THE EAST EUROPEAN HEBREWS
In his defense of Flaccus, a Roman governor who had "squeezed" his
Jewish subjects, Cicero lowers his voice when he comes to speak
of the Jews, for, as he explains to the judges, there are persons
who might excite against him this numerous, clannish and powerful
element. With much greater reason might an American lower his voice
to-day in discussing two million Hebrew immigrants united by a
strong race consciousness and already ably represented at every
level of wealth, power, and influence in the United States.
At the time of the Revolution there were perhaps 700 Jewish families
in the colonies. In 1826 the number of Jews in the United States
was estimated at 6000; in 1840, at 15,000; in 1848, at 50,000. The
immigration from Germany brought great numbers, and at the outbreak
of the Civil War there were probably 150,000 Jews in this country.
In 1888, after the first wave from Russia, they were estimated at
400,000. Since the beginning of 1899, one and one-third millions of
Hebrews have settled in this country.
Easily one-fifth of the Hebrews in the world are with us, and the
freshet shows no signs of subsidence. America is coming to be
hailed as the "promised land," and Zionist dreams are yielding
to the conviction that it will be much easier for the keen-witted
Russian Jews to prosper here as a free component in a nation of a
hundred millions than to grub a living out of the baked hillsides
of Palestine. With Mr. Zangwill they exult that: "America has ample
room for all the six millions of the Pale; any one of her fifty
states could absorb them. And next to being in a country of their
own, there could be no better fate for them than to be together
in a land of civil and religious liberty, of whose Constitution
Christianity forms no part and where their collective votes would
practically guarantee them against future persecution."
Hence the endeavor of the Jews to control the immigration policy
of the United States. Although theirs is but a seventh of our net
immigration, they led the fight on the Immigration Commission's
bill. The power of the million Jews in the metropolis lined up the
Congressional delegation from New York in solid opposition to the
literacy test. The systematic campaign in newspapers and magazines
to break down all arguments for restriction and to calm nativist
fears is waged by and for one race. Hebrew money is behind the
National Liberal Immigration League and its numerous publications.
From the paper before the commercial body or the scientific
association to the heavy treatise produced with the aid of the
Baron de Hirsch Fund, the literature that proves the blessings of
immigration to all classes in America emanates from subtle Hebrew
brains. In order to admit their brethren from the Pale the brightest
of the Semites are keeping our doors open to the dullest of the
Aryans!
Migrating as families the Hebrews from eastern Europe are pretty
evenly divided between the sexes. Their illiteracy is 26 per cent.,
about the average. Artisans and professional men are rather numerous
among them. They come from cities and settle in cities--half of
them in New York. Centuries of enforced Ghetto life seem to have
bred in them a herding instinct. No other physiques can so well
withstand the toxins of urban congestion. Save the Italians, more
Jews will crowd upon a given space than any other nationality. As
they prosper they do not proportionately enlarge their quarters.
Of Boston tenement-house Jews Dr. Bushee testifies: "Their inborn
love of money-making leads them to crowd into the smallest quarters.
Families having very respectable bank accounts have been known to
occupy cellar rooms where damp and cold streaked the walls." "There
are actually streets in the West End where, while Jews are moving
in, negro housewives are gathering up their skirts and seeking a
more spotless environment."
The first stream of Russo-Hebrew immigrants started flowing in
1882 in consequence of the reactionary policy of Alexander III.
It contained many students and members of scholarly families, who
stimulated intellectual activity among their fellows here and were
leaders in radical thought. These idealists established newspapers
in the Jewish-German Jargon and thus made Yiddish (_Jüdisch_) a
literary language. The second stream reached us after 1890 and
brought immigrants who were not steeped in modern ideas but held to
Talmudic traditions and the learning of the rabbis. The more recent
flow taps lower social strata and is prompted by economic motives.
These later arrivals lack both the idealism of the first stream and
the religious culture of the second.
Besides the Russian Jews we are receiving large numbers from
Galicia, Hungary, and Roumania. The last are said to be of a high
type, whereas the Galician Jews are the lowest. It is these whom
Joseph Pennell, the illustrator, found to be "people who, despite
their poverty, never work with their hands; whose town ... is but a
hideous nightmare of dirt, disease and poverty" and its misery and
ugliness "the outcome of their own habits and way of life and not,
as is usually supposed, forced upon them by Christian persecutors."
OCCUPATIONS
The Hebrew immigrants rarely lay hand to basic production. In
tilling the soil, in food growing, in extracting minerals, in
building, construction and transportation they have little part.
Sometimes they direct these operations, often they finance them, but
even in direst poverty they contrive to avoid hard muscular labor.
Under pressure the Jew takes to the pack as the Italian to the pick.
In the '80's numerous rural colonies of Hebrews were planted,
but, despite much help from outside, all except the colonies near
Vineland, New Jersey, utterly failed. In New York and New England
there are more than a thousand Hebrew farmers, but most of them
speculate in real estate, keep summer boarders, or depend on some
side enterprise--peddling, cattle trading or junk buying--for a
material part of their income. The Hebrew farmers, said to number
in all 6000, maintain a federation and are provided with a farmers'
journal. New colonies are launched at brief intervals, and Jewish
city boys are being trained for country life. Still, not over one
Hebrew family in a hundred is on the land and the rural trend is but
a trickle compared with the huge inflow.
Perhaps two-fifths of the Hebrew immigrants gain their living
from garment-making. Naturally the greater part of the clothing
and dry goods trade, the country over, is in their hands. They
make eighty-five per cent. of the cigars and most of the domestic
cigarettes. They purchase all but an insignificant part of the leaf
tobacco from the farmers and sell it to the manufacturers. They are
prominent in the retailing of spirits, and the Jewish distiller is
almost as typical as the German brewer.
None can beat the Jew at a bargain, for through all the intricacies
of commerce he can scent his profit. The peddler, junk dealer, or
pawn broker is on the first rung of the ladder. The more capable
rise in a few years to be theatrical managers, bankers or heads of
department stores. Moreover great numbers are clerks and salesmen
and thousands are municipal and building contractors. Many of the
second generation enter the civil service and the professions.
Already in several of the largest municipalities and in the Federal
bureaus a large proportion of the positions are held by keen-witted
Jews. Twenty years ago under the spoils system the Irish held
most of the city jobs in New York. Now under the test system the
Jews are driving them out. Among the school teachers of the city
Jewesses outnumber the women of any other nationality. Owing to
their aversion to "blind-alley" occupations Jewish girls shun
housework and crowd into the factories, while those who can get
training become stenographers, bookkeepers, accountants and private
secretaries. One-thirteenth of the students in our seventy-seven
leading universities and colleges are of Hebrew parentage. The young
Jews take eagerly to medicine and it is said that from seven hundred
to nine hundred of the physicians in New York are of their race.
More noticeable is the influx into dentistry and especially into
pharmacy. Their trend into the legal profession has been pronounced,
and of late there is a movement of Jewish students into engineering,
agriculture and forestry.
MORALS
The Jewish immigrants cherish a pure, close-knit family life and the
position of the woman in the home is one of dignity. More than any
other immigrants they are ready to assume the support of distant
needy relatives. They care for their own poor, and the spirit of
coöperation among them is very noticeable. Their temper is sensitive
and humane; very rarely is a Jew charged with any form of brutality.
There is among them a fine _élite_ which responds to the appeal of
the ideal and is found in every kind of ameliorative work.
Nevertheless, fair-minded observers agree that certain bad qualities
crop out all too often among these eastern Europeans. A school
principal remarks that his Jewish pupils are more importunate to
get a mark changed than his other pupils. A settlement warden who
during the summer entertains hundreds of nursing slum mothers at
a country "home" says: "The Jewish mothers are always asking for
_something extra_ over the regular kit we provide each guest for
her stay." "The last thing the son of Jacob wants," observes an
eminent sociologist, "is a square deal." A veteran New York social
worker cannot forgive the Ghetto its littering and defiling of the
parks. "Look at Tompkins Square," he exclaimed hotly, "and compare
it with what it was twenty-five years ago amid a German population!"
As for the caretakers of the parks their comment on this matter is
unprintable. Genial settlement residents, who never tire of praising
Italian or Greek, testify that no other immigrants are so noisy,
pushing and disdainful of the rights of others as the Hebrews. That
the worst exploiters of these immigrants are sweaters, landlords,
employers and "white slavers" of their own race no one gainsays.
The authorities complain that the East European Hebrews feel no
reverence for law as such and are willing to break any ordinance
they find in their way. The fact that pleasure-loving Jewish
business men spare Jewesses but pursue Gentile girls excites bitter
comment. The insurance companies scan a Jewish fire risk more
closely than any other. Credit men say the Jewish merchant is often
"slippery" and will "fail" in order to get rid of his debts. For
lying the immigrant has a very bad reputation. In the North End
of Boston "the readiness of the Jews to commit perjury has passed
into a proverb." Conscientious immigration officials become very
sore over the incessant fire of false accusations to which they are
subjected by the Jewish press and societies. United States senators
complain that during the close of the struggle over the immigration
bill they were overwhelmed with a torrent of crooked statistics and
misrepresentations by the Hebrews fighting the literacy test.
Graver yet is the charge that these East European immigrants
lower standards wherever they enter. In the boot and shoe trade
some Hebrew jobbers who, after sending in an order to the
manufacturer, find the market taking an unexpected downward turn,
will reject a consignment on some pretext in order to evade a loss.
Says Dr. Bushee: "The shame of a variety of underhanded methods
in trade not easily punishable by law must be laid at the door of
a certain type of Jew." It is charged that for personal gain the
Jewish dealer wilfully disregards the customs of the trade and
thereby throws trade ethics into confusion. Physicians and lawyers
complain that their Jewish colleagues tend to break down the ethics
of their professions. It is certain that Jews have commercialized
the social evil, commercialized the theatre, and done much to
commercialize the newspaper.
[Illustration: Photograph by Hine
Slovak Woman and Jewish Man, Ellis Island]
[Illustration: Courtesy of The Survey
Jewish Girl in a Chicago Sweat-Shop]
The Jewish leaders admit much truth in the impeachment. One accounts
for the bad reputation of his race in the legal profession by
pointing out that they entered the tricky branches of it, viz.,
commercial law and criminal law. Says a high minded lawyer:
"If the average American entered law as we have to, without
money, connections or adequate professional education, he would
be a shyster too." Another observes that the sharp practice
of the Russo-Jewish lawyer belongs to the earlier part of his
career when he must succeed or starve. As he prospers his sense
of responsibility grows. For example, some years ago the Bar
Association of New York opposed the promotion of a certain Hebrew
lawyer to the bench on the ground of his unprofessional practices.
But this same lawyer made one of the best judges the city ever had,
and when he retired he was banqueted by the Association.
The truth seems to be that the lower class of Jews of eastern
Europe reach here moral cripples, their souls warped and dwarfed
by iron circumstance. The experience of Russian repression has
made them haters of government and corrupters of the police. Life
amid a bigoted and hostile population has left them aloof and
thick-skinned. A tribal spirit intensified by social isolation
prompts them to rush to the rescue of the caught rascal of their
own race. Pent within the Talmud and the Pale of Settlement,
their interests have become few, and many of them have developed
a monstrous and repulsive love of gain. When now, they use their
Old-World shove and wile and lie in a society like ours, as
unprotected as a snail out of its shell, they rapidly push up into a
position of prosperous parasitism, leaving scorn and curses in their
wake.
Gradually, however, it dawns upon this twisted soul that here there
is no need to be weazel or hedgehog. He finds himself in a new game,
the rules of which are made by _all_ the players. He himself is a
part of the state that is weakened by his law-breaking, a member of
the profession that is degraded by his sharp practices. So smirk
and cringe and trick presently fall away from him, and he stands
erect. This is why, in the same profession at the same time, those
most active in breaking down standards are Jews and those most
active in raising standards are Jews--of an earlier coming or a
later generation. "On the average," says a Jewish leader, "only the
third generation feels perfectly at home in American society." This
explains the frequent statement that the Jews are "the limit"--among
the worst of the worst and among the best of the best.
CRIME
The Hebrew immigrants usually commit their crimes for gain; and
among gainful crimes they lean to gambling, larceny, and the
receiving of stolen goods rather than to the more daring crimes of
robbery and burglary. The fewness of the Hebrews in prison has been
used to spread the impression that they are uncommonly law-abiding.
The fact is it is harder to catch and convict criminals of cunning
than criminals of violence. The chief of police of any large city
will bear emphatic testimony as to the trouble Hebrew law-breakers
cause him. Most alarming is the great increase of criminality among
Jewish young men and the growth of prostitution among Jewish girls.
Says a Jewish ex-assistant attorney-general of the United States in
an address before the B'nai B'rith: "Suddenly we find appearing in
the life of the large cities the scarlet woman of Jewish birth."
"In the women's night court of New York City and on gilded Broadway
the majority of street walkers bear Jewish names." "This sudden
break in Jewish morality was not natural. It was a product of cold,
calculating, mercenary methods, devised and handled by men of Jewish
birth." Says the president of the Conference of American Rabbis:
"The Jewish world has been stirred from center to circumference by
the recent disclosures of the part Jews have played in the pursuance
of the white slave traffic." On May 14, 1911, a Yiddish paper in New
York said, editorially:
"It is almost impossible to comprehend the indifference with which
the large New York Jewish population hears and reads, day after
day, about the thefts and murders that are perpetrated every day by
Jewish gangs--real bands of robbers--and no one raises a voice of
protest, and no demand is made for the protection of the reputation
of the Jews of America and for the life and property of the Jewish
citizens."
"A few years ago when Commissioner Bingham came out with a statement
about Jewish thieves, the Jews raised a cry of protest that
reached the heavens. The main cry was that Bingham exaggerated and
overestimated the number of Jewish criminals. But when we hear of
the murders, hold-ups and burglaries committed in the Jewish section
by Jewish criminals, we must, with heartache, justify Mr. Bingham."
Two weeks later the same paper said: "How much more will Jewish
hearts bleed when the English press comes out with descriptions of
gambling houses packed with Jewish gamblers, of the blind cigar
stores where Jewish thieves and murderers are reared, of the gangs
that work systematically and fasten like vampires upon the peaceable
Jewish population, and of all the other nests of theft, robbery,
murder, and lawlessness that have multiplied in our midst."
This startling growth reflects the moral crisis through which many
immigrants are passing. Enveloped in the husks of medievalism, the
religion of many a Jew perishes in the American environment. The
immigrant who loses his religion is worse than the religionless
American because his early standards are dropped along with his
faith. With his clear brain sharpened in the American school,
the egoistic, conscienceless young Jew constitutes a menace. As
a Jewish labor leader said to me, "the non-morality of the young
Jewish business men is fearful. Socialism inspires an ethics in the
heart of the Jewish workingman, but there are many without either
the old religion or the new. I am aghast at the consciencelessness
of the _Luft-proletariat_ without feeling for place, community or
nationality."
RACE TRAITS
If the Hebrews are a race certainly one of their traits is
_intellectuality_. In Boston the milk station nurse gets far more
result from her explanations to Jewish mothers than from her talks
to Irish or Italian mothers. The Jewish parent, however grasping,
rarely exploits his children, for he appreciates how schooling will
add to their earning capacity. The young Jews have the foresight
to avoid "blind alley" occupations. Between the years of fourteen
and seventeen the Irish and Italian boys earn more than the Jewish
lads; but after eighteen the Jewish boys will be earning more, for
they have selected occupations in which you can work up. The Jew
is the easiest man to sell life insurance to, for he catches the
idea sooner than any other immigrant. As philanthropist he is the
first to appreciate scientific charity. As voter he is the first
to repudiate the political leader and rise to a broad outlook. As
exploited worker he is the first to find his way to a theory of
his hard lot, viz., capitalism. As employer he is quick to respond
to the idea of "welfare work." The Jewish patrons of the libraries
welcome guidance in their reading and they want always the best; in
fiction, Dickens, Tolstoi, Zola; in philosophy, Darwin, Spencer,
Haeckel. No other readers are so ready to tackle the heavy-weights
in economics and sociology.
From many school principals comes the observation that their
Jewish pupils are either very bright or distinctly dull. Among
the Russo-Jewish children many fall behind but some distinguish
themselves in their studies. The proportion of backward pupils
is about the average for school children of non-English-speaking
parentage; but the brilliant pupils indicate the presence in Hebrew
immigration of a gifted element which scarcely shows itself in other
streams of immigration. Teachers report that their Jewish pupils
"seem to have hungry minds." They "grasp information as they do
everything else, recognizing it as the requisite for success."
Says a principal: "Their progress in studies is simply another
manifestation of the acquisitiveness of the race." Another thinks
their school successes are won more by intense application than by
natural superiority, and judges his Irish pupils would do still
better if only they would work as many hours.
The Jewish gift for mathematics and chess is well known. They
have great imagination, but it is the "combinative" imagination
rather than the free poetic fancy of the Celt. They analyze out the
factors of a process and mentally put them together in new ways.
Their talent for anticipating the course of the market, making
fresh combinations in business, diagnosing diseases, and suggesting
scientific hypotheses is not questioned. On the other hand, an
eminent savant thinks the best Jewish minds are not strong in
generalization and deems them clever, acute and industrious rather
than able in the highest sense. On the whole, the Russo-Jewish
immigration is richer in gray matter than any other recent stream,
and it may be richer than any large inflow since the colonial era.
Perhaps _abstractness_ is another trait of the Jewish mind. To the
Hebrew things present themselves not softened by an atmosphere of
sentiment, but with the sharp outlines of that desert landscape
in which his ancestors wandered. As farmer he is slovenly and
does not root in the soil like the German. As poet he shows little
feeling for nature. Unlike the German artisan who becomes fond of
what he creates, the Jew does not love the concrete for its own
sake. What he cares for is the _value_ in it. Hence he is rarely
a good artisan, and perhaps the reason why he makes his craft a
mere stepping-stone to business is that he does not relish his
work. The Jew shines in literature, music and acting--the arts
of expression--but not often is he an artist in the manipulation
of materials. In theology, law and diplomacy--which involve the
abstract--the Jewish mind has distinguished itself more than in
technology or the study of nature.
The Jew has _little feeling for the particular_. He cares little
for pets. He loves man rather than men, and from Isaiah to Karl
Marx he holds the record in projects of social amelioration. The
Jew loves without romance and fights without hatred. He is loyal to
his purposes rather than to persons. He finds general principles
for whatever he wants to do. As circumstances change he will make
up with his worst enemy or part company with his closest ally.
Hence his wonderful adaptability. Flexible and rational the Jewish
mind cannot be bound by conventions. The good will of a Southern
gentleman takes set forms such as courtesy and attentions, while
the kindly Jew is ready with any form of help that may be needed.
So the South looked askance at the Jews as "no gentlemen." Nor
have the Irish with their strong personal loyalty or hostility
liked the Jews. On the other hand the Yankees have for the Jews a
cousinly feeling. Puritanism was a kind of Hebraism and throve most
in the parts of England where, centuries before, the Jews had been
thickest. With his rationalism, his shrewdness, his inquisitiveness
and acquisitiveness, the Yankee can meet the Jew on his own ground.
[Illustration: Jewish Runner Soliciting Immigrants for the Steamship
Company]
Like all races that survive the sepsis of civilization, the Hebrews
show great _tenacity of purpose_. Their constancy has worn out their
persecutors and won them the epithet of "stiff-necked." In their
religious ideas our Jewish immigrants are so stubborn that the
Protestant churches despair of making proselytes among them. The
sky-rocket careers leading from the peddler's pack to the banker's
desk or the professor's chair testify to rare singleness of purpose.
Whatever his goal--money, scholarship, or recognition--the true
Israelite never loses sight of it, cannot be distracted, presses
steadily on, and in the end masters circumstance instead of being
dominated by it. As strikers the Jewish wage earners will starve
rather than yield. The Jewish reader in the libraries sticks
indomitably to the course of reading he has entered on. No other
policy holder is so reliable as the Jew in keeping up his premiums.
The Jewish canvasser, bill collector, insurance solicitor, or
commercial traveler takes no rebuff, returns brazenly again and
again, and will risk being kicked down stairs rather than lose his
man. During the Civil War General Grant wrote to the war department
regarding the Jewish cotton traders who pressed into the South with
the northern armies: "I have instructed the commanding officer to
refuse all permits to Jews to come South, and I have frequently
had them expelled from the department, but they come in with their
carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it."
Charity agents say that although their Hebrew cases are few, they
cost them more than other cases in the end because of the unblushing
persistence of the applicant. Some chiefs of police will not
tolerate the Hebrew prostitute in their city because they find it
impossible to subject her to any regulations.
THE RACE LINE
In New York the line is drawn against the Jews in hotels, resorts,
clubs, and private schools, and constantly this line hardens and
extends. They cry "Bigotry" but bigotry has little or nothing to
do with it. What is disliked in the Jews is not their religion
but certain ways and manners. Moreover, the Gentile resents being
obliged to engage in a humiliating and undignified scramble in order
to keep his trade or his clients against the Jewish invader. The
line is not yet rigid, for the genial editor of _Vorwaerts_, Mr.
Abram Cahan, tells me that he and his literary brethren from the
Pale have never encountered Anti-Semitism in the Americans they
meet. Not the socialist Jews but the vulgar upstart parvenus are
made to feel the discrimination.
This cruel prejudice--for all lump condemnations are cruel--is no
importation, no hang-over from the past. It appears to spring out
of contemporary experience and is invading circle after circle of
broad-minded. People who give their lives to befriending immigrants
shake their heads over the Galician Hebrews. It is astonishing how
much of the sympathy that twenty years ago went out to the fugitives
from Russian massacres has turned sour. Through fear of retaliation
little criticism gets into print; in the open the Philo-semites
have it all their way. The situation is: Honey above, gall beneath.
If the Czar, by keeping up the pressure which has already rid him
of two million undesired subjects, should succeed in driving the
bulk of his six million Jews to the United States, we shall see
the rise of a Jewish question here, perhaps riots and anti-Jewish
legislation. No doubt thirty or forty thousand Hebrews from eastern
Europe might be absorbed by this country each year without any
marked growth of race prejudice; but when they come in two or three
or even four times as fast, the lump outgrows the leaven, and there
will be trouble.
America is probably the strongest solvent Jewish separatism has
ever encountered. It is not only that here the Jew finds himself a
free man and a citizen. That has occurred before, without causing
the Jew to merge into the general population. It is that here more
than anywhere else in the world _the future is expected to be in
all respects better than the past_. No civilized people ever so
belittled the past in the face of the future as we do. This is
why tradition withers and dies in our air; and the dogma that the
Jews are a "peculiar people" and must shun intermarriage with the
Gentiles is only a tradition. The Jewish dietary laws are rapidly
going. In New York only one-fourth of the two hundred thousand
Jewish workmen keep their Sabbath and only one-fifth of the Jews
belong to the synagogue. The neglect of the synagogue is as marked
as the falling away of non-Jews from the church. Mixed marriages,
although by no means numerous in the centers, are on the increase,
and in 1909 the Central Conference of Jewish Rabbis resolved that
such marriages "are contrary to the tradition of the Jewish religion
and should therefore be discouraged by the American Rabbinate."
Certainly every mixed marriage is, as one rabbi puts it, "a nail in
the coffin of Judaism," and free mixing would in time end the Jews
as a distinct ethnic strain.
The "hard shell" leaders are urging the Jews in America to cherish
their distinctive traditions and to refrain from mingling their
blood with Gentiles. But the liberal and radical leaders insist that
in this new, ultra-modern environment nothing is gained by holding
the Jews within the wall of Orthodox Judaism. As a prominent Hebrew
labor leader said to me: "By blending with the American the Jew
will gain in physique, and this with its attendant participation in
normal labor, sports, athletics, outdoor life, and the like, will
lessen the hyper-sensibility and the sensuality of the Jew and make
him less vain, unscrupulous and pleasure-loving."
It is too soon yet to foretell whether or not this vast and growing
body of Jews from eastern Europe is to melt and disappear in the
American population just as numbers of Portuguese, Dutch, English,
and French Jews in our early days became blent with the rest of
the people. In any case the immigrant Jews are being assimilated
outwardly. The long coat, side curls, beard and fringes, the
"Wandering Jew" figure, the furtive manner, the stoop, the hunted
look, and the martyr air disappear as if by magic after a brief
taste of American life. It would seem as if the experience of Russia
and America in assimilating the Jews is happily illustrated by the
old story of the rivalry of the wind and the sun in trying to strip
the traveler of his cloak.