All peoples who live under normal conditions live economically,
that is, on a systematized budget in which expenditure is adjusted
to income. The Jewish people, not living under such conditions, do
not live economically. Their budget is not systematized nor are its
expenditures proportionate to the income. The lack of a systematized
budget, however, does not mean that we have no fixed annual
expenditures, although it is true that we have no fixed annual income.
The truth is that we, as a people, spend as much as any other people of
equal numbers who live a normal life. The only difference is seen in
this: while other peoples spend money for national organization and on
national institutions, we have to spend our money either in bribery or
to help pogrom victims.
On the eve of the Jewish New Year it is proper that we draw up and
take account of our annual budget. The biggest sum in this budget is
the item marked "bribery." Few realize how many millions are spent
annually by Russian and Roumanian Jews who seek to mollify their
oppressors with bribe or gift offerings. Few realize that the many
millions spent by wealthy Assimilationists in non-Jewish philanthropies
are also bribe offerings. The Jew has learned that if he means to be a
Jew he must pay bribery and that if he does not want to be a Jew, he
must also pay bribery.
When a few years ago a Jewish lord in England bequeathed his fortune
of $10,000,000 to non-Jewish institutions, he made it clear that this
gift should be taken as proof of his sincere Anglicism, which meant
the repudiation of Judaism. When the French Jew, Meurts de la Deutsch
spends 2,000,000 francs annually to encourage aviation in France, it
is for no nobler purpose than to deny that he is a Jew, and that he
has embraced all French interests. The same is true of innumerable
wealthy Jews who give millions for non-Jewish and often for anti-Jewish
purposes. It might prove interesting to an economist to discover how
many millions are spent annually in such bribery.
It is not difficult to estimate in round figures the sums spent
annually by those who want to remain Jews.
There are six million Jews in Russia. For every move he makes, the
Russian Jew must bribe the authorities. If he wants his son admitted
to the schools, he must bribe the education officials. If he wants to
open a store and obtain a license, he must bribe the village or town
officials. If he builds a house he must bribe the building inspectors.
If he seeks a passport, he must bribe the police. The whole run of
human activities is accompanied by an endless flow of bribes, gifts,
presents, etc. It is no exaggeration to say that every Jew in Russia
must spend an average of ten rubles annually in bribing officials. This
is 60,000,000 rubles, or $30,000,000 a year. The total budget of the
Swiss Confederacy falls within this amount. In return the Russian Jews
are paid in exceptional laws and pogroms. These laws and pogroms lead
to emigration which costs us, on an average, $10,000,000 a year.
In the last decade Jewish emigration from Russia has been at least
100,000 persons a year. The cost to every immigrant is at least 120
rubles. This totals $7,200,000 a year. Economists have calculated and
discovered that the incidental expenses of each immigrant amount to
about 100 rubles. These expenses are caused by the loss entailed in
breaking up business, selling out below cost, etc. This in turn totals
up to 12,000,000 rubles, or $6,000,000 a year. In addition to these
sums there are extraordinary losses resulting from pogroms, fire and
boycott.
We are not taking into consideration the hundreds of millions lost by
Jews in the war owing to the malice of the Russian Government. These
losses are not recurrent. But we must consider the losses of the Jews
in Russia as a result of pogroms. In the pogroms of 1905 and 1906 the
Russian Jews lost 20,000,000 rubles. Pogroms on a minor scale are
yearly events in Russia. All in all, the sum which the Russian Jews
spend annually in bribes or in expenses in connection with emigration,
or which they lose in pogroms or other upheavals, reaches the gigantic
sum of $50,000,000, a sum which exceeds the annual budget of Bulgaria
or of Switzerland. For less than this sum these two peoples enjoy
national independence and sovereignty while we enjoy--pogroms.
What is true of Russia is true of Roumania, partly true of Galicia and
of the Jews in northern Africa, Persia and Afghanistan. That these
million and a half of oppressed Jews living outside of Russia also
spend millions annually in bribery and emigration goes without saying.
As the emigration from the countries of oppression does not diminish
the number of Jews, because of the high birth-rate there, and as
conditions of life grow worse daily, the emigrants have to support
their families and friends who stay behind. The Russian Ministry of
Post and Telegraph published statistical tables a few years ago, which
show that the Russian immigrants in the United States, mostly Jews,
send annually to their relatives and friends from $15,000,000 to
$18,000,000 a year. A good part of this sum goes to the Russian post
office officials. This fact became known four years ago when a group
of Jews in Petrograd and Moscow started a movement with the purpose of
founding a Jewish immigrants' bank.
When speaking of necessary and incidental expenses of immigration one
must not overlook the losses accruing from re-immigration and from
a decrease of productive energy of many immigrants because of their
inability to adapt themselves to new surroundings.
These are expenses caused by the decision of Jews to remain Jews. We
maintain that the sums of money paid by Jews who are determined to have
the world think them non-Jews, or to have the world forgive them for
being Jews, are at least as large.
When, a few years ago, the Jewish millionaire Efrussi died in Paris,
the French press without exception paid high tribute to his French
patriotism and omitted all mention of his Jewish origin. Efrussi
used to spend 2,000,000 francs on French national sports, races,
etc. This was also the case with the French Jew, Osiris, who left
his fortune of 60,000,000 francs to the French people and French
institutions, and 60,000 francs to the Jewish people in the form of
a copy of Michael Angelo's Moses erected in the court of the Jewish
Teachers' Seminary of the Alliance Israelite in Paris. An Austrian Jew,
Taussig, gave 1,000,000 kronen to the Catholic Eucharist Congress in
Vienna, while a relative of the same name left 500,000 kronen to the
Catholic church with the request that on his Jahr-Zeit two Franciscan
monks visit the synagogue to pray for his soul. The new university
in Frankfort-on-Main, which cost many million marks, is a Jewish
university in so far as large parts of this sum were contributed by
Jews. Most of the contributors were Jews who in no way support Jewish
institutions. A Prussian statistician discovered a few years ago that
not only do Jews contribute to funds for the building of monuments to
national heroes, but also to funds for Catholic cathedrals and other
institutions that are anti-Semitic in character.
In England there are hundreds of wealthy Jews who make annual
contributions to the Church of England, refusing at the same time to
support any Jewish institutions. Lord Rothschild, who is by no means
the richest man in England, spends more in New Year's gifts to various
non-Jewish classes in London than ten other rich lords combined.
Another English Jew, Sir Ernest Cassel, the son of a Hebrew teacher
in Germany, has spent in the last decade £1,500,000 in the support of
non-Jewish institutions. Their contributions to Jewish institutions
have been insignificant in comparison.
The gift of these large sums is always made public, but the sum total
of smaller gifts, which are not made public, exceed by far the amounts
given by very rich Jews to non-Jewish institutions. If we compare
the sums given by so-called Jewish philanthropists to Jewish and
non-Jewish institutions we discover that they give at least five times
as generously to the non-Jewish as to the Jewish. Mr. Jacob H. Schiff's
gift of $500,000 to Barnard College is a striking instance. At a time
when his own people experienced the greatest calamity in its history,
when millions of Jews were starving, and when Jewish blood was being
shed freely, Schiff gave $100,000 for Jewish relief purposes and five
times as much to a single institution for the erection of one building
in New York. This is the usual proportion that marks the giving of Jews
to Jewish and non-Jewish institutions.
We think that the form of bribery which the oppressed Jews practice to
mollify their oppressors is sad enough as a commentary on Jewish life.
But the more ostentatious form of bribery--a form of gift bestowal
which seeks to hide the giver's identity as a Jew or at least to
purchase pardon for his Jewishness--is the greater tragedy. These Jews
spend millions to make the world forget they are Jews, but the world
remembers and laughs up its sleeve.