of her long history, Israel never experi-
enced a time of greater convulsion. While her rabbis
were compiling the Mislma and the Gfzemam, she was
passing through the crisis of her life. Under the crush -
ing pressure of Roman and Persian rule she ceased to be
a nation and became a religion. After having been, for
centuries, a secluded nation, she was about to become a
religious tribe scattered over the globe. Such a change
is not effected without suffering and resistance. It
seemed as if the worship of Jehovah could not survive
the overthrow of the Temple ; as if Judah, expelled
from the land of its inheritance and scattered to the
four winds, was to perish utterly, to disappear in the
midst of other nations, to be swallowed up in the ocean
of Gentiles on which its wrecked fragments could be
seen floating far and wide.

The chief solicitude of the rabbis was to save both reli-
gion and nationality, one by means of the other. The
two seemed to them indissolubly linked together. Who
would have been rash enough to predict that one could
possibly outlive the other indefinitely ? Hence, both
the national exclusiveness and the excessive ritualism
of the Talmud. In order to ensure Israel's salvation,
it was necessary to bind the Jews together and to sep-
arate the Jew from the Gentile. The rabbis understood
this. The Talmud made of religion a cement as well
as an insulator ; between the Jew and tt&goim arose a
wall of ritual. Israel was falling to pieces like a dis-
mantled fortress ; to prevent her ruins from crumbling-
into dust, the doctors encircled her, so to say, hedged her
round with manifold strong fetters, minute practices,
and rigid observances. Thus the Talmud gave to the
Jews a consistency which, in their dispersion, preserved
them from becoming absorbed by the surrounding peo-

30 Israel Among the Nations.

pies. Israel was saved by her ritual ; the Talmud
ensured her continuance by keeping her stationary for
fifteen centuries.

To these rights and observances, which, at times,
strike us as puerile, Israel owed her life. But this
ritual, strengthened by the Talmud, does not bind the
Jew for ever. He can free himself from the practices
which tend to set him apart from the people amongst
whom he lives. We are apt to think of the Talmud as
a rigid code, governing Jewish society for all times. In
this we are mistaken. In proportion as the Jew lifts
his head above his traditional environments, he eman-
cipates himself, little by little, from the authority of the
Talmud. The injunctions which he had once deemed
obligatory now seem to him optional. As Judaism
possesses neither Church, Pope, nor Council to decide
on what must be preserved intact and what may be
modified, Jewish communities do, in fact, enjoy great
freedom. The observances, scrupulously practised by
the Jews of Vilna or Berditchef, may be neglected by
the Israelites of Paris or London. This shows how
mistaken we are in imagining the Jew as chained for
all times to the Talmud, its ritual, and maxims.

In fact, the Talmud is gradually losing its sway.
The hour is near when the Ghemara will, to most Israel-
ites, have become nothing but an archaeological monu-
ment. Perhaps not more than one or two centuries
will be needed to bring this about. 3$ven now the
Talmud preserves its full authority only in those coun-
tries where law or custom continues to isolate the Jew.
It is, for the most part, Christian exclusiveness that
keeps alive Jewish exclusiveness and prolongs the reign
of the Talmud. The number of Jews who have shaken
off its yoke is increasing with each generation, even in

The Oldest Grievance. 31

the Bast, in Russia, and Roumania. The neo-cabal-
ism of the Hassidim was, even amongst the most
practical Jews, a reaction against the doctrines of the
Talmudic ritual. As for the West, in France, England,
Italy, and the larger portion of Germany, the majority
of the Jews are ignorant of the Talmud. Ask your
Jewish acquaintances how much they know of it.
"But where do you expect us to have studied the
Talmud ? ' ' they will reply. ' l It was not taught at the
college or at the law school. There is neither room nor
time for it in our curriculum. And how is it with
yourself? Have you read Saint Thomas ? Very well,
the Talmud is the affair of the rabbis, just as the Sum-
ma Theologise is the affair of the priests." The old
Eastern Jews complain that, even amongst the rabbis,
the study of the Talmud is on the wane. "They
scarcely know the Mishna** scornfully said to me a
young Talmudist from one of the Jewish communities
in Russia.

However great may be the historic importance of the
Talmud, Judaism is not riveted to it. Because it has
been motionless for fifteen centuries we deem it im-
movable ; but this inference is not logical. Nothing
condemns Judaism to remain for ever folded in the pages
of the Talmud. Having been the most narrow and
formalistic, it may become the most liberal, of religions.
Such is actually its claim. Though stationary ever
since the fall of Israel, it boasts of being the most pro-
gressive religion, the least bound by ritual, lending
itself the most readily to all transformations. Itself
has forged the chains that it carries ; they do not neces-
sarily adhere to its flesh ; it can rend them asunder and
let them fall to the ground.

A few stray passages from the Talmud are not suffi-

3 2 Israel A mong the Nations.

cient to condemn Judaism. What religion could with-
stand a similar process of dissection ? Not even the
virgin purity of the morality of the Gospel would
emerge unscathed. A couple of sentences from the
Mishna or the Ghemara do not more conclusively prove
the corruption of Jewish morals than do certain maxims
culled from the writings of our casuists prove the
perversion of the Catholic conscience. This war of
ambuscades waged against the Jews, with academic
weapons, is a war of controversialists, at once churl-
ish and pedantic, such as the Christians have, on more
than one occasion, waged against each other. In order
to justify himself, the Jew needs but to appeal to the
Catholic against the Protestant, to the Protestant
against the Catholic, to both against the Orthodox.
What splendid companion-pieces for Judaism Exposed \
published for centuries past, in every language, 1 might
have been furnished during the last three hundred
years, in Papacy Exposed or Protestantism Unmasked.
As a rule, science does not concern itself with works
labelled in such a manner. It does not much matter
what laboratory may have produced them, be it Jewish
or Christian. In order to extract from the teachings
of the Reformation the most immoral doctrines, we
have only to strain to their utmost limits some of the
sayings of the reformers. German theologians have
confessed this 3 ; whoever might be inclined to deal

1 The work of Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum (Koenigs-
berg, 1711), offered thus, as early as the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century, a compilation of the oddities and absurdities
to be found in the Talmud. Eisenmenger had been preceded,
already in the sixteenth century, by Pfefferkorn, a renegade
who opposed Reuchlin.

3 For instance, M. 3*. Delitzsch, Professor of Theology in the
University of Leipzig, in Rohling's Talwudjude beleuMet,

The Oldest Grievance. 33

with the writings of I^uther as Rohling : and his imi-
tators have dealt with the Talmud, could prove without
difficulty that I,utheranism is but a tissue of coarseness
and absurdity. 2

It is not by garbled extracts or isolated maxims that
we should judge a religion or a doctrine. To be sure,
the enemies of Christianity certain Jews amongst
them did not scruple to apply this method to the
Church, the papacy, and the religious orders. But if
such a method is of but small account as against
Catholicism, it is worth no more when applied to
Judaism. If the Christians are willing to accept it in
judging of the Talmud, which no one considers an
inspired book, they are equally bound to accept it in
judging of the Bible, whose authority is acknowledged
by Christian and Jew. From attacks of this sort the
Bible does not always emerge more undamaged than the
Talmud. Certain Antisemites have not been able to
refrain from such an attack, forgetting that in aiming
at the Jew through the Bible they risked touching
Christ. They do not recollect, those zealous enemies
of Israel, that in this kind of fencing they have, as fore-
runner, one who was past-master of the foils. Did not

translated into Russian, under the title Slow prcwdy o Tal-
mude.

1 Doctor Rohling, the author of Der Talmudjucte (Munich,
1878), This work, recently copied in French, gave rise, on
the part of a Viennese rabbi, Doctor Bloch, to a lawsuit, in
which the inaccuracies of Rohling were demonstrated. See
Zurjudenfrage nach den Akten des Prozesses Rohling-Bloch,
by Jos. Kopp, Leipzig, Jul. Klinkhardt, 1886.

3 However, the same has been proven several times in regard
to Calvin and Luther, by the Catholic controversialists. I
quote, among others, the Vie de Luther and the Vie de Calvin,
by Aubin.

34 Israel Among the Nations.

Voltaire, the great scoffer, demonstrate before their
time, " that no people ever had such abominable cus-
toms as the Jews " ? Is there not, somewhere, a chap-
ter by him, entitled : " That the Jewish I^aw is the only
one in the world which ordains sacrifice M ? * I point
this out to those Antisemites who may not be aware of
it. But in thus attacking the Jews and the Bible Vol-
taire knew very well just whom he really wished t9

"Religion may be compared to the old churches of
stone or marble. Whilst prayer was kneeling on their
flagstones, life, pleasure, and warfare went on about
them, sometimes even beneath their very arches.
More than one church has been invaded by warriors,
and has had its towers transformed into dungeons and
its naves into fortresses. Why should it surprise us to
find still visible on their walls the traces of the assaults
once made upon them ? Thus it is with religions ;
they, also, have found it impossible to pass down the
centuries without sustaining the taint of their contact ;
they also have, at times, been converted into citadels
and strongholds ; let us not cry shame on them if mud-
spots or blood-stains have been left upon their walls.

Talmudic Judaism was for fourteen centuries the
stronghold, so to say, the lair of Israel ; the Gheinara
was its bulwark. There is nothing surprising in the
fact that it should still, here and there, be bristling
with stockades. I/>ng has been the siege that Israel has
had to endure within this enclosure of texts and rites,
erected by the rabbis after the overthrow of the walls
of Zion by the rams of Titus's army. What religion
has ever been assailed by so many enemies ? And at
what time, before the present, could Israel have laid

1 The Works of Voltaire, edited in 1875, vol. xxxviii,

The Oldest Grievance. 35

down her arms ? In order to do so, peace must have
been assured to her, and is she, even to this da}-, sure
of peace everywhere ? I,et us then not blame her too
severely for a fanaticism fanned into flames by our
own intolerance. We have no right to brand the fore-
head of a Jew, for all times, with a Talmudic maxim.
As well might we try to prevent the Catholic from re-
moving the scaffold of the aitfo-da-fe from his cathedral-
close, or bind the Calvinist for ever to the stake of
Servetus,

II.

It would be interesting to pursue the historical study
of the Jew through the literature and folk-lore of the
Middle Ages. His is a personality that has always im-
pressed itself on the imagination of the masses. They
have often formed a fantastic conception of him. To
this day superstitious terror forms part of the aversion
against the Jew. To the multitudes of one half of
Europe the Jew has remained a mysterious being, in
possession of formidable secrets. He is somewhat of a
sorcerer. It is no mere play upon words that the assem-
blies of witches were called " Sabbat." The treatises
of the Talmud, burned by Saint I/ouis, were part of a
conjuring-book in the 63^3 of the populace ; the strange
Hebrew letters seemed like cabalistic characters. The
Jew was, by natural right, master of the occult sciences.
Something of it still clings to him. He is readily sus-
pected of diabolical connections. The most inexplica-
ble actions are freely attributed to him, for the Jew is
not like other men.

In the East, and even in the West, hatred of the Jew
is intensified by the ignorant credulity of the masses.

36 Israel Among the Nations.

During epidemics he is supposed to poison fountains.
Legends are circulated at his expense, the crude and
savage simplicity of which ill accords with the spirit
and traditions of Judaism. How many Jews have
been burnt in the Middle Ages for having crucified
Christ anew, by puncturing with their penknife a con-
secrated wafer. This, however, is one of those fables
which bear on their face the evidence of their falsity.
A Jew who believes neither in the divinity of Christ
nor in the fact that the wafer screens his invisible pres-
ence, is not apt from mere curiosity to pierce that wafer
in order to see if blood will flow from it. Such sacrilege
could originate only in a Christian brain. Almost the
same may be said of another myth, still current in
three fourths of Europe.

Vlt has been observed in Russia and in the East, that
the popular movements against the Israelites broke out
especially at the approach of the Easter holidays.
To-day, as at the time of the Crusades, this coincidence
is, perhaps, due less to a desire on the part of the
ignorant masses to avenge the crucified God upon the
descendants of his executioners, than to the bloodthirsty
legends concerning the Jewish Passover current among
the people. Of course, we are alluding here to that
senseless charge which, for centuries, has cost the lives
of so many Israelites in every country, although at no
time has it been able to fasten the slightest guilt upon
a single Jew.y

- In Russia, Poland, Roumania, Bohemia, and Hui>
gary, the common people believe that the Jews need
Christian blood for the preparation of their unleavened
bread, the Passover Massotk. In the villages, even in
the cities of Eastern Europe, where, beneath a thin
veneer of modern culture, so often are found the ideas

The Oldest Grievance. 37

and beliefs of the Middle Ages, the peasant and the
labourer have no doubt that the Jews require the blood
taken from Christian veins in order to celebrate their
Passover. E[e does not know, this Magyar peasant or
Russian nioujik, that, according to the testimon}' of
Tertullian and of Minucius Felix, the same absurd
and odious charge was brought against the early Chris-
tians by the pagans, who, in their malicious thirst for
damaging information, no doubt mistook for a real
sacrifice the mystical immolation of the I^amb of the
Eucharist. 1 No sooner has a Christian child disap-
peared, no sooner have the police discovered the corpse
of a young boy or girl in the river or the town-moat,
than the public voice accuses the knife of the schdchter y
the Jewish butcher, even though the body may not
bear a single mark of violence. This is so well known
that murderers have been seen dragging the bodies of
their victims through the alleys of the Jewish quarters,
confident thereby to divert the suspicion and fury of
the crowd. 2

This fable of ritualistic murder and its very nature
would suffice to condemn it without other evidence is
not very ancient. No traces of it can be discovered until
the -year noo. None the less did the Middle Ages,
from the twelfth or thirteenth century on, believe in
this abominable legend. It was commemorated in
verse and in prose witness the tales of Chaucer. There

1 Even to this day, tke Chinese actually accuse our mission-
aries of collecting children and tearing out their eyes and
hearts, in order to make philters of them.

3 Heine, in Ids Rabbi of Bacharach, unfortunately never fin-
ished, was thms justified in representing strangers in the act of
introducing the bloody corpse of a child into the house of a
rabbi, in order to incite the populace against the Jews and thus
obtain a chance to despoil them.

38 Israel Among the Nations.

is nothing so tenacious as this sort of myth. Nor was
the trial which in 1883 lent a transient celebrity to the
small Hungarian borough of Tisza-Eszlar, the only in-
stance of its kind. The accusation brought against the
Jews of Tisza-Eszlar has been hurled time and again,
within the last fifty years, against the Jews of Syria,
Egypt, Roumania, and Russia. In 1880 it was at
Koutais, in Trans- Caucasia ; in 1881 at Alexandria in
Egypt ; in 1890 at Damascus, which had already be-
come noted for charges of a similar nature ; in 1891 at
Corfu, and, strange to say, also at Xanten, in Germany.

The new German Empire had, in 1892, to bear the
disgrace of a trial for ritualistic murder that rever-
berated throughout Europe, and proved to it how many
ignorant superstitions are still harboured in the minds
of the subjects of Emperor William II. I could cite
several of these deplorable instances in Russia, espe-
cially at Sarstof, under the Emperors Nicholas and
Alexander II. At one time they were of such frequent
occurrence, and the baselessness of the charges was so
well established, that the imperial government forbade
their prosecution. It must be added that in Russia
this accusation seemed all the more natural, from the
fact that one or two Russian sects have, possibly for no
better reasons, been suspected of practices similar to
those charged against the Jews. 1

In these trials for ritualistic murder the accusation is
generally based upon some myth. " Who, if not the
Jews, could have needed the death of this young girl ? "
asked a witness in the trial at Koutais, in 1880. Such
is the argument of the masses who live at the foot of
the Caucasus and on the borders of the German Rhine,

1 SeeZ,' 'Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iii. : La Religion,
book iii., chap. ix.

The Oldest Grievance. 39

as well as in Hungarian Puszta. In Hungary and in
Germany, and in fact wherever a regular trial was held
before a tribunal of Christians or Moslems, even those
judges who were least favourable to Israel were obliged,
in spite of themselves, to acknowledge the innocence of
the Jews. The stubborn passion of the Antisemites
refuses to admit such innocence ; they prefer to suspect
the Christian judges of accepting bribes of Jewish gold.
I4ttle does it matter to them that this abominable accu-
sation has been refuted in every country and in every
tongue. * The strangest fact is that, amongst the learned
men who have proved its emptiness, there has been a
Pope, and by no means the least prominent among
those versed in science and the critical spirit. 3

1 We can quote, in Russian, M. D. A. Chwolson's, Professor
at the University of Saint-Petersburg, O nekotovykh sred-
nerekovykh obrineniakh protif Evreef, Saint Petersburg,
1880, 2d edition ; and M. Jer. Lioutostanski's Vapros ab
onpatreblenii Evreiami sectatorami Kristiansk, Krovi, etc.,
Moscow, 1876; in German Jos. Kopp's Zur yudenfrage^ I^ip-
zig, 1886, 3d part ; in Italian, Corrada Giudetti's Pro Judais :
Riftessioni e Document^ Turin, 1884 ; in English, The Nine-
teenth Century, November, 1883, etc. We recommend, espe-
cially, the learned study of Dr. Herm. Strach, Professor of
Theology at the University of Berlin, Der Blutaberglaube in
der Menschheity JBlutmorde and Blutritus, Miinchen, 4th edi-
tion, Beck, 1892.

3 Pope Clement XIV. Ganganelli was then adviser to the
Holy Office in Rome. The Jews of Tampol, in Poland, had
been accused, in 1756, of having assassinated a Christian to use
his blood for the preparation of their unleavened bread. In
their distress they had the courage to invoke the intervention
of the Holy See. The Pope, Benedict XIV., entrusted Gan-
ganelli with the examination of the question. The Franciscan
scholar drew up a long report in which, after having studied,
one by one, the principal cases of ritual murder charged against
the Jews for centuries, he decided on the invalidity of the ac-

4o Israel Among the Nations.

As far back as the heart of the Middle Ages, we find
that the Popes Gregory IX. and Innocent IV., the
former in 1235, the latter in 1247, publicly branded
this calumny by a bull issued at I^yons. So that, in-
deed, three centuries later, the Protestant compilers of
the Centuries of Magdeburg asserted that Pope Inno-
cent IV. had allowed himself to be bought by the
Jews.

Finding nothing in the Talmud to support their
theory, the adversaries of the Jews claimed that ritual-
istic murder was due to cabalistic superstitions. They
bethought themselves of advancing as a proof of the
religious cannibalism of the Jews, one or two metaphors
from the book of Zehar, the cabalistic code of the
Middle Ages, still 'held in high esteem by some Jews,
especially the Hassidim, Others have quoted the testi-
mony, naturally open to suspicion, of certain Jewish
proselytes, who had been converted to Christianity ;
but the majority of baptised Jews, as Ganganelli has
already stated, brought in a verdict of acquittal for
their former co-religionists.

Of all the religions to which sanguinary practices
have been ascribed, Judaism seems to have furnished
least cause for such a suspicion. Is it not well known
that the Law forbids blood as nourishment to the Jews ?
That they consider all food containing blood as tare/a^

cusation. This conclusion was adopted by the Romish Curia,
which commanded the papal nuncio, in Warsaw, to protect the
Jews against similar calumnies. The memoir of Ganganelli, a
copy of which was found in the archives of the Israelitish com-
munity in Rome, has been published, in German, by Doctor
Berliner, under the name of Gutachten Ganganelli* s (Clemens
XTV.) in Angelegenheit der Blutbeschuldigung der Juden,
Berlin, 1888 ; and in Italian by Isidore I,oeb, Revue des Etudes
s^ Paris, April-June, 1889.

The Oldest Grievance. 41

that is to say, unclean ; so much so, that they are al-
lowed to eat only meat from which the blood has been
drawn. The prohibition imposed by the Bible is im-
perative ; it is strictly confirmed by the Talmud, and
rigidly upheld by custom and the Jewish shops, where
only Kosher meat is sold. Jewish aversion to blood is
such that a learned German thought he could not pos-
sibly give any conception of it but by borrowing a com-
parison from the superstitious rites of the Polynesians :
he ventured, to say that, for the Jew, blood is "ta-
booed." And yet, the Russian and Hungarian masses
are none the less convinced that the rabbis bleed our
children that they may have Christian blood for the
preparation of their Passover bread.

Instead of a Jewish idea we recognise here again one
of the old, popular superstitions in which blood pla} r ed
an important role. Magicians and soothsayers were in
search of human blood. The imagination of the Mid-
dle Ages believed in the miraculous power of blood ; it
communicated its belief to the Jews. Were it even to
be proved that at Trent or, elsewhere, the knife of
the Jew had "out of hatred to the faith " butchered
Christian children, such as the blessed Simon and
Andrew, of the Ada Sanctorum? I should still discern,
in such cases of infanticide, nothing more than indi-
vidual crimes, or acts of vendetta, committed in revenge

1 Two children are revered by trie Clmrcli as martyrs of the
Jews : one is the blessed Simon of Trent, put to death in 1475 ;
the other is the blessed Andre" de Rinn (Diocese of Briegen),
slaughtered in 1462. It is a matter worthy of note that one was
beatified in 1588, the other only in 1753. Ganganelli, while
acknowledging the authenticity of these two murders, says
himself, in the above-mentioned memoir, that the Romish
Curia was slow in authorising the worship of these two martyrs.

42 Israel Among the Nations.

for the tortures and persecutions which the sons of
Jacob have had to suffer. 1 For can we have forgot-
ten it? the inhumanity of our forefathers toward the
Jews was well calculated to suggest the most ruthless
modes of retribution.

As regards children, especially, the evidence of his-
tory is not always to our credit. If it has never been
legally proved that the fanaticism of the Jews has
strangled Christian children, it is, alas, beyond ques-
tion that, for centuries, .the Christians of both great
denominations have felt but little compunction in tear-
ing from the Jew his sons and daughters, not, indeed,
to open their veins, but to do what was not less painful
to the hearts of the Jewish parentsto besprinkle them
with baptismal water. 2 - In proof of this we have
abundance of testimony. It is no longer a question of
imaginary crimes, perpetrated secretly and under cover
of darkness, but of child-stealing, carried on in broad
daylight, under the shield of the law and by order of
the authorities ; and, moreover, in quantities of thou-
sands and tens of thousands, in certain states, especially
in Spain and Portugal. I am loath to cite a more
modern instance, from a neighbouring state ; the case
was one which a Catholic would be glad to have the
world forget.

1 Such is also the opinion of a learned Bavarian ecclesiastic,
Dr. Fr. Frank : Lie Kirche und die Juden, vii, Regensburg,
1893-

2 In Germany, in Portugal, more than one Jew has been
known to prefer death to baptism for his children.

CHAPTER III.

THE JEWS, CHRISTIANITY, AND MODERN IDEAS.

I. In a Sense, Antisemitism is the Counterpart of Anticlerical-
ism Antisemitism is Another Kulturkatnpf II. \Vliat
Snare nave the Jews in the Involution of Modern Society ?
Are they the Main Factors in the De-christianising of
Nations? The Jew, Hebraism, and the Revolution As
Regards Social Tendencies the Modern Jew is Recep-
tive, not Originative HI. The Conservative Spirit of the
Great Jewish Communities The Modern Spirit Insinuates
itself into them from the Outside The Jew is De-juda-
ising himself at the Same Time that the Christian is De-
christianising himself In what Respect our Civilisation
is a Peril to Judaism For this Reason it is Impossible
that Modern Society should be Judaised.

I.

who belong to the educated classes do
not share the antiquated popular prejudices against
the Jew. Even in Eastern Europe, in Hungary, Rou-
mania, and Russia, the thin stratum of the cultured,
"the intelligent," as the Russians call them, are well
aware that the Jew does not steal children to give them
up to the knife of the scJwchet and that the Synagogue
needs no Christian blood to celebrate the Hebrew Pass-
over. The Catholics, Protestants, and members of the
Greek church have another grievance against the Jews,
a less crude and childish one. They accuse them of

43

44 Israel Among the Nations.

being the born enemy of what they style " Christian
civilisation. " The very vagueness of this charge
makes it one of the most serious brought against
Israel. k ;

If it be not true that, in his secret rites, the talmudic
Jew takes delight in spilling Christian blood, the Jews,
it is asserted, especially the progressive Jews, do what
is still worse : they are bent upon destroying Christian
faith, morals, and civilisation. Not satisfied with the
toleration accorded to them, they endeavour, openly or
secretly, to " de-christianise ' ' Europe and modern so-
ciety. Thus considered, Judaism is a disintegrating
force, both from the moral and the religious, as well as
from the economic and the national, point of view ; it is
a solvent of our old Christian institutions.

In Evangelical Germany, in Orthodox Russia, in
Catholic France and Austria, the Jew is denounced as
the most zealous destro}'-er of what one is pleased to
call the Christian state and Christian civilisation. In
assailing the Jews and Judaism, Christians of every
sect assert, with Pastor Stoecker, that their attack on
the Jew is only an act of self-defence. There are men
who strive to find hidden springs in every historical
event, who believe in prolonged designs, mysteriously
followed up through centuries ; such persons go so far
as to look upon the " princes of Judah" as the eternal
instigators of the secular war waged against Christ, the
Church, and the Christian spirit. 1 To them the ancient,
chosen people, having rebelled against the Messiah, has
become the enemy of the city of God, the foundations of
which it is noiselessly sapping, and on the ruins of
which it hopes to establish the site of Israel's domin-

1 Thus, for instance, Les Juifs nos Mattres, by Chabaudy,
Paris, 1882.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 45

ion. The Jews are the originators and the apostles of
the great ' ' Anticrusade' ' waged in our times against
Christian traditions and institutions. In this sense,
Antisemitism is, after a fashion, the counterpart of
Anticlericalism ; it is a second Kulturkampf, a Kultur-
kampf that has recoiled against the secret or avowed
enemies of Christian civilisation.

Here we have, indeed, one of the real causes of
the Antisemitic movement. It may be recognised by
the country and the period in which it first appeared.
The fact that it originated in the Germany of Bis-
marck, in the very heart of the struggle between the new
Empire and the Catholic hierarchy, is not due to mere
chance. Whilst the liberal German press, partly led by
the Jews, was assailing the Church, the besieged party ,
trying to find the weak spots in the lines of attack,
made a sally in the direction of the Synagogue, where
the troops commanded by the Jew Lasker were en-
camped. That was good strategy. Such a digres-
sion had been suggested by the composition of the
opposing armies. In fact, it is in a fair way of coming
to be considered as one of the classical manoeuvres of
modern clerical campaigns. The Jew, who was ap-
parently to have been the gainer, thus runs the risk of
being the victim in the warfare against Christianity.
This incident proves that he does not invariably plaj r a
safe game when he incites, or takes part in, religious
struggles. Imprudent being! He will get nothing
but blows for his pains. The shafts hurled by him, or
by his people, against the Clericals, are in danger of
rebounding against Israel. It is an unfortunate situa-
tion for the Jew when the question is put whose eyes
can be offended by the harmless shadow of the Cross,
whose hands are interested in effacing from our old

46 Israel Among the Nations.

countries the noble and precious emblems of the religion
of our fathers ?

" Why/' said a Silesian German to me, " should you
try to prevent us from returning to the Talmud the blows
aimed at the Gospel ? When an appeal is made to the
state against our clergy and our Christian associations,
have we not a right to appeal in our turn to the state and
the people against the rabbis and the Jewish associa-
tions ? Opt the toleration which the Jews claim for them-
selves, who are in the minority, be shown to us, who are
in the majority. Otherwise they will again have to listen
to the cries of ' Hep ! hep ! ' * from millions of Chris-
tians who persist in believing that the best gifts they
can make to their children are the New Testament and
the Crucifix. 1 * And such languageis used not only by
believers ; I have heard it from the lips of sceptical or
indifferent people, who, in the presence of a Jew, all of
a sudden remembered that they were Christians.
"> Anticlericalism has thus been, by the revulsion it
has occasioned, one of the main abettors of Antisemit-
ism. In more than one country its effects have been
felt by the Jews even more keenly than by the
Catholics. To those who denounced the Church as
a foreign body, obedient to a foreign master, the
Catholics were naturally led to reply with a denuncia-
tion of the Jews as intruders of an alien race, without
country, or love of country. To those who in
Germany, for instance, accused the spiritual subjects of

1 Hep / Hep / the traditional cry against the Jews in Germany.
Many explications, almost all imaginary, have been given of it.
Some have found in it the initials of the three words : Hierusa-
lent est perdita. It is, perhaps, according to the hypothesis of
Isidore Ix>eb, nothing more than a corruption of the word:
Hebe! heb! "Stop ! hold him 1" still used, in this sense, in
Alsace and the Rhenish lands.

Jews, Christianity, and Modem Ideas. 47

the pope of being thorough-going Ultramontanes, re-
bellious to the Teutonic spirit, the Catholics were, of
course, ready to retaliate with an attack on the Semites,
as persons obstinately set against the German spirit
and deutscJie Kultur. ' ' Make front against Rome, ' ' was
said one day, in 1879, in the thick of the Kulturkampf>
by one of the Berlin journals, managed or edited by
Jews. This war-cry was answered by another from
the Germania, the organ of the Ultramontane Centre :
" Make front against New Jerusalem." Thus, from
time immemorial, has intolerance bred intolerance :
abyssus, abyssum. . . .

" The eyes of the German nation are opened at last,"
continued the Germania; "it sees that the struggle
for civilisation is the struggle against the ascendancy
of the Jewish spirit and of Jewish wealth. In every
political movement, it is the Jew who plays the most
radical and revolutionary part, waging war to the
death against all that has remained legitimate, histori-
cal and Christian in national life." *

And this awful charge against Israel was not ad-
vanced only by the Catholics, who had to face Prince
Eismarck and his short-sighted allies, the national
I/iberals; Protestant Germany echoed the words of
Catholic Germany. The Russian priests, uneasy at
seeing that the missiles aimed at the Roman hierarchy,
flew higher than the mitres of their bishops and reached
the Gospel and the Cross, were themselves perhaps the
most ardent preachers of the new crusade. 2 The

1 Germania, September 10, 1879. In Germany and in Austria
tbja lias become the habitual theme of a number of newspapers.
Cf.y in our country, La France ?mve, of M. Drumont

2 1 could cite, as an example, the speech of Pastor Stoecker
in the Landtag, March 22, 1880. Cf. the writings of Professor
von Treitschke.

48 Israel Among the Nations.

Kreuz-Zeitung exceeded the Germania in zeal ; and,
outside of Germany, in states where such a movement
seemed out of place, Russian writers took it up, in
their turn. The Rons, edited by the Moscovite
Aksakof, formed the Slav component of the cosmopoli-
tan quartette which was composed of the Evangelical
Kreuz-Zeitung, the Ultramontane Germania, and the
Roman Cimlia Cattolica. Thus, for the Prussian Pro-
testant, for the Austrian and French Catholic, for the
Russian Orthodox, the war against Israel was merely
a Kulturkampf. It meant nothing less than the preser-
vation to modern nations of the benefits of Christian
civilisation, by putting an end to what is called the
judaising of European society. To one and all, Slav,
1/atin, German, and Magyar, the Jew, that odious para-
site, was the deadly microbe, the infectious bacteria,
that poisoned the blood of modern states and societies.

II.

How much truth is there in this accusation ? And,
in order to discover its truth or its fallacy, is there need
of lengthy discussion ? In the first place, is it in accord
with the testimony of history, with the most stubborn
sort of facts, numbers and dates ? Besides, in assum-
ing that the Jew inspires and, as it were, prompts the
spirit of the age, do we not raise him to an eminence
quite disproportionate to his real stature and ascribe to
him an exaggerated supremacy ? It would certainly
have surprised Voltaire and Diderot to be told that they
were only the forerunners, or the unconscious agents, of
the Jews. When we blame the Jewish people or the Jew-
ish religion, for the overthrow of certain moral, religious,
social or political beliefs, are we not paying scant atten-

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 49

tion to history and to tlie genesis of modern ideas? Is
it not, on the part of Christian nations, equivalent to
getting rid of their own sins by loading them upon
Israel, the scapegoat ?

Whatever may be one's estimate of the "modern
spirit/' it would be difficult to make out that the Jews
can be either praised or blamed for it. While Israel
was still penned in behind the bars of the Ghetto, the
traditional foundations of Christian society were being
undermined by hands that had not learned their trade
in the school of the rabbis.

I am perfectly well aware that those who arraign the
Jews can produce Jewish witnesses to support this count
in their indictment. The reproach, solemnly flung
down to the Jews from the heights of the I^utheran
pulpit or the Russian tribunal, has been proudly taken
up by certain Semites, who deck themselves with it as
though it gave them a claim to public esteem. These
emancipated sons of Jacob are not afraid to point out to
us their low forefathers of the Judengasse, as the far-off
pioneers of the Revolution, and the secret instruments
of the emancipation of the human spirit. The nation
to which has been vouchsafed the matchless glory of
having given the world its religion is also accredited
by us with the birth of rationalism, and thus pic-
tured as undoing with one hand what it has created
with the other. The nation which during twenty-five
or thirty centuries has persisted in basing everything
on the Book and the Word of the living God, we would
fain transform into the Master of Scepticism, the
mysterious instructor of those who have broken the
authority of the Bible and who deny that God has ever
spoken. "The Jew," says a brilliant writer, "has
been the teacher of unbelief ; all rebellious spirits have

5O Israel Among the Nations.

come to Mm, either under cover of darkness or in broad
daylight. He has laboured in the immense workshop
of blasphemies of the great Emperor Frederick and the
princes of Suabia and Aragon." 1 This may be so ;
but was it really in that workshop beyond the moun-
tains that the weapons of modern rationalism were
forged, or that the doctrines were established which
have completely transformed European society ?

Whatever new vistas the rabbis may have opened
out, here and there, to the enfeebled sciences of the
Middle Ages, it is not Israel that has given the im-
petus to modern thought. Be the genius of the Jew
never so subtle and apt, he is boasting when he as-
cribes to himself the evolution of modern society. It
is not his burrowing that slanted the spires of Gothic
cathedrals and cracked the walls of Valois castles and
Bourbon palaces. In order to have given the impetus
to modern thought, it was not enough to have denied
the endless duration of mediaeval civilisation. The
Jew has the right to boast of never having bent the
knee to the gods of other nations, may their names
have been Christ, Jupiter, or Baal. His very existence
was, for twenty centuries, a protest against the old
order, and against that Christian society that would
not have made room for him, any more than for the
heretic, had he not seemed to be the providential guar-
dian of the Book, and the involuntary witness of the
prophets. The Jew has been the real protestant ; the
uncompromising, intractable opponent of dogma and
tradition. Still, whether visible or concealed, timid or
bold, his protest was stifled by the flames of the stake
that consumed his sages and his books. The voice of

1 Mr. James Darmesteter's Coup d?GLil sur PHistoire du
Peupleyuif, 1881, p. 16; reprinted in Les Propkttes d? Israel,
1892.

, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 5 1

tlie Jew, even had it been heard, had it been still
louder and clearer, could never have effected our revo-
lutions ; for his protest was based upon tradition, and
it surely was not in the name of tradition that was
brought about that transformation which has rejuve-
nated the face of the earth.

In counting the men whose hands have, during the
past three centuries, shattered the pillars of palace and
temple, how many Jews or disciples of Jews, shall we
find ? If we undertake a classification of the modern
sciences that have provided our fathers with the instru-
ments of intellectual emancipation, viz., the natural and
historic sciences, which of them shall we class, prop-
erly speaking, among the Jewish sciences, among those
that have really originated with the Jews ? Shall we
say history, or philosophy, or modern physics, or chem-
istry ? Can it be physiology, or that new-comer with
the pedantic name, sociology? I recognise, indeed,
many scientific Jews, but I see nowhere a Jewish
science. Is it, perchance, religious exegesis, for which
the Jews, as guardians of the Bible, seemed to have a
talent? This criticism of Sacred Books to which
Israel appeared to have the key, has been relegated by
the modern Jew to the Protestant. Although his ances-
tors, in the person of Raschi and his disciples, had pre-
pared the way for it is as long ago as the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, their work was assigned to the Ghetto.
Even in the sixteenth century, the task of the rabbis
was confined to furnishing translators to Luther and
Reuchlin. 1

1 There are indeed, in Spinoza's works, some essays on bib-
lical exegesis, but they have had little influence on the Syna-
gogue. As for the modern Jewish exegetists, they came after
the Christians, and have, as a rule, shown themselves less
revolutionary.

52 Israel Among the Nations,

And how is it with the manifold and changeable sys-
tems in which fluctuating modern thought has tried to
find expression ? Which of these systems is Jewish ?
Is it positivism, evolutionism, determinism, pessimism?
Despite the flexibility of his nature, despite its sturdi-
dess, its patience, its many-sidedness, its marvellous
universality, the Jew can have exerted but a secondary
and taking everything into consideration but a.
small influence on the formation of modern society. It
matters little that this is due, in great part, to the per-
secutions and humiliations whose victim he was, or that
the blame rests more heavily on us than on him. The
result is the same. Though Israel had perished utterly
on the quemoderos of Castile, her disappearance would
not have retarded, by so much as a century, the advent
of modern society. Both the friends and the enemies
of the Jew invest "him with a function not his own when
they insist upon looking on him as the secret leaven
that has given rise, in the world, to what we call
modern thought. Its germ lay in classic civilisation.

To him who looks through the perspective of cen-
turies at the transformation of European society, it
seems to be an internal evolution, natural, organic,
the spontaneous product of the generating forces of our
civilisation. External influences may have hastened
its internal development, but they were not its main-
spring ; and among those influences that of the Jew
was not the only, nor perhaps the most potent, one.
The origin of the modern world, of the Renaissance,
the Reformation, the Revolution, lay neither in the
Jew nor in the Jewish spirit ; it lay in something more
general, more subtle. It was due to the spirit of analy-
sis, of research, to the scientific spirit, whose first teach-
ings came to us, not from Judaea, but from Greece ; and

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 53

though, at a later day, the Jews or the Arabs brought
them back to us, they have none the less emanated
from the Greeks.

There were other agencies than the Jewish corrosive
at work in our old Christian civilisation, a composite
civilisation, of mixed origin. It is a notable fact that
the influence of the dispersed Jews, whether visible or
concealed, and which,during the Middle Ages was far-
reaching, or, at least, positive, has diminished in exact
ratio to the acceleration of the movement that sweeps
the modern world along. The lean silhouette of the Jew,
still dimly discernible here and there during the Renais-
sance and the Reformation, had, at the outbreak of the
Revolution, almost vanished from the stage of history.
The period of the great upheaval marks the time
during which human society has, perhaps, least felt
the influence of the Jew. 1

Where was the Jew in Paris during the eighteenth cen-
tury ? Under I^ouis XVI. Paris contained scarcely seven
or eight hundred Jews who had come from the south of
France or from Alsace, and were huddled together in
the suburbs. 1 Yet the eighteenth century in France be-
trays to the Antisemites of keen scent, a vague odour of
what they call the Jewish spirit. Can it be possible that,
unknown to us d'Alembert, Diderot, and the Encyclo-
paedists were pupils of a Talmud-Tom ? The charges
made against the Jews and Jewish literature by a
Stoecker or a Treitschke, might have been made, nay,
they have indeed been made proof in hand, against
the literature, the science, and the philosophy of the

1 We shall say nothing here of the influence imputed to the
Jews in secret societies, especially in freemasonry ; this is a
subject which we reserve for later treatment.

9 L,e*on Kahn's Histoire de la Communautb Israelite de Paris.

54 Israel Among the Nations.

monarchical France tliat existed before the fall of
royalty.

The eighteenth century, as has lately been said by one
of our young masters of criticism, was neither Chris-
tian nor French. * The sudden evolution of the Christian
idea, and the progressive diminution of the patriotic
idea, were the two characteristic features of the age ex-
tending from 1700 to 1790. It abhorred spiritual and
material authority ; it detested every sort of hierarchy,
and turned up its nose at tradition ; it was cosmopolitan,
and indifferent to the greatness of its country ; it was
anti-French as well as anti- Christian, and for this very-
reason it witnessed a signal deterioration of morals,
necessarily accompanied by a certain lowering of the
literary and philosophic spirit. In listening to the
historian who criticises the eighteenth century, do we
not seem to be listening to the Protestant, the Catholic,
or the Russian Antisemite, as he denounces the Jewish
spirit, the Semitic press, and the judaising of society ?
Have we not here, in a few words, the chief moral,
religious, and political grievance against the Jew and
Judaism ?

Nor, indeed, is this a mere coincidence. The Jew may
perhaps be imbued with that spirit of negation, revolt,
and scepticism which we delight in imputing to him ;
he may even propagate it ; but it has not originated
with him. It came to him from us, from our fore-
fathers of "Aryan " blood, and of Catholic or Protes-
tant education. The torch which he is accused of carry-
ing about in the Christian world has not been lighted
by him ; he has received it from Christian hands.

Neither our eighteenth century nor our Revolution
was the product of Judaism. The Jew has a right to

1 Mr. Em. Baguet's Dix-huititme SiZcle, preface, 1890.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 55

extol the Revolution ; no one should be astonished to
hear him cry " Hosannah " to it. For, has it not freed
him and delivered him out of the bondage of Egypt ?
He is entitled to see in it the hand of the old Jehovah,
and to worship in it the " Divine in action." Let the
faithful Jew, in his transports of lyrical enthusiasm,
compare "the revolutionary mountain to Horeb," as
did J. Darmesteter. Let him look on " Moses speak-
ing from the summit of the mountain as an ancient pro-
totype of the men who sat in the French Convention. "
Let him declare that " the Revolution has spoken the
same language from the crest of Sinai as in the salons
of the eighteenth century." 1 I am not shocked at all
this, whatever the Synagogue may think of it. The
Jew is at perfect liberty to believe that " what triumphs
through Voltaire, is the Bible riddled with Voltaire's
epigrams. " a He is, above all, at liberty to see in the
Revolution the realisation of the ancient prophecies
of Israel. To this, I have no objection ; but, because
from the top of Moriah or Carmel an Isaiah beheld far
off, through the mist of centuries, the dawn of an age
of universal brotherhood, it does not follow that Israel
was the principal agent in the realisation as yet, alas,
so incomplete of the mysterious visions of her seers.

It may be, as we are assured, that the language of
Jerusalem is that of modern Europe ; but if the credo
of the modern world be nothing more than the credo of
the old Hebrew world, it is not from Jerusalem, at all
events, not from the modern Jew, that Europe has
learned it. When he boasts of having opened out the

1 Mr. James Darmesteter's Joseph Salvador, p. 52 ; Cf* pp.
28, 29.

2 Mr. J. Darmesteter's Coup d'(Eil surPHistoire du Peuple

56 Israel Among the Nations.

paths of liberty and equality, when he claims for his
rabbis the glory of having been the. instructors of the
philosophers and the inspirers of the Rights of Man,
the Jew is the victim of a confusion of thought ; he con-
founds the modern with the ancient era, the Synagogue
or the Schule with the temple on Moriah ; he further-
more confounds the hak/iam and the sages of the Tal-
mud with the prophets in Jiidah or in Kphraim, and
the Ghetto with the hill of Zion.

Certainly, Judaism, or rather Hebraism, may claim
its share in the slow unfolding of ideas which, after
centuries of bondage, have brought about Israel's
emancipation. I/ike Greece and Rome, perhaps more
than either, arid Judaea has scattered through the world
some of the seeds which, retaining their vitality
through ages, have finally blossomed into modern
society.

The Jew has a right to remind us of this whenever
we seem about to forget it. There are stones from
Palestine in the foundations of our new society. We
have testified to this ourselves, at the centennial of
the French Revolution. 1 In more than one respect the
Revolution was but the application of the ideal which
Israel has given to the world. The idea of social jus-
tice is a Jewish idea. The coming of justice upon
earth was the dream of Judah. The latest historians
of the Jews have but recently reminded us of this. To
discover the primal source of 1789, we must dig deeper
than the Reformation and the Renaissance ; we must
go back, beyond the classic antiquity of the Gospel, to
the Old Testament itself, to the Thorn and the pro-

1 See the Banqv&t du Centenaire de 1789, in one volume ;
La Revolution et le Lib&ralisme, Hachette, 1890, Cf, farther
on, chap. x.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 5 7

phets. In tliis sense, it is true that the new decalogue of
Human Rights proceeded from the tablets brought down
from Sinai, and that the night of August the 4th, was
a far-off and involuntary echo from Horeb.

But this share which Israel has had in the formation
of modern society, does not belong to the mediaeval
Jew or to the Jew of the " ancient regime, 15 despised,
humiliated, degraded; it 'belongs to the old Hebrew
books that have become the patrimony of the Christian
peoples. If the Revolution and modern society have
had their teachers among the Jews, they were not men
versed in the Talmud of the Askenazim or the Sephar-
dim; they were rather the old nabis of Israel, the Isaiahs,
the Jeremiahs, the Bzekiels, who, after their own
fashion, were great revolutionists. If the Reformation
itself and English or American liberty have anything in
common with Judaism, it is through the Bible and not
through the Jew, through the old Book, read alone after
dark in the family circle, and not through the living
remnants of the twelve tribes. Neither in England nor
in America, at the time of their revolutions, were any
Jews to be found ; so that it may be said that the coun-
tries in which the ascendancy of the Hebrews is most
pronounced are the very ones in which the Jew has had
least play. 1

It is indeed in the Bible, as it would seem, that
Jurien and the Protestant clergy, in such matters the
teachers of Rousseau, have discovered the principle of
popular sovereignty ; but they had no need to go to the

1 There were, indeed, several Jewish communities in the
English colonies before the War of Independence, but they had
no influence there. The history of the revolution of the
Netherlands, which gave shelter to so many Spanish Jews,
is apt to lead to similar reflections.

58 Israel Among the Nations.

Judengasse to find it. According to an American,
himself an Israelite l it is from the Bible, from the
Pentateuch and the Judges, that the founders of the
American Union have borrowed the model for their
democratic and federal Constitution ; but to do this the
Adamses and the Madisons required no lessons from
the Jewries of Europe and Africa.

We often accredit the Protestants and the Reforma-
tion with that which it were more equitable to attribute
to the Old Testament and the Hebrews, I cannot say
to the Jews. Neither on the East nor on the West of
the Atlantic can the modern Jew, the humble Jew of the
Ghetto, lay claim to a share in the genesis of those
ideas that have transformed the face of the earth. Far
from having given the impulse to them, Judaism has
felt the effects of their reaction. In this, as in many
other respects, the Jew was not so much an initiator as
an imitator. To make himself receptive to the new
ideas, he had to rid himself of his ancient Jewish
notions. He was so bound and garroted by the Tal-
mud and its ritual, that he might, perhaps, never have
had the strength to break his chains had we not cut
them in two, or at least lent him the file and shears
wherewith to do so. I am tempted to believe that, left
to himself and kept apart from the Christian, the tal-
mudic Jew would have found it as difficult to discard
his Jewish traditions and to liberate himself from the
yoke of the Talmud, as does the Mussulman to free
himself from the Koran.

Moreover, in Israel the civil and the religious law

1 Mr. Oscar Straus, former Minister from tne United States to
Turkey: The Origins of the Republican JForm of Government
in the United States of America, translated into French, with,
preface, by B. de Laveleye. Paris, 1890 ; Alcan.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 59

were inseparable ; just as the Zoran in Islam, so does
the Talmud take the place of the legal code. However
flexible, pliant, quick at conception and assimilation,
however interested in all progress and innovation, the
civilised Jew may appear to us in the West, I am not
sure that he would not have remained at a standstill,
had he been left pent up in the Jewries of his fore-
fathers, in an atmosphere exclusively Jewish. He was,
so to say, doomed to remain stationary by the phara-
saical formalism of the Mishna and the Ghemam, by the
network of endless prescriptions which encircled him,
by that narrow rule of a life in which all was foreseen
and reduced to a formula, in which every day, every
hour, brought him into the presence of a command-
ment, a Mitzva, that had to be fulfilled. In order to
free himself from such bondage he needed help from
the outside. And such was actually the course of
events. Not from the Jewries was breathed the spirit
that transformed the Jew into the man of our age ; and
even where the walls of the Ghetto were levelled, the
modern spirit did not triumph without resistance from
the rabbis. Do not let us reverse the roles ; despite
the statements of certain Semites, or certain Antisem-
ites both tending equally to magnify the importance
of Israel, it is not the Jew who has emancipated
Christian thought, but Christian thought, or, if
you prefer, Aryan thought, that has emancipated the
Jew.

Without a Descartes I cannot imagine a Spinoza,
and without a Voltaire or a I^essing I doubt whether
there would have ever existed a Moses Mendelssohn,
likewise to go farther back without Plato and
the Greeks would there have been a Philo, and with-
out an Aristotle or the Arabs would there have been a

60 Israel Among the Nations.

Maimonides? Does it not seem to follow that, in all
ages, Jewish genius, in order to wing its flight, had
need of an impetus from without? Its wings could
not spread unaided ; they needed the assistance of
others. Perhaps this is due to the burden of tradition
that rested on them. Be this as it may, it is not the
subject of our present inquiry. All we wish to show
is that, in modern times, the Jews have been receptive
and not originative. In all Jewish communities left
to themselves the ultra-conservatives, the "obscu-
rantists, ' ' have carried the day. At least, this has been
so during the past two or three centuries.

#ar from emanating from the Synagogue, the new
ideas had great difficulty in making their way into it.
The Synagogue had, so to speak, stopped up all the
chinks and crannies in its traditions ; in Poland, Hun-
gary, and even in Germany, in fact, almost everywhere,
it had proceeded after the fashion prevalent in cold
countries, where at the beginning of winter the win-
dows are fastened down with cement to keep the outer
air from entering. Its most illustrious children were
anathematised by the Synagogue ; the Herem^ with its
awful imprecations, was hurled at whoever attempted
innovations. Baruch Spinoza was excommunicated in
the eighteenth century by the most enlightened com-
munity on earth ; Moses Mendelssohn, who served as
a model for I^ssing's Nathan the Wise, had in that
same century to see his German Pentateuch and his
Psalms condemned by German and Polish rabbis. The
synagogue of Berlin rejected books written in the ver-
nacular ; it expelled one of its members for having
read a German book. The bulk of Jews of both
classes, the Askenasim and the Sephardim^ abhorred
the philosophers and their precepts. They held the

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 61

profane sciences in suspicion. 1 While the salons of
Paris were discussing the philosophy of Descartes, or
the approaching regeneration of man, the Jewish com-
munities of Eastern and Central Europe were dreaming
of cabalistic Utopias, yielding themselves up to the
craze of Hassidism, and growing fanatical over the
rival claims of false Messiahs, such as Franck and
SabbataL 2

III.

Everywhere, in the East as well as the West, it was
from the outside, and thanks only to the lamps of the
goim, that the new ideas, "the light, " penetrated into
the alleys of the Ghetto and pierced the gloom of the
Judengasse. Could it, indeed, have been otherwise,
after centuries of sequestration and debasement ! How-
ever great may be Israel's elasticity, her mainspring
seemed to have been broken. She was weighed down
by the double load of her heavy talmudic traditions,
and the hatred of a hostile society.

As in the time subsequent to the fall of the Temple,
the Jew, thrown back on himself, withdrew behind the
walls of his ritual and his traditional observances.
Towards 1700 the Jews had become, perhaps, more
strictly Jewish than they were on the eve of the Cru-
sades. We can easily imagine what the European Jew

1 See, especially, the autobiography of the rabbi-philosopher,
Solomon Maimon, published in 1792-93, by R. P.Moritz, under
the name : Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichte. Cf. Arvede
Barine's Un yuif Polonais (Revue des Deux Mondes, of Octo-
ber 15, 1889).

a The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were, in fact, the
age of false Messiahs, and also of the diffusion of Hassidism
or neo-cabalism, still prevalent in a number of communities.
See Graetz's GeschicHte tier yuden, vol. x., chap. vi.-xL

62 Israel Among the Nations.

was some thirty or forty years before the Revolution.
We need but to turn our glance toward the East, where
the Jews still live in compact masses, separated from the
Christians by spiritual and material barriers. On such
a subject nothing can be so convincing as an immedi-
ate view of men and things. He who traverses the
poverty-stricken Zions of the East, and beholds their
inhabitants dad in their long, shiny gaberdines, can
realise the inherited aversion to change and novelty
which the isolated Jew must feel. In this respect he
is still an Oriental, like his forefathers the Beni-IsraeL
What is most wonderful and we shall return to it
later is the rapidity with which he is being meta-
morphosed, under the magic wand of our Occidental
civilisation.

Whoever is not acquainted with the great Jewish
communities of our age, where the sons of Israel live
together in groups of thousands, (morejudaico^} does not
know the Jew. Only in such communities, in Bohemia,
Galicia, I/ithuania, I/ittle Russia, and Moldavia, can
we still find the Jew as Jew. Take those Jews of
Central or Eastern Europe, those " judaising " Jews of
the great Jewries. Does the Polish, Russian, or Rou-
manian Jew strike you as an innovator ? Take a good
look at him. Could he or his like have pushed the
modern world forward into untrodden paths ? Is it he
whom you could possibly suspect of imperilling Chris-
tian civilisation ? Unhappy creature, he is much too
degraded for that ; too poor, too ignorant, too heedless
of our religious and political strifes. Question him, he
will not understand you. He is, besides, too much of
a Jew, too religious, too devout, too completely hedged
in by tradition, in a word, too conservative.

This is a point on wldcli we must lay especial stress.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 63

We shall be obliged to revert to it more than once.
There is, in all the world, perhaps nothing more stub-
bornly conservative than the talmudic Jew. In the
matter of adherence to the habits of his ancestors and
to custom, he might have descended from the Chinese
mandarin or from the Russian moujik. This man, who
is pictured to us as the natural enemy of tradition, is
sedulously occupied in conforming to tradition.
Wherever the Jew has remained Jew, neither the gov-
ernment nor Christian society has had anything to fear
from Israel. Note well the countries that complain
most bitterly of the judaising of contemporaneous
society, are precisely those in which the Jews have
least remained Jews. In order to become a religious or
a political solvent, the Jew must, if I may use the ex-
pression, become " de-judaised." It is easy to verify
this in Germany, in Austro-Hungary, even in France,
as well as in Russia and the Orient : if in those coun-
tries there are Jews who may be accused of being zeal-
ous promoters of the spirit of negation and destruction,
they are generally such as have freed themselves from
Judaism, and who in their contact with Christians,
have stripped off the beliefs and traditions of Israel.
This modern Israelite, depicted to us as the cor-
rupting agency in our Christian civilisation, is him-
self a product of our civilisation. The virus with which
he charges the veins of society, was not secreted by
him ; it is only because he has been infected with it
that he spreads its contagion.

Let us take the countries in which modern ideas have
as yet touched but the surface for instance, Russia.
Can it really be the Jews of Vilna, in their long gaber-
dines and their high boots, who have endangered auto-
cratic government and Orthodox civilisation ? Who

64 Israel Among the Nations.

can be made to believe this ? And yet I know men in
St. Petersburg!! and Moscow who are anxious to con-
vince us of it. Such an attempt was made first by the
defunct Rons of the late Aksakof and then by the
Grajdanine of Prince Mechtchersky. There have even
been statesmen in the immediate vicinity of the Czar,
who expressed on this score the apprehensions in-
spired by their monarchical loyalty or their Christian
conscience. Foremost among them was the High-
Procurator of the Very Holy Synod, M. Pobe*donostsef,
former preceptor of the Emperor Alexander III., and
to this day the chief adviser of his imperial pupil in
matters of religion. It was in 1 88 1, at the time of the
Antisemitic troubles in Southern Russia, when Jewish
shops and houses had been looted, that hordes of riot-
ers, sweeping down from the North, proclaimed to the
people that an imperial ukase had decreed the pillage
of those " rascally Hebrews." * A deputation of Israel-
ites repaired to the Very Holy Synod to invoke the in-
tervention of the High-Procurator, in behalf of the
victims. While condescending to listen to their com-
plaints, he thought it his duty to deplore, in their
presence, the fact that educated Jews should use their
knowledge "to undermine the foundations of society,
and to disseminate baleful doctrines among the
people."*

Such a reproach, directed at such a time against the
Russian Jew, missed its mark. If the imperial custom-
houses, backed by a double and triple censorship, were

1 See L * Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iii., book iv.,
chap. iii.

8 This fact, borrowed from the Hebrew paper, Hammelits^ May
12, 1881, and reported in No. 13 of the Feuilles Jaunes of the
same year, was corroborated to me by one of the witnesses.

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 65

not able to prevent the spirit of Western negation from
being smuggled into the empire, it was assuredly not the
Jewish contrabandists who imported that forbidden
commodity into holy Russia. If the Jew has been a
broker of ideas, he has not been so in modern Russia.
Had a feeling of respect not restrained the bankers
and rabbis, who interviewed the High-Procurator, M,
Pob6donostsef, they might have answered his complaint
by flinging back upon Orthodox Russia the charge
brought against the sons of Judah. The old Jews of
the Western Jewries, with their long beards and their
long curls, might have asked him what the imperial
schools and the intercourse with Christians had clone
with the souls of their sons and daughters. A Russian
novelist Ivan Turgenief, if I mistake not brings the
procurator of a province face to face with a Jew of the
West, whose son is implicated in a conspiracy. 1 It is
not the Russian Jews alone who would have a right to
give to their accusers the same answer as that which
the old Abraham gave to this magistrate. What the
Russian writer, with a rare gift of divination, has
placed on the lips of the I^ithuanian Jew, might have
been repeated by many co-religionists of Samuel Abra-
ham, in the West as well as in the East. 3 The Jewish
communities of Russia are not the only ones in which
fathers and grandfathers are frequently at a loss to
recognise their children,

1 Dans le Cabinet du Procureur(V kamere prokourora). We
have given in L 'Empire des Tsars et les Russes (vol. iii,, book
iv., ch. iii.) the reasons -which explain the participation of cer-
tain Jews in nihilistic plots.

2 " Our children have no longer our beliefs ; they do not say
our prayers, nor have they your beliefs ; no more do they say
your prayers ; they do not pray at all, and they believe in noth*
ing." (Dans le Cabinet dn Procttreur,)

66 Israel Among the Nations.

Here we must cease to think of ourselves for a mo-
ment. We are in the habit of considering only the in-
fluence of the Jews on our Christian society ; we do not
trouble ourselves at all about the influence of our
modern civilisation on the Jews or on Judaism. Other-
wise we should perceive that if the Jew appears, at
times, to be a disintegrating force in Christian society,
the Christian or the Aryan is so to a much greater de-
gree with respect to Judaism. Israel, that has with-
stood twenty centuries of oppression, is now im-
perilled by the civilisation that has emancipated her.
Of all the enemies which she has outlived, from
Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar to Titus, and from
Hadrian to Torquemada, none has been so formidable
to her as this modern society, the first to smile on her.
Our modern ideas, our critical spirit, our Aryan
sciences, are about to destroy Jewish customs and tra-
ditions. Will Judaism long survive their destruction ?
Possibly ; yet, for the Synagogue this is no less serious
a problem than for Christianity. At this moment,
through contact with us, an internal process of disin-
tegration is taking place in the bosom of Judaism.
What will be its outcome ? We do not know.

Thus, between the Jew and the non-Jew, between the
goi and the son of Jacob, mutual forces are at work,
apparently equally disintegrating, but, on the whole,
more dangerous to the Jew than to the goi. What has
preserved the Jew for so many centuries, and pre-
vented him from disappearing among the nations ? It
was his religion ; it was, as we have said, the ritual,
the ceremonial, the minute practices with which the
Talmud has wrapped him round. Now, these protect-
ing rites, this shell of observances, which have been his
safeguard for two thousand years and which nothing

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 67

could penetrate, have been pierced by our Western
spirit, that is about to make them fall to the ground,
piece by piece. Judaism- and with it the Jew be-
reft of its preserving envelope is, so to say, reduced to a
condition of utter nakedness ; thus bared and liable to
be touched to the quick, can it withstand the corroding
action of our modern acids, into which it has been
plunged as into a bath? And if Judaism, already
weakened, were to be entirely dissolved, what would
become of the Jew ? Fashioned and safeguarded by his
religion, is not the Jew in danger of vanishing together
with Judaism?

It will thus be seen that the rabbis would be justi-
fied in flinging back at the Christians the charge so
readily brought by the I/utheran clergyman and the
Russian priest against the Israelites. The latter, also,
have cause for uneasiness. Some of them realise and
acknowledge this. I have met, in the Jewish communi-
ties of the East, men who, dreading the overthrow of
the artificial barriers which still existed between their
brethren and the Gentiles, preferred the mortification
and annoyance of their restrictive laws, to our corrupt-
ing liberties. They said to themselves that all is not
clear gain for Israel in this civilisation which the
world seems to open out to her. While others hail the
victory on Zion, they ask themselves whether Israel's
triumph is not to be looked upon as the prelude to
her fall, and whether the emancipation of Judah is not
to end in its utter submersion, its engulfment by the
nations.

There is always this distinction to be made between
the Jew and the non-Jew, the " Semite " and the
" Aryan'*: that our ideas and our Aryan, Teuto-
Roman civilisation do, indeed, threaten dissolution to

68 Israel Among the Nations.

Judaism, while there is nothing specifically Semitic in
the doctrines that menace Christianity and eat into our
Christian society. A glance at the Arabs will show
this. The very disease which we accuse them of bring-
ing or transmitting to us, has been caught by them from
us. In this respect, the East and the West, Russia
and our own country, are all alike. Scepticism, mate-
rialism, nihilism, far from being Jewish products, are,
in the Jews infected by them, but a sign and a conse-
quence of the closer union of races ; they bear witness
to the contact of the Jew with ourselves.

In this respect, as in almost all others, and in regard
to modern as well as mediaeval times, the Jew is only
an agent of transmission, a broker. The intellectual
commodities which he offers and retails to us are gen-
erally not of his own making ; they do not originate
with him ; he took them from us, from our workshops
and our laboratories. He gives them, at best, a certain
shape, and polish. It is often asserted that the Jew
produces nothing, that he is only a middle-man. It is
perhaps with respect to the subject we are discussing
that this statement contains most truth.

And even in this respect it seems to me that the Jew's
influence has been exaggerated. Though he may
sometimes control the money market, he nowhere
monopolises the transmission of ideas. Nothing forces
us to get our stock of them from him. It is hardly
fair to ascribe to Jewish irony, to Hebrew scepticism,
to the Semitic spirit, the diffusion of doctrines which
the Jew often dishes up to us merely because they are
to our taste and because it pays him to do so. Here
again, by virtue of his old trader's instinct, he follows
the law of supply and demand. 1

1 Q% farther on, chap. x. : Jewish Genius,

Jews, Christianity, and Modern Ideas. 69

The hostility between the Jewish and the Christian
spirit, between the old and the new I/aw, is in those
cases where each still asserts its sway, far from being as
formidable as people sometimes like to imagine. To
judge by the manner in which some Christians speak
of the Jewish spirit and of Judaism, it might be in-
ferred that the Old and the New Testament have nothing
in common. We seem to forget that both have, at
bottom, the same God, the same Decalogue, the same
moral I^aw. Were the Jew and the Christian equally
faithful the one to the Gospel, the other to the Thora,
the points of difference between them would be
fewer than those of resemblance. If the only change
in our modern society had been that of substituting a
Jewish, or a Judo- Christian, civilisation for one purely
Christian, the idea of God, the religious and moral
idea, would still be the beacon-light of modern society.
Is it necessary to show that the transformation which
our Western world is undergoing, has not stopped
there ? That the evolution of modern thought and so-
ciety means something more than Europe's return to
Jerusalem ? He must be blind, indeed, who perceives
in this evolution nothing but a tardy revenge of the
Synagogue on the Church, and the overthrow of the
Cross by the candelabra with seven branches.

I/et us, then, no longer speak of the judaising of
Christian society. Had the Christians remained better
Christians, the Jews would have slight hold upon them.
What you call the judaising of modern society might,
both by Christian and Jew, be equally well called
pardon the barbarism- the paganising of society,

Aryans and Semites, de-christianised Christians, and
de-judaised Jews, are practically reverting to a sort
of unconscious paganism. This is the plain truth;

7<3 Israel Among the Nations.

Sliem and Japhet, swept along by the same wind, are
slipping, side by side, down the same declivity. Our
clumsy Western races, which the Gospel had with
such difficulty wrested from the worship of matter and
force, are about to revert to their old nature-worship,
now stripped of the mythical adornments that once
covered it with a veil of poetry. And Israel herself,
chosen to perpetuate the idea of a living God, Israel,
snatched by her prophets of old with such infinite
trouble from the altars of Moloch and Baal, Israel,
weakened by misfortune and weary of waiting for the
Messiah who is to mete out justice, seems, like Solo-
mon in his old age, to forget her compact with the
Eternal, in order to offer incense on high places to
Kamosch and Aschtoret, the idols of the stranger.

If the decline of the Christian idea may be looked
upon as the revenge of one faith on another, of a re-
mote past on the past of yesterday, it is assuredly the
revenge of ancient paganism of immortal paganism,
our neo-pagans would say equally ready to triumph
over the Thora and the Gospel, over Jehovah and Jesus.
What the Christian spirit has to battle against, is not
so much the new science or the modern spirit, with its
confused aspirations, as the old pagan instincts, the lust
of the flesh and the pride of life, once more unchained
by the centuries.

The idolatry of nature, the idolatry of man erected
into a god, such is the new worship to which our
Western civilisation seems to be reverting ; and this
false worship of the human instead of the divine is,
perhaps, more repugnant to the Old than to the New
Testament, to Sinai than to Calvary. The glorifica-
tion of the creature taken individually or collectively,
amounts to a formal negation of Judaism : " I am the

Christianity, and Modem Ideas. 71

Eternal tliy God," has said Jehovah, "and thou shalt
have no other gods before my face."

" Be it so," some Antisernite will exclaim ; " the Jew
is not the sole, nor perhaps the principal, agent in the
dechristianising of contemporary society. Judaism is in
danger of annihilation, itself a victim of the warfare
waged by its own people against Christianity and the
Christian idea. But, what we have in view in speak-
ing of the judaising of society and the disintegration of
European nations by the Jew, is not so much the Jew-
ish religion as the Jewish race ; it is less the Jew whom
we fear than the Semite. Israel appears to us like an
alien tribe encamped in the midst of modern nations
and threatening them at once with moral subjection
and material enslavement, I^et us leave Christian
civilisation out of the question. The Jew acts as a
solvent on something else which we have no less at
heart : on our national culture, our historic genius, our
French, Slav, and German souls."

CHAPTER IV.

JBWS AND THE NATIONAL GRIEVANCE ARYANS
AND SEMITES.

I. Israel Threatens to De-nationalise the Modern Nations
Why did the Antisemitic Movement Originate in the New
German Empire ? The Jew Regarded as a Stranger An-
tiquity of this Grievance IT. Why did the Jews, after their
Dispersion, still Continue to Form a People ? Analogous
Instances Identification of Religion and Nationality in
the East HI. Can Race and Nationality be Regarded as
Identical in the West ? Are Any Modern Races of Un-
mixed Blood ? Are the Semites the only Non-Aryan Ele-
ment among us ? What do we Mean by Semitic Race ?
IV. Of the Antagonism between the Aryan and the Se-
mitic Spirit What the Difference between them Amounts
to Has a Christian the Right to I/>ok upon the Semites
as an Inferior Race ?

I.

AtfTER the religious grievance we have the na-
tional grievance. That which the Jew appears to
imperil is not only religion and the traditional founda-
tions of our Christian society, but our nationality, to-
gether with our native culture and our historic genius.
Now, there could exist no greater crime in the eyes of
modern peoples. Everything else may be forgiven ; this
is the one unpardonable sin.

At bottom of the Jew, was discerned the Semite a
serious disclosure for the sons of Abraham. The point

72

The Jews and the National Grievance. 73

of attack is no longer their faith alone, but the blood
that runs in their veins. The Jew, it is affirmed, is
a foreign element, belonging to an exotic race ; he has
nothing in common with us. Through all ages, Israel
has continued to be an Oriental tribe, scattered among
the peoples of the West. Even though they no longer
fear religious fanaticism, the Jews have seen rise up
against them something no less violent and exclusive
race-hatred.

The nineteenth century will rank in history as the
age of nationalities. National feeling, following ab-
ruptly upon the cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth
century, constituted the chief strength of the hundred
years that followed the Revolution. Under our very
eyes, and, largely, through our exertions, it trans-
formed Europe, working miracles the like of which
history could not recall ; bringing the dead back to
life, and making the halt walk again. It is dangerous
to have so formidable a power arrayed against one;
and in more than one country the Jews have realised
this by experience. The experience was due to no fault
of theirs ; it was one they could not avoid or avert.
National feeling, over-excited by its triumphs or by its
sufferings, was bound, in its passion, to assail the men
of alien blood, and who in some instances but a
short while before had arrived from foreign countries.
Every nation resents the presence, in its body politic,
of what seems to be a foreign element. Thus it came
about that, in Germany, Teutonic exdusiveness arrayed
itself against the "Semites."

The Jew had lulled himself into a sense of security
under the shelter of modern toleration, when all of a
sudden his neighbours came to bid him begone, not in
the name of the Cross, this time, but in the name of

74 . Israel Among the Nations.

his forefathers, Isaac and Jacob. More inexorable than
Torquemada and the inquisitors of old, the new Jew-
haters make war against the blood of his ancestors ;
and although he may be able to change his faith, the
Jew has no power to change his race.

There is nothing surprising in the fact that the Anti-
semitic movement had its origin in the new empire of
the Hohenzollern. It found its ready-made cradle
there. As early as 1815 the Jews of Germany were
made the victims of the German triumphs. They had
been emancipated by the ascendancy of France, and
then saw themselves stripped of the rights which
French predominance had procured for them. The
Ultra-Germans, freed from Napoleon, were indignant
that the Jews should set themselves up as Germans.
From the Rhine to the Vistula resounded the old cry
of " Hep 1 hep I"

Sedan, sixty years after Waterloo, came near having
the same results for the Jews. The signal for the
Judenhetze was sounded anew by the trumpets that had
proclaimed the fall of France ; and this was but natural.
Like the war of liberation, the restoration of the Ger-
man Empire was destined to arouse the ultra-Germanic
spirit, or what the Jewish historian calls " die christ-
liche Deutschthumelei. ' ' 1 At a time when, intoxicated
with its regained strength, the Germanic spirit exalted
all that it deemed Teutonic, from the axe of Arminius
to the Bible of I^uther, German distrust turned most
naturally against Israel. Was it possible, said the
Prussian Junker, that Germany, the conqueror of die
Welschen in France, should allow itself to be humbled
by the Semites and mastered by Judaism ? The pedan-

1 Oraetz, Geschichte derjuden, vol. sd., p. 338., Cf. G. Val-
bert's Hommes et Choses du Temps Present) pp. 78, 79.

The Jews and the National Grievance. 75

tic patriotism of tlie people beyond the Rhine detected
a natural antagonism between these two terms : Ger-
manism and Judaism, Germanenthum and Jndenthum.
Did we not hear at the same time of the eternal hostiHty
of Germanism and Romanism, and the irrepressible
conflict between the new imperial throne and the ancient
Papal See ? Could the proud German, who disdained
the yoke of Rome, submit to the dominion of Jerusalem ?
From this point of view the Antisemitic movement in
Germany may be regarded as a natural accompaniment
of Anticlericalism and the Kulturkampf, and not as a
reaction against the latter. Since both were the off-
spring of Teutonic pride, it is but natural that they
should have been born at the same time. They were
hostile brothers, one might say twin-brothers, like Esau
and Jacob, at war with each other in their mother's
womb. ' Nothing henceforth in Germany but what
is German " ; such seemed the motto of the new empire,
during its first years. Every foreign plant was to be
uprooted from the soil of the newly recovered fatherland.
Germany seemed to give itself up to a sort of national
purification. Its servitude to alien masters had lasted
quite long enough ; now it longed to be free from all
thraldom, political, intellectual, or economic, French,
Romish, or Jewish.

Our age has a liking for learned formulas ; especially
is Germany fond of covering its hatred with a scientific
veneer. The theories which the conquerors of Alsace-
lyorraine held in regard to race and nationality were
made to apply to the sons of Israel. The Germans be-
thought themselves that not only had the Jew no Teu-
tonic blood in his veins, but he was not even of Aryan
stock, or, as they say in Berlin, of Indo-Germanic
Stock. He was considered an Asiatic, a Semite, brother

76 Israel Among the Nations.

to the Arab, cousin to the Carthaginian ; by virtue of
which fact there was no room for him beneath the
Gothic wings of the Hohenzollern eagle. Rather was
his presence in the midst of the Germans a constant
menace to the genius of Germany, a danger to deutsche
Kultur^ the mother and nurse of modern civilisation. '
And this cry of alarm, uttered by the Germany of Bis-
marck, reverberated with that peculiar resonance which
the trumpet-blasts of victory give to the popular voice.
The summons that issued from Berlin found an echo
along the entire frontiers of Germany. The national
feeling of its neighbours was no less intense and appre-
hensive ; it had even been still more inflamed, to the
east as well as the west, by the fervour of the Germans.
There, as in Germany, the Jew had to hear himself
denounced as an intruder of h&stile race. Such was
the case in Austro-Hungary, where the Viennese Ger-
mans only followed the example of their Berlin kins-
men ; and in Russia, and sometimes even in France,
with the only difference that in Pesth, and in Moscow
the German spirit was replaced by the Slav and the
Magyar spirit, both alike imperilled by the Semitic
conquest. The enemies of the Jew have always been
wont to attack in him the stranger.

This national grievance seems to me less modern
than it looks. It has been virtually at the root of
every charge made against the Jews for centuries. In
order to decide whether Israel really constituted a

1 This idea has been expressed in thousands of newspapers
and in hundreds of pamphlets. I cite especially, W. Marr's
Sieg des Judenthums uberdas Germanenthum vomnicht confes-
sionnellen Standpunkt aus betmchtet, Bern, Costenoble, 1879 ;
B. Duhring's Die Judenfrage als Frage der Racenschadlich-
keit Jur Existenz, Sitte und Cultur der Volker, $d edition
Karlsruhe, 1885. Cf. in France, E. Drumont's La France Juive.

The Jews and the National Grievance. 77

state within the state and a nation within the nation,
our forefathers did not await the development of mod-
ern theories on the conflict of races and the struggle
for existence. Had Spain, at the period of the Renais-
sance, been but slightly versed in ethnology, the Iberi-
ans of Castile would, as early as the time of Ximenes
and Torquemada, have imposed the name of Semites on
the Jews. It was really the Semite, the man of differ-
ent faith, whom Catholic Spain, perhaps without being
aware of it, persecuted in tisjudios.

If our countries were imperilled by the Semites, this
was surely the case with the Spanish kingdoms, an-
nexed to Africa by the conquest of the Arabs, and re-
united to Europe by the Cross. In aiming their blows
at the Jews and the Moslems, these Spaniards sought
instinctively to * ' de-semitise, " to " de-africanise ' '
themselves. This explains the rigour of their inquisi-
tion against the Jews and the nuevos cristianos. Had
only the religious interests of Spain been at stake,
she would have given heed to the counsel of Rome ;
she would not have exceeded the severities of the
Holy Office.

Let us go still farther back : the Antisemitic spirit
manifested itself already in the uprisings of the great
cities of antiquity against the Jews. In Rome, Aati-
och, and Alexandria it was the stranger whom the
Roman and Greek populace attacked, and, if not the
race, at any rate foreign customs and an alien civilisa-
tion as much as the enemies of the gods. The same may
be said of the classic writers. Professor von Treitschke
has had illustrious predecessors among them. Juvenal
and Tacitus, in assailing the Sabbath and the practice
of circumcision, are already disturbed about the " juda-
ising " of ancient society ; what alarms them is the

78 Israel Among the Nations.

substitution of Hebrew laws or Hebrew customs for
Roman customs. 1

Moreover, Antisemitism, that is to say, the national
complaint against Judaism as a foreign tribe, existed
prior to the downfall of Jerusalem and the dispersal of
Israel. It dates, at least, from the Babylonian captivity,
if not from the enslavement in Egypt. Its formula
may be found in the Bible ; the Jews themselves have
handed it down to us ; it was pronounced by Haman,
of the Book of Esther, and by Pharaoh in Exodus.
Pastor Stoecker needed but to adopt it : " And Haman
said unto King Ahasuerus : ' Here is a certain people
scattered abroad and dispersed among the people in all
the provinces of thy kingdom ; and their laws are
diverse from all people ; neither keep they the king's
laws/ "

In those days people did not shrink from thorough-
going measures. And Haman added : " If it please
the king, let it be written that they may be destroyed. ' ' 2
The Jews have a good memory ; they have not forgot-
ten the minister Ahasuerus. To this day, on the
annual Feast of Purim, which is the Jewish Carnival,
all Israel celebrates gleefully the fall of Haman. 3

1 Romanas. autem soliti contemnere leges>
fudaicum ediscunf et servant ac metuuntjus
Tradidit arcano quodcumque volumine Moses.

(Juvenal^ satire xiv., verse 100 and following.)
Cf* Tacitus, Histories, verse 5.

2 Esther, ill., 8, 9. Compare in the Exodus (i., 8, 10) the
language of Pharaoh : " Here are the children of Israel who
form a people larger and more powerful than ours," etc.

3 In several countries the Jews celebrated this anniversary
with a dramatic representation. It is said that Rachel thus de-
lighted in playing, at the Theatre }?ran9ais, during the Purim
festival, the Esther of Racine, to an audience composed largely
of Israelites.

The Jews and the National Grievance. 79

II.

Twenty-five centuries have elapsed since Israel was
saved by the beauty of Queen Esther, and yet the re-
mark of Haman, son of Hammedatha, theAgagite, has
not lost all truth.

How can we deny that the Jews, dispersed over the
East and West, did for a long time form a separate
people in the midst of surrounding peoples ? Israel
had been shattered, and the debris of her tribes, scat-
tered far and wide, were like those bronze fragments that
defy the centuries. They might have been described
as the particles of a people ground to powder. For
fifteen hundred years the Jews have presented the al-
most unique phenomenon of a nation without a land. In
the midst of Christian or Mohammedan states, they were
like the layers of flint that are to be found in the chalk
formations on the Normandy coast. The Jews were
the first to say of themselves : Our people, our nation.
Some of them still say so. The I^aw was to them a na-
tional as well as a religious bond. They lived on the
memory of Jerusalem, which was still the fatherland
of their souls and the goal of their aspirations. Zion
continued to be the mystic capital of dispersed Israel ;
they prayed for its restoration ; they looked forward to
it, because Jehovah had promised it, and, relying upon
the words of the prophets, they encamped as pilgrims
in the midst of the nations among which exile had
forced them to pitch their tents.

But, can we always judge the future by the past, and
is not the past of the Jew already, in some respects,
contradicted by the present? We must ask ourselves
whether Judaism will, everywhere and for ever, signify
a nation as well as a religion ; or, in other words, will
the Jew who settles among nations mainly Christian,

So Israel Among the Nations.

always be an alien, an intruder, dwelling in their midst
without becoming a part of them ? He who insists that
nationality must grow out of a common faith or a com-
mon ancestry can have no doubt on the subject. To
him the Jew will never become a Frenchman, a Ger-
man, a Hungarian, or a Russian ; he will never be any-
thing but a Jew. But is it true that nationality depends
on race or religion ? Can there be no national unity
without religious unity or a common origin ? To us,
Frenchmen of the nineteenth century, such a question
seems to come from another world and another age.
To our mind French nationality consists of something
different, something broader and subtler. But we
must not always judge other nations by our own ; that
would be unfair towards them. And thus, however
antiquated the question seems to us, it is worth our
while to stop to consider it.

What is a nation ? This is, perhaps, the most diffi-
cult of all questions to answer. There is, fortunately,
Renan's beautiful address, to which I can refer my
readers. 1 For us, Frenchmen, nationality is identical
with national consciousness. A nation is, in the first
place, the product of history ; what creates and pre-
serves it is a community of interests, of traditions, of
feelings. Nationality is generally composed of various
elements and, in more countries than one, religion has
been among these elements. This was the case in
Spain and in Russia ; and this is one of the reasons
why the Russians and the Spaniards find it difficult to
look upon the Jew as their fellow-countryman.

There is another point to be considered : in some

countries, almost throughout the entire Orient, the idea

of nationality does not exist at all, or it is confounded

1 Qtfest-ce qtfune nation f (Calmatm

The Jews and the National Grievance. 81

with, that of religion. This is the case especially with the
Mohammedans ; the true believer knows no fatherland
but Islam ; for him all national differences disappear
before the common faith. Therein lies the inferiority^
or, if you prefer, the superiority of Islam. The
greatest transformation that could possibly take place
in the Oriental world, would be the birth of national
feeling quite distinct from religious belief. And even
in the case of Asiatic or European Mohammedans, such
as the Albanian Arnauts, and the Syrian Arabs, it
would seem, at times, as though nationality were
already faintly trying to free itself from religion ; but
Mohammedanism has riveted them so closely together
that even if they can ever become detached it will take
generations to accomplish the separation. With the
Eastern Christians, however, in contradistinction to the
Mohammedans, religion does not generally obliterate
national feeling ; but it becomes in some sort, blended
with it, so that, in their case also, the two feelings
seem inseparable. In such a world, where Christians
and Moslems regard religion and nationality as identi-
cal, or make the latter an index to the former, the
Israelite, in Ms turn, can have no nationality but his
religion. The Jew is of necessity Jew, just as the
Armenian is Armenian and the Greek is Greek.

I^et me here remark that wherever different nation-
alities exist in dose proximity to each other and have
for centuries been protected by the Church and by
distinct modes of worship, as in the case of the people
of Syria, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia, the example
of the Jew is by no means an isolated one. It is not
so much because he is a Jew, as because he is an
Oriental or an Asiatic, that he has no nationality out-
side of his religion. However astounding may appear

82 Israel Among the Nations.

the longevity of Israel entrenched within her faith and
ritual, she does not, as is often imagined, present herein
an unique miracle or one without parallel in history ;
the world of our day has witnessed like wonders. The
Orient has preserved, through the course of centuries,
several such dead nations, nations of mummies, as it
were, enwrapped and embalmed in the old religion.
The Copts of Egypt, the Maronites and Druses of the
Libanus, the Parsees of India, even the Armenian and
Asiatic Greeks, present, in different stages of preserva-
tion further instances of peoples or tribes that have
survived their political extinction. The great differ-
ence between these Orientals and the Jews, lies in the
fact that the latter are more generally scattered, or that
the area of their dispersion is a larger one ; and this,
because their uprooting from the native soil is of more
ancient date and has been more completely effected.
This is also the reason why it is particularly difficult
for them ever to reunite into a nation.

However this may be, the Jews are but conforming
to Oriental traditions wherever they combine to form a
separate people. In many countries, where the old con-
fusion of nationality and religion still survives, emanci-
pation from such a state of things does not at all depend
upon the Jew. Neither the Moslem nor the Asiatic
Christian would allow him to call himself Turk or Arab,
Greek or Armenian. The Jews there have no choice
but to remain a people set apart. They can have no
country but Israel. This is so true that, similar to his
Aryan or Turanian neighbours, an Asiatic Jew who has
changed his faith believes that he has changed his
nationality at the same time. Some twenty years ago,
whilst in the vicinity of Jerusalem, I had a German
Jew for dragoman. I asked him to which nation he

The Jews and the National Grievance. 83

belonged. c ' I am an American, ' ' he answered proudly.
Having been baptised by American missionaries, he
believed that he had become their fellow-countryman.
In becoming a Christian, he had left his "nation."
Do not the various religious communities in Turkey
still designate themselves after this fashion ?

This identification of religion with nationality was
not always peculiar to the East. Intolerance and
politics endeavoured to introduce it into the Western
mind, sometimes in the interest of Rome, sometimes in
that of the reformed faith. It was the principal aim of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in France, Eng-
land, Holland, Austro-Hungary, Poland, and in the
German and Scandinavian states. If Louis XIV.
and William III. were equally unsuccessful in this
attempt, it is because such an identification was con-
trary to the Western spirit. At a time when it seemed
impossible for an Englishman to become a Papist or a
Frenchman to become a Protestant, it was quite natural
that a Jew could become neither an Englishman nor a
Frenchman. Certain European states have not ad-
vanced beyond this stage ; one, at least, has not, and
it is the largest of them all. There, law or public
opinion insists on the inseparableness of nationality
from religion. From this point of view Russia is still
entirely Oriental ; more Asiatic than European, Mos-
cow has had to pay the forfeit of its contact with the
Byzantine and the Tartar.

In Russian eyes there is no true Russian except the
members of the Greek Church. The triple immersion
of the Orthodox baptismal service is regarded by the
imperial government as well as by the peasant as the
most trustworthy evidence of Russian nationality.
Thence came the official proselytising of the Most

84 Israel Among the Nations.

Holy Synod; thence, the vexations and restrictions
imposed on the ministers of the dissenting sects. They
are considered foreign sects, not only by the Moscow
journals, but also by the government officials ; and, be
they Christian or not, they are officially designated as
alien faiths. In this respect, the Catholic and the
Protestant are not always more leniently regarded than
the Israelite. The sole prerogative of the latter is to
excite greater aversion. The forces that proceed from
Moscow and impel towards national unity, and that
weigh on all the non-orthodox peoples of the Empire,
press most heavily upon the Jew, the "Semite,"
doubly a foreigner, by race and by religion.

We must guard against a misconception : it is not
so much religious, as a sort of national intolerance
that causes the persecution of the Jews in Russia.
It is the same narrow and jealous patriotism which
inspires the Russians with hostility to the Lutherans
of the Baltic provinces, the Catholics of Lithuania and
White-Russia, and the unfortunate Greek Catholics of
Podolia. If Russian patriotism is tinged with religious
prejudice, Russia is not entirely to blame for it.
History is at fault, more than anything else. * The vast
Slav empire has not yet been able to free itself from its
Oriental past. Holy Russia has not advanced beyond
its Byzantine traditions ; at the risk of estranging thirty
or forty millions of its subjects, it is trying to find
political unity in religious unity. For, as M. B- M. de
Vogii^ once said : " It, also, is an Islam, and, I might
add, a more absorbing Islam than the other. As
formerly, in Stamboul, he who wished to become a
Turk had to take the turban, now, he who wishes to

1 $B&U Empire des Tsars etlesRusses, vol. iii. : La Religion ,
"book L, chap, ii., and book iv., chap. i. (Hachette, 1889).

The Jews and the National Grievance. 85

be considered a Russian must be sprinkled with, the
waters of the Greek Church. "

III.

For us Westerners of Europe or America, this
Eastern point of view is obviously antiquated ; and I
b'elieve that such will be the case, before long, with
the opinion that identifies nationality, not any longer
with religion, but with race. I have heard it said
that, since every nation is founded on unity of race,
and since the Jews are a separate race, they can
never belong to any nation. Are we quite sure of this ?
Frankly speaking, the German who makes nationality
dependent on unity of race, seems to me not less behind
his age than the Russian who makes it dependent on
unity of religion. Despite its scientific aspect and its
modern air, this confusion of nationality with race be-
longs to the past, and to a remote past. It is an anti-
quated notion an Oriental notion applicable, at an} r
rate, only to the Orient, where, for centuries, communi-
ties have lived side by side without intermingling,
separated by unsurmountable religious barriers ; where
each tribe, each national group dwells apart, enclosed
in its Church and immured in its ritual. We are thus
led back in a roundabout way, to the identification of
nationality with religion, for between neighbouring
peoples religio'n alone can interpose inseparable bar-
riers. To preserve the purity of a race, nothing less
than solid walls of ritual will answer. And yet, even
in the Orient, we need but go back a short distance
to find that the most exclusive ethnic groups Israel,
in the first instance have by no means always escaped
an intermingling with others. If religion locked the

86 Israel Among' the Nations.

doors of the ancient national communities of the Levant,
it kept the key with which to re-open them. That key
was proselytism. The Jews, themselves, will be the
means of proving this to us farther on.

As to the modern nations of Europe and America,
which of them can base its nationality on unity of race ?
Is it England, with its blendings of Britons, Saxons,
Danes, and Normans ? Is it France, with its Cymris,
its Gauls, its Iberians, its Teutons, its Romans? Is
it Germany, where the Teutons are so largely crossed
with Celts on the West and Slavs on the East, that in
many German states the majority of natives have no
longer the blue eyes and the blond hair of their ances-
tors ? Is it Russia, ancient Moscow, with its mixture
of Scythians, Sarmatians, Slavs, Tartars, and Finns,
scarcely Russianised yet? Can it be the United States
of America, that for the past hundred years have re-
ceived colonists from every European state ; or the
Spanish- American possessions, that have invented a
complete gamut of shades and half-shades to designate
the offspring of the crossing of Europeans with Indians
and negroes? All modern nations are a mixture of
peoples and races, more or less thoroughly blended :
Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, Englishmen, Italians,
Spaniards, Hungarians, Greeks, Roumanians, Bulgari-
ans, we are all of mixed blood, half-breeds. Whether
great or small, Occidental or Oriental, German, Anglo-
Saxon, Latin, or Slav, I cannot discover any modern
nation that can lay claim to pure blood. What would
be left of France if we Frenchmen were forced to prove
our possession of Gallic blood and to accept the principle
laid down by some Breton, whose name I have for-
gotten 4 ' France for the Celts " ?

" Yes," it may be said, " but all these Celts, Latins,

The Jews and the National Grievance. 87

Germans, and Slavs, these ethnic elements that consti-
tute the majority of our modern nations, are, after all,
homogeneous elements ; we Frenchmen, Italians, Eng-
lishmen, Germans, and Russians are all related to
each other; we come from a common stock, the
Aryans ; we belong to the great Indo-European fam-
ily, the noblest and most progressive of all races. The
Jew, on the contrary, is a 'Semite. 1 The sons of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob belong to a heterogeneous
race, endowed with instincts contrary to ours. There
can be no affinity between Israel and ourselves ; the
Jew can never be assimilated to us, he cannot become
merged in our Aryan nations."

The objection is an old one, but I confess that it does
not seem to me a strong one. The argument would have
greater weight had none but Aryan elements ever en-
tered into the composition of modern nations. But our
anthropologists have detected in them certain ethnic
materials of more humble origin. Underlying the
layers of Aryan peoples Celtic, Latin, Germanic
they have discovered in this Europe of ours more
ancient strata, which appear to have been simply cov-
ered over by Indo-European deposits. The prehistoric
races of Europe of Cro-Magnon or of Neanderthal
have not been entirely obliterated by the Asiatic
Aryans. The quaternary man has some descendants
left among us. Nothing warrants the belief that we
all are Aryans ; the Frenchman or the German who
prides himself on his pure Indo-Germanic blood, may
have descended from the cave-dwellers. In fact, the
existence of an c ' Aryan race ' ' at the present time is per-
haps as imaginary as the existence of a " Latin race."

A truce to prehistoric ages and insoluble problems !
Do we not find in historic Europe aye, have we not

88 Israel Among the Nations.

found in several nations of our day other races as
little akin to us as tlie Jewish Semites? In the
midst of our so-called Aryan peoples, I can detect at
least two ethnic elements foreign to the Aryan, two
races, many members of which still emerge on Euro-
pean soil despite the flooding of our continent by Aryan
immigrations. What are, actually, the Iberians or the
Ligurians of Spain and those of the Provence and of
Italy ? What are the Finns of Hungary, of Finland,
of Russia ? Are they, perchance, Aryans ? And is the
Semite farther removed from us than the Iberians of
the Peninsula or the Finns of the Baltic ? I do not
believe that such is the opinion of ethnologists. At all
events, whoever has been able to compare the Jew to
the Esthonians of the Gulf of Finland or to the Tcher-
emshin of the Volga, cannot well help seeing that the
Semite stands nearer to us than the Finn. Now, if it
was possible for the Spanish Iberians, the Finns of
Hungary and Finland, to adapt themselves to our
Aryan civilisation, it is difficult to see why the Semitic
Jew should not be able to do likewise.

I do not like to waste time on these ethnographic
questions. They are very complex and present great
difficulties even to specialists. We commonly ap-
proach them with a confidence born of ignorance. We
speak of a " Semitic race," without even being certain
that there has ever existed an ethnic group which
ought to be so designated. It has been repeatedly re-
marked that this word Semitic is really only a linguis-
tic expression ; it corresponds, probably, to no racial
group. The Jews are called Semitic because the
ancient Hebrews spoke a language called Semitic ;
and we are very well aware that a language proves
nothing in regard to blood. A nation can change its

The Jews and the National Grievance. 89

language without, on that account, changing its race.
Because tte Irish learnt English they did not become
Anglo-Saxon ; and the fact that the negroes of our
Antilles speak French does not make them an Aryan
race.

The term Semite is perhaps more apt to confuse than
to clear the question. It does not enlighten us at all
as to the origin and ancestry of Israel ; it exposes us
to the danger of deceptive comparisons and unwar-
ranted analogies. We shall, however, retain it for
want of a better word. Is the Semitic Jew black or
yellow ? Is his physical or mental structure so unlike
our own as to make his a different sort of humanity,
another species or sub-species ? Does his union with
our sons or daughters produce mulattoes or half-breeds ?
Can we compare the Semites dwelling among us with
the Chinese or the negroes of North and South Amer-
ica ? Does the Jew expose us to troubles such as some
states of the great transatlantic Republic have to
fear from the emancipated negro ? Do they and we
really constitute two races that cannot possibly be
blended ? I^et us look at ourselves and then at the
Semites ; can they be distinguished from us by the
color of their skin or the conformation of their skull ?
Must we not look rather closely to distinguish them ?
And even if, in every case, the shape of their nose
were to betray them, would we still have a right to
say that they have nothing in common with us ?

If we accept the vague notions about race and the
more or less uncertain classifications which ethnologists
offer us, there can be no doubt that we are related to
the Semites. Whether it suits them or not, the Aryan
and the Semite are brothers ; all their characteristics
bear witness to this. Both of them belong to that

go Israel Among the Nations.

great white race, Caucasian, Mediterranean, or what-
ever you may please to call it, which claims the
dominion of the world. Even from the ethnological
point of view, admitting the reality of an Aryan and
of a Semitic group, the Semite is nearer to the Aryan
than is the Turanian ; the Jew is often more closely al-
lied to us than the proud Magyar or the scornful Mus-
covite, both strongly tinctured with Finno-Turkish
blood. And, if leaving aside the obscure problems
of race-kinship, we consider the genius, the mind, the
talents and the intellectual habits of the Jew, how can
we help confessing that the Semite is nearer to us than
the Indian Brahmin who boasts of the purity of his
Aryan blood?

IV.

Aryans, Semites, Turanians, all these are terms that
have been singularly misapplied. The history of the
world means more than the conflict of races. On this
point, the science of the nineteenth century has, perhaps
more than once, gone astray. Though the wars of races
and tribes have had their share in man's religious
and intellectual development, they have not been its sole
factor. One of the causes of the popularity of the race-
theory was its apparent simplicity. That should rather
have been a reason for mistrust. To-day we realise this
fact. After the race-theory, which professed to settle
everything according to difference of origin, came the
theory of environment, which attempts to account for
everything by the influence of place, time, and climate.
In allowing for exaggeration on both sides we should,
at least, correct and complement one by the other.
Take the Iranian and the Turanian, the classic types of

The yews and the National Grievance. 91

racial antagonism ; they seemed to personify two ethnic
individualities, standing ont boldly from all the rest.
Now we see that what they represent is not so much
two races as two regions ; the contrast they exhibit lies
less in the existence of two hostile spirits than in that
of two different countries. The case of the Aryan and
that of the Semite are, in many respects, identical.
The Semite, shut out from the desert plains of Asia
and Africa, loses much of what seemed to constitute
his originality. Many of the characteristics so long
attributed to the sons of Shem belong in reality to the
Arab, and indeed, less to the Arab than to Arabia, less
to the man than to the desert.

The age is past when all our history was made to re-
volve about the eternal antagonism between Aryan and
Semite. Whatever may be the opinion of university
pedants, the raiding of Jewish shops by the peasants
of lyittle Russia or the workmen of the suburbs of
Vienna, is assuredly not an epilogue to the long duel
between Hannibal and Scipio, between Abderaman and
Charles Mattel, or between Saladin and Coeur de I^ion.
Neither the Carthaginians nor the Saracens have any-
thing to do with the quarrels between Pastor Stoecker
and the rabbis ; and the antagonism that is supposed
to exist between the instincts and genius of the Aryans
and those of the Semites, exists only for the use that
can be made of it in the political campaigns of Prince
Aloys of I/ichtenstein and Dr. Kronawetter. What is
more important : no trace of this legendary hostility
between Ayran and Semite is to be found in the He-
brew books or in the history of Israel. Neither the Old
nor the New Testament speaks of it. The Jews never
entertained a thought of it. The imprecations of the
prophets were launched, by preference, against the Se-

92 Israel Among the Nations.

mitic cities and tribes. The Assyrians and the Chal-
deans, the destroyers of Israel and Judsea, are consid-
ered Semites; and the deliverer of the house of Israel,
he whom the Jewish God called his Shepherd and his
Anointed, he whom Jehovah led by the hand, 1 Cyrus,
is considered an Aryan. It is true that at a later
period the Jews revolted against the Greeks of Antioch
and against the Roman subjects of Titus. But it is
equally true that they had quietly submitted to Alex-
ander and Pompey ; and never, to rny knowledge, has
the Sanhedrim of Jerusalem attempted to deny the
conquest of the earth by the Macedonian phalanx or
the Roman legions.

We must, perforce, discard this notion of a funda-
mental antagonism between Semite and Aryan. Ever
since we have gained a better knowledge of the East
and have examined more closely into the peoples of
Semitic tongue, we have noticed the gradual appear-
ance among them of such different habits, beliefs, and
tnodes of government as to make it impossible for us
any longer to ascribe the same genius to them all.
The notion of the unity of the Semitic spirit has been
destroyed ; the simplicity which we liked to ascribe to
it has vanished. The intellectual and moral features
with which we had endowed the ideal figure of the
Semite have faded away, one by one ; and the same
process has blotted out the contrast between Semite
and Aryan. Semitic genius, Semitic instincts, Semitic
civilisation, have become mere abstractions. We have
had to class in the same group with the Hebrews and
the Arabs all the neighbouring peoples who speak simi-
lar tongues, not only the Assyrians, the Chaldeans, but
also the Phoenicians, the Philistines, and the Canaan-
1 Isaiah, xlv., 2, 3.

The Jews and the National Grievance. 93

ites, the traditional enemies of the Hebrews, the nations
which Israel had always thought alien to herself in blood
as well as in faith, the tribes which the Bible classes
among the descendants of Ham, and not of Shem. 1
Hence, from the point of view of religion at least, there
can be no distinctively Semitic spirit or Semitic genius.
It is a fact that the majority of the Semites were, like
the Aryans, for a long time idol-worshippers and poly-
theists. They also deified the forces of nature, and
there is less discrepancy between Semitic and Aryan
mythology than between the worship of Baal or of
Ashtoreth, and that of the God who spoke from Sinai.
Since the time when Semitic epigraphy and the dis-
covery of Babylon and of Nineveh have made us more
intimately acquainted with the Semitic gods, we have
been surprised to see how little they differ, on the
whole, from those of the Aryans.*

The differences between these two polytheistic sys-
tems are steadily becoming less discernible. The
Semitic and the Aryan gods, male and female, belong
to the same family. To go still farther, Aryan poly-
theism in its highest manifestation, viz., Greek poly-
theism, appears now to be completely imbued with the
religious traditions of the Semites. Before the advent
of the Panagia or the apostle of " the unknown God,"
the Hellenes burned incense to the deities of Syria.
The Aphrodite of Praxiteles was born of the foam of
Phoenician waters ; and even in classic Olympus

1 Genesis, is., 6, 19.

s Mr. James Dannesteter's Les Propkttes & Israel : Race et
Tradition. According to the same scholar (ibidem} : " The char-
acteristics of the two families seem to be, in the Aryan
mythology the predominance of storm-myths, in the Semitic
mythology the predominance of the myths of the seasons. "

94 Israel Among the Nations.

Adonis preserved his Asiatic charms, and Cybele her
Oriental following.

It is then no longer just to say that monotheism is
the special property of the c Semite * ' as opposed to the
" Aryan. 11 The monotheistic spirit is peculiar to the
Hebrews, the worshippers of Jehovah, and was im-
parted by them to the Arabs who had been half-judaised
by Mahomet. By virtue of this and the statement is
not without significance, the Jew, the Hebrew, is dif-
ferent from all other peoples of Semitic tongues. In his
racial group he is unique, even more so than the Greek
in his. He stands alone, and has not his like among
"the nations. " He has not only outstripped them,
he has outclassed them. To bring him back into the
same class, to bring "him down to the level of his Se-
mitic neighbours, it has been necessary to presuppose in
him a primitive polytheism, more or less like that of
the Syrian or Phoenician. Jehovah was said to be only
a Baal or a Jupiter, who devoured his rivals. But this
new theory obliterates the last trace of the old difference
between the Semitic and the Aryan spirit. 1

Thus, there is no fundamental religious barrier be-
tween the Aryan and the Semite ; nothing shows that
their instincts are necessarily divergent. In their con-
ception of the divine there exist no longer irreconcilable
differences. Now, it was just the contrast in their
religious conceptions that gave rise to belief in the
antagonism between the Semitic and the Aryan mind.
Given the fallacy of this supposed antagonism, what is

1 1/ikewise, if in the traditions or ceremonies of Israel Semitic
influence is supposed to "be discernible, especially that of the
Chaldeans, it has been just as easy to detect Jewish influence in
the beliefs and the rites of the Aryans of Persia, the followers
of Mazdeism.

The Jews and the National Grievance. 95

there left, from an intellectual and moral point of view,
of the chasm that formerly yawned between the races
of Shem and Japhet ? Barely a ditch, which modern
research is filling in day by day.

In speaking to us of Semites, one should at least say
what Semites are meant, for, between their various
kinds, there is almost as great a difference as between
themselves and the Aryans. c The Semitic genius, ' J has
said a master on this subject, 1 "is essentially simple ;
it has neither shades nor intricacies. The old Semitic
spirit is, in its essence, antiphilosophic and antiscien-
tific. The peoples called Semitic are lacking in that
versatility, that breadth and amplitude of intellect
essential to perfect development. ' J This may be true of
the Arabs, despite the schools of Bagdad and Cordova ;
it may also be true of the ancient Hebrews ; but can it be
said of the Jews of to-day, who have been educated, and
have grown up, side by side with us ? If we grant that
there is a difference between the European and the
Asiatic, the Occidental and the Oriental, a difference,
moreover, of recent date and, as it seems to me, hardly
of racial character, it lies undoubtedly in the idea of
progress, that modern notion of perfectibility which
we have accepted blindly as a faith, in which the
learned as well as the ignorant superstitiously place
their trust. But everything tends to prove that this
idea of progress contains nothing distasteful to the Jew.
Although it has not emanated from him, he absorbs it
readily, even to the extent of becoming one of its most
ardent and restless disseminators. We cannot well
afford to deny a philosophic spirit to the kinsmen of

1 Kenan's Melanges ftHistoire et de Voyages: Les Peuples
S&nitiqnes. Cf. Histoire Ghi&rale des Langues SbmitiqueS) pp.
i, 20.

96 Israel Among the Nations.

Spinoza. Besides, is it correct to judge modern nations,
or living races, by their most remote historical anqes-
tors ? Even if the Hebrews of Palestine had been of
purest Semitic blood, should we be justified in classing
our modern Jews with the Beni-Israel or with the
Syrian Semites who lived two or three thousand years
ago ? It would be more exact to ascribe to the French
all the qualities that characterised the Gauls of Caesar's
Commentaries, or to portray the modern Germans and
the Russian Slavs after the fashion of the Germania of
Tacitus or the Chronicles of Nestor.

Character is that which changes perhaps least in a
race ; we can still find in the Frenchmen of the Third
Republic certain traits of the Gauls of Vercingetorix.
If, then, it is not in respect to his genius or his intel-
lect, is it in respect to his character and his disposition
that the Semite Jew or non-Jew is radically different
from us ? This is perhaps nearer the truth ; we shall
see later in what sense and for what reason it is true
if not of all Semites, at least of the Jew. 1 This is a
subject on which second-class ethnologists generally
give free vent to their imagination, contrasting the
vices of the " Semite " with the virtues of the " Aryan."
The one is depicted as eager for gain, covetous, hard-
hearted, mean, crafty, cringing, vindictive, given to all
sorts of cowardice and trickery ; the other as generous,
frank, proud, chivalrous, unselfish, and scrupulous, the
very essence of nobility and candour.

I am inclined to distrust these portraits painted with
a very free brush, where one side is all shadow the
other all light ; the portrayal of ancient races that are
composed of twenty different nations, cannot be accom-
plished by means of so simple an operation. I would
1 Cf. farther on, chap. viii. : Psychology ofthejew, II,

The Jews and the National Grievance. 97

have something more delicately blended, more finely
shaded. The Roman, for instance, was scarcely less
unfeeling, obdurate, and harsh than the Carthaginian,
and the picture presented to us of the Semite would often
quite as well fit the modern Greek, the Armenian, or
the Parsee, all of whom are considered Aryans, as the
Jew, who is classed as a Semite. "The Semitic
character,'* says Renan, "is generally hard, narrow,
selfish." This may be true and not alone of the
Arab although, in the case of the Jew, the explana-
tion for it is to be found less in racial characteristic
than in historic education. For if this aridity of heart
and mind seems prevalent among the Jews, let us not
forget that it is largely due to the kind of life we have
forced them to lead.

There is, at all events, one fact of which we too fre-
quently lose sight, and which we dare not overlook.
When we speak of Semitic harshness and narrowness,
we must not forget that the Gospel, than which there
is nothing sweeter, gentler, tenderer in all the world,
has emanated from the Semitic tribes. Upon that
rocky Syrian soil has blossomed the lily of the valley,
whose fragrance, after nineteen centuries, still per-
fumes the world. The most beautiful word in human
speech, the word charity, fell from the lips of those
sons of Shem. It was the Semites who proclaimed
the glad tidings ; it was to a Semitic multitude and in
a Semitic dialect that the Sermon on the Mount was
preached ; and it was by a Semitic people, braving
hunger and thirst, that the Nine Beatitudes were re-
vealed to the ancient world. Here, again, if we would
assail Israel in her race, her ancestors, and her Bible, we
cannot reach her without touching Christ. Did not the
Saviour himself say to the Samaritan woman at Jacob's

98 Israel Among the Nations.

well : "Salvation comes from the Jews." It is strange
that the Christian should have forgotten this ; the
Cross of Renunciation was borne to us on Jewish
shoulders; that cross which scandalised all Greece,
and which, for three or four centuries, the faithful
dared to show to the worshippers of the gods of Paros
only when it was veiled with mystic emblems. The
blood that flowed on Calvary for the redemption of
mankind, the blood that our old painters picture to us
caught up in chalices and golden bowls by the hands
of angels, was Jewish blood, Semitic blood. Neither
Mary, mother of Jesus, nor John, his well-beloved dis-
ciple, nor Simon, called Cephas, nor any of the Twelve
Apostles, was of Aryan descent.

Whoever would go back to the very beginning,
especially he who believes that the Church, from its
incipiency, has been established and governed by the
Apostles, must consider Christianity itself a product of
Semitism : it is no less so than Judaism. We are often
told of the Semitic conquest ; if the world was indeed
conquered by the Semites, it was with the sword of
Paul of Tarsus," the Christian Hannibal or Alexander.
The battle of Cannae was not the greatest victory of
the Semite. Where the son of Hamilcar was defeated,
the little Jew of Cilicia triumphed. Through his
agency and that of the Apostles the proud promises of
Israel's seers were realised, and the Aryan world, both
Greek and Roman, was made to bow beneath the
sceptre of the son of David. The empire established
by the Roman legions was bequeathed to the heirs of
the Galilean fishermen. The statues of the Csesars
were thrown from their bases, and the imperatores who
most fitly represented Roman prowess and Greek wis-
dom, the Trajans and the Marcus-Aureliuses, were

The Jews and the National Grievance, 99

hurled from their marble pillars, to make room for
Peter and Paul, the captains of Jesus of Nazareth.
The she- wolf of Romulus, that had subjugated the
Carthaginian elephants, was, in her turn, thrown to
the ground by the lion of Israel. " Vicit leo de tribu
Juda " is engraved on the base of 3STero's monument,
erected by Sixtus V. in front of St. Peter's at Rome.
The Church is right : the Nazarene has conquered.

This was the real Semitic conquest, and the Aryan
spirit has never recovered from it. The most consist-
ent, perhaps the only really logical, Antisemites are
those who, to rid themselves of the Semitic yoke, re-
ject the New as well as the Old Testament, the man-
ger of Bethlehem and the tablets of Sinai. 1 The Slav
or the Teuton who is unwilling to owe anything to the
sons of Shem ought to go back to the Aryan gods, to
Zeus, to Odin, to Perun of the golden beard unless
he prefers to substitute the emanations of the imper-
sonal Brahma for the creative God of Genesis. It is
only by freeing itself from all Christian ideas that the
world can be " desemitised."

1 In this connection I must mention two books, little known,
in which the chief charge against " Setnitism " is that it gave
birth to Christianity. The one, published towards the end of
the Second Empire, is Le Molochisine Juif, by Tridon, who be-
came later a member of the Commune of 1871 ; the other, dated
1890 (Dentu), is called Aryans et Semites ; Le Bilan du
Judatsme et du Christianisme, by A. Regnard, vol. i., the only
one published.

CHAPTER V.

ARE THE JEWS PURE SEMITES ?

I. Israel's Blood does not Seem to be Free from All Admixture
Proselytes in Olden Times Their Importance, their
Diffusion Other Converts: The Khazars The Fear of
Conversion to Judaism as One of the Causes of the Re-
striction of the Jews Judaising Sects II. The Semitic
Type It is not Uqually Pronounced in All Jews ; there are
at least Several Sub-Types Karaites and Samaritans
Jews by Religion who do not Appear to be Jews by Race
Sephardim and Askenazim : How and Why they Differ
The Modern Jew is the Artificial Product of the System of
Sequestration.

I.

BUT enough of ancient Jews. Are the modern
Jews pure Semites ? Are we even sure that there is
such a thing as a Jewish race, or that the European,
the Asiatic, and the African Israelites are all alike the
sons of Jacob and the descendants of the Beni-Israel from
the land of Canaan ? There is no proof of this. For
a long time we believed, on the strength of the Jewish
statements themselves, that, with respect to Judaism,
race and religion were correlated terms, not to be sepa-
rated. But this view does not always coincide with
the testimony of history.

It is quite permissible to question the purity of

Are the Jews Pure Semites f 101

Israel's blood. 1 The Jew, in his eventful wanderings
of twenty centuries among a hundred different nations,
seems to have undergone cross-breeding more than
once. From the oldest times down to the end of the
Middle Ages, many streams of alien blood have filtered
into the veins of Jacob's descendants. The Jews did
not even await their dispersal to ally themselves with
the sons and daughters of other nations. These ethnic
interminglings date at least as far back as the Baby-
lonian captivity. Even if Israel had escaped all cross-
breeding under the willows of the Euphrates, it would
have been difficult for the colonists, sent from Assyria
to the kingdom of the Jews, to have left no descendants
but the Samaritans, who, moreover, had themselves
become gradually merged in the Jews. The question
of mixed marriages was one that caused much trouble
in Jerusalem after the return of the Jews from captivity.
It was in vain that the restorers of Zion, the Ezras and
the Nehemiahs, forbade all intermarriage with strange
women ; the repeated prohibitions of the reformers of
the fifth century B.C. prove how frequent such unions
had become. The Book of Ruth the Moabitess is an
evidence of this ; certain exegetists have even believed
this patriarchal idyl to be a plea against the extremists,
and in favour of foreign wives. Matters were quite dif-
ferent during the Greek and also during the Roman
period. It was no longer only Canaanite, Syrian, or
Chaldean blood, but Greek, Egyptian, Latin, perhaps
even Gallic and Spanish blood that flowed through

1 The families whose blood has remained purest are probably
those of the Cohanim, the old priests of the Temple, who
still, in many cases, bear the Hebrew names of Cohen, Kahn,
Cohn, etc., and who were obliged to abstain more scrupulously
from unions with strangers.

iO2 Israel Among the Nations.

various channels into the old Semitic blood. Until
quite recently it was believed that the diffusion of the
Jews, either just before or after the fall of the Temple,
was a fact of purely ethnological significance, the re-
sult of the emigration of the Jews from Palestine. But
that was a narrow view ; the modern expansion of
Judaism in Egypt, in Asia Minor, even in Europe
prior to the Christian era, is largely a fact of moral
significance ; it is in great part due to Jewish propa-
ganda. In this respect again the Jews were the fore-
runners, the pioneers as it were, of Christianity ; they
hewed a path for it in the Occident as well as in the
Orient. They opened to it in advance the doors of the
Gentile nations by converting pagans of every race to
the Mosaic Law. It was in the Synagogue, from the
ranks of Jewish colonists and proselytes, that the apos-
tles recruited their first disciples. 1 The Jews who lived
during the time of the Asmoneans and of Herod did
not feel the same aversion to proselytising as did the
rabbis later on. Far from it ; the Hellenist Jews who
came into contact with the Gentiles, sought to win over
Greek and barbarian alike to the worship of the true
God. Not daring to appeal to them in the words
of Isaiah or Daniel, the Alexandrians replaced the
prophets with the old sibyls, whose duty it was to de-
clare to the pagans the unity of God, the coming of
the Messiah, and the future glory of Israel. 2

Classic antiquity was not deaf to the voice of its own
oracles, thus changed into echoes from Zion. At a

1 The fact is repeatedly proved in the Acts of the Apostles,
passim.

* Gaston Boissier*s La Fin du Paganisme, vol. ii., pp. 23-24
(Hachette, 1891). The Sibylline books have generally been
-written by Jews.

Are the Jews Pure Semites f

time when in Egypt, Persia, and Syria the Oriental
gods, veiled behind mystic rites, assailed the frigid
Pantheon of the Grseco-Roman world, Jewish mono-
theism exerted an attraction which turned people from
the old L,aw and soon led them to the new. 1 On this
point the old writers all agree, be they Jews, Greeks,
or Romans. "Great masses," says the historian
Josephus, " have grown enthusiastic over our manner
of worshipping God ; so much so, that there is not a
single Greek or barbarian town, nor any nation, which
does not observe our Sabbath, our fast- and feast-days,
and our dietary laws." a

Judaea in Palestine was then scarcely more than the
nucleus of Judaism. The prediction of the prophets
seemed for a moment on the point of being realised ; it
appeared as though the nations were about to set out
for Jerusalem in order to worship there. The sibyls

1 See, notably, Renan's Les Origines de Christianisme, vol. v.,
p. 227 and following ; cf t Kuenen's Judaisme et Christianisme
(Revue de VHistoire des Religions, vol. vii., No. 2, 1883, p.
208, No. 9) ; Graetz's Diejudischen Proselyten im Romerreich
(Breslau, 1884) J Isr - Sack's Die Altjudische Religion (Berlin,
1889), pp. 384-87-

2 Josephus, Contre Apion^ ii., 39. The statement of the
Jewish writer is corroborated by the Christian author of the
Acts of the Apostles (ii., 5) : " And there were dwelling at
Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under
heaven." Then follows an enumeration of all the ancient
peoples, from the Medes, the Parthians, to the inhabitants of
Rome, and in this crowd the sacred writer mentions expressly
the "proselytes" besides the real Jews: "And the strangers
from Rome, Jews, and proselytes " (Acts ii., 10). And also in
the cities and synagogues of Asia and of Europe, wherever the
Apostles preached, the Acts point out everywhere the prose-
lytes besides the original Jews; thus, xiiL, 17 ; xiv,, i ;

14 ; xvii., 4 and 17 ; xviii., 4 and 7, etc.

TO4 Israel Among the Nations.

had not been mistaken. Isis, Serapis, Zeus, and all
the other gods had to succumb to the God of Israel.
Had not the world become Christian it might, perhaps,
have become Jewish.

For it was not only the belief in the unity of God
and in the morality of the Decalogue, it was not even
exclusively the observance of the Sabbath and the Jew-
ish prayers, that the pagans, converted to the faith of
Israel, had accepted; the ritual practices were also
adopted, and, to begin with, that one which is the
distinctive sign of the descendants of Abraham, cir-
cumcision. Side by side with the simple proselytes
who had gone but half-way, God-fearing men, like the
centurion Cornelius converted by Saint Peter, 1 walked
Gentiles, who had scaled the final barriers and had
adopted, with the bloody seal of the sons of Jacob,
every one of the Jewish customs.

On this question Jewish and pagan antiquity have
given us categorical statements. Josephus says, ex-
plicitly, that the Jewish community of Alexandria 2 was
largely composed of Greeks. Many of the Jews of
Cyrene, Antioch, and Palmyra, the great Jewish com-
munities of the Orient, seem also to have been of
Greek, or Graeco-Egyptian blood. 3 The Jews who had
become Greeks were mingled with the Greeks who had
become Jews. What is most surprising is that, even in
Rome itself, this was sometimes the'case. Juvenal, in

1 Acts of the Apostles, x., 2.

3 Josephus, Guerre desjuifs> "bookvii., ch. iii., 3 ; Renan (Le
Judatsme comme Race et comme Religion^ -1883) has gathered
the principal Greek and I/atin texts which show the frequency
of these conversions to Judaism.

3 See Mommsen's JRowische Ge$chichte> vol. v. (1885), pp.
492-494.

Are the Jews Pure Semites ? 105

the famous passage of his i4th Satire, makes a dis-
tinction between the simple proselytes and those who
had been entirely converted to Judaism. He shows us
the fathers, content merely to observe the Sabbath and
abstain from pork, while the sons, transcending the
paternal zeal, go to the length of circumcision : Mox et
prcepuiium ponunt, says the satirist of the first century,
in his forcible Latin. 1 At about the same time Tacitus,
in speaking of all sorts of recruits that had been won
over to Judaism, says the same thing in his elliptical
language. 2 In the second century the Emperor Anto-
ninus thought it necessary to forbid the Jews from cir-
cumcising any but their own sons. Even in the third
century, towards the j T ear 225, Dio Cassius, a senator,
in alluding to the Palestinian wars, says that, besides
the original Jews of Judaea, " there are other men who,
although of a different race, have adopted the laws of
the people. ' ' s " And, ' ' continues the old consul, ' " there
are amongst the Romans many such persons ; every ef-
fort to stop them only seems to increase their number. 1 '
Even if this last passage should partly allude to
Christians, such statements compel us to believe that
in the Orient as well as the Occident a great portion
of the ancient Jews were the descendants of converted
pagans. Such Israelites were only the adopted sons
of Abraham and Jacob. Even the Roman Jews, whose
catacombs can be seen on the Appian Way or on the
Via PortuensiS) had perhaps not much purer Semitic

1 Juvenal's Satires ', xiv., verse 95.

2 Circumcidere geniialia, instituere ut diversitate noscantur.
Transgressi in inorent eorum, idem usurpant. (Tacitus, His-
tories, book v., 5.)

8 Kcartep ah&oe&veft orreS, Dio Cassius, book xxxviL, ch.
xvii.

io6 Israel Among the Nations*

blood than their Christian neighbours, now lying in the
cemeteries of Calixtus and of Pontianus, where the
oldest inscriptions are likewise in the Greek language.

Hence we are not justified in continuing to regard
Israel as an ethnic unit, free from all intermixture, espe-
cially as in the very beginning of the race the Asmo-
neans and the Herods, observing in their practice the
compelle intrare, introduced into Judaism, by means of
circumcision, great hordes of people from Idumaea,
Iturea, the Hauran, and the neighbouring districts of
Syria. The influx of alien blood did not cease even dur-
ing the Talmudic age when vanquished Israel shut her-
self up in her own shell. After having been on the
verge of becoming a universal religion, Judaism actually
reverted to the stage of a national religion. The rabbis,
fearing to see Israel absorbed by the other nations, or
merged in Christianity, took pains to isolate the Jew.
The proselytes were treated as pests, as lepers of Israel.
The Synagogue closed its doors and withdrew within
itself; but, despite the antipathy of the rabbis, a num-
ber of proselytes contrived to slip into it, especially on
the outmost borders of the Jewish world. We see
Jews making converts in Arabia ; tribes of Arabs are
won over, in a body, to the Mosaic law. Mohammed is
the disciple of the Jews, and Islamism is only a crude
adaptation of Judaism.

Kven in Europe, Jewish missionaries contended with
Christian missionaries for the Ponto- Caspian regions.
Towards the eighth century, to the north of the Black
Sea, in the Scythian Steppes, a people of Finno-Turk-
ish stock, the ELozars or Khazars, went over in a body
to the old kaw. 1 This is perhaps not the only instance

1 According to the Chronicle called De Nestor (ch. xl., trans-
lated by I* I^ger), Khazar Jews proposed to Vladimir, Prince
of Kief, then still a pagan, that lie should also become con-

Are the Jews Pure Semites ? 107

of such conversions on the confines of Europe and
Asia. In Tiflis I was told that there exists in the
Caucasus a Jewish tribe of warlike habits, and differing
from the other Israelites both in looks and manners.
An attack of fever prevented my visiting them. It is
probable that those Jewish mountaineers are related to
the native Caucasians. 1 In the West we have nothing
analogous to this conversion of Khazars in a bulk.
From the time of the Merovingians there were many
Jews in Gaul and Spain. Were all the Israelites, at
the time of Gregory of Tours, really full-blooded Jews
who had entered Gaul by the way of the Rh6ne and the
Sa6ne ? Or were many of them simply Gauls who
had been converted to Judaism ? Renan, and several
scholars who wrote before him, concur in the latter
opinion. 3 Unfortunately, we have no absolute evi-

vetted to Judaism. In the Monumenta Hisforica, Polonite of
Bielowski (vol. i., p. 50 and following) may be found a letter
from the Khazar King Joseph to the rabbi of Cordova, Kazdai,
in which the Khazar chieftain says formally : *' Our fathers
have accepted the Israelitish faith ; God has opened their eyes,"
and he relates how the conversion of one of his predecessors
was effected, after a strict scrutiny of the various religions,
similar to that attributed by the Ckronique de Nestor to the
Russian Vladimir. 3?roin the Khazars comes the name of
Khozari, given by the poet of the Middle Ages, Jehuda Halevy,
to his great philosophico-religious work.

1 Perhaps they were confounded with the Jews of Daghestan,
called in Turkish Dagh Tchoufout (Jews of the Mountain),
former emigrants from Persia, still speaking or writing the Per-
sian language in many cases ; a large number of them have
become Tartars.

3 B. Renan, ibidem* It is a notable fact that the scholar who
took pains to destroy the old conception of Judaism looked
upon as a separate race, is the very one who did most to spread
among us the theory of races, and who even seemed to base all
religious history on the antagonism between Aryan and Semite.

1 08 Israel Among the Nations,

dence on this point, which is all the more to be regretted
because the Jewish communities of England and Ger-
many came .from those of France.

Even if they were originally of the blood of Israel,
the Jews of Gaul and Spain certainly received, through
various channels and at different periods, an infusion
of native blood. The mixture of Jewish and Christian
blood, which after the Crusades took place only through
the conversion of the Jews and to the advantage of the
Christians, inured not infrequently in the first half of
the Middle Ages to the advantage of the Jews. There
were in this earlier period two doors that led from the
Church into the Synagogue, and that the Church found
it difficult to close slavery and marriage.

As to slavery, there can be no doubt ; the traffic in
slaves was lucrative, and the Jews took to it like clever
traders, often circumcising their human merchandise,
in order to reconcile religious piety with wordly inter-
ests. The decrees of the councils and the actions of
popes and bishops bear testimony to this. One of the
principal cares of the bishop, especially in Slav coun-
tries, and truly a most legitimate care, was the spir-
itual protection of the slaves held by the Jews. Their
masters were forbidden from converting them to
Judaism. Finally, the Jews were prohibited from cir-
cumcising pagan slaves and from owning Christian
slaves. To this same solicitude is due the law which
forbade Jews to employ Christian servants, whether
male or female. This prohibition, enforced in the
Greek and Catholic Churches, was until recently a part
of the Russian law. 1 Not long ago an attempt was
made to put it again into practice.

1 See, for instance, Orchanski's Rousskoe Zakonodatelstvo
o Evreiakh, p. 59 and following.

Are the Jews Pure Semites? 109

It was the same with marriage. Tlie command that
had. so often to be repeated, debarring Jews from inter-
marriage with Christians and vice versa, jjroves what
difficulty the clergy of both creeds experienced in their
attempts to prevent such unions. The Christians did
not then feel the aversion to the Jew with which he has
since inspired them. In the eyes of the newly baptised
barbarians, Judaism was a religion like anj* other, a sort
of heretical or Christian sect. In the West, at Lyons,
the Archbishop Agobard complained, as Chrysostomus
of Antioch had done four centuries earlier, that the
Christians took part in Jewish festivals and listened to
the sermons of the rabbis. It cost the Church a pro-
longed effort to make all her children distinguish clear-
ly between the old and the new Law. The necessity of
drawing a sharp line of demarcation between the two
religions, was one of the causes of the premature rigours
of the canon law against the Jews. It was not the
desire of the Church to persecute the remnants of Israel,
nor to arouse against them the fanaticism of the igno-
rant masses ; what it wanted, above all was to separate
the Mosaic Law from the Law of Christ, to prevent the
two from being confounded and receiving the same
degree of respect. 1 Perhaps this was also one of the
reasons for its aversion to placing the Old Testament in
the hands of laymen.

The harsh rules against the Jews adopted at an
early period by the canon law, originated in the desire
to isolate him from the Christians in order to remove
the faithful among them from the pale of his influence.
Accordingly, the Middle Ages were gradually led to

1 This truth -was honestly admitted by an Israelitish. scholar,
Isidore I/oeb ; Nouveau Didionnaire de Geographic Univer-
selle (art. yuifs, p, 998).

no Israel Among the Nations.

erect a wall between Jew and Christian. The Church
did not feel reassured until it had surrounded the flock
of Christ with a paling sufficiently high to protect its
fold against the allurements of the Jewish ritual.

It must not be forgotten that among the heresies
which the Church had to combat, there are several of
Jewish tendency ; that sometimes even Judaism seems
to have gained converts in spite of itself. We must
bear in mind that in Russia, at Novgorod and at Mos-
cow, " judaising Jews ' ' were very powerful during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries ; that, to this very day,
there are left scattered among the people, certain com-
munities vlsoubbotwiki or Sabbatists, who have adopted,
besides the respect for the Sabbath, several injunctions
of the old I/aw. 1 I have even heard of a group of sec-
tarians in the Caucasus who are said to have engaged
Jews to read to them the prayers in Hebrew. These
Sabbatists were at one time believed to have been origin-
ally of Jewish race, a sort of Russian Marranos forced
into conversion. The contrary, rather, is true : they are
genuine Christians, attracted by the Jewish customs.

If it is certain that alien blood, pagan or Christian,
flows in Jewish veins, it is still more certain that the
Christian nations have an admixture of Jewish blood.

1 See L? Empire des Tsars et les Russes^ vol. iii. ; La Religion,
book iii., ch. x. Scotch missionaries of the middle of tlie cen-
tury encountered in Palestine, at Saphed, a Russian converted
to Judaism, and they said that the case was not an isolated one.
(Narrative of a Mission of Inquiry to the Jews from the
Church of Scotland in 1839. Anonymous, Edinburgh, 1844, p.
283.) In Poland also, conversions to Judaism have been fre-
quently noted especially in the sixteenth century. See, for
example, Hermann Stemberg's Geschichte der Juden in Pol en
unter den Hasten und den Jagettonen (Leipzig, 1878), chap,
xxiii., pp. 114, 115.

Are the Jews Pure Semites ? in

For whole centuries, thousands of Jewish families have
been gathered to the bosom of Christianity, by means
of conversion, forced or voluntary. There is probably
not a single European, and hence not a single Ameri-
can nation that is quite free from all admixture with
the Semitic Jew. From the Spain of the Visigoths to
the Germany of the Crusades, and from the Nuevos Cris-
tianos of Castile, or the Marranos of Portugal, to the
Frankists of Poland, all have been subjected at differ-
ent periods to an infiltration of Jewish blood. Who
can tell how many of Israel's children have during
the past fifteen centuries been filched from her by bap-
tism, whether optional or compulsory ? Their number
must be counted by millions. In view of the rapid nu-
merical increase of the Jews, during the few centuries
since their emancipation, it is fair to suppose that, if in
each generation the Church had not robbed Judaism of
thousands of its members, they would to-day be fottr
or five, perhaps even ten, times more numerous than
they actually are. By just so much have the Christian
countries been the gainers. Some of them, like Spain
and Portugal, have absorbed so much Jewish blood,
that they have become, as it were, completely impreg-
nated with it.

From the time of the edicts of Theodosius and Hera-
dius to the French Revolution, Israel has been like an
island or an archipelago whose borders, swept by the
waves, have crumbled piecemeal into the ocean, until
more than once it seemed threatened with complete
submersion. Of all the descendants of Jacob only a
small part, perhaps even only an infinitesimal minority,
has remained faithful to the religion of its fathers. The
great majority of the twelve tribes have accepted the
yoke of the Cross ; they have long since become merged

1 1 2 Israel Among the Nations.

in us ; the waters of baptism have swept them out
among the nations of the world. We Christians can
never be sure that we do not number, among our an-
cestors, some unrecognised Northern or Southern Jew.
When we consider the amalgamation that has been in
progress for centuries in the one direction or the other,
it is difficult for us to ascribe the antipathy between
Jew and Christian to the eternal antagonism between
the Semite and the Aryan.

II.

That which history causes us to suspect is con-
firmed by anthropology and the study of the living
man. The Jewish race is not pure ; all the Jews can-
not be considered Semites, any more justly than all the
Christians can call themselves Aryans. To begin with,
what do we mean by Semitic type? For an unmis-
takable instance of it we are often directed to the Chal-
deans and the bas-reliefs of Nineveh. Indeed, I know
some Jews who seem to have stepped from the very-
walls of the palace at ELhorsabad, but these are few in
number. To those who do the most talking and writ-
ing about it, the Semitic type is commonly nothing
but the Jewish type, and the Jewish type itself is not
so uniform or so strictly defined as is often imagined.
The best proof of this is that, in order not to be con-
founded with the Jews, the Christians and Moslems
have, for centuries, set distinctive marks upon them.
To this day it is difficult to decide whether there is one
Jewish type, or whether there are several.

As for myself, I am inclined to believe Renan to the
contrary notwithstanding l that there is a predominant
1 Le yudalsme comme Race et comwe Religion.

Are the Jews Pure Semites f 1 1

Jewish type, which may be called Semitic. Rembrandt
has left us admirable studies of it in the Hermticze*

o

A long and generally an oval face, a narrow forehead ;
thick arched eyebrows, often almost running together;
large and sometimes blinking ej-es, with heavy lids,
that give the eyes a half-closed appearance ; a long,
curved nose, pinched at the base ; rather thick lips,
and a somewhat receding chin ; such is, it seems to me,
the classical Jewish type. But we must acknowledge
that it does not fit all Jews. Even the distinguishing
feature of Israel, the Semitic feature, if there be such
a one, the hooked nose, is not found in all Jews.
Still less do the}- all have the black hair and eyes, or
slightly prognathous face, noticeable in some of them.*
There are certain seconda^ or sub-types among them
which give evidence of different crosses.

Thus, the Jews of different countries can often be
recognised at first sight. We must, however, at the
outset, omit certain Jewish groups that have, perhaps,
not a drop of Hebrew blood in their veins. For in-
stance, the black Jews of Abyssinia, the two hundred
thousand Faladias, manifestly of African blood. In
certain countries even, there are Jews who live side by
side without intermingling, and whose difference in
origin is shown by the colour of their skin. In Bombay

1 To the portraits of Rembrandt, taken after the Sephardim or
Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam, may be likened the Jews of
the painter Munkaczy in his great painting, Christ before
Pilate. See also the Jewish Stories of Sacher-Masoch, in which,
all the illustrations are by Israelitish artists. It will be seen
that in their efforts to accentuate the distinguishing features of
the race, the illustrators have frequently caricatured them.
(Paris, 1888, Quantin.)

3 Ce*s. I/ombroso et Laschi, Le Crime Politique et les Rfoolu-
tlons (French edition, Alcan, 1892), vol. i., pp. 148, 149-

1 14 Israel Among tJie Nations.

three kinds of Jews are to be seen : white Jews, like
those of the I/evant; brownish, dark-skinned Jews,
called by the old name of Beni-Israel, and believed to
be indigenous to India ; and black Jews, seemingly de-
scendants from ancient negro slaves who had been con-
verted. In Persia also we notice two kinds of Jews of
different physical types.

Among European Jews there is not so marked a
contrast. But even where they are not separated
by custom into distinct groups, a careful observer
often detects among them types, or sub-types, im-
perfectly blended. And this is true not only of the
great Jewish communities of the East ; we find, every-
where, tall and short Jews, dark and blond ones. We
see them with black eyes and with blue eyes, with flat
or with turned-up noses, as well as with thin and with
hooked noses. The same variety exists in the shapes
of the skulls and the frames. The Jews of all countries
do not possess the same anthropological characteristics ;
they vary sometimes in Jews of the same country. In
this respect we do not, as a rule, meet with characteris-
tics sufficiently constant to be able to differentiate the
Israelites sharply from their neighbours of other reli-
gions. 1

1 One must not attach too much importance to the " cephalic
indication " of the Jews. The observations bear, as yet, on
too small a number of individuals. According to Pruner-Eey
and Lombroso, the Jews of Africa and Italy are rather dolicho-
cephalic or sub-dolichocephalic. According to the measure-
ments taken by Koperniki and Majer, the Polish Jews are,
generally, brachycephalic, or sub-brachycephalic. Likewise,
although in the case of a number of Israelites it has been
proved that the length of limb is not in proportion to that of
the trunk, this is by no means a general fact. (See article Juifs
in Nouveau Didionnaire de Gkographie Universelle.)

Are the yews Pure Semites ? 115

Among all the groups that profess to trace their de-
scent from Jacob, perhaps the two most interesting, cer-
tainly the most remarkable, are the Karaites and the
Samaritans. Both of these peoples reject the Talmud,
and have been separated for centuries from the bulk
of Israel. I visited them both, animated by the curi-
osity of a naturalist who stands in the presence of a
species about to become extinct. It was interesting to
me to compare them with the Talmudic Jews of the
same regions.

On Mount Gerizim I found the remnants of the Sa-
maritans gathered beneath three tents for the celebra-
tion of one of their feasts ; they still encamp annually,
at certain times, on the sacred hill, lit. Ephraim. On
the following day I repaired to their synagogue at
Nablus and had a conversation with their rabbi, while
he showed me their famous manuscript of the Penta-
teuch, the only book whose authority they recognise.
" We are a hundred and eighty Samaritans," said to
rne in English the chief of their tribe, as he unrolled
the old scroll before me. ' ' Our religion has doubtless
fewer followers than any other, but that is no reason
why it should not be the true one." I must confess
that I found nothing peculiarly characteristic in the
faces of these Samaritans, separated from the rest of
the Israelites for twenty centuries. They appeared to
me only taller, sturdier, of more robust health, than the
neighbouring orthodox Jews. From a physical point
of view these Samaritans, who will perhaps have com-
pletely disappeared within a hundred years, are indis-
putably superior to their hostile brothers in Israel ;
perhaps for the reason that, having been spared the
bitter exile of the latter, they have had to endure less
suffering and degradation. The Bible tells us that the

1 1 6 Israel A mong the Nations.

Samaritans come from a mixture of Hebrews and of
Assyrian colonists who settled in Samaria. The fact
that none of them are left is perhaps due to the en-
trance of so large a number into the pale of orthodox
Judaism.

Although they had separated from the rest of Israel
twelve or fifteen centuries after the Samaritans, the
Karaites * whom I visited at least those in the Crimea
seemed to me to differ still more from the other
branches of Jacob. They profess to be the sole repre-
sentatives of the pure Mosaic Law ; the other Jews, the
Talmudists, having substituted the authority of the
rabbis for that of the Bible. This sect is supposed to
have arisen in the middle of the seventh century, in
Babylonia, then the intellectual centre of Israel. Al-
though they had formerly numerous communities in
Asia, Europe, and even in Africa, these Jewish protes-
tants number, to-day, scarcely five or six thousand,
more than one half of whom are grouped together in
-the Crimea. They also have probably become merged
little by little, in the orthodox Jews ; swallowed up in
Talmudic Judaism.

In the mountains above Baktchi-Sarai, a Tartar vil-
lage, I made a pilgrimage to Tchufut-Kal6, the dead
city of the Karaites, and to the old adjoining cemetery
which they call their Valley of Jehoshaphat. The
Jerusalem of the Jews of Tabreez is now deserted ; its
inhabitants have descended into the plains, and its
houses lie in ruin. The Karaites have preserved a syna-
gogue there, to which they ascend on certain festivals.

1 Karalm or Karaites, from kara (to read) or from mikra
(Bible), because, contrary to tlie Jews called rabbimtes, they
admit no authority but that of the Old Testament, rejecting
tradition and the rabbinical decisions.

Are the Jews Pure Semites ? 117

In tlie midst of fragments of old manuscripts and
half-effaced scrolls of the Thorn, I found an aged,
white-bearded rabbi, "who seemed the personification of
his expiring religion. These Crimean Karaites, a part
of whom are still husbandmen, possess scarcely anj*
typical Jewish features. 1 They are more like their
Tartar neighbours of Baktchi-SaraL Their appearance
is scarcely more Semitic in character than are many of
the names inscribed on the grave-stones in their wild
Valley of Jehoshaphat.

In this ancient cemetery of Tabreez, Firkovitch has
discovered Hebraic inscriptions of the eighth century,
bearing Turkish names, such as Toktamich, in Hebrew
characters. This Toktamich was doubtless a Tartar, a
converted Nbgai, or rather since the inscription is of
earlier date than the Mongolian invasion a Khazar,
at any rate a Finno-Turc, a Turanian. " Would a Jew
of Palestine," asks Renan, "have ever called himself
Toktamich in preference to Abraham, I/evi, or Jacob ? > '
These Crimean Karaites are more likely to be the prose-
lytes, than the descendants, of the Babylonian Karaites.
They have, perhaps, not a single drop of Jewish blood
in their veins, similarly to many of the neighbouring
Tartars, who have hardly any Tartar blood, being only
the offshoots of ancient Goths or ancient Greeks, grad-
ually converted to Mohammedanism under the empire
of the Crimean Khans. 2 As between the Karaite Jew
who believes himself descended from Jacob, and the

1 1/ikewise, morally, they are said to differ frequently from
the other Jews, having neither their good nor their bad qualities.
This is supposed to be one of the reasons -why the Russian laws
are much less harsh towards them.

2 See D Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. i., book iL,
chap. Hi.

1 1 8 Israel Among the Nations.

so-called Tartar who prides himself on his Turkish ori-
gin, the Mussulman is, possibly, the less of a Turk or
Tartar.

These Crimean Karaites are probably not the only
subjects of the Czar who are Jews by religion, but not
by race. They are sometimes believed to have come
from the old Khazars, that Scythian people converted
to Judaism. Is it not probable that among the four
millions of Russian Jews, thousands can be traced to
the old nomads of the steppes ? The study of the Jew-
ish types of Poland and Little-Russia inclines us to
believe so. A Knno-Turkish blend seems to be com-
mon among them. One day at Warsaw I visited the
Jewish trade schools in the company of a learned Polish
friend. He pointed out to me three or four different
types in the Hebrew children assembled there : the first
and the most familiar to us, my guide called the dis-
tinctively Jewish or Semitic type ; another, he traced
from the Khazars or the Turanians, and its distinguish-
ing feature was a short (often a snub) nose, and promi-
nent cheek-bones ; a third type showed a low forehead,
thick lips, and a dark complexion which seemed to him
to suggest an African strain; and finally, there was a
fourth, with blond hair and blue eyes, which was more
like the Aryan or Teutonic type. The fact is that the
Jews of Russia display differences of feature and gen-
eral appearance which can be accounted for only by dif-
ference of origin. Similar observations might be made
in Jerusalem, Berlin, Vienna, London, and even in
Paris, in fact, wherever Israelites of different countries
have come together.

Must these modifications in the Jewish type be
ascribed entirely to a mixture of races ? No, for we
ought assuredly to make allowance for the influence

Are the Jews Pure Semites ? 119

of environment. The Jew retains the imprint of the
countries and climates through which his ancestors
have passed. Israel could not have wandered from
the Ksour of Sahara to the Aouk of the Turcoman
steppes, and from the orange-trees of the Guadal-
quivir to the birches of the Duna, living for two
thousand years under the most different skies, without
having felt the effect of such changes. This furnishes
another explanation for the differences that prevail
among the Jews, even in those cases where Jewish
blood has undergone the least admixture. It is known
that history has divided the sons of Jacob into two
large groups, of unequal numerical strength: the
Sephardim and the Askenazim, the Jews of the South,
called Portuguese or Spanish Jews, and the Jews of the
North called German or Polish Jews. 1 We must not
overlook the fact that this is a purely historical or
geographical classification which has nothing to do
with the old tribes of Israel. The tribal distinctions
have been supplanted by new classifications differing
according to language and place of birth.

The Sephardim and the Askenazim do not differ
alone in their traditions and rites ; both frequently dis-
play in their features the traces of the migrations to
which the intolerance of ages has condemned them.
Of the two groups, the Sephardim seem freer from for-
eign admixture. They have always deemed themselves

1 Sephardim comes from Sepharad (Abadias 20) the biblical
name of an unknown land which the Jews believed to be Spain ;
Askenazim comes from Askenaz, son of Gomer, son of Japhet,
(Genesis, x., 3), supposed ancestor of the Germans. Among the
Sephardim of to-day, by far the less nnmerons, may be Included
the Italian Jews and those of Avignon and of the south of
France,

1 20 Israel Among the Nations.

the tlite of the nations ; formerly they constituted a
sort of aristocracy among themselves, and did not wish
to be confounded with the other Jews. Having lived
for a long time in the midst of Semites or half-Semites,
they have presumably a larger proportion of Semitic
blood. As a rule, their features are more delicate ; it
is among the Sephardim of both sexes that the most
beautiful examples of the Jewish type are to be found
which, in their case, sometimes assumes a nobility
rarely met with in the Jews of the North. In the
Askenazim the old blood of Israel has been more
largely mingled with that of other nations ; it has been,
as it were, greatly expanded and diluted with barbarian
blood. The race feels the effects of old interminglings
with the sluggish peoples of the North-Uast, while its
countenance bears traces of the rigorous Northern cli-
mate. Its features have, in many cases, grown heavy ;
the nose has become larger, the lips thicker ; and these
physical variations are often repeated in the character.
" How can you expect," said a Russian to me, {C that,
with our long winters, our colds and catarrhs, the
Semitic nostrils should retain their Oriental delicacy ? ' '
Climate, however, cannot have been sufficient to trans-
form aquiline noses into pug-noses or into flat noses,
such as we see in the faces of some Polish Jews.

Whatever may be the case in regard to these differ-
ences, both Askenazim and Sephardim are none the
less Jews. Certain scholars especially interested in
ethnic types, are inclined to regard them as two dis-
tinct peoples or races, recognising only the Sephardim
as Jews at bottom, as Jews by blood and descent. 1 But
this view attaches too much importance to the racial
characteristics of Israel.

1 Thus, for instance, M. G. I/agneau's Anthropologie de la
France^ p. 676,

Are the Jews Pure Semites 9 121

Even from a physiological point of view, race Has
been neither the sole nor perhaps the principal element,
in the formation of the Jew. And what I say of race I
can still more justly assert of soil, climate, and ph}-sical
environment. In order to explain the Jew, something
more is needed, Israel is much less, the offspring of a
race than the work of history. ;_Two influences in
especial have combined to form the Jew and have given
him, in all countries, an appearance peculiar to him-
self : age-long isolation and traditional ritual, his social
confinement and his religious practices. The Jew is
not the natural product of a soil or a climate ; he is an
artificial product, the result of a twofold tradition and
a twofold bondage. He has been matured by two
opposite agencies : the confinement to which we have
condemned him, and the practices with which he, him-
self, has tied himself down. He was made partly by
our law, partly by his own ; it may be said that our
canonists and his rabbis have had an equal share in
fashioning him.

If the action of environment has ever been potent, it
has been so in the case of the Jew, condemned for cen-
turies to strict isolation. The modern Jew is the result
of a penning-in, of all that is comprised in the word
Ghetto. In this sense it is truly the Ghetto that has
produced the Jew and the Jewish race ; that is to say,
it is we Christians, our civil laws, our canon law, our
clergy, and our princes. On this subject it has been
very justly said : " It is not race that has made the
differences between the Jews and us ; it is we ourselves
and our ancestors that have made them. * ' ' The Jewish
type was moulded and stamped by the Ghetto. The
Ghetto has called forth and developed, in Jews of every
country, moral and physical likenesses due less to

1 M. BrunetiSre : Revue des Deux Mondes, of June i, 1886.

122 Israel Among the Nations.

blood-kinship than to an identical mode of living.
Those fetid and doleful prisons were the crucibles in
which, by the heat of its fatal fagots, mediaeval Europe
fused the various elements of Judaism into that
astonishingly hard and ductile metal the modern
Jew.

The Christians had carefully erected around the Jew
a little world, the inhabitants of which, confined behind
the walls of their Jewries, excluded from almost every
profession, forced to constant intermarriage, naturally
tended to form a new race in the midst of the peoples.
Who can say what would have been the effect on any
other religion of such a treatment prolonged through-
out several hundreds of years ? If the Mohammedans
could have tried the experiment on the Christians, they
would probably have obtained as clearly marked a type
in ten generations.

Imagine animals, horses or dogs, shut up for four or
five hundred years in an enclosed park, strictly isolated
from all their fellow-animals, and condemned to a uni-
form diet. It is in some such fashion that the Jews
have been treated. A human species was created, in
the same way as breeders create an animal species. In
view of all this we are justified In asserting that the
Jew is the product of a compulsory grouping and of
economic and political conditions, as much as, and even
more than, of racial conditions. His uniqueness is due
less to the Oriental blood transmitted by his remote
ancestors, the Beni-Israel, than to the sort of existence
imposed on his forefathers by ours. The best evidence
of this is the fact that, with the gradual removal of the
barriers that surrounded the old Jewries, the typical
and characteristic peculiarities of the Jew seem to be
fading away, j

CHAPTER VI.

THE JKW IS 'THE PRODUCT OF HIS TRADITION AND
HIS I,AW.

I. The Influence of the Je-wish Law and Observances on the
Race Judaism is as much a Religion of the Body as of the
Soul Ceremonial Rules and I^gal Cleanness IL How
the Talmud, as well as the Ghetto, Tended to Strengthen
the Tribal Spirit In what Manner their Rites Isolated the
Jews from the Gentiles In Order to Become a Modern
Man, the Jew must " De-Rabbinise " Himself HI Gradual
Transformation of Judaism How it Emancipated Itself,
little by Little, from Talnradic Formalism Conditions
and Difficulties of this Religious Evolution IV. An Ana-
logous Transformation is Taking Place in the Jewish Life
and Family.

THE Jew is, then, a creation of the European Mid-
dle Ages ; lie is the artificial product of hostile legis-
lation. But if we have made the Jew, we have not
been alone in the making of him. The Ghetto of Italy,
the Carriere of Provence, the Judengasse of Ger-
many, the Mellah of Morocco, the Hara of Tripoli,
were but the mould, the material, into which the Jew
was cast ; they gave him only his outward shape. Aside
from the laws imposed on him from without, and other
extraneous influences, the Jew has been evolved by
an internal force, whose action has been more unin-
terrupted, and perhaps even more potent. This force
consists in his Law, his practices, in one word, his re-

123

1 24 Israel Among the Nations.

ligion. As Renan has said, the Jew is not so much the
product of a race as of a tradition ; or, according to
M. J. Danuesteter, the Jew is not so much a product
of the flesh as of the spirit. He was fashioned, we
might almost say created, by his Books and his rites.
As Adam came out of the hands of Jehovah, so did he
come out of the hands of his rabbis.

In this sense, the Jew has been made by the Syna-
gogue. If the Ghetto is the house in which he has
been reared, the Bible is his mother and the Talmud
his father. He has retained his resemblance to the
parents that begot him. I am not speaking of a spiritual
parentage solely ; for it is not simply by means of faith,
by virtue of ideas, that the Thora and the Ghemara
have given the Jew his being, but also in a material
and almost carnal fashion, by means of all kinds of
practices and observances. "We have here an influence
that has operated for centuries, and has not been
sufficiently taken into account. Judaism is not, like
Christiaiiit}', an almost entirely spiritual religion in
which, according to the word spoken at Jacob's well,
the faithful worship in spirit and in truth. Talmudic
Judaism is, in more than one respect, a combination
of practices pertaining to the body ; it is as much a
religion of the body as of the soul. Hence comes its
superiority, or its inferiority, whichever one may please
to call it. The JL&w is concerned with the flesh no less
than with the spirit; the I/aw has helped to form
both, one by means of the other.

Thus considered, the Jew is at once a work of the
flesh and of the spirit. In this sense, especially, the
chief element in the formation of the Jew and the Jew-
ish race was Judaism. Never, perhaps, had man been
so thoroughly moulded by his religion. The Thora

The Product of Tradition and Law. 125

had, prior to the Mishna^ laid down hygienic rules as
commandments from God. Islam merely copied it,
but in a very incomplete fashion. There has been
nothing more foreign, not to sa} T more contrary, to
Judaism, at least since the days of the Essenes, than
the contempt of the body manifested by some of our
ascetics. The Jewish I/aw pays constant attention to
the body ; whether or no it be on account of the bodj-
itself, matters little ; the result is the same. Thus,
one can understand why there Should have been many
Israelites among the Saint-Simonites, who preached the
rehabilitation of the flesh.

The chief solicitude of the Jew for twenty-five or
thirty centuries has been to be clean, and this in the
sense of ceremonial and physical purity quite as much
as in the sense of pure-heartedness. This thought
pursued him from his birth to his death, from the cir-
cumcision by the knife of the mohel to the washing of
the corpse on the mortuary board ; it was with him
everywhere at his meals, in his dressing-room, in his
nuptial bed. To preserve the purity prescribed by his
I^aw became a sort of obsession with him ; the Talmu-
dic Jew seems as if hypnotised by it. The Law and
its learned interpreters foresaw and regulated every-
thing, even to the most secret acts of the individual
and conjugal life. This minute code was studied even
by the humble Jew from his early years onwards, in the
Heder or the Talmud-tora. The rabbis have estimated
the number of laws or commandments to which the
Jew was subjected, at six hundred and thirteen, of
which two hundred and forty-eight were mandatory
and three hundred and sixty-five prohibitory. 1 A

1 This is the number decided by the Synagogue long ago.
An American rabbi, Dr. Ignatz Grossmann published them re-

126 Israel Among the Nations.

great many of these Jfitzvofh relate to the purification
of the body, of garments, and of food.

" A Jew " said Solomon Maimon, the cynical rabbi-
philosopher, " can neither eat, drink, go to bed, wash,
nor satisfy the demands of nature, without observing
innumerable laws. 1 ' The pious Jew lives in constant
dread of contamination. The mere touch of an un-
clean person or thing suffices to make his food, drink,
linen, chair, furniture, unclean to him. To prevent
such defilement has been at all times the aim of Jewish
piety. The sixth section, or Seder^ of the Mishna, com-
prising nine treatises, is called Toharoth, the Purities.
Rabbinical casuistry enters into the most indiscreet de-
tails of physiology and medicine ; it contains subtleties
of purity which have something repugnant for us.
Whoever would convince himself of this should read
the Kiddah treatise in the Talmud. It shows to what
daily, almost hourly, supervision the "prudent wo-
men' ' are subjected, especially the wives of the Cohanim>
who would remain clean. Judaism is not satisfied
with the daily scrutiny of the conscience prescribed by
other religions ; the Jew and the Jewess must further-
more undergo, as it were, a scrutiny of the body. It
would be impossible to describe in our language the
strange precautions taken by Tobit, the female servant
of Rabbi Gamaliel, whenever she poured wine into her
master's jug ; and Tobit is praised by the Talmud as a
prudent woman.

cently in the biblical version, with a translation and a com-
mentary in German, under the Hebrew title : Mikraoth Keta-
neth (Cincinnati, 1892). Of these 613 articles of the politico-
religious Mosaic code, many, it is true, relate to the civil or
criminal laws of Israel and to the service of the Temple and
the lyevitical commandments.

The Product of Tradition and Law. 127

Whatever may be their meaning and origin, it is im-
possible that such practices, transmitted for centuries
from generation to generation, should not have exerted
an influence on the men as well as on the women of
Israel, and consequently on the whole race.

Israel has always boasted of being a clean people ;
to be considered clean in the eyes of God has been its
privilege, its sign of distinction among all nations.
"For ye are a holy people before the Eternal your
God," saj^s the Thora repeatedly ; and in the mind of
the Jew, ancient or modern, holiness is apt to be con-
founded with the purity prescribed by the Law. His
persistent aversion towards the uncircumcised was due
to the fact that to him they were unclean.

Israel alone understood and practised the laws of
moral and physical purify. She was so attached to these
laws that, like the Maccabeans, she preferred death to
violation of them. However extreme such minute
rules may appear to us at times, this code of purity
was, morally as well as physically, a power in Israel.
To be sure, the debased and poverty-stricken Jew often
observed it rather in the letter than in the spirit. In
the ill-smelling Rue aux Juifs bodily cleanliness came
to be a mere matter of form ; the Jew there performed
his ablutions and purifications as a legal formality,
looking on them only as a religious rite, and concern-
ing himself little about cleanliness and hygiene. To
this day, in certain small Jewish market-towns of the
Orient, the basin reserved for the monthly ablutions of
the women, contains only tainted, nauseating water,
less apt to cleanse than to infect. A salutary custom
has thus been changed by ignorance and routine into
an offensive ceremony.

It was not always so. The benefit of these hy-

128 Israel Among the Nations.

gienic regulations has not been entirely lost to the race.
In spite of the squalor in which they were often pur-
posely compelled to live, the Jew and the Jewess were
for a long time superior in personal cleanliness to the
Christians, rich or poor. Moreover, it must not be for-
gotten that, for whole generations, the Jew could feel
safe only when he appeared sordid and wretched ; dirt,
like poverty, was a means of self-defence to him, as is
ugliness to certain animals. The Jew's power of resist-
ance to the noisome filth in which he was often com-
pelled to wallow, is largely owing to his fastidious
observances.

Israel's Law has made her a pure as well as a chaste
nation ; consequently, despite all her sufferings, she has
remained a healthy nation. The meagreness of her
food and the poisonous atmosphere of her Ghetto may
have succeeded in weakening her ; but her strength has
not been sapped by the disgraceful practices of the
Orient. The unnatural crimes of the Greek and
Roman Aryan, of the Arabian and Syrian Semite,
have not poisoned Israel's blood at its source. If, in
some countries, poverty or cupidity drives her daugh-
ters to a life of shame, this is an evil of but recent
date ; it has not contaminated the bulk of Israel.
Despite the abuse of early marriages, especially in the
Orient where boys of fourteen and fifteen are united to
girls of twelve or thirteen, the respect for marriage,
the chastity of the conjugal relations, and the purity of
the family life in other words, the moral discipline of
the Jews, has strengthened the individual and devel-
oped the race. And what has been said in regard to
the effect of purifications and ablutions prescribed by
the I^aw, is more true in regard to the rules concerning
food, especially Kosher meat. The Jew is supposed to

The Product of Tradition and Law. 129

possess immunity from certain diseases ; if that is so,
he owes it as we shall see mainly to his practices,
his Law.

If Israel is, as has been said, the product of a tradi-
tion, this tradition is not onl} T spiritual, but fully as
much, and perhaps even more, h3~gienic or propln-lac-
tic, in its nature. These influences also, slowl}' work-
ing for centuries, tended to make or re-make of Israel
a race. In speaking of the Jew we owe it to him to
take account of heredity and of the physical and moral
influences accumulated through centuries. Our re-
strictive and his religious laws would have been suffi-
cient to make the Israelite, the Semite, with a strain of
Aryan and a touch of Turanian blood, more and more
different from his neighbours of other religions. Even
when between him and them there existed blood-
relationship, he gradually lost the feeling of such kin-
ship. Israel was led, whether she would or no, to
form a people, a tribe.

II.

Israel again became a tribe. This is a point of cap-
ital importance. Israel constituted anew an ethnos,
still regarding herself as the posterity of Abraham. She
was the offshoot of the patriarchs ; whether by virtue
of blood or adoption, Israel herself knew not, and it
mattered but little : every circumcised Jew belonged
to " the House of Jacob. "

Israel again became a tribe. This re-establishment
of her racial unity was due to two influences. Our
civil laws isolated her from the other peoples of Europe
forcibly ; her own religious laws isolated her cere-
monially. Here again, both Christian and Jewish

1 30 Israel Among the Nations.

authorities, the one acting from -without, the other
from within, impelled her unconsciously in the same
direction. Canon law and Talmudic code assisted each
other; the Church and the S}'nagogue, kings and
CoJtanim^ bishops and rabbis, in endeavouring to sepa-
rate the Jews from us, combined to make of them an
alien race. Israel, forced to herd by herself, formed,
whether she would or no, a commonwealth in the com-
monwealth, or, to use a modern expression, a State in
the State. Our civil laws reinforced her religious
laws, and our spirit of exclusiveness fostered her
exclusiveness.

The tribal spirit has been, in turns, both the cause
and the effect of " the sequestration, at once voluntary
and compulsory, of Israel.'* Like the Jew subjugated
by Rome, so the Jew persecuted by the Middle Ages,
clung to his Law. It became the absolute rule of
Israel' s life. * 4 Israel fastened her eyes upon her Law, ' J
sa} r s Renan, "as one who is to be hypnotised fastens
his gaze upon a shining metal disc." Now we know
what this Law is, and what the Talmud is, which,
in interpreting it, took its place; we know what
minute practices the Thora and the Mishna impose on
the sons of Israel. The observances prescribed by his
I/aw were bound to isolate the Jew, as we have already
said ; and, in fact, the aim of the editors of the Mishna
and the compilers of the Ghemara, seems to have been
the isolation of the Jew, his separation from all other
nations. They may be said to have planted a hedge
around Israel in order to preserve her intact. The
practice of religious rites constrained the Jews to live
in closest contact with each other and to avoid the
nncircumcised. Their Law tended both to cement their
feeling of solidarity and to keep them aloof from the

The Product of Tradition and Law. 131

Gentiles. In this way it awoke in them a spirit of
clannishness. From this point of view Talniudic Juda-
ism seems to have been a religion of social separatism ;
its ultimate tendency was to make of the Jews a sepa-
rate social group, absolutely cut off from all other
social groups.

The practice of the I^aw rises like a wall between
Israel and ttegoim. The Jew who professes to follow
the rabbinical prescriptions must not live with men
of another faith ; to eat at their table is to violate the
Law. All this is well known; it has already been
stated that "the faithful would rather have died of
hunger than have touched food not prepared accord-
ing to Mosaic prescriptions. All Christian food, or
more precisely, all food prepared in Christian kitchens,
is an abomination to them." ' This is the rule laid
down in the Scriptures : the eating of forbidden food is
an abomination. This repugnance to closer contact
with the Gentiles is one of the things which Christian-
ity has found it most difficult to overcome. "And
when Peter was come up to Jerusalem they that were
of the circumcision contended with him saying : Thou
wentest in to men uncircumcised and didst eat with
them." *

The Talmud, which out-Thoras the Thora, tends
to make the Jews, by virtue of their anxiety for cere-
monial cleanness, a sort of separate caste, like the castes
of India. Thus the Talmudic Jew has remained Orien-

1 M. Maxime Du Camp's Paris Bienfaisant ; The Jewish Hos-
pital. This is a source of great difficulty in the work of the
committees presiding over the emigration of Russian Jews. A
number of these unfortunates refuse all food which is not
guaranteed Kosher*

* Acts of the Apostles, xi., 2, 3.

1 3 2 Israel A mong the Nations.

tal. Despised by his surroundings, lie avoids all con-
tact with them ; he would neither sit at their table nor
eat of their dishes ; he is anxious to preserve his caste.
This sudra, or sordid pariah, is afraid of contamination,
he dreads contact with uncleanness. He shrinks from
using the utensils of the Gentiles or from allowing them
to use his. One day I journeyed, at a single stretch,
from Jerusalem to the tombs of the patriarchs at He-
bron, which is still, in the eyes of the Jews, one of the
four holy cities of Palestine. I had a dragoman of
Jewish birth who led me for a night's lodging to the
house of certain Jews, the Hassidim, if I recollect
aright. We could get no supper until the Hebrew
schachter had arrived to kill the fowl. We had brought
neither spoons nor forks ; as our hosts did not trouble
themselves to furnish us with any, we had to have some
brought to us from Jews who were less strict. There
are still, in the East, many Jews of this sort.

In the Occident, to be sure, matters are somewhat
different. During my youth I spent three months in
Dresden, boarding with a Jewish family. I do not
know whether the meat I ate was kosher ; but I should
have been glad had the landlady been more particular
regarding her sausages and her provisions from the
pork-butcher. It must not be imagined however, that
the dietary laws are disregarded by all European Jews.
Wherever there is a Hebrew population it has its but-
chers and slaughterers. There are even, in some of our
French towns, hotels intended especially for Jewish
travellers. I came across one, last winter, at a place
in the south of France at which I happened to stop.
The sign bore the three Hebrew letters of the word
kosher. The guests were exclusively Jews, either from
Eastern or Central Europe. Such Jewish inns or res-

The Product of Tradition and Law. 133

taurants may be found in large watering-places, espe-
cially in Vichy ; I know of some also in Paris. The
most important thing for the Catholic or the Protestant
when he is travelling, is to find a church, a chapel, a
priest to say mass, or a clergyman to preach a sermon.
In the eyes of the most devout Jew, the synagogue is
a secondary consideration ; the vital thing is the
butcher-shop and the schochct.

The ritual practices and the dietary laws were not the
only factors in the preservation of the tribal spirit
among the Jews. It is due, perhaps, as much to their
mode of worship as to their I^aw. This spirit has re-
tained, through all times, a national character; its
feast- and fast-days are, for the most, nothing more than
the commemoration of the joys and sorrows of Israel.
After eighteen hundred 3 r ears the Synagogue does not
grow weary of bewailing the fall of the Temple. In-
stead of permitting this national impress to be de-
stroyed by the rust of centuries, the Talmud and the
rabbis have carefully endeavoured to preserve, or to re-
vive It. As in the days of the Maccabees, Jewish
piety was for a long time a sort of patriotic fervour ; the
memory of Zion was Israel's only fatherland. Israel
was led back to the national and religious particularism
of the ancient Hebrews. Like the primitive worship
of Javeh, Talmudic Judaism became again a tribal re-
ligion. It also is a national or, if the expression be
preferred, an ancestral religion. This is another point in
which it differs from the Christianity which Paul pro-
claimed to the world as an universal religion, the prop-
erty of no people in particular. Through Talmudic
ritualism, the religion that had been purified and broad-
ened by the Prophets became narrow and materialistic,
To many Jews Jehovah seemed not so much the only and

134 Israel Among the Nations,

universal God conceived by Isaiah, as the tutelary divin-
ity of the Beni-IsraeL He was the God of the whole
world ; but, in the first instance, the God of the Jew,
the God of his fathers Isaac and Jacob.

It would be unreasonable to be shocked at this, for,
despite the spirit of the new Law, even despite the fine
name of Catholic, more than one Christian nation has
likewise manifested a sort of national particularism in
its reverence for the Redeemer of mankind. The Mos-
covite of holy Russia, the Castilian of Catholic Spain,
the Englishman of the Isle of Saints, even the French-
man of most Christian France, have they not all
often regarded their countrymen as a new * ' chosen peo-
ple" to whom special celestial favour had been shown
by Christ or by the Virgin and the angels ? Moreover,
in respect to this, the Protestant, the Scotch or English
Puritan, has not always lagged behind the Papist and
the Greek Catholic. The words spoken by Jesus to
the Samaritan woman have penetrated but slowly into
the hearts of those who believe themselves his disciples :
"The hour will come when not on this mountain
nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father."

The difference between Christianity and Judaism lies
in the fact that national particularism, the tribal spirit,
is distasteful to Christianity, while Judaism, by virtue
of its origin, its traditions, its very rites, finds diffi-
culty in getting rid of it. Now, in order that the Jews
may become entirely nationalised in the countries
where they live, Judaism must become de-nationalised.
If the Jew would become a citizen like any other among
us, he must, first of all, rid himself of this tribal spirit ;
and as Talmudic ritualism is saturated with it, we may
say that the Jew will never be wholly French, English,
German, Russian, or Hungarian, that he will never

The Product of Tradition and Law. 135

become entirely European or American, until he has
emancipated himself from the extremes of rabbinical
ritualism. The thorny hedge that has been erected
around Israel by the Tanalm and the Amoralm must
be cut down or uprooted. In other words, in order
that the Jew may become truly modernised, Judaism
must become " de-talmudised, " ' c de-rabbinised. ' 5 That
which the Greek Jews attempted in ancient times in
order to adapt Jewish L,aw to Greek civilisation, must
now, in their turn, be undertaken by the modern Jews,
in order to adjust the traditions of Israel to our modern
civilisation.

The Western Jews have recognised this ; they dis-
covered long ago that Judaism was not riveted to the
Talmud. Under the influence of our civilisation and
of Western liberty, the Synagogue has spontaneous^
undertaken a purification of its ritual and its mode of
worship. In proportion as the Jew becomes more of a
Frenchman, an Italian, a German, Judaism and its
adherents become less Jewish, less Semitic. Is not this
what is meant by the transformation of the "Jew "
into the " Israelite " ? This movement began but a
hundred years ago, and in some countries it is nearly
completed. What would have been the result to-day
if it could have begun seven or eight centuries earlier ?
Whj T should this have been made impossible by our
exclusive laws ?

IIL

At the same time, it must be confessed that to bring
about this change is a delicate task. A religion is not
like a batrachian or an insect which, at a certain stage
of its development, undergoes a transformation at the
appointed hour. Now, Judaism is verily undergoing

1 36 Israel Among the Nations.

a sort of moulting or metamorphosis, which, to be quite
exact, is the third or fourth in its long existence. At
all events, it is the final and most dificult stage, the one
which is to lead it to the perfect state, if we may use
such an expression. A transformation like this pre-
sents peculiar difficulties to Judaism, whose cere-
monials, rites, race-traditions, are not mere external
coverings to be stripped of! at will, but, more or less,
a part of its very being.

There are, above all, two things that constitute a
religion, two elements that give it life and permanence :
its beliefs and its rites, its doctrines and its forms of
worship. Xow, in contradistinction to other religions,
at all events to those of our da}-, Judaism gives but
little place to dogma ; its creed is so simple that, were
this made its only basis, it would almost be reduced to
what the naive optimism of our ancestors called natu-
ral religion. The same may be said of its moral code ;
it has passed into the other religions to which Judaism
has given birth, and into the civilisations that have
been nourished on its Books ; it is no longer Israel's
peculiar property. The one thing that is still her very
own is her Law, her ritual. The Law is truly the bony
structure, the framework of Israel's religion : it alone
gives body to it ; without it, Judaism would be in dan-
ger of evaporating into a vague Deism.

Many Israelites, looking upon these observances and
ceremonial practices as superannuated, believe that
they are doomed gradually to disappear with the old
spirit of the Talmud. There are others who dream
that the Thora, after an existence of three thousand
years, has a new and 3 r outhful destiny in store. They
think that Jehovah will again cause water to flow from
the rock in Horeb, and they hope that his people will

The Product of Tradition and Lan\ 1 3 7

not be the only one to quench its thirst there. Believing
in Israel's mission, with the implicit confidence that lies
at the bottom of every Jewish heart, the}- think that
Israel is called upon to offer the Divine gift of religion,
for the second time, to the civilised world which has
again lost faith in its gods. And this time it is to be a
religion without embarrassing practices or perplexing
dogmas, without miracles or mysteries.

What, in their opinion, would have been required to
win over the ancient world to the rigid Monotheism of
the Thorn ? That the Judaism of the time of Philo and
of Josephus should sacrifice its national rites. Onlj* at
such a cost could the religion of Israel have conquered
the world. Circumcision was Judah's stumbling-block ;
the knife of flint wielded by the circurnciser cost Israel
the kingdom of the civilised world. A Saul of Tarsus,
who would have taught the S3~nagogue how to throw
off the }-okeof its ritual, might perhaps have sufficed to
prevent its being ousted by the Church. The very sac-
rifice which Israel was not wise enough to make at the
time of the fall of the Temple, she must now make.
Her only loss will be a loss of two thousand years.
Then, at last, Jewish faith, freed from all tribal spirit
and purified of all national dross, will become the Law
of humanitj-. The world that jeered at the long-suffer-
ing of Israel will witness the fulfilment of prophecies
delayed for twenty centuries by the blindness of the
scribes and the stubbornness of the rabbis. According
to the words of the Prophets, the nations will come to
learn of Israel and the peoples will hang to the skirts
of her garments, crying : "Let us go up together to
the mountain of Jehovah, to the house of the Lord of
Israel, that he may teach us to walk in his wa} T s."
The true, spiritual religion for which the world has

1 38 Israel Among the Nations.

been sighing since Luther and Voltaire, will be im-
parted to it through Israel. To accomplish this, Israel
needs but to discard her old practices, as, in spring, the
oak shakes off the dead leaves of winter. The divine
trust, the legacy of her Prophets, which has been pre-
served intact beneath her heavy ritual, will be trans-
mitted to the Gentiles by an Israel emancipated from
all enslavement to form. That hour will mark the
birth of a religion truly universal and authoritative, at
once human and divine. Then only, after having in-
fused the spirit of the TJwra into the souls of all men,
will Israel, her mission accomplished, be able to merge
herself in the nations.

This is an exalted dream, and, often unconsciously,
every Jew carries it about in his heart. More than one
circumstance encourages him in this : the intellectual
anarchy of our old Christian society, its religious dis-
tress, of all human distresses the most deep-seated,
the craving for faith and the difficulty of believing, the
evolution of Protestantism and of the rational sects that,
like the Unitarians, are going back, under cover of the
Bible, to the jealous Monotheism of Jehovah. But is the
realisation of such a dream within the reach of Israel ?

Let us leave aside Christianity, whose old trunk,
though split, retains more sap than is commonly im-
agined. I/et us consider only Judaism. Even should
Israel have retained strength and faith enough to up-
lift the world again, she would find it difficult to give
the world a religion, since religion does not consist
merely of a more or less well-defined doctrine, and since
the belief in a living God is no longer so characteristic of
Judaism as to constitute a dogma peculiar to it alone.
A religion, as we have said, needs forms, ceremonials,
bonds of ritual, to preserve a visible union between its

The Product of Tradition and Law. 139

followers. Ritual is, perhaps, more essential to it than
dogma ; the former is, at least, able to survive the lat-
ter. Old religions often resemble old trees, whose
trunks, despite their hollowness, continue to bear flowers
and fruits. But no religion can, for any length of
time, dispense with form. Even Israel owed her sur-
vival during so many centuries to her religious practices.
Now, the first condition of the triumph of the ancient
Law is the elimination of its ceremonials which
amounts to the setting aside of the Law itself. In other
words, in order to become universal Judaism must, in
some sort, begin by suppressing itself. It would seem
as if its triumph could be assured only at the cost of its
suicide.

This consideration is not calculated to intimidate
those Israelites, already half de-judaised, whose Messi-
anic dreams are limited to vague humanitarian hopes.
But such is not the case with the zealous adherents of
the Synagogue, with those who have retained their
faith in Israel and their love for her Law. They do
not care to see their Law diluted into a system of morals
of state-school text-book pattern, nor to see the essence
of the TJwra dissipated into an empty Theism or a
humanitarianism still more deceptive. They wish that
Jacob should remain among the nations a beacon-light
of rigid Monotheism, and they claim that, to this end,
Israel's religion must remain a positive cult, a living
faith. They consent to the pruning of its observances
and the lopping of its ritual, but only on condition that
no hand be laid on the trunk or on the stem of the old
tree itself. They ding to the customs bequeathed by
their fathers and they fear to break with tradition, for
they feel that Judaism is rooted in its traditions and that
it cannot sever their bonds without destroying itself.

j 40 Israel A mong the Nations.

The fact is, that Judaism is not a religion, or a Church
like any other ; it is not so much a faith as a divinely
revealed doctrine, a cult, a I^aw, a mass of rites and
practices, the heritage of Israel's ancestors, and revered
as such. With the Jews worship and ritual are not
only religious forms : they are, in some sort, religion
itself ; in the eyes of true believers, their importance
and value lie not so much in the doctrines which they
symbolise, as in the ancestors who have handed them
down, from generation to generation, as a family leg-
acy. To many Jews this is still the principal reason
for the continuance of Judaism, They cling to it as to
an ancestral tradition. This explains also their aver-
sion to proselytising. Their religion is, after a fashion,
the domestic cult of the house of Israel ; what would
be the use of attempting to force its observances on
those who are not of Abraham's blood? In the eyes
of the Jews, ceremonial practices are not only the seal
of Israel' s covenant with Jehovah ; they are a rallying-
sign between Jew and Jew. Their rites constitute
their bond of union ; they are the chain that links
Israelite to Israelite.

To discard, as do certain reformed Jews of Germany
and England, all that is not of an exclusively religious
character in Judaism, all that recalls its national origin ;
to banish the name of Zion. and the memory of Jeru-
salem, to abolish circumcision and the dietary laws, to
introduce Sunday as the Sabbath, to substitute the
vernacular for the Hebrew in the singing of the Psalms,
is not only to loosen the bonds of union, to slacken the
ties that bind the Jew to his brethren as well as to his
fathers, but also to destroy, little by little, all that is
peculiarly characteristic of Judaism, and to reduce it, by
imperceptible degrees, to a mere name, a mere shadow.

The Product of Tradition and Law. 141

Dr. Graetz, the German historian of the Jews, is
right. 1 Judaism cannot survive the uprooting of all
the tendrils with which it clings to Palestine, for it is
from them that it draws its sap. The reformed syna-
gogues that eliminate from their worship all that is
peculiarly Hebrew, are in great danger of becoming
nothing more than way-stations on the road to Chris-
tianity, or on the well-trodden slope that leads to free-
thinking. This became very evident at the end of the
eighteenth century in the "enlightened circles' 1 of
Berlin, among the followers of Moses Mendelssohn and
the admirers of the beautiful Henriette Herz.

We have pointed out the danger with which Judaism
is beset by the modern spirit and by that civilisation
which, in emancipating the Jew, opened out the world
to him. 3 But there is another, perhaps not less vital,
danger. In order to adapt itself to our Western civil-
isation, Judaism must " modernise " itself; in order to
conform to the requirements of modern national life,
it must "de-nationalise" itself; and to do either it
must " de-rabbinise" itself, simplify its ritual, abolish
the greater part of its practices. But, at the same
time, in " modernising" and " de-nationalising " it-
self, in giving up its ritual practices, it runs the risk
of " de-judaising " itself, and consequently of disinte-
gration. It thereby strips off its protecting coverings,
abandons the shelter of the Talmudic hedge, deprives
itself of that which gave it life and permanence.

For centuries the Synagogue has rested on the strong
pillars of the I/aw ; to abrogate that Law, or to allow
it to lapse into desuetude, is not this equivalent to
undermining the very foundations of the Synagogue ?

1 Graetz, Geschichie derjuden, vol. si., p, 170 and following.
8 See above, chap, iii., pp. 66, 67.

142 Israel Among the Nations.

Seldom has the history of religions been confronted
with such a problem. Nevertheless, he would be very
rash indeed who pronounced it an insoluble one. Re-
ligions have a peculiar faculty of sliding over contra-
dictions ; they possess a wonderful instinct of adaptation
to time and place. Judaism, especially, has succeeded
in emerging from two or three crises, each of which
seemed as though it must be fatal. It has a strange
vitality, and has given so many proofs of the fact as
to have just grounds for indignation at any show of
doubt regarding its future. We have traditions or
myths telling us that Judaism will survive to the end
of the world ; they may very possibly be correct.

After all, whether or no Israel secures from the ages
a renewal of her lease that is her own affair. If
Judaism were to die out, the Jew would disappear with
it, and without Jews there would no longer be a Jew-
ish question. We are sure only of this : even if Israel
must perish in the process, she cannot escape " de-na-
tionalisation, " " de-rabbinisation." Is not this change
taking place under our very eyes in the West and in
the East, more rapidly at one point, more slowly at
another? The days of the old Talmudism are num-
bered ; the rabbis whose souls have been fed on the
Ghemara bewail in vain the spirit of the new age.
The West wind is blowing upon Israel, and against
the breath from the West there is in Jacob no power of
resistance.

rv.

However difficult this transformation may seem, it is
actually being effected. It is taking place not only in
the Synagogue and the Talmud-Tora, but also in the
household, the family, the domestic life. ISTot alone is

Tlie Product of Tradition and Law. 143

the religion, the ritual of the Jews becoming c< modern-
ised/' but also their habits, their customs, their ideas,
their entire life. And there the transition does not
meet with the same obstacles as in the interior of the
Synagogue. Though Judaism ma3 T not be allowed to
forget the traditions of its life at Palestine, nor to lose
its old Hebrew character, such is not the case with the
Jewish household. Nothing compels the Hebrew to
remain Oriental ; nothing forces him to preserve habits,
tending to isolate him, a peculiar language or garb, or
civil usages different from those of his non- Jewish
neighbours. In this respect his transformation is espe-
cially significant, and from the social and national point
of view it is the only one that interests us.

Throughout Western Europe, and even in the large
cities of the East, the old Jew with his long caftan and his
long ringlets is becoming transformed into the modern
man. This conversion of the ' Jew ' ' into the c ' Israel-
ite " is apt to be accomplished wherever our laws or our
prejudices place no obstacles in its path. The Jews
are becoming more and more responsive to the influ-
ences of their environment. They are gradually lay-
ing aside what might be called their national customs.

The private practices, the domestic observances which
occupied so large a place in the household of the Ghetto,
are slowly disappearing of their own accord. In cer-
tain countries, in France as well as in England, there
is scarcely anything left of them but a poetical remi-
niscence. To the sincere regret of the lovers of the
picturesque, those old Jewish customs with their
Biblical character, their naive dignity, their touching
legends, their pronounced flavour of the patriarchial life,
are receding into the past and fading away. In order
to meet them again we must repair to some out-of-the-

1 44 Israel A niong the Nations.

wa3' village in Alsace ; before long we shall have to
penetrate deep into Poland. To judge by the rapid prog-
ress of this transformation, we may expect to witness
its final stage before the end of the twentieth century.
The old Jewish family life, saturated with recollections of
the Orient and the Bible, will exist no longer, except-
ing in the stories of Bohemian or Galician authors,
like Kompert or Sacher-Masoch. Israel is undergoing
the common destin}^ ; her salient traits, like those of
other nations, are disappearing beneath the levelling
pressure of modern life.

The astonishing fact is that the Talmud should
have been able to keep Israel immured within her
ritual for fifteen centuries. The Synagogue and the
Kahal would long ago have failed in this undertaking
had not rabbinical separatism been reinforced by Chris-
tian exclusiveness. Those massive walls of Talmud-
ism would have crumbled away beneath the weight
of the ages, had they not been strengthened and, as
it were, buttressed from without, by our canon and
civil laws.

Whenever the Jew seemed about to leave his
Judengasse, we led him back into it. By excluding
him from our society we condemned him to remain
penned up in his own ; by forbidding him to become a
member of our communitj^ of our national life, we
enjoined upon him to remain a man of his own tribe.
The torture of being walled-in is well known ; we have
inflicted it on whole generations of Jews. Both Chris-
tian and Mohammedan laws seemed made on purpose
to preserve Israel as a distinct society or clan, with
every chink between herself and the outer world made
weather-tight by her hereditary customs. On this
point nothing could be more instructive than a study

The Product of Tradition and Law. 145

of the laws of the Middle Ages and of the andcn
regime. The}' show how the fragments of Israel were
kept separate, through all the centuries, from the
Christian nations among whom the}- were scattered.

Hence, those Jews are not wrong who say to us :
4 ' You complain of our exclusiveness, and you have
done your utmost to strengthen and prolong it. Our
rabbis imprisoned us in the Talmud, and you have
barricaded its doors to prevent us from opening them.
For fear of being confounded with us, or of seeing us
mingle with you, you have relegated us to separate
quarters, 3 T ou have foisted on us a distinctive garb and
ignominious signs. Is it, then, astonishing if, pro-
hibited from being citizens in your states or burghers
in your towns, we have been able to be nothing but
Jews, knowing no fatherland but Israel, and no govern-
ment but the Kahal? " l

How has the national spirit been generally created ?
Its birth is commonly due, as we know, to reaction
against the stranger, to the necessity of warding off an
oppressor or a common foe. Now, for centuries, the
attitude of the Christian nations and all the laws en-
acted by them against the Jews have been calculated
to inspire the latter with a national spirit distinctively
Jewish. " Supposing," said Macaulay "that, fora
thousand years, red-haired men had everywhere been
subjected to restrictions and annoyances similar to those
imposed on the Jews ; it is evident that red-haired men

1 The Jewish commune ortlie authority governing the Israel-
itish communities* A great noise has been made about the
Kahal, ever since the book of the orthodox Russian Jew,
Brafmann : Kniga Kagala* I regret not to have been able to
treat this subject in the present work, but hope to take it up
later.

1 46 Israel A mong the Nations.

of all countries would have regarded each other
as fellow-countrymen and brothers, even though of
different blood."

In this respect also the Jew can fairly fling back on
us the blame we cast on him. If he persists, in so
manj' countries, in forming a separate tribe or society,
it is largely because we have forced him to do so. Even
now, when we have given him the key with which to
unlock his Ghetto, do we alwaj-s, of our own accord,
open our doors to him ? Do we Frenchmen, Germans,
Slavs, Hungarians, or Roumanians willingly invite
him to take a seat at our board ? And yet, that which
hinders us from doing so is no longer the lack of a
common medium of conversation, or the regret that we
cannot offer him Kosher food. ' ' Why do you not play
with this little girl ? * * I heard asked of some children
in the Pare Monceau one day. " Because she is a
Jewess, Mamma." On which side is, as a rule, more
exclusiveness displayed ? In the greater portion of Eu-
rope it seems to come from the Christians, rather than
the Jews. The latter are, for the most part, anxious to
associate with us ; they are sometimes importunately
so. That for which we now blame the Jew is not that
he secludes himself in the midst of his own people and
holds aloof from us, but that, on the contrary, he forces
himself upon us, that he obtrudes himself, whether we
will or no, into our company or our social set, forcing
an entrance into our dubs and drawing-rooms ; that he
sends his children to our schools and our colleges, in-
stead of leaving them in the Heder or the Melamed; in
one word, that he overrides all social and worldly bar-
riers which we thought to have erected between him
and ourselves. The walls of the Ghetto have fallen,
but the spirit which created the Ghetto often survives,

TJie Product of Tradition and Law. 147

even among those who believe themselves to be free
from it.

Whence comes this steady and involuntary antipa-
thy ? Has it no other cause than the instinctive sur-
vival of the prejudices of our forefathers? Honestly
speaking, I would not dare to assert this. In order to
account for it we must look more closely at the Jewish
race, whose contact is still distasteful to so many men
of less noble blood ; especial^ as, in order to under-
stand the race well, it is not enough that we should
know of what ethnic or religious elements it is com-
posed. Before deciding what place the modern nations
should assign to the Jews, it will be well to study the
essential traits of the Jewish mind and character. The
investigation will, I think, bring out some interesting
problems in psychology.

CHAPTER VII.

PHYSIOLOGY OF TH^J JEW.

I. Hxtemal Appearance of the Race The Kind of Selection
that has Produced it Demography of the Jews Their
Longevity Their Fecundity Birth- and Death-Rates To
what is the Superiority of the Israelites to he Ascribed ? II.
Alleged Immunities of the Jcv?s The Shekhitah and the
Dietary I,aws Closes and M. Pasteur Vitality of the Race
and the Causes of its Apparent Deterioration Poor Phy-
sique of a I,a.rge Portion of the Jewish R^.ce IJLL. Maladies
and Infirmities Ascribed to the Jews Disproportionate De-
velopment of their Nervous System Causes and Kffects of
their ^ervosity Frequent Lack of Balance between their
Psychic and iluscular Functions Precocity of the Jews ;
its Causes Israel's Civilisation the most Ancient of all.

I.

\V"K have seen the nature of the influences that re-
constituted, in the confinement of the Ghetto, a Jewish
race, the artificial product of the rabbinical code and
of mediaeval laws. I,et us endeavour to outline the
psychology of this race, at once new and old ; and since,
in this century enamoured of scientific formulas, it is no
longer the fashion to separate the soiil from the body,
let us begin with the physiology of the race. The two
are, in fact, closely connected, and each explains the
other.

The Jews bear, not in their bodies only, but in their
souls, traces of the cruelties to which they were sub-

148

Physiology of the Jew. 149

jected for fifteen centuries. They have wiped from
their shoulders the stain of the yellow wheel, but they
have not all been able to wash from their foreheads the
stigmata of the Ghetto. They carry its mark still.
\Ve must remember the life forced upon them and the
training given to them by their Christian and Moslem
masters.

Let us first picture to ourselves the house in which
the Jew was reared. It has already disappeared almost
everywhere. Our children would not be able to recog-
nise the Rue aux Juifs. The last vestiges of the classi-
cal Judengasse in Frankfort have been razed. The
tortuous labyrinth of the Roman Ghetto with its Piazza
Giudea and its Via Rua has crumbled awa} T beneath the
Italian pickaxe, to the great regret of the poor Ebrei.
They had lived there so long ! They had become in-
ured to its infectious streets ! Pius IX., at the time
when he razed its walls, in vain forced upon them, by
ordinance, the right of leaving it. Very few made use
of this right. Many wept on being driven out to make
room for the future wharves of the Tiber ; they could
not find such cheap and sordid quarters in old or new
Rome.

During the last thirty years I have often wandered
through that Ghetto on the left bank of the Tiber.
Its alleys were narrow, dark, fetid ; its high houses
were old, dilapidated, tottering to decay. The acrid
smell of the corner immondeszaio was mingled with
the unsavoury exhalations of the old-clothes shops.
Through the doorways, where women of all ages were
busy mending old rags, might be dimly seen the low,
narrow chambers, almost devoid of light and air, and
swarming with entire families that lived there cooped
up together. The pontifical Ghetto, of comparatively

150 Israel Among the Nations.

recent date, was neither the most repulsive nor the
most unwholesome. Papal Rome had almost invari-
ably taken pride in showing itself hospitable towards
the Hebrews. Its Ghetto would have shamed many a
Jewry of Eastern or Central Europe. Even to-day, in
Russia, at Berditchev or Vilna, there are worse ones to
be found.

Such warrens could not breed a comely race. And,
in truth, the race is neither handsome nor strong,
although it has, in all ages, put forth some pale and
rarely beautiful blossoms, as if to show what the old
trunk of Jacob might have produced had it enjoyed air
and sunshine. The race is not handsome. "Wlrp,"
said to me a young girl of Little-Russia, "do you
trouble yourself about those horrid Jews ? They are
so ugly as to deserve all the evils that befall them."
Montesquieu, in a sarcastic plea in favour of slavery,
said of the negroes : " Their noses are so flat that it is
almost impossible to pity them." I have heard women
of the world make the same remark about the hooked
noses of the Jews. Their ugliness is one of the secret
grievances that set so many women against them. The
race is not strong. The Jew, particularly in the large
Jewries of the East, is often small and puny ; he looks
wretched, sickly, shrunken, and pale. But all this
should not deceive us; under the frail exterior is
concealed an intense vitality. The Jew may be likened
to those lean actresses, the Rachels and Sarak, who
spit blood, and seem to have but a spark of life left,
and yet who, when they have stepped upon the stage,
put forth indomitable strength and energy. Life, with
them, has hidden springs.

There is no race that appears less strong, and none
that can so well resist misfortune. The reason for this

Physiology of the Jew. 151

is tliat in soul as well as in body, morally as well as
physically, the Jew is the product of selection, of a selec-
tion that has lasted two thousand years and has been
the most severe and the most painful which living be-
ings have ever had to undergo. " If there are ranks
in suffering," said one of the race, "Israel takes
precedence of all the nations." 1 All that proved too
weak, bodily and spiritually, was eliminated from the
race, either by death or baptism. Israel was like a
family in which the children, of each successive genera-
tion, were exposed at birth. Hence, the Jew's resist-
ance to misfortune and his capacity for suffering, per-
haps unparalleled in history. But the ordeal was so
long and so relentless that Israel still feels its conse-
quences. It has left many of the race bowed and almost
broken.

If we take into account the strange conditions of life
to which the Jews were so long subjected, we cannot
find it astonishing that they should present certain
peculiarities to the physiologist and the statistician.
The first thing to surprise us is the fact that the Jew
lives longer than the Christian. In spite of his frail
body and look of privation, he seems often to unite
within himself two qualities apparently contradictory :
precocity and longevity. Regarding his longevity
an easier fact to verify there is not the slightest
doubt. His superiority in this respect is so well estab-
lished and so general that, in certain countries, in
America for instance, the Jews are regarded by the
life-insurance companies as especially desirable clients.
Almost everywhere, especially in those countries where
the laws are not such as to render existence intolerable
to them, the average duration of life among the Jews
1 Zunz, Die Synagogal Poesie de$ Mittelalters*

1 5 2 Israel Among the Nations.

is considerably higher than that of the Catholics,
Protestants, or the adherents of the Greek Church.

And this is true not only of the Israelites of France
and of other countries where, as i:i France, the Jews
belong largely to the well-to-do classes. It is true, as
well, of the poor Jews of Germany, Hungary, England,
and Rouniania. 1 And it seems to be also the case with
the American Jews. We have the last official report
from the United States (1890). According to this
American census, the chance of life, taken at the mo-
ment of birth, what the census calls ''expectation of
life,' 1 is said to be fifty-seven years for Hebrew families,
and forty-one years for Christian families, whether
American or English. A young Jew of ten years
would have, on an average, fifty years more to live ; a
Christian of the same age, only thirty-seven years.
Furthermore, contrary to the ordinary rules of statis-
tics, the chance of life, in the case of the Jews, is said
to be greater for males than for females. 5

There ; another fact of equal interest : the Jew
multiplies, as a rule, more quickly than his Christian
neighbours. This also is attested by general experience ;
the rule has few exceptions and they are due to ex-
ceptional circumstances. In spite of the constant losses
which Judaism sustains through sincere conversions
and selfish apostasies, the number of Jews, as we have
already stated, is almost everywhere on the increase,

1 See, for instance, Dr. Gust. I^agneau's Remarques^ apropos
du Denombrement de la Population^ sitr quelques Differences
Demographiqzies Presences par Ics Catholiques, le$ Protestants,
les Israelites. Paris, 1882. Cf. : Non-jean Dictionnaire Univer-
selle de Geographic ^ article Juifs^ by Isidore I^oeb.

5 Census Bulletin (No. 19, December 30, 1890, Washington) :
Vital Statistics of the Jews in the United States, pp. n, 12, and
diagram on p. 21.

Physiology of the Jew. 153

both actually, and in proportion to the number of
Christians. At first sight one might be inclined to
ascribe this to Jewish fecundity. Israel has always
obeyed the command: "Increase and multiply.' 1 It
has been one of the principal elements of her strength.

In the Orient, even in Eastern Europe, wherever
the rabbinical laws and customs are still honoured, the
Jews always consider it their duty to marry young and
to have a numerous offspring. " I am twenty-one
years old and my grandfather thinks it a disgrace that
I am not yet the father of a family," said to me, some
ten } r ears ago, a Jew of Kovno. According to tradi-
tion, peasants waited only till their children had reached
a nubile age to marry them off, and Talmudic casuistry
was not very exacting in regard to the signs of puberty.
Solomon Maimon, the little rabbi-philosopher of the
eighteenth century, married a girl of his own age before
he had attained his eleventh year, and because he had no
children when he was twelve years old, his mother-in-
law suspected him of being in league with a sorceress. 1
There were many households in which the combined
age of husband and wife did not amount to thirty
years. This custom was the means of preserving the
young Jews from libertinism.

Such households of child-spouses, who live with
their parents and are supported by them, are becoming
rare. The hardships of life, military service, and the
influence of modern customs retard the age of marriage
more and more among the Jews as well as the Chris-
tians. Among the Western Jews these early marriages
have gone entirely out of vogue. In this respect again,
Israel feels the influence of our example. As is often

1 Solomon Mcdmorts Biography p , published by R. P. Moritz,
Berlin, 1792-93. Cf. Arvde Barine, Un Juif Polonais*

1 5 4 Israel Among the Nations.

the case with her, in conforming to our habits she goes
even a step farther. Contrary to every tradition and
to all the old rabbinical laws, the majority of European
and American Jews marry later than the Christians.

There is another fact which I could hardly believe :
almost everywhere, at present, the Jews have propor-
tionately fewer children than the non-Jews. To make
up for this, they lose, almost everywhere, a perceptibly
smaller number by death. Consequently, despite her
minority of births, Israel's population increases more
rapidly than that of the Christians. The excess of
births over deaths is greater among the Jews. 2 The
difference is considerable in certain countries, even
where, as in Roumania, the number of resident Jewish
and Christian families is almost equal. 2

In the United States of America the difference in

1 See, for instance, G. Lagneau's -work already quoted. Cf.
Xouveau Dictionnaire de Gographie> article Juifs, by Isidore
I<oeb, and The Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xv.,
(1885-86;, article by J.Jacobs, reprinted under this title : On the
Racial Characteristics of Modem Jews.

9 IMap of births and deaths in Roumania, during three years,
among Israelites and Orthodox :

BIRTHS.

1884

Jews. Orthodox.

...... Q.72Q iS^.OOO

Jews. Orthodox.
4 626 114 300

1885

Q KA<2 IQ7 OOO

5 otfi TT/I onn

1886

0,458 106.000

5. IQ/1 T2A. *OO

According to M. Alexandrini (Shidu Statistics on the district
of Jassy, 1886), the proportion of births to the number of in-
habitants was, in the case of the Roumanian Catholics, 4. 72 per
hundred, and in the case of the Roumanian Jews, 4.47 per
hundred, or a little less ; the proportion of deaths was, in the
case of the former, 3.82 per hundred, and in that of the latter,
2,61 per hundred. The difference is obvious.

Physiology of the Jew. 155

favour of the Israelites is said to be as marked as in
Roumania. 1 This disparity, in favour of the Jews, is
not equal in all countries ; but it exists almost every-
where to a certain extent. The Jews have thus a two-
fold advantage over their fellow-countrymen of different
religions : they multipry more rapidly and with less
waste. They bring fewer children into the world, but
they bring more of them to maturity. It would seem
as if, with their characteristic cleverness at calculations,
the}- had instinctively solved the difficult problem of
population in the manner most advantageous to them-
selves and most satisfactory to the economists.

We are tempted to ascribe this predominance of the
Israelites to the fact that so many of them are well-to-
do. But this explanation is unsatisfactory, since the
poor Jews of England, German}", and Hungary have,
in respect to numbers, the same advantage over their
baptised neighbours. We should not be justified, how-
ever, in regarding their superiority as a racial pheno-
menon of a purely physiological nature ; it is doubtless
due entirely to the difference in customs, to the family
spirit of the Jews, to their devotion as parents, to the
care of the mother for her children, and also to the
chastity of the marriage relation, to the prescriptions
of the I/aw, and to the consideration and respect shown
by the husband for the health of his wife. It is curi-
ous that the "biostatic" privileges of the Jews begin
before birth ; the number of still-born children is much
smaller among the Israelites than among the Christians.
Another fact of similar nature and equally creditable
to the Jews is that there are notably fewer illegitimate
births among them than among the Catholics or the
Protestants ; and this, despite their preference for living
1 Census Bulletin^ No. 19, December, 1890, ibid.

156 Israel Among the Nations*

in cities. Xow, everyone knows that the number of
natural children is incomparably larger in cities than
in the country. In this respect the superiority of the
Jews and of Jewish customs is indisputable. 1

Let us dismiss this subject with a general observa-
tion : it has been noticed that the " biostatic " differ-
ences between the Jews and the Christians diminish
gradually, as we go from East to West, from the
countries where the Jew lives isolated, to those where
he commingles with the other inhabitants. Thus in
America, also, the editors of the Census Bulletins call
attention to the fact that the longer the Jews live in the
United States, the more closely does their average birth-
and death-rate approach the general average of the en-
tire population. In other words, on both sides of the
Atlantic the distinctive peculiarities of the Jew are apt
to diminish in proportion as he assimilates himself to
the surrounding population. The more the Jews adopt
the habits and customs of the Gozm, the less do they
differ from the latter, physically and mentally. If they
were all to be baptised, the statistician would, after two
or three generations, be unable to detect anything pe-
culiar in them. The Law, the Thorn^ is at the bottom

1 A more remarkable fact, and one which some persons have
wished to ascribe to physiological causes combined with the
ritual laws of marital relations, is the enormous preponder-
ance, among the Jews, of male over female births. The dis-
crepancy is sometimes so great that we ask ourselves whether
the Jewish families have not often omitted to register the births
of their daughters. C. I/ombroso in his Le Crime Politique
et les Revolutions (Paris, Alcan, vol. i., p. 149) attributes this
abnormal preponderance to the rarity of illegitimate children
among the Jews. It is known, indeed, that everywhere the
excess of masculine births is more marked in the case of legiti-
mate children. The explanation is, none the less, insufficient.

Physiology of the Jew* 157

of all dissimilarities that exist between tlie Jews and
their neighbours,

II.

In point of fact, the advantages which statistics show
among the Jews are largely the result of their religion
and its rites. If the Israelites had never swerved from
the commandments of the Thora, their superiority to the
Christians the "pork eaters " would be still more
manifest. It has been remarked that in several coun-
tries the Jews seem to possess immunity from certain
infectious diseases. The truth of this fact has been at
times so well proven that it can hardly be denied. The
immunity alluded to seems to us mainly due to the ob-
servances of the Law, and especially of the rules on
bodity and dietary cleanliness. The Law has a prophy-
lactic value for Israel ; we should always recollect
the importance which it assigns to the body. Some
persons of our day would lower Jewish ethics to the
level of a sort of hygiene. Such is assuredly not the
meaning of the Law revealed on Sinai in thunder and
lightning ; but in practice, the Law and the rabbinical
code amount almost to the same. Judaism has made
religion the handmaid of hygiene ; it has utilised piety
for the preservation of health. The Tkora wished to
make of Israel a people that should be healthy and
holy, sanns et sanctus ; in its ej^es these two concep-
tions are closely connected. What Moses gave to the
Hebrew race was a Law of life, of individual and social
life, of physical and moral life. 1

1 " I call heaven and earth to record this day against you,
that I have set before you. life and death, blessing and cursing ;
therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live :

" That thon mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thon may-

158 Israel Among the Nations.

Xo other religion has taken the same precautions
against sickness and epidemics. In this respect, the
prescriptions of the TJwra and the Talmud singularly
resemble those which our medical academies would
like to see enforced by civil laws. The minute regula-
tions prescribed by the Jewish I^aw for the treatment of
all animal flesh destined for human food have long ap-
peared childish. But now, after three thousand years,
our physiologists have come to aid in the vindica-
tion of the Bible. The Thora has science on its side. It
would seeni as if the author of the Pentateuch had had
a presentiment of M. Pasteur. " Moses discovered the
trichinae,' ' said a Polish Jew ; k< that is why he forbade
the eating of pork."

In fact, the majority of animals pronounced unclean
in Leviticus, such as pork, hare, molluscs, and shellfish,
are to-day forbidden in many sicknesses, especially in
skin diseases. Besides, we must take into account the
climate of the East, where afiections of this kind have
always been so frequent. 1

" We might almost assert," said a physician to me,
"that the law-giver of the Hebrews was acquainted

est obey Hs voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him ; for
he is thy life and the length of thy days. . . . " Deuter-
onomy, xxs., 19, 20.

1 likewise in regard to the law for bleeding animals destined
for food ; it is likely to have a prophylactic value, especially in
the Bast, if only for the reason that flesh filled with blood is
much more apt to decompose and to decay than flesh from
which the blood has been drawn. The Archives Israelites
(April, 1892) quote the opinion of K. Vogt on this subject Be-
sides, it is possible that some diseases are transmitted espe-
cially through the blood. It is well-known that, not satisfied
with bleeding their animals, the Jews plunge the meat into salt
water in order to extract all the blood.

Physiology of the Jew. 159

with tuberculosis ; so carefully does he guard against
it. He divined, thirty centuries before us, that con-
sumption may be transmitted by animals to human
beings." It is for this reason that the schochet^ the Is-
raelitish butcher, must discard every animal which, on
being examined after death, shows the slightest adhe-
sion of the pleura ; to test this he inflates, with his
breath, the lungs of the slaughtered animal.

If our slaughter-houses were placed under the super-
vision of the Jewish schochet, there is no doubt that dis-
ease would be less prevalent and that the average dura-
tion of life would be increased. Instead of asking the
Jews to give up their separate slaughter-houses and to
abandon the distinction between kosher and tarefa (clean
and unclean) meat, we should do better to borrow from
them this distinction. 1 Had not the abandonment of
the ceremonies of the Law been essential to the spread
of Christianity, there would be reason to regret that the
controversies in the primitive Church concerning ritual
observances did not conclude with the triumph of the
I^aw and the Jewish-Christians.

Certain medical men, Englishmen as well as Ameri-
cans, have asked their government to constrain its
butchers to adopt, at least partially, the Israelitish
customs. 2 Sanitary progress, it seems, as far as we

1 1 must, however, take some exceptions to their manner of
killing animals. It is, perhaps, not more cruel to cut the
throats of cattle than to kill them with a bludgeon ; but it
should be done more quickly. The Synagogue should endeavour
to conform, in this matter, to our modern humane sentiment,
even though the merit of its principle seems incontestable.
And indeed, this is just what some Jewish communities have
already done in Geneva, for instance.

9 See, notably, an essay by Dr. H. Behrend in The Nineteenth
Century, September, 1889.

1 60 Israel Among the Nations*

Christians are concerned, requires a return to the
practices which the Hebrews adopted two thousand
years ago. Unfortunately, their I^aw is so exacting in
regard to the health and appearance of the animals,
that its exact observance would be difficult in our
slaughter-houses. It would greatly increase the price
of meat and consequent!}- lessen its consumption.
Every wound, every fracture, every trace of sickness,
old or new, is considered sufficient to make the meat
fare/a. The Jewish schachter must discard every
animal that shows the slightest imperfection ; he is,
therefore, obliged to reject a great many, perhaps ten,
twelve, even twenty at a time. Kosher meat, the meat
stamped with the seal of the schochet can never be with-
in everybody's reach ; the masses will probably always
be forced to eat tare/a. *

These dietary laws and the vigilance of the schochet
explain why the Jews are less susceptible to certain
epidemics than their neighbours of other religions,
especially to the parasitical diseases. The law-observ-
ing Jew is obviously less exposed to all the sicknesses
that can be transmitted by animal food. To this must
be added the well-known sobriety of the Jews, their
Oriental self-restraint, which distinguishes them so
conspicuously from the Northern peoples, Slav or Se-
mitic, into the midst of which the eddies of history have
whirled them. The Jew is not a drinker ; the Thora
had no need to forbid wine to him, as does the ELoran

1 1 have heard Jews reproached with selling to Christians this
unclean meat which they, themselves, -would not eat, as though
they did not fear to poison us in offering us rejected animals.
It must not be forgotten that the meat refused by the Israelitish
schachter is, in every respect, like that which our butchers
sell without the slightest compunction.

Physiology of the Jew. 1 6 1

to the Arab. Under whatever sky he may live, to
whatever class he may belong, the Jew is hardly ever
addicted to alcoholism ; and this abstemiousness is of
incalculable benefit to his mind as well as to his body,
for he thereby escapes the most destructive of the
ulcers that are eating into modern races.

If we would take into account all the advantages of
the Jews from a sanitary point of view, we must not
omit the rabbinical laws regarding the bodily purity of
man and woman, and possibly also circumcision.
Despite the risk which the new-born infant may incur
under the knife of the peritomist, circumcision seems
to have a twofold value : it may although this has
not been conclusively proven decrease the chances of
contagion from the most repulsive diseases ; it may
also and this would be no lesser benefit blunt the
desires and weaken the stimulus to carnal-fission. At
any rate, I know Jews who are con-d^^--|jiat such
results are secured, and who, while cai^^flTttle for the
Thora, persist in having their sons circumcised, and in
eating kosher meat, as a matter of hygiene.

The biostatic immunities ascribed to the Jews do not,
however, seem to be as invariable or as universal as
some persons have imagined. Thus, it was believed
for a long time that the Jews of the Middle Ages had
escaped the black plague. This was one of the popu-
lar grievances against them ; they were accused of
giving the plague to others, because it appeared to
attack them less frequently than the Christians. In
all epidemics they were supposed to poison wells and
fountains. To-day we know that the plague did not
always stop'at the threshold of the Jewries. Nor is it
accurate to say, in regard to cholera-epidemics of more
recent years, that the Jews always emerged unscathed.

1 62 Israel Among tJie Nations.

Some discount must be made from these alleged privi-
leges against sickness and death. All Jews do not
enjoj- such privileges, and the fact is due less to the
diversity of their origin than to the difference in their
social conditions.

Let us take tuberculosis, the disease that creates
most havoc in Europe. Although in London, even in
the most squalid dens of Whitechapel, consumption is,
according to medical testimony, less frequent among
the Jews than the Christians, 1 it has been proved that
in Poland and Russia the Jews are often subject to
consumption as well as to scrofulous diseases. Indeed
they seem predisposed to these evils. The Jews of
Lithuania, Poland, and Little-Russia are frequently
characterised by narrow chests. This alone would
suffice to render them liable to consumption. The
Russian councils of revision are well aware of this.
They are obliged j^early to reject as invalids, or to put
off for future examination, a number of Jewish con-
scripts whose chests are not sufficiently developed. 2
And, although I can scarcely credit it, I am informed
by a Russian correspondent that the military regula-
tions have reduced, as far as Jews are concerned, the
chest measure required for admission to the army. It
seems absurd to say that, simply because he is circum-
cised, a man of poor physique should be strong enough
to carry a rifle.

This narrowness of chest must not be ascribed to the
origin of the race or to its Semitic blood ; for the

1 See, for instance, Dr. Behrend in The Nineteenth Century,
September, 1889. The Census Bulletin of America (December,
1890) makes the same remarks in regard to the United States.

9 See D Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iiL, L& Religion,
"book iv., chap. Hi.

Physiology of the Jew. 163

Polish Jews are perhaps less Semitic than any others.
It is mainly due to their social conditions, to their city
life, to the sedentary habits of the majority among
them, and, above all, to their centuries of privation. All
this accounts for the constitutional weakness so often
found in the Eastern and also in the Western Jews.

Their wretched physique is the result of their
wretched living. Their physical strength, their mus-
cular power, has diminished in each generation ; their
blood has become poorer, their stature smaller, their
shoulders and chests narrower. Many Jews of the
large Jewries have an emaciated, pallid look. Many
of them show signs of racial decline and degeneracy.
I have often been struck with this in Galicia, Rou-
mania, Russia, and the Orient ; in Palestine perhaps
more than elsewhere. Those anaemic German Jews
who, after a lapse of eighteen centuries, have returned
to the home of their robust ancestors, reminded me of
the enfeebled sons of old houses, who come back to die
in the dilapidated castles of their fathers.

There are, in every country, many Jews of poor build,
stunted growth, and weak constitution. There is a
singular contrast between the Jew's persistent vitality
and his bodily infirmity. His feebleness often gives
him a somewhat unmanly appearance. He is of frail
bodily structure ; the skeleton and the muscular sys-
tem lack strength. He is wanting in breadth and
squareness ; in many countries he is manifestly unfit
for heavy work. The contrary is true of the English-
man, the Auvergnat, the Piedmontese, the Spanish
GdllegO) all of whom seem constructed for hard work.
The Jew is, moreover, often misshapen ; few races have
so many men who are deformed, disabled, or hunch-
backed, so many who are blind, deaf-mutes, or congen-

1 64 Israel Among tfie Nations.

ital idiots. The reason for this lies not only in their
early marriages and their marriages between near re-
lations, but also, and above all, in their age-long
confinement, their lack of exercise, of pure air and
wholesome nourishment.

For the historian as well as for the geologist, the
present often helps to explain the past ; the action of
slowly working forces manifests itself especially in his-
tory ; and to see these processes in operation, we need
but to turn our gaze from one country to another.
The influences that have moulded the mediaeval Jew,
at once hardening and weakening him, his persecu-
tions, his confinement, his wretchedness, still operate
in Eastern Europe. Even in our day the Eastern Jew-
ries are so poor that the nourishment of their inhabi-
tants is reduced to a minimum. This is especially the
case with the three millions of Russian Jews. Thej r
manage to live under a northern sky upon an amount
of food that would barely suffice in a milder climate.
How is it possible that this should not react upon their
health ? Long ago it was noticed that the Jew of Little-
Russia consumes less food than the Greek Christian or
the Polish Catholic. 1 And his nourishment becomes
less and less substantial, in proportion as the imperial
laws and regulations seem bent on making his
wretched existence still more unendurable.

If the Russian police persists in driving the Jews
back into the Western cities, where there is neither
room nor work left for them, we must not be surprised
to find the death-rate exceed the birth-rate amongst the
Jews of Russia. This seems, in fact, to be the scheme
of the authorities at St. Petersburg and at Moscow, who

1 See P. TchouMnsky's Troudy Etnogr. Statist. Eksped. o
Zapadnorous&ii Krat , south-west section, vol. vii., 2d part.

Physiology of the Jew. 165

are responsible for this whole series of regulations as
extraordinary as the} T are inhuman. It is to a slow
and lingering death that those three or four millions
of the Tsar's subjects are doomed, penned in their
Ghetto, S3 T stematically deprived of air and food, and
far from a sovereign justly beloved for his goodness.
Nothing less than the Jew's power of endurance could
have enabled him to resist so long, and to escape the
death that is waiting to put an end to the sad spectacle
of awful miser}- enacted on the banks of the Niemen
and the Dniester.

When I consider the diet to which, at the end of this
century, so many European Jews are still subjected, I
am not at all astonished at the apparent degeneration
of the race. Men who for centuries have been thus
treated, cannot help becoming small, puny, weak, and
frail ; it would be ridiculous to expect in them jthe
splendid torso of the Greek or the fine bearing of the
Englishman. The Jew's past is responsible for his
good and his evil qualities, for his strength and his
weakness, for all the peculiarities of his physical and
moral being. This is the refrain to which we cannot
but recur. And here there is a distinction to be made
whatever is good in the Jew physically, and perhaps
morally, is due to himself, whatever is bad in him is
due to us ; the former is of his own making, the latter
is our work.

His longevity, his resistance to disease, his immunity
from certain disorders, are a legacy from his ancestors,
and are due to his laws, his customs, and his sobriety.
On the other hand, his feebleness and the defects of
his physical constitution are due to our laws, our
Ghettos, and our system of confinement. So we may
assert that, in this respect also, the Jew is an artificial

1 66 Israel Among the Nations.

product of flesh and blood, fashioned we might almost
say created half by his laws and his rabbis, half by
our laws and our lawyers. The very differences which
we notice to-day between Jew and Jew, between the
Eastern and the Western Israelites, attest this fact.

The race is growing better, physically and morally ;
the Jew is growing stronger and becoming a new man
as the shackles that weighed him down fall from his
limbs.

III.

Popular imagination has, for many years past, im-
puted to the Jew certain strange diseases, as though
there were a secret taint in his blood, apt to manifest
itself in repulsive disorders. This is pure fiction, but
it is still believed in more than one country. The
people, looking upon the Jew as an accursed being,
supposed him smitten with diseases that were to avenge
upon him the Cross of Calvary. From the folk-lore
of our forefathers, especially from those ancient authors
who have given us the Bestiaires of the Middle Ages, we
might extract an entertaining chapter on physiology,
in the ancient and legendary sense of the word^/y^z-
ologos. The legend went so far as to impute to each of
the twelve tribes a particular disease, in order that
each should expiate its special share in the drama of
the Passion. For instance, the tribe of Simeon nailed
Christ to the cross ; and so the descendants of Simeon
are afflicted, four times yearly, with sores on hands
and feet. The tribe of Zabulon disposed by lot of the
garments of Jesus (in the New Testament it is the
Roman soldiers that did so) ; and therefore the descend-
ants of Zabulon have sores on their mouth and spit

Physiology of the Jew. 1 6 7

blood. 1 And so on with the rest of the twelve tribes ;
the men of Asset have right arms shorter than the
left ; the women of the tribe of Joseph, from their
thirt3 T -third year onward, have mouths full of live
worms. And, according to popular superstition, the
sole cure for these diseases is Christian blood. This
was supposed to be one of the reasons why Jews
strangled Christian children.

To the same source may be traced ttefceforjztdaiats
of the Middle Ages, the belief that the Jews had an
especial odour betraying Israelitish blood. 2 I have
indeed met some ill-smelling Jews, but, as in the case
of Christians, this was due simply to their uncleanli-
ness. It was formerly supposed, however, that the
Jews could be distinguished by their offensive odour,
and, since baptism left this peculiarity unchanged, it
was sometimes discovered that this or that high digni-
tary of the Church was of Jewish extraction. A Ger-
man relates that one day a certain pilgrim, after kissing
the slipper of Pope Pius IX., exclaimed on rising:
" He is a Jew." He had recognised the Jew in him
by the odour. " And," adds the narrator, " there are
other persons who have asserted that the Madal were
actually of Jewish stock ; Pius IX. himself is said to
have confided as much to some baptised Israelites/' 3

1 See Isidore I,oeb, Lejuifet VHistoire de la Lgende> Paris,
L. Cerf, 1890.

^^c^fcstorjudaicus^ with ^a&Jitdcsori^nfcstentium of Mar-
cus Aurelius (Ammien Marcellin, xxii. 5), seems to date back
to an error or a malicious trick of a copyist of the Middle
Ages, who, instead of Judcsorum petentium wrote Judcsorum
fetentium* See Is. Loeb, ibidem, according to Joel's Blicke
in die Religionsgeschichte zum Anfange des zweiten Christ^
lichen Jahrhunderts> 2d, part, Breslau, 1883, p. 131.

a Mr. Gustave laeger's Entdeckung derSeele, vol. i., pp. 246-

j 68 Israel Among tJie Nations.

There is one thing, on the other hand, that seems
not to be mythical the Jew is particularly liable to
the disease of our age, neurosis. This fact has been
verified throughout the greater part of Europe as well as
in the United States of America. The Jew is distin-
guished b} r the predominance of his nervous, over his
muscular, system. This may be pronounced the char-
acteristic feature of his constitution. He is far less
muscular than nervous ; he is all nerve, if we may be
permitted this expression. * In nay practice in Paris, ' '
said a French physician to me, u I have often had oc-
casion to notice that, with the Jew, the emotions seem
to be more vivid, the sensibility more intense, the
nervous reactions more rapid and profound." The
Jew is the most nervous of men, perhaps because he
is the most " cerebral," because he has lived most by
ids brain. All his vital sap seems to rise from his
limbs, or Ms trunk, to his head. On the other hand,
his overstrained nervous system is often apt, in the
end, to become disordered or to collapse entirely.

Again, the Jew is particularl}- subject to affections
of the nerve-centres, especially to spinal and cerebral
diseases. 1 The balance between his pS3 T chic and his
digestive functions is frequently overthrown. Insanity
seems more prex^alent among Israelites than among
Christians, whether Catholic or Protestant. The ratio
against the Jews is in some countries two to one ; in
others three to one. 8 This fact is all the more strik-

248 (1884). Cf. Revue des Efaides Juives, October and De-
cember, 1890, p. 314.

*See, for instance, the American Census Bulletin^ No. 19,
December, 1890, p. 15.

*In Russia and Denmark the number of Jewish lunatics is
said to be twice as large as that of the Christians : in Bavaria,

Physiology of the Jew. 169

ing because, as we have already said, the Jew's sobriety
generalh T preserves him from alcoholism, one of the
vices which contribute most to mental derangement. 1
It is well known that the increase of cerebral dis-
eases and the exacerbation of nervous disorders is one
of the distinctive marks of our age and our civilisation.
It is due to the feverish intensity of modern life, which,
by multiplying our sensations and efforts, overstrains
the nerves and rends the delicate network of the
cerebral fibres. The Jew is the most nervous and, in
so far, the most modern of men. He is, by the very
nature of his diseases, the forerunner, as it were, of
his contemporaries, preceding them on that perilous
path upon which society is urged by the excesses of
its intellectual and emotional life, and by the increas-
ing spur of competition. The noisy army of psycho-
pathies and neuropathies is gaining so many recruits
among us that it will not take the Christians long to
catch up with the Jews in this respect. Here, again,
there are probably no ethnic forces in operation.

three times as large (Bulletin of the Anthropological Society,
November 6, 1884, pp. 698-700.) Cf. for epileptic lunatics
Enrico Morsilli's Intorno al Numero e alia Distribuzione
Geografica delle Frenopatie in Italia^ p. 77 (Milan, 1886). But
the opinion of the Italian alienist on the prevalence of epilepsy
among the Jews is contradicted by the observations of French
specialists. This decision was the result of a discussion in our
Academy of Medicine (September 8, 1891)*

1 C. lyombroso's L'Homme de Genie has an explanation for
this in comformity with his theory on the relationship between
genius and lunacy, considered as, in some sort, complementary
to each other. There are, according to him, more lunatics or
more persons afflicted with neurasthenia among the Jews,
because there are more men of talent among them. Cf. J.
Jacobs's The Comparative Distribution of Jewish Ability
(I^ndon, Harrison, 1886).

1 70 Israel Among the Nations.

Xeither to his Oriental origin nor to his bodily con-
formation would it be right to ascribe this predomi-
nance, this exaggeration, of the Jew's nervous system ;
it is but another result of his mode of life for centuries
past, of the conditions that hare governed his exist-
ence, of his urban and sedentary life, of his lack of
ph3*sical exercise, of the enfeebling of his muscular
S3 T stem, and the excitement and worries connected with
the occupations followed by his ancestors. For centu-
ries he has owed his existence less to his hands than to
his brains. No other human being has had so severely
to tax his ingenuity in order to subsist. Even to this
day, in certain districts of Russia, for example, it is
only by a miracle of will-power and industry that he
can manage to eke out his wretched existence. Side
by side with the nervous diseases that affect Israel may
be placed diabetes, the prevalence of which among the
Jews has already been noted by Bouchardat. 1 This pre-
disposition of the Jews to all these diseases, is ascribed
by medical authorities to their way of living, to their
residence in towns, and to the nature of their occupa-
tions and anxieties. 3

1 See amongst others, Demange*s article, Diabetes (Diction-
naire EncyclopBdique des Sciences Mdicales}. It must, how-
ever, be said that even this has been disputed in the Academy
of Medicine (September 8, 1891), by Dr. Germain Se"e.

2 Arthritism, with its ever-varying manifestations, is another
disease very common with the Jews. It has often been said that
they are more liable than other men to skin diseases ; Dr.
Hardy inclined to this opinion, especially in regard to eczema
(Medical Bulletin, Sept. 16, 1891). To be quite exact I shall
mention the following facts, pointed out by Dr. G. I/agnean.
Jewish women are said to be hardly ever afflicted with goitre ;
thus, the Medical Society of Metz gave out this question in
one of its competitive examinations of 1880 : " Why are Jew-

Physiology of t fie Jew. 171

One of the qualities that appear to characterise the
Jews and Jewesses of many lands, is their precocity.
Although we may question the rapidity of their physi-
cal development in too many cases arrested bj r un-
wholesome diet and insufficient nourishment, it would
be difficult to deny the rapidity of their mental growth.
Every one of us has had occasion to notice this pre-
cocity of the Jewish mind ; as for myself, I have often
been struck with it. It probably has its share in the
success that attends Jewish boys and girls in all the
schools and colleges that we open to them. We all
know how many laurels these puny athletes carry off
in the modest arena of scholastic competition. Al-
though they may rarel} T win a prize in our intercol-
legiate athletic contests, they are, on every field in
Europe, amongst the swiftest runners in the races for
classic honours. I have heard Germans urge this
intellectual precocity of the Jews as a reason for de-
barring their children from the schools and colleges
attended by other children. "The struggle," they
said, "between the sons of the North, the pale Ger-
mans with their blond hair and sluggish intellects, and

ish women exempt from goitre?" Messrs. Javal and Wecker
have indicated, among the Jews, an astigmatism contrary to
the rules, the horizontal meridian of the cornea presenting the
maximum of curvature. (Wecker, Sur V Astigmatisms dans
ses Rapports avec la Conformation des Os du Crane .- Bulletin
de la Sodet^ d'Antkropologie,5wm 15, 1869, pp. 545-547. Cf*
Hovelacque and nerve*, Precis $ } Anthropologie > p. 309, 1887.)
According to M. Herv6 there is a frequency of lachrymal tu-
mours among the Jews, due to the narrowness of their nasal
canal (Bulletin of the Anthropological Society, Dec. 20, 1883,
p. 915). This astigmatism, sui generis, and this prediposition
to lachrymal tumour supposing them to be thoroughly proved
might even be ascribed to their anatomical conformation.

172 Israel Among the Nations.

these sons of tlie Orient with their black eyes and alert
minds, is an unequal one."

To what shall we ascribe this premature develop-
ment, this rapid unfolding, of the Jewish intellect?
Solely to the race, to its Oriental blood ? Is it not due
as much, and even more, to its past training, to the
process of selection through many centuries, to the
prolongation and bitterness of the struggle for exist-
ence through which a hundred successive generations
have been forced to pass? Scorned, insulted, scoffed
at, beaten from his earliest infancy, the little Jew
learned at a tender age to reflect, to observe, and to be
on his guard. The premature development of his in-
tellect is due, in many cases, simply to his premature
acquaintance with suffering. He acquired more quickly,
and paid more dearly for his experience of life's hard-
ships. His childhood was stunted, his youth was
short. The hour of cares and struggles was sounded
earlier, and the age of lingering dreams and vague
yearnings was sooner over for him than for others,

I have often noticed the pensiveness of the Jewish
face ; it is one of the characteristics of the race. 1 The
Jew's soul, like his body, has but a brief youth. As
we go eastward this fact strikes us more and more
forcibly. "The Jew is early withered by life," says
even their historian Graetz. This is true. His youth
has, in many cases, lost its bloom ; his drawn features,
old before their age, have a wasted look ; his brow is

1 This, I am assured, Is discernible in the photographs of
the Jewish type, taken in an Israelitish school in London, by
Dr. Galton, according to his method of individual pictures
united in a "composite" picture. Cf. Jos. Jacobs, On the
Racial Characteristics of the Modern Jews, I^ndon, Harrison,
1885, p. 51.

Physiology of tJie j^w. 1 73

furrowed with premature wrinkles ; one might almost
say that the Jew is born old ; his glance, so piercing
and intense, has frequently an oldish expression.
There seems to be an air of deca} T about his person, as
about the houses of the Judengasse. In speaking of
the Jews one is always tempted to say: "Those old
Jews ' ' ; 3'outh does not appear to sit well on them. In
certain eastern countries, well on towards Asia, there
seems to be a disposition to den}' them the right of be-
ing 3'oung ; if, by chance, they dare to indulge in the
noisy games of bo3 T hood, people are shocked and com-
plaint is made of their turbulence, or, if need be, of
their insolence. The pranks and pleasures of 3 r outh
seem so ill-suited to them that an impulse is felt to
prohibit such outbreaks.

The truth is that the Jew belongs to an old race ;
his tastes, passions, character, disposition everything
about him is subtly touched with this antiquity.
Whether or no he has descended from the patriarchs
buried in the cave of Mamre, the Jew is part of a very
old family ; he has a long line of ancestors behind him.
He, alone, can, without exceeding the limits of proba-
bility, trace his genealogy back through the ages, to
prehistoric times. As compared with the Jew, the
oldest peoples of ancient Europe are still in their ado-
lescence. Which of our dynasties or our feudal families
would dare to compare itself in age to the house of
Israel ? And this age is not a matter of years only, for
Israel is an old race mainly by virtue of the antiquity
of her civilisation. The training of the mind, the care-
ful cultivation of the intellect, was begun ages ago for
the sons of Jacob, in Jerusalem, Babylon, and Alexan-
dria. If we would regard the Jews as a race, the chief
fact concerning them is, probably, that this race has the

1 74 Israel A mong the Nations.

oldest civilisation of our Mediterranean world. Its
civilisation dates farthest back, and has, at the same
time, experienced the least interruption. For a human
family, twenty centuries is a long stretch of time. What
is the lineage of the heirs of our old bourgeois families
or of the descendants of the Crusaders, as compared
with that of the I^evys, descendants of the Levites, or
of the many Cahens, Cohens, Kohns, Kahns, and
Cohns whose authentic ancestors, the Cohanim of the
Temple, made their burnt-offering of spices to the Eter-
nal, on the altar of incense, before they went to discuss
the origin of the world, in the shadow of the Tower of
Babel, with the Chaldean soothsayers and the Iranian
magi.

Next to the selection that has been in operation for
centuries, it is, in my opinion, the antiquity and the
continuity of their civilisation that throws some light
upon the Jews themselves and 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 Thora before our I/atin alphabet had
reached its final form, long before Cyrillus and Meth-
odus 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 civilisation 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 un-
barred than they easily caught up with us, even on
those paths which we had opened up without their aid.

It is said that families, nations, races, are bound to
exhaust themselves. The Jew is a proof to the con-
trary, at least in regard to intellect Though his

Physiology of the ^ew. 175

blood may, at times, seem impoverished, his appearance
old, and his body wasted, even stunted and vitiated, yet
his mind is always alert ; old it may be, bj* antiquity
of culture, but never in the least decrepit or senile.
And even when the Jew's body appears to us broken and
degraded, this is less the result of years than of suffer-
ing. In looking at the pale Jews of certain eastern
and Oriental towns, those Jews, for example, who live
on the shores of the lake whence the fishermen set out
who have taken the world in their nets, we might say
that Israel was an exhausted race. Its degeneration
seems to include the soul as well as the body. But
even in these bloodless and degraded Jews there abides
a secret vitality, a marvellous power of recuperation
and rejuvenation. There is sap in them still, and, to
convince ourselves of this, it is often sufficient to trans-
plant them from the poor soil of the eastern Jewries to
the rich land of the West.

CHAPTER VIII.

PSYCHOLOGY OF THE JEW.

I. His Intelligence His Ruling faculty, the Faculty of
Adaptation and Assimilation Qualities Inherited from his
Two Ancestors, the Money-Changer and the Rabbi The
Lucidity, Precision, and Pliancy of his Mind How Study
has ever been Honoured by the Jews With them Education
was Compulsory The Gymnastic of the Talmud II. The
Jew's Character Why his Soul is often Inferior to his
Intellect How, from a Moral Point of View, his Extreme
Suppleness Becomes a Defect Age-long Debasement of the
Jew How his Conscience sometimes Became Warped
Why the Sense of Honour is more rarely Found in him
The Education Given him by the Centuries Frequent Re-
tention of the Impress of his Ancestors' Occupations
His Family Virtues His Good and Bad Qualities are alike
largely Contributory to his Successes III. As Regards
Character also, the Jew is Tending towards a Transforma-
tion Parvenu Traits among the Jews The Degradation
of the Race by no Means Irretrievable.

I.

IN the case of the Jew the development of the mind
has outstripped that of the body. I do not know a
more intellectual race. The Jew lives mainly by his
head. His strength lies less in his arms than in his
brain. We reproach him for not always supporting
himself by the labour of his hands ; but he would
often be at a loss to do so, since he has rarely muscle

Psychology of the Jew. 177

enough. On the other hand, he has force enough iu his
brain to make up for the weakness of his body. In his
feeble frame there reside frequently a lucid mind and
a strong will. Contrary to the ancient Greek and the
modern Englishman, the Jew's superiority does not con-
sist of a nice balance between body and soul. Xo other
race has so often proved the fallacy of the mens sana
in corpore sano.

likewise, and for the same reasons, the animal life
of the Jew seems reduced to a minimum. By virtue of
his physical constitution and also of the antiquity of his
culture, the animal instincts, the grosser appetites, are
in his case less powerful and less imperious. His bodily
wants are fewer ; their tyranny weaker. His flesh and
blood are less disposed to rebel against his spirit ; his
senses are more easily ruled b} T his reason. No race is
so little carnal.

The Jew's mind is more vigorous than his bod3\
That which has enfeebled the one, has often strength-
ened the other. The long and terrible ordeal which im-
paired his physical powers and weakened his muscles,
gave tone to his intellect and edge to his mind. His
mental mechanism gained in strength and flexibility.
His intellect, especially, was made at once firm and
supple. Tempered by the persecutions of fifteen cen-
turies, it became a hard and ductile metal, yielding and
yet resisting ; it is, as it were, unbreakable.

It has been said that the Jew is everywhere easily
acclimated. This is even more true of his mind than of
his body, for although we find him living in the most
different latitudes, we cannot always exactly say at the
cost of what bodily sufferings. There can, however,
be no doubt with regard to his moral acclimatisation ;
that is accomplished with wonderful rapidity. He is

j 78 Israel Among the Nations.

able to adapt himself to any environment. This is all
the more surprising from the fact that his origin, his
traditions, his confined habits, would seem to make
him the least malleable and changeable of human beings.
But he is so only on the surface, or, to put it more
accurately, in the mysterious depths of his innermost
nature. Observe him in his Ghetto or in the Jewries
of the East; he is of all men the most completely
governed by habit ; he seems petrified in his rites and
mummified in his practices, a sort of living fossil.
Strip him of his traditional covering, place him in a
different country or in different environment, and
he will become more capable of assimilation, more
open to change and progress than any other man.
There is in even- Jew a secret power of metamorphosis
which has often amazed me. He is able to undergo
any transformation while scarcely ever losing the im-
press of his race, just as he preserves on his body the
mark of his religion. He has the remarkable faculty of
taking on a new skin, without at bottom ceasing to be a
Jew. He is thus the man who modifies himself most,
and yet changes least. In this respect he is, perhaps,
unique. There is something Protean in him. The
ease with which he transforms himself borders on the
miraculous. He is like a metal in constant state of
fusion ; he may be cast into any mould and is able to
assume any shape, without changing his substance,

This is especially noticeable in the West, where his fac-
ulties have free play ; hardly more than one or two gen-
erations are necessary to transform the most greasy, the
most bigoted Oriental Jew into an Occidental, a Parisian.
Beneath an exterior that often seems dull, he has the
nimblest mind that I know. He adapts and assimilates
himself to everything. This is his ruling faculty, as

Psychology of the Jew. 1 79

M. Taine would say. Were he to be removed to another
planet, he would soon feel himself at home there. This
power of adaptation is of great consequence in all things ;
these insignificant Jews, to whom freedom is a recent
gift, largely owe to it the place which they already
occupy in the world. The Jew adapts himself to every-
thing ; he is fit for even- thing ; he feels at ease every-
where, consequently he succeeds in everything.

The centuries have trained him to this nimbleness
of mind, this intellectual agility. Everything has con-
tributed to it ; his historic education, the persecutions
and the humiliations to which he has been subjected,
the occupations forced upon him, the various civilisa-
tions and countries through which he has passed. Xo
other race has been trained in such mental gymnastics.
The Jews are like those poor children whose limbs have
been broken and whose bones have been dislocated in
all possible feats of agility ; they can take with ease
the most marvellous flights, the most perilous leaps,
always landing upon their feet.

There is another characteristic of the Jewish mind :
its lucidity, distinctness, clearness, accuracy. The
Jewish intellect is a faultless^ exact piece of mechan-
ism ; it is as nicely adjusted as a pair of scales. Here
again, the explanation is simple ; it is furnished by the
life of his ancestors, by the habits and aptitudes im-
planted in him by the occupations in which they were
engaged for eighteen hundred years. Every man's
ancestors live again in him ; our souls and our minds,
no less than our bodies, are subject to the laws of
heredity. We must remember the ancestors of the
modern Jew. We need but consider them to understand
"him fully.

Never was son better interpreted by his fathers.

i So Israel Among the Nations.

Both the good and the evil qualities of the modern
Jews are rooted in the bosom of the old mediaeval Jews.
Let us cast a glance at those far-off ancestors. The
Jew's genealogy is indeed easily traced ; he has no
need to examine the archives of his Ghettos. We
know who were his forefathers ; with one of them we
are but too well acquainted ; it is the pawnbroker, the
money-lender, the dealer in second-hand goods, the
huckster, the old-clothes man, the usurer, the stock-
jobber, always the same, under diverse names and
garbs, for fifty generations. Such is, for most of us,
the great ancestor from whom all modern Jews, be they
beggars or millionaires, uneducated or refined, have
descended. We shall see before long that he is not the
only one ; but he is the best known, the principal
ancestor, if you will. The Jew of to-day resembles him
strongly, in intellect as well as in character.

From this long line of forefathers engrossed in barter,
traffic, calculation and figuring, the Jew has received
his mental precision, his clearness of vision, his habit
of taking nothing at its face value. The Jewish
merchant is not easily taken in by words or good
appearances. His eyes are used to measuring, his
hands to weighing. He distrusts and dislikes approxi-
mations. Observe the money-changer as he handles
the gold pieces. He examines the metal and the stamp,
he listens to their ring, verifies their weight, satisfies
himself that the edges are not worn or chipped. Ob-
serve the dealer in precious stones, who pursues a voca-
tion likewise long followed by the Jews ; see how he
turns the diamonds and rubies over and over, looking
at them from all sides, bringing them close to his eyes
and then holding them far off, letting both daylight
and lamplight shine through them, while he tries to

PsycJwlogy of the Jew. 1 8 1

estimate their size, transparency, brilliancy, and purity.
In this manner does the Jew handle things and ideas ;
he appraises everything at its correct worth ; he is
careful not to be carried away. This spirit of exact-
ness is always displayed by the Jew 3 in his private as
well as in his business life, in his scientific work as
well as in his commercial undertakings. It is one of
the secrets of his strength. Above all other men, he
likes and comprehends realities.

As he has learnt to value things, so has he learnt to
understand men. He has seen so many of them, of
all ages and conditions, in the market-place, or in the
counting-house of his forefather, the money-changer,
or gliding furtively at nightfall through the low door-
way of his grandsire, the pawnbroker. He has known
them all, small and great, rich and poor, the gambler,
the ambitious man, the prodigal, the miser, the profli-
gate, the man of frank and open character; he has
observed them, at his ease, in their moments of trans-
port, trouble, anguish, when all disguise is thrown off.
Young and old, nobleman and commoner, burgher and
peasant, all came to borrow from him ; for centuries he
was able to gauge them at leisure ; were they not all
clients of Israel? Indeed, the Jew has an instinctive
knowledge of men ; he knows how to take them and
how to cajole them. From his ancestors, the stock-
jobber and the middleman, he has inherited an in-
sinuating and flattering tongue, a merchant's clever-
ness, as well as his art of displaying his wares to
advantage and of attracting customers. In the art
of getting on, the Jew has no equal. He knows that
time has, in reality, no forelock, and no one is so
nimble in the pursuit of fortune or so clever in holding
fast to it. He is need we say it the keenest hunts-

1 82 Israel Among the Nations.

man in tlie chase after florins and ducats. We, our-
selves, have trained him to this. He has been reared
to it as is an English hound to fox-hunting. There is
no need of dwelling longer on this aptitude peculiar to
the race. We are familiar with it, we are even in
danger of exaggerating its importance. \Ve are apt
to picture the Jew to ourselves most frequently under
this aspect of trader, of money-getter, because it is this
side which he generally turns toward us. But we
must be careful not to imagine that the Jew is, or ever
has been, a money-maker and nothing more.

The money-changer, the broker, the second-hand
dealer, the usurer, are by no means the only ancestors
of the modern Jew. He has another, less familiar to
us, but to whom he bears as great a resemblance. It
would be unjust to overlook this ancestor, for he em-
bodies Israel's traditions and her true spirit, while the
other, the monej^-dealer, represents only the trades
which we ourselves have forced upon the Jew. This
forefather, the oldest and most beloved by Israel, is the
rabbi, the sage, the Talmudist. ,It is not true that
for twenty centuries Israel's soul was absorbed in
banking and speculation. The traffic in gold was for
a long time but a means of subsistence for the Jews,
the only one permitted to them. It was not the publi-
can nor the financier whom the sons of Israel honoured
and aspired to emulate ; it was the rabbi, the interpre-
ter of the law, the scribe, the scholar, the Hakham.
Israel was a nation of students before she became a
nation of money-makers. She has always remembered
this. The Jew has had a twofold education, two entirely
different teachers whose lessons he learned simul-
taneously. While, in the hands of the money-changer
and the broker, he was being trained to precise calcu-

Psychology of the Jew. 183

lations, to a practical sense, to the knowledge of men
and things, tinder the guidance of the rabbi, the Hak-
ham, he acquired the habit of theoretical speculation, of
intellectual study, of scientific abstraction. These two
warring tendencies in human life thus met and became,
as it were, blended in Israel. Of the two directions in
which man's activity is tempted to spend itself, the one
most prized by the select of Israel, most sought after
by this race apparently given over to material cares,
was invariably the spiritual one. In the old Jewries
the banker has ever been less esteemed than the scholar,
the mone3 r -changer less than the student. If such is
not now the rule, it is because, through our influence,
Israel has fallen away from her traditions.

Even as late as the eighteenth century, the highest
ambition of the Polish Jews was to add a learned
Hakham to their family. The competition to secure
promising young rabbis for their daughters was so
keen that money was offered. There was something
like a traffic in these budding scholars. Their parents
put them up at auction, as it were, and shrewd fathers,
such, as Solomon Maimon's, sold only to the highest
bidder. 1 At the age of eleven Solomon Maimon, the
grandson of the I/ithuanian inn-keeper, had already
had several offers. The young doctor continued his
studies in his wife's family. Even in Berlin, the
daughter of a rich banker fell in love with Moses
Mendelssohn, the son of the copyist of the Tfiora,
merely because of his reputation as a scholar. The
Jew has an admiration for science. From the time of
the edict of Cyrus to the Sanhedrim of Napoleon, this

1 Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichie^ edited by R. P.
Moritz, Berlin 1792-93. Cf, Graetz, Geschichte der
vol. xi., pp. 142-149.

1 84 Israel Among the Nation*

has been one of the most marked and most constant
traits of Judaism. Whether among the Sophcrim of
Palestine or the Amoraim of Babylon, the teacher of
the Law was the national type of Israel, the man in
whom Israel gloried. This idea runs not only through
the Talmud, but pervades the Old and New Testa-
ments.

learning was, for two thousand years, the sole claim
to distinction recognised by Israel. To the scholar were
accorded all the honours. "The scholar," says the
Talmud, "takes precedence over the king ; the learned
bastard over the ignorant high-priest. 1 ' ' What a con-
trast to this is afforded by our Western barbarians, the
Franks, the Goths, and the Lombards. Israel remained
faithful to this precept throughout all her humiliations.
Whenever, in Christian or Moslem lands, a hostile hand
closed her schools, the rabbis crossed the seas to reopen
their academies in a distant country. Like the legen-
dary wandering Jew, the flickering torch of Jewish
science thus passed from East to West, from Xorth to
South, changing every two or three hundred years from
one country to another. Whenever a royal edict com-
manded them to vacate, within three months, the coun-
try in which their fathers had been buried or their sons
had been born, the treasure which the Jews were most
anxious to carry away with them was their books.
Among all the auto-da-fes which the daughter of Zion
has had to witness, none has cost her such bitter tears
as those flames which, during the Middle Ages, greed-
ily consumed the scrolls of the Talmud. And even at
the present time the saddest time the Jews have
known since Torquemada wrested the decision against
them from the conquerors of Granada, among all the
1 Treatise Horaioth^ iii,

Psy etiology of the Jew. 185

laws that sweep down upon them from St. Petersburg
and Moscow, those which they find hardest to bear are
the regulations that block their entrance to the Russian
universities. 1

But, to return to the Jew's ancestors. I^et us con-
sider who were these scholars and what was their
science. The rabbi and the Hakham were no closet-
students, shut up in their academies or schools, sepa-
rated from the bulk of their co-religionists, and honoured
by their people in proportion to the inability of the
people to understand them. Not at all ; they were at
all times in close and intimate relation with the great
body of Israel ; it is really they who formed her spirit
and moulded her mind. They were truly her guides
and counsellors, her masters and chiefs. Israel' s whole
soul became imbued with their teachings, taking an
eager interest in the disputes between the rival schools.
It might be said that almost every Jew was more or
less of a scholar, more or less learned. The entirely
illiterate Jew, Pinalfabeto^ as the Italians saj r , has al-
ways been rare. Education was always compulsory in
Israel. The Jewish laymen, unlike those among the
Christians, never left all learning to the clergy. Such
a division would have been contrary to the spirit of
Judaism. Every Israelite is, in a certain sense, a
priest ; every Jew is obliged to study the Thora* All
that has been said, in this respect, as to the Refor-
mation and the reading of the Bible by the Protes-
tants, is still more pertinent to the Jews and Judaism.

It is for this reason that the Synagogue called itself

the school. This was the case with our Avignon Jews.

The Polish Jews still say Schule^ and the Italian Jews la

1 See IS Empire des Tsars et les Itusses, vol. iiL, book iv.

chap, iii

1 8 6 Israel A mong the Nations.

sawla. For generations the children at least
who attended the heder were taught, from the age of
four or five, to read in the Talmud. Even to this day,
wherever Jewish tradition survives in the life of the
people, many Hebrew artisans or merchants keep, in
their back-shop, some Talmudic treatise, which they
study behind closed doors, at night, after having set-
tled their accounts. In many cities of eastern Europe,
at Vilna, Berditcheff, Warsaw, Brod, and Jassy, the
Jewish working-men assemble in their klausen, or
cells, to study and meditate upon the Law. Instead of
meeting in grog-shops or joining some band or singing
society, as men of their class do elsewhere, these Jewish
artisans establish the hebroth for the study of the Thora.
Each hebra has its maggtd j or reader, whom it maintains
at its own expense. Throughout the East we find
many of these doctors of various degrees, maggid^ talmid^
hakham, many of whom, like the rabbis of old, live by
the labour of their hands. 1

To be sure, this Talmudic learning seems useless.
It seems a barren knowledge of words and formulas, a
S} T stem of idle and hollow dialectics, childish in some
respects, and in others senile. They appear almost
pathetically ludicrous to us, those little Polish rabbis
of eleven or twelve, who, in the presence of their admir-
ing co-religionists, maintained all manner of theses on
the most bizarre points of Talmudic casuistry. Useless
and trifling though it may have been in its teachings,
this science was by no means always so in its effects
on the mind, to which it gave form and fineness. This
pedantic instruction of the Talmud-Tora or the Mel-
amed may be compared to the Latin orations and other

1 See V Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iii. : La Reli-
gion> book iv., chap. iiL

Psychology of the Jew. 187

useless exercises in our colleges. That which is apt
to be worthless for practical life is often of greatest
benefit to the intellect. For centuries the Ghemara
trained the mind of Israel to acrobatic feats which
greatly increased its agility. The Talmud, too, which
seemed to put the Jewish mind in a strait-jacket, helped
to make it limber.

It has often been said that theology is a mental train-
ing-school. From Talleyrand to Renan diplomats or
scholars all who have gone through theological semi-
naries have emerged from them with quicker and
subtler minds. The scientific pre-eminence of Ger-
many, as has been frequently remarked, is largely due
to the German faculties of theology. The science of
divinity is perhaps that which puts the finest point on
the mind. This is as true of the Jews as of the Chris-
tians. The discussions of the halakhot^ the distinc-
tions and comparisons drawn between the various
opinions of the tanaim, the over-subtleties, even, of the
rabbinical dialectics, tended to whet the Jewish mind.
As late as the last century, during the age of decadence
and formalism, when the system of Pilpoul^ or " pepper-
corns," obtained in the Polish communities, the teach-
ings of the rabbis continued their work of giving edge
to the intellect of Israel.

The Jew's mind, as well as his body, was thus
moulded by the Talmud. For the Mishna is not only
a theological treatise, but also, and to a still greater
extent, a Corpus Juris, and the Ghemara is a com-
mentary of the Law, Now, the study of the Law is
another mental grindstone; and indeed, the Jew's
mind is as keen as a newly sharpened blade. Instead
of wandering off into empty abstractions, the shrewd
expounders of the Ghemara dwelt rather on concrete,

i SS Israel Among the Nations.

practical questions, on the rules of living and the
observances of the Law. At the same time the Hag-
gada, the legendary portion of the Talmud, stimulated
Israel's imagination. But this was not all ; the rab-
binical studies covered a remarkably large field. I
know of no branch of knowledge or rudiment of science
which was not touched upon in the Jewish schools.
We must not look -with scorn on those old, mediaeval
rabbis with their foreign names. Few of our scholars
have possessed so broad a culture, perhaps to none of our
Sorbonne doctors was there disclosed so wide a mental
horizon from so many different points of vantage. The
rabbi was no priest ; properly speaking, Israel has had
no priests since the fall of the Temple. The rabbi was
a scholar, at once a theologian and jurist. He was
even more ; he was also a physician, by virtue of his
study of the Talmud, in which medicine and physiology
occupy a large place. 1

We know how greatly in demand were the Jewish
physicians of the Middle Ages ; they were almost all
rabbis, and almost all the rabbis were physicians. The
rabbi was also a mathematician and an astrologer, like
Abraham ben Ezra ; and this was likewise due to the
Talmud and the religious laws, which had to understand
the course of the stars in order to determine the feast
days and the calendar. In addition to this, the rabbis
were almost invariably polyglots and travellers, familiar
with many tongues and with many peoples. Compelled
to study dead languages and to decipher ancient texts,
they were necessarily grammarians and, to a certain
degree, philologists. Many of them were mighty trans-
lators before the Lord. So it was that the Jew became

1 See, for instance, Dr. Rabbino^icz's La MMecine du Tal-
mud.

Psychology of tfie Jew. 189

tlie common carrier of ideas between Asia and Europe,
between the Mussulman and the Christian, between
the philosophy and science of the ancient world and
the scholasticism of the Middle Ages.

The learned Jew, the rabbi-physician, was, espe-
ciall}" among the Spanish judios, common!}' also a
poet-philosopher. This was the case with most of the
great rabbis of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the
golden age of Jewish science and literature. For in-
stance, with Rabbi Salomon Ibn Gabirol, the author of
Fons Vita, known to our scholiasts as Avicebron, the
Arabian, the reviewer of Hebrew poetry and the re-
storer of philosophy in Europe. Al so with Rabbi Jehuda
Halevy, the physician of Toledo and the pilgrim from
Palestine, the philosopher of the Khosari and the
author of the Songs of Zion^ whose Hebrew verses on
Jerusalem still move Israel to tears ; Jehuda Halevy* &
great poet, extolled by Heine as: "A poet by the
grace of God." * And with Maimonides, the greatest
of all, Moses ben Maimon, the second Moses, born in
Cordova, reared in Moscow, buried in Tiberias, a mer-
chant for a short time during his youth, physician to
the Sultan at Cairo, prince or nagid of the Egyptian
Jews ; Maimonides, Israel's great metaphysician, the
legislator and codifier of Judaism.

Seldom has the human plant, if I may borrow
Alfieri's expression, had richer sap or thrust its
branches more vigorously forth in every direction ; but
its period of bloom was brief. The Jewish intellect
was placed in the confined air of the Ghetto, or rather,
like the trees which the Chinese amuse themselves by

1 la, er ward ein grosser Dichter,

Stern und Fackel seiner Zeit . . .
Heinrich Heine : Jehuda ben Halevy ; Romanzero.

1 90 Israel A mong the Nations.

growing in tiny pots, it was forced into a narrow re-
ceptable where its roots lacked earth. Xo wonder it
was dwarfed 1 But to see it spread and branch freely,
it is only necessary to set it out in open soil.

We marvel often at the varied talents of the Jews,
at their singular power of assimilation, at the quick-
ness with which they appropriate our knowledge and
our ways. But this should not astonish us, since they
have been trained to it by their past, by two thousand
years of mental exercise. In approaching our sciences
they are not venturing upon strange ground, but are
re-entering a land already explored by their ancestors.
The past centuries have not only equipped Israel for
the battles on the Stock Exchange and the race for
wealth, they have also armed her for the warfare of
science and the conquest of thought. The cumber-
some treatises of the Talmud and the old rabbinical
schools have prepared and, as it were, preordained the
Jew for our two most modem studies; they have
fitted him for modern criticism, through the discussion
of learned texts, and for physics and the natural
sciences, through the study of life and organic nature.
The Israelite who to-day devotes himself to philology
or archaeology is the descendant of a long- line of
rabbis who, for generations, have laboured over obscure
texts. The two Darmesteters for instance, the sons
of the modest bookbinder, number thirty rabbis among
their forefathers. * The Jewish mind is not waste
land waiting for the plough ; it has never lain fallow
long. It has been a fertile soil for centuries, needing
but the application of new scientific methods to bring
forth new harvests. Viewed as a nation, Israel is, we

1 Arsene Darmesteter's Reliques Scientifiques* 1890. Preface
by Mr. James Darmesteter.

Psychology of the Jtev. 191

repeat, the most ancient and perhaps the most
gifted of all those which the Germans call **Cultur-
volker." The breadth and antiquity of her culture
have won for her a sort of aristocracy of birth among
the nations.

II.

The Jew's mind is stronger than his body. On the
other hand, his character is weaker than his intellect.
The one may be said to have developed at the expense
of the other, or rather, that which strengthened and
sharpened the latter often tended to weaken the former.
This phenomenon is not without precedent. Pessi-
mists will probably pronounce it a natural occurrence,
asserting that in races and civilisations, if not in in-
dividuals, intelligence and morality are like the two
bowls of a scale, one of which rises as the other falls.
Some persons will say that this is one of the laws of
history. We should be so sorry to believe this, that
we cannot readily agree with such a statement. The
instance of the Jew is no proof of its truth. Israel's
case can be easily explained ; history itself furnishes
the explanation for it.

With the ancient Hebrews the contrary was more apt
to be the case ; their character was superior to their
intellect. In this respect again, modern Israel would
seem to be morally as well as physically, a dying race.
Moral deterioration united to mental quickness is, in
fact, one of the most distinctive features of a race in its
decline ; witness the ancient Greeks, and the Italians
of the last two centuries. The persistency of Jewish
character throughout history has been the subject of
frequent comment; the observation is correct in
some respects, but false or superficial in others.

192 Israel A mong tJte Nations.

Stubbornness was tlie dominant trait, the distinguishing
quality, of the ancient Hebrew. He possessed a
strength of will, a doggedness, rarely found in the Occi-
dentals. It was Mordecai, the haughty zealot, who
refused to bend the knee before Haman. "A stiff-
necked race" they are called by Moses himself, in
Exodus. The Jew was always refractory ; even when
he yielded to force and his impotence often compelled
him to do so he submitted outwardly only. The Jews
have retained this stubborn spirit ; it is a part of their
very being ; it has even been intensified by their age-
long ordeal. Their will has been tempered by fire and
water during twenty centuries of suffering. They
have become accustomed to resist. Their motto was,
* ' In spite of everything. ' ' If there ever was an obstinate
race, it is Israel.

Only the stronger, the more energetic, the more self-
willed of her members could persist in remaining Jews ;
the weaker ones, the cowardly, vacillating natures, all
those whose spirits were tame and whose souls or bodies
ofiered little resistance, were eliminated by the centu-
ries. They succumbed to persecution or the attraction
of other religions. In their case the law of selection
had fullest sway. There were many countries in which
a man had to be nothing less than a hero in order to
remain a Jew.

The race has, to-day, as strong a will as ever. In
this sense there is none that has more character.
Energy or intensity of will is one of the most constant
traits of the Jew, and one of the reasons of his superior-
ity. But his inflexibility has disappeared ; the prophet
would not now say to Israel : " Thy neck is as an iron
sinew. 11 1 Israel's head has been taught to bow and
1 Isaiah, xlviii., 4.

Psychology of the Jc&\ 193

her spine to bend. The lesson had to be learned, or
her back would have been broken. After having been
the oak that resists the storm, Israel was compelled to
become the reed that bends before the breeze.

Only at this cost has the race been able to survive*
The Jew has kept his energy, but has kept it within
him, out of sight. His tenacity is now concealed by
artfulness and masked beneath humility. He combines
within himself two qualities rarely co-existent, and the
union of which should suffice to give him the key to
fortune : he is, at once, the most self-willed and the most
yielding of men, the most stubborn and the most tract-
able. In this respect, his soul corresponds to his intel-
lect ; he is a homogeneous being ; his mind harmonises
with his character. The pliancy of the one exists in
the other ; they are equally elastic. But what is gener-
ally an advantage to the mind, is often detrimental to
the character ; and there is danger that the virtue -will
transform itself into a vice. The extreme pliancy, the
great ductility which constitutes the mental superiority
of the Jew, is, on the other hand, the cause of his moral
inferiority.

For this flexibility of his whole being the Jew
has had to pay dear ; constant bending has given
him a stoop. Not infrequently his figure has be-
come deformed we might almost say warped by
it; it has left him with something like a curvature
of the spine. His soul has lost stature and his heart
has shrunk, like his body. In many cases moral
abasement has kept pace with physical degeneration.
Constrained to accommodate himself to all sorts of
situations, he has, of necessity, grown used to objec-
tionable compromises. The inner man has felt the
effect of the outer man's obeisances. It has been .so

1 94 Israel A mong the Nations*

bowed by the centuries that it cannot always rise erect
again.

I,ook at the Eastern Jew ; he has so long been used
to bending that he has, in mam- cases, lost the habit
of walking upright. There seems to be something of
the reptile in him, something sinuous and crawling,
something slimy and clammy, of which not even the
educated Israelite has always been able to rid himself,
la this respect he often finds it difficult to " de-judaise "
himself. This is a quality which transforms him again,
as it were, into an Oriental ; it is a racial feature, an
inherent vice, not always to be washed away by the
water and salt of baptism, nor exorcised by the prayers
of priests.

According to one of our great writers, there are two
things which characterise the modern man, ' ' two things
which he never repudiates : conscience and honour,
the former of Christian, the latter of feudal origin." 1
Now, of these two new concepts on which the entire
morality of modern society is based, the latter was, until
quite recently, unknown to the Jew, the former has be-
come starved or warped in him for ages. Herein lies
the great contrast between the Jew and ourselves ; in
this respect he is often inferior to us, despite his mental
advantages and intellectual vigour.

As for conscience, we have no right to say that it is
lacking in Israel. Taine asserts it to be of Christian
origin ; it would be more correct to attribute it to Jew-
ish origin. It is like charity, a Semitic importation.
Israel introduced it into the world, at least in the sense

1 Taine'sZ^s Qrigincsde la France Contemporaine.LaJR&vo-
Zution, vol iii., pp. 124-126. These are, remarks Taine, two new
words, without equivalent in Greek or Latin : neither consci-
cntia, nor tones, nor dignitas has the same meaning.

Psychology of the Jew. 195

in which Christianity interpreted it. The Jew was the
first to set up an inner tribunal, into which no master
had the power to penetrate, not even the kings of the
earth nor the wielders of the sword. His conquerors,
whether Assyrian, Greek, or Roman, have had experi-
ence of this. Israel has had her proto-martyrs of
the conscience, led by the seven Maccabasans, who
preferred to suffer torture rather than to partake of for-
bidden food. Conscience has been the soul of Judaism ;
it is rooted in the Thora. Israel's very existence is
the best proof of this ; the Jew has been faithful to his
I/aw, and has remained Jew, only because he exalted
conscience above everything.

But this Jewish conscience, the mother and nurse of
our own, has gradually become contracted and ob-
scured. It, also, has lost a part of its inflexibility ; it
has become pliant, yielding to the demands of the
times, adapting itself to compromises, leaguing itself
with force, donning disguises and masks. Even in
religion, in what lay nearest to its heart, it has learned
to dissimulate, to lie, to bend the knee before strange
gods and prophets. Thousands and tens of thousands
of African, Asiatic, and European Jews have, in order
to save their lives, outwardly renounced their faith,
declaring themselves followers of Jesus or Mohammed.
Christians, also, have weakened under persecution ;
there were a number of backsliders among them ;
martyrdom has ever been a neglected profession. But
the difference between them and the Jews lies in the
fact that the rabbis palliated, approved of, sometimes
even advised, such seeming apostasy. Their most
renowned scholar, the author of the thirteen articles
of feith, the great Maimonides, practising what he
preached, is said himself to have turned Mohammedan

1 96 Israel A mong the Nations.

during liis earlier years. 1 Five centuries later, Sab-
batai, the Oriental pseudo-messiah, acknowledged his
belief in Mohammed in the presence of the Sultan, and
trampled upon his Je\v's cap, without weakening his
authority over his followers by such an act of disloy-
alty. I am not sure that some Jews do not still look
forward to his resurrection. Many other Jews Span-
ish, Portuguese, Italian, and French have likewise
accepted conversion whenever the}' have had to choose
between death and the Cross. There may be certain
families among the Sephardim who have alternately
kissed the Gospel and the Koran. The nuevos cris-
tianos of Castile and the marranos of I^usitania attended
church, were married by priests, knelt in the confes-
sional and at the communion table, without ceasing to
be Jews. Even in our own country, in Bordeaux, our
Portuguese Jews, descendants of the " Xew Christians "
of the Peninsula, protested for a long time that they
were good Catholics, and not Jewish unbelievers. 3

'"We are Israelites/' the fathers told their children
in private, teaching them to deny before men the faith
which was secretly transmitted to them. Whole gen-

1 The fact, it is true, has been disputed, although admitted
by Munck and Graetz, Maimonides wrote a treatise in defence
of the Mohammedan Jews. According to him, the Talmud and
the Law forbid under penalty of death only idolatry, adultery,
and manslaughter. See Graetz, Geschichte der Jwden, vol. vi,
chap, x., pp. 316-322.

8 The Jews of Bordeaux did not renounce Catholic practices
to take up the practices of their ancestral creed, until the
eighteenth century. They had concealed their faith and
feigned to be Christians during more than five hundred years.
See Malvezin's Histoire des Juif$ & Bordeaux, pp. 178-180.
It has been asserted that Montaigne's mother issued from one
of those Portuguese Jews.

Psychology of tJie Jew. 197

erations of the sons of Jacob were thus trained to lie
and dissimulate with regard to what they held most
sacred. Such false Catholics were to be found until
very recently in Spain, despite the familiars of the In-
quisition ; and in certain Eastern towns, in Salonica,
if I am not mistaken, there are many false Moham-
medans left. Even to-day, although the Russian sab-
batists^ may not be Jews in disguise J as has sometimes
been supposed, Russia appears to do all in her power
to convert her Jewish subjects to such false orthodox^*,
giving them one and all the choice only between
baptism and expulsion. How many of the thousands
of Jews whom his Excellency, the chief Procurator cf
the most Holy Synod boasts, in his official reports, of
having won over to the Greek Church during the past
twelve years, can really be called Christians ? How
many profess themselves still Jews, in the seclusion of
their families, and teach their sons to despise the reli-
gion which they are obliged to acknowledge in public ?
Can we be surprised, in view of this, that the Jew is
less pained by duplicity than we are ? Need we ask
ourselves what sort of influence upon young and old
must be exerted by the mere verbal adherence to a
religion despised at heart? It is true, without this
duplicity Israel might have been exterminated. The
surest means by which a Jew could save his faith was
to abjure it. Does not the heaviest blame fall upon
the Christians who forced the Jews to profane the
mysteries of their faith ?

However, all Jews are not compelled, or not willing,
to submit to this supreme humiliation, to this outward
renunciation of the faith of their fathers. They are

1 See L? Empire des Tsars et les Russes, vol. iii. : La Reli-
gion, book iiL, chap, ix., pp. 515-518.

1 98 Israel A mong the Nations.

justified In reminding us that no religion can vie with
that of Israel in the number of its martyrs. 1 But this
religious disguise, which many of them are forced to
adopt, was not the only one to which the sons of Jacob
had to submit. Not only while at prayers, in the tab-
ernacle of the Christians or the mosque of the Turks,
had the Jew to plaj T the hypocrite ; but also in his
every-day life, in his shop, in his different professions,
and in his intercourse with the Goim.^Th& Jewish
conscience has not emerged unscathed from the Ghetto.
It became narrowed under the influence of the tribal
spirit, confused by casuistry, weakened by persecution,
and finally almost extinguished by suffering. Scorned
by all his surroundings, excluded from the common
law, cheated of his human rights by other human be-
ings, the Jew thought himself justified in taking many
liberties with those who took every liberty with him.
Deprived of the weapons of the strong, he resorted to
the devices of the weak, to ginning, trickery, and
deceit. And so the ages have succeeded in warping
the conscience of that people in whom the word con-
science has had its origin. It matters little that this
moral deterioration was due less to their own teachers
and casuists than to our laws and our persecutions ;

1 " Within the space of two months," -wrote to me, on this sub-
ject, the chief-rabbi, Mr. Lehmann, in a letter published by
DUnivers Israelite (Nov., 1891), "twelve thousand Jews whose
names have been preserved, twelve thousand, in the Rhenish
towns alon e were massacred for having refused baptism. * ' The
vindicators of Israel remind us that even in Spain, where the
nuevos cristianos were most numerous, hundreds of thousands
of Jews accepted in 1492 for the most part without contest the
decree of misery and exile in preference to abnegation of their
faith. And even to-day, the greater portion of Russian Jews
are willing to make the same sacrifice.

PsycJwlogy of tJte Jew. 199

the fact remains the same ; and this conscience, thus
warped and twisted, cannot straighten itself all at
once.

As to honour, where could the Jew possibly have
learnt its meaning? What connection was there be-
tween such a sentiment, born in mediaeval strongholds,
beneath the knight's helmet and coat-of-anns, and the
Jew, beaten, reviled, scorned, abused, by everybody.
How could his pride have " mounted guard over his
rights," when no one would grant him any rights?
The feudal knight in his castle-keep was obliged to
display pride, under penalty of death. The Jew, on
the contrary, was obliged, under the same penalty, to
show himself meek and retiring. Only at this cost has
he continued to exist. In him honour would have
seemed ridiculous.

The grossest insult was no disgrace to the Jew ; the
disgrace was in being a Jew. He became saturated
with the contempt in which he was steeped. Con-
trary to the feudal baron, he was made to swallow
abuse like water ; he was not allowed to take offence
at anything. It was he, and not the Christian,
who offered the left cheek to those who had smitten
him on the right. 1 This made his skin callous ;
blows and insults no longer bit through it ; the only
wounds he felt were those which affected his in-
terests. On certain days (notably on Good-Friday)
and in certain cities (in Toulouse, for example) the
heads of the Jewish community marched solemnly to
1 Israel's sages have, themselves, applied to her these words of
Isaiah (L, 6, 7) which the Christians ascribe to Christ : " I gave
my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair. I hid not my face from shame and spitting. I
have set my face like a flint and I know that I shall not be
ashamed."

2OO Israel Among the Nations.

v>

the town-hall, there to receive in public, in the presence
of my lord the count and his Christian vassals, a box
on the ear. Jurists have pedantically styled this act
*' colaphisation." Never was ceremony more sjinbol-
ical. The whole of Israel has for a thousand years
been thus boxed on the ear by Christians and Mo-
hammedans. The conservator of the Roman Capitol
was in the habit of setting his foot on the neck of the
rabbi who lay prostrate before him. The Jew has been
forced to submit to many other outrages. In almost
all countries he has had, during the carnival, to play
the fool or buffoon for the entertainment of the popu-
lace. Even in Rome, where the popes had given them
protection, half-naked Jews were obliged to run about,
like the barberi, followed by the shouts and jests of
the Roman people who often goaded them with sticks
and stones. The Jew was a clown for the masses ; he
was the people's jester. The best that could happen
to him was to excite their laughter.

Michelet speaks of u the Jew, the dirty man, the
man who is abused, whom everybody spits upon/'
And this is no mere figure of speech ; I have had ocu-
lar proof of it in Europe as well as in Africa. I/ike the
Russian Slav who, even to-daj T , is also often made to
feel the disgrace of his birth, he has had "to beat the
earth with his forehead. ' ' For fifteen hundred years he
has been forced to repeat to himself, even more con-
stantly than the Chinaman, " Siao sm y " " contract thy
heart." * Driven into exile or into the flames of the
stake, not even free to feign a different faith, he never
thought, as did his ancestors, the IMaccabaeans, of rising
up and perishing sword in hand. 2 He was too weak

'IveP. Hue.

'Several instances of Jewish resistance are quoted: for in-

Psychology of the yew. 201

for that, too broken by suffering, too much accustomed
to bow his neck to the yoke. There was no more re-
sistance left in his soul than on his lips or in his arms.
He submitted in silence. He scarcely dared to tell his
woe in Hebrew verse or, as in the case of the French
Jews burnt at Troyes in 1288, to clothe his lamenta-
tions in vernacular stanzas. Xo race has served so
long an apprenticeship in patience and meekness.
" The Jew/' it was said in the Middle Ages, " may be
recognised by his stooping gait." But where should
he have learned to walk erect ?

' No matter how repulsive or malodorous the labour
to which he was debased, neither his spirit nor his
senses revolted. The starving dog has no loathing
of the bone which he digs out of the dirt-heap. The
Jew was inured to degradation ; it was his lot. He
was made to become like those animals that subsist on
carrion and decayed scraps. He lived by what was
vile, resigned himself to obscure trades, which had to
be practised secretly, under cover of darkness, in dis-
reputable quarters. The knight, the Christian clerk
or townsman, could look upon himself as a superior
being to whom base actions were forbidden ; such base
actions, all the ignoble tasks to which the Christian
would not stoop, were frequently the only ones per-
mitted to "the Jewish dogs." Where should the
money-lender or the dealer in second-hand goods, the
old-clothes man or the merchant of the Ghetto, have

stance, at York, under Richard Cceur de Lion ; but such cases
are very rare and belong to the time when the Jews had not be-
come entirely debased. But lately, during the antisemitic riots
in Russia, very few Israelites, even in those places where they
lived in large numbers, attempted resistance. True, they would
never have been forgiven for it.

2O2 Israel Among the Nations.

acquired that self-esteem which, whether justified or
not, enabled a gentleman to stand erect in the presence
of a Philip II. or a Louis XIV. ? z

Not that the Jewish pariah had not a pride of his own.
No man, perhaps, has been so proud, with a concen-
trated pride, steeled by humility, and which nothing
could assail. Unable to command respect for his frail
personality, the Jew took refuge in a collective pride ;
he was proud of his people, his religion, and his God.
Never has he lost faith in the superiority of Israel. In
the presence of his Christian or Mohammedan op-
pressors, he seemed to himself like a prince, sold into
slavery and condemned to degrading labours by cruel
taskmasters. Though yielding to force, he found in
his I^aw an inner refuge where no harm could reach
him. * The knights, the grandees, the lords of the

1 Some Israelites have found that here I was unfair towards
Israel A high-rabbi, M. L,ehmann, has taken the trouble to
reply to me in DUnivers Israelite (Nov. i, 1891). "What
would you have thought of us " he wrote, "if we had accepted,
without revolt, some of your strictures ? Then, indeed, you
would have been but too right ! Deprived of honour and con-
science, what would the Jews have left ? " This high-rabbi
was not wrong. I do not bear him a grudge for having revolted
against some of my decisions, thus proving that they do not
apply to all of his co-religionists. Several of them, officers
in our army, have protested after their own fashion, sword in
hand ; and the duel in which Captain Meyer fell, no longer
permits the assertion that a sense of honour is foreign to the
Jews. Nevertheless, I believe my opinions well founded, at
least in certain cases, where I account for these moral short-
comings by the treatment inflicted on the Jews in the past.

* ** Outrage cannot touch him, injustice does not incense
him," wrote to me, himself, the high-rabbi M. Lehmann, di-
rector of the Israelitish seminary in Paris. " Despite all his
humiliations, the Jew has never been degraded in his own
eyes." (DUnivers Israelite, ibid.)

Psychology of the Jew. 203

earth, and all the Goim were, in his eyes, nothing but
barbarians, of less noble blood, of inferior culture, almost
of a lower race. What contempt must have filled his
heart for those Christians by whose vices he lived,
for those great bodies of armour-clad barons who,
according to the advice of the good King Louis at
Joinville, were willing to argue with a Jew, * l only by
hard sword-blows on the belly." The Gentiles had
only brute force on their side. While submitting to
the most repulsive labours, the Jew continued to scorn
those who forced him to perform them,. In the midst
of the filth and degradation of the Judengasse, the Jew
with his 3'ellow cap felt himself immeasurably superior
to his uncircumcised masters. Israel alone was noble ;
Israel alone was pure ; nothing could sully the house
of Jacob or impair its grandeur. From this conviction
of his innate superiority the Jew borrowed the strength
to withstand all humiliations, so that, according to
Lamennais, " neither suffering nor disgrace succeeded
in diminishing his pride or his meanness. " Moreover,
was he not sure of revenge some day ? " Little
fool/' said the rabbi Joshua in his dirty tavern at
Sukoviborg, to his son Solomon Maimon, who stood
speechless with admiration before the princess Radzi-
will, "in the next world, this beautiful princess will
have to light the fire in our stove. 17 Indeed, many
Jews believed that they would not need to wait for
the next world; they hoped in this life to hear the
trumpet-call of the archangel proclaim the hour of
their triumph. It had been promised them by the
prophets and Jehovah owed them the fulfilment of this
promise. Was not the Messiah to come, some day, in
order to set everything right ; to place Israel on high
and the Golm below, beneath the feet of Judah ? From

2O4 Israel Among the Nations.

generation to generation the Jews looked forward to
this avenging Messiah, searching through astrology and
the cabala for the year of his advent, accepting artlessly
all the false Messiahs up to the time of Descartes and
Voltaire, without ever losing their faith in Israel 1 s
victory.

This explains wiry for centuries they were able
to bear such a burden of contempt without break-
ing down beneath its weight. The mainspring of
Israel's inner life was not broken ; it remained intact,
ready to be set in motion again on the day of deliver-
ance. Bowed as he was, the Jew was always ready for
the time of upraising. He prayed for it ; he discounted
it in anticipation, asking Jehovah when Ms wrath
would cease to be poured out upon his people, never
doubting that liberation would come in the end,
patient, also himself, because himself eternal.

Thence comes the Jew's marvellous faculty of re-
bounding as soon as the crushing weight has been
lifted from his shoulders, a faculty which, despite all
degradation, always raises him again to the surface.
Thence, also, his occasional outbursts of long-sup-
pressed and seemingly stifled pride, and his sensitive-
ness, which jars on us all the more because it is so
unexpected. In his desire to be proud he becomes
insolent.

But here especially, if we make a point of being just,
we must look into our own hearts. "This meanness,
this moral abasement, for which, even to this day, we
believe ourselves justified in blaming the Jew, is as
much our fault as his. It is our work. We ourselves,
from generation to generation, have engendered this
quality in him. We have taxed our wits to debase
him ; we have knowingly and skilfully laboured at

Psychology of the ^ew. 205

his degradation. To this end we have invented dis-
graceful garbs, ignominious badges, humiliating cere-
monies. The Jew could never be made sufficienth' vile
in the eyes of the Christian. Our ancestors trained
him. to baseness as they trained setters to crouch, and
dachshunds to crawl into holes. Here again, it is
neither Semitic blood nor Hebrew Law that is respon-
sible ; it is but a question of heredity and adaptation
to environment. Wherever he was relatively free,
wherever he was permitted to raise his head, the Jew
became more and more like the Christian, in this re-
spect as in many others. Such was the case formerly
with the Spanish Jews, also with the Sepkardivi who
emigrated to the West. If they have suffered more
than the Askenasim they have, at any rate, been less
humiliated. Honour did not alwaj-s present itself to
them in the guise of a pinnacled castle with a draw-
bridge, over which no Jews were allowed to pass.
They were sometimes permitted to bear arms within
the castle-walls and they often associated with Arab
knights and Christian hidalgos. Despite their four
centuries of exile we can, at times, detect in them what
seems like a reflex of Castilian pride or Oriental dignity.
As for the Asiatic, African, Roumanian, Hungarian,
and Russian Jews, treated with a degree of contempt
perhaps more fatal to their souls than were the quema-
deros of the Inquisition, what chance have they had
to wash off the mire in which Christian and Moslem
masters have forced them to crawl ? Those wretched
Jews were like the timid animals, which, for fear of at-
tracting the attention of their pursuers, crouch down and
lie flat upon the ground. There is, moreover, another
fact which must not be forgotten : they have keenly
felt the debasing effects of inherited poverty and

206 Israel Among the Natiotis.

sordid want, apt, in severe climates, to degrade the
body as well as the soul. The laws of Christian
Europe were well calculated to keep them in such a con-
dition or to throw them back into it. To this day, in
Russia and Roumania, such hostile laws recently re-en-
acted and, in some cases, made more stringent than ever,
weigh heavily upon more than one half of the Jews of
Europe. They manage to live only by tricks and devices,
by smuggling themselves, so to speak, between the
meshes of the law in which they are netted. They are
not evenly matched in their game with the Christians ;
the law forces them to cheat. This has created a sort
of vicious circle from which the various governments
have not been skilful or brave enough to extricate
themselves. The legislators, professing to protect the
Christians from the wiles of the Jews, issue edicts
against them that serve only to incite them to trickery
and to train them in duplicity.

Even in the countries where they are emancipated,
in Germany, Austria, and Italy, it is only since one or
two generations that they have enjoyed liberty and
security ; nowhere, except in France and Holland, has
this been the case for more than a century. The Jews
are like the enfranchised sons of former slaves ; they
have but recently exchanged the Jew's cap for the cap
of Liberty. They are all libcrti or libertini; their
newly acquired freedom is held by a revocable tenure ;
and in our modern democracies, as in ancient Rome,
the freedman, whatever be his race, needs more than
one generation to acquire the habits, ideas, and feelings
of the man born free.

]>t us remember the education which the Jews have
received during the past twenty centuries and the
education which more than three fourths of them are

Psychology of the Jew. 207

still receiving. What was taught to the child by his
father? Above all since such influences are still
more important than family advice or example what
lessons were taught by the world and every-day life ?
Were they lessons of loyalty, truth, rectitude, and
delicacy ? What were the games and pastimes of the
young Jews ? Almost everywhere children are taught
games that are apt to cultivate pride, courage, a sense
of honour ; but we must not imagine that such were the
games of the Jewish children. Even to-day, in some
localities, they scarcely dare to engage in the boisterous
sports suited to their years. The}- are chidden when they
are noisy, heedless, frolicsome, like Christian children.
The Jew in those places has no right to be a child ; his
least misdemeanours are punished as if they were crimes.
As recently as July, 1890, at Bialystok in Russia, a
Jewish boy of twelve was caught picking cherries in a
garden ; the proprietor, a Christian physician, tattooed,
with nitrate of silver, upon the culprit's forehead the
word thief ^ in Russian, German, and Hebrew. 2 And
the Jews who dared to find fault with this ingenious
mode of correction were relegated to a distant part of
the empire.

Even after having been admitted to our Western
colleges, the Jewish youths were for a long time objects
of derision. They were like aliens among the Christian
youths, lite bastards among legitimate children. The
blood of Jacob seemed, even in the baptised Jews, to be
a blemish, a physical defect, for which their inhuman
companions made them suffer bitterly. Benjamin
Disraeli, for instance, never forgot nor forgave the

1 1 hold in my hands the photograph of the child thus dis-
figured.

2oS Israel Among the Nations.

cruelties of which he was a victim at Eton and Har-
lowe, during his childhood. 1

What was the state of things before the French Revo-
lution set the example of emancipating these pariahs ?
Everywhere the young Jew received, at an early age,
lessons which sank deep into his youthful mind, les-
sons of deceit, of mock humility, of servile submission,
of trickery and of cunning. If he was beaten or in-
sulted "by Christian or Mussulman, of what use was it
to complain, since law and justice were not for him ?
Prudent parents were careful to instil this elementary
truth into the minds of their offspring. Rabbi Joshua
the father of Solomon Maimon, urged his sons to oppose
their adversaries with ruse alone. "Xo force/' said
this sensible man, ' l only strategy. ' ' Solomon' s younger
brothers one day deftly took from him some trousers-
buttons which the future rabbi had treacherously
purloined from them. Solomon complained of this.
u \Vhy did you allow yourself to be found out?"
answered his father: "try to be slyer next time." 3
It was after this fashion that the wise Israelites of the
eighteenth century taught their children the science of
life. We should not be astonished, in view of this, at
the meanness of that very Maimon, a type of the most
cultured Jew to be found prior to the French Revolution :
a low soul united to a high intellect. This self-taught
rabbi succeeded in becoming one of the most subtle
metaphysicians of Germany, while remaining a beg-

1 These sufferings and heart-burnings of his youth have been
described by Disraeli in two of his earliest novels : Contarini
Fleming KI& Vivian Grey. Cf. G. Brandes, Lord eaconsfield t
Berlin, 1879, pp. 20-24.

* Salomon Maimon? s Lebensgeschichie. Cf. Arve*de Barine's
"Un Juif Polonais," Revue des Deux Mondes> Oct. 15, 1889.

Psychology of the jew. sec

garly rogue. He was able to refute Kant, to soar,
without effort, into the ethereal regions of pure thought,
and at the same time to remain engrossed in tlie
vulgar interests of a very material life. The thinker
in Him preserved the feelings, the instincts, the motives,
of a low-born parasite. Despite his learning and phi-
losophy, he sank deeper than the most degraded of his
fellow-nien, because in repudiating his ancestral faith
he had lost the staff which, through all their humili-
ations, served as a prop even to the most debased of
ancient Jews.

The case of Maimon is not without a parallel.
Many modern Israelites, though far removed in out-
ward elegance from the vulgar grandson of the I^iisi-
tanian inn-keeper, are morally in the same predicament.
Deprived of their own faith and without having adopted
ours, possessing, like so many of us, but a dim notion
of duty, without having, like most of us, inherited from
their ancestors a strict sense of honour, the de-judaised
Jews are, in too many cases, lacking in moral feeling.

Much could be said of the peculiarities of Jewish
morals, peculiarities that exist even among the Jews
who, happily for themselves and for us, have not lost
all reverence for the Tfwra. Every race develops a
code of morals that accords with the conditions of its
existence. How could those of Israel withstand the
influence of the life which we have compelled her to
live ? The ethics of a race or of a religion are almost
entirely contained in its laws and sacred books ; they
rise and fall, become corrupted or purified, according
to the demands of life. It is but natural that the Jew
should have developed a code of ethics that accorded
with the persecutions and degradations which he had
to suffer. It is perhaps the most marked result of the

2 io Israel Among the Nations.

<*>

education which the centuries have given him. From
his earliest youth, life presented itself to the son of
Judah as a war to be waged with all his surroundings,
a war of cunning, of traps and ambuscades, in which
the Jew had no means of defence but his shrewdness
and dexterity. His forefathers, whose deeds of valour
were recorded in the Bible, had fought with the sword
and the javelin ; but his own weapons, the only ones
within his reach, were intrigue, fraud, cunning, and
hypocris}*. Israel fared like every other race that has
been trampled on and abased for years ; we know into
what the noblest nation of antiquity was for a long
time transformed by Roman conquest, Byzantine des-
potism, and Turkish domination. Bondage is invari-
ably a terrible corrupter of morals ; the finest races are
perhaps most degraded by it : optimi corruptio pessima.
There is, moreover, another means of forming char-
acter : that which works through the agency of he-
reditary occupations, of the trades followed by our
ancestors. Uvery calling may be said to engender its
own system of morals, as each produces its character-
istic traits of mind and tricks of body. The ordinary
trades of the Jew are well known to us ; we have noted
their influence on his intellect, but they have made per-
haps even a deeper impress on his character. His long
confinement at the counter or in the shop has imbued
him with its spirit and given him, as it were, a mercan-
tile instinct that is still apparent in many cases. Would
that such an instinct were to be met with only in the
sons of Abraham, in whose case it can be so easily
explained ! With them it is a sort of atavistic trait.
In the banker of Berlin or Frankfurt, in the journalist
or the scholar of Vienna or Paris, there crops out all
of a sudden the broker of the Judengasse, or the huck-

Psychology of the Jew. 211

ster of the Ghetto. The impress Is too deep to be
wholl}- worn away inside of a century. One's ances-
tors cannot be gotten rid of so quickly. The many
repulsive labours forced upon the Jew for centuries
have often soiled his soul as well as his fingers.

Take even the most decent occupations followed by
his ancestors : that of peddler, jobber, inn-keeper,
old-clothes dealer, treasurer of king or sultan, banker,
or farmer, these are not occupations apt to uplift the
soul or ennoble the character. What they teach is not
moral refinement, sincerity, unselfishness, orgenerositjr.
It is not right to disparage commerce, yet among all
occupations, it is traffic, especially petty trade, that
tends most to blunt the moral sense and to cramp the
highest faculties of the soul. The ancients were so
well aware of this that their lawgivers excluded mer-
chants from the agora and from the administration
of public affairs. There was some basis for the rule
which obtained in France before the Revolution :
" Trade forfeits nobility." Now, although the Jew
was never only the money-maker, almost every Jew
was forced to make inone5\ Shut out from all hon-
ourable occupations, scarcely any Jew was able "to
live nobly, n as our fathers used to say.

And what shall be said of the conditions under which
the Jewish traders were obliged to carry on their busi-
ness ? As a rule, trade is protected by laws. Was
there any law on which the Jew could rely, in spite of
the licenses which Christian policy or cupidity had
granted or sold to Trim ? He had to pursue his secret
or avowed business without legal protection, often
clandestinely, always uncertain of the morrow, ex-
posed to all sorts of vexations and robbery, liable to
diminution or entire loss of credit, anxious to conceal

212 Israel Among the Nations*

his gains, in order more easily to save a few ducats for
the day when it should please the people or the prince,
by pillage or edict, to make him disgorge. Xor was
this all. Compelled to yield his ill-gotten gains to the
mighty ones of the earth, he was obliged to exploit
the weak, to drain the blood of the poor, to take
from the unfortunate by sheer cunning that which
the powerful had wrested from him by force. This
was, for himself as well as for the Christians, one of
the most demoralising sides of Jevrish activity. The
Jew was like those birds that are trained to fish and
hunt for the benefit of their owners. He was the in-
variable agent for every sort of oppression and extor-
tion. Treated pitilessly by those above him, he had to
be pitiless to those beneath him and to extort all he
could from them for the benefit of those who regarded
him only as a sponge to be squeezed dry. In Poland,
Hungary, Germany, and Bohemia the Jew was the
detested middle-man between people and princes, serfs
and noblemen. In such a calling he natural!} 1 * visited
on the lowly the blows and conturnel}- which he had
received from the mighty, making the peasants pay
dearly for the cruelty of their masters.

As an example of this let me cite the agent of the
East, the Polish Jew for a long time employed by the
State, the pans, the Church itself, for the collection of
duties, taxes, fines, debts, and rents of all kinds.
Snch an agent has two sides ; by his very calling he is
a man with two faces : the one turned to the master is
servile, for ever smiling ; the other turned towards the
fermer or tenant is hard, haughty, disdainful. Thus,
the very same Jew is, in turn, meek and arrogant, low-
spoken and loud-voiced, according to the man whom
lie addresses. His calling succeeded in blunting Ms

Psychology of the jezv. 2 13

sensibilities, in hardening and shrivelling his heart.
He suffered so much himself that he became callous to
the sufferings of others. His eyes were cry ; for gen-
erations as Heine puts it his silent tears trickled
eastward to feed the waters of the Jordan : he had none
left to weep. Besides, he was too much hated by the
people to sj'mpathise with the wrongs of which he was
made the medium. When he trampled upon the
Christians, when he sold the horse or cow of the peas-
ant who was in arrears with his rent, he was only
visiting upon the Golm the cruelties which thej- had
inflicted on him ; he could say, with the Bible : tk an
eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth/' certain, whatever
he might do, of not being quits even then with the
enemies of his race. The Christians did not regard
the Jews as their equals. The feeling was rnuraal.

Does this imply, as we are apt to believe, that the
Jew was inhuman, heartless, cruel, brutal, that he had
a stone in place of a heart ? By no means. Because
he was hard towards his enemies it does not at all
follow that he was incapable of kindness, tenderness,
affection, and devotion. To a close observer the Je\r
is, perhaps, the most affectionate of men ; but all his
affection was reserved for his family and his race. His
nature, so hard and callous on the outside, remained
tender in its innermost depths. The Jew, too, was a
man ; Shakspeare realised it instinctively in his Shy-
lock; but he was a man toward his brethren only,
toward those who treated him like a man. Against all
others he clothed himself in an armour of spines, or
rolled himself up in a ball ; or else he shut himself up
in cold impassiveness. His tenderness, like his pride,
had struck inward.

In a general way it may be said that the Jew was a

2 1 4 Israel Among tJie Nations.

man of an inward life. His entire existence, his con-
finement, and his humiliations tended, in all things, to
throw htm back upon himself. All his emotions, joy-
ful or sad, were locked in his own breast. Hated and
despised by everybody, he could never let himself go,
nor open his heart, nor indulge in confidences ; or, at
least, only in his own family, with his "Jewess " and
his "little Jews," hunted and chased like himself.
AVith them he was tender, as the wild boar is tender
with its female and its young. To his wife, his chil-
dren, and his brothers in ignominy, he revealed all that
was good and tender in his nature. His spurned affec-
tions found free outlet, at evening, in the midst of his
family. The family-life has always been the refuge of
the Jew. He has the domestic virtues ; even his ene-
mies have never denied him these. In all ages he has
deserved the praise of the village epitaphs, generally
so apt to lie ; he was a good father, son, and husband.
Probably no other race has possessed in a like degree
the love of family and the attributes which foster that
love and which, though they may not be the highest
nor the most brilliant, are none the less sound and
precious temperance, continence, patience, gentleness,
moderation, and regularity of habits. The Jew had
long been trained to all these virtues by the daily prac-
tice of his I/aw and the constant conformity to its rules.
He had few vices ; none of those which cause women
and children to suffer most the love of drink and of
gambling, a violent temper, brutal manners, and coarse
speech. In this respect he remained, even in his pesti-
lential Ghetto, a man of good family, of good birth and
breeding.

As a rule, the Jew shrinks from deeds of violence and
from the display of unbridled passion ; it is so very

PsycJwlogy of the Jew. 2 1 5

long since he has been allowed to indulge in them.
Moreover, his laws, the discipline of the Thora and
the Talmud, have helped to teach him self-mastery.
Xot that he is never passionate, but he is so only in a
suppressed way, and often with an icy exterior. His
passion flares out only in the fire of his glance. Con-
trary to the Slavonic and Germanic barbarian, he is
seldom the slave or plaything of his passions ; he
knows how to guide and curb them. The Jew is exactly
the opposite of the so-called child of nature, the primi-
tive man, passionate and unbridled, carrying his heart
on his sleeve a creature of impulse. In this respect
nothing could be more unlike the real Jew than the
Jew of Malta,, the furious and ferocious Barrabas> de-
picted by Marlowe. The savage and lustful brute that
lurks at the bottom of ever}* man's nature, shows itself
less frequently in the Jew ; it has been cowed into sub-
mission. l

The Jew is, as a rule, not impulsive ; he has neither
the Southern fire nor the buoyant spirits of the North-
ern races. Although, being a nervous man, he may
feel keenly, he is not subject to sudden nervous shocks.
His passions are not like restive horses that neigh and
paw the ground ; he has broken them in and taught
them not to prance ; at least, he curbs them with a firm
hand and does not give them their heads. It is true

1 Perhaps one of tlie most marked characteristics of the Jew
is his horror of blood. It has been instilled into him, little by
little, by his dietary laws. Not only must the orthodox Jew
abstain from blood, bnt all animals, small or large, destined for
his food, must be killed by the sckochet appointed to that task.
"Never," says an Israelite (M. Weill's Levitique, p. 60),
** would a Jewess kill a chicken or a goose. The Jews have a
man sworn to this difficult office." The large communities
have a schochetlvt poultry as well as for cattle.

2 1 6 Israel Among the Nations.

that in some cases and this is a modern phenomenon
nature seems to take its revenge, and there is, as it
were, an explosion of long-stifled passion ; but such
cases are exceptional. Contrary to the Slav and the
Celt, the Jew is rarely impulsive ; he knows how to
bide his time and to control himself. The ages have
trained him to this ; he has so long been forced to exer-
cise a constant watch over himself. Even to-day he
feels the hostile glances that are spying on him. ' ' You
cannot imagine how tiresome it is to have to watch
one's self so constantly, " said an Israelite to me. But
most of them have acquired the habit. The Jew is
master of himself, and to this self-mastery is due the
ease with which he masters others. He is less obedi-
ent to instinct than to reason. If it be the distinctive
characteristic of man that he is a reasonable being,
then the Jew is the most human of men.

True, for him the voice of reason is commonly the
voice of self-interest ; but is not this what most men
call being reasonable ? He has, at all events, the ad-
vantage of better understanding his own interests and
then, of holding fast to them and not permitting him-
self to be turned aside. He is not given to hasty action ;
all that he does is done with deliberate forethought
and consecutive purpose. He has the patience and
perseverance that makes all enterprises, great and
small, succeed. Nothing discourages, fatigues or dis-
concerts him. Think of his energy, part tenacity, part
pliancy. His will is like a bow in constant tension ;
his eye never swerves from the target. What a great
advantage this is in the so-called struggle for life !
This struggle, which we are proud of having recently
discovered, was known to the Jews a thousand years
before Darwin ; they were schooled to it by the ages,

Psychology of the Jew. 2 1 7

and laboriously trained to it by our ancestors. They
have acquired, in bondage and suffering, those quali-
ties which overcome force and lead to fortune. Their
character as well as their intellect was equipped for the
battle, and in the conflicts of modern life, which are
not mere knightly tournaments, their vices are almost
as useful to them as their virtues. The Jew is indeed
successful in life. In the terms of Jin de siecle jargon,
he is the great " struggle-for-lifer J * of our continent.
To be sincere, we must confess that to this fact he owes
most of his enemies.

in.

Such is the Jew handed down to us by the ages ;
both physically and morally he is but a product of the
past, gradually becoming transformed under the influ-
ence of the present. In proportion as the atmosphere
in which he lives grows purer and freer, his characteris-
tics, good and bad, grow less pronounced and vanish
little by little* Xo other race responds so quickly to
the influences of environment. Israel is undergoing,
as it were, a physical as well as a moral rejuvenation.
I/et us bear in mind that the supreme faculty of the
Jew is his suppleness, his gift of adaptation. As we
have already said, he adjusts himself with incredible
facility to the conditions of modern life, and while
adopting our customs he appropriates our thoughts and
feelings to a greater extent than we imagine. Look at
the humble Russian Jew who comes to us with his
threadbare caftan and his velvet skull-cap ; though he
may preserve his accent and his awkwardness as long
as he lives, the children whom he brings over with
will, in the course of fifteen years, have become

2 1 8 Israel Among the Nations.

Frenchmen, Englishmen, aye, and Americans. This
metamorphosis begins with the head, with that Jewish,
head that empties itself so quickly of all its Oriental
notions in order to fill itself with ours. The heart, the
feelings, change more slowly, their conversion requiring,
as a rule, several generations. Indeed, some Jews re-
mind us of those fabulous beings whose heads and
bodies belong to two different species ; in some cases
we should say that the Jew has a French or a German
head, set on Oriental shoulders.

The metamorphosis was often too sudden to be com-
plete. There seems, at times, something incongruous
in these French and English Israelites whose fathers
have emigrated from Poland and Germany. A glance,
a word, a gesture, all of a sudden lays bare the old
Jew at bottom. " Scratch an Israelite,'' said a friend to
me, " and you will find the Jew of the Ghetto." This
is not always true. What we take for the Jew is often
only the stranger, the man of a foreign country and a
different education. The qualities which we see crop-
ping out in the civilised Israelite are not so much those
of the Jew as of the parvenu / we are apt to confound
one with the other.

Surely most of the Jews with whom we are acquainted
have traits of the parvenu; they have the weaknesses,
eccentricities, arrogance, presumption, and self-suffi-
ciency of that class. Hence, as a rule, their lack of dis-
tinction and elegance, their bad taste or bad tone, their
want of tact, their outre manners, tending to extremes
in one way or another, now familiar and unconstrained,
now studied and ceremonious ; in one word, the diffi-
culty which they experience in preserving the modera-
tion of the man of the world. To the same cause is
also partly due the vanity so naively displayed by men

Psychology of the Jew. 2 1 9

not habitually frank or outspoken ; a vanity all the
greater and the more sensitive because the Jew has
been humiliated in his self-love for so long a time.
Hence, also, that craving for titles, crowns, decorations,
ribbons, distinctions of all kinds, which the Jew hank-
ers after all the more because he has been denied them
so long, and because, having had to forego tlieni, he is
apt to find them all the more precious. Hence, again,
his desire to make himself heard and seen, to be in
people's mouths, to dazzle the eyes of his own race as
well as of others ; hence, in a measure, his luxury, often
so ostentatious, his love for jewels, equipages, enter-
tainments of a kind to excite comment, and for all that
glitters and attracts notice ; we recognise in all this the
man who is delighted to parade the wealth that he has
been obliged to conceal for ages. Hence, finally, the
occasional eccentricities of men otherwise very prudent ;
such as the youthful Disraeli clad in velvet and satin,
with fingers loaded with lings, and the pretensions of a
dandy ; and I/assalle the social-Democrat, posing as the
knight-errant of the Countess Hatzfeld, and foolishly
throwing away his life, out of sheer self-love, in his at-
tempt to capture the hand of a young Bavarian noble-
woman whose family would have none of him.

An Englishman has said that four generations are
needed to make a gentleman. "But, there are very
few Jews who have these four generations back of
them," remarked to me a wealthy Israelite of Warsaw.
He was right. With the exception of a few dozens, or
at the most a few hundreds, of families, the Jew is al-
most invariably a new-made, a self-made, man. He
has risen suddenly from the ranks. He is a sol-
dier of fortune. He has not had time to learn the
tastes, manners, bearing, and what is perhaps most

22O Israel Among the Nations.

difficult of acquisition the feelings, of a gentleman.
But it does not follow that he cannot become one ; be-
fore deciding this question we must grant him two or
three more generations. Is even so much alwaj-s nec-
essary ? Rare though we may deem such cases } I,
myself, have known French, English, and Italian, aye,
and German, Polish, and Russian Jews who, for loftiness
of feeling, are as deserving as any Christian of the name
of gentleman.

To those who believe the Jew to be irretrievably de-
graded, we need but to recall the names of numerous
Israelites, circumcised or baptised, who have brought
honour upon the old house of Jacob. They are to be
found in every age, in mediaeval as well as in present
times, even in the last two or three centuries, the period
of the Jew's deepest degradation.

Every race, every religion, may personify itself in
certain men who are, as it were, its highest manifesta-
tion. This was the case with Israel, even when she
issued from the Ghetto, still staggering under the
heavy laws and prejudices which have crushed her so
long. To show what the old Jewish stock is capable
of becoming under the influence of our civilisation, I
will cite a man who seems to me particularly represen-
tative of his people and his faith. It is Moses Men-
delssohn, the friend of I^essing, and the grandfather
of the composer. This little Northern Jew, whose life
and especially whose writings have done so much to
uplift his race, might be regarded as its living symbol.
Sma.11, ugly, awkward, misshapen, the son of Mendel
the copyist of the Thora, he had nothing to please the
eye or to captivate the imagination. When his future
wife the banker's daughter, who without knowing
liim had fallen in love with his precocious reputation,

PsycJwlogy oftJie Jew. 221

first beheld him, she found him so ill-favoured that she
had not the courage to accept him as her husband.
The poor philosopher was about to withdraw when the
Jewess, calling him back, asked him this question in-
spired b} r the Talmud : ' ' Is it true that marriages are
made in heaven ? ' J Mendelssohn's answer in the af-
firmative decided her own. And tlie rich 3 r oung girl,
enough of an idealist to give her hand to the little
hump-back, never had cause to repent her belief that
heaven had actually preordained this strange union.
Though Mendelssohn's stature was low, his mind was
lofty ; and his heart was straight, if his body was not
so.

We have said that with the Jew character was in-
ferior to mind, and now the first representative of
Judaism gives the lie to our assertion. It was pre-
cisely the superiority of his soul over his genius that
distinguished the author of Phedon^ the "Socrates of
Berlin." If we compare him with the most celebrated
of his contemporaries, especially with the great men
of France, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and with Mira-
beau who knew him, we shall see tliat the moral ad-
vantage is not on our side. In the matter of nobility
of character, dignity of life, and generosity of feeling,
the Jew puts the Christians to sh.ame. And this dis-
tinct superiority of the son of Israel over the Christians
who were faithless to the spirit of Christ, was due to
Mendelssohn's faith and to his I,aw- It was the re-
spect for that I^aw, the habit of moral discipline, the
happy union of reason and faith, the profound appre-
hension of all that is sound, well-balanced, moderate,
in the Thora and in Jewish tradition, that made a sage
of Mendelssohn before I/essing took him as a pattern for
his Nathan der Weise* And this suggests a reflection.

-222 Israel Among the Nations.

Just as the ideal type of the Christian, the sum of
evangelical virtue, is the saint that loftiest pinnacle
to which our poor human race can ever attain, so it
might be said that the ideal t}^ of Israel, he who has
climbed to the topmost rounds of Jacob's ladder, is the
sage.

In all countries Israel has furnished such lofty types
of character. As another instance not taken from
the Asfonastm, the Northern Jews, but from the Seph-
ardim y the Southern Jews, not from those still within
the Synagogue, but from those who under our influ-
ence have become separated from the traditions of their
people we can cite perhaps the greatest of all modern
Jews, one whose genius took a new direction and a
bolder flight, but who, also, was a sage, some have
even dared to say a saint. It is obvious that we allude
to Baruch Spinoza, the reduse of Pavilioengracht, the
Spanish Jew interred in a Dutch Church. In this Jew
we behold a combination peculiarly rare in the case of
great men philosophers not excepted, a soul as lofty
as his genius. We may possibly not like Spinoza's
philosophy ; as for myself, I confess that it is not much
to my taste ; but it would be difficult not to admire the
philosopher himself, and not to love him.

This Jew, without fortune or protection, sacrifices
everything to what he believes to be the truth ; he is
almost the only thinker of his time, who is not afraid
to pursue his thought to its utmost limits, daring to be
honest with others as with himself, caring neither for
glory nor for calumny. Princes offer him professor-
ships and pensions ; among all the scholars of his age
this Jew is almost the only one who refuses appoint-
ments and pensions, as little desirous of money as of
fame. This pious infidel who beholds God in all things

PsycJwlogy of the Jew. 223

will let nothing draw him away from his contempla-
tion of the Infinite Substance. In order to earn the
pittance necessary for his brief existence (he has,
like so many of his race, a frail constitution), he
adopts a manual trade in an age when manual labour is
universally despised. He ponders his theory of Ethics
and the deductions of his Theologieo-Politicus while
busy polishing lenses for spectacles. His biographer,
Colerus, represents him to us as a kindly man, simple
with the simple-minded, glad to converse with them,
edifying his good hosts, the van der Spyks, through
his life and his teachings, admonishing them to piety,
urging their children to attend divine service and ex-
plaining to them the words of their pastor.

This Jew, excommunicated by the Synagogue, will
ever remain one of the most perfect types of humanity,
one of the men who do honour to mankind. Other
writers have compared him with the loftiest products
of Christian piety united to ancient wisdom ; to me,
he seems half-way between the two, between the
humility of the one and the pride of the other ; there
is less of effort, of heroic tension in his virtue, it is
entirely human and natural. Here again, in this Jew
anathematised by the Herem^ we discern a certain
moderation and balance, apparently due to his Hebrew .
extraction and education. Even though there may be
nothing Jewish in his philosophy, though it may owe
no more to the cabala than to the Thora> yet his life
and his wisdom are Jewish. At any rate, that is not a
hopelessly degraded race which, in its worst days, gave
birth to a Spinoza.

"In the book of Arabian tales, " says the Jewish
poet, " we see princes changed into animals who, when
the right hour has struck, reassume their former

224 Israel Among the Nations.

shapes. Such, lias been the fate of the prince of whom
I sing. His name Is Israel. Witchcraft has changed
him into a dog, a plaything for the children of the
street, a cur with the thoughts of a cur : Hvmd mit
hundiscken Gedanken." 1 The poet's words are true.
Israel, prince of the Orient, driven out of the house
of his royal father, was transformed for centuries into
a vile beast. He was made to crouch before strange
masters, whining with hunger and thirst, an object of
disgust to all who crossed his path. And lo I To the
great annoyance of those who thought him doomed
for ever to kicks and blows, we have seen him reassume
his human shape. The witches who deprived him of
it are old indeed ; but they are not yet all of them
dead. Intolerance and special laws, which so long re-
fused to look upon the Jew as a human being these still
survive in some countries, over yonder, towards Asia,
and persist in treating him like a dog. But the fairy who
has broken the evil spell need we name her? She
has wrought many such wonders and Israel is not the
only people which has to thank her for the recovery of
its human shape. Until quite recently she was held in
high esteem by us Frenchmen, and other nations, fol-
lowing our example, welcomed her to their doors. To-
day men seem to have wearied of her ; many bear her
a grudge for the service she has rendered to Israel.
Her name is liberty. In order to regain his complete
manhood, the Jew requires no help but hers.

1 Heinricli Heine's JPrinzessin Sabbath : Romanzero.

CHAPTER IX.

JEWISH GENIUS.

I. Is there still a Jewish National Genius? Where is it to be
Found ? The Relatively Large Number of Jews who have
Distinguished themselves in Art, Science, and I/iterature.
II. For which Arts and Sciences have they Shown the
Greatest Aptitude ? Whence do these Aptitudes Seem to
Come? in. Is the Jew, the Semite, always Lacking in
Originality? The Ancient Hebrews, the Modern Jews,
and the Inventive Faculty Jewish Poets and Artists
Jewish Music Qualities and Faculties most frequently
Encountered in the Jews Spirit of Combination Jewish
Irony Quickness to Comprehend and Assimilate the Dis-
tinctive Aptitudes of Different Nationalties.

I.

I HAV endeavoured to describe the physiology and
the psychology of the Jew. The task is not an easy
one. The picture which I have drawn has not satisfied
all Israelities. Some have thought it their duty to
answer me. 1 Several Christians, on the other hand,
have told me that I had gone but half-way. " It is all
very well to describe the psychology of the Jews,"
so runs an unsigned letter from one of my more or less
kindly chance-correspondents u but, to make us
understand the Jew, it is not sufficient to depict

1 Especially, in L> Univers Israelite (Sept. -Nov., 1891), the
chief-rabbi, M. Lehmann. See above, p. 202.

225

226 Israel Among tJie Nations.

the good qualities of his mind and the faults of his
character. Something else is needed. It would be
well to inquire whether there is a Jewish genius or
spirit, that is to say, whether in letters, science and
politics the Jew is characterised by a national genius
or a national spirit fundamentally different from that
of the nations among whom he lives. If you wish to
define Israel's role in modern society, this question can-
not be avoided."

My correspondent was right ; for if the Jew has really
a distinctive genius and a peculiar national spirit, if he
differs radically from us in his intellectual qualities and
moral tendencies, then, indeed, does the ascendancy
of Israel threaten to de-nationalise the modern nations.
If, on the contrary, the Jew has neither a distinctive
national genius nor spirit, what signifies the " judais-
ing " of contemporary society?

I^et me admit frankly that I have often asked myself
this question during the past fifteen years. It is a most
delicate and complex one. If we are not content to
settle it according to our own fancy or prejudice, I see
but one other way ; that is, to take up the writers, art-
ists, scholars, philosophers, and politicians of Jewish
origin, and to examine whether they have any common
attributes which distinguish them from the other writ-
ers, scholars, and artists of their country and age. This
problemor, if you will, this puzzle has furnished
me, in my character of cosmopolitan dilettante, inter-
ested in all the arts and accustomed to ramble across
five or six national literatures, with frequent, though
desultory, occupation. I have always had a taste for
what might be called comparative national psychology ;
it constitutes for me the great charm of the study of
foreign politics and of the history of art. As for my

Jewish Genius, 227

conclusions with regard to tlie Jew, I shall endeavour
to state them without pedantry or scientific pretension,
confining myself to artists and writers, and leaving all
that concerns politics and social economics and the all-
absorbing topic of our demoralised age the money-
question for a later study.

To begin with, has the Jew a distinctive national
genius, and, if so, in what does it consist ? Which are,
apparently, its principal features, and who are its chief
representatives ? If we go back to Israel's beginning,
we shall find that she has a genius as strongly pro-
nounced as that of Rome or Greece. Without wishing
to offend the superficial detractors of the Semite, let me
say that Israel has occupied an unique place among the
nations ; she has been, not an artistic, but a prophetic
people. Her lips, like those of the son of Amos, have
been touched by the live coal from the altar, and they
had no words for things profane. The Bible bears
witness to the national Hebrew genius ; the poetry of
Genesis is equal to that of Homer, and Isaiah is as
original as Pindar. * If the inflexible Hebrew genius is
inferior to that of the Greeks, this is not due to the fact
that it rises to less lofty heights, but that it branches
out in fewer directions, and has infinitely less variety
and shading. The Hebrew genius was all of a piece,
like the bare rocks that loom up far off in the desert.
In this respect, there could be no greater contrast than
that which exists between the modern Jew, so supple and
agile, and his remote ancestors, the Beni-Israel. Now,
what we have in view is the modern Jew, the Judaism of
to-day, that has issued from the Ghetto and the Talmud-
Tora, and not ancient Hebraism, the fierce lion of
Judah, which neither the smiles of the Greek gods nor
the swords of the Romans could succeed in taming.

228 Israel Among the Nations.

Is there, to-day, after two thousand years of disper-
sion and the prolonged contact with different races
and civilisations, still a Jewish genius ? If so, it would
manifest itself in the writers and artists of Jewish
descent and in the distinguished men of all kinds
whom the house of Jacob has furnished to the modern
world. I^et us examine these, for a moment, with the
eye of a naturalist who classifies and labels animate
objects. Is there anything in these Jews that could
constitute a family, a species, an intellectual variety,
distinct from all other modern types ? Let us see what
apparent characteristics justify this separate classifica-
tion. The investigation fortunately presents few diffi-
culties : at least, there is no lack of specimens.

But very few generations have passed since, at the
signal given by Prance, the black gates of the Ghetto
and the bolted portals of the Judengasse have sprung
open, and already a large number of French, German,
Austrian, English, Italian, and even Russian Jews,
not content merely to inhabit our cities, are invading
the chairs of our universities, the stages of our theatres,
and even the platforms of our political assemblies.
This unexpected rise of a race so long repressed, was so
rapid that many beholders believed it to be a sort of
national revival, such as Europe has welcomed in the
case of more than one people in this nineteenth century.
A number of these newly-emancipated have boldly
tested their powers in our arts and sciences. They
were like birds just liberated from their cages, so swift
was their flight ; they were seen to dart from twig to
twig of the thickly branched tree of our modern civili-
sation, as though none of its parts were beyond the
reach of their wings. This fact is, in itself, of great
importance. How can we, in the face of it, be made to

Jewish Genius. 229

believe that the Jew is not adapted to our civilisation,
or that a law of race has made an Oriental of the Semite,
and doomed him to remain simply a spectator of our
Occidental civilisation ?

In this civilisation the barely emancipated Jew has
taken his place with the greatest ease ; indeed, too
large a place to suit many of us. And, strange to sa3%
this supposed Oriental is, as a rule, much more success-
ful in the "West than in the East, so readily does he
assimilate the Western spirit.

Outside of France and Holland, the circumcised
pariah was nowhere emancipated, even a century ago ;
and in every countr3 T which has granted him legal
equality, this obscure Jew, but yesterday still penned in
his Ghetto, is not content to rule only on the Stock Ex-
change ; he competes with us on our own ground, in
those very studies from which he was farthest removed
the latest arts and sciences. And the fact that he
did not need even two or three generations to accom-
plish this change, is a phenomenon perhaps unparal-
leled in history. What are we to conclude from this, if
not that between the Semite and ourselves, despite all
differences of origin and of past education, there exists
a secret likeness of disposition, an indisputable intel-
lectual kinship? In almost every domain of know-
ledge this Israelitish novice has proved himself able to
cope with the Christian, the Aryan. What modern
country has not experienced this ? In spite of the very
small number of Jews, relatively speaking one or two
in a hundred, and in some countries, as in France and
in Italy, but one or two in a thousand, almost all the
professions, especially those which demand only intelli-
gence and application, have furnished, within the past
hundred years, a certain number of Jews who have

230 Israel Among the Nations.

risen to the very first rank. This success of the Jew in
so -many different fields may even possibly be regarded
as the chief cause of the antisemitic spirit. Con-
sidering how few they are, the Jews everywhere take
up too much room. As I said at the outset, they com-
mit the offence of showing that numbers are not every-
thing an offence which numbers never forgive.

Compare, indeed, this infinitesimal Jewish minority
-with the Christian majority ; count the number of
celebrated men who have issued from the ranks of
Israel. There can be no doubt that the Jews, the so-
called Semites, have given proportionate^ more men
of talent to our Aryan civilisation than the so-called
Aryans themselves. 1 This is all the more astonishing,
because in the struggle for fame and honour, in which
so many different races compete for the prize, the Jews,
as Jews, have until very recently laboured under a
great disadvantage ; in many countries they were not
even allowed to enter the lists, being disqualified by
birth. Even when admitted, they were handicapped
by their religion and their Jewish names to such an
extent that many of the most illustrious Jews were
obliged to cast off this irksome burden. They could
win the prize only by submitting to baptism, and thus
disguising themselves as Christians.

An English Israelite has conceived the strange notion
of reducing to figures and tables what he calls the com-
parative ability of the Jews as distinguished from that

1 This is an interesting computation for instance, with re-
gard to the French Institute ; and I do not think it can be said
of those men of Jewish faith or origin, who have become mem-
bers of our academies since more than a century, that they owe
their admission to patronage.

Genius.

of the Englishmen and Scotchmen. 1 In order to ascer-
tain the percentage of more or less celebrated Jews, he
has had recourse to biographical dictionaries and to
the annual reports of academies, discovering there that
the proportion of the Jews who, within the last hun-
dred years, have become famous in all departments of
human activity, exceeds that of the Christians. I do
not think that am*body really doubted this. The six
or seven millions of European Jews have furnished
relatively more men of talent than the three hundred
millions of Catholic, Protestant, and Greek Christians.
If this is a fair method of measuring the intelligence
of different races and determining the value of difierent
religions, the Jews and Judaism have no competitors
for the first place. And the proportion in favour of the
Jews increases considerably if we except the Orient and
Russia, where the sons of Israel have still to bear the
heavy yoke of special laws. The chance of discovering
a distinguished man, a scholar or artist, among a thou-
sand Western Jews is three or four times as good as
among a thousand Englishmen, Frenchmen, or Ger-
mans. Does this mean that the Israelites have three
or four times, often indeed as it would really appear
ten times, as much aptitude for science, literature,
and art as the ordinary Gentile? I, myself, am not
disposed to go so far, seeing that the number of Jews
who devote themselves to intellectual labour is relatively
much larger than the number of non-Jews. But, after
making this allowance, the superior fitness of the Jews

Joseph Jacobs*s The Comparative Distribution of Jewish
Ability (London, Harrison, 1886). Cf. : Servi's Gli Israeliti
d'Europa, 1873. An Austrian, Mr. Alf. Schonwald, if I mis-
take not, has undertaken a biographical dictionary of celebrated
Jews, under the title : Das Goldene Bitch des Judentums.

232 Israel Among the Nations.

for such labour is indisputable. It is so marked that an
Englishman doubtless an Israelite infers that the
sons of Jacob, as compared with the rest of the human
race, represent a higher stage of evolution. I should
not wonder if this opinion were secretly held by many
Jews. 1

If this be true, it is one of those truths which Israel
should take care not to proclaim too loudly, for fear of
exposing herself to many annoyances. Of all superiori-
ties, the racial one is probably that which men are least
willing to concede. We do not like to admit that we
belong to a poorly-endowed race. Happily for our-
selves as well as for the Jews, we have not j r et come to
such a pass. We shall presently see that some persons
believe themselves justified in lowering the pride of the
"Semites," and persist, despite all, in looking upon
them as an inferior race.

One of my Israelitish friends, more modest and pos-
sibly nearer to the truth, contents himself with the
assertion that the average ability of the Jews is greater
than the average ability of the Gentiles. How shall
we account for this Jewish superiority so frequently
met with ? I, for one, am not at a loss to do so. It is
explained by what I have already said, by the Jew's
historic education, by the antiquity of his culture, by
the protracted training to which he has been subjected
for centuries, in one word, by hereditary selection,
that cruel selection of two thousand years of suffering
and struggle. I can perceive here neither mystery nor
race-fatality.

Still stranger is the fact that the proportion of emi-
nent men is even greater it is truly -extraordinary in

Wolf, "What is Judaism?" (Fortnightly Review,
Aug., 1884.)

Jewish Genius. 233

the case of men of half- Jewish blood. 1 We shall meet
with some instances of this later on. The fact is all
the more astonishing because, for many years past,
intermarriage between Jews and Christians has been
growing rarer, the old and the new Law being equally
opposed to it. Experience, however, seems to endorse
the advice given (with a totally different intent) by
that great humorist, Bismarck: "Cross a Christian
stallion with a Jewish foal." But what an instance of
the iron}- of things ! In contracting such unions, the
impoverished noble, anxious to fertilise his lands, and
the Jewish banker, eager to gain admission to the salons
of society, may be viewed as working unconsciously for
the improvement of the species. Aryan greed and
Semitic vanity may be regarded as the dupes of kind
Dame Xature, who is herself concerned only with
bringing forth a select offspring. Unfortunately, she is
not always successful ; the many cases in which she
does succeed are but special instances of a general law,
new illustrations of the benefits to be derived from the
crossing of neighbouring races.

II.

The sons of Israel, as can readily be imagined, are
not equally gifted in all directions. The arts and
sciences in which the} 7 have attained the greatest
distinction are, according to the estimate of our
English author, music, drama, poetry, medicine,
mathematics, and philology. We suspected as much,
and needed no statistics in proof of it. The fields in
which the Jews have indisputably displayed the highest

1 See J. Jacobs, Ibidem. According to him the fact had already
been noticed by Mr. Grant Allen, Mind> vol. viii., p. 504.

234 Israel Among the Nations.

ability, are music and philology, the art of sound and
the science of language, two studies probably at
bottom related to each other. It is unnecessary to name
the musicians of Jewish origin ; most of them are well
known. The philologists, the archseologists, the men
of general learning, are perhaps still more numerous.
As far as these branches are concerned, it may be said
that contemporary science in Germany, and especially
in France, is to a great extent Jewish. I quote at ran-
dom the names of Munck, Oppert, Bre"al, Weil, Derem-
bourg, Halevy, Loeb, the two Darmesteters, and the
two Reinachs, I have already alluded to this Jewish
bent for philology and the erudite sciences ; it is ex-
plained by the past education of the Jews, by their
hereditary study of ancient texts, and also by their
migrations, their series of exoduses, their frequent
journeyings, voluntary or compulsory, among peoples
of different tongues. Compelled to be a polyglot, the
Jew easily became a philologist, albeit these two attri-
butes are not always co-existent. One of my Christian
friends gave a different, and a humorous, explanation
of this fact. He professed to consider philology, espe-
cially phonetics and the permutation of vowels and
consonants, as a sort of change of sounds, the rules of
which were easily mastered by the Jew, quick at every
sort of change.

Because the Jew was most successful in music and
philology, it does not follow that he had no ability for
the other arts and sciences. No supposition could be
more erroneous. There is probably not a single art or
science in which the Jews have not proved themselves
capable. This is not astonishing, inasmuch as we
have seen that the power of adaptation is their master
faculty. Some persons regard the intellect as an

Jewish Genius. 235

instrument equally well adapted to all purposes. If
this seems sometimes true, it is possibly so in the case
of the Jew. There are certain arts, such as painting
and sculpture, plastic art in general, in which he
seemed lacking for a long time. But to-day, in Hol-
land, Germany, France, and even in Russia, he is
beginning to take to them. About fiftj- Jewish artists
are annually represented in our exhibitions. Many
of them have received prizes. Some have made a name
for themselves; such as Emile Levy, Henry Levy,
Lehman, Heilbuth, Worms, the German Liebermann,
and the American Mosler. But only one or two have
acquired an European reputation : Joseph Israels, the
Dutch painter, and Antokolsky, the greatest sculptor
that Russia has yet produced. Whence comes this
numerical inferiority of the Jews in these especial arts ?
Doubtless from their Law, which for three thousand
3 r ears prohibited, as idolatrous, the making of painted
or carven images. This is, if you will, a racial trait, a
Semitic trait, and yet it seems due to religion rather
than to race.

Can the same be said of the Jew's taste for music,
at once the most modern and the most ancient of all
arts? I doubt our right to see in this trait of his any-
thing Semitic or Oriental, for it does not appear to me
that the Orientals have manifested a pre-eminent talent
for music ; and while Oriental music has its quarter-
tones, its own scales and methods so different from
ours, our ear can discern in the works of Jewish com-
posers nothing distinctively Oriental or Semitic. 1

1 At no time, I "believe, has the music of the Jews been
clearly distinguished from the music of the period. If the
Synagogue has preserved ancient melodies, it is like the Church,
which in its liturgy has preserved the plain chant and also

236 Israel Among the Nations.

I am inclined to believe that this predilection of so
many Jews for that one of our modern arts which ap-
peals most searchingly to our inmost being, is due,
above all, to historic causes : to their intimate domestic
relations, to their compulsory confinement behind the
gates of the Ghetto, to the liturgy of their Synagogue,
which alwa}*s joined chant to prayer, perhaps also to
their sufferings, which caused them to retreat into
themselves, and to find greater solace than ever in their
national melodies.

Moreover, music, at least musical composition, re-
quires the spirit of combination, and this is one of the
faculties which the past centuries have most developed
in the sons of Judah. The nervousness which we
have already noticed in them predisposes them to the
most vibrating of all arts, that one which has most sway
over the nerves, the only one, at any rate, by means of
which they were enabled to give vent to their feelings.
Although the exiles of Babylon, in the freshness of
their grief, had not the heart to sing in the presence of
their Chaldean masters, the harp of Israel, so often
hung on the willows of the stranger, could not long
remain silent. The harp and the psaltery accompanied
the sons of Judah throughout all their wanderings,
and the echo of the sacred songs of Zion resounded
along the streams of the Gentiles.

With the Jews, as with all musical races, the talent
for poetry, the taste for versifying, the sense of rhythm,

certain hymns of the Middle Ages. The musical compositions
of every Jewish sect are, moreover, very numerous. See Rev.
Dr. Sparger's " Literature on the Music of the Jews, an Attempt
at a Bibliography." (The American Hebrew, 1892.) Cf.
ibidem, Rev. Francis I,. Cohen's "The Historical Origins of
Synagogue Music," February, 1893.

Jewish Genius. 237

went hand in hand with the love for music. David,
the great poet-king, has remained one of the favourite
types of Israel. During their dispersal, the Jews sub-
jected their Hebrew to the laws of modern verse, and
made it sing in metres until then unknown to the
Psalmist and the priests of the temple. 1 The Spanish
Jews had their national poetry during the Middle
Ages ; and ever since his intermingling with the
modern nations, Ahasuerus, finally at rest, has voiced
his plaints in almost every contemporaneous language.
From TJie Songs of Zion, by Jehuda Halevy, to Heine's
Romanzero^ from the unknown native of Champagne,
who bewailed in old French the martyrdom of his
brethren in Troves, 2 to the Castilian versifiers among
the Sephardim of Holland, and the sonorous Russian
poems of Minsky and Natson from these various
vernacular tongues of Europe there might be culled a
curious anthology of Jewish poems, resembling to my
fancy the sprays of sweet-briars in many-coloured
stones that we give to the victors in our floral games.
In the writers of Jewish origin prose-writers or poets
I, for my part, often find a poetic feeling and a
touch of l3 T ric warmth, scarcely to be expected In this
commercial race.

How comes it that every poetic spark has not been
stifled in Israel beneath the prosaic influence of the
degrading occupations to which we have subjected her,
and the pedantic formalism of her own rabbinical
schools? Because in the depths of his Ghetto the Jew

1 It is known that in Hebrew there was, strictly speaking,
neither verse nor metre. The usual form of Hebrew poetry, of
the Psalms, for instance, is what is called " parallelism.*'

2 Elegy discovered by Arse'ne Darmesteter, Reliques Scien-
tifiques.

238 Israel Among the Nations.

preserved his Bible and ids Haggada^ two wells of
poetry at which he could ever refresh himself : the one
deep, with limpid, gushing waters, like the shad} T
springs on the slope of Lebanon ; the other less pure
and fresh, similar to the fountains in Oriental bazaars,
with their dome-like roofs and fantastic arabesques.
The sons of Jacob had, as it were, a latent, subterranean,
poetic fire, ready to burst forth wherever Israel* s soul
had not become too parched by ritual and form, or
too degraded "by oppression and dishonouring trades.

This poetic vein, often disfigured by vulgarity, has
been revealed to us on the stage by Jewesses of low
birth. Dramatic art is, according to the statement of
actors, that in which Jews, and especially Jewesses,
have achieved the most ringing success. Those tribes,
so long without a dramatic stage, that Semitic race,
said to be incapable of being other than self-cen-
tred, have furnished us with great actors and actresses ;
for them, dramatic art took the place of plastic art ; it
was their statuary. The human face, the emotions
and passions, which the Jew has rarely been able to
reproduce with the brush or chisel, have been modelled
by his sons and daughters with the muscles of their
faces, and painted with the accents of their voices.

There is, however, nothing surprising in this; it
confirms our previous knowledge of the Jew's flexi-
bility, his talent for imitation and his faculty of assimi-
lation. His enemies will say that in his case the talent
of the actor is innate ; that, for ages, he has been
master of the art of simulation ; that this is one of the
characteristics of the Semite, always quick to change
expression, to assume any kind of mask, to lie with his
whole person as well as with his tongue. Granted ;
but if he has learned to play different roles, if he can

Jewish Genius. 239

alter his entire looks at will, it is we who have taught
him this by means of the trades which we have forced
on him, and the low esteem in which we have held
him. He was of too little account, too uncertain of
respect or toleration, to dare to show himself as he was.
I^et me remark, however, that it was by no means in
the portrayal of low and mean passions that Israel ex-
celled. Her daughters, at all events, as if, through a
mysterious selection, they had most bitterly felt the
age-long insults shown to their race, distinguished
themselves less in the light work of comedy than in
awe-inspiring tragedy and in the drama. It was a
strange revenge, won b} r art or genius, when a daugh-
ter of this downtrodden race, an uneducated Jewess,
picked up one morning in the street, gave to the royal
creations of our classical poets their noblest embodiment.

As regards mathematics, physics, and the natural
sciences, no one can deny that the descendants of
Jacob have a decided talent for these studies. Here,
again, is shown the fitness of the Jews for our civilisa-
tion. In the domain of science, the mathematical
faculty is probably that one which is most highly de-
veloped among them. " These Jews have, in many
cases, the bump of mathematics, as well as that of
music," said a professor to me. It is, moreover, a
well-known fact, that these two "bumps" are fre-
quently found on the same head.

This race, apparently so absorbed in the search after
the concrete and the material, has, from the time of its
dispersal, invariably evinced a taste for the abstract
sciences, for geometry and astronomy, as well as for
philosophy. This is due to their past, to the antiquity
of their culture, to the pursuits of their ancestors, per-
haps also to the exactions of their religion.

240 Israel Among the Nations.

However, Israel is not the only race with a bent for
metaphysics and mathematics. The Arabs attached no
small importance to these studies, and astronomy was
founded by the Chaldeans. It was in Babylon, on
the steps of the terraced p3 T ramids, that the Jews
learned the rudiments of astronomy. The rabbis made
use of this knowledge to settle the feasts of the calen-
dar ; the study of the heavens has its own place in the
Talmud. Is this the reason why the domes of our ob-
servatories have sheltered so many Jews, from Herschel
to \V. Beer, the Berlin astronomer and Meyerbeer's
brother ? In France, that contains only two or three
Israelites in a thousand, we need but to look into the
annals of the Academy of Science to find several Jews
side by side. Halphen, for instance, was considered one
of the foremost mathematicians of our day. Abroad,
there are Goldschmidt and Jacobi. Another fact
worthy of mention is that many of the most celebrated
chess players of both hemispheres have been Jews.
Does not all this strengthen the conviction that the
talent for combination and calculation has, for ages, been
inherent in this race ? Perhaps it is even more apt than
any other race to exaggerate the value of mathematics
and to abuse the inductive method, as has been the
case with Spinoza in his philosophy, Ricardo in his
political economy, and Marx in the paradoxes of his
socialism. 1

1 Not to appear too incomplete, we must point out the large
number of Jews who have distinguished themselves In medicine
and physiology, especially in Germany. LI. C. Lombroso,
himself a Jew, has made a list of them in his DHommede G&nie,
if I mi stake not. Other Israelites have become renowned as
legal instructors, which is the more easily accounted for by the
fact that the rabbi was a sort of jurist, since the Talmud was
a corpus juris*

Jewish Genius. 241

If there is a science or an art for which their past
would seem to have unfitted them, it is certainly the
art of politics, the government of men. They have
been debarred from it for centuries, although during
the Middle Ages, in Spain and elsewhere, they still
frequently took part in it. Yet, no sooner was he
emancipated, than the Jew threw himself into the whirl
of party conflicts. The temptation was strong ; he
needed but to set foot on the ladder of power in order
to win both fortune and honours. His agility and his
elasticity, a combination of stubbornness and supple-
ness, were bound to help him into office in every coun-
try where a public career was open to all. Indeed,
those states which have the system of appointment by
election, like France, England, Austria, Germany, and
Italy, have already furnished many politicians of
Jewish blood.

It is notorious that modern politics are not very
clean. This is no reason why the descendants of Jacob
should keep out of political life ; they have long been
forced to put up with more distasteful occupations. The
modern politician, be he baptised or circumcised, is not
a very edifying object ; and if the Jews are no worse
than the rest, neither are they any better. Their inter-
vention in the public business is not always a thing that
we can be glad of least of all when they see nothing in
it but " business." I have already remarked that the5 r
seem at times imbued with a sectarian spirit, a sort of
grudge against the faith in the name of which their an-
cestors were persecuted. But, at present I propose to
dwell on their intellectual faculties only. Moreover, the
political activity of the Jews has not always been en-
listed on the same side. The ministers and the orators
whom Israel has furnished to the modern parliaments

16

242 Israel Among the Nations.

such men as Cre'mieux, Goudchaux, Fould, Raynal,
I^asker, Bamberger, Disraeli, Gosdien, and Luzzatti
have not all sat on the benches of the Left.

Disregarding stars of the second magnitude, let us
dwell rather on three of the most remarkable figures of
the nineteenth centuiy, three very dissimilar men, who
rose in three different countries to almost equally as-
tounding heights. I mean Benjamin Disraeli, Ferdi-
nand Lassalle, and I,eon Gambetta. The last is a Jew
with a strain of Gascon blood. 1 Are these not singular
Jewish types ? I shall leave it to the reader to discover
their common, and therefore their Semitic, traits :
great tact and address, talent for effect, a little charla-
tanism perhaps, and perhaps also, at bottom, a latent
aristocratic contempt for the people whom they flattered
in public.

At all events, these three are enrolled as saints of
three different political calendars ; they are patrons of
three distinct political churches. And, what is rare in
politics, all three have left disciples ; their influence on
their parties has outlived their eloquence. Having at-
tained popularity by different paths, having made their
ambition subservient to almost opposite causes, all
three, the English Tory, the German Socialist, and
the French Republican have become fetiches in their
accidental fatherlands. These sons of a proscribed
race to whom idols were forbidden, have themselves

1 Gambetta was really Jewish on his father's side ; not that
the latter was a Jew "by faith, but by race. Although the fact
has been disputed, it was confirmed to me by a man to whom
it had been told by Gambetta himself. To Gambetta may be
added another lawyer, also a dictator, Daniel Manin, who con-
ducted the heroic defence of Venice against Austria in 1 842-49.
Manin's father came from the Ghetto.

Jewish Genius. 243

been raised to the rank of idols by the servile enthusi-
asm of Aryan masses. In the three most cultured
nations of Europe, aristocrats, middle-classes, and
workingmen submitted, at nearly the same time, to
the almost regal authority of a Semite. Na} r , even
more : the British aristocrac}-, the French bourgeoisie,
and the German proletariat may be said to have
been embodied, each in its turn, in a descendant of
Abraham. In spite of the rapidity with which every-
thing is forgotten in this century, these dead sons of
Israel still have devotees who piously celebrate their
birthdays. It is hard to sa} r to which of these three
scions of Judah the incurable anthropolatry of our
pagan races has accorded the most clamorous apothe-
osis. Do we not all remember the triumphal obsequies
of the grocer's son with the foreign name, whose glory
it was to have embodied the soul of France in the hour
of her distress ? It is said that the house in which,
prematurely spent, he closed his life, has become for
some a place of pilgrimage.

And yet, as far as posthumous veneration is con-
cerned, Gambetta yields place to Lassalle, the young
god of the Teutonic populace, hailed during his life-
time as the Messiah of Socialism and glorified, after
his death in a senseless duel, as the suffering Christ
and adored redeemer of the toiling masses. But the
most fortunate of the three, the one whose eminence
aroused most pride in Israel and most envy among
the Israelites, was Disraeli. To force their way
into the select circle of society is the dream of
thousands of his co-religionists. And this dream, Dis-
raeli the Sephardi of Venice, with the contemptuous
lip, realised in the most exclusive of societies. What
are the acclamations of Belleville or Diisseldorf, the

244 Israel Among the Nations.

gross homage of ignorant crowds, the cheers of thou-
sands of hoarse voices, compared with the plaudits of
Piccadilry's drawing-rooms, and the wreaths laid upon
the old Beaconsfield's grave by the Slite of the most
aristocratic nation in the world? England, solicitous
of his fame, has invented a new holiday in his honour ;
and every spring on Primrose-day, the old dandy with
the black ringlets, masquerading as an English peer,
looks down from his pedestal upon ladies of the highest
rank, who come to strew at his feet basketfuls of his
favourite flower.

There is one novel side of the Jewish genius, how-
ever, which Disraeli, the self-made leader of British
aristocracy, who gave half a century of new youth to
decrepit Toryism, exhibited to a less marked degree
than Lassalle, the apostle of Socialism, or Gambetta,
the representative leader of the newly aroused social
classes. These have shown us the Jew as master of
the spoken word, swaying assemblies and fascinating
the masses, as the prophet of these latter days, pro-
claiming to the people the gospel of democracy, an
actor again, if you will, tragedian and comedian by
turns, but with a swing and a fire, a force of animal
vitality and a glow of inspiration such as was hardly
to be looked for in the old blood of Israel. What is
there left, in these rich natures, of the stunted Jew of the
Ghetto? In looking at Gambetta* s profile with its
characteristic Jewish curve, we see the lean face of the
Jew, filled out and grown leonine. And in what
traits of character do we recognise the Semite in these
men ? In their self-possession, perhaps, and their im-
perturbable self-confidence ? In their appreciation of
realities and possibilities ? In their clearness of vi-
sion, even in moments of passion and violence ; in the

Jewish Genius. 245

cool calculation that underlies even their audacities and
apparent follies ? All these characteristics are exhib-
ited by men without a drop of Jewish blood. Of all
the incarnations of that modern Proteus the Jew of
to-day this is certainly the most astounding.

If we regard them as a separate race, a sort of na-
tionality scattered among other nationalities, what a
number of different aptitudes are united in the sons of
Jacob. This seems to be a long-established character-
istic of theirs ; witness the great rabbis of the Middle
Ages, at once or in turn physicians, mathematicians,
grammarians, poets, philosophers, sometimes even
financiers and administrators. If you wish to sum up
under a single head, or in a single imaginary person, the
salient characteristics of the race the modern Jew, the
social cultivated Jew, who has wound his way into our
life, may be likened to a youth of precocious intelli-
gence that can be turned to almost anything ; calcu-
lating by instinct, practical by nature, concealing at
times beneath material tendencies a germ of poetic
feeling that soon dries up one of those young men who
flock to us yearly from the provinces, especially from
the South, deeming themselves more or less fit for an}*-
thing, and really sufficiently dexterous to make their
way everywhere.

But this variety of aptitudes does not imply origi-
nalit}\ It by no means proves the existence in Israel
of a national genius. On the contrary, it suggests the
belief that the Jew differs less from others in his posi-
tive personal characteristics than in his power of adapta-
tion. It might be said that he assimilates everything
and invents nothing. In fact, this has been said.
What are we to think of it?

246 Israel Among the Nations.

III.

There are two opinions current with regard to the
Jew. One ascribes to him a spirit, if not a genius,
foreign and antagonistic to our race, and calls it the
" Semitic " spirit. The other often held by the very-
same persons asserts that the Jew is utterly lacking in
individual genius, in oiiginalitj*. According to this
opinion he has never invented anything, and is in art
and science, as everywhere else, capable only of ad-
justing and adapting. " Look at them," said one of
my friends to me, "see how quickly and with what
monkey- or squirrel-like agility they climb the first
rungs of any ladder ; sometimes the};- even succeed in
scaling its top, but they never add to it a single round/'
Granted ; but how many of us really add a single
round to that mysterious ladder which we have set up
in vacant space, and which reaches toward the Infinite ?

Men who consider the remnants of Israel as an eth-
nic element distinct from all others, insist that they
have never displayed any originality, either in art,
poetry, or philosophy. The Jew, in their opinion, is
utterly lacking in creative power. It is this that is
said to distinguish the Semitic, from the Aryan, spirit.
The Semite is sterile ; neither his brain nor his hands
can produce anything new. He is content to appro-
priate the labour of others, in order to put it to use ; he
makes the most of ideas and inventions, as of dollars ;
he combines them "and puts them into circulation ; in
short, he always subsists on others ; one might almost
say that he is the parasite of arts and sciences.

This is, approximately, the theory of Wagner 1 with
regard to music, the art most cultivated by the Jews ;

1 Wagner's Das yudenthun in der Musik.

Jewish Genius. 247

according to him, Jews like Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer,
and Hale vy, although indeed able to compose a Ger-
man symphony or a French opera, have not been able
to invent a new form in art. But, is it necessary to in-
vent new forms in order to be an original artist ? And
does this lack necessarily imply that Jewish genius
consists entirely in a faculty for combination? Ab-
sence of creative power, of spontaneity and of origi-
nality, is said to be the mark of the Jew everywhere.
Israel, it is asserted, displays in this respect something
of a woman's nature. The Semites are said to be a
feminine race, possessing to a high degree the gift of
receptivity, always lacking in virility and procreative
power. From which it would seem to follow that they
are, after all, an inferior race.

If this be indeed so, it suggests a reflection : If the
Jew is merely an imitator, a copyist, a borrower, how
can his race possibly denationalise our strong Aryan
races? But, are we justified in regarding this lack of
originality as a racial feature, the stamp impressed on
Israel and the Semite b} T the hand of ages ? As for
myself, I must confess that if any of the ancient races
seemed to possess originality, it was this race. Even
those who have denied it a creative imagination l have
agreed that it gave the world religion an invention
that holds its own with any other. How can we deny
all spontaneity to this Lilliputian kingdom of the Jor-
dan, to which we owe Hebraic monotheism and Chris-
tianity, the Old and the New Testaments ? Are we to

1 Renan's Histoire Gn$rale des Langues Stmitiques; " The
eminently subjective character of Arabian and Hebrew poetry
is due to another trait of the Semitic spirit, to its complete
lack of creative imagination and to the consequent absence of
fiction."

248 Israel Among the Nations.

judge only by the narrow literary standard ? What is
the meaning of spontaneity of feeling and poetic power,
if they are not contained in the Psalms, nor in Job, nor
in the Prophets ? We ma\- question the historic value
of the Jewish books, but not their poetry ; a poetry
impersonal and spontaneous, welling up from the
depths of the popular soul. If there is anything in the
world really inspired, high above the empty writings
of rhetoricians and polishers of phrases, is it not these
very books, artless and unstudied, eternally alive, in
which so many men of all nations have felt the
breath of the Spirit of God? That which is really
true, really characteristic of the race, is the fact that
the Hebrews have not invented a new kind of litera-
ture ; in this sense they have had no art or literature,
no drama, epic poem, painting or sculpture. That which
is furthermore true is, that the Hebrew (and, if you
wish, the Semitic) genius was confined to a narrow bed
between two rocky walls, whence only the sky could
be seen ; but it channelled there a well so deep that
the ages have not dried it up, and the nations of the
four corners of the earth have come to slake their
thirst at its waters,

Let us leave the ancient Hebrews out of the ques-
tion ; it is not they who were always borrowers, eager
to make use of the inventions of others. As regards
the Jews of the dispersal, and especially the modern
Jews, we have already said that, with respect to social
tendencies, they were receptive and not originative.
Surely, there were many reasons for this their small
number, the twofold servitude to which they were sub-
jected, the moral bondage from within and from with-
out, the spirit of routine acquired in the Ghetto, the
scattering and insecurity of their schools, the super-

Jewish Genius. 249

stitious attachment to their national past, kept alive
by the oppressions of their Christian and Mohamme-
dan masters. Was the rod of persecution likely to
stimulate the spirit of originality ? If the Jew has con-
tributed to the growth of modern civilisation, it was
especially as an intermediary, as the carrier of ideas,
the transmitter of sciences and discoveries, of stories
and legends. Israel has been a connecting link be-
tween the Orient and the Occident, between antiquity
and the Middle Ages, between the Mohammedan and
the Christian worlds.

This was her principal role ; and this function, which
she still discharges to some extent in our time, was not
so much assumed by Israel in virtue of her racial in-
stincts, as imposed by her history, by her dispersal to
the borders of different races and the meeting-points
of different civilisations. Does the fact that the an-
cient people of God has contributed to our civilisation
only what it received from others, that in the midst of
modern nations it has manifested no genius distinc-
tively Jewish, not seem to prove that it has no longer a
national genius peculiar to itself, and that whatever
endowment of the sort it once had, at home in Pales-
tine, it has lost long ago in mingling with us ? Thus, to
repeat, if it really has no distinctive genius and is only
capable of imitating, of borrowing, of transmitting to
some what it has received from others, how can this
slim remnant of Judah, thinned by intermixture with
a hundred peoples, endanger our national genius?

Here we must beware of confounding the Jew with
the Jewish race, the originality of a nation with the
faculties of an individual. Because Israel as a people,
as a race, seems no longer to give evidence of a national
genius, it does not follow that the Jew, as an indi-

250 Israel Among the Nations.

vidual, as a modern Frenchman, Englishman, or Ger-
man, is always completely lacking in originality and
spontaneity.

Is it really certain that the gift of invention has been
bestowed exclusively on the Aryans and remains the
mark of that race ? If this were so, how many of us
could prove our Aryan blood ? I know of nations that,
for centuries, have not produced a single creative gen-
ius. Are these nations to be classed among the Sem-
ites ? Let us not be misled by the vague idea of race.
The relatively small number of Jews, the heavy clouds
that until recently obscured the horizon of Judah, are
sufficient to explain why no star of first magnitude has
shone in their firmament. Can it be said, therefore,
that, as poets, artists, and philosophers, the Jews shine
only by our reflected light, or are heard only as echoes
of our voices ? Because without Descartes there might
possibly have been no Spinoza, shall we dare to assert
that Spinoza was a philosopher without ideas, devoid
of original views and of genius ?

And what we would not venture to affirm of Spinoza,
the greatest of Israel's sons, shall we assert it of a poet
like Heine? Is it not true that the sceptical heir of
the Psalmist has added a new string of wondrous deli-
cacy to the German lyre ? Or is our ear no longer at-
tuned to its subtle variations and soft dissonances?
However much out of vogue the Jewish poet may be
in Germany, shall we pronounce his Lieder nothing
more than the inspired rh3 r mes of a plagiarist, devoid
of spontaneity and imagination, of humour and deli-
cious surprises, in one word, of inspiration ? To me,
at least, there is in the whole rich treasure-house of
German poetry no freer fancy than his.

Let us dwell for a moment on Heine. If the mod-

Jewis/i Genius. 251

ern Jews still possess a national genius, we shall be
most likely to find it in the author of the Reisebilder.
For all that he had himself baptised, he retains the
mark of his birth. You cannot understand him unless
you recollect that he was born a Jew. There is in him,
in his very love-songs and simplest melodies, a strain
foreign to the Germany of our day, something at once
sad and spiteful, an after-taste of tears, an acrid flavour,
a sting of maliciousness, due to his origin, his educa-
tion, and the position then occupied by the Jews in
German3 r . He is like the bird escaped from its cage,
the Ghetto, but which, still remembering its prison, flies
about noisilj r in every direction, as though to test its
new-found liberty ; there is a note of defiance and ran-
cour in its trills and in the beat of its wings.

I am aware that the Germans criticise Heine se-
verely, as though, in attacking the poet, thej T took
pleasure in lowering the Jew. To be a German poet,
but not of Teutonic descent, is in the eyes of Ger-
many imbued with race-pride an inherent sin, hard
to expiate. The new empire wishes to be indebted only
to the blood of Herrmann. The ungrateful Teuton at-
tempts to banish everyone who is not a descendant of
Thor from the classic Walhalla that has been erected on
the banks of the Danube to commemorate the triumphs
of Germany. Heine was treated by his critics beyond
the Rhine as were his musical co-religionists by Wagner;
to him, as to them, was denied all originality and in-
ventive faculty. William Scherer, the historian of
German literature, accords to him onlj r a rare imitative
talent. It is true that the form in which the Lieder
were cast is not original with Heine ; it belongs to the
romanticism of Schlegel, Tieck, and Novalis. Ac-
cording to W. Scherer, the author of the Heimkehr

252 Israel Among the Nations.

is only the last and most brilliant of the romanticists.
His critics will not even concede his exclusive claim to
that quality most distinctive!}- his own, that irony,
which none of them are willing to call Jewish, but
which they ascribe likewise to German romanticism.
Heine is only its last flower, and a diseased flower at
that, with an unwholesome odour ; for in this German
rose there lurks a worm Judaism. 1

If it is found so easy to make the author of Atta
Troll fit into the historic evolution of German poetry,
how can one admit that there is such a thing as a Jew-
ish genius or a Jewish poetry ? In spite of its bias and
prejudice, German criticism shows us how largely the
most individual of all Jewish writers is a product of his
age and his country. Heine is indeed a German and
a romanticist from bej^ond the Rhine. He is much
more of a German than many Frenchmen imagine ;
this does not impty that he has nothing peculiarly his
own. He has, on the contrary, a brilliancy, a light-
ness of touch, a quickness of thought, so rare in the
Germans (compare him but to Jean Paul), that we are
led to ascribe these qualities to his Jewish descent and
to his residence in France. We are, possibly, not quite
wrong. However German he may be, there is some-
thing of the Jew and of the Frenchman in him. I^ike
his contemporary and congener Borne, Heine was in-

3 The historian Treitschke and the philosopher Harttnann,
two of the educators of contemporaneous Germany, do not deal
any more tenderly with Heine. Moreover, both, of them show
plainly that, in the poet, they are attacking the Jew, and, as
Hartmann says, the entrance of Judaism into German civilisa-
tion. The French reader can peruse, with profit, the book of
Mr. I/. Ducros : Heine et son Temps, his youth (1886), and the
article of M. J. Bourdeau, Revue Bleue> 8th January, 1887. Cf.
Ad. Strodtmann's Heine's Leben und Werke*

Jewish Genius. 253

fluenced by the French spirit ; not only by French ideas,
but by the very genius of France. He is saturated
with it ; no German of Teutonic blood could have ab-
sorbed it to such an extent. It constitutes a part
of his originality and is, no doubt, due to his Jewish
extraction.

If we insist upon discovering a special genius of the
Jews, this is its leading trait ; it reduces itself to this
faculty, always a rare one even among the sons of
Judah the faculty of assimilating, at the same time, the
special aptitudes of two peoples. But this cannot be re-
garded as amounting to a distinctively national genius.
This advantage if indeed it always be one the Jew
owes to the fact that, however strongly his education
and intellectual environments may have tinged his mind
with the national genius, French, English, or German,
this stamp, marked as it often is, is less deep, because
usually more recent. It has not been imprinted in his
marrow for centuries upon centuries. It follows that
the pores of the Jew are not closed, as ours are for the
most part, against foreign influences. He steeps him-
self, body and mind, in the genius of surrounding na-
tions. He drinks it in like a sponge, absorbs it, and,
so to say, assumes its very tincture. Thus, we see
Russian and German Jews transform themselves so
quickly into Frenchmen and Parisians. Contrary to
his ancestors encased in the Talmud as in a coat of
mail, the modern Jew responds more rapidly than our-
selves to the influences of his environment and his
time.

If we pass from the poets to the artists and musi-
cians, similar reflections will suggest themselves. The
domain of art in which they have achieved the most
marked success, is probably that in which they have

254 Israel Among the Nations.

displayed the least creative faculty. Let me note, at
the outset, that there is no more a Jewish music than
there is a Jewish poetry, 1 There are merely Jewish
musicians, all of whom belong musically to the coun-
try in which they were born or happened to live. In
these offshoots of Jacob we can easily recognise a
French, German, Russian, or English graft. 2

Nothing in these Jewish musicians resembles a distinc-
tively national Jewish genius. Otherwise, who would
have dared to dispute their originality ? Halevy is a
Frenchman and one of the most French of our compos-
ers ; he has the best qualities of our race : esprit, vivacity,
plaj'ful grace, a sense of form, a knowledge of composi-
tion. Mendelssohn, Goethe's Wunderkmd, is German in
his inspiration, as well as in the forms of his art. He
has the seriousness of the Germans, their scientific know-
ledge, their poetry, their depth, and their feeling for
nature. If the Jew comes out in him at all, it is in the
effort that marks the beginning and in the purpose that
pervades the whole of his composition ; in his critical
sense and a certain characteristic eclecticism. Meyer-
beer, too, is at bottom German ; if there is anything
Jewish in him it is his talent for appropriating, in turn,
German, Italian, and French taste and style, and the skill
with which he combines all these without, however,
always being able to blend them entirely. He is a Jew
inasmuch as he seems to be a cosmopolitan, knowing
how to borrow contrasting elements from different na-
tions. With him, especially, the spirit of combination

1 -See below, Chapter IX., Part II.

* Among the musicians who have endeavoured to endow
England with a national music, there are many of Jewish
origin : J. Nathan, Sir Julius Benedict, Sir M. Costa, F. Co wen,
Sir A. Sullivan.

Jewish Genius. 255

predominates. From this point of view he is decid-
edly typical of his race. It was he whom Wagner had
in mind when he denied all creative talent to the Jews.
If it be true that Jewish music is an amalgamation of
various styles, something composite, like the name in
which the author of L'Africaine saw fit to muffle him-
self, then Giacomo Meyerbeer is its most characteristic
representative. But this is not a sufficient basis for the
assumption of a national Jewish music. It is rather the
negation of any such assumption. If we ever encounter
in Meyerbeer (or, for that matter, in Mendelssohn) an
inspiration that may truly be called Hebrew, it is of a
religious character the stern voice of the Old Testa-
ment which re-echoes here and there in Le PropJitte.

And now, shall we ask ourselves what rank will be
assigned to Jewish musicians, especially to Meyerbeer,
in the history of art ? This is not the place for such a
question. 1 But it is undeniable that in the realm of
opera a kingdom which has its revolutions also
Meyerbeer held complete sway for fifty years. This is
a fairly long reign for a Jew possessed of little origi-
nality. It has been said of him that by sheer force of
will he developed his talent to the point of genius.
" Much talent served up with much patience, " was
the expression used, I believe, by Thomas Graindorge.
This fact might again be taken as a racial characteris-
tic ; for we have seen that the Jew's great strength lies
in his supple tenacity*

If we are willing to concede to the composer of Les

1 1 must say, in passing, that one of the first detractors of
Meyerbeer was his congener Mendelssohn, displeased no doubt
at the success on the stage, of an artist whom he felt his infe-
rior. (See the letters of Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Briefe aus
denjahren, 1830-1847, passim, Leipzig, H. Mendelssohn,)

256 Israel Among tJie Nations.

Huguenots nothing more than skill, science of compo-
sition, the trick of his craft, the knowledge of effect,
the understanding of scene-painting and stage-setting,
the art of making use of a dramatic situation or a
musical idea, as his congeners on the Exchange made
the best use of the situations there, we shall have
to forget the duet between Valentine and Raoul, and
the cathedral scene in Le PropK&te. Meyerbeer's French
operas may go out of fashion, like his Crodato and his
Italian operas ; and yet, the fact will remain that a
Berlin Jew gave to two generations of Christians the
sentiment of the sublime. His music has indeed be-
come antiquated ; we have grown conscious of its faults
and tricks. We are shocked with its Italianisms, its
commonplace motifs, and the want of refinement in its
instrumentation. For all that, Meyerbeer was un-
doubtedly the most dramatic composer of his age. We
may jeer with Wagner at the historical form of opera,
regarding it as a false and illegitimate style, and we are
at perfect liberty to prefer the l3'ric drama and the sym-
bolic legends ; nevertheless, this same historic opera has
held sway over two hemispheres, and it was Me}rerbeer
who marked the zenith of its power. This is sufficient
glory for any artist, be he Jew or Christian.

Thus, whether we deny or concede to them sponta-
neit}^ in art, or imagination and creative power, it is
obvious that the children of Israel no longer possess a
national genius. There are merely certain faculties
which we encounter more frequently in them than in
others ; the gift of combination, the power of adapta-
tion, the art of blending different elements, and a spe-
cial quickness in grasping the varying genius of different
nations. 1 All this can be reduced to what we have al-

3 Hence, probably, the success of the Jews as performers and
interpreters of the music of others. In this respect, perhaps

Jetvish Genius. 257

ready pointed out as the Jew's master faculty Ills
power of assimilation.

I am not certain that outside of this flexibilit3% this
mental elasticity, there is anything specifically Jewish
in the artists and authors of Israel. Two or three dis-
tinctive features may be noticed in them, but they are
far from being common to all Jews. Thus, we some-
times imagine that we can discern an Oriental strain
in their nature. I, for my part, should be grateful to
them if the> r were to brighten our foggy skies with a
gleam from the Oriental heavens. But this Oriental
radiance, which we seem to see in the dark e} T es of
Israel's daughters, does it glow in the souls of many
of Israel's sons? Even in those cases in which the im-
agination seems to be tinged with an Oriental colour-
ing, is this really an atavistic feature, a dim reflection
from Zion and Carmel, transmitted through the ages ?
" What seems to you like a racial peculiarity with us, 1 '
said an Israelite to me, in this connection, "is gener-
ally only the result of our education ; it is due more to
our books than to our blood. We have turned our faces
so long toward the hills of Jerusalem, that the vision
of the Orient is still mirrored in our eyes and its voice
still rings in our ears. When we have reached the age
of twenty and have leisure to dream, our dreams are
filled with palm-trees probably with more than ever
grew in Palestine. The truth is, that we are only as
Oriental as we imagine ourselves to be. Our Orien-
talism, like that of Disraeli in his Tancred, is an Orien-

no pianist has equalled Anton Rubinstein. Even in Bayreuth,
the conducting of Parsifal is entrusted to an artist of Jewish
origin, Mr. Hermann Le*vy. The celebrated German violinist
J. Joachim, is also an Israelite, as was the great singer Paul-
ine I/iicca. To these musicians must be added the Jewish
actors.

258 Israel Among the Nations.

talism of the intellect, and greatly resembles that of an
English pastor fed on Old Testament metaphors."

Irony is a quality often found in Jewish authors ;
almost all of them have a touch of it. "We might say
that it dates far back in Israel, as far as that terrible
irony of the prophets, at times almost fierce in its in-
tensity. But have the Jews inherited this bent from Ju-
" dah and Ephraim, or from their forefathers of the Rue
aux Juifs ? From the latter, we believe, through their
humiliations and sufferings. It is but another product
of persecution, an acrid fruit that has ripened on the
brackish waters of age-long hatred. If their irony has
at times a touch of the Satanic, this comes from the
hell of the Ghetto and the long damnation of the Ju-
dengasse ; or, as in the case of Heine, the baptised Jew
takes vengeance upon the God of the Christians and
upon their social system, for the disgrace of compulsory
baptism. 1 Irony, sarcasm, have ever been the weap-
ons of the weak when persecuted or degraded. We
know how caustic is the wit of deformed persons;
Judaism was regarded, for centuries, as a sort of de-
formity. Moreover, the irony of the Jews spared no
one; they ridiculed themselves as well as others.
Christians have not spoken worse of the Jews than the
latter have spoken of themselves. In this respect, they
are like us, Frenchmen ; nor is it, perhaps, our only
point of resemblance.
Is there not, in certain respects lightness and sup-

1 But Jewish irony has by no means invariably this malignant
sting. Far from it ; -witness Disraeli, I^on Gozlan, Ludovic
Hale"vy, and more than one French writer. As representative,
in Germany, of this playful irony, we can cite David Kalisch
(1820-1872), the popular author of the Berlinese Posse and
founder of the Kladderadatsch of that city.

Jewish Genius. 259

pleness and careless ease of movement a secret kin-
ship between the Jewish and the French intellects?
Foreigners have said so. I admit that I, myself, used
to believe it. It seemed to account for the Jew's rapid
acclimatisation on our boulevards, and for the fact that
among the oracles of our loungers there could be so
many Parisians imported from beyond the Rhine.
But no, it simply proves Israel's marvellous faculty of
adaptation. "Take care," said an Alsatian Jew to
me ; * l what you now say about the Jews with regard to
Frenchmen, has already been said of them with regard
to Germans and Anglo-Saxons. In order to see differ-
ent resemblances, it is necessary only to shift your posi-
tion or change the light."

In fact, I recalled a certain page of Heine, in which
the versatile author of Lutecie, extols the kinship be-
tween the French and the German spirits, both unique
with regard to morality, depth of thought, and serious-
ness of feeling. 1 Would an English Israelite not be
still more justified in saying that the Jew resembles
the Anglo-Saxon by virtue of his practical sense, his
enterprising spirit, his suppressed fervour, his energy
and tenacity ? An Italian Jew might easily discover an
affinity between the Italian spirit and that of Israel.
And so on, in every country, even in Russia, where the
participation of certain " Hebrews" in the nihilistic
propaganda might serve as a proof of the kinship be-
tween Jew and Slav. We have here an amusing occu-
pation and an easy one. a Must we not conclude that

1 Heine's Shakespeare's Madchen und Frauen.

* Several scholars have allowed themselves to be deceived by
this fact and have thought to detect here an argument in favour
of the Hebrew origin of certain Christian nations. There is
hardly a nation in which some persons have not flattered

2 6o Israel A mong the Nations.

there is always something artificial in such compari-
sons, and that the Jews have acquired, by virtue of their
migrations through all countries and their contact with
all civilisations, a strange plasticity which renders them
everywhere capable of assimilation with their fellow-
countrymen of Aryan stock ?

In view of this, we surely do not need to lay stress
upon the rapidity with which the Jew, especially the
cultured Jew, becomes nationalised in every country.
Still, while becoming a Frenchman, a German, an
Englishman, or an American, he often retains uncon-
sciously a certain flavour of the countries in which his
forefathers have lived. I will not say that he remains
more or less cosmopolitan (only the minority of Jews
are cosmopolitan), but he is less exclusive in his na-
tionality and more responsive to outside influences than
we are. He experiences less difficulty in extricating
himself from the traditional swaddling-clothes of na-
tional prejudice in which every race is swathed. Herein
lies often his originality and his strength. The cultured
Israelite is able to view his own country at once from
within and without ; he apprehends the national spirit
like a native, and yet judges it like a stranger. For
this reason Israel will always be fit to serve as an inter-
mediary between the other nations, to bring them into
closer union and make them intelligible to each other.
Thus the genius of Heine and Borne spanned the Rhine
with a bridge which once served to connect the French

themselves to have discovered the ten tribes of Israel ! Of the
numerous essays of this kind I shall quote one, whose name
speaks for itself : Anglo-Israel and the Jewish Problem. The
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel Fonnd and Identified in the Anglo-
Saxon Race, by Th. Rosling Howlett, B.A. (PhiladelpHa,
Spangler, 1892.)

Jewish Genius. 261

and the German intellect, but which today lies in
ruins. And a poor Jewish community of Denmark has
furnished us with a critic like George Brandes, who has
penetrated perhaps more deeply than any other Euro-
pean into the spirit of the various literatures.

Despite the most patient investigation, then, we fail
to discover a national Jewish genius. This does not
imply that the sons of Jacob, like the statue of Condil-
lac, have no impressions or ideas other than those sug-
gested by contact with us. I do not know whether
the soul of the Semite differs sensibly from that of the
Aryan ; but I perceive that the soul of the Jew has, at
times, a different ring from that of the Christian. This
is due to the fact that, unlike ours, it was not cradled
in the manger of Bethlehem, and that religion leaves
upon human souls a more lasting impress than is com-
monly imagined. It is due also, and in no less degree,
to Israel's long humiliation. I freely admit, then, that
we may differ from the Jews in certain characteristics
and shades of feeling ; but in this I can see no disad-
vantage to us or to our civilisation. I have little taste,
I confess, for uniformity ; I leave that to the Jacobins.
My ideal of a nation is not a monolith, nor a bronze
formed at a single casting. It is better that a people
should be composed of diverse elements and of many
races. If the Jew differs from us, so much the better ;
he is the more likely to bring a little variety into the
flat monotony of our modern civilisation. I am rather
inclined to find fault with these sons of Shem as I
find fault with the Orientals who adopt our customs
for resembling and copying us too closely. But why
should I ? Even if we admit that they have no par-
ticular originality, even if we see in them, as the Ger-
mans see in the Slavs, mere ethnic raw material is it

262 Israel Among the Nations.

not something" to furnish material for such philosophers
as Spinoza, snch composers as Mendelssohn, such ar-
tists as Rubenstein, such poets as Heine, such orators
as Gambetta, such actresses as Rachel ?

Whenever I meet one of those melancholy proces-
sions of Russo-Jewish refugees who, retracing after a
lapse of centuries the road along which their sires and
grandsires marched into exile, are pressing in search of
liberty towards the land of the setting sun, I ask my-
self whether one of those pitiable Jewesses, emaciated
by the fatigues of the journey, is not perchance carry-
ing beneath her heart some future Messiah of art or
science ? Spinoza's mother may well have disembarked
as such a fugitive, on the low shores of the Netherlands.
For the sake of one such metaphysician as Baruch de
Spinoza, or of a single poet like Heine, or merely for
another Rachel, I, for my part, would submit to hav-
ing the number of Jews in France doubled.

CHAPTER X.

THE JEWISH SPIRIT.

I. Is There a Jewish Spirit Radically Different from Ours ?
What we Understand by Jewish. Spirit is, in Most Cases, not
Distinctively Jewish Where are the Signs of the Jewish
Spirit in French Arts and Letters ? Gr&culi et Judaicuti.
The Jews and the French Operette The Jews and Por-
nography II. Jewish Writers in* Germany The Jewish
Woman In Germany and Throughout Burope there have
been Disintegrating Forces Other than that of the Jewish
Spirit UL The Lowering of our Ideals Are the Jews
Really to Blame for it? Is the Semite Incapable of Ideals?
The Jew and the Jewess in Art, Fiction, and Life TV.
In what Respect the Jewish Ideal Differs from Ours It is
Neither Chivalrous nor Mystical A Humanitarian, Barthly
Ideal The Messianic Conception How it is Interpreted
by Modern Jews The Jewish and the Christian Spirit, the
Semitic and the Aryan IdeaL

I.

"GRANTED," it will be said, "the Jew has no
national genius and is therefore not able to denation-
alise the French, German, or Slavonic genius. But
this is not sufficient to reassure us ; apart from the in-
tellectual, there is the moral danger. You have told
us that the Jew, our equal, sometimes our superior in
intellect, is frequently inferior to us in soul, in char-
acter. Though there may be no national Jewish genius,

263

264 Israel Among the Nations.

is there not a Jewish spirit which threatens to corrupt
the French spirit and that of Germany, Russia, and
America? " For, whether we be neo-Latins, Teutons,
Slavs, or Anglo-Saxons, we all have inherited the
belief that our blood is pure and our race healthy.
Every nation is but too ready to believe that its corrup-
tion comes from without. This denotes a degree of
guilelessness or hypocrisy ill-befitting any great people.

Is there a Jewish spirit, that is to say, have the Jews
moral and social tendencies radically different from
ours? This is another point that seems doubtful to
me. If there be a Jewish spirit, it is in the same sense
in which there is a Catholic or Protestant spirit, in
the religious sense. Such a spirit may be found al-
most intact in the Jewish communities of the East
where the sons of Israel live in compact groups ; it is
reverential of its past and attached to its traditions ; it
is formalistic and suspicious of innovations. 1 Such is
the Jewish spirit as it has been fashioned by the Tal-
mud and the Ghetto. But this is not what, in the
Occident, is generally meant by the Jewish spirit ; it is
rather the opposite, for as I have already observed,
what we, in our ignorance, usually understand b}>- that
term is the spirit of the Jew who has become de-
judaised by contact with us, the spirit of negation
with which the Jew has become imbued by breathing
our atmosphere and the miasmas with which it is filled.

That spirit which is but too prevalent among them,
a spirit of revolt against all tradition and authority, is
about as Jewish as Voltaire or Diderot is Catholic. The
Jews have been inoculated with it by the Christians.
The truth of this has again been proved, under our
very eyes, in Russia. I have shown elsewhere how the
1 See above, chap, iii., part iii.

The Jewish Spirit 265

minds of the Jewish youths who frequented the Russian
schools became tinctured with nihilism. 1 The same
took place in Germany with regard to Hegeliauism,
pessimism and materialism. The fact which here dis-
tinguishes the Jew is that, similar to the Catholic, but
contrary to the Protestant, he often passes without
intermediate stages and by a single bound, as it were,
from the faith of his ancestors to complete negation ;
and that, unlike the Catholic, he seldom returns to the
dogma and the ritual which he has abandoned.

Leaving aside, for the present, social and political
questions, let us ask ourselves how we can recognise the
Jewish spirit and in what form it manifests itself? Is
it in commercialism that has insinuated itself every-
where ; or in the striving after material welfare and
what is called by a name so long unknown to Israel,
the comforts of life ? Or is it in the love of gain and of
luxury, in the thirst for pleasure, in the practical
materialism which we inhale and exhale everywhere ?
Is it in the venality which is corrupting all our public
men, and which, like a shameful canker, threatens to
eat its way, little by little, into the flesh of a nation
but recently ruddy with health ? The broker from be-
yond the Rhine is too often the vehicle of the corruption
that has presided in our legislatures for a decade and a
half; but why is it in republican France that this
destructive bacillus seems to find the conditions most
favourable to its development ?

This is due, alas, to many causes : to our political
dissensions, to our social discord, to the artificially
nourished prejudices of the people against the better
classes and against those families in which honour was

1 See I* Empire des Tsars et les Ru$ses> vol. ii., "book vii., ch.
ii ; cf. : vol. iii., book iv., ch. iii.

266 Israel Among the Nations,

ever held as a sacred heirloom ; it is due to the appe-
tites of the rising masses who greedily assail the board
of power in their eagerness for a morsel to munch ; to
the voracity of starveling politicians, the brazen trick-
sters of universal suffrage ; it is due, in a word, to the
gradual lowering of the social and moral standard of
our elective assemblies. Do we not know a great
country beyond the Atlantic to which the Semite emi-
grated without any notion of ruling there, and which
is nevertheless afflicted with a similar evil, due to simi-
lar causes? It all comes from the ascendancy of
material interests and from the democratic character
which our societies are assuming ; and if our patriotism
would like to give it a foreign name, we can quite as
justly call it Americanism.

"Where, then, is the mark of the Jewish spirit, and
how does it manifest itself in art and letters ? It is
very low, very filthy, our modern literature, our French
literature especially; it has, moreover, too often a
gamey flavour, a musty, sickening odour of decay. Is
the Jew, perchance, to be blamed for this? Is it really
Israel that has given the tone to French literature
these past fifty years ? And why should the most de-
praved literature be that of France, the country that
has relatively the smallest number of Jews ? What is
there essentially Semitic in our plays and novels?
Their realism, that takes delight in degrading human
nature, their enervating pessimism, their insipid dilet-
tantism, their mountebank silliness, are these -the
products of the Synagogue ? Was it the Talmud- Tora
that gave birth to the word-jugglers, the inventors of
artistic writing, who transform art into a senseless
kaleidoscope of sounds and colours?

I recognise, indeed, some sons of Jacob among the

The Jewish Spirit, 267

playwrights, the novelists, especially the journalists,
of to-day ; but who would pretend to call them the
leaders of our literature ? Is it from Israel that have
come decadentism, symbolism, the depravity of Beau-
delairism, and the humbuggery of occultism? Is it
the Jewish exiles from Samaritan lands who have
brought to us, concealed beneath their greasj r gaber-
dines, the latest literary epidemics : egotism, self-wor-
ship, that silly and unwholesome wish-wash of which
so many guileless novices have become the victims ?
Among the noisy herd of the " young" school be
they mature men or youths who strive so strenuously
to attract notice by the strange motley of their ener-
vated prose or the disjointed rhythm of their inarticu-
late verse, I perceive, indeed, some scions of Abraham,
probably not the least clever among them. Some one
has said : * ' There are almost as many Semites to be
found at our small literary suppers as on the Ex-
change ' J ; but I do not see how one can claim for them
the initiative in this matter. Neither M. Ephraim
Mikhael nor M. Gust. "K^fon would have advanced such
a claim. Those sons of Jacob simply follow the fashion
of to-day, while attempting to guess that of to-morrow.
In this, as in everything else, they evince great clever-
ness, agility, subtlety ; but if one is ever justified in
denying them a creative imagination, it is certainly in
this respect. Those Jews from beyond the Rhine and
the Vistula are, indeed, not the only foreigners who
meddle with the remaking of our French prose and
poetry. Greeks, Romans, Flemish, Slavs, Creoles,
they all have a hand in it ; it is as though our old
language were being invaded with a horde of refined
barbarians. May they render it pliable, without too
greatly disfiguring it.

268 Israel Among the Nations.

There is, with regard to the stage, a secondary style,
already half out of fashion, in which the sons of Jacob
retained the lead for a long time. They might, per-
haps, even claim the credit of its invention, were it not
for Herve", the composer of Le Petit Faust. I allude to
the French Operette, the Opera BoufFe of the Second
Empire. Here we have, to all appearances, a style
distinctively French. But the creators of the Operette,
both poets and musicians, belong, for the most part, to
the tribes of Israel. Must we conclude from this that
it is a Jewish style? But why was this Operette
born in France, and why did it flourish only in Paris ?

Shall we say that Orphle aux Enfers^ La Belle HTne y
La Grande Diukesse^ embody the Jewish spirit, whose
sacrilegious vein makes game of kings and gods ? Are
these irreverential parodies on the heroic and the di-
vine to be regarded as a play of Jewish irony? I have
no objection to such a view, since this is a case in which
Jewish irony is not very cruel ; but how can we help
recognising in it that French mirth and that Parisian
bluster, neither of which has ever shown much notion
of respect? Hector Cremieux and Offenbach have had
many precursors, since the time of L* Enide Travestie^
La Pucelhi and Les Galanferies de la Bible > not to go
back as far as Gargantua, and the Dialogues of I/ucian.
What has ever been held sacred by believer or patriot
that the Gallic spirit lias not turned into ridicule ? How
many Frenchmen of ancient France (and that France
certainly was not Jewish) have not hesitated to deal
with the patriarchs of the Old Testament, the saints of
the Gospel, and the heroes of our past, precisely as the
librettists of the Varietes and the Bouffes have dealt with
the heroes of Homer and the half-gods of Greece. I,et
us not play the hypocrite ; let us be honest with our-

TJie Jewish Spirit. 269

selves ; we have here, assuredly, a product of our own
soil, which could have sprung from no other.

It matters not that Offenbach came from Germany
and that he took some of his motifs from scores com-
posed on the other side of the Rhine ; it was Paris that
inspired him, Paris that furnished his subjects, his
style, his lively and pungent music. Were every
author, composer, and actor who have had a share in
La Belle HGlene and La Grande Duchesse^ of Jewish ex-
traction, the style would remain none the less French,
Parisian. In this, as in most cases, the Jews have
not been originators ; they have merely followed the
fashion.

A further example is found in the squibs of the
boulevard newspapers, another worthless style, devoid
of intelligence, but a spontaneous product of France.
In this calling, also, some Jews have made a name or,
what they like better, a fortune. It is always the old
story of Israel's flexibility and power of adaptation.
Whether journalists or playwrights, they become the
most Parisian of Parisians ; and yet all these ultra-
Parisians are not of French birth. There can be no-
thing more entertaining, on this point, than the career
of Albert Wolf, the German Jew, admired because of
his effrontery, as the t}^pe of a Parisian journalist, by
so many guileless persons. We have all heard of the
remark made by a young Berlin lady to one of our
fellow-countrymen : " Which writer do you French-
men regard as the best stylist of the day? Is it not
Albert Wolf? " I have come across the same expres-
sion of opinion in serious English and American papers.
The queerest fact is that this view is held by a number
of Frenchmen provincials, to be sure.

Israel has often provided the press ours especially

2 /o Israel Among the Nations.

with literary acrobats, newspaper buffoons, clowns of
the feuilleton. The Jew, when necessary, apes the
Frenchman, who, as we know, is a born dancer ; the
Jew goes even a step farther than his master ; he is
more of a Parisian, of a boulevardier, than the native
himself. What a pitiful achievement, what a despica-
ble triumph, for the heirs of the prophets and the
descendants of the Maccabees ! They remind me
these clever little Jews, ready for all merry work of
the Greeks of the Empire, the Gr&culi of Rome, who,
after having also given heroes and gods to the world,
exhausted the remnant of their genius in furnishing
distraction to the Romans of the decadence. But no ;
it was their own degraded frivolity, the corruption of a
worn-out people, that those Achaian and Ionian Greeks
brought to Rome, while it is our frivolity, our rotten-
ness and our vices, inculcated by us and copied from
us, that these Hebraictdi, these degenerate Jewlings,
are practising for the sake of our pleasure or their own
profit. They fill our cups, alas, with water from our
own springs and wine of our own vintage.

Neither from the rocks of Carmel nor from the snows
of Lebanon have flowed that mocking Parisian levity,
that profane French scepticism. If you ask a stranger,
a Frenchman, a German, even one of our Russian
friends, he will tell you that it is due to the soil, to the
race and its history, to Celtic blood, to l^atin tradition,
to the Roman Church, to the Jesuits ; for, abroad as
well as at home, there are persons who blame the
Jesuit for everything, as others do the Jew. Jesuit or
Jew for an explanation of the point in question one
will serve as well as the other ; they are our two scape-
goats ; everything may be loaded upon them, for their
backs are strong.

The Jewish Spirit. 271

There remains one pre-eminence which no one will
deny to the Frenchmen of the Third Republic ; it is
that of pornography. On this field we have no rival.
In some of our newspapers, literature has become
synonymous with pornography ; everyone knows what
their " literary supplement " means. To whom do we
owe this abject royalty? To the Jew? Is it the Se-
mite, with his ancient Kedeshoth, who has brought us
down from the worship of the gentlewoman to that of
the jade ? But, England has as many Jews as France,
and even more ; Germany contains seven or eight times
as many, and yet the literature of our English or Ger-
man neighbours is not as corrupt as ours.

The Galician story-teller, Sacher-Masoch, relates that
an Israelitish bookbinder, of a small town in Hungary,
having received from one of his co-religionists a novel
of Zola, said to his customer when she called for the
book : "I threw it into the stove ; it is no book
for a Jewish woman." Of how many books and
newspapers, written or published by Jews, should
we be obliged to say that they, also, are not fit for
a Christian woman ? But have the Jews a monopoly
of this lucrative industry ? Are they the only writ-
ers whose feuilktons display such elegant turpitudes ?
To be sure, it is too profitable a business not to be
undertaken by some one. Among our ancestors there
were painters who used to paint with wax and the
3 T olks of eggs ; we have a school that paints with filth
and dips its brushes in impurity. Certain managers
of popular newspapers, who profess to enlighten the
lower classes, arrogate to themselves the right of
polluting the youth of our country, and make a busi-
ness of publicly displaying their obscenities, as else-
where, in less civilised countries and in some out-of-

Israel Among the Nations.

the-way alleys, they might open dens of ill-fame. But
all the tenants of these literary brothels are not descend-
ants of Jacob ; we could name some who have been
wedded to the Church and decorated by the State.

likewise, with regard to the writers whose muse,
decked in the graces of a courtesan and striving to
assume lascivious poses, is skilled in all the wiles that
are apt to tickle the senses of lewd old men. Are all
those who become priests of the Syrian Astarte, or who
dance and sing their devil's litanies before the Beast
clothed in purple and scarlet, revealed of late by M.
Alexandre Dumas * are all these the sons of the house
of Israel, fallen again into the whoredoms of Aholah and
Aholibah ? Are all our leading exponents of shame-
less theories, our masters of lascivious verse, skilled in
juggling with ambiguities and in heightening the
effect of voluptuous images by the gauzy drapery of
transparent words are these all Hebrews with Chal-
dean profiles ? Among such poets of indecency, who
seek new themes in uncleanness and find ideals in
obscenity, 2 1 am sorry to recognise many a Christian
whom the water of baptism has washed in vain. If
this sort of poetry were the only kind left to us, we
should, like Plato, have no alternative but to banish
the poets without crowning them with flowers, how-
ever ; and if this were really the Jewish spirit, I should
demand that the Ghetto be re-established.

If we really have a poetry of a Jewish nature, it is not
that of M. Catulle Mendes ; it is rather that of the au-
thor of Les Ouvriers, of M. Manuel, the grandson of the
Invite ; modest and discreet poetry, intimate, domestic,

1 letter to M. Cttvillier-Fleury (preface to La Famine de
Claude).
9 The expression is that of Mr. James Darmesteter.

The Jewish Spirit. 273

somewhat restricted perhaps, but chaste and healthy.
The lyre with the Lydian strings, and the Phrygian
cymbals have nothing in common with the psaltery of
the daughters of Judah and the harp of the prophet-
king. Those Jews who praise voluptuousness in
Ionian measures, are the pupils of Gentiles. Go
down into the eastern Jewries, where the I,aw and the
rabbis have preserved their authority, and study the
verses that are still made there in Hebrew or in jargon ;
I assure you, a mother would allow them to be sung in
the presence of her daughter. From the time of the
prophets to that of Jehuda Halvy, and from the Mid-
dle Ages to our day, there has been an immense
Hebraic and Jewish literature ; there is, I think, no
literature which contains less of the erotic element.
Shir Hashirim^ the canticle of canticles, that burning
eclogue of Oriental love, chaste in its very crudity,
(compare it but with Daphnis and Chloe) stands un-
approached in Hebrew poetry ; and the Synagogue,
which, like the Church, saw in it nothing but an alle-
gory, would not permit it to be read by men under
thirty. The peoples who obey the Bible and are most
deeply imbued with the spirit of Judah, are the least
indulgent towards the baneful amusements of por-
nography. I know of nothing that could be more
opposed to the spirit of Israel, a spirit of purity, of
domestic sanctity, which has always regarded the rela-
tion between the sexes with seriousness, and sometimes
even with medical pedantry. Those Jews who would
turn it into an object of intellectual diversion or of
refined sensualism, are untrue to the traditions of their
race; they are, to quote their Oriental congeners,
Apicoresim^ epicureans, miscreants, who neglect to
light the Chanuka torches. Adultery was not to be

i3

2 74 Israel A mong the Nations.

trifled with in the schools of Judaea. \Ve know what
sort of punishment the Law held in store for it ; and an
aged Parisian Jew has recently had the bad taste to
demand the re-establishment of this penalty, insisting
that it be applied to "fouitteton" pornographists as
well as to guilty wives. 1 To the former also, he in-
sisted, the law of restriction applies.

Again, I say, a fig for Pharisaism ! That, at least,
is not a French vice, and we have enough of our own
without borrowing those of our neighbours. Here
again, whatever derivation or inheritance there is, is
Aryan and our own. We are the children of Rome
and Greece, and the waters of baptism have not washed
us clean. This vein of corruption, this moral dry-rot
which is spreading over the surface of our societies,
may be traced far back into our past ; from the secret
literature of the eighteenth century it goes back to the
Renaissance, to the Middle Ages, to antiquity. If the
England of the Restoration had not had her dramatic
stage, and the Italy of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries her story tellers and her divine Aretin, we
might be tempted to believe that we have here again a
product of the Gallic, some might say the Latin, spirit.
Whence does it really come, this abject literature, at
once coarse and refined, these obscene glorifications of
the x-oluptuous, condemned by Church and Synagogue ?
They come from neo-paganism, from the restored wor-
ship of the flesh and the senses, to which the de-juda-
ised Jew and the de-christianised Christian alike
succumb. To be cleansed and cured, both Jew and
Christian have but to bathe once more at the foot of
Mt. Hermon, in the cold streams that feed the Jordan.

Let us not flatter ourselves ; all is not clear gain for
1 AL Weill's Le Ltvitiqite (pp. 109-113, Paris, 1891).

The Jewish Spirit. 275

the Jew in his contact with us. As with the Orientals
be they Christians or Moslems sudden contact with
our civilisation is often fatal to him. He is subject
both to the contagion of our ideas and to the infection
of our vices. From these diseases he has no immu-
nity. His moral code is not to blame for it ; the Jewish
code is the same as the Christian. There is merel}^ a
difference of shades ; both codes are based on the same
faith in God and on the same Decalogue. "What is
true of the Jew, perhaps even more than of the Chris-
tian, is that in abandoning the rites and the faith of his
ancestors he rarely succeeds in preserving intact the
morality incorporated in that faith and hidden in those
rites, like the kernel in the nut. This is especially true
with regard to sexual morality, chastity, that frail
virtue which, in order to withstand the tempest of the
passions, appears to require a religious prop, and, as it
were, a divine teacher.

II.

There is one country which is perhaps more justified
than ours in accusing the Jew of having had a share
in its corruption. It is Germany. Israel has held a
larger place in the literature and the intellectual life of
our neighbours than in that of France. The writers
of Jewish origin are legion in the country of Heine,
Marx, and Lassalle. Many of them have long in-
habited France and imbibed the French spirit. When
the Teutomaniacs blame the Jews for having inocu-
lated virtuous Germany with the virus of the French
spirit, with its love for ridicule, its superficial scepti-
cism, its immorality, its lack of respect, its rebellious
instincts, I do not take offence at this charge, provided

Israel Among the Nations.

that they are willing to admit that the Jew has also
infused into it a little of our love for justice, our intel-
lectual freedom, our disdain for superannuated castes
and hierarchies, our hatred of hypocrisy and conven-
tional lies.

Such was the case especially with Borne and Heine,
two hostile brothers, the two Israelitish leaders of
"young Germany/' which, according to Menzel, was
only a young Palestine. To Graetz, the historian of
Judaism, 1 Borne and Heine seem like two angels armed
with rods with which to scourge German iniquity.
True enough, but those scourges were soaked and
made supple in French wit. Those two archangels are
not the only German Jews who have borrowed some-
thing from us. We could cite many others of lesser
magnitude : Paul Lindau, for instance, and Max Nor-
dau, among our contemporaries.

In all these German Jews, even in Heine and Borne,
as well as in Lassalle and Karl Marx the two demi-
gods of German socialism we still feel the German
education, the German groundwork, the Germanic
substratum. If a hidden virus courses through their
veins, it is neither wholly Jewish nor wholly French.
Its analysis reveals a subtler poison that comes straight
from learned Germany, from its schools, its universi-
ties, and its philosophy. Whether they figure as the
inspirers of " young Germany " and its political revo-
lutions, or the founders of socialism and the war of
classes, there is in all these Teutonic Jews something
of Hegel and the Hegelian spirit. By virtue of this,
they are indeed very German and very modern ; Ger-
many has no right to disown them.

Have the Jews monopolised intellectual radicalism
1 Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vol. si., p. 367.

TJie Jewish Spirit. 277

and philosophical or political unbelief in German}"?
But Stirner, for instance, the prototype of the nihilist,
and Nietsche, who calls the cross the most poisonous of
trees these men are not, to my knowledge, scions
of the house of Jacob. Moreover, among the contem-
poraries of Heine, who incurred with him the censure
of the German Diet, did not Gutzkow of Berlin, a
Christian by descent and baptism, openly exhibit his
dislike of Christianity and the Nazarene spirit ? Fur-
thermore, was it the Jews and Jewesses who taught
the Germans to look upon the old moral law as so
much rubbish ? If a daughter of Moses Mendelssohn
realty once dared to put into practice the theory of free
love, she merely applied the principles of a Christian, a
mystic, one of the inspirers of German romanticism,
Friedrich Schlegel. 1 The Jewish woman, that Oriental
woman pictured to us as enslaved and degraded by
the Talmud, has truly, more than once shocked the
deutsche Frau by her emancipated ways and her in-
tellectual culture, deemed indelicate and alarming in
a woman.

Everywhere, and perhaps above all in Germany, the
Jewish woman has had a large share in the uplifting of
her race. Hers has been a curious history since the
end of the eighteenth century. Her metamorphosis
has been even more rapid and more complete than
that of the Jew. These daughters of Judah, until
recently shut in, like nuns, behind the dark lattices of
grated galleries, by the Shames of the synagogue,
have almost universally displayed, even to a greater
degree than their husbands, the supreme faculty of Is-
rael, the gift of assimilation, bringing it to bear upon

1 Medrich. Schlegel, in his novel Lucinde. Besides, Schlegel
married Mendelssohn's daughter, who became baptised*

2 78 Israel Among the Nations.

our customs, our ideas, our arts, our fashions, our social
life. In their case the flexibility of the Jewess was re-
inforced by the suppleness of the woman. Contrary to
what obtains in other races and other faiths, in which
woman appears like the jealous guardian of traditions
and beliefs, the Jewess has, especially in Germany,
been ready to welcome innovations from without. It
might be said that Judaism, a virile religion, and, above
all, solicitous of the male, has less hold upon the female
heart than upon the masculine brain. As a rule, the
Jewess was not admitted to the study of the I,aw ; hence
her hands were not tied down by the. ropes of Talmud-
ism ; she took advantage of this to assist her husband
and her brothers to throw off their fetters.

Not content with her share in the emancipation of
her race, the German Jewess has been bold enough to
labour at the emancipation of her sex. She has com-
mitted the blunder of displaying tastes and talents in
\vhich the German Hausfrau would not permit herself
to indulge. It was through the Jewess also Henrietta
de I^mos (Henriette Herz), for instance, the friend
of the theologian Schleiennacher, and Rahel Varn-
liagen von Ense, that Berlin learnt the meaning of a
salon, that French importation that had not yet found
a foothold on the banks of the Spree. However, I do
not think that the example set by these Jewesses has
corrupted respectable Germany. It may have been
startled by the fantastic romances of Fanny I^ewald ;
but the audacities of that free-thinking Jewess were
surpassed by Marlitt, the fashionable authoress of Ger-
many.

]>t us return to men, selecting the Jewish writers
who have become famous. Has Germany forgotten
that the first Jew who wrote in German, a Jew still

The Jewish Spirit. 2 79

imbued with the spirit of the Synagogue, Moses Men-
delssohn, dared to re-write the Phedon in the midst of
the eighteenth century ? How many Christians would,
at that time, have been so courageous ? If the spirit
of scepticism prevails among so many of his congeners,
it is because they have broken loose from the traditions
of Israel ; because, despite the old rabbis, they have
read profane books and tasted of the fruit of the tree of
German knowledge. As in the case of the Russian
Jews, it is in the University, in the Christian Alma
Mater, established by the Church or the State, that the
Jews of Germany and Austria have acquired their radi-
cal tendencies. Thus Auerbach, the son of the Suabian
rabbi, would doubtless never have translated Spinoza
had it not been for Tubingen and Strauss. This has
not prevented him from becoming the most faithful
delineator of country-life in Germany. Why have our
French peasants not had their Auerbach ? I do not
fHJtnlr that Germany has ever had a more German or
a more wholesome writer. Perhaps this would be say-
ing too much of Paul Heyse (a half-blooded Jew) ;
although one must admire the cleverness of his stories
and the sparkle of his poetry, it is possible not to
enjoy his romances written to develop his theories,
or his sensual paganism. But ever since the return
from Italy of Goethe that Goethe who compre-
hended everything except, perhaps, the Christian reli-
gion, paganism has, more than once, been imported
into the countries north of the Alps.

As to purpose-literature, if in Germany, in Austria,
and even in France, so many sons of Israel have a
predilection for political novelties and revolutionary
doctrines, it is because, like the Russian Jews who
are swept along by the nihilistic torrent, they are

280 Israel A mong the Nations.

driven towards extreme democracy and revolutionary
ideas by the recollection of their long oppression, by
the intolerance of law and custom, in one word, b}- the
necessity of bringing about, or of strengthening, their
emancipation, even to-day so often called into question.
East and west of the Rhine alike, the majority of
Jews who* have used their pens as weapons have en-
listed in the parties of their native country, and been led
by the spirit of their times. 1 Moreover, all the German
and Austrian Jews were by no means apostles of the
Revolution, In proof of this, we quote men of differ-
ent kinds and degrees of talent : the poet Beer, brother
of Meyerbeer ; the delineators of the Ghetto, Bernstein
and Kompert; the learned Ebers, Egyptologist and
novelist ; the story-teller Franzos. I do not think that
these men have greatly disturbed the peace of German
thought. If the literature of our German neighbours
has no longer the azure clearness of the waters of the
Rhine as thej r emerge from the lake, the Jew is not to
blame for it. And, if Christian faith and Christian
culture are still dear to the heart of the Germans, they
should remember that the nineteenth century produced
two solvents much more active than the Jewish spirit :
German exegesis was one, German metaphysics the
other.

III.

" My friend/' said to me one of those men who have
made the moral uplifting of France their object, " there
Is one thing to be said against the Jews : they lower

1 Karl Beck and Moritz Hartmann, two Austrian poets, of
Jewish birth and democratic tendencies, thus became associated
with the liberal movement in Germany, from iS^o to 1848.

The Jewish Spirit. 281

our national ideal." Well and good ! Here is a griev-
ance worth}- of us. I cannot deny that it seems justi-
fied at times. There is in the world a decrease of
idealism, or in order not to be too severe towards our
age there is a change, a transformation for the worse
in our ideals. Although we may still have them, we do
not place them so high ; sometimes we place them so
low that they can hardly be called by their old name.
Many influences besides that of the Jew have con-
tributed to this ; democracy, enamoured above all of
material progress, the weakening of religious faith and
of all other faith, the utilitarian spirit of our industrial
civilisation, the desire for material prosperity, the wor-
ship of money, the respect for success and the indiffer-
ence to the means by which it is attained. Here again,
instead of believing that our society is becoming Juda-
ised, I should say that it is becoming Americanised.

Idealism is declining ; this is undoubted. If the Jew
contributes to this decline, it is through his age-long
debasement, and we know whence this debasement
has come. What pains we have taken to degrade him,
to make him crouch in the dust and bend the knee be-
fore Mammon. Honestly speaking, many of us pre-
fer him so ; the lower he is, the more he seems to be in
his proper place ; when he dares to raise his head and
to reach out after nobler things, we are apt to accuse
him of insolence. But is this a reason for saying that
it is the Jew's fault that our ideals are becoming lower ?
Let us take an example from another country we see
more clearly in the case of others, for we are always
partial to ourselves; let us take Germany, that has
boasted of being the home of the ideal. " The Jew,"
exclaims the ultra-Teuton, "is about to strangle the
native idealism of old Germany ; the Jew threatens to

282 Israel A mong the Nations.

corrupt German character, German fidelity, German
purity, German probity." 1

This seems somewhat ridiculous to us, outsiders ;
all these Germanic virtues must be very insecurely
grounded in the German heart if a handful of Semites
are able to uproot them. And }~et, are there not some
Frenchmen who say the same of France and the French
soul? Or, does that which causes us to smile when
beheld in our neighbours, appear more serious when
detected in ourselves ? The old idealism of the Swa-
bian and the Saxon has, in unified Germany, been trans-
planted by the cynical realism of the Prussian of the
Mark. That is the true situation. Whom do you hold
responsible ? Is it really due to the Jew, as the Teu-
tons would have it ? Or to Prussian brutality, Berlinese
bureaucracy, the military spirit of the Hohenzollern, the
violence and deceit taught by that Pomeranian, Bis-
marck, and the erection of force into law ? Whether
it be German or Roman, we have here, at all events,
an idea that does not come from Israel. Her entire
past is a protest against it.

The Chaldean, the Phoenician, the Carthaginian, the
Arabian, are adduced as proofs of the Semite's inca-
pacity for idealism ! What boots all this ethnography,
in view of the fact that for two thousand years our
souls have been kept alive by the ideal bequeathed to
us by the sons of Judah ? We have been fed on the
manna transmitted by the Beni-Israel, no matter which
was the divine hand that caused it to rain upon their
tents. The prophets of Ephraim and the apostles of
Galilee have been the worlds proclaimers of idealism.

1 These are the words spoken at the Assembly of Antisemites
in Berlin, July 15, 1887 ; and such is, in Germany, the habitual
language of a certain portion of the press.

The Jewish Spirit. 283

The thirst for the ideal that consumes the Christian
soul has come to us from these men. Open their Book,
their Bible ; it has been for entire nations a well of
perennial freshness, whence they have drawn strength
and nobility of soul. By virtue of it, the Aryan peoples
have become gradually imbued with the Semitic spirit ;
their souls have been uplifted and their hearts have
been strengthened by it. If the modern Jew seems to
us bare of ideals, this is due neither to his race nor to
his tradition, but to his sufferings. He has been artifi-
cially perverted by the centuries. The people that
preached to the world the Kingdom of God, has been
turned by intolerance into the most matter-of-fact and
earthly-minded of races. History shows more than
one of these sad metamorphoses.

It is not true that suffering always purifies, and that
persecution always ennobles. The Jew is a proof of
this. He has sacrificed everything to his faith and his
nation. He was an idealist after his fashion, for had
he sought only repose and riches he would long ago
have ceased to be a Jew. He would have said, with
Heine, that Judaism is not so much a religion as a
misfortune. In this sense his existence disproves the
saying that he has put all his heart into his gold.
Where can we find a race more faithful to its traditions,
to its I/aw, to its God, in short, to its ideal ? "What a
history it has had ! Its poets have called it * ' the
passion of a people." l How enduring and mighty has
been that passion, from Nebuchadnezzar to Antiochus,
from Hadrian to Torquemada !

The Jew has been the prosaic hero of a drama that
has lasted two thousand years ; a hero with little of

1 For instance, David I^evi, in his // Prof eta o la Passione di
un Bopolo* (Turin, 1884.)

284 Israel Among the Nations.

the heroic in his aspect, and caring little to seem heroic,
humbling himself, effacing himself, shamming death,
when necessary, in order to escape his enemies and
avoid the faggots at the foot of the scaffold. To re-
main a Jew was, for ages, the only ideal, the only
point of honour to which he clung ; even-thing else he
renounced as superfluous luxury. All the nobility of
his soul, all his enthusiasm, was spent in this effort,
and so freely, that he had none left for other things.
So constantly did he draw himself in, that he became
shrivelled, as it were, and hardened. Outside of his
Law, life seemed to him only a piece of business. But
is not this mode of conceiving life that of nine-tenths
of the Christians ? I, for my part, can see nothing
Semitic in it. It is very English, and very American.
It has even become French and German, and it was
not the Jew who taught it to us. If we, Germans and
Frenchmen, were nobler at heart, if our young men
were less eager for pleasure, and our old men less anx-
ious for worldly goods, if our souls had retained some
of the spirit that breathed upon them from the moun-
tains of Palestine, we should have no occasion to fear
the Jew's example. We should have but to leave him
behind his counter, or to send him back to his rabbis.
But where is our ideal ? It is written : ' c The heart of
man is where his treasure is." Where is our treasure ?
Is it not in the coffers of the Jewish bankers ? And
there, also, is our heart, like the heart of the Semite.
The trouble is, that we have neither faith nor enthusi-
asm left ; we scarcely know what to believe, nor at what
ideals to kindle our souls. Like an old man of fifty
who has become weaned of everything, our modern
world has lost faith in all but wealth ; and neither
Europe nor America needed the apostles of Judaea in
order to be converted to this worship of Mammon.

The Jewish Spirit. 285

But, can we honestly sa}~ that the Jew conceives life
only as a transaction on the Stock Exchange ? I^et us
leave aside the broker, the banker, the money-maker ;
whether Jew or Christian, his calling is not to teach
idealism. Let us take life's highest expression, art
poetry, science. Is it true that the sardonic Jew is
constantly blighting with his irony that pale flower of
idealism so prone to wither in the heavy air of com-
merce ? This carnal race, ' * this race, sensual like all
Oriental races," has it really lowered art and degraded
literature ?

Has Rachel, for instance, lowered the French stage
or degraded the Roman women of Corneille, and the
Greek women of Racine? Have the inspirations of
Beethoven lost any of their grandeur under the fingers
of Rubinstein or the bow of Joachim ? If there be an
unhealthy, a voluptuous, an enervating music, can we
say it is that of either Meyerbeer or Mendelssohn ? Are
we to look upon Le Prophtte and the Reformations-Sym-
pJwnie as degrading compositions, void of all idealism ?
Antokolsky,the Russian sculptor, the creator of Spinoza,
Nestor, and the Christian martyr, is an idealist, "a
sculptor of ideas," as says M. de Vogue ; if he has a
fault it is that he is too anxious to spiritualise flesh and
muscle ; he would put too much soul into his marble
forms. It has been said that the Talmud has given
to the Jews a coarse idea of women and of love. It
seems to me, that, notwithstanding all his sarcasm, few
poets have so poetised love or so idealised woman as
that great scoffer, Heine. In his case, as in the case
of so many ardent spirits whose glowing j^outh has
been chilled by the icy breath of reality, there seems to
be a sort of idealism turned back on itself.

Is it, perhaps, in philosophy that the Jew has shown
himself incapable of idealism? But then, what be-

286 Israel Among the Nations.

comes of Spinoza? However scant may be one's
liking for the theorems of ids Ethics, is it possible to
class this contemplator of the Absolute with the vile
herd of materialists whose gaze is inclined earthward ?
His gaze is lifted on high. His pantheism, instead of
beginning with matter, begins with thought, and ends
in the absorption, by God, of nature and the whole
universe. Was it not Spinoza who taught the intel-
lectual love of God, amor Dei intelledualis f And is
not his whole teaching comprised in the identification
of virtue with beatitude? Here is a recipe for happi-
ness which it would be well for Semites and Aryans to
retain ; if it fails to appeal to them, it is not because it
leans towards epicureanism.

I/et us leave aside the productions of the Jews, to see
how the Jew has been depicted by others in art and
poetry. To study him in fiction as well as in history
has been a pleasant task for me. Is it true that, since
Ahasuerus, of mythical memory, poets and writers of
romance have known but one classical type of Jew, the
grovelling, swindling, rapacious, dishonoured, pre-Shy-
lockian Jew of the popular stage ? ' f On the stage, a Jew
must be odious," said a dramatic writer of Israelitish
extraction. 1 M. Alexandre Dumas had already said :
" It is admitted that on the stage the Jew must always
be a buffoon. " 5 And, verily, he has become a sort of
fantastic automaton, similar to the Italian masks, and
always, like Harlequin and Pulcinella, confined to the
same role. On the other hand, if the stage-Jew must
be repulsive, the stage-Jewess is usually endowed with
every grace and charm. The poor Aryans have

J M. Abraham Dreyfus, Lejuifau Th^atre^ lecture before the
Socttti des fudes Juives, 1888.
3 Alexandre Dumas, fils : Letter to M. Cuvillier-Fleury.

The Jewish Spirit. 287

always been captivated by her, from the Esther of
Ahasuerus to the Polish Esferka of Casimir the Great.
Such is the decree of tradition, or of legend. Happy
Israel ! From time immemorial woman has been her
salvation. In the novel, the Jewess be she an angel
of purity or a courtesan still retains her fascinating
beauty, and the Jew ceases to be a mere conventional
type. In the Nudngen of Balzac, and the Samuel
Brohl of Cherbuliez, he becomes again a living being ;
and, strange to relate, he is often transformed into an
ideal character.

This is to be expected in authors of Jewish extrac-
tion such as Heine, Disraeli, Heyse, Lindau, Fanny
Lewald, Auerbach, Kompert. But a similar transforma-
tion has been depicted in the writings of not a few
Christian authors, and even on the stage, where it was
hardest to obtain acceptance for the new type. I^essing
is not the only one who has dared to show us a Jew
erected into a model of virtue. To his Nathan der
Weise, a verbose reasoner surrounded by a cold halo of
wisdom, I prefer the Daniel ofl,a Femme de Claude, an
idealistic Jew, more true to nature than the Parisian
idlers imagined ; I myself have met his like, but far
off, yonder, in the East. The Daniel of M. Alexandre
Dumas has given rise to a school from which seems to
have emanated Mordecai, the neo-prophet of Daniel
Deronda? According to the information of Valbert,*
George Eliot has depicted three or four Jewish types in
an exceedingly sympathetic spirit. It is true that
George Eliot wrote under the influence of Lewes, and

1 The remark occurs, I believe, in M. E. Montgut's crivain$
Modemes de PAngleterre, first series, George Eliot.
* G. Valbert's Homines et Choses & Allemagne.

288 Israel Among the Nations.

that lie passes for an Israelite. This has been disputed ;
but granted that Lewes was a Jew, how came it that a
Jew was able to inspire so noble a woman as Miss Kvans
with so profound a sentiment ? Towards the same time,
Robert Browning, one of the most representative poets
of the idealist school in England, places on the lips of a
rabbi, in Rabbi Ben Ezra, his high conception of old age,
which he likens to a new dawn. However ttnromantic
the Jew maj r appear, George Eliot is not the only author
who has made him the hero of a novel. His own life
sometimes furnished the necessary material. Ferdinand
Lassalle, for instance, has been a subject of inspiration
to three or four English and German novelists.

Even the naturalists have realised that the entire
Israelite was not contained in the money-maker. M.
Zola, who occasionally deals in symbolism, contrasts, in
his L? Argent^ a magnate of the Bourse with a little con-
sumptive Jew who, in the very agony of death, dreams
of social regeneration. This Sigismond is not a figment
of Zola's brain ; him, also, have I known. Even in
Poland, the country in which the Jews are most down-
trodden, poets and novelists have often pictured to us
Jews of noble character, enamoured of lofty ideals ; for
instance, the Jankiel of Mickiewicz, the Jacob of Kras-
zewski and the Meyer Ezofowicz of Elise Orzeszc.

As for the Jewesses, with their velvety eyes and long
lashes, our Aryan gallantry, or frailty, has always been
indulgent to them. As far as they are concerned, I do
not know that there exist any Antisemites. Why
have so many writers of different races seen fit, like M.
Alexandre Dumas, to incarnate the grace and purity of
woman in ' ' the daughter of the eternally-persecuted ' '
from the Rebecca in Ivanhoe to the Rebecca in LaFemme
de Claude^ and from the Sarah in Don Juan of Austria

The Jewish Spirit. 289

to Grillparzer's Jewess of Toledo, and Fanny Hafner in
Cosmopolis ? Yet, this purity is a lily that will not grow
upon a dung-hill !

But what matters fiction or the empty shadows born
of a poet's brain ? Is it only in novels that the Jews
show themselves disinterested? Are there, beneath
Jehovah's firmament, no Israelites be they circum-
cised or baptised who have proved to us that, in despite
of its prolonged debasement, the race of Jacob has not
3 T et become impervious to idealism ? I, for my part,
should be able to quote many such instances, even in
France, among the living as well as the dead. What
shall we call a writer like James Darmesteter, for
instance, if not an idealist? And among the
Israelites who have become Christians without dis-
owning the blood of their fathers, was there not Gus-
tave d'Eichthal, one of those rare old men who remain
faithful to the lofty ideals of their youth ? We have in
the Academy of Moral Sciences, an octogenarian, who,
whenever the existence of God or the soul is questioned,
defends them with the accents of a prophet ; he is an
Israelite, who was taught to read in the Talmud. They
must surely have had a spark of idealism that Levan-
tine Jew, Franchetti, who in the hour of our distress
gave up his life to France on the hills overlooking the
Seine, and that Jewess from Lorraine, Madame Coralie
Cohen, who after having nursed our wounded in com-
pany with the Sisters of Charity, traversed Germany
three times to solace our prisoners in the fortresses of
old Prussia. 1

3 See M. Maximedu Camp's Paris Bienfaisant^ pp. 365-369. It
was while thinking of this noble woman that M. Maxime du
Camp wrote these lines : " It has been said, and I, myself, have
said, that the Israelites have but an imperfect sense of patriot-
is*

290 Israel Among the Nations.

If we confine ourselves to history, we shall not look in
vain for Jews, both ancient and modern, who have
realised in their lives the type of wisdom and justice
that has remained Israel's ideal throughout the ages.
This ideal, perverted in their tsadiks, through the super-
stition of the Hassidim, has found its immortal proto-
types in Jehuda Halevy and the great rabbis of the
Middle Ages, as well as in Spinoza and Moses Mendels-
sohn and Montefiore. It does not seem impossible that
the Jew may, by the grace of Christ, rise even to saint-
ship. Scandalous as it ma} T appear, I know at least one
who is in a fair way of being publicly acknowledged a
saint, and to whom has already been granted the honour
of officiating at our altars, the venerable kiebermann,
the founder of the congregation of Missionaries of the
Holy Spirit. 1 Bven the reformed churches that dare

ism : Oh, Jewess, forgive me ! " Cf*, in L 'Invasion of M.
Lndovic HaleVy the stories called Vend6me and Graudenz:
the person whose name is suppressed there is Madame Coralie
Cohen.

1 It is perhaps the first instance of a descendant of Israel
becoming the object of canonisation. Although the baptised
Jews do not always belong to the " elite " of Judaism, more
than one of them has distinguished himself in the Protestant or
Catholic clergy by his noble qualities and deeds. Thus, in
France, the two fathers Ratisbonne ; the one, founder of the
congregation of Notre-Dame de Sion, the other, converted to
Romanism by an apparition of the Virgin in the Church Saint
Andrea delle Fratte. Also, the two brothers Iv&nann, both
noted for their apostolic fervour. In Austria, the Archbishop
of Olmutz, Dr. Eohn, is of Jewish blood. The Antisemites,
-who deem themselves wiser than Rome, do not, however, hesi-
tate to ask the Church to re-establish the custom of the
Spanish Inquisition, by admitting to the priesthood no men of
Jewish extraction whose ancestors have not been baptised several
generations before.

The Jewish Spirit 291

not canonise, have worshipped apostles and sages of
Jewish origin ; in Germany, for instance, the great
ISTeander, the torch of Orthodox theology, one of the
men who, in the Evangelical Church, succeeded in
thawing for a short while the Christian piety that had
grown benumbed beneath the ice of rationalism. 1

IV.

It seems to me beyond doubt that the fount of lofty sen-
timents has not run dry in the sons of Abraham ; but
I do not know whether their ideals are alwa3 r s the same
as ours. Perhaps there is something in Israel's past
that robs her highest aspirations of warmth and colour,
and gives a prosaic tinge to her ideals. The Jew is
old, he has long beheld the world through the gates of
the Ghetto. It is possible that even in his dreams he
may be more positive than the younger races, to whom
a kindlier nurture has given a more expansive youth.

To us, ungrateful sons of new Rome, joyously reared
in the maternal lap of the Church, come, at times, dim
recollections of our Christian childhood and its reach-
ings-out towards heaven. We are the sons of Cru-
saders, and the life of monk and cavalier has bequeathed
to us a turn of imagination, an elevation of sentiment,

1 England has likewise had lier clergymen and missionaries of
Jewish blood. An Anglican ecclesiastical review, The Newbery
House Magazine, Jan., 1892, p. 320, states that the Established
Church has had four bishops and twenty clergymen of Jewish
extraction, several of whom have been noted for the fervour
and disinterestedness of their apostolate, Lord Herschell, for
instance, the Chancellor of Gladstone's cabinet, is the son of a
Polish Jew, Ridley Herschell, who became an Anglican clergy-
man after his baptism*

292 Israel Among the Nations.

a delicacy of soul, difficult to find in the sons of the
Semites, kept like dogs beyond the thresholds of the
houses.

The ideal born within the mediaeval castle-keep and
beneath the arcades of the cloister, is not that of the
Jew, any more than it is that of the Yankee. The Jew
is usually neither chivalrous nor mystical ; we have
shown why. How can we be astonished at the fact
that he is not chivalrous, that he has nothing but con-
tempt for the spirit of Don Quixote, and scant liking
for noisy military fame or the stirring adventures of the
noble classes, when we remember that the right to wear
a shield or to carry a sword has been denied him for
centuries? Nor is he inclined to mysticism ; in fact,
he seems never to have been so ; Judaism has always
been a Law, a religion of the mind, an intellectual
creed not favourable to mystical transports or divine
langours. The mysticism of the Cabala, and that of
the Hassidini, the neo-Cabalists, seems to have been a
foreign importation ; according to the best judges, the
Cabala itself is not rooted in Judaism.

If it be neither chivalrous nor mystical, what is trie
nature of the Jewish ideal ? One might call it a bour-
geois ideal, and, if it is permissible to combine the two
words, a material ideal. It does not lose itself in the
clouds or the azure heavens ; its object is this earth
and its realities ; its aim is the establishment of peace,
and the diffusion of happiness, among men. J It is what
has been called the carnal ideal of the Jew, an ideal
"of the earth, earthy," or, if you will, of the needy
broker or the enriched banker, but not so very despic-

1 It would be in place to notice here, did I not intend to recur
to it later, the part taken by the Jews in Saint-Simonism, of
-which Olinde Rodrignes seems to have been the founder.

77ie Jewish Spirit. 293

able after all, since it can be traced to tHe ideal of the
prophets, the reign of justice on earth, "And the
time will come when every man will be able to sit
peacefully in the shade of his vine and his olive-tree. 5 *
Material or not, such has remained the Jewish ideal
throughout the ages ; and it matters little that the Jew
has brought this terrestrial ideal of ancient Israel
down to his own level ; no one can deny that it corre-
sponds to the ideal of the new age, to the humanitarian
dream bequeathed to modern peoples by the eighteenth
century, which, despite all its Utopias and follies, was,
after its own fashion, an idealistic century.

Israel ma}- pride herself on having gained a long start
over the Gentiles. What name does Jewish tradition
give to that far-off hope of a regeneration of human soci-
ety ? It calls it by an old name : the reign of the Mes-
siah. This constitutes the chief dogma and the great
originality of Judaism. Among the thirteen articles of
the profession of faith of Maimonides, this one has "
retained the most adherents. But what is the reign of
the Messiah, and how does Israel interpret it ?

For two thousand years Israel has invoked the son
of David who was to bring about the reign of justice
and peace. There are Jews who still wait for him, but
the majority have grown weary of praying for his ad-
vent. Their hopes have been too often betrayed by
false Messiahs ; they have believed too ardently to
believe any longer. The rabbis themselves smile at
the credulity of the Jews of Tiberias, who keep their
lamps lighted in expectation of the birth of the Lord's
anointed, and at the Jews of Safed, who assemble at
the foot of the mountain on which the scion of Jesse is
to establish his throne. But very few Jews still believe
in a Messiah of flesh and blood, the restorer of Israel's

294 Israel Among the Nations.

dominion, who is to make Jacob ruler of the earth. It
is a good while since the rabbis themselves have begun
to doubt it. Nevertheless, these Jews, so tenacious in
their faith, have not relinquished their hope in a Re-
deemer who is to bring about the triumph of right and
justice on earth. The prophetic emblems of this vision
may be seen depicted on the walls of certain Galician
synagogues, in naive paintings of the wolf and the
lamb pasturing side by side.

The Jew, like the Christian, interprets allegorically
the promises of his seers. How often have our scholars
accused him of being a slave to the letter, of materialis-
ing the prophecies. And now he, also, interprets them
spiritually, without at the same time losing sight of
their temporal significance. The Prince of Peace, the
Son of Righteousness, proclaimed on Carmel and
Moriah, is in the eyes of the Jews neither a king,
nor a conqueror, nor a man, but an epoch, a new era,
promised to Israel and to all humanity. For some of
the rabbis the Messiah, if he be indeed a living being
the triumphant Messiah, as well as the suffering
Messiah, the Christus pattens of Isaiah is none other
than Israel, the light of the world, in turn persecuted
and liberated, humiliated and glorified. For the
greater part of our Western Jews this is but an alle-
gorical figure of the future of humanity, a veiled vision
of the glorious destiny in store for the descendants of
Adam. The triumphant Messiah, like Bar-Cocheba^
seems to them nothing more than a corruption of the
Messianic conception of the prophets.

What the nabis of Judah perceived in the remote
distance of the ages, was indeed the coming of justice,
the reign of Jehovah on earth ; but the reign of Jehovah
among men will not be established sword in hand, by

The Jewish Spirit. 295

a monarch issued from the trunk of Jesse ; it will be
the pacific triumph of science, the natural march of
civilisation, advancing slowly towards the Good and
the Just. Isaiah saw true, and the promises of Amos
and Zachariah are not deceptive ; but the Jerusalem of
the future, towards which the soul of the prophets be-
held the peoples ascending, will not be a city of stone
on the hill of Zion, but an ideal city, wherein all the
children of man will dwell together in brotherly
love.

Such is the Messiah in the eyes of a large number of
modern Jews ; and we, too, know this Messiah. We
have a name for him ; we, too, look forward to him,
and invoke his coming with all our heart. He is what
Aryan nations call Progress ; a modern Messiah, in
whom the incredulous multitudes of our great cities
trust as blindly as the Jews of old trusted in the advent
of the Redeemer, the son of David.

This faith, it is true, does not come to us directly from
Israel ; it is rather we who have awakened it in the
Jew. It slumbered within his Books ; it rested there
in a latent condition, until Diderot and Condorcet re-
vealed it to the nations and spread it throughout the
world. But no sooner was it proclaimed by the Revo-
lution, no sooner was it applied to the Jews, than they
recognised it and claimed it as a legacy from their an-
cestors. They read their Bible in the light of the Ency-
clopaedia, and they discovered the utterances of the
prophets to be the same as those of the profane Gentile
seers. They blended the old religious doctrine of a
Messiah with the new philosophical doctrine of human
perfectibility. Thus, from the day on which he was
admitted to our civilisation, the Jew found himself pre-
pared to share its boldest hopes ; and thus, ancient

296 Israel Among the Nations.

Judaism seemed confirmed by science and rejuvenated
by modern speculation. The Synagogue, apparently
petrified for ever in its archaic ritual, was enabled to
present itself to its followers as the religion of progress,
and could boast of having forestalled, by two or three
thousand years, the sages of all nations.

Progress such is for modern Israel the true Messiah,
whose near advent she acclaims with all her hosannahs.
Such is the creed of neo-Judaism and the ideal of the
Jews. Many of them are, in their eagerness, no longer
content to say : " the Messiah is coming," but exclaim :
" the Messiah is close at hand, the Messiah is here ! "
In their eyes we are already standing on the threshold
of the Messianic era. The Revolution was its intro-
duction, our Doctrine of Human Rights its manifesto,
and its signal was given to the world, not by the trum-
pet of the arch-angel of the Apocalypse, but by the
drums of our soldiers when, at the approach of our tri-
color, the barriers of caste and the walls of the Ghetto
fell to the ground. The Messianic era has been in-
augurated ; but not a few weeks nor a few years will see
the regeneration of the earth, or the consummation of
the prophetic visions. What obstacles must yet be over-
come ! What darknesses dispersed ! The emancipated
Jew takes pride in working to this end, assailing super-
annuated hierarchies, battling with prejudices, warding
off the revival of past evils, struggling sometimes
with foolhardy haste to pave the way for future revo-
lutions ; too often confounding movement with progress,
and the overthrow of the present with the upbuilding
of the future ; too apt to regard as hostile all that re-
minds him of the past, and too eager to destroy, under
the pretext of reconstructing ; too defiant of tradition,
too confident of novelty ; cherishing, perhaps, too strong

The Jewish Spirit. 297

a faith, in Reason, Science, and Wealth ; too forgetful
of moral conditions, which are the eternal conditions
of all human progress.

Such is the Jew, and such is the new Jewish spirit.
We have here something far removed from the Chris-
tian spirit, apparently its very opposite. And }-et, it
is, perhaps, not so far removed from it as we imagine.
The idea of the millennium, which is but the Christian
form of the old hope in the Messiah, has, since a long
time, had few adherents left among the Christians. Yet,
Christianity has not, on this account, renounced its faith
in a Kingdom of God on earth. For, Christianity also
has promised the Kingdom of God to the descendants
of Adam ; and the Christian who knows that the Mes-
siah has come, knows very well that his reign is not
yet established on earth, and continues to invoke its
advent. Christian lips still repeat the prayer offered up
ages ago, on the mountain of Galilee : " Adveniat rcg-
num tuum" And how much there is in this petition
taught us by the living Messiah, above all, when we add
to the "Fiat voluntas tua" the " Sicitt i?t ccdo et in
terra" On earth as in heaven ! I remember hearing
at Rome a discourse by an American prelate in which
the meaning of this passage was well brought out ; he
showed that it contained the most daring aspirations
and the noblest ambitions of the children of men.
' ' Sicut in ccelo ! " The most dazzling promises of the
seers of Israel live again in this sentence from the
Lord's Prayer.

If the Christians have ever appeared to forget it ; if
the Church, solicitous above all of the everlasting life
and the final triumph of Righteousness, has, at anj r
time, seemed indifferent to her reign on earth, such is
certainly not the case in our age. The Church, as we

298 Israel Among the Nations.

have recently shown, 1 deems it also her duty not to
neglect this terrestrial life, but to heal its wounds, to as-
suage its sufferings, to render purer and more salubrious
its transitory abodes. In truth, she has never neglected
such teachings ; but the wind that to-day sweeps in
upon her from without, impels her more than ever in
this direction. She will not relinquish any part of her
heaven-imposed task ; she urges her sons to engage in
the work of social regeneration, and not to leave it to
the children of darkness. The banner of the Cross
is unfurled again as a banner of Progress, and the word
Justice is given to the soldiers of Christ, the Mes-
siah of the nations, as the motto of coming victo-
ries. Thus, the old dream of Israel, the grand Semitic
vision embodied in the Christian idea, reappears in the
Church as well as in the S}'nagogue ; and to bring
about its consummation the chair of the Galilean
apostle offers its help to our century. When will it be
built, that new Jerusalem, that city of universal justice
and love ? And will our children ever be privileged to
unlock its gates ?

True, Christ has said: "My Kingdom is not of
this earth." In this respect Christianity differs from
Judaism, and the spiritual hopes of the new faith from
the temporal ambitions of Israel. " My Kingdom is
not of this earth " ; the Gospel is right ; it puts us on
our guard against Utopian dreams ; it warns us not to
presume too much on this life. The Kingdom of God
cannot be completely realised on earth unless, indeed,
the Son of the Most-High should come down from
heaven to establish it among men. The Kingdom of
God is an ideal towards which the ages must forever

1 See La Papaute, le Socialisme et la Democratic (Caltnann
Mvy, 1892).

The Jewish Spirit. 299

aspire in vain. Xone the less does the Church urge
Christians to do their share towards the establishment,
among men, of the reign of peace and justice. This
is the import of the social teachings of Leo XIII.
The Church does not approve of those who, wearied by
the length of the journey, turn their backs on strug-
gling mankind, or remain seated at the gates of the
cemeteries, to wait until the trumpet of the Archangel
shall sound the awakening of the dead, and proclaim
the reign of Righteousness on earth.

' ' For the sons of Israel, " preached a rabbi, * c it is an
imperative duty to promote the realisation of the
Messianic hope." * This is a sermon which the
priests of Christ do not wish to have preached by the
rabbis onl} T ; it is not exclusive^ the duty of the chil-
dren of Abraham, and we shall not leave its entire ful-
filment to them. We, Christians, are also in duty
bound to promote the reign of justice ; it is not right
that we should rely solely on the dispersed rem-
nants of Judah, the visionary adepts in Messianic hu-
manitarianism, or on the false prophets who delude the
masses with a chimerical transfiguration of earth into
paradise. Adveniat regnum tuum is uttered daily by the
lips of three or four hundred millions of Christians ;
but this petition of the lord's Prayer how do they in-
terpret it ? How many of them are in the same case as
those carnal-minded Jews, whom we accuse of material-
ising the promises of Scripture !

If we were told to evoke before our mind the ideal of
the Christian multitudes, and the earthly Jerusalem
that is the dream of the Jewish people, I do not be-
lieve we should discover a great difference between the

1 M. A. Astruc's Entretiens sur le yudalsme, sonDogme etsa
Morale ; Lemerre, 1879.

300 Israel Among the Nations.

Aryan and the Semitic ideal, between the ideal of the
Christian and that of the Jew. Although our Occi-
dental races may have returned to a vague hope in a
millennium ; although we may, however unconsciously,
have acquired from the hills of Zion our thirst for jus-
tice and our inflexible faith in the victory of right, this
ideal, handed down to us by the prophets, has been
sadl3' perverted on its way.

The seers of Moriah would find it difficult to recognise
their visions or their Jerusalem in our material dreams
and our prosaic Utopias. The faith io a Messiah,
wafted down from the mountains of Judah, and in a
Kingdom of God, proclaimed by the waters of Galilee,
has been touched by the breath of neo-paganism ; both
Jews and Christians, confounding, almost equally, pro-
gress with riches and blessedness with happiness, have
chosen Mammon for their Messiah. Forgetful alike of
the eternal JVisz Dominiis of the Psalmist and of the
cornerstone on which the true Jerusalem was to be
built, they dream of a Kingdom of God without God.
Jehovah is forsaken and his Christ is forgotten. Truly,
while we flatter ourselves that we are drawing nearer
to it, that ISTew Jerusalem, that City of Justice and
Peace towards which we stretch out our arms in vain,
seems to be receding further and further from our
grasp.

CHAPTER XI.

THE DURATION AND THE SIGNS OF JEWISH
PARTICULARISM.

I. Reasons for the Persistence of Israel's Particularism The
Spirit of Clanship and Religious Minorities II. The Jew-
ish Garb ; Is There a National Jewish Garb ? Polish Jews,
Oriental Jews Was it Always the Jew who Wished to
Distinguish Himself from the Gentiles by his Dress ? The
Yellow Wheel of the Middle Ages III. Language and
Dialects of the Jews Why Does the Jew Frequently Speak
a Different Language from that of his Christian Neigh-
bours? The " Jargon " or Jewish-German and Jewish-
Spanish IV. Jewish Names Family Names and First
Names Askenazim and Sephardim How, in this Respect
also, They are Endeavouring to Nationalise Themselves.

I.

WHETHER he be a pure Semite or of mixed origin,
there is nothing in the blood of the Jew, nothing in the
genius of his race, to prevent him from adopting our
civilisation. Why does he in so many countries con-
tinue to form, as it were, a people in the midst of peo-
ples, an international brotherhood scattered among the
nations ? Whence comes this persistent particularism,
joined to a sort of egotistical cosmopolitanism, which
enables him to pass from one country to another with-
out ever completely blending with its inhabitants?
Why do so many scions of Abraham form a part of that
scum of nations, which, in our capitals, floats upon the
surface of decaying society ?

301

302 Israel Among the Nations.

We know the reasons for this ; the3>- are neither
physiological nor ethnological, but purely historical.
For a long time the Jew was not allowed to take root
anywhere. What did the scions of Jacob resemble for
centuries on European soil? They were like weeds
uprooted every season by the hands of a hostile gar-
dener, or, in those cases where we were willing to
suffer their presence, they were like potted plants, con-
stantly replanted ; meagre shrubs, set out in boxes, and
not permitted to take root in the soil. Almost every-
where, it was taken for granted that the Jew was merely
a temporary guest, admitted by tolerance ; in many
countries he was obliged to purchase yearly, with ready
cash, his right of habitation. In Rome, which might
then be called the hot-bed of old customs, the Jews
were obliged to repair annually, before I^ent, to the
Capitol, in order to implore solemnly the privilege of
spending another year in their ancient Ghetto. And
this request had to be repeated several times in deep
humility. Repulsed at the foot of the Capitol, the sup-
plications of the Ebrei were granted only on the summit
of the sacred Clivus*

Carefully isolated as they were from their Christian
neighbours, the Jews were forced to live among them-
selves, and two or three generations of liberty have not
sufficed to wean them entirely from this habit. Besides,
in more than one country the law or custom, which
is more exclusive than lawstill forces them to dwell
apart. Each time that he attempted to leave his
Ghetto and to shake off his natural particularism, the

1 This symbolical ceremony survived even after 1830 ; it was
not abolished, I believe until the time of Pius IX. (see, for
instance, Mendelssohn 'Bartholdy'&JZeJseMefe aus denjahren,
1830-32 ; Leipzig, Mendelssohn, 1865, p. 122).

Jewish Particularism. 303

Jew was led back Into it, as to-day he is often
forced back into it whether he will or no. It is
ridiculous of us to be surprised that the stream of Jacob
has not yet everywhere mixed its waters with the rush-
ing torrents of modern life, in view of the fact that we
have constructed so many dykes and dams to keep it
within its own channel.

Because no race and no religion has been treated
like Israel, none has displayed so clannish a temper.
The circumstance is, however, not as singular as people
like to insist. Other religious groups have, for analo-
gous reasons, presented a similar phenomenon. This
has been the case not only in the Orient with the
Copts, the Armenians, the Parsees, and the Druses, but
with all the creeds and churches that constitute a sort
of nationality. The same tendency reveals itself, in a
lesser degree, among nearly all religious minorities,
and especially among those that have suffered cruel
persecutions. So it has been in France, with the
Protestants, and elsewhere with the Catholics, although
no difference of race existed between the Protestants
and the Catholics. It has been said that there is a
psychology of religious minorities. This is true, and
the particularism of which we are speaking is one of its
most salient traits, which only generations of liberty
can eradicate.

History bears ample testimony to this. Religious
differences and mutual intolerance are forces strong
enough to separate men of the same blood into hostile
and almost foreign tribes. And the old lines of di-
vision are often visible in social customs, long after the
hatreds which produced them have passed away.

Consider, by way of example, the position of the
French Protestants. Even at the present time, when

304 Israel Among the Nations.

the dividing walls of governmental ordinances, and the
barriers of prejudice between them and us have been
levelled, and in every school their children sit side by
side with ours, it seems at times to us, Catholics, as if
the French Protestants still retained a certain indefina-
ble Puritan stifihess foreign to the French nature.
There appears to be in their manners, their speech,
and their turn of mind something strange, something
Swiss, something Genevese, I might say, for want of a
better word. I have known Parisian free-thinkers
who, having accidentally fallen in with Protestant
fellow-countrymen, felt themselves entirely out of
place, having no ear for what has been humorously
called the "patois of Canaan. " And yet, although
many of them have come to us, or come back to us,
from beyond the Rhine or the Jura, our Protestants
are often as thoroughly French in blood as our old
Catholic families, and woe to him who would dare to
question their patriotism. Similar illustrations might
be drawn from the Irish Presbyterians and the Catho-
lics of the Netherlands, the Hungarian Calvinists, the
Piedmontese natives_of Vaud, and certain raskolniks of
Russia.

When we consider that sectarian differences have
been able to create, among Christians of the same race
and country, outward differences in tone, manners, and
bearing, how can it be expected that the Jew, the
Semite of alien origin, rigidly kept aloof from the
Christians, should not retain the mark of an isolation
which has continued for centuries? What surprises
me is not that the Israelites form, as it were, blotches
of foreign population on the surface of so many Chris-
tian nations, but that, on the contrary, in so many coun-
tries the Jew has assimilated himself to us so quickly.

Jewish Particularism. 305

Even in those regions where they have least mixed
with Christians, the Jews have, in their customs, felt
the influence of their Gentile neighbours more deeply
than is commonly believed. Here we must beware of
superficial observation. If the Jew and the Christian,
the Semite and the Aryan, be compared to two chemi-
cal substances brought into contact, the one which eats
Into the other more rapidly and more thoroughly is not
the Semite, but the Aryan.

Nowhere, even in those countries where they have
lived longest and in largest numbers, have the Jews
denationalised any Christian people ; witness Poland,
Little Russia, and Hungary. On the contrary, in
almost every land they have been strongly influenced
by the Gentiles, and have so thoroughly adopted the
language, usages, and dress of their Christian neigh-
bours, that, after centuries of exile, they often still
retain the impress of the countries inhabited by their
forefathers. This is as true of the Israelites of the
North as of those of the South, of the German Jews as
of the Spanish. What is, in fact, the origin of the dis-
tinction between the Askenazim and the Sephardim,
of that historic schism which has divided Israel into
two dissimilar portions ? Has it anything to do with
the tribes of Jacob ? By no means. It is purely a
national and geographical distinction, Aryan rather
than Semitic ; and it is due solely to the impress which
European national life has placed on the descendants of
Abraham.

To such a degree had German Jews and Spanish
Jews, Askenazim and Sephardim, become children of
the countries into which the dispersal of their race had
thrown them ; so thoroughly, despite all obstacles, had
they naturalised themselves among the sons of Japhet,

306 Israel Among the Nations.

that when, after the lapse of a thousand years, brought
face to face with each other in the halting-places of
their new exodus, these long-separated brethren found
it difficult to recognise each other. In Jerusalem, on
the banks of the Danube, in France, in Holland, in
England, in America, they formed for many years dis-
tinct and almost hostile communities, each having its
own language, sj-nagogues, ritual, and usages. Aske-
nazim and Sephardim had become strangers and
looked upon each other as different nations. Directly
after the Revolution, the Portuguese Jews of Bordeaux
entered a petition that they should not be confounded
with the German Jews of Alsace, or even with the
French Jews of Avignon. Less than a hundred years
ago, intermarriages between the Askenazim and the
Sephardim were still of rare occurrence. It was only
the assaults of their common foes that recalled to
these fragments of Israel the consciousness of their
solidarity.

After this, how can we assert that the Jew remains
impervious to his national environment ? His whole
history proves the contrary. There is, perhaps, no
Israelitish community, however isolated it may seem,
that has not borrowed a great deal from its Christian
or Moslem neighbours. We shall prove this by the
very things that are ordinarily adduced as the signs, I
might say the labels, of Israel* s particularism, the gar-
ments that she wears, the languages that she speaks.

Take the Jewish communities in the East of Europe,
apparently the most exclusive ; what is called the Jew-
ish garb, or the Jewish speech, was not, as a rule, origi-
nally Jewish at all. Nearly all the outward signs that
distinguish the Israelite were purposely foisted on him
by us.

Jewish Particularism. 307

Whether we consider him in modern times, or during
the Middle Ages, we shall find that the very Jew who,
in a hostile country, shuts himself up in his exclusive-
ness and withdraws behind his traditions, tends gradu-
ally to assimilate himself to the Christians wherever he
is accorded the right to do so. It is the story of the
man with the cloak ; the icy North wind of persecu-
tion compels him to remain enveloped in his particu-
larism ; the genial rays of liberty persuade him to
throw it off.

II.

The national particularism of the Jews has survived
mainly in the Orient and in eastern Europe. Needless
to give the reasons for this ; they are obvious. In the
Orient the tribal spirit is not peculiar to the Jew ; it is
found more or less in all those religious communities
of which each forms a nation, with separate laws and
modes of dress. In this respect the Jews of eastern
Europe have remained half Oriental.

To this very day, their habit of forming a separate
body reveals itself in various ways ; often it shows
itself in their mode of dress. In many countries of
Europe, Asia, and Africa ; in Poland, Little-Russia,
Roumania, Asia- Minor, Palestine, and Tunis, the Jews
wear a special garb, as if to distinguish themselves
from the other inhabitants, whether Christian or
Moslem. Here we have again, what might almost be
called an Oriental custom. In the Orient, one's mode
of dress is a profession of one's faith, or is like a
national flag which every one hoists in broad daylight ;
to lay aside the garb of one's fathers amounts almost to
apostasy.

308 Israel Among the Nations,

A history of the costumes of the Jews would make an
interesting book, and the task of compiling it ought to
be tempting to lovers of the picturesque ; some rich
Israelite could assuredly be found willing to incur the
cost of its publication. Their mode of dress has varied
strangely according to country and time. They can
hardly be said to have a national costume. They have
only local costumes ; and, in the Orient, I have seen
Jews and Jewesses from different places wearing, in the
same city, garments of dissimilar style. Almost every-
where the fashion of their dress has been repeatedly
changed ; sometimes it has been determined by
governmental decree. In most cases, the costume worn
by the Jews of to-day is nothing but the ancient
costume of the country in which they are living or of
that from which they have come. The Jew preserved
his mode of dress while all those around him were giv-
ing up theirs ; faithfnl to habit, he did not follow the
change of fashion. Here again was displayed the con-
servative spirit of the great Jewish communities.

It is beyond question that the Jews did not always
have a peculiar costume. This is proved by the decrees
of councils and the edicts of princes, which commanded
them to wear distinctive signs. It was made a crimi-
nal offence on their part to dress like the Christians.
The severity with which the offence was punished
shows how apt the Jews were to commit it. We find
the same state of things among the Moslems. In Da-
mascus, for instance, the Jews formerly wore turbans.
They still wear them in many parts of Islam ; and if
theirs are different in colour from those of the faithful,
it is because the latter insisted upon the distinction.

Every one knows the long coat, the talar of the
Polish Jew ; we regard it as the classical costume of the
Jew. We are inclined to believe that he always wore

Jewish Particularism. 309

it in the past ; but in this we are mistaken. In old
Poland the well-to-do Jews dressed in the Polish cos-
tume ; on their heads they wore the spodck, a cap lined
with the skin of the fox or the marten, such as we still
see on the Sabbath in Galicia ; about their bodies they
wore the caftan or rather the Polish joupan with open
sleeves, held in at the waist by a wide sash, such as the
Jews of that country have ever delighted in tying about
their loins.

Their dislike to innovation caused the Jews to pre-
serve this rich costume after it had been abandoned by
the lords, the Polish pans ; and thereafter it was looked
upon as a Jewish costume. It was prohibited by the
Russian government. The Israelites of Poland and
I/ittle- Russia were obliged to substitute for the fur cap
the silk or velvet skull-cap, which had formed the head-
gear of the poorer cit}- population ; in many localities
this cap became, in its turn, the Jewish head-dress. In
other cases the Israelites have adopted the high hat ;
and the stove-pipe (or cylinder, as the Germans call It)
has become in some countries their national covering.
Thus, in Tiberias I have seen poor German Jews airing
their stove-pipes on the lonely shores of the sea of
Galilee. The Polish joupan was replaced by a long
coat, more or less like the caftan of the Russian
merchants. The Emperor Nicholas soon bethought
himself that the tails of this coat were too long ; im-
perial authority took a stand against the talar^ so
greatly fancied by the Jews ; ordinances were issued
to regulate its dimensions. Those who disregarded the
rule were arrested in the streets, and the scissors of the
police summarily docked the coat-tails that exceeded
the authorised length. 1

1 See, among others, Orclianski's Rousskoe 2!akonodatektvo
o Evreiakh) p. 29.

3 1 o Israel Among the Nations.

Unhappy sons of Judah ! Not only was their talar
exposed to such annoyances from the administration,
but also their long beard and hair, especially the
ringlets or payes, which they were in the habit of wear-
ing down their cheeks. It is written in Leviticus,
(xix., 27) : "Ye shall not round the corners of your
heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. ' '

Against those corkscrew curls the Emperor Nicholas
declared war, permitting only the rabbis to wear them,
and making them all the dearer to the masses by this
tacit acknowledgment of their religious character. A
conflict broke out over the cheeks of the Jewish populace,
similar to that which raged a hundred years earlier
over the chins of the raskolniks under Peter the Great. 1
As in the case of the old believers in the time of the
reformatory czar, all the Jews apprehended by the
police were shaved or shorn by act of government.

"Which of the two powers, Austria or Russia, do
your co-religionists prefer?" I asked, about fifteen
years ago, a Jew of Cracow who was escorting me
to the mines of Wieliczka. A stranger in Poland can-
not get along without a Jew, if only to protect himself
from the importunities of other Jews. My guide,
like the prudent man he was, had to be coaxed for an
answer ; then, as I insisted, he replied with a malicious
smile : " The majority prefer Austria."" But why ?
"Because Austria permits them to wear their curls."
Whether or no this was intended for a joke, it was not
so bad an answer. The right to wear curls has its
worth, and it is not only in regard to their head-dress
that the Jews are freer under the Austrian rule than
under that of Russia.

1 See P Empire des Tsars et les Kusses, vol. iii. ; La Religion^
book iii., ch* ii.

Jewish Particularism. 311

In tike Jewish communities of the East, the costume
of the women, like that of the men, varies according
to the country in which they live. Perhaps the most
pleasing one is that of the Jewesses of Smyrna, with
its baggy trousers and open-necked vests. The most
elaborately grotesque is that of the fat Jewesses of
Tunis, with its clinging drawers interwoven with gold
or silver. In Poland the Jewesses have, for the most
part, ceased to wear the ancient coronet of their grand-
mothers. Those Eastern Jewesses are to be pitied ;
their husbands have still, in some cases, the bad taste
to make them shave their foreheads. Once married, a
woman should no longer desire to please. The poor
victims endeavour to conceal their bare fronts by a fall
of dingy lace or sleek wigs, or glossy, satin head-bands.
Many of them, when they marry, make it a condition
that they shall not be shaved. In rich families this
custom has gone out of use. The Jewesses have no
scruples in following our fashions ; they are not afraid
to wear their own hair, nor to curl it. The only way
in which they try to distinguish themselves from the
Christian women is in appearing more elegant.

But was it really the Jew who wished to separate
himself from us by means of his garb ? We know
that, in most cases, it was just the contrary. In many
countries, the Jew who dared to dress like the Christian
or the Moslem, laid himself open to rough treatment.
For whole centuries both Christians and Moslems pro-
hibited it. In order better to keep him aloof, we marked
him with distinctive signs, which made it impossible
to confound him with us. It would seem as though
the curve of his nose and his Semitic profile were not
sufficient to betray his origin ; human ingenuity and
the wit of jurists came to nature's aid. Although we

3 1 2 Israel Among tJie Nations.

may have forgotten it, the Jew still remembers the
yellow wheel, the infamous stigma so long inflicted on
his fathers.

The wheel (rota) imposed on the sons of Jacob by
the Council of I,atran in 1215, was a piece of cloth,
sometimes square, but generally round, yellow or red,
or half yellow and half red, which every Jew was
obliged to wear in a conspicuous manner on the
shoulder, breast, or head. The Jews who failed to dis-
play it were subject to fines and even more severe
penalties. In certain cases, especially when travelling,
they could be temporarily excused from wearing
this wheel. 1 In some countries, for instance in Ger-
many, the wheel was often replaced by the red or green
cap, or by a bonnet or hood of a special pattern, Not
even the women were spared this humiliation. In
certain towns of Italy they were compelled to wear a
square of yellow cloth on top of their head-dress.
Elsewhere they were permitted to replace the wheel by
another less disgraceful sign ; in Frankfort, by blue
bands on their veils.

Whether religious or civil, all these laws, all these

1 According to 3VI. TJlysse Robert's J&fude Historique et ArcMo-
logique sur Id Roite desjuifs y the custom of the wheel seems to
have existed in the diocese of Paris as early as the beginning
of the thirteenth century. The Fourth Council of I/atran
("1215), extended the right to all Christian nations. Saint Louis
imposed this custom on the Jews of France, by a decree pro-
mulgated in 1269. Philip the Bold, finding this sign insuffi-
cient, compelled the Jews, in 1271, to add to the wheel a horn
worn upon the cap. We have several pictures of the time
representing the Jew with the wheel. A bull issued by Pope
Paul IV. made this custom again obligatory on the Jews of
Rome as late as the middle of the fourteenth century. (Rodo-
canachi, Le Ghetto de Rome, pp. 163, 164.)

Jewish Particularism. 313

decrees of councils or princes with respect to the dress
of the Jews and Jewesses, had but a single aim : to iso-
late them from the Christians. In inventing the wheel
and all the other distinctive signs, the Christian au-
thorities only imitated the Moslems. So striking is,
in this matter, the resemblance between our canon law
and the Moslem laws, that people have asked whether
the Church had not appropriated the prescriptions of
Islam. 1 This seems doubtful to us ; the same measures
may have suggested themselves simultaneously to
Christians and Moslems, inspired by the same spirit of
distrust against the Jews and Judaism. In Damascus
and Bagdad, as well as in Rome and Paris, this stigma
with which Christians and Moslems branded the fore-
head or the shoulder of the Jew, was the logical result
of the system of sequestration which led to the Ghetto
and the Mellak*

III.

As with the garb of the Jews, so with their language.
A large number still speak, among themselves, a
tongue that differs from that of the country which they
inhabit. This fact is generally due to the same causes :
to their forced migrations and their long sequestration.
Strictly speaking, there is no more a Jewish language
than there is a Jewish garb : there are only archaic
dialects, far-off reminiscences of older abodes, which
the Jews have carried with them in their sorrowful
exoduses.

1 As, for instance, Isidore Loeb in the Nowueau Diciionnaire
de Geographic Universelle> article Juifs, p. 999, 3d column :
" Bven the wheel of the Council of Latran appears to be bor-
rowed from the Moslems."

* Name of the Ghetto in Morocco.

314 Israel A mong the Nations.

This is the case especially with the German jargon,
the fadendeutsch or Judisck, of the Askenazim, the
Jews of Poland. Having come from Germany to-
wards the end of the Middle Ages, they continued to
speak German in the midst of Slavs, Hungarians, and
Roumanians. This jargon has been carried into
America by the Jewish emigrants from Russia ; there
are several newspapers published at present in New
York in this German dialect. It is safe to predict that
it will not endure there for centuries ; it is the result
of confinement, and could have been perpetuated only
under the shelter of special legislation. 1

So, too, with the Spanish of the Sephardim, or
southern Jews. Banished from the Peninsula, many
of them have preserved in the land of their exile the
sonorous language of "their beautiful country, so long
regarded by them as a second Palestine. Thanks to

1 The Jewish " patois " or jargon, brought from Poland by the
Jews who were expelled from Germany in the fourteenth century,
seems to have been, originally, the dialect of Northern Saxony.
Despite its corruption, it has retained an ancient character and
has acquired, on the lips of the exiled Jews, a new accent.
Since the young Jews were set to studying Hebrew at an early
age, the dead language crept little by little into the living
tongue, the sacred idiom into the vernacular. Thus it happens
that, in the jargon, abstract, religious, and philosophical ideas
are expressed in Hebrew or Aramaic terms. One of the
reasons why the jargon has continued to be spoken, and even
written, is that the old rabbis of the eighteenth century and the
ultra-orthodox Jews had a dislike to the literature of the Gen-
tiles ; they feared that in reading German books the young Jews
might lose their Jewish faith. Besides a considerable number
of newspapers and a great many translations, we could cite
stories, novels, even poems, written in this hybrid language.
(See, for instance, Max Grunbaum's Judischfoutsche Chresfa
ie^ Leipzig, 1883.)

Jewish Particularism. 315

them, the Castilian tongue of the fifteenth century re-
sounds, to this day, throughout almost the entire
basin of the Mediterranean, from Tangiers to Smyrna
and Salonica, and even on the shores of the Xorth Sea,
from Amsterdam to Hamburg. Far from proving that
the Jew has remained a stranger everywhere, these dia-
lects of foreign origin show that, in the Middle Ages,
the Jews became so thoroughly naturalised among
the Christian nations on the banks of the Tagus as
well as the Rhine, that after centuries of exile they
still speak the language of those nations. This lan-
guage of the old country, transmitted carefully to their
children, was for them like a living relic of their lost
fatherland. The Jew had grown attached to it and
had made it his own. This is especially true of the
Sephardim, who were more refined and cultured than
their brothers from the North. Spain was to them
a sort of promised land. They cherished its lan-
guage, they preserved religiously in their exile the
virile tongue of their "cruel fatherland/' as it was
termed by a son of the marranos, Don Miguel de
Barrios.

In Holland, where they had found shelter, the co-
religionists of Spinoza took pleasure, as late as the end
of the seventeenth century, in cultivating their old
Castilian tongue, delighting to use it in verse or prose-
writing. 1 This did not prevent the Sephardim from
becoming, in time, Dutchmen, Germans, Englishmen,
and Frenchmen. Do we not find, among refugees of
different blood and faith, equally touching examples

1 See (Revue des Etudes Jfuives, April-June, 1880) La Re-
lation de los poetas y Escritores de la Nadon Judayca ; Am-
sterdam, par Daniel Levi de Barrios. (Cf. M. Kayserling's
Sephardim ; Romanische Poesien der Juden in Spanien.)

3 1 6 Israel Among the Nations.

of devotion to the mother-tongue? Have not our
French Huguenots, expelled by Louis XIV., preserved
for generations the love of their mother- tongue ? This,
alas, has not prevented them from becoming Prussians,
Swiss, Englishmen, Dutchmen, nay, even Boers.

These facts suggest a sad reflection that in the
Middle Ages the Jews had become more thoroughly
assimilated with us and were far less a foreign element
among us, than was the case two or three centuries
later, after they had been imprisoned in the Italian
Ghetto or the Carriere of Provence. In that earlier
period Jews and Christians led almost the same kind
of Hfe, followed the same occupations, 1 spoke the
same language, wore the same style of dress, ob-
served even, except in religion, the same customs.
Had the process not been violently interrupted by
vexatious ordinances or by decrees of expulsion, the
assimilation of the Jews, instead of beginning with the
French Revolution, might have been completed as
early as the Renaissance.

This is true not only of the Spanish and German
Jews, but also of the Jews of France and of Italy.
They were Frenchmen and Italians ; they spoke French
and Italian.* France also northern and southern
France alike, had become a fatherland to the Jews.
The French Jews of that period seem even to have ac-
quired some of the peculiar qualities of the French
mind. The commentaries of the famous Raschi (Rabbi
Solomon ben Isaac) and those of the glossators or tos-
safists of the school of Champagne, are thought to have
exhibited the French characteristics of exactness,

1 This can be verified in the travels of Benjamin de Tudele.
s To this day the majority of the Jews of Corfu speak Italian,
for it was from Italy that they wandered into ancient Corcyra,

Jewish Particularism. 317

clearness, common sense, and logic. At all events, it
is certain that the Jew of the flourishing communities
of Champagne, I/anguedoc, and Provence was thor-
oughly French ; his speech was not a Hebrew dialect, it
was the French of France, the langue d'oc or the langue
d'oil. The most ancient French elegy, and in its sim-
plicity perhaps the most beautiful, was composed in a
Ghetto, by the flare of a stake. It is the lamenta-
tion of Rabbi Jacob over the thirteen martyrs who were
burned in Troyes, in 1288. I know of none more
touching. 1

The Jews who emigrated or were expelled from
France, carried our language with them beyond the
Channel and the Vosges. At a certain period, French
seems to have been the language of the English Jews and
of the Jews on the banks of the Rhine. The glosses on
the Talmud, written by the German Jews of the Middle
Ages, swarm with French words in Hebrew characters.
In fact, many German Jews have come from old French
Jewries ; thus, in crossing back from Germany into
France, the Jews from beyond the Rhine can imagine,
as did the descendants of the Huguenots, that they are
returning to the land of their forefathers. An Israelite
has not hesitated to say that, as regards the Jews :
" France is not a fatherland improvised in the glow of
a generous hour ; it is a fatherland regained." s

1 Written in Hebrew characters, this French elegy has been
discovered, translated, and published by the lamented Arsene
Darmesteter. (See his Reliques Scientifiques y lle*gie du Vati-
can sur 1'Autodafe* de Troyes, 1288) :

" . . . Deux fr&res y furent brilles, un petit et un grand ;
Le petit fut bahi du feu qui ainsi prend,
Et il dit : * Haro ! je brule tout ! ' Et le grand lui apprend
JEOt lui dit : * A paradis seras, j J en suis garant !....'"

2 M. James Darmesteter's Coup d' (Eil sur PHisfoire du Peuple
Jfuif. Some persons profess to have found the traces of this

3 1 8 Israel A mong the Nations.

In addition to their vernacular whether French,
Spanish, German, or Italian, the Jews, especially the
rabbis, have always maintained the study of the
language of the Thora. The ancient idiom of Palestine
was to them what I^atin was to the Christians ; as in
the case of I^atin, all educated people spoke and wrote
it. Of these two dead languages, the one which has
preserved most vitality is the Hebrew, although as a
local language in common use it was dead before I^atin
was folly developed, for in Palestine the Hebrew had
been replaced by the Aramaic or Chaldaic, and after the
return from captivity it existed only as an artificial
language employed by men of learning.

For the Israelites, both ancient and modern, Hebrew
was not only the idiom of their religion, their learned
language, but also the sign and, so to say, the bond of
their unity. 1 In this sense it was for them at once a
national and an international language. The Jewish
philosophers and poets of the Middle Ages such as
Jehuda Halevy, to whom Heine owed a moment of
inspiration, gave new life to it. The more isolated the
Jews became, the greater became the ascendancy of

French origin in one of the names most frequent amongst the
Jews, Dreyfuss. This name is said to be simply a corruption
of TreVoud, the ancient capital of the country of Dombes,
which, during the Middle Ages, had a large Jewish settlement.
1 It were, however, a mistake to believe that all the learned
Jews of the Middle Ages wrote in Hebrew, as our Christian
scholars write in I<atixu The Jews have, at times, used other
languages, especially Arabian. The majority of the works of
Maimonides, the eagle of the Synagogue, for instance, the
More Nebouchim (Guides to the Erring) are in Arabian. Nor
must it be forgotten that in ancient times Greek was the cus-
tomary language of the Alexandrine Jews, such as Philo and
Josephus.

Jewish Particularism. 3 1 9

the Hebrew language among them. It was, until the
nineteenth century, the only literary language of the
German and Polish Israelites, the Askenazim, whose
clumsy jargon was ill-adapted to writing. Even to
this day, they have newspapers in modern Hebrew, such
as the Magid and the Mditz. The language of Isaiah
lives again in prose and verse. There are renowned
writers in Hebrew ; such as the Russian, Juda Gordon,
and also P. Smolensky, the editor of Hammelitz ; and
Menahem Mendel Dalitzky, who went to America that
he might be free to wield his pen.

Among the eastern Jews, not all that is written in
Hebrew letters is Hebrew. One day in Warsaw, in
front of a Jewish shop, I endeavoured to make out some
words in rectangular characters on a long signboard ;
I discovered that, instead of being Hebrew, they were
only German jargon, written in Hebrew letters. The
Sephardim of Smyrna do the same with their Judo-
Spanish. This is an old Jewish custom. The Jews
appear to have applied their old Oriental alphabet to
all the languages spoken by them. F. I/enormant
discovered in the catacombs of Venosa, in Apulia,
Greek epitaphs disguised in Hebrew letters. 1 What the
Russo-Polish Jews are doing to-day with their jargon,
the Jews of the Middle Ages have often done with
French, Spanish, and Italian. This is the case, for
example, with the elegy on the auto-da-fl of Troyes.
This style of writing (many Jews knew no other) was
one of their resources in times of persecution. It was
like a secret alphabet, a pre-arranged cipher, to which
Israel alone held the key ; how could her Christian
masters possibly have recognised their own language

1 Revue des Deux Mondes^ March 15, 1883 ; Apulia and
Lucania.

3 2O Israel A mong the Nations.

under this foreign disguise ? Even in our day, a num-
ber of eastern Jews make use of Hebrew letters in their
correspondence and their ledgers. I am not certain
that the Russian government, has not, on some occa-
sions, prohibited this practice.

Nevertheless, the ancient language is steadily losing
ground ; it is in as great danger of dying out as is
I/atin, and for similar reasons. In proportion as our
schools are opened to them, the Jews are obliged to
give less place to Hebrew in their education. Some
are even desirous of banishing it from the Synagogue,
despite the risk of lessening the solemnity of their wor-
ship. Even now many Jews need prayer-books in the
vernacular in order to follow the divine service ; many
of them can no longer read the venerable Hebrew
characters, even those with the vowel-points. Contrary
to their fathers, they have prayer-books in which the
liturgical chants are transcribed in Gothic or Latin let-
ters. In the majority of western synagogues the local
language French, English, German, Italian claims
its place beside the language of the TJwra^ even in
the most solemn portions of the service. The time has
long since gone by when the rabbis were shocked to
know that Moses Mendelssohn translated the Pentateuch
into German. To-day, almost everywhere, the Jewish
liturgy contains translations from the Psalms or the
Prophets ; and in certain countries, in England for
instance, they have endeavoured in their version of the
Holy Book to approach the version used in the Christian
churches.

A few years ago I became acquainted with a young
Israelite from Berditchef, who, aspiring to become a
rabbi, had come to Paris with the intention of preach-
ing in Hebrew in the synagogues of that city ; he was

Jewish Particularism. 321

obliged to abandon his plan ; he would not have been
understood. He had to keep his Hebrew lectures for
his Schule in Little Russia ; there, people understood
him ; but the police, suspicious of his eloquence in a
dead language, forbade his speaking. 1 As for books
and newspapers, the imperial censorship has specialists
in Hebrew, as well as in other languages of the empire.
Modern Hebrew writers and poets have had the honour
of seeing their works interdicted. I, myself, possess a
collection of quite recent Hebrew poetry that had been
seized in Lithuania. Nor is the precaution useless.
For it is a fact that in Russia, Poland, and Rouma-
nia, wherever the Jews live in compact groups isolated
by law and custom, wherever their education has
remained entirely Talmudic, and the little Jews have
been confronted with sacred texts as soon as they have
attained the age of six or seven, the Hebrew language
has continued to be the principal, if not the only, vehicle
of thought.

The eastern Jew, reared under the S3 T stem of separat-
ism, seems to be of a different race from his western
brethren; he might be compared to a fossile species,
artificially kept alive in a special atmosphere. In
those eastern Jewries, disrupted to-day by emigration,
persistent confinement tends to consolidate the Jews
into a distinct nation. Under such a system, where
everything seems to prevent their assimilation, neo-

1 "Towards evening I went to the Synagogue,'* he wrote to^
me in 1889 ; "it was the feast of Chamtka. I had been engaged
to deliver a speech in honour of the Maccabees, whose memory
we celebrated on that day. The Israelites thronged to the
ceremony, when suddenly, it was forbidden by the prefect of
police. It was in vain that we went to him he could not be
induced to yield."

322 Israel Among the Nations.

Hebrew may long remain, for those Jews who are dis-
gusted with the jargon, the national as well as the
sacred tongue. And their sons will grow all the
more attached to it, the more they are treated like
strangers in their native country. Here again, the
particularism of Israel will have been prolonged by the
exclusiveness of the nations.

IV.

Even in those eastern Jewries there are occasional
signs of a desire on the part of the Jews to assimilate
themselves to modern peoples. In all other countries
this desire seems general. This is easily proved by
their family names and first names. To the majority
of Israelites it is a matter of great regret that they are
distinguished by their names from other inhabitants
of the same country. These names, often of strange
sound, are like placards advertising the Jew from afar,
almost as clearly as did the ancient wheel or the yellow
cap. Some are of Hebrew origin, like Halphen, Hayem,
Cohen or Kahen (priest), an old title still borne by so
many descendants of Aaron. Many are taken from the
Old Testament: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, first
names which have become family names. But these
represent, after all, only the minority.

Taken as a whole, the Sephardim have preserved the
Spanish names, and the majority of the Askenazim, the
German, or Polish names which they brought with
them into the lands where they settled. Thus, the
Jews exiled from the Peninsula can have themselves
announced in our drawing-rooms under the great
names of Castile or Portugal : Mendoza, de Castro,
z, Alvarez, d j Almeida, de I,mos, de Silva, de

Jewish Particularism. 323

Souza, old names given to tlie Nuevos Cristianos, at the
time of their conversion, by the noble lords who acted
as their godfathers. 1 No sooner had they emigrated
to Holland or Hamburg, than the Portuguese or Spanish
marranos flung aside the Christian mask which the
Holy Office had forced them to wear ; but they retained
the names of Catholic Spain. On some of the old
palaces erected in Amsterdam by their descendants,
may still be seen the Christian coat-of-arms of those
aristocratic Sephardim who, though exiled, boasted an
alliance with the proudest families of Hispania.

The Askenazim, by far more numerous, have, as a
rule, been less fortunate. The majority of them have
had to bear German names that are not very flattering.
When Poland was divided, both Prussia and Austria,
to whose share fell Poland proper, forced their new
subjects to adopt German family names. 3 Vienna and
Berlin wished to make use of the Jews to Germanise
Poland. Families with Slav or Hebrew patronymics,
some of whom I have met, were obliged to exchange
them for names of German form, which they retained,
even after Warsaw had been wrested from Prussia, and

1 Saint-Simon, a learned man in such matters, points out as
improper this " ancient custom of giving to the Moors and the
Jews who become converted, and who have great lords as god-
fathers, not only the Christian names of the latter, but also their
family names and arms, which thus pass for ever in to those low
families, confounding them after a while with the real ones, and
even substituting them for the latter when these have become
extinct." (Mtmoires, published by M. de Boislille, vol. ix., p,
168.)

5 Likewise, in France, under Napoleon, in 1808, all Jews were
obliged to have family names. More recently, the mistake has
been made of not taking care that the Algerian Jews, prema-
turely naturalised in 1871, should have adopted French names.

324 Israel Among the Nations.

after tie Poland of the Vistula liad passed Into the
hands of the Czar. Prussian and Austrian function-
aries offered to the Jews three or four classes of names,
appraised according to their degree of elegance ; the
names of animals were given gratuitously ; the names
of trees or flowers had to be paid for. 1 At all events,
the majority of these Jewish names, for all that they
are German, are no less typical than if they were
Hebrew, since in Germany they are borne only by
families of Israelitish extraction. They cling to these
families like an indelible stamp which the waters of
baptism cannot wash away. The names of cities and
townships are also very commonly borne by Jews, of
whatever countiy or origin. 2

It is but natural that the Israelites should try to get
rid of these Hebrew or German names ; for they are
like Jewish labels pasted on their persons. In fact,
manj- have discarded them, especially in Germany, re-
placing them with less characteristic appellations. But
for this, more than one celebrated Jew would perhaps
have found it difficult to become famous. Thus,
Boerne was not originally called Boerne; I^udwig
Boerne' s name was I^oeb Baruch ; and if Karl Marx
had retained the name of his fathers he would have
called himself Mordechai. 8 I regret this Aryan dis-

1 The names of animals may also liave come from Biblical
tradition, and may allude to the tribes of Israel and to the
benediction given by Jacob to his sons. (Genesis, xlisr.) I/ion,
Lyon, in German Loewe, Loeb, recalls the tribe of Judah ; Cerf,
Hirsch, diminutive, Herschell^ that of Naphtali ; I^>up, Wolf,
that of Benjamin.

9 It should be observed, in passing, that certain families have
taken then: names from the signs on their shops or their busi-
ness houses ; thus Rothschild, the red scutcheon.

3 The name of Marx had already been taken by Karl's father.

Jewish Particularism. 325

guise on the part of the founder of the International;
I should have liked to see whether Mordechai could so
easily have become the prophet of collectivism.

Formerly the Jews changed their names only with
their faith. Whence comes this new tendency ? And
what is it but an attempt pardon the word to
desemitise themselves ? This desire of theirs to merge
themselves in the mass of the inhabitants, natural as it
is, does not please everybody. Their enemies wish to
be able to identify the Semites by a glance at their
visiting cards, for the purpose of exposing them to
public contempt.

A year or two ago, a certain number of Prussian Jews
proffered, in Berlin, a request to be authorised to change
their names. This petition was not granted. On the
other hand, there are countries where the authorities
seem delighted to nationalise them so cheaply. This
is the case in Hungary. Unlike the other nationalities
of the kingdom of St. Stephen the Slavs, Germans,
and Roumanians, the Hungarian Jews are quite ready
to magyarise themselves, proving by this very fact that
they no longer claim to be a distinct nation. Although,
in many cases, they speak the Jewish-German jargon,
they have taken sides with the Hungarians against
the Germans, and as a public profession of their
patriotism as Magyars, they have, for the most part,
magyarised their family names. This is easy for them ;
they have only, as a rule, to affix the letters yi. Herr
Simon becomes M. Simonyi. 1 If to become a Russian
it were necessary only to do what so many Armenians

1 Hence, naturally, frequent ridicule on the part of tlie Anti-
semites, as when a Hungarian Jew, looking at the statue of
the Magyar patriot Szechenyi, asks himself; "What was his
former name ? *

126 Israel Among the Nations.

and even Tartars have done, viz. : to affix to one's
name the syllable of, how many Salomonofs and
Avraamofs would appear in the Russian city directories !
But the old custom which imposed a new name on the
converted Jew, as though, in becoming a Christian he
became a new man, has been discarded, and baptised
Jews are not always permitted to russianise their
names. 1

Let us take Roumania, where, despite the treaty of
Berlin, the Jews find it so difficult to acquire the rights
of citizenship. There also, those who succeed in
getting themselves naturalised are frequently careful to
give a Roumanian turn to their names. In such cases
Herr Simon becomes Domnu Simionescu. Some of
them, to rid themselves of their foreign appearance, go
so far as to latinise their German names, and we are
astonished to recognise M. Wolf in M. Lupascu. In
France even, Loewe has more than once been changed
into Lion or Lyon, and Hirsch into Cerf ; and I wish
that this were done more often. \Ve must not imagine
that all this is mere child's play ; to estimate it cor-
rectly, we should ask ourselves whether the Slavs or the
Roumanians of Austro-Hungary show any disposition
to germanise or magyarise their names in order to
appear German or Hungarian.

A glance at the first names of Israelites in the vari-
ous European countries, will be apt to suggest similar
reflections. There, also, is manifested a tendency on the

1 In 1887, for instance (Novoe Vremia, 26. August), the Ortho-
dox consistory of Astrakhan, forbade the converted Israelites
to Russianise their family names. In Russia, however, the
baptised Jew is regarded as having become so completely an-
other man that he is free to abandon his wife and children and
to rear another family, with a new wife.

Jewish Particularism. 327

part of the Jews to emerge from their old isolation. The
biographical dictionaries alone would suffice to reveal
certain traits which, for all their seeming dissimilarit} T ,
are none the less characteristic. Formerly all the Jews
chose their first names from the Old Testament ; to-
day, in the West, most of them prefer the names in
vogue with us. In some countries they had, until
recently, two first-names : a good old Bible name for
the Synagogue and the family, and a modern, and so
to say, profane name for wordly and business purposes.
In those cases in which the} 7 still take names of Hebrew
origin, they adopt, for the most part, the popular
Christian form, calling themselves Jacques or James,
instead of Jacob. If the Hebrew name does not happen
to have a derivative, some Jews translate it into a mod-
ern Christian name, with the same meaning, if not the
same root. There is good authority for this practice :
long ago Baruch Spinoza changed his Baruch into
Benedict or Benoit, which has the same meaning.
Thus, a German Israelite can translate Solomon into
Friedrich.

But, in most cases, the modern Jews use a different
expedient ; they replace their Hebrew first names by
names of Latin, Greek, or Germanic derivation having
the same initial or the same sound. Isaiah is trans-
formed into Isidor, Rachel has Rose for its equivalent,
and Adele or Adelaide is substituted for Abigail. Do
you know why Maurice is a favourite name with the
Jews? Because it stands for Moses. A similar im-
pulse was felt by the Hellenic Jews of Asia and Egypt,
who changed Joshua into Jason. A harmless disguise,
at which it would be unreasonable to take offence ; the
Jew has recourse to it simply in order that he may
draw nearer to us.

328 Israel Among the Nations.

What is all this but an indication and a symbol of the
spirit that prevails in modern Israel? The Jew, at
least the western Jew, is tired of keeping apart from
us ; he has given up the half compulsor}- and half vol-
untary particularism so long displa} T ed by his fore-
fathers. Whether we examine dress, or language,
or names, or anything that distinguishes men out-
wardly, we always reach the same conclusion : that
the modern Jews have set their heart on becoming like
us. To accomplish this, the}' take as much pains as
their most fanatical ancestors could possibh T ever have
taken to isolate themselves from us.

On their side all barriers have been levelled. Shall
we blame them for preserving the Jewish calendar for
their religious ceremonies, and for celebrating in their
synagogues the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah,
at about the time of the autumnal equinox? But
even with us, Catholic Christians, the Church calendar
does not coincide with the civil calendar, and yet no
one thinks that our social relations are any the worse
for it. The rabbis have, indeed, preserved the ancient
Talmudic era ; but what matters it to us that the Books
of the Synagogue continue to compute time from the
creation of the world ? This does not prevent the Jews
from dating their letters and their bills as we do, ac-
cording to the ordinary, that is to say, the Christian,
reckoning. I know a good many among them who
would be at a loss to tell us in which year of the crea-
tion we now are ; whether the month Sivan precedes
or follows Tammouz, and whether the year 5656 begins
or ends in 1895.

Facts speak clearly. Wherever no hindrance is
interposed by law or custom, the Jews endeavour to
nationalise themselves ; the majority are careful to

Jewish Particularism. 329

throw off all tliat can make them appear as a separate
people. Even when they are thrown into contact with
two or more nationalities, they incline to blend with one
of them, most frequently with that one which is more
firmly rooted in the country. Not only do they try to
show themselves Frenchmen in France, Germans in
Germam T , Kuglishmen in England, Americans in the
United States, but, what is much more meritorious,
they strive to appear Poles in Poland, Danes in Den-
mark, Hungarians in Hungary, Czechs in Bohemia,
Bulgarians in Bulgaria. The Germans of Prague have,
accordingly, reproached them for taking sides in
Bohemia with the Slavs, who desire the re- establish-
ment of the crown of St. Wenceslas.

The Jews preserve the character of a separate people,
and look upon themselves as a nationalit3 r , only in those
countries where they live in compact masses in the
midst of diverse nationalities ; or where, as in Russia
and Roumania, the laws of the State prohibit them
from blending with the natives, from considering them-
selves Russians or Roumanians. In eastern Europe
to-day, as was the case in western Europe during the
Middle Ages, Jewish particularism is sustained by the
legislation against the Jews. To quote an expression
of I^eo Tolstoi, the Jew, threatened from without,
curls back upon himself and retreats into the shell of
his exclusiveness.

CHAPTER XII.

THE NATIONALISATION OF THE JEW.

I. The almost Universal Tendency of the Jews to Nationalise
themselves In which States is their Assimilation most
Complete ? The Necessity of Distinguishing, in the Same
Country, between the Indigenous Jews and the Emigrants
The Patriotism of the Jews Only the Emancipated Jews
can be Patriotic The Naturalisation of Strangers How,
in France, it has Become an Advantage not to be of Native
Stock II, Can the Jews still Form a People and a State ?
The Persistence of National Aspiration in Israel The
Connection between the Religion of the Jews and their
Faith in the Re-establishment of Judaea The Ritual and
the Reunion of the Dispersed " Nest Year in Jerusalem "
III. What it is that, in Certain Countries, Leads the Jews
back to their Exclusiveness Is it possible to Re-establish
a Jewish State in Palestine ? How, even if it were Possi-
ble, such a State could Include only a Small Minority of
the Jews The Great Current of Jewish Migration Flows
towards the West, and not towards the East Instead of
Drawing Closer together, the Jews are, more than ever,
Becoming Dispersed over the face of the Globe How
this Facilitates their Nationalisation.

I.

THIS work of assimilation by means of dress, lan-
guage, customs, is progressing" everywhere simulta-
neously, without, however, being equally advanced in
all countries, or even among all Jews of the same
country. Of all the states in either hemisphere, that

330

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 331

in which the nationalisation of the Jew is most complete
is, perhaps, Italy, the classical land of the Ghetto. The
reason for this is simple. Many of the Italian Jews
came from the East in ancient times, others came from
Spain, at the end of the Middle Ages, so that they
have been established in the Peninsula for centuries.
During the Middle Ages Italy gave shelter to manj-
Sephardim, but she has remained almost entirely un-
touched by the modern immigrations of the Askenazim.
JNot so with the other states of Europe and those of
America. In almost all of these there is a marked dif-
ference between the Israelites from the north or from
the south of Europe who have long been settled in the
country, and the Jews of the northeast who have come
recently, urged on by the emigration from Russia, and
forming a part of the great Jewish ebb-tide that is
sweeping from East to West.

In Germany, for instance, the Jews of the Rhine, the
Elbe and the Oder are genuine Germans ; if in Berlin
or elsewhere there is an Israelitish society, distinct from
the society of the middle classes and from the aristo-
crats, the fault lies with German customs, still imbued
with the spirit of caste. In England, the Jews who
were welcomed by Cromwell, or who landed under the
Four Georges, are to-day pure Englishmen in manners,
habits, feelings ; while the mass of Russian Jews who
have poured during the last fifteen years into the quar-
ters of the East-End, constitute, in London, a wretched
colony transplanted from the Jewries of the Dnieper.

We find the same contrast in the United States, where
there were Jewish communities before the war of Inde-
pendence ; besides the Jews long since americanised,
there are the new-comers just landed from Russia, and
still speaking their national jargon. Their advent

332 Israel Among the Nations.

amounts almost to the importation of a new national ele-
ment into the great Republic. But, unlike the German
immigrants, these Russian Jews, who are received with
suspicion, ask only to be allowed to become Ameri-
cans. To the Union and the star-spangled banner
they say, as Ruth said to Xaomi : " Thy people shall
be my people." As for France, how can one dispute
the French nationality of the Jews of Provence or
Venaissin, who, having formerly gathered together
under the shelter of the pontifical power, have lived
uninterruptedly on French soil for fourteen or fifteen
centuries previous to the Normans, and, perhaps, also
to the Franks and Burgundians, so that, with regard to
age, they may boast of being among the most French
of Frenchmen, the most native of natives.

And if we take the Jews of the Southwest, who set-
tled on the banks of the Gironde or the Adour in the
time of the Valois, and the Jews of Bordeaux, who since
the time of Henry II. have had no country but France,
shall we dare to s&y that a sojourn of 350 years has not
been able to make Frenchmen of them ?

As for the eastern Jews, the van-guard of the great
army of the Askenazim, the Jews of Alsace and of Lor-
raine, who have also, for two or three hundred years,
been alternate^ subjects and citizens of France, old
compatriots whose fathers and grandfathers have served
under the tricolor, shall we accuse them of being
strangers because some of them have a German accent ?
If we welcome as brothers the people of Alsace-Lor-
raine, whether Protestant or Catholic, who, when the
option was offered them, chose to be citizens of van-
quished France, shall we repulse, as intruders, the Jews
of Metz and of Strasburg, who have given to their
former fatherland the same proof of devotion ?

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 333

The truth is, that in France, England, Germany, and
America everywhere, in fact there are Jews and
Jews, and we must distinguish between the indigenous
Israelites born of parents long settled in the country,
and the foreign Israelites who have but recently made
it their home. This distinction should be applied not
only to the Jews, but to every race or religion that sup-
plies us with immigrants ; in France, for instance, to
the Protestants, Reformed or I/utheran, whose num-
bers among us (in Paris at least) have increased re-
markably in the last half century. In their case, also,
we have no right to confuse the old French families that
have grown up on our soil or have been acclimatised
there, with the new-comers from Switzerland, Holland,
or Germany. Of these latter, as well as of the Catho-
lics who come to us from Belgium, Spain, and Italy,
and the Levantines of every confession who are begin-
ning to land on our shores, the same may be said as of
the Jews who have recently arrived from bej^ond the
Rhine or the Vistula. To make of these new-comers
true Frenchmen, to make them French in body and
soul, if I may use the expression, it is not enough that
they should live a dozen years in the neighbourhood
of the Pare Monceau, or have received naturalisation
papers. And what we say of France, may be said with
equal truth of England, Germany, and America.

Quite different is the situation of the Jews long estab-
lished in the country. These have had time to take
root there ; the sap of their native soil has had time to
make its way up to their hearts and heads. From a
national point of view they are no longer Jews, but
Jewish Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, and Ameri-
cans, or, as was said at Warsaw in 1863, citizens of the
Mosaic faith. They have so thoroughly appropriated

334 Israel Among the Nations.

the habits, tastes, ideas, sometimes even the defects
and prejudices, of the countries which gave them birth,
that they can often be looked upon as representatives
of the national spirit. What is there in France, for
example, more French than the author of La Famille
Cardinale and oiL'Abbg Constantin ?

Not only in mind, but in feeling and in every fibre of
their being, do these descendants of Jacob feel them-
selves Frenchmen, Englishmen, Germans, Italians, or
Americans. Nor are many generations always needed
to produce this sense of being identified with the na-
tional life. In the midst of a patriotic people that
treats one as a citizen, patriotism is easily learnt ; it is
imbibed from childhood, at school, at college. The
fact that Gambetta had in his veins the blood of Geno-
vese Jews, did not make his heart a jot less French ;
he could hardly have imagined himself other than
French , all his pride was centred in France. Nor was
Disraeli an}- the less an Englishman because his grand-
father was a Venetian Jew ; we all know how jealous
he was of Great Britain's fame. Though Mordechai
Marx, like so many socialists of every race, became the
apostle of cosmopolitanism, Ferdinand I^assalle, on the
other hand, was a German patriot, the zealous sup-
porter of German unity, quite ready, for its sake, to
join hands with Prussia and Bismarck.

Then there is Italy, where we find no end of in-
stances. The ancestors of Daniel Manin came from
the narrow alleys of the ghetto nuovo and the ghetto
vecchio, but liberated Venice did no more than she was
in honour bound to do, when she interred Manin be-
neath the byzantine vaults of the narthex of San
Marco. I often go to Italy ; I have never met an
Italian more jealous of the glory of the Peninsula than

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 335

M. I/tizzatti, the former Minister of the Treasury. As
a Frenchman I might find fault with him for not being
free from Italian bias in foreign politics. What is the
use of being a Jew if it does not preserve one from
"national prejudices? Well, it does not; I have no-
ticed more than once in Italy, in German}', even in
France, that Judaism gives no immunity against
Chauvinism.

I may cite on this point a much earlier experience 01
my own. I have already stated, I think, that in 1867
I spent a few months at Dresden in an Israelitish
family. There I met a young man, eighteen j-ears of
age, of pure Jewish race, who could read the Genesis
at sight in Hebrew. Like Lassalle, he was an ardent
champion of German unity, but he was also a loyal
subject of Saxony. He longed for the restoration of
the German empire, but he would have had the King
of Saxony made IJrnperor. c< If France dares to
oppose our unification/' he said to me, " it will cost
you dear. We shall go to Paris ; we shall take back
Alsace and Lorraine."

He did not know how truly he was speaking. Three
years later he had to march into France with thousands
of his co-religionists, all singing in unison with their
Christian comrades, Die Wacht am Rhein* This de-
scendant of Jacob, with his brown hair and black eyes,
might have been taken as a type of the German youth.
He was completely imbued with the spirit of Germany ;
he despised the Slav and der Welscke ; he professed the
naive philosophy of history entertained by certain
doctors across the Rhine. According to him, nothing

1 In Berlin alone, it was computed in 1885, that there were
two thousand old Jewish soldiers who had been through the
war against France,

336 Israel Among the Nations.

great had ever been accomplished in the world except
by the Germans ; the worth of modern nations was in
proportion to the dose of Teutonic blood injected into
their veins. He appeared to forget that he, himself,
very possibly, had not in his body a single drop of the
blood of Arminius. He seemed quite taken aback
when I took the liberty of telling him this. All the
other Israelites whom I met in this Saxon family were
equally German ; I could not, as a rule, distinguish
them from the Christians. One day there came to
dinner a Berlin Jew, who had carried the needle-gun
at Sadowa. He was a thorough Prussian, blond and
rosy, with a loud voice and a Berlin accent. ' ' Since
Kcenigsgraetz," he said, "one is proud of being a
Prussian." And in all of them, Prussian or Saxon, a
foreigner recognises the German national pride.

I was surprised, at the time, to find such sentiments
in those Jews. Since then I have met others and the
discovery was to me far more touching whose whole
heart was set on being Polish patriots, and who con-
tinued to cherish an unconquerable affection for that
dead nation. I have known others again, who honestly
believed themselves Russians, and thought and spoke
like Russians. "If there are not more of us, " a Jew
of Odessa confided to me, " there are good reasons for
it. In this respect, also, every country has the Jews
that it deserves."

Love of country can be felt only by those who have
been conscious, from their infancy, that they have a
country. How can we expect to find patriotism among
immigrants who have not had time to take root in the
land, or among a proscribed people, like the Russian
Jews, who are whirled from country to country, like
the perikatitipoU of the steppes, that ball of dry weeds

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 337

that the autumn wind drives aimlessly over the bare
prairie ? These men have no longer a country ; thej-
have been uprooted from their native soil. However
niggardl}' that country may have been to them, how-
ever restricted were the rights accorded them, nearly
all of them were attached to that monotonous land
the land in which their fathers had struggled and prayed
for centuries on centuries. Nothing but unbearable
misery, or the despair of ever finding peace within its
limits, could induce them to leave it.

Even then, how few can tear themselves from it
without a wrenching of the heart-strings. On the eve
of their departure for the land of the setting sun, they
go with their children for a last visit to their cemetery,
and there, with tears and lamentations, the women bid
a long farewell to the dead who cannot accompany
them into exile. More unhappy than their brethren
of Segovia expelled from the Castile of Isabella, they
have not the consolation of taking with them, the tomb-
stones of their ancestors. 1 Whether they linger in
Europe or embark directly upon the great Atlantic, or
slowly skirt the shores of the Mediterranean at the
risk of finding no landing-place, to whatever country
they come, be it Germany, England, Prance, or Amer-
ica, they feel themselves strangers ; they must adapt
themselves to a new climate, a new soil, a new lan-
guage, a new life. And yet, they will do so more
rapidly, perhaps, than they dare to hope. Wherever
liberty smiles on them, wherever equal justice is ad-
ministered to them, the}'- will soon become nationalised.
They will feel towards the country which offers them a
new fatherland, as outlaws feel who have found a home.
For the very reason that he has less cause to be at-
1 Mocatta's The Jews and the Inquisition.

338 Israel Among the Nations.

lacked to the empire which has thrust him out, the
Jew experiences less difficulty in becoming French,
English, or American, than do the Christian immigrants
who really have a fatherland, and are entitled to regard
themselves as its sons.

It seems to me, however, that some distinction may
rightfully be made between the natives of a country
and the new-comers, whether they be Jews or Chris-
tians. I do not think that we should place upon the
same footing those whose families have long been
French, and the neo-Frenchmen, the candidates for
French nationality, who have but recently arrived from
the other side of the Alps or the Rhine. The latter
need we point it out after the past sad winter ? have
not always given us reason to feel satisfied. 1 Not that
I would object to the naturalisation of foreigners ! God
forbid! I am too well aware that to our modern
states, especially to a state like France whose popula-
tion increases so slowly, it is of the greatest advantage
to naturalise strangers and the sons of strangers. But
the government ought not to shower upon these natur-
alised citizens of yesterday or of to-morrow, all its
favours, all its distinctions, all its good-will and offices.
It would be well to give the preference to the natives,
to the French Frenchmen. It must be admitted, how-
ever, that precisely the opposite practice has prevailed
in France under the third Republic. The important
part that strangers play in our affairs, has been one of
the features and one of the faults of the system that has
obtained during the past fifteen years.

In this respect, the complaints of La France Juive.
and of the Antisemites have not been altogether ground-
less ; and this fact, in itself, fosters the Antisemitic agi-

1 Allusion to the Panama Canal scandal. Transl. Note.

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 339

tation. It should not be considered an advantage in
France to have been born in Hungary or in Frankfurt,
nor should it be a recommendation in the eyes of the
government to have brothers or cousins in Berlin or
Vienna, or even in London or Xew York. 1 It is not
right that adopted sons should be preferred to the chil-
dren of the house, nor, that at the public board the immi-
grants or their sons should have the choicest morsels
and the promptest attendance. Let us have no inverted
privileges. In our assemblies and in our newspapers
we have too often seen new-comers from beyond the
Rhine or else where, many of whom had never drawn lots
with us for military service, laying down the law to our
native-born citizens, giving lessons in patriotism and
in French at the same time, revealing to our children
the meaning of our Revolution and the mission of the
French spirit. To some of these we are strongly
tempted, at times, to fling the words of the Roman
patrician: " Tacete quibus Roma noverca est." But
these newly-made Frenchmen are not all of Jewish
extraction. And outside of France, there are, happily
for our neighbours, but few countries where political
passions and sectarian fanaticism have made it an
advantage not to be native-born. Before entrusting
immigrants and naturalised citizens be they Jews or
Christians with elective commissions or public offices,

1 1/ikewise, if public offices are to be accessible to all, it is not
right that the fact of one's being a Jew or a Protestant should
be a title to preferment or to the confidence of the government.
Now, this is sometimes the result of the anti-clerical policy, as
directed against the oldest daughter of the Church ; the religion
professed by the majority of Frenchmen has become an object
of suspicion. This is a point, however, to which I expect to
have an occasion to refer later on.

34-O Israel Among the Nations.

it would be only fair to let them serve an apprentice-
ship in the performance of chic duties. 1

Of all the foreigners who do us the honour to settle
among us (Prance, as we know, has become one of the
goals of immigration), those who most quickly become
French are, perhaps, the Israelites. Many of them have
left no fatherland behind them, and if there be a country
where the Jew can find a fatherland, it is France.
France was the first to emancipate him the first to
grant him the title of citizen. That was more than a
hundred years ago, and since then, except for a short
time under Napoleon the First, the rights of the Jews
have never been seriouslj' disputed in France. And un-
like many countries which have followed our example in
according legal equality to the Jews, France has long ago
made her customs agree with her laws. The Israelites
have entered French society ; they do not constitute,
as in Berlin or Vienna, a separate social class ; they are
h tout Paris. Mention is sometimes made of Jewish
society ; but the phrase is employed in the same sense
as when one speaks of Protestant society ; it applies to
certain groups, to certain salons ; as a rule, it carries
with it no ideas of exclusion or limitation. We have
lost the art of shutting our doors. If we have a fault,
it is rather that of welcoming everybody. We are too
apt to forget that our easy-going ways and our demo-
cratic institutions have made Paris a magnet for all

1 1 have heard it said that from 1876 to 1890 the Republic
has had, in less than fifteen years, three men of foreign extrac-
tion as ministers of foreign affairs. That is a great many,
although they were men whose patriotism for France was above
all suspicion. Of these three ministers of foreign blood, one
only Gambetta was of Jewish origin. On this matter, see
above, chap, ix., p. 242.

Tfie Nationalisation of tJie Jew. 341

sorts of business proj ectors and fortune hunters. Paris-
ian society, doubtless the largest and the most varied
on earth, has remained the most open ; that is one of
the reasons why it is so pleasant to live in Paris, and
also one of the reasons why so many foreigners and
adventurers come to Paris.

To the non-native Jew, France soon becomes an
adopted fatherland. Recently an Israelite wrote :
" Man is free to choose his fatherland. He is not bound
to the soil like a serf, or rooted in the ground like a
tree.' 11 This is the argument to-day of many men, not
all of whom are descendants of Jacob. But such is not
the opinion of us Frenchmen of old France. For us,
fatherland means something else and something deeper.
We have no more chosen it than we have chosen our
mothers, and it seems almost as impossible to change
it as it would be to change our mothers. That Israelite
is mistaken ; we do feel ourselves rooted in French soil,
as firmly as a tree that clings to the earth with all its
roots and living fibres. Our fatherland was here be-
fore tis ; it has borne and nourished us ; we belong* to
it ; we are bound to it with indissoluble ties. We are
a part of it ; it is the flesh of our flesh ; the soul of our
soul, or rather, we are its body and its members. We
cannot conceive of being other than French ; nor could
it occur to us to barter our old French fatherland for
any other country. And this is not with us the
effect of race-pride or national vainglory. Vanquished
in war, France is but the dearer to us. Were she to be
destroyed, were she even to be parcelled up like Poland,
this beautiful and noble France which we can never
confound with the politicians who exploit her, were
she impossible thought 1 to perish as a State, we

1 M. WeilPs Le LMtique^ Introduction, p. 51. (Paris, 1891.)

342 Israel Among the Nations.

should none the less feel ourselves Frenchmen, we
should, in the face of the stranger, remain faithful to
the memory of our dead, feeling her still alive in our
hearts, cherishing for ever the hope of her resurrection.
We should say to her as the Psalmist said to Jeru-
salem : " Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth
if I forget thee, O France ! "

Nor is this feeling peculiar to us Frenchmen, the
sons of so tender a mother, of so glorious a country.
The same sentiments have prevailed, even in the midst
of degradation and bondage, in many Christian nations
great and small ; witness Italy, Poland, Ireland, Hun-
gary, Roumania, Greece. But why cite these illustra-
tions ? Was not the first example set us by the Jews
themselves, who have remained so long and so obstin-
ately faithful to the hill of Zion, who have kept their
sorrowful gaze fastened, for centuries, on the ruined
walls of the city of David ?

To choose a fatherland, however impious such a
liberty may appear to us, is nevertheless, it must be
admitted, a right which the Jews are not alone in claim-
ing. With the increasing movement between the
human ant-hills that swarm on our little globe, we see,
every year, hundreds of thousands of Christians chang-
ing their fatherland. Every summer the ocean is
crossed by whole tribes of Germans, Englishmen, Ital-
ians, and Scandinavians, who abandon the old and
glorious lands of their birth to seek a new country
abroad. To these millions of emigrants the word coun-
try means no longer the adored mother, whose children
are loath to leave her ; it means a betrothed, the girl
or woman whom one marries from love or calculation,
and for the sake of whose beauty or dowry one bids
good-bye to the old mother, without a pang reserving

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 343

the right, in case of disenchantment, to secure a divorce
and marry again. Why should that which has been
done under our very eyes, during the past fifty 3'ears,
by millions of Christians (seven or eight millions within
ten years), in order to call a bit of land their own or to
escape from the drudgery of the barracks, not be per-
mitted also to the Jews, in order that they may be able
to worship freely the God of Abraham, that they may
gain the right of attaining to the full stature of their
manhood ?

For the Jews, emigration is not the same thing as for
our countrymen. Most of the Jews who are streaming
towards the northern or the southern seas, are not chang-
ing their country; they are in search of a country.
And they are grateful to those who will grant them
one. " No one can form an idea " was written to me
from the United States a few years ago, " of the delight
of the Russian Jews in seeing themselves treated like
free men, at liberty to come and go as they please.
They are so happy at this that, as soon as they have
landed on our wharfs, and while still unable to speak
any language but their clumsy jargon, they already
feel themselves Americans, full of affection for our land
and of enthusiasm for our institutions.' ' I well believe
this ; they have come out of the bondage of Egypt ;
the country which welcomes them is, for them, the land
of liberty, their new promised land. Why should they
need much time to become attached to it ? It would
not surprise me, if, on disembarking, they were to feel
like pressing their lips to its ground, as did their fore-
fathers during the Middle Ages, on reaching the Holy
I/ani

344 Israel Among tJie Nations.

II.

For a long time the Jews may be said to have been
without a country. Although this was true of the ma-
jority of them at the end of the eighteenth century, it is
no longer so at the end of the nineteenth centur} r . From
the Vistula to the Mississippi, they displa}~, in every
civilised country, the same eagerness to nationalise
themselves. In view of this, is it worth while to ask
whether the remnants of the tribes still form a people,
and whether the small particles of Israel that float on
the surface of the nations, will ever mass themselves
into a national body, a State?

Neither of these questions can be raised as regards
the western Jews. They are daily growing more into
Frenchmen, Germans, Englishmen, Americans. The
notion of forming again a Jewish people, in Palestine or
elsewhere, causes them to smile. They are no longer
in search of a country. They have found one, by the
rivers of the West, and are not at all desirous of ex-
changing it for the deserted banks of the Jordan. It
would be almost as reasonable to ask the Normans of
France whether they wish to set sail again for the Nor-
wegian fiords, or the Bretons whether they are not
anxious to recross the Channel and return to the val-
leys of Cambria.

May the same be said of the eastern Jews, massed in
compact colonies in Poland, Little-Russia, and Rou-
mania ? There, in many cases, rabbinical particularism
still survives ; those Israelitish communities seem still
to constitute a Jewish nation in the midst of Christian
peoples. Nevertheless, I believe that, in Europe at least,
the same thing will happen to those eastern Jews that
has happened to our own. They, also, will eventually
become nationalised. Even in those Jewries that seem

Tfie Nationalisation of the

closed to the outer world, the old particularism is yield-
ing, little bj- little, to western influences. As with us
formerly, the chief obstacle to the assimilation of the
Jew is the hostilt}' of the governments and the enmity
of the peoples. Opposition comes less from the Syna-
gogue than from without, less from the Jew than from
the Christian. But this very hostility of custom and
law tends, by means of public and private annoyances
and enforced or voluntary emigration, to lessen the
density- of the great Jewish communities ; and this, of
itself, should facilitate at the same time the nationalisa-
tion of the Jews who leave the country, and of those who
remain in it.

Of the growing ascendency of western ideas over the
Jews of the East, I have pointed out more than one sign.
Nevertheless, all Jews do not willingly subject them-
selves to this influence. Not only the Hassidim, or
neo-cabalists, the most superstitious and most fanat-
ical of the Israelitish populace, but many others, set
themselves rigidly against it. Certain rabbis are anxious
concerning the faith, and even the permanency, of Israel;
next to contact with our ideas and customs, they dread
the contagion of our scepticism. We must not forget
that the rabbis of Alsace and of Germany gave evi-
dence of similar apprehensions towards the end of the
eighteenth century. They looked askance upon the
emancipation promised to them by innovators ; they
did not always forgive the zeal of such advocates as
Moses Mendelssohn, Dohm, and Cerf-Beer, who aimed
at bringing Israel nearer to the Gentiles. "They
feared that in leaving their narrow society, buttressed
by their religion," the Jews would become unfaithful 1

1 See the very interesting study by l } Abb J. Lemann, D En-
Me desjuifs dans la, Sod&ti Frangaise^ p. 408 (Paris, 1889).

346 Israel Among the Nations.

to the creed as well as to the customs of their fathers.
They were, perhaps, not altogether wrong, those old
rabbis of Alsace and Silesia ; subsequent events have
more than once justified their fears. And yet, they
were forced to yield to the spirit of the century, for the
current of history was against them. The Jews of
France and Germany have relinquished their traditional
particularism ; and where are the rabbis who dream of
lamenting this fact ? Their race has disappeared.
The same result would soon be attained in Poland,
Russia, and Roumania, were not the exclusiveness of
the old Jews strengthened by that of the Christians. 1

"You are mistaken/ 1 some persons may say ; " the
Jews are not at liberty to renounce their national par-
ticularism, for in their creed national hopes are inti-
mately associated with religious faith. That is the
essential feature of Judaism. " We have already seen
that this is true ; with the Jews nationality and religion
have been united for ages. They have been interlaced
and, as it were, knitted together by the centuries ; but
what the centuries have done, the centuries are about
to undo. Of the two interwoven strands that make up
Judaism, one is dropping into shreds, worn away by

3 In the year 1892, in a French province, at B6ne, in Algeria,
a new manifestation of the old Jewish particularism is supposed
to have been detected. A rabbi named De Stora is said to have
warned his co-religionists, in a public speech, against French
education. I do not know whether this incident has been faith-
folly reported to us. tThe criticism of the rabbi of B6ne ap-
pears to me to have been directed less against French education
than against instruction without reference to religion, " neutral
instruction," such as is frequently given in our country. In
this respect, the complaint of the rabbi coincided with that of
our Catholic clergy ; and he was punished, like a simple curate ;
the government stopped his salary a proceeding which seems
not more just in the case of a rabbi than in that of a parson.

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 347

the friction of ages ; the other, having greater powers
of resistance, still holds together. In this respect,
Israel is still in a period of transition. She is passing out
of the stage of an ethnic group into that of a confes-
sional group. After having been so long a people, she
will soon be only a religion. 1 This transformation,
which is nearly completed in the West, has only just
begun in the East. Encased for a long time in its
nationality as in a protective tegument, Judaism has
only half extricated itself; while its head and upper
body have emerged completely, its feet and lower limbs
are still imprisoned in the national sheath.

The Jewish ritual is essentially national in its char-
acter. We have shown why ; the Talmud wished to
protect Israel against absorption by the Gentiles. The
walls of Jerusalem had fallen, and Judah proceeded to
protect itself with a triple hedge of rites and observ-
ances. The Synagogue was not content to keep alive
m Israel the memory of her triumphs and defeats ; by
means of fast-days and feasts, the ritual strove also to
stimulate her hopes. * Our entire worship, ' ' an Oriental
rabbi assured me, " is based on faith in the re-estab-
lishment of Israel. In all our prayers, mindful of the
promises of the prophets, we implore the deliverance of
Zion, the reunion of the tribes in their ancient father-
land."

These divine promises are, no doubt, accepted lit-
erally by thousands of Oriental Jews in Russia and
Roumania. Did not Ezekiel, in the valley of death,
see the dry bones come together, and the slain stand
up, beneath the breath of the I/>rd? Many believe
firmly that Jehovah will gather his people together
from the ends of the earth, to restore it to the inherit-
ance of David. Until that time Israel appears to them
1 See above, chapters iv. and vL

348 Israel Among the Nations.

to be condemned to the golus, tlie sorrows of exile.
I once met a young hakham of Little-Russia, an enthu-
siast, with black eyes aglow with inspiration, who took
pleasure in quoting to me the tests on which his faith
was based, citing, in turn, the TJiora, the Prophets,
the Talmud, Maimonides, and the liturgical prayers,
and learnedly demonstrating that a true Jew can have
no other country than Palestine. He enumerated his
authorities, and for my fuller conviction he sent me the
following day a written list of the decisive passages.
"Read the thirtieth chapter of Deuteronomy, 5> he
said to me, " The Lord thy God will turn thy captivity,
and have compassion upon thee, and will return and
gather thee from all the nations. If any of thine be
driven out unto the utmost parts of heaven, from thence
will the Lord thy God gather thee, and from thence
will he fetch thee ; and the Lord thy God will bring
thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and
thou shalt possess it." What could be clearer ? And
in accordance with this promise of the Thora, the
orthodox Jew repeats every morning, before reciting
the Shemak the following words : " Bring unto us
peace from the four corners of the earth and break
the yoke of the heathen from our neck and lead
us upright into our land." And the following
petition is renewed every day in the Shemona esrh^
the prayer which every Jew must repeat three times
daily, as my young rabbi affirmed to me : " Sound the
great horn for our freedom ; lift up the ensign to gather
our exiles, and gather us from the four corners of the
earth into our land. Blessed be Thou, oh Lord, who
gatherest the banished ones of this people Israel. "
"And these prayers, to which I could add many
others, " my ardent interlocutor continued, "have been

The Nationalisation of the jfew. 349

repeated close upon two thousand years, all over the
world, in tlie morning, during the day and in the
evening, by Jews who invoke, without ever growing
weary, the re-establishment of Israel."

There can be no doubt concerning the original mean-
ing of these invocations ; it was indeed the restoration
of the house of Israel and of the kingdom of David
that the remnants of the tribes so ardently invoked.
But it is, perhaps, because they have expected it in
vain, century after century, that so many Jews have
finally ceased to interpret literally this restoration of
Israel, or have concluded to relegate it to the darkness
that veils the end of time, as the Christians have done
with the second coming of Christ. " Next year in
Jerusalem," the Jews continue to say to one another
on each Rosh Hashanah, when they celebrate the Jewish
New Year. ' ' Next year in Jerusalem. ' J This aspira-
tion, transmitted by the stubborn faith of their fathers,
by how many among us is it interpreted literally ?
How many, in Paris, Berlin, or New York, would like
to see it fulfilled? Where, among us, are those Israel-
ites to be found who whisper to themselves, with Jehuda
Halvy : " In the West is my body, but my heart is in
the East. What, to me, is Spain with her blue sky and
brilliant fame, as compared to a handful of the dust of
the Temple, trodden underfoot by the Gentiles." 1

Jehuda Hal6vy was a contemporary of the Crusaders,
and Jerusalem inspired many a churchman and knight
of that age with sentiments almost analagous to those
of the poet of Israel. It was the century in which

1 1 borrow the translation of these verses from an English
baptised Jew who has given them in Hebrew : A pilgrimage in
the Land of my Fathers, by Rev. Moses Margoliouth, vol. ii.,
appendix.

350 Israel Among tJie Nations.

so many Franks, from all the lands of the West, pressed
on towards Palestine, crying: "God wills it" ; for
we Christians also feel that Jerusalem is, in a way,
our own country. But times have changed ; the pious
craze for the recovery of the Holy ]>nd is over ; neither
Jews nor Christians are any longer hypnotised by the
image of the hill of Zion. Do the Jews whom we
meet at the races or at the doors of the Stock Exchange,
seem homesick for Jerusalem ? The number of Jews
who contemplate the restoration of the Kingdom of
David is hardly greater than the number of Christians
who still dream of wresting the Holy Sepulchre from
the infidel. " Next year in Jerusalem." But do the
Jews of France, Germany, England, and America who
celebrate Rosh Hashanah, really seem like people pre-
pared to leave everything behind, and ready to pitch
their tents in the valley of the Cedron ? Do they show,
by their conduct, that they regard themselves as way-
farers whose stay in our cities is to be a brief one ? Do
they not enter upon long business engagements ? Do
they not buy land ? Do they not build for themselves
and their descendants houses, synagogues, hospitals,
schools, as though they expected to remain for ever with
the sons of Japhet? What their enemies complain of
is, not that they are anxious to leave us, but that they
are too content to stay with us.

And the old Jews of the East, -frho still invoke the res-
toration of Israel and the early advent of the Redeemer
are they not turning their possessions into money,
that they may be free to transport themselves to their
future country? Do they, on this account, neglect
their business? Do -they differ from their Christian
neighbours in their worldly interests ? In many cases
they do, indeed, exhibit a difference but it is generally

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 351

in being more earnestly concerned with the morrow.
In fact, the Jews who await the reunion of the tribes,
are singularly like the Protestant sect of Second Ad-
ventists, still to be found in Great Britain and the
United States, who compute mathematically the date
of the establishment of the fifth monarchy foretold by
Daniel. I have known some of these English vision-
aries, and their confidence in the impending fulfilment
of the prophecies did not interfere with their daily life
as good business-men and good Englishmen.

It is not true, moreover, that all the Jews of eastern
Europe cherish such dreams. Though he were an
angel from heaven, the messenger who should come to
tell them that the Kingdom of David had been restored,
and that they were bound to return to the lean pastures
of Canaan, would be received b} r most of them with a
salutation of unpleasant surprise. " If Israel ever be-
comes again a people, " said to me a Jew of the Vistula,
1 ' I shall ask for the Consulship of Palestine at Warsaw. ' '
How many thousands of those degenerate sons of
Jacob would entertain the same wish, some asking for
Paris, some for Berlin, some for Rome, and some for
Washington ? How many would submit to all manner
of annoyances, rather than return to the rocky hills of
the land of their forefathers ? For the greater part of
the Jews, even in the East, the real restoration of Israel,
the reign of the Messiah who is to redeem them, is the
end of their bondage, their deliverance from special
laws. The new Jerusalem, the earthly Zion to which
they implore admittance in the old rabbinical formulas,
is civil liberty and equality. Go into the most miser-
able Lithuanian or Bielo-Russian Jewries ; question
the poorest Roumanian or Polish Jews, and they will
tell you that they aspire only to remain on the banks

352 Israel Among the Nations.

of the Niemen or the Pruth, provided they are per-
mitted to lead there an endurable existence. In their
ej T es, their fatherland is the land in which their fathers
have died and have been buried ; and when they are
forced to leave it, their exodus seems to them indeed an
exile.

III.

If to the nationalisation of the Jews among us there
were no obstacle but their Messianic hopes, it would be
accomplished in less than two or three generations.
But there are modern countries, as we know, in which
the Jew cannot aspire to the rights of citizenship.
To-day, as in the Middle Ages, we see governments
taxing their ingenuity to retard his assimilation, as
though they wished to maintain for ever his distinctive
nationality. The result is that, more than a hundred
years after the time of Mendelssohn and the decree of
the Constituent Assembly, Israelites who had believed
in the assimilation of their race, are beginning to doubt
its possibility.

"When we are told daily that we cannot become
Russians, Poles, or Roumanians, that we are Jews and
can never be anything but Jews," said to me, in con-
fidence, one of those students who come to Paris for
the diplomas denied them in Russia, "how can we
refrain from asking ourselves whether we have not
taken a wrong road? Since they persist in looking
upon us as a distinct people, incapable of assimilation
with others, why should we not try to discover if we
cannot again become a separate nation ? They give us
no choice. If we try to escape from our isolation,
we are thrust back into it; we are expelled from
Christian cities and villages and sent back to our

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 353

Jewries ; we are debarred from entering their colleges
and universities in other words, we are denied access
to civilisation. Even in the West, where special laws
were abolished long ago, voices are heard clamouring
for their re-establishment. Why should we not repulse
those who reject us, and set our pride on remaining, or
again becoming, ourselves ? What is it, after all, that
prevents Israel from being born anew? Religion dis-
appears in our youth ; nationality survives. I^t us
leave the western Jews, who are gradually blending
with the modem peoples, to their own fate. Could we
not here, where we are so numerous, on Russian,
Polish, and Roumanian ground, form a living nation-
ality in the midst of the nations that are contending
for the supremacy of the East? Why could we not
even colonise Palestine and Syria, re-establish a Jewish
State, and, like the Greeks, at least regain an indepen-
dent national centre, where it would be possible for us
to live according to our own laws and customs, in
accordance with our historic genius ? After all, it may
be true that the fatherland of other men can never be
a Jew's real country, but only what an Englishman
might call a ' step-fatherland.* "

The aspiration which George Eliot, a number of
years ago, put into the mouth of Mordechai, I have
heard more than once formulated in just such words.
It caused people to smile when Daniel Deronda
first appeared. To-day, it deserves to be treated
less lightly, because the eastern Jews have suffered
a great deal since then, and because their suffer-
ings and fears have re-awakened in many of them
the desire to be independent of the Christians, to
possess a country, a territory of their own. 1 Will this

1 Many pamphlets have "been published on this subject in

354 Israel Among the Nations.

dream of a Jewish state ever become a reality ? I dare
not say no ; However difficult of accomplishment it may
seem, it is not impossible. The question is worth
looking into, and perhaps I shall do so some day.
But even if the Jews were again to form the majority
of the population in Canaan, as they do already in
Jerusalem ; even if they were to establish on either
bank of the Jordan a tiny republic or a little Jewish
principalit}*, this would not induce the western Israel-
ite to return to the old country. I cannot imagine the
Jews of France, England, Germany, or Italy generally
taking ship to Jaffa or Acre. We cannot say of them,
as of the Turks, that they are only encamped in Europe.
Moreover, Palestine would not be able to support them.
The whole of Syria could shelter only a small minority
of the seven or eight millions of Jews now in the world.
Must we, to make room for them, expel the Christians
and the Moslems? Shall we confide the care of the
Holy Sepulchre to the Synagogue? What Christian
would propose or tolerate such a thing ?

Supposing we were to relinquish to Israel all the
unoccupied tracts of Syria, including the desert as far
as the Euphrates, not a third, nor even a quarter, of the
European Jews could find subsistence there. The
ancient country of Canaan and the neighbouring regions
are certainly not able to accommodate more than a few
hundred thousand. And these new colonists would
come exclusively from the great Jewries of the East,
for we must not confound Paris with Berditchef, nor
Vienna or Berlin with Jassy. The Jew who dreams of
returning to the land of his ancestors, is by no means

addition to the writings of the late Lawrence Oliphant. I
quote, among others, Die Judische Unabhangigkeit^ von Isch-
Berlin. (Berne, 1892.)

The Nationalisation of the Jew. 355

the unwelcome guest of whom our capitals would gladly
rid themselves ; he is neither the slippery broker nor
the shameless speculator, nor the cosmopolitan adven-
turer in search of suspicious bargains, nor the dealer in
publicity, always on the lookout for venal pens and
purchasable votes. This sort of Jew would remain
with us ; it were useless to restore to Israel the terri-
tory of the twelve tribes ; in order to attract such
Jews to Jerusalem we should -have to set up on the hill
of Zion a stock exchange, banks, and legislative cham-
bers the entire plant, in fact, that is required for the
sort of business which they seek to monopolise.

The Jews that have emigrated to Palestine are the
least enterprising, the least ambitious, or the least cul-
tivated, and, if we may use the expression, the least
3 T outhful portion of the race. I have visited them in
Jerusalem ; I have seen them on Fridays, lamenting by
the walls of the Temple, and invoking in those lamenta-
tions the re-establishment of Zion. It was one of the
most touching sights that I have ever witnessed ; Bida
and Verestchagin have reproduced its thrilling mourn-
fulness. Neither in the old men, who go to Jerusalem
to die, that they may be buried in the valley of Jehosha-
phat, nor in the feeble adults who are enabled to live
there by the hahtkka^ the charity of their rich co-
religionists of the West, can we find the elements of
a national resurrection. The Jews whom I saw in the
Holy Land were less suggestive of the renascence of a
people, than of the decay of a race. They might have
been compared to human ruins scattered over ruins of
stone, as though the remnants of the tribes had come
to exhale their last breath on the old site of the house
of David. 1

1 1 am aware that in the last few years the Jews have founded

356 Israel Among the Nations.

Not towards the Orient and the barren hills of Judaea
is the gaze of our western Israelites turned. Even in
the poverty-stricken Russo-Roumanian Jewries, the
masses look less towards Syria than towards the coun-
tries of the setting sun. The Jew prefers the rich plains
of America to the exhausted soil and the impoverished
peoples of Asia. The great stream of the modern
exodus is not flowing towards the Biblical lands but
in an opposite direction. Though mistrustful Turkey
should permit the Israelitish refugees to set sail for
Lebanon and Carmel, the majority would still prefer to
crowd into the transatlantic steamers. "A new father-
land, a new country/' such is the cry of the Jew, who,
goaded by the spur of misery, breaks loose from the great
Ghetto of Russia. For him, the promised land lies no
longer between the ocean and the river Jordan ; but
over yonder, veiled by the mists of the West, on the
shores of the Atlantic. But lately, the rabbis of
the Hudson and the Mississippi, in celebrating the
fourth centenary of the discovery of America, compared
Columbus to a second Moses, raised up by Jehovah to
prepare for Israel, driven out from the old continent, a
refuge in a better world. 1

The dreams of those who summon Judah to become

in Palestine some rather prosperous colonies ; but this does not
invalidate the opinions expressed above, with regard to the im-
possibility of reassembling there the dispersed tribes.

1 I find eloquent speeches on this subject in the American
Hebrew, September and October, 1892. According to them,
there were Jews among the companions of Columbus, the funds
needed to fit out his caravels were furnished by a Castilian
Israelite, and the maps which he used were drawn up by a
Portuguese Jew. Even more : according to the old chronicles,
it was a Jew, Rodrigo de Triana, who first saw land, and another
Jew, I/uis de Torres, who first set foot on American soil.

The Nationalisation of the yew. 357

again a people, are proved idle by the actual character
of Israel's recent migrations. Instead of returning to
their cradle in Asia, the majority of Jews are contempt-
uously turning their backs upon Asia. Israel is more and
more becoming Occidental, European, American. In
order to make of her again a separate people, it would br:
necessary to collect the remnants of the twelve tribes,
and concentrate them in a single territory ; but, far
from coming together from the ends of the earth, the
sons of Jacob are becoming more widely dispersed than
ever among the Gentiles ; the wind of persecution is
driving them to the four corners of the world. And
the more they are scattered, the thinner becomes the
Israelitish layer which is stretched over the surface of
the nations, and the less resistance does it offer to local
influences. The old particularism which has resisted
the diaspora of the ancient world, will not resist this new
dispersion. In proportion as they become scattered
over the earth, the Jews will become emancipated from
their religious and national exclusiveness. Such is the
case already in almost all free countries, from the Car-
pathians to the Rockies.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE COSMOPOLITANISM AND THE FRATERNISATION
OF THE ISRAELITES.

L Reasons for the Persistent Solidarity of the Jews The Psy-
chology of Religious Minorities Reverted to again The
Spirit of Solidarity often Survives the Jewish Faith All
great Religions are, in a Certain Sense, Cosmopolitan An-
ticlericalism and Antisemitism again Compared The In-
ternational Organisation -which Modern Peoples have Cause
to Fear. II. Is it True that the Jews Try to Separate the
Nations? Judaism and Human Brotherhood The Spirit
of Judah is a Spirit of Peace The Messianic Dogma Re-
verted to again The New Jerusalem On this Point, the
Spirit of Israel is in Accord alike with the Modern and with
the Christian Spirit.

I.

IF Palestine cannot again become the home of the
majority of Jews, nor give them the territorial basis of
a separate national existence, is it not possible that
Judaism may continue to take the place with them of a
country ? Even though Judaism should cease to be any-
thing but a religion, it will always be a Church of a
peculiar kind a Church whose members believe them-
selves descended from the same father and look upon each
other as brothers, bound by ties of blood. This is the
reason why the Jews exhibit a solidarity unparalleled
in any other religion. This is the reason why the most

358

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 359

sceptical Jews are inclined to place the religious above
the national bond since for them the religious and the
racial bond are identical and to consider themselves
Jews, before considering themselves Frenchmen, Eng-
lishmen, or Germans. This is the cause, finally, of
that cosmopolitan spirit which enables so many of
them to wander without a pang of regret from one
country to another, and of that light-heartedness with
which they make themselves at home wherever they
are able to set up their shops.

For, in the case of many Jews, national particularism
is being replaced by a sort of international cosmopoli-
tanism, which is sometimes allied to the old partic-
ularism and which is due, at bottom, to the same cause.
While the old-fashioned orthodox Jew, wrapped up in
his rites and his memories, knows no fatherland but
Jerusalem, the civilised Western Jew is inclined to
look upon the world as a domain to be exploited,
troubling himself little about the fate of the provinces
and empires that he crosses, concentrating all his selfish
thoughts on his own personal interests, and all the
generous instincts left within him, on the interests of
Judaism that ancient and vast fraternity, of which the
Jew, despite all his transformations, still considers him-
self a member. Israel continues to resemble quick-sil-
ver, that strange, liquid metal, whose restless globules
run in all directions without mingling with anything
they touch, but reunite in larger masses as soon as they
meet again.

But, to all this sort of reasoning how easy it is to find
the answer. It is the old story : the Jew has been
formed by the past which we have made for him. His
persistent solidarity, his apparent cosmopolitanism, are
largely our work. Had it not been for the humiliations

360 Israel Among the Nations.

and vexations which kept them huddled together, the
racial bond of the Semites would have been broken
or loosened. How little, in the long run, kinship, based
on descent, amounts to, is shown by our family quarrels,
by the wars of dynasties connected by repeated mar-
riages, by the internal conflicts which so many of the
nations of both hemispheres have had to fight out, by
the tribal jealousies which have so often pitted against
each other peoples who had every reason to look upon
one another as brothers. In all the groups, religious
or national, formed by that quarrelsome animal, man,
internal cohesion has been directly proportioned to
the violence of the external shocks and the intensity of
external friction. If no other human group has shown
a consistency equal to that of Israel, it is because none
other has been subjected to any such degree of outside
pressure.

Here, as everywhere, the past explains the present.
The Jewish sentiment, strengthened by centuries of
com m on suffering and anxiety, is perpetuated by a sort
of atavism, even when it is not fomented by the
annoyances and apprehensions of the present. It sur-
vives even in those Jews who have broken loose from
the traditions of Israel, and have become thoroughly
incorporated in the modern nations. How many have
remained Jews, without retaining any of the practices of
the Mosaic laws !

Arsene Darmesteter, in relating how he had lost the
faith of his fathers, said to a friend : " I have not, for
all that, cut loose from Judaism ; it is to me a second
fatherland." 1 I like this saying and the sentiment
which inspired it. I cannot understand how a man
who has shared the faith of a Church, who has owed to
1 Journal des D&bats, April 24, 1890, article by MM/. Havet.

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 36 1

it the loftiest aspirations and the sweetest emotions of
his youth, can fail to cherish for it a tender feeling.
The absence of such a feeling would seem to show a
narrow mind or an unresponsive soul. Few Christians
whose faith has gone to pieces on the rocks which lined
their path and the flinty stones which strewed their
way, have, for that reason, conceived any aversion
toward the gentle teacher of their childhood. I know
many who, despite the scepticism of their heads, still
cherish her memory in their hearts. This sentiment is
not peculiar to the sons of Israel. It is especial^
marked in the case of the French Protestants, and
constitutes another point of resemblance between them
and the Jews.

Who, among us, has not known some of these
Protestants who have abandoned the dogmas of the
Reformed Church, and yet, as far as their interest in
that Church and its adherents is concerned, are as
thoroughly Protestants as ever? For them, also,
religion is like a second country ; with them, also, the
spirit of fraternity has survived the downfall of their
faith. Why is this sentiment more frequent, in France,
among the Protestants than among the Catholics ? It
is because our Protestants have for a long time formed
a separate society ; it is because they, too, have long
suffered in common ; it is because, like the Jews, they
are in the minority in our country, and because, in all
countries, the spirit of solidarity is one of the most dis-
tinctive psychological characteristics of religious mi-
norities ; so that, what we say of the Protestants in
France, might equally well be said of the Catholics in
Prussia or England.

Shall we allow our children to be taught that, in
order to be patriotic, their affections must be limited to

362 Israel Among the Nations.

the frontiers of their country? If this were true, I
should pity all patriots, however spacious the bound-
aries may seem within which their souls are imprisoned.
To be good Frenchmen, are we really bound to love
nothing outside of France, and must we clip the wings
of our sympathies to prevent them from filing across
the ocean or soaring beyond the mountains ? Must we
at once abridge and parody the motto on the ring of St.
Louis; and, forgetting the place which the royal
crusader kept open for his God, shall we say : " No
love, save for France? " I do not know how the pro-
fessors of secular patriotism feel on this subject ; but of
one thing I am certain, and that is that such patriotism
is altogether unchristian.

It behoves us to remember that the reproach which
we fling at the Jew can well be turned against others.
There is not a single great Church which is not proud
to deserve it ! "Where is the believer Catholic, Protes-
tant, or Orthodox who does not keep a warm spot in
his heart for his brothers abroad ? The English church-
man and all the numberless sects of nonconformists
would be ashamed to confine their zeal within the
silver ribbon that encloses Great Britain, or even within
the immense territories that constitute the Greater
Britain. Vast as is the empire which, extending from
the Pacific to the Baltic, comprises one half of our
continent, its frontiers are yet too narrow for the
sympathies of the Russian merchant and moujik, which
go out across the mountains to their Orthodox brethren.
And we Frenchmen, who in former times led the
chivalry of Christendom into the lands of the East, has
the range of our sympathies become so narrow, or have
our hearts grown so cold that nothing in this wide
world can make them throb again ?

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 363

Let us not accuse ourselves unjustly ; in spite of all
the lessons in egotism taught us by other countries,
and of the selfish resolutions which we sometimes
openly avow, the old generosity of the French soul is
not dead. It survives, if nowhere else, in the men
imbued with the faith of the old Church. Their hearts
have remained as big as our little planet itself. They,
also, in their way, are cosmopolitan, although they are
the most French of Frenchmen. Do not speak to them
of shutting up their affections, their impulses of self-
sacrifice, between the Straits of Dover and the Gulf of
Lyons. If they did, what meaning would there be left
in the name of Catholic ? Poor Catholics, poor Cleri-
cals ! How often have their enemies flung in their
teeth the old accusations made against the Jews !
How often in France, in Germany, in England, in both
North and South America, have they been convicted of
letting their hearts stray from their country, and of
subordinating national interests to foreign interests !
Under the old regime this was the chief grievance of
our Gallicans, and what but this is the meaning of that
name of Ultramontane with which their adversaries see
fit to brand the foreheads of the Catholics ? If any-
thing is needed to make the analogy more complete,
consider how the Roman hierarchy, with its bishops,
its priests, and its monks, is accused of possessing an
international organisation incompatible with the unity
of the State, and how Israel also is accused of being an
international organisation with secret leaders, which,
likewise, aims at nothing less than the conquest of the
world and the subjection of the nations.

I have already called attention to the resemblance
which-the Antisernitic movement bears to the Anticleri-
cal movement. Of this resemblance we have a further

364 Israel Among the Nations.

suggestion in these hostile brethren. There is a striking
similarity between the attacks of the Antiseinites upon
the Jews, and the diatribes of the Anticlericals against
the Papacy. The language employed, the formulas fol-
lowed, and the conclusions reached are so nearly iden-
tical, that the enemies of Israel and the enemies of the
Vatican might use each other's indictments against the
Church or the Synagogue by simply changing the
names. As the Antisemite tells the Jews that their
country is Jerusalem, the Anticlerical tells the Cath-
olics, the priests, the monks, that their country is Rome.
Of both the Jews and the Ul tramontanes it is asserted
that they form a State within the State, imperium in*
imperio. Against both, appeal is made to national pas-
sions, against both, protective measures, that is to say
restrictive laws, are demanded. The difference is that, as
a rule, those who denounce the dangerous nature of the
Jews are not the same persons who point out the
danger threatened by the Roman Catholic question.
And yet, in Protestant and Orthodox countries, in
Russia, for instance, where Rome is little better liked
than Zion the same lips testify to the same mistrust
of Judsea and Rome, of the Kahal and the Society of
Jesus. 1

We are not of those who believe that either the Jew
or the Jesuit imperils the nationality of peoples or the
independence of States. We see no need for special
laws, against either Judah or I^oyola. I have sufficient

1 Likewise in England, at the time of the emancipation of the
Catholics as well as of that of the Jews, the principal argument
of their opponents was this : " You are about to introduce into
the British Parliament men who represent a foreign spirit, for-
eign interests. The Vatican will have a voice in Westminster,
etc."

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 365

faith in liberty to feel convinced that, as regards both
Israel and Rome, the common law will answer. There
are too many contending forces in the modern world to
allow it to be conquered either by the Kahal or the
Society of Jesus. I go even further ; I am not averse to
anything that tends to override the barriers of national
frontiers. It seems to me, that, in this age of national
exclusiveness, when each people seems eager to make
its own home not only weather-proof but air-tight, it
were not unwise to cut a few openings in the party-
walls between them. This is one of the functions of
religion. Whatever the partisans of State-omnipotence
may think, it is fortunate for humanity that its two
great spiritual bonds, country and religion, are not
alwa}^ of equal compass, and that the one embraces
what the other excludes. If the limits of religion were
to coincide with the boundaries of States, there would
be danger of our frontiers becoming hermetically sealed
against the passage of ideas and affections. Our dual
system has its advantages. Unlike the ancient City-
State every nation in our day includes a number of re-
ligions, just as every religion embraces a number of
nations. This is a point in which the modern world is
superior to the ancient.

Those who accuse us, whether we be Jews, Protes-
tants, or Catholics, of extending our sympathies beyond
the pale of our country, forget that all great religions
are cosmopolitan. One's country is necessarily local ;
religion should be international or supranational. Its
mission is to be a bond between peoples, no less than
between individuals. This is the reason why the most
beautiful name a Church can have is " Catholic. " The
weakest point in Judaism is that its right to be regarded
as an universal religion may be disputed, that it has

366 Israel Among" the Nations.

been, for a long time, a national, a tribal creed. But
its primitive and ethnic character is gradually disap-
pearing with the dispersion of the race. I/ike Chris-
tianity, and perhaps with better right than Moham-
medanism, which tends to merge nationality in religion,
Judaism, also, is becoming an international creed.

If we cared only for the terrestrial evolution of
humanity, I am not certain that we ought to congratu-
late ourselves on the weakening of religious solidarity
for, what is to take its place ? The feeling of human
solidarity ? That is too broad and indefinite. Religious
fanaticism is now nothing more than a dim recollection ;
we must rather beware of national fanaticism. I have
scant liking for that narrow nationalism which certain
pedagogues, in France as well as in Germany, would
introduce into the schools. It is a retrograde idea, a
step backward from the modern spirit, and even from
the Middle Ages. It endangers the national idea by
exaggerating it. To suppress all religion, to leave to
the people nothing but the worship of country, is simply
to return to paganism, to revive an ancient form of
idolatry. The one God, the common Father of all peo-
ples, is replaced by a kind of national polytheism, in
which each nation is to have its own gods. It is a re-
turn to the ancient City-State, to the worship of Rome
and of Augustus, to the deification of Caesar, against
which Jews and Christians protested with the blood of
so many martyrs.

I know that our age is all confusion and contradic-
tion. While some of our professors appointed by the
government are preaching to our children the worship
of country, which is set up as the only true divinity,
voices from below, growing louder and louder, are
preaching to the masses the denial of country. The

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 367

century which noisily proclaimed the principle of na-
tionality, witnesses, before its close, an attack upon all
that is most legitimate in the national idea. There is
rising up against it, from the lowest depths of our
society, an adversary more to be dreaded than the
vague philosophical cosmopolitanism of the eighteenth
century. While blind and deaf sentinels are calling
us to arms against the Ultramontane or the Semite,
another, and a far more dangerous, enemy has glided
past our frontiers, and threatens to unfurl, over our
capitals, the red flag of industrial cosmopolitanism.

The foe of modern nationalities, that already forms
everywhere a State within the State, and, more ambi-
tious than Charles the Fifth or Napoleon, aspires to the
empire of the whole earth, we know its name, we see
it at work ; it is revolutionary socialism. For national
patriotism and religious solidarity, it professes to substi-
tute community of jealousies and solidarity of greed.
This is the only international movement that we have
to fear at present, and for this movement neither Jewish
nor Christian fraternity will pave the way. On the
contrary, every religion, apart from its doctrinal and
moral teachings, and by virtue of the simple fact that
it binds men together with ties that are independent of
class-interests, forms an obstacle to the triumph of rev-
olutionary internationalism. To win its battle, the
latter must destroy religion as well as country. It is
well aware of this, and for this reason, among others,
the religious idea is as repugnant to it as is the national
idea.

I^et us be men of our own day ; let us not take for
living beings the phantoms of belated imaginations.
If modern nations are menaced with any danger, it is
not from the religious side that the menace comes ;

368 Israel Among tJie Nations.

neither from the Catholic monk, nor from the Re-
formed minister, nor from the Israeli tish rabbi. The
time is long past when Huguenots and Leaguers called
into France the German Reiter and the Spanish tercieros.
As for the Jew, the dumb drudge of the past, what
stranger has ever hastened to his defence ? Only the
rancorous memory of the Castilians could blame him
for having delivered to the Arabs of Tarik the cities
of King Roderigo.

If, by reason of his education or his history, the Jew
seems inclined to cosmopolitanism, this makes him all
the more fit to act as a connecting bond between the
peoples, as his forefathers did in ancient Alexandria
and in mediaeval Arabia. " At an epoch," says a
western Jew, " when so many elements conspire to
divide the nations, is it to be regretted that there
should exist one calculated to unite them ? ' ' 1 " There-
in," said Graetz, the historian, " lies the national mis-
sion " he did not dare to say the providential mission
" of the Jews." 2 Why do they not devote them-
selves to it in larger numbers ? To dissipate the clouds
of prejudice piled up between contemporary nations
were indeed a noble work, for if they could understand
each other better the nations would find it less difficult
to agree with each other.

II.

The Jews are sometimes represented to us as sowing
hatred and strife among the nations, that Israel may
grow rich on the spoils, and establish her empire over
the Gentiles. The charge rests on a total misconcep-

1 Theodore Reinach's Histoire des Israelites, p. 387.
* Geschichtederjuden, voL xi., p. 406, and following

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 369

tion of the spirit of Judah. The three men who, while
dining together in Berlin in July 1870, dropped their
forks in dismay at the thought that the war might,
after all, slip out of their hands were not Israelites.
The Jew is peaceful. This is true, not only of the
Jewish disposition, which is not commonly regarded
as warlike, but also, and in no less degree, of Judaism
itself. If there is anything constant in its tradition, it
is the love for peace, the glorification of peace. Here,
again, Judaism harmonises with Christianity, because
both religions rest on the same basis.

How can we forget that the great doctrine of human
brotherhood, given to the world by the apostles of
Galilee the doctrine in which it is so often claimed to-
day that all religion and all morality are summed up
is a Jewish-Christian doctrine that has its roots in the
Hebrew religion. These Jews, who are accused of an
incurable tribal spirit, were the first to proclaim that
all men are brothers, descendants of the same Adam
and the same Eve. "Why," asks the Talmud, "was
there but one Adam in the beginning ? In order that
all men should have the same father, and that one
nation should not be able to say to another : * our ances-
tors were richer or greater than thine.* " All men are
brothers, all nations are sisters. " In thee," said the
lyord to Abraham, "shall all families of the earth be
blessed." * And this human brotherhood, which the
sacred books placed in the cradle of the race, the seers
of Judah. have embodied in their visions of the future.

At a time when the mitred Assyrian crushed the

people beneath the wheels of his chariot of war, the

captive Jew yet dared to proclaim that the day was

coming when peace and harmony would reign for ever

1 Genesis, xiL, 3.

3 70 Israel Among the Nations.

among the nations. The primitive brotherhood was
to be re-established at the end of time. Its prophetic
emblems are well known ; they are those of Eden : the
leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the wolf and
the lamb shall pasture together. Beautiful symbols of
a noble hope ! What do they mean, if not that the
weakness of the little nations will be respected by those
that are great and strong ? Maimonides, the eagle of
the Synagogue, takes pains to tell us that this will be
accomplished without a miracle. In his eyes, the lamb
and the kid stand for Israel, the wolf and the panther
for the nations converted to justice and peace. What
matters the interpretation of the rabbis ? Brotherhood
among men, peace among nations, this is an ideal in
which there is nothing exclusive ; and if this is cosmo-
politanism, where is the patriot who could take offence
at It?

We know what name Israel has given to these hopes.
The reign of the Messiah. We find ourselves again
confronted by the great doctrine of Judah, and again
we must confess that this old Oriental doctrine har-
monises with all that is loftiest in our modern aspira-
tions. The golden age to be, which the Jews of
Alexandria prophesied to the Grseco-Roman world
through the voice of the sibyls, teste David cum SibyllA,
has now become the dream of our fast-aging Occident.
Israel, son of Amos, says : " And they shall beat their
swords into ploughshares and their spears into prun-
ing-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

Have such visions become criminal in the Europe of
the Hohenzollerns ? Or do we Frenchmen not realise
that these far-off promises accord with our national
spirit and our faith in justice? The reign of peace

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 371

brought about by a reign of equal law, human frater-
nity realised through the liberty of the nations, is not
this the prophes3~ which our seers, also, dared, in 1789,
proclaim to the world from the height of their pre-
sumptuous Sinai ?

Does Christianity forbid us to hope for such an age
of peace ? By no means. Christianity authorises such
hopes, it has made them its own ; it has striven to real-
ise them, nor has it waited for our philosophers. If the
Christian nations would heed the voice of the Church,
which, day by day, prays that peace may reign among
them, the world might soon say : { f Oh, war, where is
thy sting? " After the truce of God, we should have
the peace of God. The new dispensation has entered
upon the inheritance of the old dispensation, and what
the prophets of Carmel dimly foresaw, the Gospel has
pledged itself to verify ; if it has not yet succeeded,
the fault lies in the pride of life and the lust of the eyes.
This aspiration towards peace, between the sons of an
universal Father, between all nations and all classes, is
so thoroughly a part of the new dispensation as well
as of the old, that, in order to attain it, certain sons
of Israel have not hesitated to appeal to the papacy.
Thus, Isaac Pereire (in more than one respect a repre-
sentative Jew of the modern type) addressed, shortly
before his death, a petition to I^eo XIII. And this
dream of the old Sephardim banker was taken up re-
cently by M. J. Daruiesteter, in whom a young savant
and a young poet were blended. Here are Jews who
surely cannot be charged with national exclusiveness. 1

1 J. Darmesteter's Les Prophttes d> Israel, preface. Cf* Gust.
d'Bichtal's Les Evangiles, introduction. Isaac Pereire, a
practical mind despite his Utopian dreams, asked that the
function of arbiter between the nations be entrusted to the

372 Israel Among the Nations.

For some, it is true, these great dreams of the future
are associated with Israel's past. They cling to the
promises made to the house of Judah, and in the
humanit}*- of the future, unified under the reign of jus-
tice, they reserve a place for the daughter of Zion.
They behold in their hopes, according to the visions of
Micah and Isaiah, the platform of Moriah, the moun-
tain of the house of the Lord, towering above the hills,
and all nations flowing into it to celebrate a New
Feast of Redemption.

To Joseph Salvador, 1 son of ancient Israel and of
modern France, in whom the traditions of Judah were
blended with our French aspirations, Jerusalem appeared
veiled in the mists of the future, as the ideal centre of
humanity, the holy city of the novum f&dus^ or com-
pact of alliance between the peoples. This French
Jew hoped that the city of David might become the
Washington of the United States of the world, the
federal capital of the East and the West and the North
and the South, reconciled, each with the rest, by the
supremacy of justice. But Salvador is already an old
man, and the Israelites who share his hopes are grow-
ing rare. With most of them the universal spirit has
gained ascendancy over the tribal spirit, humanity casts
Israel into the shade. If their Utopian dreams have
still a national tinge, it is not a Jewish, but rather a
French, German, or Anglo-Saxon tinge. Thus J.
Darmesteter, in reformulating the ideas of Salvador,

Holy See. This Jew would have had ttie Pope "establish
a line of demarcation between the ambitions of the different
powers, between France and Germany, between Austria and
Italy, " etc, I. Pereire's La Question Religieuse) 1878*
1 Paris, Rome, and Jerusalem.

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 3 73

claims for Paris, the secular Jerusalem of the Revo-
lution, the title of the holy city of the future. 1 And
if the Jews should persist in claiming this glory for
the little state of Judasa, they would not lack Gentile
support. Many Christians also, of every sect, in their
dreams of the rejuvenation of this old earth, allot a
place to the holy city, the eternal symbol of our high-
est hopes. Until recently many Catholics regarded the
city of the seven hills as destined to become the ideal
centre, the moral umbilicus of humanity ; but since it
has sunk to the position of a national capital, secular-
ised and disloyal Rome can no longer aspire to such a
dignity, and many eyes, accustomed to look towards the
banks of the Tiber, are now slowly turning from the
new to the old Jerusalem. 2
But, be they Utopian fancies or prophetic visions, a

1 What the French Jews say of France and the French Revo-
lution, the American Jews say of the United States and the
American Revolution. Thus, I read in the American Hebrew^
on the subject of the commemoration of Christopher Columbus
(October I4th, 1892) : " This is the Zion from which goeth forth
the law. Here is Liberty enlightening the world. . . . We
look no longer to Palestine or Jerusalem as our Mecca. . . .
This land has become our Canaan. . . . America is the
Messiah of mankind, the refuge of the oppressed of all na-
tions," etc.

8 We could give many indications of the interest which
Christians of every denomination are once more beginning to
take in Jerusalem. I shall point out but one the campaign led
by a religious scholar, P. Tondini di Qnarenghi, in favour of the
adoption of the meridian of Jerusalem as an international
meridian. I shall not speak of those who wish to transport the
Holy See to Jerusalem ; in the actual state of the world, this
would be equivalent to banishing it beyond the pale of civilisa-
tion.

3 74 Israel Among the Nations.

truce to these great dreams, tlie most beautiful, per-
haps, that have ever soothed the slumbers of the children
of men ! It is almost three thousand years old, this dream
of Israel ; but a short while ago it seemed to us that
its time of fulfilment had come, that its realisation was
near at hand. The soothsayers of the Gentiles had
promised it to us, and the century that no longer be-
lieved in prophesies, still had faith in their horoscope.
And yet, can the soothsayers of the Gentiles and the
prophets of Zion have both been mistaken, after all ?
The nations of to-day are like armies drawn up in
battle array, and awaiting the onset of the morrow.
When will our eyes be gladdened by the dawn of that
happy day on which the lamb will pasture beside the
lion, and the kid lie down with the leopard ? Instead
of drawing nearer to it, never has Europe seemed
further removed from its realisation.

No matter, it is a good thing for the world that our
hearts still ding to this great dream. Both the Old
and the New Testament forbid us to despair. It is the
duty of us Christians, especially, free as we are from all
tribal spirit and racial exclusiveness, not to betray this
noble hope of attaining peace through justice, but to
bring about its triumph among nations and races, as
well as among classes and individuals. We cannot
leave it to the exclusive care of the sons of Jacob ;
here, again, it is our duty to labour for the coming of
the Kingdom of God, the reign of Peace and Righteous-
ness, by sweeping away all that divides the peoples and
sunders the tribes of men. Beati padfid^ said the
Preacher on the Mount. And I, also, in writing these
pages and in banishing from my lips all words of
hatred, in refusing to believe that differences of blood
can breed an eternal enmity between the posterity of

Cosmopolitanism and Fraternisation. 3 75

Japhet and the sons of Shem I liave the consciousness
of having 1 contributed my own feeble share to this work
of peace ; and in doing so, I believe that I have been
true to that spirit of charity and gentleness that breathes
upon us from the hills of Galilee.

GLOSSARY OF HEBREW WORDS.

Amoraim = the authorities given in the Ghemara.
Apicoresim = epicureans ; also infidels and sceptics.
Askenazim = German Jews as contrasted with Spanish Jews.
Bar-Cocheba = "Son of a Star," a pseudo-Messiah; led the last

great but unsuccessful war of the Jews against Rome under

Hadrian, A.D. 132-135.
Beni- or Bnai-Israel = Sons of Israel ; also a Jewish tribe in India,

remnant of an ancient Israelitish colony, and having retained or

adopted many pagan rites.
Chanuka = Feast of the Maccabees.
Cohanim = Priests of the Synagogue.
Gher = a proselyte.
Gol = a Christian,
Goi'm = plural of Goi.
Golouss or Golus = exile,
Hakham = " The Wise " ; also name for rabbi or teacher in Eastern

communities.

Halakha == single decisions of the codified, but originally oral, por-
tion of the Rabbinical Law.
Halakhot = plural of Halakka.
Halukka = distribution of relief money among poor Jews, especially

in the Holy Land.
Hassidim = ' c The Pious Ones " ; also a mystic sect among Russian

and Galician Jews, believing in miracles performed by their

rabbis.

Hazzan = reader or cantor.
Hebra = charitable society or association.
Hebroth = plural of ffe&ra*

Heder = school ; narrow school-room of the Ghetto.

377

3 7 8 Glossary of Hebrew Words.

Herem = excommunication, anathema.

Kahal = congregation, especially the Jewish community of Russia.

Kedeshoth = harlots, or -women who worship at the shrine of
Astarte.

Kosher = food prepared according to Jewish dietary law.

Maggid = Polish Jewish preacher and interpreter of the Bible.

Mazzoth = unleavened cakes, the only bread eaten at Passover.

Melamed = teacher.

Mitzva = divine commandment ; also, religious practice.

Mitzvoth = plural of Mitzva*

Mohel = the one who performs the rite of circumcision.

Nabi = prophet.

Rosh-Hashanah = Jewish New-Year.

Sanhedrim = highest court of justice in Judaea.

Schachter = butcher, the same as Schochet.

Schochet = slaughterer of animals according to traditional custom.

Sephardim = Spanish Jews, as contrasted with German Jews.

Shames = sexton, or care-taker in the Synagogue.

Shir-Hashirim = The Song of Songs.

Sivan = third Jewish month.

Sopherim = scribes ; the ancient interpreters of the written or
Mosaic Law.

Talar = gaberdine.

Tales, or Talet = white shawl with fringes worn in the Synagogue
at morning service.

Talmid = pupil, student.

Tammouz = fourth Jewish month.

Tarefa = opposite of Kosher \ Food forbidden to the Jews.

Tossafists = glossators of the Talmuds in eleventh to thirteenth cen-
tury.

Tzadig, or Tzadik = a righteous one.

Zehar, or Zohar = the great Book of Mystic Lore, or Cabala,
ascribed to Simon ben Jochai of the second century, but com-
piled thirteenth century B.C.

INDEX.

Acta Sanctorum, 41
Agobard, Archbishop, 109
Ahasuerus, King, 78, 287 ; (Wan-
dering Jew), 4, 237, 286
Alexandria, 38
Alsace, forged receipts of, 27
Amoraim^ 135, 184
Andrew (martyr), 41
Anticlericalism, 45, 46, 75, 363,

364

Antisemitic movement, 74, 75
Antisemitism, causes, 10, 45,
230 ; aspects, 1 114 ; growth,
12 ; pretended grievances, 15,

43-45, 47, 48, 72-76.? an-
tiquity of, 77, 78 ; consistent,
99; compared with anticleri-
calism, 45, 363, 364

Antokolsky, 235, 285

Apicoresim^ 273

Apostles, 1 8, 98, IO2

Armenians, 81, 82, 303

Aryan, II, 67, 87, 88, 89-94,
305

Askenastim, 57, 60, 119, 120, 205,
305, 306, 314, 319, 322, 323,
33i, 332

Asmoneans, 102, 106

Atavism, u, 14, 179, 210, 257,
360

Auerbach, 279, 287

Auto-da-f, 27, 35, 184

B

Babylon, rabbis of, s&3
Bamberger, 242

Bar-Cockeba, 294

Barrabas (Jew of Malta), 215

Beck, Karl, 280 (note)

Beer, 280 ; Beer-Isaac, 2 ; W.,

240

Benedict, Sir Julius, 254 (note)
Ben Ezra, Abraham, 188, 288
Beni- Israel^ 62, 114, 122, 134,

227

Bernstein, 280
Bible, 33, 57, 58, 227, 238, 248

283

Blandia, 26
BSrne, Ludwig, 252, 260, 276,

324

Brandes, George, 261
Breal, 234

Brotherhood, human, 20, 369-371
Browning, R., 288

Cabala, 223, 292

Calvinist, 35

Carrier e^ 123, 316

Cerf-Beer, 2, 345

Chanuka, 273, 321 (note)

Chaucer, 37

Christ, 1 8, 97, 98

Christianity and Judaism, differ-
ences, 26, 133, 134 ; resem-
blances, 16, 69, 94, 297-300,
366, 369

Chrysostomus of Antioch, 109

Circumcision, 105, 106, 108, 137,
161

Civiltk Cattolica, 48

Cohanim, 17, loi (note), 126,
174

379

380

Index.

Cohen, Mme. Coralie, 289, 290
" Colaphisation," 200
Condorcet, 295
Constituent Assembly, 2
Copts, 82, 303
Corfu, 38

Costa, Sir Michael, 254 (note)
Cowen, F., 254 (note)
Cremieux, 242, 268
Crusades, 9, 36

D

D'Alembert, 53

Dalitzky, Menahen Mendel, 319

Damascus, 38

Darmesteter, Arsene, 190, 234,

237 (note), 317 (note), 360;

James, 55, 190, 234, 289, 371,

372

Darwin, 216
David, King, 237
De Barrios, Miguel, 315
Decalogue, 18, 19, 57
D'Eichthal, Gustave, 289
Derembourg, 234
Descartes, 59, 250
Diderot, 48, 53, 295
Disraeli, Benjamin, 207, 219,

242, 243, 244, 257, 258 (note),

287, 334
Dohm, 345
Druses, 82, 303

Easter outbreaks against Jews,

36

Ebers, Georg, 280
Education, compulsory, 185
Eighteenth century, 53, 54
Eliot, George, 287, 288, 353
Encyclopaedists, 53
Environment, influence of, 119,

143, 217, 253
Essenes, 125
Esther, Book of, 78

Falachas (black Jews of Abys-
sinia), 113

Fould, 242

Franchetti, 289

Frank, 61

Franks, laws of, 23

Franzos, 280

Frederick, Emperor, 50

French, literature, 266, 267, 270-
272 ; operette, 268 ; Protest-
ants, 303, 304, 316, 333, 361 ;
Revolution, I, 2, 3, 12, 53-56

Gabirol, Salomon Ibn, Rabbi,

189
Gambetta, Leon, 242-244, 262,

334, 340 (note)
Ganganelli, 39 (note), 40, 41

(note)

Germama, 47, 48
Gh&nara, 21-23, 30, 32, 34, 59,

124, 130, 142, 187
Ghetto, 27, 121, 122, 146, 149,

150, 165, 258, 302, 317
Goethe, 279
Got or gher (plural goini}, 19-21,

25, 26, 28, 51, 6r, 66, 131, 156
Goldschmidt, 240
Golouss, 348
Gordon, Juda, 319
Goschen, 242
Goudchaux, 242
Gozlan, Leon, 258 (note)
Graetz, 61, 74, 141, 172, 276, 368
Gutzkow, 277

H

Haggada, 21, 24, 188, 238
ffakham, 56, 182, 183, 185, 186,

348

ffalakha, 21, 24
Halakhot, 187
Halevy, Jehuda, 189, 237, 290,

318, 349 ; L., 234, 247, 254,

258 (note), 334
Halphen, 240
^ 355
123

Index.

381

Hartmann, Moritz, 252 (note),
280 (note)

Hassidim, 40, 132, 290, 292, 345

Hassidism, 61

Hazzan, 15

Hebra, 186

Hebrew, language, 318-322 ; po-
etry, 237, 272, 273

Hebroth 186

Heder, 125, 146, 1 86

Heilbuth, 235

Heine, 237, 250-253, 259, 260,
262, 276, 285, 287

Hep ! hep I (traditional cry

r'nst the Jews in Germany),
,

Harem, 60, 223
Herschel, 240
Herschell, Lord, 291 (note) ;

Ridley, 291 (note)
Herz, or de Lemos, Henriette,

141, 278

Heyse, Paul, 279, 287
Hillel, 19
Hirsch, Baron, 7 (note)

Idealism, decline of, 281
Intermarriage, ior, 109, 233
Islam, 106
Israels, Joseph, 235

Jacobi, 240

Javek, I 8

Jerusalem, 349, 350, 354, 372,
373

Jesuits, 270, 364, 365

Jew, converted into Israelite,
135, 143 J the, an agent, not a
producer, 68 ; the, ancestors
of, 173, 174, 180, 182, 185,
211 ; character, 191-193, 210,
221 ; family affections, 213,
214 ; idealism, 282-286, 289,
290, 292, 293 ; mind, 175-177,
179 ; receptive, not originative,
60 ; self-mastery, 215, 216 ;
strength of will, 192

Jewish, calendar, 328 ; con-
science, 194-199 J dialects,
313-317 ; dress, 307-313 J
humour, 199, 202 ; irony, 258,
268 ; mode of worship, 133 ;
morals, 209, 275 ; music, 235,
236, 254, 255 ; names, 318
(note), 322-327 ; pride, 202,
204 ; restaurants, 132, 133 ;
spirit, 264-266, 297 ; types,
112-114, ir 8 ; women, 15,
277, 278, 311

Jews, adaptability, 9, 178, 190,
217, 234, 259, 269, 270, 337,
338 ; and modern science, 51 ;
and modern thought, 52, 58,
60 ; as a nation, 79, 81, 82,
190, 191, 344, 352 ; as artists,
235 ; as conservatives, 62, 63 ;
as journalists, 269-271 ; as
musicians, 234, 254, 268 ; as
philologists, 234 ; as politicians,
241 ; as scientists, 239, 240 ;
canon law against, 109; centre
of gravity, 8-10 ; cephalic in-
dication, 114 (note) ; charac-
teristics, 9, 96, 147, 150, 151,
160-163, 165, 172, 177-182,
192, 202, 238, 255 ; Christian
influence on, 54, 59, 62, 63,
66, 67, 264, 265, 305 ; clannish
spirit, 303, 304 ; converts to
Christianity, in ; cosmopoli-
tan spirit, 359, 368 ; creative
faculty, 246-250, 267 ; dis-
eases, 166-170; distribution,
5-7 ; early marriages, 128, 153,
164 ; emancipation, 1-4, 12,
340 ; grievances against, 14,
15, 18, 43, 44, 72, 161, 281 ;
hygienic laws, 125-128, 157,
158; immigration (America
and Europe), 8-10 ; in Aus-
tria, 310 ; Bombay, 1 13 ; Eng-
land, 331, 354 ; France, 53,
74, 201, 206, 229, 235, 240,
316,317,332,340, 354J Ger-
many, 74-76, 2O6, 212, 235,

275, 312, 325 331, 335, 336,
354 ; Holland, 229, 235, 315 ;

Index.

Hungary, 325; Italy, 331,
354; Persia, 114; Poland,
Ii3, 162, 309, 314, 323 ; Rome,
302; Roumania, 4, 6, 206,
326 ; Russia, 4, 5, 63, 64, 76,
84, no, 118, 162, 164, 197,
201 (note), 206, 207, 217, 235,
309, 310, 326, 336, 337 J Spain,
77 ; the East, 62, 67, 132, 150,
163, 175, i86 T 194, 311, 321,
322, 344, 351-353, 355; United
States, 7 (note), 331, 332, 343 J
in fiction, 286-289 ; in litera-
ture, 275, 278-280 ; increase
of, 8, in, 152, 154; indige-
nous and foreign, 333 ; in-
sanity among, i6S^J*judais-
ing," 15, 48, 54, 62, 63, 69,
71, no ; longevity, 151 ; mi-
grations, 9, 10 ; monotheism,
94, 103, 139 ; national genius
of, 227-246, 251, 253, 254,
256, 261 ; number of, 5 ; on
the stage, 238, 239, 286 ; out-
breaks against, 36-39, 77, 78 ;
persecutions of, 9, 10, 36, 42,
64, 144, 145, 199, 200 ; pre-
cocity, 151, 1 7 1-173; purity
of race, 101, 105 ; Reformed,
140, 141 ; resemblance to other
nations, 258,259; restoration
of, 347-357J Spanish, 205,
237, 314, 315 subject to toll,
27 ; superstitions regarding,
35-42 ; tribal spirit, 130, 133,
134,307; types of, 115, 242

Joachim, J., 257^(note), 285

Johannan, Rabbi, 26

Josephus, 103, 104

Joupait (Polish jacket), 309

Judah, 25, 29

Judaism, a disintegrating force,
44 ; belief in future life, 17 ;
code of, 1 8, 19, 136, 275 ;
conversions to, 103-108 ; de-
crease in West, 15 ; disinte-
gration of, 66, 141 ; ethics of,
16, 17, 69 ; influence on mod-
ern ideas, 56 ; on national
feeling, 72 ; love of peace, 369 ;

not entirely a spiritual religion,
124 ; sanitary practices, 17 ;
strength in Europe, 15 ; Tal-
mud no longer essential to,
30, 31, 135 ; threatened with
extinction, 29 ; undergoing
change, 135, 142-144

Judengasse, 49, 123, 144, 149,
203, 258

Judenhetze^ 74

Justinian, Pandects of, 23

Juvenal, 77, 104

Kahal, 144, 145, 364, 365

Kahn, Gust, 267

Karaites, 115-118

Jfeddshoth, 271 -

Khazars, 106, 117, 118

Khosari, 189

Kohn, Dr., 290 (note)

Kompert, 280, 287

Kosher, 17, 41, 128, 132, 146,

I59 l6 .
K.outais (city in Trans-Caucasia),

i 48

Lasker, 45, 242

Lassalle, Ferdinand, 219, 242^

244, 276, 288, 334
Lehman, 235
Lemann, 290 (note)
Lessing, 59, 60
Levy, Emile, 235 ; Henry, 235 ;

Hermann, 257 (note)
Lewald, Fanny, 278, 287
Liebermann, 235, 290
Lindau, Paul, 276, 287
Loeb, 234
Lombroso, n, 156 (note), 169

(note), 240 (note)
Lucca, Pauline, 257 (note)
Luther* 33
Luzzatti, 242, 335

Index.

383

M

Maccabees, 195, 200, 321 (note)

Maggid, 1 86

Maimon, Moses ben, or Mai-

monides, 60, 189, 195, 370 ;

Solomon, 153, 183, 203, 208,

209

Manin, Daniel, 242 (note), 334
Manuel, 272
Marlitt, 278
Maronites, 82

Marx, Karl, 240, 276, 324, 334
Mazovia, cradle of the Jews, 9
Mazzoth) 36
Melamed, 146, 186
Mellaht 123, 313
Mendelssohn, Felix, 247, 254,

285 ; Moses, 59, 60, 141, 183,

220, 221, 277, 279, 290, 320,

345

Mendes, Catulle, 272
Messiah, 203, 204, 293-297, 299,

345, 370
Messiahs, false, 61, 70, 196, 204,

293

Meyerbeer, 247, 254-256, 285
Middle Ages, 14, 23, 35, 3$, 37,

41, 3l6

Mikail, Ephraim, 267
Minsky, 237
Minucius Felix, 37
Miskna, 20, 22, 23, 31, 32, 59,

125, 130, 187
Mitzva^ 59
Mitzvoth, 126
Mohammedans, 81
Mohel, 125
Montefiore, 290
Mordecai, 192
Moses, 24
Mosler, 235
Mt., Ephraim, 115; Gerizim,

"5
Munck, 234

N

Nabi, 57, 294
Nagid, 189

Nathan der Weise, 254 (note),

287
National, feeling, 73, 80, 81, 82,

83 ; idea, the, 366, 367
Nationality, and race, 75, 85, 86 ;

and religion, 79-85, 34^, 347,

365

Natson, 237
Neander, 291
Neo-paganism, 69, 70, 274, 279,

300, 366

New Testament, 15, 19, 69, 91
Niddah, 126
Nietsche, 277
Nineteenth century, 73
Nordau, Max, 276

Offenbach, 268, 269
Old Testament, contrasted with
the New, 16, 17, 19, 56, 69,

91

Oppert, 234

Pans (Polish lords), 212, 309

Parsees, 82, 303

Parvenu, the, 218

Passover, 36, 37

Paul of Tarsus, 98, 137

Peisse, or Peyes t 310

Pharaoh, 78

Philo, 59

Pilpoul, system of, 187

Pius IX., 149, 167

Plato, 59

Pobedonostsef, 64, 65, 197

Poland, geographic centre of the

Jews, 9
Popes who protected Jews, 14,

r> ? 9 ' 4 ^
Primrose Day, 244

Proselytism, 86, 104-106, 140
Purim, Feast of, 78

R

Rabbi, The, 182-185, 188, 189,
240 (note), 245

Index.

Rachel, 78 (note), 239, 262, 285

Raschi, 51, 316

Ratisbonne, 290 (note)

Raynal, 242

Reinachs, two, 234

Religion, \Vhatconstitutesa, 136,

138

Renan, n, 80, 95, 97, 107, 124
Ricardo, 240
Ritualistic murder, 37~4i
Rohling, 33

Rosk-HasJianah, 328, 349
Rous, 48
Rubinstein, Anton, 257 (note),

262, 285

ut aux Juifs, 127, 149, 258
Russia, 10, 63-65, 83, 84
Ruth, Book of, 101, 109

SabattaT, 61, 196

Sabbat, 35

Sabbatists in Russia, no, 197

Sacher-Masoch, 144, 271

Salvador, Joseph, 372

Samaritans, 115

Sanhedrim, 21 (note), 182

Sarstof, 38

Sckachter, 37, 132, 160

Schamai, 19 (note)

Scherer, Win., 251

Schlegel, F., 277

Schochet, 43, 133, 159, 160, 215

(note)

Second Adventists, 35
Semite, 67, 71-73, 75, 77, 84, 87,

88-97, 238, 246, 247, 305
Semitic, conquest, 98, 99 ; traits,

242, 244 ; type, 112, 114
Scfhardim, 57, 60, 113 (note),
119, 120, 196, 205, 305, 306,
314. 315, 3I9 32S, 323, 331
Servetus. 35
Shames* 277
Shemah* 348
Shemona $reh t 348
Sheol, 17

SMr-Hashirim^ 273
Shylock, 213

Sibylline books, 102 (note)
Simon (martyr), 41 ; ben Johai,

Rabbi, 21, 25
Slaves held by Jews, 108
Smolensky, P., 319
Socialism, 367

Solomon ben Isaac, Rabbi, 316
Sophtrim, 184
Special laws, 4
Spinoza, 51 (note), 59, 60, 222,

223, 240, 250, 262, 286, 290,

327

Spodek (Polish cap), 309
St. Francis, 27
Stirner, 277
St. Louis, 35

Stoecker, Pastor, 44, 53, 78, 91
St. Polycarp, 26
Straus, Oscar, 58 (note)
St. Simonism, 292 (note)
St Simonites, 125
St. Thomas, 31
Sudra, 132

Sullivan, Sir A., 254 (note)
Summa Theologia, 31
Synagogue, 60, 185

Tacitus, 77, 105

Talar, 308, 309

Talet, 15

Taltnid^ 186

Talmud, 15, 17, 18, 21-26, 28-

35, 58, 59, 66, 115, 124, 131,

144, 145, 158, 186-188, 347,

369

Talmudists, 116
Tanafm, 135, 187
Tare/a^ 40, 159, 160
Tertullian, 37
Theology, mental training of,

187
Thora, 17, 18, 56, 69, 70, 124,

127, 130, 136-139, 156-158,

185, 195, 3i8, 348
Tiberias, Rabbis of, 23
Tisza-Eszlar (borough in Hun-
7), 3S
.34

Index.

385

Torquemada, 74, 77, 184
Tossafists, 316

Treitschke, 53, 77, 252 (note)
Troyes, martyrs of, 201, 317,

319

Turgenief, 65
Tzadig^ or T&adik^ 290.

U
Unitarians, 138

VogUe, de, 285
Voltaire, 34, 48, 55, 59
Von Ense, Rahel Vamhagen,
278

W

Weil, 234

Wolf, Albert, 269

Worms, 235

Xanten, 38

Yellow wheel, The, 27, 149, 312

Zekar, 40
Zola, 271, 288