The opening years of the nineteenth century found the Jew blinded
by the light of a new sun, the rays of which were beating upon the
Ghetto and were forcing him to take off, one by one, the many garments
with which he had clothed himself during the hostile Middle Ages. For
the Jew these Middle Ages did not end with the Reformation and the
Renaissance; but only disappeared in the transformation brought about
gradually by the French Revolution. The beginning of the twentieth
century sees him putting on some of these garments again, and trying
to save his own warmth from being lost in the coldness of the outside
world. During this period the Jew has passed through more upheavals
than many nations have during three or four times the number of years.
What outward struggles has he not been called upon to experience;
through what alternating seasons of joy and sorrow has he not passed!
What changes even within his own body has he not sustained! The modern
European and American world has had a hard fight to find its way into
its present changed condition; but much harder by far was the task
laid upon the Jew; and, whether he has succeeded or not, he has made
an honest fight. Evidences of the struggle abound on every hand, and
the road is strewn with many a dead hope and many a lost opportunity.
The Jew was bound more firmly to ancient traditions; and so interwoven
were these ancient traditions with his whole being that the new life
into which he came had of necessity to be blended with the old. The
tale of the Jew of the nineteenth century is a record of his endeavor
to do justice to the two demands which were made upon him: the one from
the outside world—to fit himself to take his place worthily and do
his work side by side with the other citizens of the state in which he
lived; the other from within his own ranks—to harmonize his religious
belief with his new point of view and to adapt his religious exercises
to modern social conditions.