Rudolph who shamefully persecuted Israel, arose against the people of
God, in order, like Haman of old, to destroy, to slay, and to cause
to perish. He travelled throughout Germany to bestow the cross of the
crusaders upon all who consented to set out for Jerusalem to fight
against the Moslems. In every place where he came he aroused the
people, crying, ‘Avenge ye first the vengeance of our God on His
enemies who are here before us, and then we will go forward’. When the
Jews heard this, their courage failed them by reason of the rage of
their oppressor who sought their destruction. They cried to God, saying:
‘Alas, O Lord God! Behold fifty years, like the period of a jubilee,
have not yet elapsed since we shed our blood like water to sanctify Thy
holy, great, and revered Name, on the day of the great slaughter. Wilt
Thou indeed forsake us for ever and extend Thy wrath against us unto
all generations? Shall misery follow misery?’
The Lord heard our supplications, and turned unto us, and had pity
upon us, according to His abundant loving-kindness. He sent one of
their greatest and respected teachers, the abbot Bernard, from the town
Clairvaux in France, after this evil monk. And he also preached to his
people according to their custom, crying ‘It is good that you are ready
to go forth against the Moslems; but whosoever uses violence against
the Jews commits a deadly sin’.
All honoured this monk as one of their saints, neither has it ever been
said that he received a bribe for his good service to us. Many desisted
from any further murderous attacks against us. We gladly gave our
possessions as a ransom for our lives. Whatever was asked of us, silver
or gold, we withheld not.
If our Creator in His great compassion had not sent us this abbot,
there would have been none in Israel that would have escaped or
remained alive. Blessed be He who saves and delivers. Praised be His
Name.
EPHRAIM OF BONN, 1180.
JEWISH SUFFERING
BREAK forth in lamentation,
My agonizing song,
That like a lava-torrent
Has boiled within me long.
My song shall thrill each hearer,
And none so deaf but hears,
For the burden of my ditty
Is the pain of a thousand years.
It melts both gentle and simple,
Even hearts of stone are riven――
Sets women and flowers weeping;
They weep, the stars of heaven.
And all these tears are flowing
By channels still and wide,
Homeward they are all flowing
To meet in Jordan’s tide.
H. HEINE, 1824.
THE JEWS OF YORK (1190)
WHEN Richard I ascended the throne, the Jews, to conciliate the Royal
protection, brought their tributes. Many had hastened from remote
parts of England, and, appearing at Westminster, the Court and the
mob imagined that they had leagued to bewitch His Majesty. A rumour
spread rapidly through the city that in honour of the festival the Jews
were to be massacred. The populace, at once eager of Royalty and riot,
pillaged and burnt their houses and murdered the devoted Jews.
The people of York soon gathered to imitate the people of London. The
alarmed Jews hastened to Jocenus, the most opulent of the Jews, who
conducted them to the Governor of York Castle, and prevailed on him to
afford them an asylum for their persons and effects.
The castle had sufficient strength for their defence; but a suspicion
arising that the Governor, who often went out, intended to betray them,
they one day refused him entrance. He complained to the sheriff of the
county; and the chiefs of the violent party, who stood deeply indebted
to the Jews, uniting with him, orders were issued to attack the castle.
The cruel multitude, united with the soldiery, felt such a desire
of slaughtering those they intended to despoil, that the sheriff,
repenting of the order, revoked it; but in vain: fanaticism and robbery
once set loose will satiate their appetency for blood and plunder. The
attacks continued, till at length the Jews perceived they could hold
out no longer, and a council was called to consider what remained to be
done in the extremity of danger.
When the Jewish council was assembled, the Haham[25] rose, and
addressed them in this manner: ‘Men of Israel! the God of our ancestors
is omniscient, and there is no one who can say, Why doest Thou this?
This day He commands us to die for His Law; for that Law which we have
cherished from the first hour it was given, which we have preserved
pure throughout our captivity in all nations; and for which, because
of the many consolations it has given us and the eternal hope it
communicates, can we do less than die? Death is before our eyes; and
we have only to choose an honourable and easy one. If we fall into the
hands of our enemies, which you know we cannot escape, our death will
be ignominious and cruel. It is therefore my advice that we elude their
tortures; that we ourselves should be our own executioners; and that we
voluntarily surrender our lives to our Creator. God seems to call for
us, but let us not be unworthy of that call.’ Having said this, the old
man sat down and wept.
The assembly was divided in its opinions. Again the Rabbin rose, and
spoke these few words in a firm and decisive tone. ‘My children! since
we are not unanimous in our opinions, let those who do not approve of
my advice depart from this assembly!’ Some departed, but the greater
number attached themselves to their venerable priest. They now employed
themselves in consuming their valuables by fire; and every man, fearful
of trusting to the timid and irresolute hand of the women, first
destroyed his wife and children, and then himself. Jocenus and the
Rabbin alone remained. Their life was protracted to the last, that
they might see everything performed according to their orders. Jocenus,
being the chief Jew, was distinguished by the last mark of human
respect in receiving his death from the consecrated hand of the aged
Rabbin, who immediately after performed the melancholy duty on himself.
All this was transacted in the depth of the night. In the morning the
walls of the castle were seen wrapt in flames, and only a few miserable
and pusillanimous beings, unworthy of the sword, were viewed on the
battlements pointing to their extinct brethren. When they opened the
gates of the castle, these men verified the prediction of their late
Rabbin; for the multitude, bursting through the solitary courts, found
themselves defrauded of their hopes, and in a moment avenged themselves
on the feeble wretches who knew not to die with honour.
ISAAC D’ISRAELI, 1793.
THE EXPULSION FROM SPAIN, 1492
LOOK, they move! No comrades near but curses;
Tears gleam in beards of men sore with reverses;
Flowers from fields abandoned, loving nurses,
Fondly deck the women’s raven hair.
Faded, scentless flowers that shall remind them
Of their precious homes and graves behind them;
Old men, clasping Torah-scrolls, unbind them,
Lift the parchment flags and silent lead.
Mock not with thy light, O sun, our morrow;
Cease not, cease not, O ye songs of sorrow;
From what land a refuge can we borrow,
Weary, thrust out, God-forsaken we?
Could ye, suff’ring souls, peer through the Future,
From despair ye would awake to rapture;
Lo! The Genoese boldly steers to capture
Freedom’s realm beyond an unsailed sea![26]
L. A. FRANKL.
(_Trans. by M. D. Louis._)
THE EXODUS
(AUGUST 3, 1492)
THE Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl
like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached high-roads,
through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.
2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully
upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, wellnigh swoons
beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping
babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding
feet. ‘Mother, shall we soon be there?’
3. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses
laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with
fever.
4. The panting mules are urged forward by spur and goad; stuffed are
the heavy saddle-bags with the wreckage of ruined homes.
5. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly carried
silken scrolls.
6. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure,
plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army of
misfortune.
7. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! No friend shall close
his eyes.
8. They leave behind the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines
they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia and
Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the altar,
the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.
9. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his flock,
the peasant his plough, to pelt with curses and stones; the villager
sets on their trail his yelping cur.
10. Oh, the weary march! oh, the uptorn roots of home! oh, the
blankness of the receding goal!
11. Listen to their lamentations. _They that ate dainty food are
desolate in the streets; they were reared in scarlet embrace dunghills.
They flee away and wander about. Men say among the nations, They shall
no more sojourn there; our end is near, our days are full, our doom is
come._ (Lam. 4. 5, 15, 18.)
12. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, and the
East refuseth to receive.
EMMA LAZARUS, 1883.
A SONG OF REDEMPTION
SURELY a limit boundeth every woe,
But mine enduring anguish hath no end;
My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow,
My wound hath no amend.
O’erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strong
To steer the bark to port, her longed-for aim.
How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong?
When shall be heard the Dove’s[27] sweet voice of song?
O leave us not to perish for our wrong,
Who bear Thy Name!
_Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?_
_Mercy we crave!_
_O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,_
_Our King will save!_
Wounded and crushed beneath my load I sigh,
Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low;
How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry,
My heart dissolve with woe?
How many years without a gleam of light
Has thraldom been our lot, our portion pain?
With Ishmael[28] as a lion in his might,
And Persia as an owl of darksome night,
Beset on either side, behold our plight
Betwixt the twain.
_Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?_
_Mercy we crave!_
_O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,_
_Our King will save!_
SOLOMON IBN GABIROL, 1050.
(_Trans. Nina Salaman._)
SHYLOCK
SHYLOCK is ‘the Jew that Shakespeare drew’. He is not the Jew of real
life, even in the Middle Ages, stained as their story is with the hot
tears――nay, the very heart’s blood――of the martyred race. The mediaeval
Jew did not take vengeance on his cruel foes. Nay, more than this:
with a sublime magnanimity he could actually preach and practise widest
benevolence towards his oppressors. Throughout the Middle Ages, when
Jews were daily plundered and tortured, and done to death ‘for the
glory of God’, not a word was breathed against the morality of the
victims. They suffered because they were heretics, because they would
not juggle with their conscience and profess a belief that did not live
in their souls. But Jewish ethics soared to still nobler heights. The
Jew preserved his integrity in spite of his suffering; but more than
this, he forgave――ay, even blessed――its authors. The Jews hunted out
of Spain in 1492 were in turn cruelly expelled from Portugal. Some
took refuge on the African coast. Eighty years later the descendants of
the men who had committed or allowed these enormities were defeated in
Africa, whither they had been led by their king, Dom Sebastian. Those
who were not slain were offered as slaves at Fez to the descendants of
the Jewish exiles from Portugal. ‘The humbled Portuguese nobles’, the
historian narrates, ‘were comforted when their purchasers proved to be
Jews, for they knew that they had humane hearts.’
MORRIS JOSEPH, 1891.
ON THE EVE OF THE RE-SETTLEMENT IN ENGLAND
THE Lord, blessed for ever, by His prophet Jeremiah (chap. 29. 7)
gives it in command to the captive Israelites that were dispersed
among the heathens, that they should continually pray for and endeavour
the peace, welfare, and prosperity of the city wherein they dwelt and
the inhabitants thereof. This the Jews have always done, and continue
to this day in all their synagogues, with a particular blessing of
the prince or magistrate under whose protection they live. And this
the Right Honourable my Lord St. John can testify, who, when he was
ambassador to the Lords the States of the United Provinces, was pleased
to honour our synagogue at Amsterdam with his presence, where our
nation entertained him with music and all expressions of joy and
gladness, and also pronounced a blessing, not only upon His Honour then
present, but upon the whole Commonwealth of England, for that they were
a people in league and amity, and because we conceived some hopes that
they would manifest towards us what we ever bare towards them, viz. all
love and affection.
MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL, 1656.
JEWISH EMANCIPATION
THE whole question of emancipation, as it concerns only our external
condition, is in Judaism but of secondary interest. Sooner or later
the nations will decide the question between right and wrong, between
humanity and inhumanity; and the first awakening of a higher calling
than the mere lust for possession and enjoyment, the first expression
of a nobler recognition of God as the only Lord and Father, and of
the earth as a Holy Land assigned by Him to all men for the fulfilment
of their human calling――will find its expression everywhere in the
emancipation of all who are oppressed, including the Jews. We have a
higher object to attain, and this is entirely in our own hands――the
ennobling of ourselves, the realization of Judaism by Jews.
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH, 1836.
(_Trans. B. Drachmann._)
* * * * *
IF the political privileges we have gained could in any way weaken
our Jewish sympathies, they would have been purchased at a terrible
cost, and would signally defeat the intentions of those who aided and
laboured for the movement.
BARON LIONEL DE ROTHSCHILD, 1869.
THE JEWISH QUESTION
TO approach the Jewish question is to be confronted with every
great question of the day――social, political, financial, humanitarian,
national, and religious. Each phase should be treated by an expert;
but however discussed or dealt with, there is one point of view which
should never be lost sight of, namely, the point of view of humanity.
First and foremost we must be human if we would raise our voice on so
human a theme.
JOSEPHINE LAZARUS, 1892.
* * * * *
EVERY country has the Jews it deserves.
K. E. FRANZOS, 1875.
* * * * *
TO base the appeal for justice to present-day Jewry upon the
cultural services of ancient Israel would be treason to the inalienable
rights of man. A people may for a time be robbed of these rights,
but――whatever the alleged political reason for such a crime――it cannot
be legally or equitably deprived of them.
M. STEINSCHNEIDER, 1893.
* * * * *
IN a free State, it is not the Christian that rules the Jew, neither is
it the Jew that rules the Christian; it is Justice that rules.
LEOPOLD ZUNZ, 1859.
THE JEWS OF ENGLAND[29]
(1290‒1902)
AN Edward’s England spat us out――a band
Foredoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,
And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.
All mocked the faith they could not understand.
Six centuries have passed. The yellow brand
On shoulder nor on soul has left a sign,
And on our brows must Edward’s England twine
Her civic laurels with an equal hand.
Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacy
Upon the martial breast of England glance!
She seems of War the very Deity.
Could aught remain her glory to enhance?
Yea, for I count her noblest victory
Her triumph o’er her own intolerance.
ISRAEL ZANGWILL, 1902.
WELCOME OF THE HEBREW CONGREGATION, NEWPORT,[30]
RHODE ISLAND, U.S.A., TO GEORGE WASHINGTON
SIR,
Permit the Children of the Stock of Abraham to approach you with the
most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits, and to
join with your fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport.
Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free
citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty
Disposer of all events) behold a Government erected by the Majesty
of the people――a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to
persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all, liberty
of conscience, and immunities of citizenship, deeming every one,
of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great
Government Machine. This so ample and extensive Federal Union, whose
basis is Philanthropy, Mutual Confidence, and Public Virtue, we cannot
but acknowledge to be the work of the great God, Who ruleth in the
Armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing
whatever seemeth Him good.
For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy
under an equal and benign administration, we desire to send up our
thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great Preserver of men, beseeching
Him that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the Wilderness
into the Promised Land may graciously conduct you through all the
difficulties and dangers of this mortal life. And when, like Joshua,
full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may
you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of
life and the tree of immortality.
Done and signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode
Island, August 17th, 1790.
MOSES SEIXAS.
BRITISH CITIZENSHIP
BRITISH patriotism is not the mediaeval demand that the citizens of
any one country all think alike, that they be of the same blood, or
that they even speak the same language. Britain’s mild sovereignty
respects the personality of the ethnic groups found within the borders
of its world-wide dominion; nay, it fosters the linguistic heritage,
the national individuality even, of Irishman and Welshman, of French
Canadian and Afrikander Boer, and encourages them all to develop along
their own lines. Any one, therefore, who deems that patriotism exacts
from him the purposeless sacrifice of his religious tradition and
historic memory――that man is an alien in spirit to the Anglo-Saxon
genius, and is unworthy of his British citizenship.
J. H. HERTZ, 1915.
THE RUSSIAN JEW[31]
SCIENTISTS tell us that coal is nothing but concentrated sunlight.
Primeval forests that for years out of number had been drinking in the
rays of the sun, having been buried beneath the ground and excluded
from the reviving touch of light and air, were gradually turned into
coal――black, rugged, shapeless, yet retaining all its pristine energy,
which, when released, provides us with light and heat. The story of
the Russian Jew is the story of the coal. Under a surface marred by
oppression and persecution he has accumulated immense stores of energy,
in which we may find an unlimited supply of light and heat for our
minds and our hearts. All we need is to discover the process, long
known in the case of coal, of transforming latent strength into living
power.
I. FRIEDLANDER, 1915.
YIDDISH[32]
I HAVE never been able to understand how it is that a language spoken
by perhaps more than half of the Jewish race should be regarded with
such horror, as though it were a crime. Six million speakers are
sufficient to give historic dignity to any language! One great writer
alone is enough to make it holy and immortal. Take Norwegian. It is the
language of only two million people. But it has become immortal through
the great literary achievements of Ibsen. And even though Yiddish
cannot boast of so great a writer as Ibsen, it has reason to be proud
of numerous smaller men――poets, romancers, satirists, dramatists.
The main point is that Yiddish incorporates the essence of a life which
is distinctive and unlike any other. There is nothing of holiness in
any of the outer expressions of life. The one and only thing holy is
the _human soul_, which is the source and fount of all human effort.
ISRAEL ZANGWILL, 1906.
* * * * *
THERE is probably no other language in existence on which so much
opprobrium has been heaped as on Yiddish. Such a bias can be explained
only as a manifestation of a general prejudice against everything
Jewish.
LEO WIENER, 1899.
RUSSO-JEWISH EDUCATION
AMONG the Jews of Poland and Russia there was no learned estate, not
because there were no scholars, but because the people itself was a
nation of students. The ideal type for the Russian Jew was the _Lamdan_,
the scholar. The highest ambition of the Russian Jew was that his sons,
and if he had only daughters, that his sons-in-law should be _Lomdim_;
and the greatest achievement of a man’s life was his ability to provide
sufficiently for them, so that, relieved from economic cares, they
might devote themselves unrestrictedly to Jewish learning. To be sure,
this learning was one-sided. Yet it was both wide and deep, for it
embraced the almost boundless domain of religious Hebrew literature,
and involved the knowledge of one of the most complicated systems of
law. The knowledge of the Hebrew prayers and the Five Books of Moses
would not have been sufficient to save the Russian Jew from the most
terrible opprobrium――that of being an _Am-Haaretz_, an ignoramus.
The ability to understand a Talmudic text, which demands years of
preparation, was the minimum requirement for one who wanted to be of
any consequence in the community.
I. FRIEDLANDER, 1913.
PASSOVER IN OLD RUSSIA[33]
THE Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land
of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful as if it had only just happened,
was the time our Gentile neighbours chose to remind us that Russia was
another Egypt. It was not so bad within the Pale; but in Russian cities,
and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families lived
scattered by special permission of the police, who were always changing
their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the Passover
a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about
murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would get mad
about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill the Jews.
They attacked them with knives and clubs, and scythes and axes, killed
them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was called a
‘pogrom’. Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them, and
horrible, horrible stories of little babies torn limb from limb before
their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and
choke with pain. People who saw such things never smiled any more, no
matter how long they lived; and sometimes their hair turned white in a
day, and some people became insane on the spot.
MARY ANTIN, 1911.
THE POGROM
OCTOBER, 1905
IT had already lasted two days. But as nobody dined, nobody exchanged
greetings, and nobody thought of winding up the clock for the night
(for people slept dressed, anywhere, on lofts, in sheds, or in empty
railway carriages), all notion of time had disappeared. People only
heard the incessant jingling of broken glass-panes. At this terrible
sound, the arms stiffened and the eyes became distended with fright.
Some distant houses were burning. Along the red-tinted street with the
red pavement, there ran by a red man, whilst another red man stretched
his arm, and from the tips of his fingers there broke forth quickly a
sharp, snapping, cracking sound――and the running man dropped down.
A strange, sharp cry, ‘They are shoo-ooting!’ passed along the street.
Invisible and inexorable demons made their appearance. Houses and
nurseries were broken in. Old men had their arms fractured; women’s
white bosoms were trampled upon by heavy, dirty heels. Many were
perishing by torture; others were burnt alive.
Two persons were hiding in a dark cellar; an old man with his son, a
schoolboy. The old man went up and opened the outer door again, to make
the place look deserted by the owners. A merchant had run in. He wept,
not from fear but from feeling himself in security.
‘I have a son like you’, he said, tearfully.
He then breathed heavily and nervously, and added reflectively, ‘Like
you, my boy, yes!’
The master of the house caught the merchant by his elbow, pulled him
close to himself, and whispered into his ear:
‘Hush! They might hear us!’
There they stood, expectant. Now and then, a rustling; an even,
sleepless breathing could be heard. The brain cannot familiarize itself
with these sounds in the darkness and silence. Perhaps they were asleep,
none could tell.
At night――it must have been late at night――another two stole in quietly.