With the (JTiimplittmtis of the jfninty 
 the
 
 THE OLD GUARD 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 MYER S. ISAACS 
 
 (Privately Printed) 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 Che fjntcfeerbocfcer press 
 1906
 
 StacK 
 Annex 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR i 
 
 II. THE OLD GUARD .... 13 
 
 III. SIDONIA 39 
 
 IV. LOYALTY 62 
 
 V. AN ANCIENT GRUDGE . . .76 
 
 VI. MONTEFIORE, THE IDEAL JEW . -125 
 
 VII. THE PEOPLE AND THE SYNAGOGUE . 140 
 
 VIII. BARON DE HIRSCH . . . .168 
 
 IX. JEWISH FARMERS . . . . 176 
 
 X. A WELCOME TO M. LEROY BEAULIEU . 184 
 
 XI. THOUGHTS FOR THE TIME . . 190
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR 
 
 To give color to the withered rose, or 
 fragrance to the violet whose petals have 
 one by one been torn apart and scattered, is 
 as little possible as to recall in its com- 
 pleteness a vanished life, and bid memory 
 rebuild and restore the form, voice, mind, 
 character, of the one who has passed away. 
 The fragment alone survives and, how- 
 ever much we summon remembrance 
 to our aid, it remains a fragment scat- 
 tered petals no more on earth to form a 
 rose. 
 
 Yet the life of Myer S. Isaacs had so 
 much in it of strength and inspiration, such 
 helpfulness, resourcefulness, unselfish de- 
 votion, joined with faithful performance 
 of duty and trustful confidence in his 
 Maker, qualities which aroused the esteem 
 and affection of his friends and associ- 
 ates, that it seems eminently fitting to pre- 
 face this volume with a brief sketch of his 
 life and activities. And if from the few
 
 2 Memoir 
 
 immortelles here gathered, his friends and 
 those who loved him can construct a wreath 
 of their own in his memory, something 
 will have been done to preserve in loving 
 remembrance his character and services. 
 
 He was born in Elm Street, New York, 
 on May 8, 1841. Two years earlier his 
 father had been called to minister to the 
 then Elm Street Synagogue, and thus in 
 close proximity to the house of God began 
 his education. It was a modest, reverent 
 home in which he was reared the eldest 
 son receiving the fullest measure of pa- 
 rental guidance. His useful life, his ster- 
 ling character, his chivalrous devotion to 
 Israel, were the fruits of that training. 
 His studious ways and love of learning 
 made the task of acquisition easy. At 
 school he was a lad who was equally bril- 
 liant in every line, and at the New York 
 University, which he entered in 1855, he 
 maintained his standard of excellence, 
 graduating as valedictorian, and securing 
 a similar honor in 1861, when he graduated 
 from the Law School. 
 
 During his college days, there appeared,
 
 Memoir 3 
 
 at first largely to interest a number 
 of young collegians and school friends, 
 The Jewish Messenger. But his father 
 soon saw the possibilities of such an organ 
 and gave it quickly a more serious char- 
 acter, not only to vindicate Judaism in the 
 eyes of the world, but to spread reverence 
 and refinement in Jewish homes. In its 
 management his eldest son took an active 
 part, and for many years assumed a large 
 share in its supervision. It was not before 
 1872 that he retired from active control, 
 although contributing from time to time 
 in later years. His work included not 
 only essays and criticism, thoughtful and 
 good-natured comment on social and po- 
 litical topics, inspiring appeals for Jewish 
 organization in literature and life, but 
 there were outlined plans and suggestions 
 many of which were to be adopted in 
 movements and institutions that survive 
 the test of practical experience. Thus as a 
 mere youth and in his early manhood he 
 had the genius to foresee and the happiness 
 to help in realizing his ideals in educating 
 the immigrant and developing American 
 Israel along the lines of the best American
 
 4 Memoir 
 
 denominations without the sacrifice of re- 
 ligious convictions. 
 
 In his professional career he early ex- 
 hibited thoroughness and industry, which 
 soon secured him the confidence and es- 
 teem of an ever-widening clientele, and he 
 attained very rapidly prominence in varied 
 lines of practice. After a year's study in 
 the office of J. H. & S. Riker noted 
 lawyers of that day he established his 
 own office, and in 1866 associated himself 
 first with his friend Adolph L. Sanger, 
 whose death in 1894 is still deplored, and 
 in 1870 with his brother Isaac. In later 
 years two of his sons, J'ulien and Lewis, 
 were added to the firm, the former to 
 enter upon a career of unusual brilliancy, 
 which was only too early terminated. In 
 his law office he was active until the last 
 in fact an hour before his death he was 
 consulting with clients and dictating cor- 
 respondence. The legal activity that he 
 possessed was to be discerned at its righ t 
 value. From 1887 to l8 97 ne lectured on 
 real estate law before the Law School of 
 the New York University, and gave a 
 course subsequently at Cornell Univer-
 
 Memoir 5 
 
 sity. From the organization of the Law- 
 yers' Title Insurance Co. in 1887, he was 
 one of the Special Committee of Counsel, 
 where his services met with recognition 
 and appreciation. As this is expressed in 
 the memorial resolutions adopted by the 
 Committee of Counsel and the Officers of 
 the Company : 
 
 "Judge Isaacs was a member of this 
 Committee from the time of its creation. 
 In our early days we were very frequently 
 called together, and a great number and 
 variety of questions were submitted to us. 
 We had not then the advantages of pre- 
 cedents and organization which we now 
 enjoy, and our labors were difficult and 
 onerous. That these labors were not 
 altogether in vain, the reputation which 
 this Committee now has, and the confi- 
 dence of the lawyers in this city which 
 it now possesses, would seem to imply. 
 But, if such a result has been accom- 
 plished, no member of the Commission 
 has wrought his share of the accomplish- 
 ment more fully than Judge Isaacs. 
 
 " He attended almost every meeting to 
 which he was called, and contributed to
 
 6 Memoir 
 
 the determination of every question sub- 
 mitted all the aid which an experience so 
 wide that its limits were rarely attained, 
 and a legal knowledge which seldom was 
 incapable of giving light to those of us 
 who had been in darkness, could impart." 
 
 For more than thirty years a member 
 of the Bar Association and for a time one 
 of its Executive Committee, as well as a 
 member of the State Bar and the Amer- 
 ican Bar Associations, he was vice-pres- 
 ident of the New York Real Estate 
 Exchange for 1886 to 1890, while he was 
 for many years prominently identified 
 with the Republican and City Clubs. 
 
 He gave much attention to remedial 
 and reform legislation, and many im- 
 portant measures concerning real estate 
 and other legal matters were placed upon 
 the statutes largely through his efforts. 
 In 1873 he participated in the work of the 
 Municipal Society which did so much to 
 improve the city in the years that fol- 
 lowed ring misrule. In 1884 he was one 
 of the " Committee of Fifty-three " to pro- 
 pose reform legislation, and as one of the 
 committee on the establishment of small
 
 Memoir 7 
 
 parks he was largely instrumental in secur- 
 ing the opening of Seward Park, adjoin- 
 ing the Educational Alliance. As early 
 as 1880 he was appointed to fill a vacancy 
 in the Marine, now City Court, and he 
 was that year the Republican candi- 
 date for election to the full judicial term. 
 In 1890 he was the Republican candidate 
 for Judge of the Superior Court and of 
 the Supreme Court in 1895. In these 
 contests, while his party was unsuccessful, 
 his vote was largely ahead of that of his 
 associates, thus indicating the esteem in 
 which he was held by the community. 
 
 Despite the claims of professional life 
 with its constantly increasing demands 
 upon his time and thought, Myer S. Isaacs 
 from the beginning to the end of his career 
 was identified with American Judaism and 
 the welfare of his brethren. As secretary 
 of the Congregation Shaaray Tefila from 
 1857 to 1869, as its representative in the 
 Board of Delegates of American Israelites, 
 whose secretary he was for seven years, 
 and its president until its absorption in 
 1880 by the Union of American Hebrew 
 Congregations, he saw years of intelligent
 
 8 Memoir 
 
 pioneer service, lost no opportunity to 
 enforce the Jew's claims for civil and re- 
 ligious rights and to vindicate his religion 
 from misconception and reproach. He 
 early showed his zeal in this direction 
 when he protested in 1861 against Gen- 
 eral B. F. Butler's censure of the Jews, 
 and he established so clearly the injustice 
 of the General's position that he wrested 
 from his opponent a frank apology. It 
 was not undue sensitiveness that made 
 him so prompt and resolute in protest 
 against abuse or unfair prejudice it was 
 his intense enthusiasm for his religion 
 which impelled his attitude. In the main 
 work of organization and arrangement at 
 the two great public meetings in 1882 
 at Chickering Hall and in 1903 at Car- 
 negie Hall, to condemn Russian persecu- 
 tion, he was prominent his executive 
 ability could not have been more happily 
 displayed. 
 
 New York Israel found him its spokes- 
 man and organizer on many occasions. 
 In the development of the Hebrew Free 
 School Association, he was particularly 
 active, being its' secretary in 1864 and its
 
 Memoir 9 
 
 president from 1880 until 1891. In 1873 
 he initiated the movement for a union of 
 relief societies, and prepared the plan of 
 federation which led to the establishment 
 of the United Hebrew Charities. But his 
 foresight and wise counsel, his zeal and 
 energy, were seen at their best when, after 
 his experience in 1882 as one of the local 
 committee to aid the refugees from Russia, 
 he became in 1891 President of the Baron 
 de Hirsch Fund. This position was to 
 engage most of his leisure from that year 
 to his death. His last visit to Woodbine 
 was made a few days before the end, and 
 he was cheered to note encouraging con- 
 ditions, which assured him and his associ- 
 ates that their labor and counsel were 
 not in vain. 
 
 In the erection of the Hebrew Institute, 
 now the Educational Alliance, he took a 
 prominent part. He foresaw its importance 
 as an uplifting agency for the immigrant 
 classes and as a special centre for the 
 lower East Side. No less actively as one 
 of its founders did he aid in the develop- 
 ment of the Hebrew Technical Institute, 
 which was established after the Hebrew
 
 io Memoir 
 
 Free School showed the way with its 
 modest beginning of technical work. He 
 was also among the projectors and first 
 managers of the Montefiore Home for 
 Chronic Invalids. He was one of the or- 
 ganizers and for some years president of 
 the Purim Association, which for decades 
 was noted for its annual celebration of 
 Purim, and which represented so worthily 
 the social side of New York Israel. And 
 other movements in which he was inter- 
 ested could readily be mentioned. 
 
 His home life so pure and helpful 
 was never neglected by devotion to profes- 
 sional or communal interests it formed, 
 in fact, the secret of his strength, with its 
 restful, affectionate atmosphere. Married 
 on February io, 1869, to Maria, a daughter 
 of Barnet L. Solomon, an estimable and 
 public-spirited New Yorker in his day, his 
 wedded happiness knew no shadow, save 
 when his eldest daughter, Grace Aguilar, 
 a child of rare promise, died in her tenth 
 year, and when his wife, so tender and 
 loving, passed away in 1889, leaving six 
 children to brighten the household and 
 emulate their mother's character. It
 
 Memoir 1 1 
 
 must have been a source of intense joy and 
 pride to witness the growth of sons and 
 daughters whose kindly counsellor and un- 
 selfish companion he never failed to be, 
 and to recognize in each the fruit of pa- 
 rental labor and encouragement. 
 
 It was on May 24, 1904, just as he 
 was returning home on a summer after- 
 noon, that the summons came, and his 
 loving heart, so full of thought and affec- 
 tion for others, was stilled. About a year 
 previously he had sustained a severe attack 
 of illness due to acute indigestion, but had 
 apparently regained his health. He re- 
 sumed his work in its varied lines, allowing 
 himself, however, more leisure. A little 
 more than a week before the end he had 
 delivered an address in his happiest vein 
 at the reception to M. Leroy Beaulieu, and 
 had visited the Woodbine settlement. In 
 the morning cheerful at his work in the 
 afternoon the end for which he was amply 
 prepared, being long conscious that God 
 might call him at any moment. He 
 had set his house in order his life-work 
 had not been in vain. 
 
 The addresses and essays which are
 
 12 Memoir 
 
 included in the present volume, while they 
 represent only a small portion of his ac- 
 tivity on the platform, are characteristic of 
 his matured opinions on subjects of vital 
 interest to Judaism. In their present 
 form, it is hoped that they will be res- 
 cued from forgetfulness, and be treasured 
 as a precious memorial of a life dedi- 
 cated to high aims, fragrant with loving 
 service, and crowned deservedly with 
 God's blessing. 
 
 A. S. I.
 
 THE OLD GUARD 1 
 
 AMONG the episodes of modern history 
 which excite marvellous interest, do honor 
 to humanity, and recall the chivalrous 
 deeds of all ages, is the story of Napo- 
 leon's " Old Guard." 
 
 Who has not followed with eager in- 
 terest the gray-coated figure of the "man 
 of destiny " as he reviews his favorite bat- 
 talion and his eye lights upon a veteran 
 who has done valiant service at a fa- 
 mous victory ! " Bertrand ! You fought 
 at Lodi when the eagle was nearly cap- 
 tured by the enemy, you rescued it your 
 heroism saved the day embrace me. 
 Take this 'star' your Emperor has 
 worn it." The field rings with shouts 
 another of the Old Guard is rewarded 
 all France shares in his joy. 
 
 Theirs was a glorious motto " The 
 Old Guard dies it never surrenders." 
 
 In ancient Sparta, a heroic achievement 
 
 1 Delivered before the Young Men's Hebrew Association 
 of New York, February, 1891. 
 13
 
 14 The Old Guard 
 
 of which that brave nation was justly 
 proud, was the defence of Thermopylae. 
 The extraordinary devotion of Leonidas 
 and his band saved the state. The mon- 
 ument which ancient and modern peoples 
 have regarded with respect, standing far 
 above the arches and obelisks reared by 
 conquerors and tyrants to signalize their 
 victories over crushed nationalities is 
 simply inscribed: " Go, stranger, tell it at 
 Lacedsemon, that we lie here, obedient to 
 her laws ! " 
 
 What matters it that Sparta has van- 
 ished from the roll of nations Leonidas 
 lives forever ! 
 
 Was the Emperor Napoleon vanquished 
 at Waterloo ? The Old Guard is im- 
 mortal in its undying devotion to country. 
 
 When we survey this beautiful city 
 and reflect that among three millions of 
 inhabitants are upwards of three hundred 
 thousand Jews we look about us inquir- 
 ingly for our " Old Guard. " Where are 
 the battle-scarred veterans upon whom our 
 Leader can depend for heroic devotion to 
 duty? Where are the Old Guard, who 
 never surrender ?
 
 The Old Guard 15 
 
 I propose to recall to you some of the 
 veterans who in life were ever found in 
 their places in the ranks at roll-call, and 
 who merit the beautiful tribute of having 
 their names still borne upon the lists and 
 of having the response made with gen- 
 erous tenderness, " Present ! died on the 
 field of honor ! " 
 
 Do not imagine from this military in- 
 troduction that the veterans of whom 
 I would remind you were men of war. 
 They pass before us as in a vision, 
 grouped as in that touching picture of 
 the 'Farewell at Fontainebleau. These old 
 soldiers weep with anguish as they sepa- 
 rate but their eyes glisten with pride 
 as they reflect upon the glorious achieve- 
 ments wherein they participated. 
 
 Let us call the roll of our " Old Guard ": 
 Judah the Maccabee, one of the most gal- 
 lant generals of antiquity, fought for his 
 country and his God. Him at least we 
 keep in grateful memory, as we pay 
 the tribute of our Chanuka Festival. 
 Proudly his blue banner fluttered over 
 the host of brave men who resisted suc- 
 cessfully an enemy hitherto invincible.
 
 16 The Old Guard 
 
 Nobly he met his death, having earned 
 for his people the glory of devotion to 
 faith and of national revival to bear a 
 part in the world's affairs. 
 
 Mordecai the stern inflexible Judge, 
 who lived at Shushan, the ancient capital 
 of Persia, cousin of the Queen chosen by 
 Ahasuerus (Xerxes) would not bend the 
 knee or prostrate himself in reverence 
 to any mortal being. There is something 
 sterling and majestic about this great 
 man, who sought the peace of his people 
 and participated in their sorrows and in 
 their uprising. He founded a charity, 
 which exists, despite the lapse of over 
 three thousand years. We celebrate the 
 Feast of Purim with increasing zeal. 
 We have learned to put into practice 
 Mordecai's motto, " Seek the peace of my 
 people," and our Purim gift, our tribute 
 to his memory, implies a grateful message 
 of love and fraternity to our brethren in 
 the Orient even " throughout the one 
 hundred and twenty-seven provinces from 
 India to Ethiopia." 
 
 Daniel, who had an influential position 
 at court in the heyday of the Babylonian
 
 The Old Guard 17 
 
 Empire, was another of the Old Guard. 
 A man of genius, too profound for con 
 temporaneous comprehension, and his 
 writings the source of much uncomfortable 
 discussion in every age, he was also a 
 man of action. And he was brave and 
 spirited enough to insist upon performing 
 his religious duties even though the 
 fashionable courtiers and the weak-kneed 
 Hebrews of the period considered it puer- 
 ile to pray at stated times and to refuse 
 forbidden viands. In our day, such critics 
 would cheerfully give up all prayer and 
 partake of any kind of food without in- 
 quiry or compunction. Daniel was made 
 of sterner stuff. His condemnation to the 
 arena, where the royal lions were overawed 
 by his intrepidity, was the suggestion of 
 a tragic incident too often repeated in an- 
 cient times. Daniel, like the Old Guard, 
 could die, but he would not surrender. 
 
 Nehemiah, the favorite officer of a 
 famous Persian king, was another of our 
 Old Guard. With him was associated 
 Ezra the scribe, to whom the world is 
 under lasting obligations for the preserva- 
 tion of the Scriptures. These brave men,
 
 1 8 The Old Guard 
 
 to whom we still pay the compliment of 
 remembering their names when we read 
 the contents of our Bible, restored the 
 Jewish state, purified it from the dross 
 that had accumulated during the first 
 captivity, defying the cowardly marauders 
 and the contemptible critics of their day, 
 and rebuilding Jerusalem. The restora- 
 tion was but for a brief period the joy 
 that prevailed as the Old Guard resumed 
 their watch at the Temple was of short 
 duration. St. Helena was to follow the 
 Elba from which Ezra and Nehemiah had 
 brought the exiled remnant. Is Zion to 
 be restored under modern leaders ? 
 
 Gedaliah, too, the Governor of Jeru- 
 salem, must not be forgotten. For many 
 centuries we kept him in memory by ob- 
 serving the Feast of the 3d of Tishri 
 the anniversary of his assassination. He 
 fell like Lincoln and Garfield a victim of 
 insane, brutal passion a martyr for his 
 country. 
 
 Besides these heroes of antiquity who, 
 being Hebrews by race and in faith, moved 
 among men with the courage of conscious 
 dignity and power, how many glorious
 
 The Old Guard 19 
 
 names we recall prophets and leaders, 
 poets and philosophers, who created, em- 
 bellished, and strengthened the commun- 
 ities of Israel in biblical and post-biblical 
 eras. When we find the world enthu- 
 siastic in praise of Isaiah, Ezekiel, Amos, 
 and Jeremiah, we dimly remember the 
 stupendous mental and moral power of 
 those wondrous men in the serious con- 
 flicts threatening the Jewish common- 
 wealth, the religion, the race, which, 
 because of such leadership, despite un- 
 paralleled disasters, preserved its fidelity, 
 its hope, its inherent majesty of character. 
 Others of the Old Guard in the roll 
 2000 years ago and later have been known 
 to us from their honorable lives and their 
 immortal works. The incidents of their 
 martyrdom we recall occasionally. Once 
 in a while an earnest minister of our time, 
 when his congregation are weary of topics 
 of the day, relates the old, old story of 
 Akiba, Joshua, and the other great rabbis 
 whom Roman Emperors tortured and exe- 
 cuted as the penalty of superior knowl- 
 edge and supreme devotion. And then 
 we bow our heads reverently as, at the
 
 20 The Old Guard 
 
 roll-call, the response "comes, " Died on 
 the field of honor ! " 
 
 Nor does the record end with Israel's 
 dispersion. Veterans of our Old Guard 
 had ceased to be warriors, armed with 
 weapons prepared to confront Titus and 
 his generals in the hopeless struggle for 
 freedom and independence. The great 
 and good men who belonged to the in- 
 vincibles still bore, at once proudly and 
 humbly, the standard of the Maccabees, 
 and addressed themselves to the work 
 which, in after days, was to maintain the 
 perpetuity of Israel as a nation of teachers. 
 They founded schools and colleges, they 
 migrated from Syria and Babylonia to 
 Egypt, Greece, Italy, Spain, Holland, 
 England, Germany, Poland. They had 
 beaten their swords into pruning hooks, 
 and in their quiet schoolrooms would re- 
 mind their students of the heroic achieve- 
 ments of their ancestry. The decoration 
 of a Legion of Honor founded by no 
 mortal sovereign now an Emperor, now 
 a hopeless exile but ordained by the 
 King of Kings, a Legion of Honor that 
 embraces every faithful Israelite, was the
 
 The Old Guard 21 
 
 heritage of the staunch veteran who taught 
 school and worked at his trade, that he 
 might by manual labor secure his inde- 
 pendence the means of living, and of re- 
 lieving the poor. 
 
 And the roll has gone on steadily ex- 
 tending and extending throughout the 
 dispersion a roll emblazoned with names 
 that never die. 
 
 Has the Old Guard ceased to be ? That 
 is the vital question for modern Judaism. 
 I am among the hopeful ones who believe 
 there are still veterans who maintain the 
 glorious record, who will never surrender 
 their sacred trust, and that their example 
 will prove a stimulus. 
 
 I shall recall some of the distinguished 
 men of recent years whose exemplary lives 
 dignify our own ancestral and contempo- 
 rary annals, whose portraits we may place 
 in our national gallery, and whose memory 
 will inspire and revive generations unborn. 
 
 It seems but yesterday that we followed 
 to the grave Einhorn, the sturdy old 
 teacher, brave in defence of liberty and 
 truth, to whom the idea of surrender was 
 despicable. How keenly we miss Leeser,
 
 22 The Old Guard 
 
 the indomitable writer and thinker, who 
 labored for Israel without recognition and 
 whose monument is the Jewish press, and 
 Raphall, learned and dignified, nobly rep- 
 resenting the Jews among scholars and 
 publicists ; Major Noah, who gave great 
 promise of distinction as a man of politi- 
 cal foresight and influence ; Dr. Huebsch 
 a soldier by education, a sturdy defen- 
 der of the faith a man of the age, who 
 was dearly loved, and whose sturdy re- 
 sponse at roll-call we almost hear. 
 
 A beloved veteran has just passed away 
 Sabato Morais a revered teacher, of 
 deep learning and pious life, a true leader 
 and example. He is identified with the 
 Jewish Seminary and with Judaism. Not 
 long ago, the brilliant and noble spirit of 
 Adolph L. Sanger left its mortal casket. 
 How we loved that disinterested and 
 gifted friend who devoted his best years to 
 the services of his fellow-citizens and who 
 was as distinguished in the Temple as he 
 was in his public career ! Then there was 
 Benjamin F. Peixotto who so honorably 
 represented his country at Bucharest, and 
 whose Consulate was the place of refuge
 
 The Old Guard 23 
 
 of hundreds of Jews fleeing from their op- 
 pressors. Peixotto was an American of 
 Americans, a faithful Israelite, and every 
 inch a man. Michael Heilprin was a mar- 
 tyr in the cause of the oppressed whom he 
 served with rare singleness of purpose and 
 deep insight. No one who had to do with 
 the Russian-Jewish problem mastered it 
 as Heilprin did. His example was " a lib- 
 eral education." A great scholar and of 
 wonderful command of facts, he gave his 
 life to the cause of humanity. 
 
 Of modern veterans, there was Rapo- 
 port of Prague, the ideal of one of Op- 
 penheim's pictures of Jewish life his 
 conception of a Rabbi imparting the bless- 
 ing in the Synagogue. I saw him in 1 867 
 then feeble and wearily resting on his couch 
 of suffering. How his eye glistened as we 
 spoke of my sainted father, then a minister 
 of the old faith in distant America ! His 
 patriarchal countenance, benevolent ex- 
 pression how can I forget it, as he gave 
 his parting blessing ! What a noble life 
 in defence of Judaism, of its right to en- 
 dure and to be honored in modern times ! 
 What scholarship, what perseverance, what
 
 24 The Old Guard 
 
 piety, what indifference to the censure of 
 the ignorant and worldly ! He was like 
 one of the Prophets of old projected 
 into our century realizing the wondrous 
 changes of Time but still the fervent 
 worshipper of God, the gentle lover of 
 mankind, the zealous, honest teacher of his 
 age, the aggressive opponent of shams, 
 the "guide of the perplexed," now and 
 hereafter. 
 
 Cremieux I met but twice, although for 
 years there was an interchange of letters, 
 and so touching and true was his patriotic 
 ardor that I seem still to behold him to 
 be listening to his impassioned voice. 
 Until the age of eighty- three, he devoted 
 himself to the grand work of the " Alli- 
 ance " upon whose annals he shed the 
 lustre of a brilliant intellect inspired by 
 ardent enthusiasm and generous love of 
 humanity. A bright spirit, a thorough 
 man, an Israelite who thought more of 
 his race than of his creed, he labored with 
 rare energy and perseverance for the 
 emancipation of his people. Active in 
 benevolence, he was brave and useful 
 as a citizen of the world. France la-
 
 The Old Guard 25 
 
 mented in him the faithful Senator and 
 Minister, as Israel mourned a brother 
 who never faltered in duty towards his 
 fellow-men. 
 
 Sir Francis Goldsmid's is a less familiar 
 name. He was a generous scion of a noble 
 house his father the vigorous champion 
 of religious liberty when espousing that 
 cause implied incessant labor, suffer- 
 ing, bitter sorrow, and disappointment. 
 He was a zealous and punctilious 
 conformist, a barrister of repute, the 
 head of a leading scientific society, a 
 philanthropist whose heart, hand, and 
 purse were open to the sufferer, the op- 
 pressed of whatever race. He was the 
 ideal of the modern Jew, of marked dis- 
 tinction in society, entertaining with hos- 
 pitality, and as a true English gentleman 
 honored by the exclusive circles which do 
 not open their doors to mere wealth and 
 are certainly slow to abandon ancient pre- 
 judices. Of unsullied ancestry, distin- 
 guished abilities and manners, he was 
 respected as a loyal subject, a lawyer of 
 integrity and erudition, a friend of human- 
 ity, a legislator well equipped and of broad
 
 26 The Old Guard 
 
 views. When he rose in his place in the 
 House of Commons and demanded that 
 civilized nations consider the grievances 
 of the downtrodden Jews of Servia, there 
 was respect for his zealous advocacy of 
 the rights of his oppressed brethren, al- 
 though the Israelites throughout Europe 
 and America have never adequately ap- 
 preciated the intense earnestness with 
 which he espoused the cause. In later 
 years he seconded with signal liberality 
 and intensity the efforts of Cremieux for 
 the emancipation of the Jews of Roumania. 
 The American Consul at Bucharest 
 (Peixotto), during the trying period when 
 the American flag protected beleaguered 
 Roumanian Jews, had no more powerful 
 ally than Sir Francis. And such were the 
 simplicity and fidelity of this great man, 
 that on the Sabbath he walked habitually 
 to Westminster, taking his luncheon with 
 him, rather than violate the dietary law ! 
 A polished gentleman, a thorough man of 
 the world, he was in fact what George 
 Eliot sought to picture in Deronda. 
 
 And the sturdy veteran of many cam- 
 paigns for religious liberty the venerated
 
 The Old Guard 27 
 
 Montefiore, who was a man of affairs at 
 the very period when Waterloo ended 
 Napoleon's career. All of us bow rever- 
 ently and salute our flag to this glorious 
 member of the Old Guard. 
 
 By common consent, Montefiore was 
 the typical Hebrew. In his name phil- 
 anthropic work goes on throughout the 
 world. He might have achieved distinc- 
 tion in science, in finance, in statecraft. 
 An an early age, he was honored in these 
 departments, as he was welcomed by so- 
 ciety, which, in England as elsewhere, was 
 not cordial in recognition of the Hebrew. 
 Distinguished for his piety, his love of 
 Israel, he was no less remarkable for his 
 moderation and self-denial. He declined 
 the prizes that awaited the successful man 
 who had made his way to the hearts of 
 the English people he was the friend of 
 their young Queen and he devoted him- 
 self, like Moses his prototype, to the rescue 
 of his brethren from bondage. His most 
 fitting monument is the Home established 
 in this city which maintains vigorously the 
 rites of Judaism within its walls, and does 
 not inquire the creed or nationality of
 
 28 The Old Guard 
 
 the sufferer who petitions for a vacant 
 bed. 
 
 Montefiore's features are familiar to us 
 all his towering form was strikingly 
 significant of his sturdy, vigorous, un- 
 bending nature. The chronicler seeking 
 to deal even-handed justice will note a 
 blemish a contracted view of life; but 
 the true Montefiore is not revealed to the 
 observer who recalls this suggestion. He 
 was uncompromising he defied every 
 open enemy there was no flaw in his 
 armor he would meet the foe without 
 flinching, he would die rather than sur- 
 render a principle. The world had, 
 indeed, gone beyond the veteran of a 
 century : but which was in the right, the 
 facile, trimming, ease-loving, somewhat 
 hypocritical world, or Montefiore ? It 
 was he, the determined foe of injustice, 
 that awakened the Czar at St. Petersburg, 
 the Sultan at Constantinople, the Emperor 
 at Fez, to a sense of the wrong done a 
 people who deserved naught but respect 
 and impartial treatment, and who aroused 
 the sympathies of mankind in behalf of 
 the downtrodden and persecuted. He
 
 The Old Guard 29 
 
 was no Sybarite, this wealthy Englishman 
 who could have lived at ease amid the 
 luxurious surroundings of his castle, free 
 to speculate in science with Faraday, in 
 finance with Rothschild. He relinquished 
 comfort naturally dear to a man of eighty 
 or ninety years, and still pursued his 
 journey around the world rescuing an- 
 other Jewish community from Russian or 
 Roumanian persecution. 
 
 No wonder Great Britain carried over 
 the seas, in a gallant man-of-war, this 
 glorious peaceful victor in a campaign for 
 human rights. 
 
 Small need to dwell upon other veterans, 
 when we have named Montefiore the 
 captain of our Old Guard, the Moses, the 
 Daniel, the Mordecai of modern times ! 
 
 The future of Judaism depends some- 
 what upon reminiscence, despite a dis- 
 tinguished critic who, having found the 
 creed and the race too cramped for his 
 soaring pinions, abandoned the nest, and 
 failed to learn that destruction is not re- 
 form or reconstruction. 
 
 Fidelity to principle implanted in the 
 Jewish race as its distinctive honor may,
 
 30 The Old Guard 
 
 for the moment, be overwhelmed in the 
 current atmosphere of selfishness, insin- 
 cerity, greed, sensation, and speculation. 
 If Hebrews are no better than their neigh- 
 bors and fall naturally into the weakness 
 and lapses characteristic of the day, what 
 but the past glory of an unsullied history, 
 the wondrous heroism of race, what but 
 the story of our Old Guard can bid us 
 pause in this mad scramble after mere 
 money and the power to crush the weaker 
 man, the less obtrusive cause ? 
 
 In the example of the Old Guard who 
 moved among men with the conscious 
 dignity of integrity, independence, loyalty 
 to principle, we find the stimulus which 
 even intelligent people need. 
 
 The study of this hour is, after we have 
 grasped the problem of earning a liveli- 
 hood, to demonstrate our right to the 
 world's respect. It happens that notwith- 
 standing the progress of mankind in all 
 that appertains to the struggle for ex- 
 istence and the knowledge that comforts 
 us as that struggle continues, there is a 
 dual life for the Hebrew who is not a 
 resident and a ruler in a Hebrew king-
 
 The Old Guard 3 1 
 
 dom or republic. It is futile to dream of 
 equality for Jew and Christian in a com- 
 munity where the majority is ignorant, 
 avaricious, and unjust. Hence in ancient 
 Egypt, the servile lords, priests, and ma- 
 gicians, echoed the cry of the people, 
 " These Hebrews increase too rapidly 
 drown them in the Nile ! " And in modern 
 Roumania, the sensual Boyar having no 
 longer any lands whose revenue will pur- 
 chase his pleasures, joins hands with the 
 gross idlers of the market-place in de- 
 manding that the industrious, thrifty, hon- 
 est, and domestic Jews be cast into the 
 Danube. As Mordecai, the independent 
 magistrate of Shushan, sought to save his 
 sovereign from a conspiracy and would 
 not do homage to the chief conspirator, 
 the Vizier Haman would drive all the 
 Jews out of Persia. The crafty Tor- 
 quemada detected the weakness of his 
 royal master ; and as the merchants, 
 scholars, and generous subjects of Fer- 
 dinand and Isabella who were at once 
 loyal Spaniards and earnest Israelites, 
 would not second the schemes of the wily 
 Jesuit, he too persuaded his country's
 
 32 The Old Guard 
 
 ruler to drive out his country's most valu- 
 able denizens. 
 
 In this century, which has witnessed the 
 substitution of the electric motor for the 
 stage-coach, which has reduced the transit 
 of a message across the ocean from sixty 
 days to sixty seconds, which has seen the 
 overthrow of many prejudices and super- 
 stitions, and has created a philosophy, a 
 science, a statecraft, while restoring an- 
 cient glories and revealing forgotten an- 
 cient secrets, we observe with constant 
 surprise that the friction between the races 
 and the ideas represented by Christianity 
 and Judaism continues. 
 
 The motive no longer exists not even 
 mediaeval kings or barons can now utilize 
 their absolute power as brigands by rob- 
 bery with the alternative of extracting the 
 teeth of Hebrews who decline to squan- 
 der their honest earnings in riotous living. 
 The occasion no longer exists it is ad- 
 mitted that Meyerbeer is quite the equal 
 of Wagner, that Disraeli was almost peer- 
 less amid the giants of diplomacy, that the 
 universities of Europe and America are 
 proud of Hebrew students who are faithful
 
 The Old Guard 33 
 
 to science and to their lineage. The 
 ground no longer exists the Hebrew 
 who lives in London, Paris, or New York 
 looks and is precisely as respectable as 
 his neighbor ; he does not wear the cos- 
 tume of the Russian village, he does not 
 practise the methods of business or the ex- 
 ternals as to appearance or manners which 
 were characteristic of the downtrodden 
 minority in that provincial town ; he acts, 
 lives, moves, and deports himself more 
 or less quietly like his fellow-citizens. 
 
 Now if despite the fact that the motive, 
 the occasion, the reason for treating the 
 Jew as an alien no longer exists, the world 
 still discloses the magician of the Nile, 
 the minister of the Persian state, the 
 Jesuit of Madrid, the ruffian of the Dan- 
 ube, always ready to misjudge, to con- 
 demn, to wrong, to insult, to provoke, to 
 persecute, the unoffending Jew who sim- 
 ply prefers to " live among his people " 
 and is "seeking the peace of the country 
 in which he dwells " then more than 
 ever must we keep before our eyes these 
 veterans of the Old Guard who endured 
 contumely as men and as Hebrews 
 
 3
 
 34 The Old Guard 
 
 who suffered martyrdom but never de- 
 serted their colors who were wronged 
 and tempted but never surrendered their 
 principles. 
 
 Some of us may despair of the future, 
 because, for the moment, as Emerson com- 
 plains, " success is held in higher esteem 
 than merit. " The very recollection of 
 the Old Guard, with their inflexible cour- 
 age and loyalty, must strengthen us. 
 What is the future of Judaism of any 
 religion, race, or system if untrue to the 
 ideals men have honored as typical of the 
 highest virtue ? 
 
 Is it, then, a religion of the past that 
 continually presents to the youth of this 
 generation the sterling examples of our 
 Old Guard ? Patriotism is the same to- 
 day as in the time of the Maccabees. 
 Courage and principle are to-day what 
 they were in the age of Daniel or of Sam- 
 uel, of Maimonides or of Abarbanel, of 
 Menasseh ben Israel or of Mendelssohn. 
 Men may change principles never. 
 
 In France, notwithstanding the extraor- 
 dinary and revolutionary changes of gov- 
 ernment since the Reign of Terror, and
 
 The Old Guard 35 
 
 bearing in mind the hysteria occasionally 
 manifesting itself, the Old Nobility still 
 maintains its hold upon the affections of 
 the people. New elements have displaced 
 the former influential men of action and 
 leaders of opinion. The warrior of Napo- 
 leon 's campaigns shares with the " an- 
 cienne noblesse " in the honor and dignity 
 accorded the representatives of an idea, 
 an era, national or universal. The con- 
 sideration paid to such types of past 
 greatness, even in busy France of the utili- 
 tarian age, has created a reflex obligation 
 which the scions of the distinguished fam- 
 ilies cordially avow. " Noblesse oblige " 
 is a maxim. Ordinary people may com- 
 mit a meanness ; the descendants of the 
 old nobility the Old Guard never ! 
 Family traditions have the force of laws 
 that cannot be ignored. 
 
 Oh ! the grandest family traditions are 
 those which treat of Abraham, Moses, 
 Samuel, Ezra, the Maccabees, Ben Jochai, 
 Judah Hanassi, Judah Hallevi, Maimon- 
 ides, Cremieux, Montefiore ! 
 
 "The merits of our ancestors" saved 
 us in the past strengthened us amid
 
 36 The Old Guard 
 
 persecution and in the face of martyrdom 
 preserved Israel as a wonder a power 
 among nations. This very nobility of 
 which we have been proud, obliges us to 
 be true to the lofty ideal. 
 
 When a Jew commits a wrong, it reflects 
 upon the whole community. The old 
 Romans had no censure too severe for 
 degenerate sons of noble sires. The most 
 renowned warriors and statesmen of the 
 consular days were wont to enrol them- 
 selves, by adoption, in leading families. 
 The household gods the tutelar divinities 
 the ancestral images were guarded 
 with jealousy and reverence. The family 
 name was an object of worship. How 
 can we condone the offence which a Jew 
 commits in " desecration of the Holy 
 Name " in doing a wrong which belittles 
 Judaism which deepens the misconceived 
 prejudice against the Hebrew race? 
 
 By the memory of the Old Guard who 
 never faltered in their duty to God and 
 man, we appeal to the Jews of to-day 
 be true, be loyal, be noble, in devotion to 
 principle. 
 
 Duty is our watchword, now, as ever.
 
 The Old Guard 37 
 
 No other race has understood or practised 
 it so unselfishly, so bravely, so devotedly. 
 The motto of the French noble is our 
 race's war cry. Courtesy in externals 
 is the modest manifestation of the soul's 
 genuine greatness. It is not incon- 
 sistent with his faith for the Jew to 
 be a loyal citizen. The Law commands 
 " seek ye the peace of the land wherein ye 
 dwell." It is not inconsistent with his re- 
 ligion to be a gentleman the Law com- 
 mands him to treat with tenderness the 
 widow and the fatherless, to respect the 
 hoary head, to put no stumbling block 
 before the blind, nor to curse the deaf 
 not to keep back the wages of the hired 
 man for a single night to be kind to the 
 brute creation to leave the corners of 
 the field for the poor gleaners " not to 
 vex the stranger." And the sum of all 
 the philosophy of life is in the same law 
 " Love thy neighbor as thyself." 
 
 The Old Guard of the Hebrews were, 
 then, true citizens, upright gentlemen. 
 Their Law, their race, obliged them to be 
 examples of courtesy, justice, kindness, 
 fair dealing, charity, loyalty, courage,
 
 38 The Old Guard 
 
 devotion. Their chivalry was not limited 
 by clime or family, or weakened by pre- 
 judice or fanaticism. These true knights 
 were ever ready to do battle for the right, 
 to protect the poor and defenceless. They 
 could die for truth's sake they were in- 
 capable of dishonorable life. 
 
 God bless the memory of our Old 
 Guard !
 
 SIDONIA 1 
 
 I 
 
 THERE are some characters in fiction 
 which seem to represent the author's in- 
 dividuality. They recall that in his career 
 which he would prefer to have associated 
 with his name, his memory. We do not 
 conceive of such personages as merely 
 isolated. The essential reason for their 
 existence is the peculiar tendency of the 
 novelist, or it may be his environment. 
 
 In the study of Disraeli's favorite crea- 
 tion, one is irresistibly led to associate it 
 with the motif of the author's life. As 
 Sidonia is of the Hebrew race, we feel 
 that the artist who painted the portrait so 
 skilfully did it lovingly that his heart was 
 in his work, that he found it difficult to 
 conceal his emotions as he completed a 
 picture the world was to understand and 
 admire. 
 
 What occurs to us naturally has not 
 
 1 Delivered before the Young Men's Hebrew Association 
 of New York, April 16, 1879. 
 39
 
 40 Sidonia 
 
 been overlooked by unfriendly critics. 
 Nor does it surprise us that half-informed 
 and prejudiced observers have sought out 
 in Disraeli's life and writings traces of a 
 race, a spirit, which is in conflict with the 
 Aryans. Disraeli, the statesman who has 
 maintained England's honor to a degree 
 unapproached by any Minister since Pitt, 
 is called un-English. Disraeli the author, 
 who has studied British politics, the 
 Anglican Church, Europe, Asia, the pres- 
 ent, the future, of parties and empires, 
 with the astuteness of a publicist and a 
 philosopher, is reproved for his oriental 
 imagination, which, prophetically, conjured 
 u p socialist and nihilist movements years 
 in advance of their fruition. 
 
 It will not be unprofitable to consider 
 the strictures of one reviewer who has 
 returned to the charge in a recent notice 
 of Endymion, and whose original analy- 
 sis of Disraeli's career was published in 
 the Fortnightly Review on the appearance 
 of Lothair. A remarkable paragraph in 
 this article attracts us : 
 
 " The consciousness of his race and of his 
 faith never seems to escape him. Juda-
 
 Sidonia 4 1 
 
 ism and the Jews have been thrust by him 
 with an almost unnecessary pertinacity into 
 English politics and literature. He has 
 never been able to leave the matter alone, 
 and to consider the question of Jew or 
 Gentile as a thing socially and politically 
 indifferent. Perhaps this would have been 
 impossible in the midst of the prejudices 
 of race and religion by which he has been 
 surrounded, and in face of the coarse in- 
 sults which those prejudices have occasion- 
 ally prompted. Lord Beaconsfield's con- 
 duct on this point during the whole of his 
 political career is entitled to genuine and 
 cordial respect. Even the extravagances 
 into which he has been betrayed are extrava- 
 gances of courageous championship and 
 of manly self-assertion. They deserve in- 
 dulgent and tender treatment." The writer 
 then, with the keenness of a scalpel and 
 with intense malevolence, dissects Dis- 
 raeli's political career, dwelling upon the 
 point that " the secret of his life lies in 
 his Jewish blood." It is this which has 
 made of him " a political soldier of fortune " 
 rather than an English statesman, which be- 
 trays itself " in love of display, in theatrical
 
 42 Sidonia 
 
 exaggeration, in subordination of party, of 
 country to self." 
 
 In stern rebuke of their reckless miscon- 
 ception and depreciation of Jewish charac- 
 ter which is claimed to be " affected by 
 two thousand years of suffering and perse- 
 cution," so that " the Jews have imbibed 
 servile vices . . . their persons have 
 been enfranchised, but not their minds" 
 is the career of Disraeli, the author, the 
 humanitarian, the statesman. In happy 
 and complete contrast with the picture of 
 Jewish inferiority, is the true story of Jew- 
 ish sympathy with the world's progress 
 in every country where the Jew has been 
 admitted to the rights of manhood. 
 
 Disraeli began to write novels nearly 
 fifty years ago. At the same time he con- 
 ceived the idea of compelling the English 
 people to listen to his utterances. He 
 had a wondrous fight before him. He 
 conquered the public by the grace of his 
 style, the boldness and individuality of 
 his opinions. He won his way to fame 
 by the singleness and fixedness of pur- 
 pose which gave early promise of a career 
 unique in history.
 
 Sidonia 43 
 
 In the year 1844 he published Conings- 
 by in which for the first time he undertook 
 in story " to do justice to the race which 
 founded Christianty." In this enigmatical 
 fashion, he himself described the motive 
 which led to the creation of the character 
 "Sidonia" the typical Hebrew of the 
 modern era, winning position and favor 
 by the aid of immense wealth and in no 
 respect the mere slave of money the 
 millionaire whose religion was the purest, 
 the loftiest, the broadest humanity who 
 was the natural protector of his oppressed 
 brethren, who led in society by virtue of a 
 cosmopolitan temper which was, for his 
 associates, incompatible with a creed and 
 a race so despised and so misunderstood 
 as the Jewish. 
 
 It is a fact, for which Hebrews every- 
 where owe Disraeli an eternal debt of grati- 
 tude, that he awakened popular sentiment 
 in favor of the race to a degree that 
 in our day seems incredible. We shall 
 not be regarded as lacking in reveren- 
 tial respect for the great Mendelssohn, 
 who aroused mankind to a sense of justice 
 to his brethren, and whose bold, incisive
 
 44 Sidonia 
 
 vindication of their fair fame contributed 
 mightily to their intellectual and social 
 emancipation, when we recall gratefully 
 the services rendered to Israel by the 
 rising statesman and author, no longer 
 conformist but who had not ceased to 
 love and feel for his kindred. The bril- 
 liant novelist attracted the class that had 
 never heard of Mendelssohn or Lessing 
 the ruling class in England. " The Jew 
 that Shakespeare drew" was too faithful 
 a delineation of the Jew as his detractors, 
 after making use of his resources, would 
 describe him in the Elizabethan age. 
 The only Jew that other English authors 
 attempted to depict was a Shylock in 
 clothes of British cut. And later when 
 Dickens created Fagin, it was a miser- 
 able example of the lowest order of Eng- 
 lishmen that he described and to such 
 church and synagogue were equally 
 unknown. 
 
 In Disraeli's time the position of the 
 Jewish body (save in Holland and in 
 France) was that of a nomadic tribe on suf- 
 ferance in civilized Europe. It is immaterial 
 that signal exceptions were encountered
 
 Sidonia 45 
 
 in daily life in history. Our renowned 
 Montefiore chief in philanthropic work 
 for humanity, dear to every heart that 
 feels a throb of human love was already, 
 indeed, the trusted officer of the youthful 
 Queen whom, when the child daughter of 
 the Duchess of Kent, he had entertained 
 at Ramsgate. Goldsmid, Salomons, and 
 Rothschild were names not unknown. 
 And yet in England the popular idea of 
 a Jew was a distressing combination of 
 the second-hand dealer and the usurer, 
 despised and contemptible. 
 
 And has the picture been wholly effaced 
 from the memory, the consciousness of 
 ordinary people, in our day ? 
 
 It is not surprising that even now 
 Haman's opinion should be occasionally 
 affirmed in some new fashion: " There 
 is a people scattered yet separate among 
 all the nations in all the provinces of 
 thy kingdom : and their laws are different 
 from those of every people, while they do 
 not execute the laws of the King ; and 
 it is no profit for the King to tolerate 
 them." And the same reason exists for 
 enforcing the Hamanic decree (where
 
 46 Sidonia 
 
 possible) by royal edict " Mordecai will 
 not bend the knee nor prostrate himself 
 before the upstart ! " 
 
 II 
 
 We are introduced to the young 
 Sidonia in the pretty episode of "the 
 Baron's family" in Tancred. Sidonia 
 was on his travels in Flanders when he 
 was attracted by the remarkable feats of 
 a party of strolling players, a father and 
 six children. Discovering by mysteri- 
 ous instinct that this was a Jewish family, 
 Sidonia conceived the idea of raising them 
 to the height of prosperity; and, discerning 
 the particular ambition of each member, 
 he gratified it in most princely fashion. 
 In the sequel, it is told that one daughter 
 became " the glory of the French stage 
 the most admirable tragic actress her 
 appearance at once charmed and com- 
 manded the most refined audience in 
 Europe"; another child performs to en- 
 thusiastic houses in the first opera of her 
 brother, who promises to be the rival of 
 Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn ; " her soft
 
 Sidonia 47 
 
 hearted brother is painting the new cham- 
 bers of the papal palace, a cavaliere deco- 
 rated with many orders, and the restorer 
 of the once famous Roman school. " 
 
 This touching and delightful episode 
 which so happily illustrates the lovely 
 family life of the Hebrews the devotion 
 of parents and children the respect for 
 the old grandmother the generosity of 
 the race and which actually tells a true 
 story of encouragement and awakening of 
 genius under the inspiration of a Jewish 
 helping hand (for the renowned Rachel 
 and the Felix family were thus intro- 
 duced to fame through the munificence 
 of their patron, Baron Rothschild) is re- 
 lated to Tancred in the Lebanon forest, 
 the narrator being one of the Baron's 
 family whom Sidonia made an accom- 
 plished traveller. 
 
 It is a companion picture to the exquis- 
 ite study of oriental life in the hospitable 
 Damascene mansion of Besso, the Syrian 
 banker correspondent of the house of 
 Sidonia. " It is the Feast of the Taber- 
 nacles. At the side of the oriental prince 
 is his lovely daughter holding in the one
 
 48 Sidonia 
 
 hand the palm branch, in the other the 
 fresh citron. How beats the heart of the 
 descendant of the ancient Sephardic fam- 
 ily as he reflects : ' The vineyards of Israel 
 have ceased to exist, but the eternal law 
 enjoins the children of Israel still to cele- 
 brate the vintage. A race that persists 
 in celebrating their vintage, although they 
 may have no fruits to gather, will regain 
 their vineyards. What sublime inexora- 
 bility in the law ! What indomitable spirit 
 in the people ! ' 
 
 i " It is easy for the happier Sephardim, 
 the Hebrews who have never quitted the 
 sunny regions laved bythe midland ocean 
 it is easy for them, though they have 
 lost their heritage, to sympathize in their 
 beautiful Asian cities or in their Moorish 
 or Arabian gardens with the graceful rites 
 that are, at least, an homage to a benig- 
 nant Nature. But picture to yourself the 
 child of Israel in the dingy suburb, or the 
 squalid quarter of some bleak northern 
 town, where there is never a sun that can 
 at any rate ripen grapes. Yet he must 
 celebrate the vintage of purple Palestine ! 
 There is something profoundly interesting
 
 Sidonia 49 
 
 in this devoted observance of oriental 
 customs in the heart of our Saxon and 
 Slavonian cities in these descendants 
 of the Bedouins who conquered Canaan 
 more than three thousand years ago still 
 celebrating that success which secured for 
 their forefathers for the first time grapes 
 and wine ! " 
 
 III 
 
 Such were the pictures that Disraeli 
 painted for the English people, who be- 
 gan to arouse to a sense of the injustice, 
 the wrong, that had been done to this 
 wondrous race. 
 
 Yes this " pertinacity in thrusting the 
 Jew into English literature" proved a 
 stroke of genius which had for its intent 
 and result the social enfranchisement of a 
 downtrodden community. 
 
 Sidonia 's benevolence, the oriental life 
 of the Besso family, the impassioned glori- 
 ous poetry which tells of Palestine, its 
 beauteous mountains and valleys, its un- 
 equalled fertility and variety, its extraordi- 
 nary history the persistency with which
 
 50 Sidonia 
 
 ancient Jewish rites and customs are cele- 
 brated with all the dignity, sublimity, 
 simple grandeur, and significance of their 
 origin surely we honor Disraeli for his 
 devotion, which the cold Aryan nature 
 does not appreciate and regards with 
 supercilious complacency. 
 
 The character of Sidonia is developed 
 as we are introduced to him in the early 
 chapters of Coningsby "a man above 
 the middle height and of a distinguished 
 air and figure ; pale, with an impressive 
 brow and dark eyes of great intelligence. 
 Coningsby had never met or read of any 
 one like this chance companion. His sen- 
 tences were so short, his language so racy, 
 his voice rang so clear, his elocution was 
 so complete. On all subjects, his mind 
 seemed to be instructed, and his opinions 
 formed. He flung out a result in a few 
 words ; he solved with a phrase some deep 
 problem that men muse over for years. 
 He said many things that were strange, 
 yet they immediately appeared to be true. 
 Then, without the slightest air of preten- 
 sion or parade, he seemed to know every- 
 body as well as everything. Monarchs,
 
 Sidonia 51 
 
 statesmen, authors, adventurers, of all 
 descriptions and of all climes if their 
 names occurred in a conversation, he de- 
 scribed them in an epigrammatic sen- 
 tence, or revealed their precise position, 
 character, calibre, by a curt dramatic trait 
 all this, too, without any excitement 
 of manner ; on the contrary with repose 
 amounting almost to nonchalance. If his 
 address had any faultiness, it was rather a 
 deficiency of earnestness. A slight spirit of 
 mockery played over his speech even when 
 you deemed him most serious ; you are 
 startled by a sudden transition from pro- 
 found thought to poignant sarcasm. A 
 very singular freedom from passion and 
 prejudice on every topic might be some 
 compensation for this want of earnest- 
 ness perhaps was its consequence. . . . 
 And yet throughout his whole conversa- 
 tion, not a stroke of egotism, not a word, 
 not a circumstance escaped him by which 
 you could judge of his position or pur- 
 poses in life." 
 
 And then this charming description of 
 the thorough gentleman and man of the 
 world who was of the Hebrew race and a
 
 52 Sidonia 
 
 singular genius, ends in a poetical strain 
 "Sidonia vaulted into his saddle, the 
 ' Daughter of the Star ' bounded as if 
 she scented the air of the desert from 
 which she and her rider had alike sprung 
 and Coningsby remained in profound 
 meditation. " 
 
 IV 
 
 We have a glimpse of Sidonia in his 
 business aspect, but it is when Tancred 
 visits him to secure a letter that shall open 
 the doors of Syria. Sidonia's wealth is 
 not half as serviceable to the traveller 
 as the patriarchal gratitude which created 
 and maintains for the young Englishman 
 the affectionate warmth greeting him in 
 Palestine, and especially with the hospit- 
 able Besso family. 
 
 At a social gathering whose description 
 gives Disraeli's critics a chance to be 
 amused, Coningsby meets Sidonia. Now 
 if Disraeli paints the externals of a Syba- 
 ritic feast or a loftily fashionable coterie 
 with kindness and only occasional sarcasm, 
 he at least appreciates and aims to sug-
 
 Sidonia 53 
 
 gest as exemplars the taste, refinement, 
 and elegance in which English luxury has 
 adorned itself. A merciless Oxford pro- 
 fessor sought to libel the whole Jewish 
 race because Disraeli detected his weak 
 spot and had the spirit to publish it in 
 Lothair. 
 
 Why has Disraeli given point to the 
 grandeur of the higher fashionable life 
 which was so familiar in his own experi- 
 ence, from the day when the Countess of 
 Blessington introduced him into society ? 
 Was there perhaps a little gratitude for 
 the great service which the fashionable 
 world had rendered to the friendless and 
 ambitious writer ? Or was it simply the 
 recognition of the political power of Eng- 
 lish society ? Observe Sidonia's stand- 
 ing is due not more to his wealth than 
 to his possession of extraordinary genius, 
 his wondrous experience of men and coun- 
 tries, his pure descent, his superb asser- 
 tion of his faith, his superiority in those 
 qualities which the world recognizes and 
 honors as the attributes of the true gentle- 
 man. May not the novelist have sought 
 to vindicate his race from the charge of
 
 54 Sidonia 
 
 being underbred ? He depicts the glorious 
 ancestry of the desert - sprung Hebrew 
 the singular maintenance of oriental 
 habits and rights and ennobling qualities 
 of heart and then he presents as the 
 contemporaneous embodiment of this race, 
 the type of the true man, Sidonia, who is 
 cosmopolitan enough to be welcomed by 
 the noblest in the land, who is still the 
 unaffected Jew that helped the strolling 
 players at Berg, that made friends every- 
 where in his youthful pilgrimage, that won 
 the admiration, the homage of the majes- 
 tic Bedouin in his tent, the princely Syr- 
 ian in his palace, the humble follower at 
 the gate of Jerusalem, because always the 
 same simple-hearted son of Abraham ! 
 Sidonia, the equal of the highest in the 
 land, has not become so by reason of his 
 wealth alone he has employed his means 
 in princely benefactions his hand and 
 heart are ever open his connection with 
 vast financial interests is only suggested 
 as the opportunity of extending unusual 
 courtesy and kindness to one endeared 
 by ties of acquaintanceship with some 
 mutual friend.
 
 Sidonia 55 
 
 Sidonia was a Jew whom Englishmen, 
 not knowing, had despised. They can 
 be ignorant no longer of the worth, the 
 patriotism, the nobility, the English 
 blood that are concentrated in this typical 
 Hebrew. 
 
 To impress still more powerfully the 
 lesson he is teaching, the novelist in that 
 oft-quoted chapter of Coningsby deline- 
 ates Sidonia's ancestry their migration 
 from Arabia to Spain their rise in Ar- 
 agon their persecution by the Inquisi- 
 tion their exile their dispersion over 
 Europe their settlement in England. 
 It becomes necessary to explain the form- 
 ation of the individual character of Sidonia 
 and here we discern the source of the 
 unfriendly critic's annoyance : doubtless 
 Haman found it painful and mortifying 
 to be steadily confronted every afternoon 
 as he went homewards by that rigid He- 
 brew who would not prostrate himself. 
 
 Sidonia tells the story of his wander- 
 ings how in his travels, in his important
 
 56 Sidonia 
 
 affairs, he met the Jew everywhere in 
 conspicuous intellectual and political po- 
 sitions. There is an air of conscious dig- 
 nity about the Jew in the story which is 
 actually prophetic. In a sketch of a meet- 
 ing of statesmen at Frankfort, shortly be- 
 fore the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, the 
 portraits of the leaders of the council are 
 unmistakably Jewish. Did this presage 
 the Congress of Berlin with Beaconsfield 
 the central figure, the declaration and main- 
 tenance of religious liberty a momentous 
 incident ? 
 
 Sidonia has been pronounced too lofty 
 a conception of the cultured Jewish gentle- 
 man. We are so habituated to the pain- 
 ful experience of hearing and feeling even 
 in these enlightened days that the Hebrew 
 still " wears the badge of his tribe," is loud, 
 ostentatious, fond of display, that we are 
 perchance led to forget that the types 
 which so engross the unfriendly critic's 
 attention are essentially of the past. The 
 Hebrew has learned to assimilate with his 
 associates, to practise the serenity and re- 
 pose of bearing characteristic of the un- 
 affected gentleman. When, occasionally,
 
 Sidonia 57 
 
 we note a departure from this standard, 
 it happens that some pretentious person, 
 whose finances have progressed at such a 
 rate as to leave him no time for self- 
 improvement or self-restraint, has been 
 placed in a position that invites notice or 
 is accidentally prominent, and he is in- 
 capable of representing even his better self 
 not to mention the race with which he 
 is identified. And is the Hebrew of to- 
 day superior in manners to his neighbor ? 
 
 VI 
 
 Sidonia suggests a serious truth for He- 
 brews more than other men to appreciate. 
 He acknowledged "one source of interest 
 in his descent and in the fortunes of 
 his race. As firm in his adherence to 
 the code of the great Legislator as if the 
 trumpet still sounded on Sinai, he might 
 have received in the conviction of divine 
 favor an adequate compensation for 
 human persecution. But there were 
 other and more terrestrial considerations 
 that made Sidonia proud of his origin, 
 and confident of the future of his kind.
 
 58 Sidonia 
 
 Sidonia and his brethren could claim a dis- 
 tinction which the Saxon and the Greek 
 and the rest of the Caucasian nations had 
 forfeited. The Hebrew is an unmixed 
 race. An unmixed race of a first-rate or- 
 ganization are the aristocracy of nature." 
 The Hebrews would outlive persecution. 
 " They had defied exile, massacre, spolia- 
 tion, the degrading influence of the con- 
 stant pursuit of game ; they had defied 
 time." 
 
 The lofty tribute to Hebrew genius and 
 character paid in the person and career of 
 Sidonia is not marred by the extravagance 
 and exaggeration which" mere hero wor- 
 ship permits, excuses, and is even held to 
 justify. In the portrayal of this Hebrew 
 type, the novelist was aiming to correct 
 an untrue and unfair estimate almost uni- 
 versal in its error and involving a mourn- 
 ful, distressing, and disastrous experience 
 for the race so misunderstood. It would 
 have been natural it is the custom of 
 writers of fiction to extol to the skies 
 every thought and act of the hero to 
 place him in situations from which only 
 his surpassing astuteness could possibly
 
 Sidonia 59 
 
 extricate him. Not so with Sidonia ; his 
 greatness is simply the result of his origin 
 and his education. He is a born aristocrat 
 " of an unmixed race." To form so perfect 
 and so attractive a character, Disraeli had 
 but to clothe in the garb of an English 
 gentleman a Hebrew who had travelled 
 the world over and had not forgotten his 
 origin. 
 
 A recent novel by one of the master 
 minds in modern literature takes up a 
 type of the Hebrew race which may con- 
 stitute a parallel to Sidonia. Deronda is, 
 however, essentially a dreamer while 
 Sidonia is a man of action, the man of the 
 world. George Eliot has succeeded in 
 emphasizing the abhorrence with which 
 such a great author naturally regards the 
 stigma affixed to a race that has borne so 
 worthy a part. Daniel Deronda would 
 never have existed but for his sturdier 
 comrade of Disraeli 's earlier novel. And 
 not readily can the Jewish race forget the 
 debt they owe to the memory of the won- 
 derful woman who understood and appre- 
 ciated the people for whom Deronda is 
 constructing a happy future ; the visions
 
 60 Sidonia 
 
 of that enthusiast may never be realized, 
 but the spirit which actuated George 
 Eliot in vindicating the Jew is the spirit 
 of humanity at its highest. 
 
 VII 
 
 Disraeli has been censured for making 
 the Jewish character, the Jewish question 
 more conspicuous than the plot or the ap- 
 parent purpose of Coningsby would seem 
 to warrant. Writing of and for a period 
 of special political interest, Disraeli took 
 up the Jewish question as bearing upon 
 at least one serious problem claiming a 
 solution. In his preface to Lothair, 
 he says : " Familiar as we all are now 
 with such themes, the house of Israel be- 
 ing now freed from the barbarism of me- 
 diaeval misconception and judged like all 
 other races by their contributions to the 
 existing sum of human welfare, and the 
 general influence of race on human action 
 being universally recognized as the key of 
 history, the difficulty and hazard of touch- 
 ing for the first time on such topics can- 
 not now be easily appreciated."
 
 Sidonia 61 
 
 And in proportion as their difficulty is 
 appreciated by the Jewish people of to-day, 
 will be their grateful remembrance of the 
 brilliant author who started in life with 
 the world against him, and whose noble 
 aim, the vindication, the intellectual enfran- 
 chisement of his race, was generously, com- 
 pletely, triumphantly realized as he sat, an 
 English Earl, at the Congress of Berlin, 
 and made religious liberty for all a condi- 
 tion of the recognition of the only sover- 
 eignty in Europe that then persecuted 
 the Hebrew.
 
 LOYALTY 1 
 
 FIDELITY is the secret of the world's pro- 
 gress. Devotion to duty, devotion to an 
 idea, devotion to humanity, devotion to 
 God this explains half the mysteries of 
 history : devotion to self will account for 
 the rest. 
 
 Loyalty is a sentiment, an education, a 
 motive - power that was comprehended 
 even in the Patriarchal times when Abra- 
 ham's servant left Mesopotamia in quest 
 of a wife for Isaac. Eliezer was simply a 
 steward who loved his master faithful in 
 his house; he undertook a difficult task 
 and accomplished it. Rebecca's deed at 
 the well completes the picture as fine a 
 study of chivalry as the troubadour would 
 have chanted. 
 
 In these days of independent thought, 
 of insolent self-assertion, of hourly dis- 
 covery although the " new idea " is often 
 
 1 Delivered before the Young Men's Hebrew Association, 
 November 30, 1879.
 
 Loyalty 63 
 
 an ancient one in modern guise, loyalty is 
 still honored even by the inferior ten 
 thousand. The single-hearted Professor 
 whose fidelity to science, to truth, made 
 of him a hero a demigod he would 
 have been in the Grecian era "had no 
 time to make money ! " And this grand, 
 characteristic declaration was admired, ap- 
 plauded, by the masses whom we believed 
 insensible to the finer motives, just as the 
 world weeps over the story of Damon and 
 Pythias, of David and Jonathan; such loyal 
 friendship is a revelation. 
 
 So the world is kinder and better than 
 you might imagine from a study of Wall 
 Street, where everybody is on the look out 
 for a weak spot in his neighbor's armor 
 and ready to let his arrow fly that shall 
 smite to the death. 
 
 The danger for American youth is that 
 loyalty shall become a mere sentiment 
 and not be part of their very nature, their 
 better self. 
 
 How shall we define loyalty? We may 
 consider it in several relations as between 
 man and man, between man and the state, 
 aye as between man and the Deity.
 
 64 Loyalty 
 
 We must define it by another word 
 fidelity. Be loyal and true, be faithful and 
 true. And most beautiful of mottoes is 
 this one word -fideliter. Proudly has it 
 been borne by great nobles in many lands. 
 Older than any order of nobility is the 
 word as applied to Abraham faithfulness 
 was his motto, Emuno was upon his es- 
 cutcheon, and even in that primitive age 
 he understood and practised it. Loyalty 
 comprehends something besides and above 
 patriotism fidelity to truth and right even 
 though in conflict with our country's pol- 
 icy. The great orator of the West used 
 to say, " My country Bright or wrong." 
 This may be patriotism indeed, it does 
 not rise above partisanship but it is not 
 loyalty, whose declaration would be: "My 
 country she shall be always right." The 
 Briton recites the old fiction, " The King 
 can do no wrong," but loyalty to a Charles 
 the Second was no proof of sterling pa- 
 triotism. Parties, historians, kings them- 
 selves, make free with the reputation of 
 the practical chiefs of the administration, 
 however, and discover who are capable of 
 doing the wrong published in the sover-
 
 Loyalty 65 
 
 eign's name, and even kings are as un- 
 grateful as republics. 
 
 Loyalty is, strictly speaking, identified 
 with man's attachment to the State as the 
 universal parent of its citizens as the 
 head of the great family. It is a higher 
 law which when the State is faithless to 
 humanity and justice underlies the right 
 of revolution, excuses passive and active 
 resistance, and has led to martyrdom 
 which after ages extol. 
 
 So far as loyalty implies obedience to 
 the highest authority in a State, it has 
 indeed been abused enormities have 
 been committed in its name as excesses 
 have been justified in the name of lib- 
 erty. 
 
 Devotion to the person of a sovereign 
 has been construed to extend to obedi- 
 ence to the royal mandate even as far as 
 assassination, and actual treason to the 
 State. In the confusion of ideas and 
 obligations that led to the massacre of 
 St. Bartholomew, the horrors of the 
 Crusades, the persecutions of the Albi- 
 genses and the Jews, fanaticism, gross 
 superstitious attachment to Church as
 
 66 Loyalty 
 
 united with the State, was mistaken, oh ! 
 so terribly ! for loyalty. 
 
 In modern times, in our own country, 
 a study of loyalty becomes useful and 
 important. Taking history as our guide, 
 we shall find that its embodiment is 
 recognized in Holy Writ, as the highest 
 human type. When the Revelation 
 on Sinai 's Mount was understood by 
 the assembled people, the response was 
 unanimous " We hear and shall obey." 
 When rebellion against the theocracy 
 raised its head, the sturdy chieftain 
 Joshua called to his side the loyal 
 thousands " I and my household shall 
 serve the Lord " as Moses had already 
 tested the fidelity of the tribe of Levi 
 "Who is on the Lord's side?" Samuel 
 subsequently echoed the same spirit of 
 devotion to the highest principle ; through- 
 out the prophetic writings, it is " my faith- 
 ful servant " that is at once approved by 
 God and revered by mankind : a striking 
 picture depicted by Milton that of Ab- 
 diel " faithful among the faithless." 
 
 Seeking from the Bible, again, au- 
 thority for the conception of fidelity I
 
 Loyalty 67 
 
 would set before you, we find this admoni- 
 tion: " Honor thy parents but my Sab- 
 bath thou shalt keep." So that we learn 
 of a higher loyalty than that which binds 
 man to man which implies devotion to 
 the family chief to the State as repre- 
 sentative of the family. 
 
 In the ages of Grecian and of Roman 
 supremacy, the greatest test of citizenship 
 was self-sacrifice for the sake of country. 
 And yet Socrates, who, seeing beyond the 
 narrow confines of a Grecian State, con- 
 ceived of man 's duty as in conflict with 
 cruelty or duplicity commanded by the 
 government for its or the popular interest, 
 was at the period of Athens' greatest de- 
 velopment condemned for corrupting the 
 youth by such teachings. Aristides was 
 ostracized because the people were tired of 
 hearing him called "the just" because 
 he thought loyalty to the ideal govern- 
 ment a higher motive than the gratifica- 
 tion of an ignorant or capricious public 
 opinion. In the stern, brave Roman who 
 rescued his country from the Tarquins 
 Cato, inflexible, severe, and wise Brutus 
 who in the conspiracy against Caesar had
 
 68 Loyalty 
 
 no motive but the safety of the republic, 
 the liberties of the people we find the 
 recognition of loyalty as a principle which 
 ascended above the present moment, 
 party, authority which even contem- 
 plated the enfranchisement of the State 
 from moral servitude and weakness, and 
 subordinated self to a patriotic devotion, 
 that identified country with God. 
 
 How Demosthenes thundered his phi- 
 lippics ! How he stimulated his country- 
 men to renewed and united exertions 
 against the invader ! How powerfully 
 spoke Cicero against official maladmin- 
 istration, against corruption which had 
 become a byword ! Neither of these con- 
 summate orators, whose contemporary 
 power the world beheld with admiration, 
 can attain the niche in the Temple of 
 Fame reserved for the types of fidelity to 
 the State, to truth. Indeed we may claim 
 for modern times several examples of mag- 
 nificent oratorical power wedded to su- 
 perb efforts for country, for God, that 
 leave the renowned orators of antiquity 
 far behind. Burke, Pitt, Fox in England ; 
 Savonarola in Italy ; Luther in Germany ;
 
 Loyalty 69 
 
 Webster in America although their loy- 
 alty was manifested in greater or less de- 
 gree united marvellous grace and skill 
 as orators with a lofty conception of the 
 patriot's highest duty. It was well for 
 Cicero, who, as Mr. Curtis says, "under- 
 stood himself and the people among whom 
 he lived," to urge " Virtue itself can de- 
 sire no greater reward for labors and perils 
 than the reward of praise and glory." 
 The State in Cicero 's age had " constitu- 
 tions, power, wealth, culture, letters, arts, 
 but in all that splendid civilization 
 there was no higher individual mo- 
 tive than the love of personal distinc- 
 tion." 
 
 Men can be moved to loyalty. It re- 
 quires a rare occasion to elicit in our com- 
 paratively cold country a universal loyal 
 expression. When the flag of Fort Sum- 
 ter was first fired upon, the sentiment 
 of love for country displayed itself through- 
 out the North no sacrifice was too great, 
 loyalty was the rule ; and yet, so cool 
 and calculating are some that within a 
 week " leading " merchants were effecting 
 combinations whereby they could make
 
 70 Loyalty 
 
 princely fortunes out of rotten hulks and 
 shoddy fabrics ! 
 
 Rarely in the world's history has rever- 
 ential loyalty been more grandly demon- 
 strated than in that memorable scene at 
 Philadelphia, when Hancock signed the 
 immortal Declaration. Nevertheless when 
 the armies of Washington were freezing 
 at Valley Forge time of sorest trial for 
 the young republic, then, says the indig- 
 nant patriot, speaking of a miscalled loy- 
 alist, *' this man was crying ' beef ! beef ! ' 
 through the camp," taking advantage of 
 the dire necessities of the soldiers. 
 
 Can it be that we require the fiction of 
 a hereditary sovereign to stimulate us to 
 constant unalterable loyalty? In no body 
 of Americans is there greater need of 
 sleepless loyalty than among Israelite 
 young men. For us, fidelity comprehends 
 at once the highest embodiment of rever- 
 ential obedience to divine authority, to the 
 typical family, to brethren who are even 
 in this land singled out for social ostracism. 
 Faithful to the imperishable record of our 
 race, we must of necessity be patriots, 
 seeking the peace of the land wherein
 
 Loyalty 71 
 
 we dwell. True to ourselves, we cannot 
 if we would, evade the responsibility im- 
 posed upon us because of fellow-Israelites 
 to be helped on the way to citizen- 
 ship. Unfriendly critics begin to under- 
 stand that upon the Bible rests the 
 safety, the happiness, the elevation of 
 society. We should, of all men, cherish 
 the Bible study it, strive to understand 
 it, and to practise its precepts. 
 
 Are we loyal to the spirit which founded 
 this association ? Have we swerved from 
 the simple direct path which seemed to 
 lie before us as we began the work? 
 That was a fair, staunch vessel, that 
 suddenly experienced a dreadful shock 
 foreboding destruction the iceberg was 
 upon it with startling force the men 
 whose duty it was to look out were 
 reckless and inattentive imperilling the 
 lives of hundreds. Even the staunchest 
 ship were in imminent danger if the 
 pilot, the lookout in whom we trust, 
 prove recreant, disloyal. Shall the 
 parallel be drawn for you ? No, you 
 will think it out for yourselves. This 
 society shall be found well-manned its
 
 72 Loyalty 
 
 officers and crew ever vigilant it will 
 safely withstand the chilly atmosphere 
 of indifference, the shock of icebergs 
 met unexpectedly, even in these parts. 
 True to duty we shall ride proudly over 
 sea into port, making life more cheer- 
 ful, more useful, more serviceable to gen- 
 erations to come. We owe it to our 
 race training to be loyal to the higher 
 duty of life to be superior to the 
 pseudo-equality which tends to make 
 of Americans mere money-seekers. It 
 never was true that the Hebrews lived 
 exclusively for wealth, although for ages 
 it has been maintained that our race 
 was merely avaricious. When Solomon 
 was awarded what he most desired, he 
 asked not for wealth, but for wisdom. Wis- 
 dom seemed to draw in its train, however, 
 all that man could desire and more than 
 was good for him. 
 
 In this republic, since the time of the 
 war with its boundless extravagance, and 
 its false notions of happiness and suc- 
 cess, the ambition of each parent and 
 each child is to become as rich as his 
 neighbor or at least to seem as wealthy.
 
 Loyalty 73 
 
 Hence follows a succession of woes and 
 follies and disasters. Among the greatest 
 of Americans, after all, was that pro- 
 fessor I have mentioned, who sincerely 
 and loyally loved science, and despised 
 mere money-making. May he have many 
 disciples ! 
 
 It is permitted here, among ourselves, 
 to suggest that the secret of the ostracism 
 we hear about was a love of display, the 
 faithlessness of Israelites to their race 
 and its responsibilities. The exclusive 
 hotel-keeper was but the bold interpreter 
 of the secret oracle of society which, arro- 
 gant and ridiculous as it is, cannot tolerate 
 vulgar pretensions in another class. 
 
 I claim that we should be superior to 
 the wish to rank with the shoddy society 
 that patronizes the fashionable watering- 
 place hotel. There is no grandeur, no 
 virtue, no real power that outlives a day 
 in society which worships the old idol of 
 the molten calf whether of gold or base 
 metal. 
 
 And this brings us back by associa- 
 tion of ideas to the contrast between the 
 shortsighted men and women of Israel car-
 
 74 Loyalty 
 
 ried away by the glitter, the show, the 
 gaudy extravagance of idol-worship in 
 their day and the seer Moses, the exceed- 
 ingly meek man, who expounded God's 
 word which made all equal in the only 
 sense that can permanently elevate human- 
 ity, the recognition of the Father whom 
 we shall honor in fidelity and sincerity by 
 loyally loving our neighbor, and the truth. 
 "Hear the conclusion of the matter fear 
 God and keep His commandments such 
 is the whole duty of man." 
 
 And we must do our duty, despite the 
 fact that the world fails to appreciate us, 
 as we suppose. If we" find men of little 
 claim to respect or consideration success- 
 ful or accorded distinctive honor, we must 
 not on that account be recreant. It was 
 said of a late Justice of the United States 
 Supreme Court that " to do what he felt 
 to be right, to do it bravely and disinter- 
 estedly when he was called upon to make 
 sacrifices, without the smallest regard to 
 the opinions of men, when the thought of 
 their opinions might have deterred him, 
 became the habit of his life." 
 
 Happy shall we be in our surroundings,
 
 Loyalty 75 
 
 in our age, when loyalty shall again con- 
 stitute part of the very nature of men, the 
 habit of their lives.
 
 AN ANCIENT GRUDGE 1 
 
 HISTORY proclaims the greatness of a 
 race whose loyalty to truth, to the divine 
 mission has aided primarily the cause of 
 civilization. Strange fatuity that has ap- 
 parently declared it part of the duty of 
 the civilized world to deny to the Hebrew 
 the simple reward of recognition! En- 
 titled to honor, respect, appreciation, he 
 has met contumely, insult, persecution. 
 
 The survival of the" Hebrew race is a 
 marvellous fact. There is no parallel in 
 history. "A pure unmixed race of first- 
 rate organization," says Disraeli, "must 
 rule the world." While this may be true 
 in the broader sense, how many centuries 
 of misconception have disputed the right 
 of the Hebrew to simple equality before 
 the law ! And the Hebrew who has his- 
 tory and courage for defence repays the 
 injustice of ages by fidelity to his mission, 
 
 'Delivered before the Young Men's Hebrew Association, 
 January 29, 1881. 
 
 76
 
 An Ancient Grudge 77 
 
 " Thanks chiefly," says George Eliot, " to 
 the divine gift of a memory which inspires 
 the moments with a past, a present, and a 
 future." 
 
 Thus " he feeds fat the ancient grudge " 
 borne against him by the ephemeral 
 peoples of the Old World and nobly and 
 patiently awaits his justification, trusting 
 to God " in whose sight a thousand years 
 are as yesterday which is past as a watch 
 in the night." 
 
 The misconception of Jewish char- 
 acter, the injustice done to the race, the 
 extraordinary burden weighing upon the 
 individual, were the reflection of mediae- 
 val incapacity to appreciate a distinctive 
 people of superior intellectual force. 
 
 This legacy of the middle ages has not 
 lapsed with feudalism, which created and 
 intensified the reign of might over right. 
 
 It has taken centuries to substitute, in 
 religion as in politics, modern fairness 
 and thought for craft and brute force. 
 We cease to be surprised at the record of 
 popular riot and persecution in peaceful 
 cities along the Rhine five or six centuries 
 ago, when only thirty years have passed
 
 78 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 away since a Hebrew born in a German city 
 could not marry or adopt a trade save by 
 grace of the authorities. Can we wonder 
 at Peter the Hermit leading hundreds of 
 thousands of brigand barons and ignorant 
 peasants in a crusade for Jerusalem and 
 against the Jews who lived on the road 
 through Europe, when we have lately 
 seen in this fair land a hotel-keeper dare 
 to exclude Jews from the privileges of 
 public hospitality, and in the stately capi- 
 tal of enlightened Germany unoffending 
 Jews assaulted in the streets ? 
 
 The complete emancipation of the Jews 
 has been delayed by popular prejudice, the 
 result of bigotry and of imperfect infor- 
 mation respecting the race, and formed by 
 illiberal writings. The mediaeval Church 
 sought to extirpate Judaism by fire and 
 sword the Church to-day, where the State 
 has not disestablished it, succeeds in de- 
 laying religious liberty; and in some 
 lands the Church, where the State has pro- 
 claimed equality for all creeds, still seeks 
 to hinder the recognition of the Jew as a 
 man, a citizen. 
 
 No power could successfully contend
 
 An Ancient Grudge 79 
 
 with the Church when the Pope was the 
 dispenser of crowns the source of na- 
 tional liberty or slavery. A King of Eng- 
 land trembled before the Archbishop who 
 represented the Vatican Charlemagne 
 was its vassal, as his successors were its 
 willing serfs ; the German princes who 
 strove to assert their independence were 
 crowded out by the obedient elector and 
 count who did the bidding of their Italian 
 master. The Church was the only edu- 
 cator, and the masses were designedly 
 maintained in ignorance. The great rob- 
 ber chieftain worshipped "a piece of the 
 true cross " the serfs in his domains be- 
 gan to believe in him as the power which 
 could make or mar them here and to 
 eternity. 
 
 The student is fairly overwhelmed by 
 the wealth of materials upon which to 
 draw in support of the position that the 
 educational influences moving the world 
 were systematically unjust and falsely di- 
 rected in establishing the place of the Jew 
 and Judaism. And great thinkers of to- 
 day have only begun to comprehend 
 the inexhaustible resources at command.
 
 8o An Ancient Grudge 
 
 Milman, Draper, Lecky, Simon, Renan, 
 Buckle, and Froude have especially dis- 
 played candor and earnest industry in 
 exposing the untruths and injustice of cen- 
 turies. They have barely touched upon 
 the point which for the moment concerns 
 us, but their testimony is clear, convinc- 
 ing, and damning. 
 
 Our honored Jewish authors, Zunz, 
 Jost, Graetz, Geiger, Munk, Kayserling, 
 Franck, Raphall, and many others, have 
 grouped the materials for Jewish history 
 and have prepared the way for a truer 
 appreciation of Jewish character. 
 
 In this conflict between might and right 
 what was the place of the Jew? 
 
 Feudalism with brute force for its in- 
 spiration eagerly clasped hands with the 
 fanaticism of the Church and retained its 
 power to repress liberty and to enslave 
 intellect, even after its religious instructor 
 had been dethroned from its once undis- 
 puted sovereignty over the European 
 mind. The Jew was regarded as a being 
 bereft of the natural rights of man, a 
 dog to spit upon, a money chest to rob, a 
 creature restrained of liberty to breathe
 
 An Ancient Grudge 81 
 
 the air of Heaven, to move beyond the 
 Ghetto. 
 
 Ah ! but feudalism and the Church 
 could not deprive the Jew of the right to 
 think to maintain the purity of domestic 
 life to preserve the race character, the 
 traditions and the discoveries of his an- 
 cestry as a heritage for coming genera- 
 tions ! The place of the Jew was to keep 
 alive in at least some portion of the hu- 
 man race the instincts of manhood, the 
 divine spark which neither Church nor 
 State deemed compatible with policy or 
 power. 
 
 How generously, how nobly the He- 
 brews confined within the precincts of the 
 dreadful Ghetto acquitted themselves 
 of their duty to God and posterity, is 
 proved by their literary works, remarkable 
 for lofty sentiment, mastery of details, ex- 
 tent of learning, for evidence of genius, 
 for grasp of varied and recondite topics, 
 and by their records of humble devotion 
 to their creed, which implied degradation, 
 persecution, and martyrdom ; by the en- 
 couragement of science, the impetus given 
 to inquiry, culminating in the so-called
 
 82 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 revival of learning that marked the dawn 
 of the modern era. 
 
 Strange that Luther should have owed 
 so much to Jewish thought and example, 
 in the study, zeal, and courage which im- 
 pelled him to expose the abuses com- 
 mitted in the name of religion and that 
 the German church which he founded 
 should prove at this day the champion of 
 mediaeval ideas. 
 
 Shall I remind you of the record of 
 middle age barbarity and Jewish life in al- 
 most every section of Europe ? Russia, 
 indeed, had not yet emerged from the 
 utterly savage state things are slow of 
 development in that Empire but she had 
 recently attained the point in progress 
 marked by the persecution of the Jews, 
 and in Roumania and Servia, under her 
 tuition, the legal mob outdid the bravest 
 of the Rhenish barons. 
 
 The Christian nations of Europe vied 
 in ill-treating the Jews. There was no 
 disguise as to the pretext. In many cities 
 and villages, the annual visits of the 
 monks at the Easter season were the sig- 
 nals for violence. At one French market
 
 An Ancient Grudge 83 
 
 town the preacher would say on Good 
 Friday, " You have around you those who 
 crucified the Messiah now is the time 
 when you should feel most deeply the 
 iniquity. This is the day on which our 
 Prince has graciously given us permission 
 to avenge this crime. Like your pious 
 ancestors, hurl stones at the Jews, and 
 show your sense of the wrong by the rigor 
 with which you resent it." At another 
 place, the preacher would cry out to the 
 Jews, " Wretches, your sins have come 
 upon you ! " and the populace would 
 accept this as a hint to pillage and to 
 murder. 
 
 During the Crusades and later, Metz, 
 Spires, Worms, Frankfort, Cologne, Nu- 
 remberg, Prague every thriving town 
 was the funeral pyre of the unhappy Jews. 
 
 An earthquake was laid at their door 
 it was they that poisoned wells, spread 
 the plague, drowned young maidens, mur- 
 dered children, stabbed the consecrated 
 wafer, mutilated the crucifix, and, horribile 
 dictu! studied the Talmud. At one 
 time a tremendous bonfire was kindled 
 of twenty-four great cartloads of volumes
 
 84 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 of the Talmud. Ah ! the disastrous re- 
 cord of those troublous times ! 
 
 All the while the Jews were working 
 quietly at their callings. Many, being 
 thrifty artisans or tradesmen, saved money 
 which they loaned to the kings, barons, 
 and cities. Decree after decree confis- 
 cated their just claims, and they were held 
 fortunate if their lives were spared when 
 they presumed to ask payment of debts 
 honestly due. They were skilful in the 
 vineyards of Burgundy, adepts at Italian 
 and Flemish manufactures but every- 
 where they were denied the reward of in- 
 dustry, because the priest would persist 
 in teaching of the " passion " and thus in- 
 tensify the hatred, the ancient, terrible 
 grudge. Year after year, they shut them- 
 selves up in their houses, their quarter, 
 but only to draw out the concentrated 
 fury of the populace. The synagogue 
 wherein they took refuge was the scene 
 of carnage. On the merest suspicion, 
 hundreds were led to the stake. 
 
 The only bright spot in Europe was 
 where the followers of Mohammed had 
 made a stand from Constantinople along
 
 An Ancient Grudge 85 
 
 the Mediterranean and in the Iberian 
 peninsula. And when the Moors were 
 finally vanquished by the Christians of 
 Spain, the Jews, who had fought valiantly 
 and who were the scholars and the mer- 
 chants of the great cities, soon learned 
 how the gentle Christians put into prac- 
 tice the lessons of love they professed. 
 Grand was the record for centuries, de- 
 plorable the final scenes, the exile that 
 year of Columbus' voyage to the New 
 World. 
 
 The popular prejudice against the Jew 
 had found its way through the Church 
 into the very nurseries, and was indelibly 
 stamped upon the infant literature of 
 modern Europe. 
 
 " And all the evil," says Milman, "which 
 the people said and thought of the Jews 
 during the Middle Ages seems concen- 
 trated in Shylock." 
 
 Remember that the Jews mainly intro- 
 duced into Europe Greek philosophy in 
 its Arabian dress and bore an important 
 part in the revival of learning. The old 
 Jewish printers of Amsterdam, Leghorn, 
 Venice, and other places, were distin-
 
 86 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 guished for the perfection of their work. 
 Strange that the literature of the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries almost uni- 
 formly, when there is a passing reference 
 to the race, or where the author is con- 
 strained to dwell upon an individual 
 Israelite, denies the right of impartial 
 criticism, and condemns the Jew to the 
 pillory of public opinion ! 
 
 Singularly characteristic of the world's 
 injustice to the Jew is the portrait of 
 Shylock. 
 
 The poetry of Southern Europe has 
 given birth to many delightful and subtle 
 fancies. The unparalleled genius of 
 Shakespeare seemed powerless to create 
 a plot charming or mysterious intensely 
 tragic or deliciously idyllic. The fertile 
 brain of the airy trifler of Florence or of 
 Genoa, of Pisa or of Venice, was destined 
 to weave immortal pictures when framed 
 in the glowing, lifelike, enduring diction 
 of the Master. 
 
 It may seem sacrilege to indicate any 
 weakness in this wondrous poet who was 
 not for an age but for all time ; cosmo- 
 polite though an Englishman born. And
 
 An Ancient Grudge 87 
 
 yet one may venture to say this : that the 
 mightiest burst of oratory designed to lure 
 a people to madness, is less Roman than 
 it is human ; the majestic Lear is not a 
 mere Briton save in the habiliments we 
 fancy to correspond with bits of descrip- 
 tion ; there are anachronisms in many of 
 the plays, do we care to seek for faults or 
 to forget the superabundance of generous 
 wealth of imagery and the lifelike por- 
 traiture of undying heroes. 
 
 Shakespeare wrote for the court of 
 Queen Elizabeth and he did not rise 
 above the prejudices, the prepossessions 
 of his time. 
 
 The blow he dealt at the Jewish race 
 nearly three centuries have failed to over- 
 come. His matchless powers have em- 
 phasized the hate which the coxcombs and 
 the magistrates of Venice unitedly mani- 
 fested. His Shylock became a type, and 
 the world believes in it as earnestly as in 
 any other prejudice, and the magic of the 
 poet's name has sufficed to mislead the 
 truth-seeker, the candid, and the kind- 
 hearted alike. 
 
 And Shylock as Shakespeare drew him
 
 88 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 is not altogether mean there is some 
 dignity in the picture despite the vigor 
 with which the artist has thrown in those 
 dark and glowing touches o'ershadowing 
 the true man who is perforce to live an 
 untrue life. 
 
 The Shylock of Shakespeare is the only 
 Jew Englishmen would have recognized 
 in his day. Jews in England were then 
 very few. It was years after Shake- 
 speare's death that their exiled brethren 
 were invited by Cromwell to share the 
 fortunes of the Commonwealth. But the 
 Court knew by observation or hearsay of 
 the Lombards and the Jews who in that 
 age nearly monopolized the business ven- 
 tures centring in Italian cities. 
 
 So the merchant who encouraged en- 
 terprise by loans of capital was despised 
 because he dared to feel superior by vir- 
 tue of his thrift and seriousness to the 
 frivolity, extravagance, and wildness of the 
 nobles who were likely to be the comrades 
 of travelled Englishmen. And " oft on 
 the Rialto " way the young travellers have 
 joined Gratiano and Lorenzo in their sneer 
 at Shylock and Tubal, who wore the ga-
 
 An Ancient Grudge 89 
 
 berdine and were spurned and spat upon, 
 and were known only as usurers and ene- 
 mies of the Christian. " Let not the 
 sound of shallow foppery enter my sober 
 house ! " 
 
 Such was the home life of the Venetian 
 Jew whom his neighbors could not under- 
 stand. Here as everywhere the Jewish 
 home was the abode of simplicity and 
 purity, though the palaces, streets, and 
 plazas of Venice were scenes of nightly 
 riot and debauchery. 
 
 And Shakespeare, never having seen a 
 Jewess, depicted Jessica as a silly, frivo- 
 lous damsel, delighted to have attracted 
 the notice of the Venetian gallant, 
 ashamed of her stern father whom the 
 chronicler could paint only in his Rialto 
 garb, but whom we know better as un- 
 bending in the intimacy of home. The 
 Jessica of Shakespeare was never the 
 daughter of a Jewess. A disobedient 
 daughter ashamed of her lineage is a 
 rarity in Israel. But for centuries, the 
 only Jew the world comprehended was 
 Shylock at his worst, cruel, vindictive, 
 mean, thinking more of his ducats than
 
 QO An Ancient Grudge 
 
 of his daughter's honor, and Jessica was 
 just the child such a father was likely to 
 lose. 
 
 "What heinous sin is it in me, 
 
 To be ashamed to be my father's child ? 
 But though I am a daughter to his blood, 
 I am not to his manners." 
 
 And later the only Jew the stage or 
 fiction knew was a modified study of Shy- 
 lock in costume, until Lessing nobly vin- 
 dicated letters by his beautiful creation of 
 " Nathan the Wise " and in turn Bern- 
 stein, Auerbach, Mosenthal, Kompert, and 
 others of the Hebrew race have impressed 
 their sense of duty upon the productions 
 of their genius. 
 
 Next to Shylock, no portrayal of the 
 Jew has been so painful in its injustice 
 and widespread effect as extensive as the 
 field of English literature, wherever the 
 English language is spoken or its distin- 
 guished authors are read in translations 
 as Dickens' Fagin. It was a needless 
 mortification to couple with this wretch 
 the name he dishonored ; but, with an 
 unction that always surprised the lovers 
 of Dickens, that writer persisted in de-
 
 An Ancient Grudge gi 
 
 picting Fagin the Jew as the most hideous 
 and irredeemable character in his collec- 
 tion. All England hated the Jew the 
 more as they recognized in Fagin the 
 lowest type of man. 
 
 Dickens sought celebrity as an icono- 
 clast and a philanthropist. He did yeo- 
 man's service in exposing the evils of 
 debtors' prisons, Yorkshire schools, and 
 other British weaknesses. But his delin- 
 eation of Fagin was a blot upon his fame 
 which he remembered in after years, and 
 tardily strove to efface by the creation 
 of the comparatively good but essentially 
 feeble Riah. 
 
 That Dickens imbibed a little bigotry 
 with his other inherited tastes, is likely. 
 That a man of his powers and observa- 
 tion could have penned such beautiful 
 sketches, could have extracted from the 
 Christmas story, such delightful lessons of 
 love, charity, and good-will, founding a 
 literature which directs men's thoughts 
 towards the lowly and the suffering, and 
 yet persist in so shocking a libel upon the 
 Jewish character, is mysterious indeed. 
 Granted that he was a caricaturist, that he
 
 92 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 did not spare the Stigginses, the Chad- 
 bands, and the Jellybys. But these were 
 types and Fagin was a monstrosity. It was 
 thus he fanned popular prejudice on the 
 stage which is largely an instructor and a 
 mirror of the times, followed by an army 
 of small writers and reporters, aided 
 by careless newspaper supervision. Our 
 taste and sense of justice are constantly 
 offended by intimations and paragraphs 
 charging persons named in the police re- 
 ports with being Jews as well as thieves, 
 and leading the ignorant and hasty reader 
 to imagine that most people who go to 
 synagogue and have foreign names are 
 thieves as well as Jews. 
 
 The change in English fiction began 
 with Disraeli's elevation as a public man. 
 His early novels appealed so vividly to 
 the imagination, and were addressed so 
 peculiarly to the higher circles, as not to 
 reach the vulgar except as filtered through 
 successive strata of English society. And 
 "Sidonia" did superb service, nor has 
 Disraeli failed to maintain throughout 
 the series from Coningsby and Tancred 
 to Lothair and Endymion a graceful and
 
 An Ancient Grudge 93 
 
 an elevated tone of treatment for the 
 Hebrew race. 
 
 It was his public life, however, that 
 affected the English mind, so slow of ap- 
 prehension but essentially just, and greater 
 than his eloquent defence of the Jew in 
 his books was the closing of his minis- 
 terial career, when the Envoy of the Brit- 
 ish Empire magnetized the stern German 
 Chancellor and accomplished a noble work 
 for mankind, fixing it as an accepted 
 principle of international law that religious 
 liberty is the right of the Jew and the 
 Christian. But how soon after the mem- 
 orable sittings of 1 8 78 did the wily Rou- 
 manian, aided by influences at Berlin which 
 we now too plainly understand, undo for 
 the moment the generous results of the 
 Congress ! 
 
 It is impossible to close this hasty study 
 of the effect of works of fiction upon the 
 popular mind, without a reference to one 
 of the truest friends in the world of let- 
 ters the Jewish race ever had, George 
 Eliot. 
 
 She understood the genius of the He- 
 brew race. She deplored their unmerited
 
 94 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 sufferings. She was as enthusiastic in her 
 generous visions of the future of Judaism 
 as the most loyal of our modern thinkers. 
 Daniel Deronda fittingly marks the happy 
 reaction from a false and pernicious school 
 of thought. It is simply justice to lay 
 upon her tomb a well earned tribute of a 
 race's affection. 
 
 We turn to a singular spectacle in Ber- 
 lin, the burning of Heine's works because 
 Germany's great lyric poet was of Hebrew 
 birth and once lampooned a Hohenzollern. 
 What a ludicrous parody on the bonfires 
 which the popes used to ordain of Jewish 
 books, and notably the terrible Talmud ! 
 and one reads history between the lines 
 of such a wonderful police achievement. 
 
 It is Dogberry again. It does not rise 
 to the dignity of bigotry. It would have 
 been despised by King Clovis who, when 
 learning of the story of Jesus and how he 
 had been crucified, remarked, "Had I 
 been there with my brave Franks, they 
 would not have dared to do it." 
 
 Of Germany, what can one say save to 
 feel it an extraordinary perversion of hu- 
 manity that, in a land where learning has
 
 An Ancient Grudge 95 
 
 been so perfected and thorough as to 
 delve down to the source of things, and to 
 be content with naught save the deepest 
 hidden treasure of exhaustless mines of 
 knowledge, the very universities shall be 
 used by insane court preachers and un- 
 scrupulous politicians in a crusade against 
 the most thrifty, peaceful, virtuous, and 
 studious class of the community? As perse- 
 cution has legal limits in this age, these 
 agitators burn books instead of men, and 
 they do it after the style of the Moham- 
 medan commander : " There is no truth 
 but in the Koran. Burn these. If they 
 agree with the Koran they are superfluous 
 if they disagree, they are dangerous 
 burn them." 
 
 This glance at the influences which 
 moulded public sentiment on the Jewish 
 question ought not to be dismissed with- 
 out alluding to the Jews of Spain. The 
 late U. S. Minister at Madrid pays this 
 tribute : 
 
 "The Jews, or Israelites rather, are to 
 be found in Spain, contemporaneously 
 with Phoenicians, long anterior to the in- 
 vasion of Judea by the Romans. They
 
 96 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 survived the successive Roman, Gothic, 
 and Moorish dominations of Spain, to 
 be still conspicuous among its inhabitants 
 of divers races when Christianity had be- 
 come once more supreme under the suc- 
 cessors of Pelayo. It is no exaggeration 
 to assert that during all this latter period, 
 say from the ninth to the fifteenth cen- 
 tury inclusive, the highest intellectual cul- 
 tivation of Spain was in the hands of the 
 Israelites. While equally distinguished 
 with the Moors and Christians in the su- 
 perficial pursuits of poetry, rhetoric, and 
 light literature, they were in advance of 
 all in the more serious pursuits of history, 
 in political and juridical knowledge, in the 
 study of nature, and in all the exact 
 sciences." 
 
 In the preparation of the " Code of Don 
 Alfonso," that celebrated king collected a 
 board of learned Moors and Jews who 
 labored under his eye for years at Toledo. 
 " Whoever carefully studies Spain cannot 
 fail to see the signs of the influence of the 
 Jews, not only on the national character 
 and the intellectual condition, but also on 
 the blood of the Spaniards."
 
 An Ancient Grudge 97 
 
 Mocatta, in his interesting essay on the 
 Inquisition, tells of the persecution two 
 centuries later than the period of Alfonso, 
 culminating in the edict of banishment 
 under Ferdinand and Isabella ; and in a 
 resume which does not fail to point at the 
 lasting evils recoiling on the persecution, 
 nevertheless he is constrained to urge that 
 "Had the Jews possessed more tact dur- 
 ing the earlier stages of their troubles, 
 and adhered more closely to their scien- 
 tific and literary pursuits than to the 
 acquisition of wealth, they might possibly 
 have averted the final doom." 
 
 No people ever deserved more kind- 
 ness than the Hebrew, and have endured 
 such bitter persecution. " One of the 
 most remarkable phenomena in the his- 
 tory of this people," says George Eliot, 
 " is that they have come out rivalling the 
 nations of all European countries in 
 healthiness and beauty of physique, in 
 practical ability, in scientific and artistic 
 aptitude." 
 
 That a local or momentary prejudice 
 might be maintained against an individual 
 or a family offending public opinion and
 
 98 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 persistently disregarding the unwritten 
 law at the basis of well ordered society, 
 is not strange. One can understand the 
 tendency of feeling as to the Oneida Com- 
 munity to a Mormon settlement in the 
 heart of an old State even the antago- 
 nism against the negro race when the ques- 
 tion was at once social, and at the very 
 basis of Southern policy or the hostility 
 of the Irish in California to Chinese cheap 
 labor. But for the hostile treatment of the 
 Jew at this time, there is no other hypo- 
 thesis than the continued existence of the 
 mediaeval spirit of persecution, founded 
 upon bigotry and avarice. 
 
 An intelligent writer discussing the 
 Philosophy of Persecution has sought to 
 explain the moderation observable as civ- 
 ilization advances in the treatment of the 
 majority. In mediaeval days, men were 
 still savage and a difference of opinion com- 
 pelled a test of brute force. Under the 
 moulding influence of modern culture men 
 have acquired a milder nature. 
 
 Unhappily, this has not led to a clearer 
 understanding of the position of the He- 
 brew. And the story of communism at
 
 An Ancient Grudge 99 
 
 Madrid, Paris, St. Petersburg, and recent 
 incidents in Ireland and Germany would 
 imply that the savage still predominates 
 in man's nature, and is simply kept under 
 by legal restraints. 
 
 The old-time ignorance of Jewish char- 
 acter and personality excused most of the 
 prejudice that manifested itself socially 
 and politically. Now, there is no pre- 
 tence that the Jew is a stranger or inher- 
 ently a bad citizen. He is persecuted not 
 because of what he is, but because of what 
 he was formerly believed to be, or because 
 of the crucifixion whereof his ancestors 
 have been unjustly charged, or because 
 of the property his intelligence and thrift 
 have acquired. It is simply a survival of 
 the old spirit the shadow of the past is 
 thrown upon our otherwise pleasing pic- 
 ture of life the Jew and the Christian 
 striving for perfect manhood. 
 
 The Ancient Grudge that in the eyes 
 of the Knight Templars and the Saxon 
 chief classed the beautiful Rebecca, at 
 once a maiden of genius and a woman of 
 rare moral power, as socially inferior to a 
 herdsman that made of Martin Luther
 
 ioo An Ancient Grudge 
 
 a vehement advocate of proscription 
 that prompted Torquemada to institute 
 the most formidable engine of religious 
 hate the world ever knew or was shamed 
 by exists to-day in a milder form. 
 
 With his accredited perseverance and 
 astuteness, the Jew should have discovered 
 with each age the peculiar principle which 
 made for success. And yet his has been 
 a constant struggle for recognition, for 
 equality, for existence ; whether in Spain 
 with access to the highest positions in the 
 state or in Germany in the dark ages, 
 and a brutal and hostile populace or in 
 the United States to-day, where they are 
 on a par with their neighbors, and seek to 
 be absorbed in the great body of citizens 
 or in Roumania, where by dint of industry 
 and sobriety they have made a living and 
 are the envy of the ignorant and bigoted 
 peasants and the prey of the dissolute no- 
 ble the distinction continues and these 
 men of different creeds professing the 
 same divine origin are debarred from liv- 
 ing together in brotherhood and peace. 
 
 Have the Hebrews consciously pro- 
 voked this perpetual misunderstanding, in
 
 An Ancient Grudge 101 
 
 one age resulting in persecution, threat- 
 ened annihilation, or banishment, in anoth- 
 er content with odious social ostracism ? 
 
 In Athens, they ostracized Aristides be- 
 cause they were tired of hearing him 
 called the Just ; at Berlin, they condemn 
 the Jews because statistics credit them 
 with superior intelligence and morality. 
 
 Everywhere we see indications of the 
 Hebrew's resolution to become a citizen 
 of the world. Assumed to be a lover of 
 peace, he fought gallantly at Plevna for 
 his ungrateful country, he was among the 
 advance guard of the Prussians entering 
 Paris, and rose to high rank in the con- 
 genial French army ; he served valiantly 
 in our own war, and has always been dis- 
 tinguished in this land for patriotic ardor. 
 
 The Hebrews do not set up indepen- 
 dent institutions, save those which are 
 naturally denominational. They break 
 away from any idea of caste. They are 
 honored as professors in German univer- 
 sities, directors of the French and Aus- 
 trian press, in the Russian foreign office, 
 astronomers at Paris, archaeologists at 
 Rome, in the consular service, among ex-
 
 102 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 plorers in Central Africa, engineers in the 
 government surveys, in our marine corps, 
 and in the navy. In the learned profes- 
 sions, they excite the envy of slow-witted 
 Teutons ; as a popular party leader Lasker 
 had no fear of Bismarck, and Strassman 
 was elected Mayor of Berlin even in 
 January, 1881. If the Jews are censured 
 for being sound political economists, they 
 are simply showing their capacity to work 
 with current national forces. The history 
 of finance has no parallel to the rise and 
 maintenance of the house of Rothschild 
 which passes upon government applica- 
 tions for loans like a Wall Street bank 
 discusses coffee or drug paper, and whose 
 name is a synonym for integrity and 
 sagacity. While a Rothschild may, like 
 any other banker or broker, study the 
 eccentricities of the stock market, since 
 the day when old Mayer Anschel founded 
 the house on the basis of a great financial 
 trust and service to his sovereign, no one 
 can assert that the success of a Rothschild 
 involved the ruin of his associates or im- 
 plied a taint of dishonesty. 
 
 We have a right to assume that in for-
 
 An Ancient Grudge 103 
 
 merdays the Hebrews exerted themselves 
 with equal ardor and determination. And 
 the annals of the sieges of Prague, Ant- 
 werp, Phalsbourg, the wars of Gustavus, 
 Frederick, and Napoleon, demonstrate the 
 bravery of the descendants of Joshua; while 
 in the achievements of peace, they were 
 honored and successful in the Italian cit- 
 ies as manufacturers, artificers in precious 
 metals and silk and other fabrics. Their 
 creed and race exerted no serious effect 
 upon their handicraft or its product. But 
 oppressive laws soon shut them up in the 
 Ghetto, from which they had emerged in 
 the Pontificate of an occasionally enlight- 
 ened Pope. In the year 1881, the cable 
 conveys the astounding news that the Po- 
 lish Jews have practically a monopoly of 
 the manufacture of men's caps at Paris. 
 Is it possible that these Jews understand 
 the difficult art of fabricating such won- 
 drous things ! 
 
 If, then, in the present as in the past, the 
 Jews have proved and do prove good citi- 
 zens, what are the reasons for their exclu- 
 sion to-day anywhere from social equality ? 
 
 It may be profitable to digress for the
 
 io4 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 purpose of illustrating that the highest so- 
 cial standing was accorded in England for 
 years, even while certain legal disabilities 
 existed, to Sir Francis Goldsmid, a zeal- 
 ous and punctilious conformist, a barrister 
 of high repute, the head of a leading scien- 
 tific society, a philanthropist whose heart, 
 hand, and purse were open to the sufferer, 
 the oppressed of whatever race. The mem- 
 ory of this nobleman, who was, indeed, the 
 ideal of a modern Jew, cannot but be rev- 
 erenced for his actual aggressiveness. He 
 resided in St. John's Wood, London, the 
 centre of refinement and public spirit, en- 
 tertained with hospitality and discretion ; 
 society, which is very precise in the English 
 capital, and does not open its doors to mere 
 wealth and is certainly slow to abandon an- 
 cient prejudices, found in Sir Francis a true 
 English gentleman of unsullied ancestry, 
 distinguished abilities and manners, who 
 understood and practised his duties as a 
 subject, a lawyer, a member of Parliament, 
 a lover of science, a friend of humanity. 
 When he rose in the House of Commons 
 and referred to the grievances of the Jews 
 of Servia, he was listened to with attention
 
 An Ancient Grudge 105 
 
 and honored for his zealous advocacy 
 of the cause of his oppressed brethren. 
 He was never adequately appreciated for 
 the intense earnestness with which he 
 espoused this cause and which continued 
 unintermittingly until in later years he sec- 
 onded, with signal liberality and intensity, 
 the efforts of his French compeer Adolphe 
 Cremieux for the emancipation of the Jews 
 of Roumania. 
 
 Whenever the Jewish community has 
 the good fortune to be led by men like 
 Goldsmid and the good sense to appreci- 
 ate the secret of the social standing he ac- 
 quired, there is a reasonable prospect of 
 the overthrow of prejudice, except only 
 among a people and in an age where the 
 golden calf is worshipped where "suc- 
 cess is of greater esteem than character " 
 and where winnings at cards and specula- 
 tion are rated higher than the legitimate 
 earnings of talent, study, and industry, and 
 there is danger in such an age of the Jew 
 being no better than his neighbor. Now 
 I do not propose to imitate the Homeric 
 catalogue of the Greek warriors by tell- 
 ing of individual Jews in every clime
 
 io6 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 who have distinguished themselves in 
 art, science, letters, politics, the work of 
 benevolence. Who was more English 
 than David Salomons, more French than 
 Adolphe Cremieux, more Italian than 
 Daniel Manin, more German than Mendels- 
 sohn orRiesser? The greatest Englishman 
 since William Pitt was of Jewish birth 
 and underbred critics and politicians call 
 Disraeli un-English ! If in Russia, Jews 
 are indifferent to the fate of the nobles 
 if in Germany, they oppose Bismarck, is 
 it strange ? In Great Britain, Baron de 
 Worms is a Conservative and Arthur Co- 
 hen a Liberal, and, as the Spectator says, 
 "there is no popular dislike of the influ- 
 ence the Jewish mind may exert in poli- 
 tics, journalism, or theology." In France, 
 the United States, and Holland, there is 
 really no such thing as pretending to iden- 
 tify Jews as a separate body, save in le- 
 gitimate denominational work. " Every 
 country now has the Jew it deserves" 
 in the middle ages the Jews were above 
 the deserts and the comprehension of the 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 The Grudge that sprang from mediaeval
 
 An Ancient Grudge 107 
 
 bigotry and ignorance, which still sur- 
 vive in the dawn and bright noonday of 
 enlightenment and civilization, continues 
 despite sound reason and experience. It 
 is peculiar to the relation of Jew and non- 
 Jew. There is no intrinsic reason in the 
 Jewish genius. Disraeli the elder and 
 George Eliot have in vain endeavored to 
 trace some rational foundation for the 
 dislike. 
 
 The cause now boldly avowed is the 
 superior ability of the Jews, their thrift 
 and command of resources. 
 
 To claim that the prejudice is height- 
 ened by the conviction of their superior 
 alertness, industry, and business success, 
 may seem arrogant but only trade jeal- 
 ousy occasioned the Roumanian persecu- 
 tions and the apologists for German 
 proscription point to the success of the Jew 
 as lawyer, professor, editor, merchant, and 
 banker as an argument for denying him 
 equality of legal rights ! The competition 
 is too great for the phlegmatic and dila- 
 tory Teutons ! The assertion of such an 
 argument is simply Communism. It de- 
 nies the law of evolution. The Jews are
 
 io8 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 industrious, thrifty, capable they have 
 special aptitude for the work of the pres- 
 ent age they are likely to excel their 
 neighbors in the struggle for existence 
 the trained minority will beat the majority 
 therefore, let us crush them. Such was 
 the argument of the Egyptian king but 
 Pharaoh's daughter saved from the cruel 
 Nile a Jewish babe who became his peo- 
 ple's liberator. 
 
 Now the Jews, wherever they have wan- 
 dered, have been uniformly loyal to the 
 land of their birth or adoption. If the re- 
 turn to Palestine is a vision of the inspired 
 prophet and the creed of the faithful, this 
 is associated with the miraculous interpo- 
 sition of the Deity, and is deemed too dis- 
 tant and too sudden a call to interfere 
 with ordinary patriotic duty. Jews have 
 never been conspirators, at least not until 
 now that certain socialists charged with 
 designs against crowned heads have been 
 declared to be of Jewish birth. If this be 
 true, their complicity with treason and 
 assassination like any other crime has been 
 in spite of the Judaism in which they were 
 born, and was not developed until they felt
 
 An Ancient Grudge 109 
 
 themselves superior to the religion which 
 commands " seek ye the peace of the land 
 wherein ye dwell." 
 
 America, with its speculative and sensa- 
 tional spirit, has proved delicate ground 
 for such Jews as awkwardly undertake the 
 appearance of sons of the soil before they 
 have quite left off European ways. But 
 Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Balti- 
 more, Charleston, Savanah, and New Or- 
 leans tell of Jewish residents strong in the 
 faith, whose high character, lofty patriot- 
 ism and genuine attachment to their city 
 and State are remembered with honor and 
 gratitude. Read the story of Newport in 
 Touro Street and Lopez Wharf, in the 
 beautiful synagogue, in the cemetery redo- 
 lent of Jewish poetry and fidelity immortal- 
 ized by Longfellow. Charleston reared a 
 mural tablet to the memory of Mordecai 
 Cohen. New Orleans will never forget 
 her beloved son, Judah Touro. 
 
 We have seen, then, that the prejudice 
 in the middle ages proceeded from sev- 
 eral causes : the ignorance and brutal- 
 ity characteristic of rulers and mob the 
 teachings of the priests the dishonesty of
 
 no An Ancient Grudge 
 
 the debtor class ; that these influences con- 
 tinued even after the Reformation, and 
 were enforced by the new formative agents 
 in modern civilization, the social instinct, 
 business competition, and popular litera- 
 ture ; that the accusations against the Jews 
 have been admitted to be untrue, and that 
 a fairer estimate of Jewish character has 
 gradually dawned upon the world, al- 
 though the occasional revival of exploded 
 stories and an exceptional rising remind 
 us that the era of universal peace has not 
 yet arrived. 
 
 It remains for us to consider the bear- 
 ing of the Jew at this day, having in view 
 these teachings of the past, and the knowl- 
 edge that history repeats itself. H ow shall 
 the Jew " feed the ancient grudge " ? 
 
 The story of Jewish persecution evinces 
 the heroism of our ancestors. Had they, 
 indeed, displayed more tact, and had they 
 been willing to sacrifice conviction and 
 principle, they might have been absorbed 
 in the common mass ; the loss would have 
 been humanity's. A hostile Berlin paper 
 acquits conformists, and charges the sins 
 of to-day upon " a generation which has
 
 An Ancient Grudge 1 1 1 
 
 broken from the old covenant and the 
 principles of their fathers." 
 
 Those who advise a surrender of all 
 that is distinctive in Judaism may mean 
 well but they counsel treason. The Jews 
 will act wisely in considering the condition 
 under which people harmonize and co- 
 alesce in this age. They are not called 
 upon to rebuild the synagogue so that it 
 should be mistaken for a church. They 
 have no right to substitute for the law the 
 temporary caprice of successful business 
 men. They cannot gain public esteem by 
 hypocrisy, and they should not delude 
 themselves into the belief that the age of 
 speculation will endure forever. They 
 should simply be Americans in America, 
 Germans in Germany. This course is 
 precisely in the direction taken by the 
 Israelites of France and England. It has 
 to do largely with externals, with manners, 
 with modes of expression. And yet we 
 should not forget that the most patriotic 
 and honest Americans in a distinctively 
 American city during the Revolution 
 were Quakers, who maintained vigorously 
 their quaint forms of worship and their
 
 ii2 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 unique costumes. Perhaps they would 
 have been as cordially appreciated had 
 they dressed like other men and women 
 but a dishonest Friend, a disloyal Friend, 
 was unknown in the days of Rush and 
 Franklin. Unhappily, the Friends are 
 decreasing the atmosphere of the busy 
 city does not favor the growth of such 
 quiet, old-fashioned bodies. 
 
 Conformity to American ways is not 
 inconsistent with Judaism. Fidelity to 
 Judaism is not in conflict with duty to the 
 State. 
 
 I deny that the average Jew offends 
 more seriously than the average Christian 
 in what are properly considered social 
 blemishes. If a different idea prevails, 
 it is because obnoxious individuals are im- 
 properly taken as types. And it is possi- 
 ble that some Hebrews who have acquired 
 a good commercial standing are unjustly 
 compared as to manner with the old 
 Knickerbockers, or the Bostonians of 
 Beacon Street whereas they simply be- 
 long to the ordinary grades of Ameri- 
 cans, and are, as a class, more intelligent 
 than citizens of like position who are
 
 An Ancient Grudge 113 
 
 Church people and who have dared to 
 censure them. 
 
 A critic of acknowledged powers, writing 
 in a daily paper on New York Society, 
 speaks of " the deterioration of manners 
 consequent on the profuseness and flashi- 
 ness of Society." " As to refinement, 
 grace of manner, courtesy, true polite- 
 ness, they exist, indeed, in individuals, 
 but some deleterious influence prevents 
 their manifestation in Society." " Do 
 we Americans defer to anything except 
 money and political power ? " " We 
 intrude and are expected in turn to toler- 
 ate intrusion. You may do what is selfish 
 and ill-bred, if you will not check me in 
 my selfishness and ill-breeding. Self-re- 
 straint is at the foundation of all polite- 
 ness, and the spirit of our Society seems 
 now to be a mutual condonation of self- 
 indulgence." And the Evening Post 
 in the same strain, emphatically speaks of 
 " the age of Push " and characterizes the 
 offensive manners among New Yorkers. 
 
 American society, generally, has no 
 special right to condemn that part of it 
 which is Jewish.
 
 ii4 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 Insisting that the Jew shall be true to 
 himself even amid the allurements of this 
 speculative age, and shall be better than 
 the man whom the age recognizes as typi- 
 cal, one need simply recall the essential 
 purity and dignity of Jewish home life, and 
 ask what is to be gained by being over- 
 anxious to be considered society people 
 as Mr. White depicts them ? 
 
 Good manners are the test of endur- 
 ance and welcome by the many of a 
 stranger asking admission to their circle. 
 The Jew may urge that his critics con- 
 done a bad life while they will not tolerate 
 eccentric behavior ; he must nevertheless 
 condemn vulgarity and ostentation, and 
 firmly deny that these are the privileges 
 of any man or class, or that they are 
 characteristics to be proud of. 
 
 The world has advanced far enough to 
 rate a man at his true worth, and not to 
 handicap him with the burden of ancestral 
 misunderstandings. The world cannot 
 afford to lose the Jew's sagacity or his 
 fidelity to the law and the Jew cannot 
 endure to live in any land at the price of 
 being hunted down for his faithfulness.
 
 An Ancient Grudge 115 
 
 As if to confound us to throw our 
 theories to the winds we are confronted 
 by a painful state of affairs in Germany. 
 I do not for an instant admit that the agi- 
 tation will lead to legal proscription, and 
 it is clear that the reaction will inevitably 
 come to the relief and the justification of 
 the Jew. The great leaders of true Ger- 
 man thought earnestly condemn the anti- 
 Semitic movement. Mommsen, Vogt, 
 Virchow, a host of great men, are with 
 Lazarus, Lasker, and their colleagues. 
 And the Crown Prince sought opportuni- 
 ties to indicate his frank and manly views. 
 
 So far as the agitation is maintained in 
 the interest of the Church, it is opposed to 
 the spirit of the times. The Church that 
 favors proscription must go to the wall. 
 Even the Emperor, beloved for his glori- 
 ous career, cannot shelter Stoecker. A 
 republic has heretofore succeeded priest- 
 ridden imperialism. The agitation can- 
 not command to any extent the assistance 
 of ignorance of the Jew's claims to re- 
 spect as a man that relic of feudalism 
 has gone down beneath the blows of the 
 later chivalry.
 
 n6 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 The proscription rests entirely upon 
 that powerful social instinct combining 
 selfishness, interest, envy of superior as- 
 tuteness, trade jealousy. And in support 
 of a movement against the Jew based 
 upon no other living issue than this, the 
 avaricious and ungifted Teutons and the 
 ambitious and reckless Chancellor make 
 common cause, dreading the loss of power 
 when intelligence spreads throughout the 
 land. So they attack the Jew because 
 he is too industrious, too moral, too 
 domesticated, too pushing. Five hun- 
 dred thousand Jews among forty-five 
 million Christians and men who know 
 too much to believe in God ! What a 
 serious thing if these " aliens " shall mo- 
 nopolize public offices, posts of honor and 
 profit, and the prizes of commercial su- 
 premacy ! Perhaps if they have the ability 
 to attain this distinction, they have the 
 staying power also. Perhaps they will 
 fully understand, without advice from this 
 side of the Atlantic, how to meet this 
 attack of unsuccessful tradesmen, idle poli- 
 ticians, meddling chaplains, and brilliant 
 communists who may claim even Bismarck
 
 An Ancient Grudge 1 1 7 
 
 as an active member of the modern Illum- 
 inati or Dark Lantern Club ! 
 
 This agitation seems to be a bad policy 
 for Germany but the accusation is made 
 and sentence of excommunication is again 
 to be passed upon the Jews on general 
 principles. 
 
 What is happening in Germany may be 
 repeated elsewhere. What policy shall the 
 Jew pursue ? 
 
 If he can be blamed for anything besides 
 a moral cowardice which has persuaded 
 him at times to surrender the priceless 
 heritage of Judaism for a mess of un- 
 clean pottage, it is his readiness to over- 
 rate the condescension of "society" in 
 admitting him on these terms. In certain 
 American cities, he has been guilty of 
 the American weakness pretension, the 
 worship of fashion. He has even exag- 
 gerated this foible, thinking that thereby, 
 with his faster horses, his more expensive 
 opera box, his heavier bills at the seaside 
 resorts, his more costly jewelry, his mag- 
 niloquence, and his indifference to losses 
 at cards or the races, he can prove himself 
 " a bigger man than " his model. At least,
 
 n8 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 that is about what comparatively friendly 
 German critics say of certain newly en- 
 riched barons at German capitals and 
 watering places. 
 
 What a mistake to swerve from that 
 straight line marked out away back dur- 
 ing the exile of Abraham in a strange 
 land, and maintained rigidly by the Law 
 which kept this a people specially favored 
 by light when the world was in darkness. 
 " The better the Jew the better the citi- 
 zen." A good life implies good manners ; 
 they spring, after all, from a kind heart. 
 The counterfeit assumed by the so-called 
 man of the world never had the true ring 
 it is only a tribute to the breeding which 
 is far deeper than superficial politeness. 
 
 Why should the Jews be ambitious to 
 lose their distinction ? If nations whose 
 traditions have moved the world in lofty 
 poesy and are preserved in relics of an- 
 cient art, practised the most debasing 
 rites, murdered the stranger, the infant, 
 the aged, the weak and defenceless, hon- 
 ored robbery and rapine, deified the most 
 adroit heroes of the chase, at a period 
 when the Jews had wise laws, benevolent
 
 An Ancient Grudge 119 
 
 regulations, inculcating love and honesty 
 towards all men if, at a time when even 
 a convent was no longer a safe refuge for 
 a king's daughter, when the powerful 
 barons were merely bandits, when the 
 sovereigns were only of superior might, 
 ruffianism, and chicanery ; when each cru- 
 sade in defence of the Holy Sepulchre was 
 an excuse for avoiding payment of debts, 
 for pillage, for debauchery, for cruel merci- 
 less persecution of the helpless, the Jews 
 were the only people, save an occasional 
 ambitious priest, who cultivated the intel- 
 lect and fostered science and perhaps the 
 only class who respected the purity and 
 possibilities of home life, and these same 
 Jews in their wretched prison-quarters pre- 
 served and embellished a great literature. 
 Are the Jews to-day, whom this ancestry 
 and these laws prepared for the world's 
 battle, for the first time to be stigmatized 
 as cowards, incapables ? 
 
 Pay the world the tribute of dress- 
 ing like other people the Jews do not 
 regard as an inestimable privilege the 
 right to wear the gaberdine ! Is the world 
 suddenly quiet and composed, weary of
 
 120 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 the panoply of war and its simulated 
 fierceness ? Certainly the Jews do not 
 demand the exclusive privilege of loud- 
 ness of speech and deportment. Does the 
 world esteem men not for what they are, 
 but for what they seem ? Why shall not 
 the Jews who are honest, virtuous, de- 
 voted, patriotic, intelligent, industrious 
 seem to be all this? If Jews possess the 
 tact with which they are credited, they 
 will be remarkable men more for the 
 quietest manners and the most effective 
 work for an abhorrence of shams and 
 idolatry. And they will demand of their 
 brethren for whom public opinion has 
 made them somewhat responsible, that 
 they be distinguished for that which raises 
 men in the eyes of their neighbors, frown- 
 ing upon the petty spirit which keeps alive 
 European and local jealousies. 
 
 When a Jew is a merchant, he will 
 abominate false weights and measures, as 
 did his ancestors who observed the Mosaic 
 Law. When raised to a position of pub- 
 lic trust, he will " do justice, love mercy, 
 walk humbly fear God and hate bribes 
 seek the peace of his people and the
 
 An Ancient Grudge 121 
 
 land wherein they dwell " as did his 
 Jewish prototypes. He will train his sons 
 to be expert mechanics or studious and 
 energetic if professional life charm them, 
 but he will disdain the drone, the com- 
 munist, and the trickster. 
 
 He will naturally acquire such of the 
 world's ways as are consistent with hon- 
 esty, and educate his less favored brethren 
 up to the highest standard. Courageously 
 maintaining his faith, he will seek to 
 raise Judaism in generous rivalry with sis- 
 ter-creeds, not merely in the vindication of 
 doctrine, the assertion of liturgical in- 
 dependence, but in deeds which all religion 
 declares to be the highest development of 
 human aspiration towards God prevent- 
 ing pauperism and crime, rescuing the neg- 
 lected, the crushed in spirit. And he 
 should prove his faith by his works if 
 he is proud of his ancestry who preserved 
 and embellished Hebrew literature, let 
 him encourage the study of the literature 
 they preserved. Religious equality has 
 put Judaism on its mettle it must be 
 the equal of the most earnest and useful 
 of sects. Apart from the synagogue and
 
 122 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 under its teachings, the Jew must be a 
 man, doing his part in the world as a true 
 citizen, known in his calling for integrity 
 and ability, recognized as a patriot and 
 an intelligent thinker and participant in 
 affairs. 
 
 But if the Jews are truly wise, they will 
 adopt the best models. In benevolent 
 impulses, in charitable work, they are 
 already observed with at least tardy recog- 
 nition, their institutions for relief of the 
 suffering, the widow, the orphan, and the 
 helpless aged are the means by which 
 the heart of the Christian has been drawn 
 towards them, and their Montefiore is the 
 type of philanthropy. The Jews' benev- 
 olence has overstepped the barriers of 
 caste and creed, as it has already grasped 
 the idea of an alliance for the education 
 and elevation of oriental brethren. 
 
 In the world, as citizens, the foremost 
 men of the Republic must be their models 
 Emerson, who glories in the vindication 
 of merit rather than success Webster, 
 who says " there is no evil one cannot 
 face or fly from save the consciousness of 
 duty undischarged " Lincoln, inspiring
 
 An Ancient Grudge 123 
 
 us " with malice towards none, with char- 
 ity for all, doing the right as God gives 
 us to see the right." 
 
 And thus if the middle ages survive 
 anywhere in spirit, the Jews may by their 
 lives demonstrate how shocking, how ab- 
 surd is the proscription. They must de- 
 clare their ideal, by honoring their best 
 men not for mere success in ways of spec- 
 ulation but for intelligent devotion to their 
 calling, however humble, for honesty and 
 purity in their walks, for patriotic ardor : 
 success of which to be proud must im- 
 ply character, capacity, merit. Rejoicing 
 in their advancement, we think of the glory 
 reflected upon the great family, the race 
 which is undying though empire has been 
 lost and its recovery be unsought. 
 
 With all our might, we must oppose the 
 surrender of Judaism into the hands of 
 the materialists. Judaism is still a power, 
 unless we are recreants. Our creed is no 
 longer a bar to existence as men to the 
 enjoyment of civil rights. 
 
 Let us remember that, as Lessing says, 
 " God educated in the Jews the future 
 teachers of mankind," and exclaim with
 
 124 An Ancient Grudge 
 
 Mendelssohn, " It is by virtue that I wish 
 to shame the opprobrious opinion enter- 
 tained of the Jew." And as the brave and 
 good Prof. Lazarus of Berlin advised and 
 inspired his fellow-believers, " Be loyal to 
 Judaism' 1
 
 MONTEFIORE, THE IDEAL JEW 1 
 
 To turn aside from the frivolities and 
 anxieties of everyday life and contemplate 
 the career of one who has never swerved 
 from a grand ideal and who, superior to 
 allurements and trials, has uniformly main- 
 tained the dignity and the uprightness of 
 the true man may well inspire the world 
 to great thoughts and enduring deeds. 
 
 Who is Montefiore ? I shall not re- 
 capitulate the story of his life, replete with 
 familiar incidents. To what purpose has 
 our Montefiore lived if not to demonstrate 
 that the Jewish heart beats, as ever, re- 
 sponsive to the cry of the downtrodden 
 and oppressed ; that fidelity to Judaism is 
 possible even in this age ; that the world 
 respects and honors the faithful Israelite, 
 honestly, modestly proud not vain of 
 his lineage, his ancestral history of the 
 obligation imposed upon him as one of the 
 race of Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah. 
 
 Observe how this perfect Jew dedicated 
 
 1 Delivered at the Montefiore Centenary, October 25, 1884. 
 125
 
 i26 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 his life to benevolent work. Generous and 
 catholic in his charity, in his sympathies, 
 for he has aided every good cause, be 
 the beneficiaries Christian, Mohammedan, 
 or Israelite, he deliberately undertook a 
 special mission for which no other man 
 was as well fitted, the enfranchisement 
 and elevation of the race. His choice was 
 dictated by wisdom as well as by that no- 
 ble heart. 
 
 Had Montefiore entered the arena of 
 politics, had he undertaken a career ordi- 
 narily sought or followed by contempora- 
 ries of his wealth and position, it is likely 
 that he would have failed to attain results 
 commensurate with his ambition. The 
 contest would then have been unequal, 
 waged by a man of transcendent men- 
 tal power, who remained a Jew. Disraeli 
 alone of British subjects born in the He- 
 brew faith, was fitted to cope with the 
 stormy struggle ; and it demanded all his 
 genius and confidence in himself to rise 
 above the incessant attacks made upon 
 him because of his race, though he had 
 entered the national Church. Disraeli in- 
 deed accomplished his part in the work
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 127 
 
 of emancipation by compelling the Eng- 
 lish reading public to recognize the genius 
 of Judaism, the possession of high per- 
 sonal qualifications in men and women 
 whom early traditions, education, and as- 
 sociations had classed as inferior beings. 
 
 It was reserved for Montefiore to in- 
 spire not alone respect for Hebrews as 
 men and women, but admiration for the 
 race and the faith which could produce 
 such an example of constancy, fidelity, and 
 disinterestedness. 
 
 The basis of his devotion to Judaism 
 and the enfranchisement of the oppressed, 
 was his intense Jewish feeling. His re- 
 ligious training often presented to his 
 vision the prophet Moses who saw his 
 brethren suffer at the hand of the 
 Egyptian taskmaster, saw their bitter 
 anguish, and became their sturdy cham- 
 pion. Our Moses Montefiore manifested 
 the same characteristic devotion to the 
 cause of the enslaved and persecuted. 
 
 Neither did his princely station as an 
 Englishman honored by his sovereign 
 unfit him for a life's work hedged with diffi- 
 culties and tinged with sorrowful fore-
 
 128 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 bodings. For him there was hope a bow 
 of promise in the heavens that seemed 
 so lowering. There was the prophetic 
 declaration in which he implicitly believed : 
 " Israel will be saved by the Lord, in an 
 eternal salvation" " God will not forsake 
 his people." 
 
 How his eye glistened as he recalled 
 the exclamation, "If I forget thee, O 
 Jerusalem ! " It was the magnet that 
 attracted him the electric light that il- 
 lumined his world. " If I forget thee, 
 O Jerusalem ! " 
 
 His armorial bearings, his crest, do not 
 assert his family pride, the strong right 
 arm of some valiant ancestor, but mod- 
 estly he bears the motto " Think and 
 Thank " ; and lovingly, bravely, defiantly, 
 the lion of Judah supports the shield, with 
 a pennon emblazoned " Jerusalem." 
 
 Towards the East, he turned in prayer. 
 Towards the East, he bent his steps, in 
 quest of help for his brethren, innocent 
 but misunderstood, suffering, persecuted, 
 and in jeopardy. Forty-four years ago he 
 set out on that memorable journey to 
 Damascus, his second campaign against
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 129 
 
 bigotry in the Orient, and secured by his 
 manly defence of his fellow-Israelites the 
 Sultan's judgment in their favor, and the 
 world's acknowledgment of his services to 
 humanity. 
 
 What avail ordinary triumphs compared 
 with this heroic championship of a perse- 
 cuted race ! 
 
 We may well rejoice in Montefiore's 
 abnegation of self his absorption in phil- 
 anthropic work, and be grateful that he 
 pursued the tenor of a tranquil, upright, 
 faithful life, ever striving for the liberty, 
 peace, and happiness of his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 Half a century ago, Montefiore was 
 barely permitted as a Jew to accept 
 the honorary office of Sheriff of Lon- 
 don and Middlesex. He has been priv- 
 ileged to enjoy the delight of witnessing 
 the legal enfranchisement of his brethren 
 even in the Orient : and although the in- 
 explicable agitation of the past three or 
 four years has delayed the absolute fulfil- 
 ment of the international pledge at Ber- 
 lin, may it not be reserved for the 
 revered champion who entered the lists at
 
 130 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 Damascus, at St. Petersburg, at Fez, at 
 Bucharest, at Rome wherever the spirit 
 of mediaeval bigotry and hatred prevailed, 
 wherever Torquemada's mantle had fallen 
 on some modern shoulders to be spared 
 until the olive leaf shall be borne to him 
 from the ruthless, stormy, treacherous wa- 
 ters of the Danube? If anti-Semitism, 
 false and hypocritical in its origin, merci- 
 less and inhuman in its spirit and its policy, 
 reckless and cruel in its deeds, still lin- 
 ger, it cannot but be vanquished in the 
 encounter with such forces as enlighten- 
 ment and justice have, rallied to the de- 
 fence of Judaism. 
 
 Montefiore's sturdy figure, venerable 
 and massive the great oak that has with- 
 stood the fiercest blasts and storms, is 
 outlined against the sky, and there is hope 
 for the weary sufferer. 
 
 This ideal Jew is a tower of strength 
 to the Hebrew cause. He is every inch 
 a man, a citizen but his religion and 
 his race are identified with his life. 
 Happily gifted with a philosophy which 
 prompted him to abandon a prosperous 
 business when he was barely forty years of
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 131 
 
 age, not worshipping wealth, but regarding 
 it only as a means to an end the benefit 
 of humanity, he enjoyed the rare oppor- 
 tunity of studying mankind from the van- 
 tage-ground of the observer who travels 
 leisurely. A love of art, science, and let- 
 ters, a deep interest in passing events, a 
 social connection with " Men of light and 
 leading," an ever-extending sympathy for 
 suffering, and an undying, all-pervading 
 reverence for the Holy Land, have, with 
 his strict fidelity in the practice of a creed 
 which at every stage involves self-denial, 
 kept him young and happy even amid the 
 naturally increasing feebleness of his phy- 
 sical frame, and despite the sorrows of his 
 widowed life. How "his mental force 
 had not abated " when he entered his one 
 hundreth year, was apparent from his cor- 
 dial reception of deputations and addresses 
 from all parts of the civilized world. The 
 special characteristics of Montefiore's ca- 
 reer cannot but exert an enduring impres- 
 sion. He is a philanthrophist because of 
 his race and creed. His training, his 
 mind, his heart and soul have been in the 
 benevolent work maintained without in-
 
 i3 2 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 termission and developed with each new 
 call upon his sympathy. 
 
 I have referred to his reverence for the 
 Holy Land. Certainly, if a reply were 
 requisite to the charge that Jews cannot 
 be patriots, the policy and practice of this 
 Israelite would supply it. 
 
 Montefiore's interest in the regenera- 
 tion of the Holy Land sprang from his 
 religious zeal, but was ever stimulated by 
 the sight and the study of the distress en- 
 dured there. He loved Jerusalem. He 
 could not witness physical or mental 
 anguish without seeking to alleviate it. 
 Hence, he engaged in the task of remov- 
 ing the causes of suffering, improving the 
 water supply, aiding agricultural move- 
 ments, building homes for the homeless, 
 hospitals, and orphanages. Hence, he 
 contended with local and general officials 
 for decrees in behalf of the resident 
 Hebrews. 
 
 And did this life-long labor for the bene- 
 fit of Palestine obnoxiously intrude itself 
 into his career as a citizen ? Successive 
 ministers of State, the Queen, and all 
 England have cordially borne testimony
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 133 
 
 to the universal honor in which he is held 
 as a loyal subject. 
 
 His active interest in Palestine has 
 necessarily led to many a movement in 
 the like direction. His stewardship of the 
 munificent bequest of the American phi- 
 lanthropist Judah Touro was a noble 
 tribute of the pious patriarch to the be- 
 nevolent stranger who did not " forget 
 Jerusalem." 
 
 For thirty years, a modest society of 
 New York, founded by Sampson Sim- 
 son, another American philanthropist, has 
 regularly transmitted its income, and from 
 distant western towns in this republic 
 have annual stipends gone to swell the 
 fund contributed in Europe for the chari- 
 ties of Palestine. 
 
 If this interest be but sentimental, apart 
 from the humane impulse to relieve dis- 
 tress anywhere, if there no longer exist 
 in western countries a general belief in 
 restoration to the Holy Land, neverthe- 
 less Montefiore's half-century of work has 
 rendered still more sacred the places that 
 Christians, Jews, and Moslem alike rever- 
 ence, and is surrounding them with the
 
 134 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 agencies of modern progress, schools and 
 other centres whose utility is reflected in 
 the improved tone of the people. 
 
 Montefiore has stimulated a generous 
 rivalry throughout the civilized world in 
 movements for the enfranchisement of 
 oppressed races. Whether Jerusalem 
 shall in our day be the rallying-point of 
 the Jewish nationality, as Athens has be- 
 come of the re-established Greeks, and 
 Rome of liberated and united Italy is a 
 mystery whose solution is known only to 
 God. But beginning with the recogni- 
 tion of the Jew as a man in the land 
 of his birth or adoption, there has been 
 a steady advance in modern sentiment, 
 finding expression at Berlin in 1878 in 
 the condition imposed upon the new 
 sovereignties of Roumania and Servia, in 
 favor of religious liberty to all mankind, in- 
 cluding the Jews. The generous protest 
 of gifted George Eliot may yet be deemed 
 prophetic in a startling realization of the 
 hope once universal, and never doubted 
 by the man whose centennial we are cele- 
 brating the enfranchisement of the Holy 
 Land, its restoration as the centre of a
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 135 
 
 reinvigorated nationality. Can the im- 
 pression ever be effaced from our memory 
 of the great work for emancipation accom- 
 plished and stimulated by the revered 
 philanthropist ? 
 
 Irresistibly we recall the name Cre- 
 mieux the noble record of the "Alliance " 
 the 10,000 Hebrew children in eastern 
 climes whither Montefiore had journeyed 
 for the rescue of the persecuted fathers 
 now gathered in schools, which train them 
 as intelligent, industrious, and faithful Jewb 
 and citizens. 
 
 A colony bearing his name was estab- 
 lished in Kansas just one year ago. Ref- 
 ugees from Russian persecution fled 
 thither to enjoy in America the privileges 
 of liberty. No tribute received by Sir 
 Moses Montefiore will be more welcome 
 to-day than the scroll exquisitely written 
 in Hebrew by one of the colonists, ex- 
 pressive of their heartfelt sentiment, and 
 signed by the ten settlers who have in 
 their first year of freedom found them- 
 selves the peers of men of industry and 
 faithfulness the world over. Each of the 
 ten is a Montefiore student constrained
 
 136 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 by genuine appreciation of the con- 
 trast between the past and the pre- 
 sent to aid in his way the work of bene- 
 volence. And no greater satisfaction 
 to the human mind is possible than that 
 to be experienced by each agent in this 
 work. 
 
 This is Montefiore's monument, the 
 maintenance of his name as symbolic of 
 true Judaism, of true philanthropy. Its 
 manifestation takes the form of a Home 
 for the Aged at Cleveland, a College 
 Professorship at Cincinnati, a Home for 
 Chronic Invalids in New York, a ward in 
 the Philadelphia Hospital, divers charita- 
 ble plans in other places, religious services 
 throughout the civilized world the 
 spirit is the same everywhere. It is an 
 irresistible impulse to emulate the doing 
 of good which this venerable man has 
 made his life's study. It is an impulse 
 from the purest source directed to the 
 highest end. 
 
 Thus many a stream, however insignifi- 
 cant its origin or devious its winding, 
 makes its way surely into the great ocean 
 of human existence, deriving its vigor
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 137 
 
 from the life-giving elements collected in 
 its course. 
 
 At a period when man's estimate of his 
 fellow-man is based upon ephemeral suc- 
 cess rather than merit, universal acclaim 
 pronounces Montefiore's fame most en- 
 during. It is not fortuitous that the bene- 
 factors of the human race should be 
 among those who attain great age. Con- 
 templating affairs from a higher plane than 
 that which bounds the vision of mankind 
 generally, they are free from the anxieties 
 and torments incident to the struggle for 
 existence. They have made their peace 
 with the world. Even a great sorrow 
 leaves upon their placid existence an im- 
 press which resignation and faith gently 
 subdue and efface. 
 
 Such a life is a bulwark which sturdily 
 resists the rushing of mighty waters. In 
 an age of self-seeking, this unselfish man 
 stands firmly as a rock, and pursues his 
 benevolent purposes. In an age of infi- 
 delity, this faithful man is animated by 
 sterling loyalty which embraces his native 
 land no less than the creed, the race, 
 which are his heritage. In an age when
 
 138 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 
 
 Judaism is the object of misconception 
 and ungenerous and unjust assault, when 
 Jews murmur because of sacrifices entailed 
 by Judaism, he is a relic of the patriarchal 
 times, his fidelity to the most exacting 
 ceremony regarded with respect by the 
 non-conformist, for his sincerity is univer- 
 sally conceded, his religion is known to 
 be dear as life itself. 
 
 Are the Hebrews the better perma- 
 nently for such an example? Is Mon- 
 tefiore's name emblazoned upon their 
 banner to be forgotten in less than a gen- 
 eration ? 
 
 While in many lands heroes are 
 honored with statues and noble struc- 
 tures in recognition of brilliant conquests, 
 while there rises, too, many a grateful 
 shaft in memory of a renowned poet or 
 orator, Montefiore will be remembered in 
 the freedom he has gained for the en- 
 slaved, in the benevolent institutions 
 reared by him or under his inspiration. 
 No statue designed to perpetuate his 
 form and features can define the Monte- 
 fiore the world reveres his soul, his 
 spirit, his energy, his constancy are
 
 Montefiore, the Ideal Jew 139 
 
 imperishably recorded in the annals 
 of time, and elevate the story of human 
 effort for emancipation from material- 
 ism.
 
 THE PEOPLE AND THE SYNA- 
 GOGUE 1 
 I 
 
 WHAT is the mission of the Synagogue ? 
 What is permanently influential in the 
 Synagogue not merely the individual 
 house of prayer, but the aggregation of 
 places of worship in a country, a city, a 
 century, the co-operation of this force 
 with the people, occasionally reverential, 
 often indifferent, and at times hostile to 
 the idea of religion which implies sacrifice, 
 the surrender of some personal independ- 
 ence of thought or action, the subordina- 
 tion to the public good of pleasure, of 
 apparent interest ? 
 
 It is not simply a question of ritual, 
 changes in the form of worship as centu- 
 ries pass, as men improve or deteriorate ; 
 but the more comprehensive subject 
 Synagogue and People as co-operative, as 
 
 1 Delivered before the New York Section, Council of Jewish 
 Women, February, 1903. 
 
 140
 
 People and Synagogue 141 
 
 identical in purpose, as reciprocally moved 
 by forces existing through the ages. 
 
 Perhaps we ought to consider the 
 Synagogue as a Jewish equivalent for 
 the Church sometimes indissolubly con- 
 nected with the State, sometimes entirely 
 independent and associated intimately 
 with influences foreign to political envi- 
 ronment. 
 
 While the purpose and mission of the 
 Synagogue have been defined in diverse 
 language and after varying standards, it 
 seems quite appropriate to begin the 
 study with a reference to the marvellously 
 modern address delivered at the dedica- 
 tion of the Temple at Jerusalem about 
 3000 years ago. The orator on that mem- 
 orable day was a personage who, if now 
 living, would be hailed as easily among 
 the leading financial, commercial, military, 
 and intellectual potentates of the century. 
 He was a great sovereign, a gifted poet, 
 a profound philosopher, a rare diploma- 
 tist, a creator of armies and navies, a 
 superb architect, a genius in music and in 
 psalmody. 
 
 But whether or not King Solomon is
 
 H 2 People and Synagogue 
 
 entitled to our homage as a perfect man, 
 an example for all ages whether or not 
 he wrote the books ascribed to him 
 whether or not the prayer, as it has come 
 down to us, was literally his composition, 
 when he addressed the people he was rec- 
 ognized as the teacher, the organizer, the 
 leader, the man of power. 
 
 The Ark of the Covenant, the tent of 
 the assembly, and all the sacred vessels 
 had been brought up to the most holy 
 place in the Temple at Jerusalem, where 
 for four hundred years the worship of 
 God was to be maintained. The remote 
 past, the magnificent present, the un- 
 known future, are united in the grand 
 picture of the mission of the Temple 
 the sanctuary comprehending the Tablets 
 of Stone confided to the Ark by Moses 
 five hundred years before, the holy ves- 
 sels carried by Titus in his triumph after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem and the 
 second Temple nine centuries after Sol- 
 omon. There are millions of Jews to-day 
 who, intelligent citizens of empires and 
 republics or oppressed subjects of the des- 
 pots still surviving, believe in God and
 
 People and Synagogue 143 
 
 His Law, believe in the inspiration of the 
 Bible, believe in the truth of records that 
 connect Moses, Solomon, and the Macca- 
 bees and the last defenders of Jerusalem 
 carried captive to Rome. The arch of 
 Titus, standing near the Tiber, preserves 
 the forms of the holy vessels taken from 
 the Temple. 
 
 It is recorded that the King offered at 
 this dedication a sublime prayer. The 
 compilers of our liturgy have preserved it. 
 Beyond and above all the special occa- 
 sions for supplication still noted in the 
 ritual of Christians and Jews the prayer 
 for rain in its season, for rescue from en- 
 emies, for deliverance from plague, dis- 
 ease, and famine there is the beautiful 
 appeal for forgiveness of sin as any man, 
 or all the people, shall ask for remission: 
 11 Then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling 
 place and do and render unto every man 
 according to all his ways, whose heart thou 
 knowest, for thou and thou only know- 
 est the hearts of all the children of man." 
 Then the orator prays for " the stranger, 
 not of thy people Israel, when he shall 
 come out of a far country for thy name's
 
 144 People and Synagogue 
 
 sake." And when the battle is waged 
 against the enemy God is asked to main- 
 tain the cause of Israel. 
 
 II 
 
 The earlier places of worship the 
 Tabernacle, the altars set up in patri- 
 archal times, the various sanctuaries other 
 than the Temple did not possess the 
 permanence, the universality of the Tem- 
 ple at Jerusalem, towards which wherever 
 Israelites dwell they still pray, as Sol- 
 omon advised and directed with the au- 
 thority of the spiritual and temporal head 
 of an empire. The Jewish nation is dis- 
 persed and has ceased to be an entity 
 the race is still alive and vigorous, 
 though often reduced by material pros- 
 perity to spiritual penury. The Jewish re- 
 ligion cannot die. It is immortal. The 
 unity of God, the brotherhood of man 
 born of the race or the stranger who de- 
 sires to join in our communion or who is 
 of different faith, "-for the righteous of 
 all nations shall have a portion in the 
 world to come," these essential articles 
 of belief and practice, creed and deed, are
 
 People and Synagogue 145 
 
 universal and it is the mission of the Syn- 
 agogue to perpetuate their maintenance. 
 It cannot be claimed that during the 
 entire period of the existence of the Tem- 
 ple the first and the second Temple 
 
 the people were always reverent or obe- 
 dient to the Law. Josiah, indeed, restored 
 the older worship and destroyed every 
 vestige of idolatrous symbols, introduced 
 by his predecessors. While the first Tem- 
 ple existed, king after king led the people 
 astray and prophet after prophet met the 
 fate of reformers. And then followed the 
 overthrow of the kingdom the exile 
 the great work of Ezra and Nehemiah 
 
 the rebuilding of the Temple the 
 glorious era of the Maccabees the final 
 destruction of the Temple by the Romans 
 the wonderful preservation of the people 
 and their religion, while the exiles thought 
 of Zion and wept bitterly as they recalled 
 her abasement. Rome was cosmopolitan 
 
 every religion was tolerated so long as 
 the professors rendered to Caesar his due. 
 Synagogues were numerous and the move- 
 ments of Jews kept pace with the empire 
 as it colonized the Atlantic, Asiatic, and
 
 i4 6 People and Synagogue 
 
 African coasts and the provinces of Eu- 
 rope. Migrations to Alexandria and other 
 cities were attended with prosperity and 
 spiritual influence. And they settled in 
 the interior of Europe the kingdom of 
 Poland treating the Jews justly the Cru- 
 saders pillaging the Jews on the way to 
 fight for the Holy Sepulchre. 
 
 The political and social as well as the 
 religious activity of the Jewish people 
 a nation already marked for conquest and 
 destruction was centred in the Tem- 
 ple. Fidelity to the Law alternated with 
 surrender to malign external influences, 
 to selfishness and corruption. Jews, dis- 
 persed, denied equality of rights, com- 
 pelled to stand together for defence against 
 a common enemy, for appeal to an appar- 
 ent protector, sought an intellectual and a 
 spiritual refuge, a centre of social and relig- 
 ious life and found it in the Synagogue. 
 Why dwell upon the melancholy story 
 of the centuries prior to the nineteenth ? 
 Except in the United States, England, 
 Holland, and France, Jews were until the 
 middle of the nineteenth century foreign- 
 ers wherever they dwelt. While individuals
 
 People and Synagogue 147 
 
 professing the Jewish faith and preserving 
 racial characteristics differing from those 
 of the peasant and the nobles of their vi- 
 cinage were separated all the time except 
 as the exigencies of trade compelled some 
 contact between the Semite and the Aryan, 
 the keen necessity for relief from mental 
 and physical depression stimulated the 
 devotion of these people to religion and 
 Hebrew study. The Synagogue and the 
 school were together the centre of Jewish 
 life in the middle ages. The industry and 
 persistence of recent Jewish students and 
 writers, whose works are accessible in the 
 original or in translation, have disclosed 
 the undying influence of the Synagogue 
 during these centuries of oppression and 
 persecution. 
 
 Ill 
 
 We hear of the Ghetto as suggestive of 
 darkness and degradation. While all 
 around was darkness, the Ghetto, like 
 the land of Goshen in the days of Pharaoh, 
 was an illumination for the ages. Jews, 
 faithful to their religion, were distin- 
 guished in Spain and Portugal for what-
 
 148 People and Synagogue 
 
 ever dignifies and ennobles the individual 
 man, until Torquemada, the Pobiednostzeff 
 of the fifteenth century, conspired with 
 the other inquisitors and created public 
 opinion compelling the exile of the very 
 best of the residents of Iberia. Jews, 
 faithful to their religion, lived together "in 
 the Ghettos of Frankfort, Worms, Prague, 
 Rome, Venice, and their piety, profound 
 learning, wondrous love of letters, fidelity 
 to home, to the Law, extended beyond 
 the gates, excluding them from associa- 
 tion with the peasants and the nobles, 
 ignorant and cruel, rapacious and super- 
 stitious, whose record strangely recalls 
 that of the modern Roumanian. Whether 
 in Spain as honored subjects, or in the 
 Ghetto as despised foreigners, the Syna- 
 gogue was the centre of life for the Jew 
 Toledo and Prague tell the same story. 
 And in the general revival of learning, 
 Jewish scholars were distinguished. His- 
 tory does them the justice of appreciation 
 of their intellectual powers their leader- 
 ship in various departments of knowledge. 
 With the German struggle for liberty, 
 the activity of the Synagogue assumed a
 
 People and Synagogue 149 
 
 new phase. British, French, Dutch, and 
 Italians professing the Jewish faith con- 
 tinued conservative, while the established 
 Church constrained some legal inferiority 
 to continue the portion of the Syna- 
 gogue even in comparatively liberal Eng- 
 land until political equality was followed 
 by recognition of manhood as the single 
 test applied to Jew and Christian alike. 
 The people who were British by nation- 
 ality and Jews in creed maintained the 
 waiting attitude characteristic of their sur- 
 roundings Germans were instantly ani- 
 mated by the spirit of progress, and were 
 not greatly disturbed by the snubs and 
 political conditions which interfered with 
 their plans for putting Judaism forward. 
 
 IV 
 
 In 1846, a Synagogue was dedicated in 
 New York, whose membership included 
 most of the English and American Jews 
 following the German or Polish minhag. 
 The Portuguese congregation had endured 
 for nearly a century and still exists. The 
 Jewish population of New York may have 
 exceeded a thousand souls. The German
 
 150 People and Synagogue 
 
 immigration began very shortly, and 
 in 1850 there were several German Syna- 
 gogues, some of which survive, and are 
 influential. At first, the Synagogue was 
 universally maintained in its solitary dig- 
 nity not merely as a place of worship, but 
 as a charitable and social centre each 
 Synagogue its own arbiter of manners and 
 morals. 
 
 One little Synagogue on Wooster 
 Street was the most imposing architec- 
 turally the Greene Street building soon 
 rivalled it. Individual Jews were making 
 their way. When the war of 1861 broke 
 out, there were citizens of the Jewish faith 
 who entered the national service, and 
 others contributed to the Defence Fund, 
 the Sanitary Fair, and like patriotic work. 
 The ministers of the leading Synagogues 
 Crosby, Wooster, and Greene Streets 
 were well-known and honored by the gen- 
 eral public, and they were leaders, like Dr. 
 Bellows, Dr. Chapin, Dr. Tyng, and the 
 Catholic prelates. Temple Emanuel was 
 in Twelfth Street, and its venerable Rabbi 
 was beginning to be known in America as 
 a profound scholar. Then Dr. Fischel
 
 People and Synagogue 151 
 
 became an army chaplain, visiting the 
 camps near Washington. Dr. Raphall 
 was positive as a defender of slavery. 
 Rev. S. M. Isaacs was respected as a 
 faithful preacher and teacher and a citi- 
 zen of anti-slavery views. Dr. Einhorn, 
 too liberal and too northern in sentiment, 
 left Baltimore for Philadelphia, and ulti- 
 mately came to New York. 
 
 After the war, shoddy. After the " in- 
 dustry, simplicity, and vigilance of the 
 forefathers " came the prosperity, the pre- 
 tence, the extravagance of the era of 
 Gould and Fisk. How could individual 
 Jews escape the contagion ? They did 
 not escape. They were no better than 
 their neighbors. 
 
 Before the war, as in olden times, the 
 Synagogue was the centre. When a 
 mother had been blessed with a child, she 
 visited the Synagogue at a convenient 
 season and the minister prayed with her. 
 When the boy attained his thirteenth 
 year, his family and the entire congrega- 
 tion sympathetically listened to the lad 
 lisping his vow of fidelity, as did the Chris- 
 tian knight in the era of chivalry; and, after
 
 152 People and Synagogue 
 
 service, there was open house and there 
 were generous remembrances for the poor. 
 When the young man was about to marry, 
 he attended the Synagogue the Sabbath 
 before the wedding, and was called to read 
 or hear a portion of the Law. Congratu- 
 lations were universal. When sorrow 
 overtook a family, the entire body sympa- 
 thized. There were members who relig- 
 iously attended every funeral and walked 
 to the cemetery or the ferry. Each Jewish 
 festival was cheerfully observed. Chan- 
 uka, Purim, the Rejoicing of the Law, 
 each had its appropriate celebration, its 
 favorite melody harmoniously attuned and 
 the whole congregation joining. Needless 
 to speak of the solemn days. The Sab- 
 bath was a delight. 
 
 After the war, the financial issue predom- 
 inated. Eligibility as trustee passed away 
 from the class of observant members, 
 men who knew something of the Mosaic 
 Law and the ritual, and the successful 
 candidate usually owed his popularity to 
 his purse or his prominence as a mer- 
 chant. The minister, except in rare in- 
 stances, was subordinate to the president.
 
 People and Synagogue 153 
 
 The pulpit was reduced to the ranks, there 
 was no place for the standard bearer. 
 
 Now we come to the parting of the ways. 
 The contest was unequal. German phi- 
 losophy and progress won the day ; and 
 in part it was natural and fortunate. 
 But " Historical Judaism," whether consid- 
 ered in connection with Judaism or with 
 history, was to be relegated to the rear. 
 Had the re-organizers been as well in- 
 formed in ecclesiastical matters as they 
 were in commerce and finance, they would 
 have done less injury. At least they 
 would have conceded that the minister 
 was an expert. But they had demanded 
 too much of the mere scholar and theolo- 
 gian. He was to read into Moses, Isaiah, 
 Ezekiel, Ezra, and Nehemiah something 
 essentially local, temporary, commercial, 
 and modern. 
 
 At first, slight changes in the ritual 
 were suggested and adopted. Then es- 
 sentials were attacked. Then the customs 
 of the churches were insisted on. Histor- 
 ical Judaism not alone local customs of
 
 154 People and Synagogue 
 
 a German or a Polish village, but provi- 
 sions of the Mosaic Law as preserved un- 
 til this century and now more than ever 
 regarded with respect by scholars, Jewish 
 and Christian was no longer the guide. 
 New prayer books were written and pub- 
 lished and actually used, to be put aside 
 for other books with a change of adminis- 
 tration. The sympathy of the member of 
 a congregation with the Synagogue idea 
 was supplanted by the unskilful adaptation 
 of advanced thoughts for a population 
 hardly prepared for their apprehension. 
 And now ? Ethical Culture contemplates 
 the restoration of ceremonies. 
 
 Be it understood that the Temple at Je- 
 rusalem was the place of worship for all 
 including even the stranger ; that the 
 Synagogue in the early centuries of the dis- 
 persion, in the middle ages, and in modern 
 times was not simply the building where 
 stated religious services were conducted, 
 but each Synagogue and all Synagogues 
 combined stood for a religious body hav- 
 ing in common social and political needs 
 and aspirations. The Synagogue, like the 
 Church, was firm in adherence to law, was
 
 People and Synagogue 155 
 
 intolerant of dissent, was often unjust to 
 men of light and leading, but bore a nota- 
 ble part in the entire work of the whole 
 community. 
 
 Divine service is not the only sphere 
 of the Synagogue. Its influence in recent 
 days has been weakened not alone by 
 irrational and inconsistent changes in the 
 ritual, but by the action of the community 
 in withholding from the Synagogue its 
 centripetal force. Education, charity, 
 social functions, still demanded a centre 
 and united action. In place of the Syna- 
 gogue, there sprang up indispensable 
 agencies which enlisted the sympathy and 
 devotion of the people. While in the 
 middle ages and down to the very modern 
 period every communal movement began 
 in the Synagogue, the recent tendency is 
 away from the Synagogue, except only as 
 a place of worship crowded three times a 
 year, and open twice a week for advice and 
 consolation to mourners, and affording 
 stated opportunities for criticism of minis- 
 ter and choir. 
 
 The power of the Synagogue had 
 waned, largely because of unintelligent
 
 i5 6 People and Synagogue 
 
 tampering with the liturgy. A poet's 
 pride sometimes moved a minister to write 
 an ode or a hymn which must be heard in 
 the Temple. A famous Christian clergy- 
 man refers to the twelve hundred hymns 
 in the church book, while so few strike the 
 heart. Happily, there is a desire to return 
 to the Psalms, and to melodies familiar 
 and charming because of associations. A 
 Union Prayer Book is itself a step forward 
 but, strange to say, it is most successful 
 where it retains the ancient language, 
 either the Hebrew of the King James 
 English version. 
 
 Now, apart from the service, there are 
 signs of a return to the simplicity of our 
 fathers. The Sisterhood, the Young Peo- 
 ple's Society, the occasional conferences of 
 officials, the constant use of the Temple 
 rooms for communal meetings, illustrate a 
 refreshing appreciation of the Synagogue's 
 mission, as a centre of religious, educa- 
 tional, benevolent, and social activity. 
 
 One general criticism the Synagogue, 
 representing a large investment, is used 
 inadequately. Why should not Syna- 
 gogues, like some churches, be open all
 
 People and Synagogue 157 
 
 day for rest and meditation ? A happy 
 thought was the People's Synagogue in 
 the Hebrew Institute where a model 
 service arouses preoccupied residents of 
 the crowded section ; and, especially, that 
 inspiration of the old Hebrew Free School 
 Association, the children's service on Sab- 
 bath afternoons. 
 
 Naturally, the Jewish Sabbath looms 
 up as a serious question. In these days 
 of close business competition, it is very 
 difficult for men in commercial and finan- 
 cial circles to adjust themselves to the prac- 
 tice of closing stores and offices on Sat- 
 urday the half-holiday notwithstanding. 
 
 If so, what obstacle exists to attending 
 the afternoon service with one's wife and 
 children ? Why not resume the old-fash- 
 ioned Friday evening consecrated to home 
 to family service to family reunion to 
 the loveliest, most potent, most enduring 
 influence for spiritual awakening ? I would 
 plead for this restoration, and insist that 
 whatever philosophical research or the 
 higher criticism may be able to demon- 
 strate as to the construction of some Bible 
 verses, chapters or books as to the iden-
 
 158 People and Synagogue 
 
 tity of this or that ancient Jewish cere- 
 mony with an Egyptian or a Babylonian 
 custom however modern ideas may be 
 inconsistent with the retention of one or 
 another regulation, based upon Mosaic 
 Law no matter what reason there may be 
 for abandoning the custom of Warsaw or 
 Worms or Nuremberg despite all argu- 
 ment in favor of a surpliced choir, or a 
 flute instead of a shofar, or an Italian 
 baritone rather than the Polish chazan, or 
 an all-English instead of an all-Hebrew 
 liturgy nothing has "been advanced that 
 can possibly supersede Friday night in the 
 Jewish home. 
 
 As a matter of justice, it should be 
 stated that possibly the church exerts no 
 greater influence than the Synagogue in 
 attracting constant attendance at regular 
 service. A fashionable church on Sunday 
 often illustrates the unwillingness of the 
 men to give up their home occupations 
 and club amusements. Some sensation, 
 some special call, fills the church. The 
 Jew has an additional excuse Saturday 
 is " his busy day." 
 
 The question of Sabbath observance
 
 People and Synagogue 159 
 
 is one of Will, of Duty. The real diffi- 
 culty is in the lack of principle of moral 
 education. True courage is manifested by 
 doing one's duty though the act involves 
 sacrifices. 
 
 VI 
 
 We have always been in a minority. 
 Men of principle are commonly in the 
 minority. Shall we therefore yield and 
 surrender to expediency? Shall we do 
 wrong, because it is easier ? Shall we vio- 
 late the Law which God promulgated on 
 Sinai, because it is less of a sacrifice than 
 to hear and to obey ? 
 
 Yes, sacrifice for principle is unfash- 
 ionable abandon the practice ! Yet half 
 a million of men and women exiled them- 
 selves from home and country rather than 
 give up their religion and this within the 
 past twenty years, and before our eyes. 
 
 Principle is to be abandoned because 
 honesty seems to be unremunerative ; the 
 merchant who pays his debts and taxes 
 cannot apparently compete with the bank- 
 rupt and the man who evades duties and 
 must he therefore discontinue the sacrifice?
 
 160 People and Synagogue 
 
 Have the times changed so completely 
 that the Sabbath cannot be observed? 
 Men who break the Sabbath are not 
 necessarily successful. 
 
 Observing the Sabbath may result in 
 the temporary advancement of others to 
 our apparent loss but it is not a real loss. 
 In the olden time, when the successful 
 Jews in this town were conformists, we 
 had a better standing in the community 
 because of this fidelity to principle. 
 
 Sabbath observance is entirely practica- 
 ble in this State. It is simply a question 
 of obedience to law whatever the sacrifice. 
 
 The sacrifice may be minimized if those 
 in a particular department of manufacture 
 or trade, and of whom a majority are of 
 the Jewish faith, would combine and close 
 their places of business all day Saturday. 
 But the sacrifice must be made. This is 
 a difficult problem, but it is not impossi- 
 ble of solution. The entire question nar- 
 rows down to this : do people appreciate 
 a simple, quiet, and modest life ? Is the 
 social jury which passes upon a man's 
 right to respect on the part of his neigh- 
 bors determined to weigh merits on the
 
 People and Synagogue 161 
 
 scales which some grocers use quantity 
 irrespective of quality or percentage of 
 adulteration? If by common consent 
 ostentation is condemned, then the citizen 
 of upright life can retain his standing 
 although he does not indulge in extrava- 
 gance, and can observe the Jewish Sab- 
 bath though it seems to involve pecuniary 
 sacrifice. If we strive all together to re- 
 store to Judaism the simplicity, firmness, 
 and purity which Ezra and Nehemiah de- 
 veloped on their return to Jerusalem to 
 rebuild the Temple, we shall do our duty 
 and there is constant comfort and delight 
 in the very contemplation of such faithful- 
 ness and resolution. 
 
 VII 
 
 Is it not possible that the logic of the 
 situation demands a popular awakening 
 rather than the abandonment of Judaism 
 or a radical change in the form of worship ? 
 
 Admitting that forms change, there is a 
 demand for the education of men and wo- 
 men up to the standard of firmness, rever- 
 ence, fidelity, which, in ancient days, and
 
 1 62 People and Synagogue 
 
 within the memory of the older genera- 
 tion, characterized the practice of Judaism. 
 
 We are in a land which moves rapidly 
 in material things. We are carried away 
 by this spirit of progress. Materialism 
 gains ground everywhere, so that the 
 Church and the Synagogue alike suffer. 
 As a distinguished college president says : 
 " The whole nation stands in need of bet- 
 ter manners, a soberer discipline, a quieter 
 tone, more spiritual sturdiness, less exal- 
 tation of hardness and success." Sunday 
 is no longer spiritual -in its opportunities, 
 environment, and influence. Why should 
 Saturday rest be a stronger spiritual force 
 than Sunday freedom from business cares ? 
 
 Evidently, the Synagogue owes a duty 
 to the people but this duty consists 
 essentially in adaptability for all time or 
 at least for a generation that shall carry 
 forward to the next generation the blessed 
 influence of holiness and reverence. The 
 Synagogue cannot change with the whim 
 of every fresh trustee, who, being a finan- 
 cial power, must be worshipped as an in- 
 spired theologian. The pulpit should still 
 rule the pew at least to the extent of re-
 
 People and Synagogue 163 
 
 quiring conformity to law, traditions, his- 
 torical Judaism. Let the pew regulate 
 finance and order. 
 
 The question is, rather, what is the duty 
 of the people towards the Synagogue ? 
 And here we perceive that in the past the 
 Synagogue has proved its right of exist- 
 ence its claim upon the respect of con- 
 temporaries, the student of history and the 
 Jewish body. It is still to-day, whether 
 orthodox or reform, entitled to the like 
 respect when conducted in an orderly 
 manner and conscientiously according to 
 the law and the statute which it is main- 
 taining from century to century. 
 
 VIII 
 
 We need a united Synagogue repre- 
 senting all the places of worship in the 
 city. It would impress its great power 
 upon local and national movements for 
 education and progress, for purity in public 
 and in private life, for the true American 
 advancement of all the people. The lead- 
 ers of such a united congregation, with 
 which benevolent and educational societies
 
 164 People and Synagogue 
 
 might affiliate, would be respected as 
 standing for the whole body. It would be 
 inspiring were all the congregations to 
 hold union services at certain times 
 Thanksgiving and other national holidays. 
 Occasionally several ministers would oc- 
 cupy the common platform. United ac- 
 tion is demanded for adequate measures 
 to promote Hebrew and religious educa- 
 tion. Existing schools are confessedly 
 insufficient. Limited provision is made 
 for the many thousands of children not 
 connected with any Synagogue. 
 
 United action would promote the wise 
 and potential measures common to other 
 denominations which impress their influ- 
 ence upon affairs outside the strict prov- 
 ince of the church. 
 
 The disinterested zeal of our ministers 
 has been manifested but the people are 
 backward in supporting the ministers' as- 
 sociation, not infrequently claiming that 
 the interference of the clergy is a hin- 
 drance. Why do not the laymen co-oper- 
 ate with the clergy and strengthen their 
 hands ? With a real union of congrega- 
 tions and societies in every large city, all
 
 People and Synagogue 165 
 
 the communal work would be fully pro- 
 vided for. This applies to the mission, so- 
 called, committed partly to the Jewish 
 Women's Council, partly to individuals 
 and wholly inadequate to the pressing 
 demand. 
 
 In the department of benevolence there 
 is little opportunity for censure. The gen- 
 erosity of a few men has recently strength- 
 ened the Synagogue in its weakest part 
 the preparation of ministers and teach- 
 ers under the guidance of a distinguished 
 Hebrew scholar to carry on to coming 
 generations the Judaism which we believe 
 to be permanent and a perpetual light to 
 the nations. When the Jews of Spain wor- 
 shipped secretly to escape the Inquisition, 
 when the Jews of Germany met at their 
 modest Synagogues in terror lest some 
 military or political force should hale them 
 to martyrdom, when the down trodden 
 Jews of Russia and Poland assembled in 
 their houses of God "to pray, to learn, and 
 to teach" while they were crushed by 
 odious laws and cruel neighbors there 
 were always brilliant, magnificent, power- 
 ful spiritual leaders inspired to heroic de-
 
 1 66 People and Synagogue 
 
 votion by the ancestral faith and history. 
 In our days of prosperity we owe it to 
 ourselves as well as our religion and to 
 God that we should develop in modern 
 Judaism a spiritual power at least keeping 
 it abreast with the progress of denomi- 
 national movements of the century. 
 
 However men may differ as to the pres- 
 ent adaptability of the Synagogue to the 
 kaleidoscopic requirements of the age, 
 there can be no doubt of the duty of the 
 people to rise to the standard which the 
 Synagogue set in Judea, in the Disper- 
 sion, in the glorious days of prosperity, 
 in the sorrowful and disastrous period 
 which, affecting all Europe in the middle 
 ages, still crops out in some benighted 
 lands. Without the Synagogue, Judaism 
 must have perished, except as a cult of 
 antiquarian interest. It is not fortuitous 
 that Judaism alone remains of all ancient 
 religions and civilizations. The divine gift 
 to the Jewish people, The Law, preserved 
 the descendants of Abraham, escaped from 
 Egyptian bondage, led through the wilder- 
 ness to the Promised Land, constituted a 
 nation able to cope with military powers,
 
 People and Synagogue 167 
 
 subject to their own government, republic 
 and kingdom, enduring for centuries and 
 then finally vanquished and dispersed 
 preserved the Israelites from the cor- 
 ruption and decadence, the fate of all 
 other races preserved them individually 
 amid the horrors of persecution and now 
 the Synagogue, where the Law is read 
 and expounded, claims and demands our 
 fealty, our support, our resolute, loyal de- 
 termination that it shall continue a blessed 
 influence from generation to generation.
 
 BARON DE HIRSCH 1 
 
 BARON DE HIRSCH may be regarded as 
 the central figure of an emancipation 
 movement which cannot end until the 
 Jews of Russia are recognized, either in 
 the empire or in their new homes, as en- 
 titled to equal rights with other men. In 
 ancient days, when the sufferings of the 
 Israelites appeared to be beyond solace or 
 relief, a leader arose, who, in God's name, 
 saved the people. Thus the majestic Mo- 
 ses led his brethren out of Egypt to re- 
 ceive the immortal gift of the Law. David, 
 the shepherd king, delivered his people 
 from the Philistines and made Judea a 
 power. Manasseh ben Israel brought about 
 the restoration of the exiled Jews of Great 
 Britain. Mendelssohn compelled the im- 
 partial treatment of the Jews of Germany. 
 Montefiore spent half a century of a glori- 
 ous life in securing religious liberty for 
 the Jews of Eastern Europe. 
 
 In our era, the forces that make for the 
 
 1 Delivered at the banquet to Jesse Seligman, Oct. i, 1891. 
 168
 
 Baron de Hirsch 169 
 
 liberation of the oppressed are moral and 
 material. He who would penetrate the 
 hardened heart of the modern Pharaoh 
 must not only be the philanthropist but 
 essentially the man of affairs. 
 
 Baron de Hirsch is the man for the 
 times the exiles' friend and sturdy pro- 
 tector. He has attained a commanding 
 position socially and financially. He is 
 a man of affairs in the highest sense 
 a statesman who has studied the Jewish 
 question with a thoroughness demon- 
 strating his intellectual power a philan- 
 thropist who has espoused a cause and 
 stimulated men the world over to follow 
 his lead a Jew who believes in the right 
 of his brethren to exist in the land of their 
 birth to advance to equality with their 
 neighbors ; who perceives their capacity 
 and fidelity amid the most discouraging 
 surroundings, and who pins his faith upon 
 their restoration as an agricultural people. 
 
 He has proved his faith by his works 
 the devotion of an immense fortune to 
 the cause he has at heart a deed of 
 philanthropy exceeding in design, in mag- 
 nitude, and in far-reaching consequences
 
 i ?o Baron de Hirsch 
 
 anything that one man has ever done or 
 contemplated for the benefit of his fellow- 
 men. 
 
 He has assented to the expatriation of 
 the Jews of Russia, provided it be at- 
 tended with the least possible friction and 
 suffering. The proposition advanced in 
 the interest of humanity is accepted by 
 Russia, if at all, because any other pol- 
 icy involves irreparable financial disaster 
 throughout the empire. 
 
 The press has educated the Western 
 World to the knowledge of the cruelty and 
 bitterness of this expulsion of men, women, 
 and children, whose sole claim upon the 
 merciless consideration of the Russian 
 Government is their fidelity to their 
 ancestral religion. They have accepted 
 exile as the only alternative. Of their an- 
 guish and torture, mental and physical, on 
 their way from their ruined homes, once 
 the centre of joy, activity, and family dig- 
 nity, to the border where armed sentinels 
 and unarmed ruffians dispute their prog- 
 ress and complete the pillage begun by the 
 police the sad, pathetic, tragic tale has 
 been told a hundred times. Some later
 
 Baron de Hirsch 171 
 
 Homer may recite the wanderings of these 
 sorely tried wayfarers, and tell of their 
 perils between the Scylla and Charybdis of 
 the frontier. Nor need I dwell upon the 
 sorrows of their sojourn in Germany 
 denied every right but that of promptly 
 embarking for the New World or of 
 the voyage across the Atlantic amid the 
 discomfort and distress of the steerage. 
 
 And now they have reached the harbor 
 of our goodly city whose very guardian 
 spirit is embodied in the Statue of Lib- 
 erty ; and friends appear who accord them 
 sympathy and justice denied in inhos- 
 pitable Russia where the virtues of sobri- 
 ety, family affection, industry, and energy 
 are contemned. 
 
 Here begins our duty taking up the 
 burden which brotherhood distributes un- 
 equally. Happily our generous guide has 
 found some energetic followers here with 
 " the heart to feel, the mind to plan, the 
 strength to execute" the noble work of 
 rescue. 
 
 We find the exile slow to apprehend 
 the conditions of his new home. He 
 yearns for his village surroundings, how-
 
 1 72 Baron de Hirsch 
 
 ever repellent they may seem to us and 
 to him in later years. We must remove 
 him from the crowded city that part 
 of it which he seeks, the tenement sec- 
 tion with its atmosphere and occupations 
 dwarfing body and soul. He must not 
 live in a new Ghetto. He must be pre- 
 pared for American life and methods of 
 work. He is diligent, pious, resolute, in- 
 dustrious, and ambitious. He loves his 
 family. We must teach him to love the 
 land of his adoption to honor the repub- 
 lic in the high types of American citizen- 
 ship we may present for his study and 
 imitation. He will learn that there is one 
 law for rich and poor there is no such 
 distinction as that obtaining in Russia be- 
 tween noble and peasant he can live 
 and earn his bread without being obliged 
 to bribe an official for the privilege his 
 children may freely attend the public 
 schools and will not be excluded because 
 of the fear that they will prove dangerous 
 competitors in the struggle for life their 
 intellect against the sloth, the lethargy, 
 and shiftlessness of the Russian peasant. 
 He learns of loyalty to the flag that
 
 Baron de Hirsch 173 
 
 there is no emperor or governor at whose 
 beck he may be railroaded to Siberia for 
 dreaming of liberty. Here, the Jew is a 
 man. If he deserves it, he will win and 
 preserve the good-will and respect of his 
 fellow-men. He may be a college pro- 
 fessor, he may manage a great railroad, 
 he may command a regiment, he may 
 pay or collect taxes, he is among the brave 
 leaders and the humble followers in deeds 
 of courage and mercy. 
 
 To make a man out of this lowly vil- 
 lager is our duty. To create a loyal 
 American out of this victim of tyranny is 
 our duty. To prove to the American peo- 
 ple that we are justified in our faith in the 
 capacity of these exiles to become good cit- 
 izens farmers or mechanics, merchants 
 or students, but always loyal, generous, 
 upright lovers of the Republic Washington 
 founded and Lincoln saved the repub- 
 lic which lives in the immortal works of 
 Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Longfellow, 
 Cooper, Prescott, Lowell this, this, is 
 our duty. 
 
 Are we ready to do our duty? Will 
 each of us say with Baron de Hirsch, " I
 
 174 Baron de Hirsch 
 
 consider myself only the temporary ad- 
 ministrator of my wealth ; it is my duty 
 to contribute to the relief of men hard 
 pressed by fate." 
 
 Noble words ! Do they not move us ? 
 May I not trespass upon the courtesy of 
 this assemblage and ask you to act upon 
 this counsel of Baron de Hirsch this even- 
 ing? Yes, we are ready now to admin- 
 ister upon a portion of our wealth to 
 commit the office of administrator to 
 those who have united in a generous ef- 
 fort for the rescue of these victims of op- 
 pression their elevation to the dignity 
 of citizenship. Yes, "we are ready to re- 
 spond to the call for material aid that the 
 good work may proceed. We recognize 
 our duty as the Baron de Hirsch states it, 
 "to contribute to the relief of men hard 
 pressed by fate. " 
 
 May I venture to depart from precedent 
 and ask the Chairman to second this prop- 
 osition so that this very evening we may 
 gladden the heart of our guest, the Treas- 
 urer of the Fund and demonstrate our 
 love and respect for Baron de Hirsch, the 
 benefactor of our race, by also contribut-
 
 Baron de Hirsch 175 
 
 ing, " to the relief of men hard pressed by 
 fate?" And now and here, as did our 
 ancestors, emerging from Egyptian bond- 
 age and comprehending the glory and re- 
 sponsibility of freedom, let us devote of 
 our means to the building of the taber- 
 nacle of peace in this land of promise ! As 
 in olden days, so in the near future, shall 
 the critic whom a hostile power has re- 
 tained to prophesy the incapacity of 
 these Jews for citizenship be compelled 
 to declare as he gazes on the happy set- 
 tlements of these exiles, " How lovely 
 are thy tents, O Jacob thy tabernacles, 
 O Israel."
 
 JEWISH FARMERS 1 
 
 WHEN the Baron de Hirsch Fund was 
 instituted by the generous giver of a 
 lordly gift in behalf of the oppressed, one 
 of the paramount objects stated in the 
 deed was the instruction of immigrants 
 and their children in improved methods 
 of farming. It was the personal wish of 
 the founder that the encouragement of 
 agricultural work should take shape in 
 the manner found best by experience. 
 It was his firm belief that the Russian 
 and Roumanian Jews would adapt them- 
 selves to farming and would succeed in 
 new countries. He cherished this belief 
 so profoundly that he expended a large 
 amount of money and much energy in de- 
 veloping agricultural settlements in the 
 Argentine. The problem there is difficult 
 and has not been satisfactorily solved. 
 
 Our part in this important trust is to 
 
 1 Delivered at the graduating exercises of the Baron de 
 Hirsch Agricultural School, Woodbine, N. J., March, 1902. 
 176
 
 Jewish Farmers 177 
 
 interest the children of the Russian and 
 Roumanian Jews who come to America, 
 so that they may acquire a taste for farm- 
 ing and may become capable farmers. 
 
 Graduates of this school are given a 
 chance to make a living and a future for 
 themselves and their families. There is 
 no intention and no obligation on the part 
 of the Fund to support them or to dis- 
 pense with faithful and constant labor on 
 their part. Our duty toward them begins 
 and ends with their preparation here. 
 They are entitled to no more. Nor does 
 the Fund exact from them any return ex- 
 cept fidelity to the lessons of industry 
 and self-reliance taught here in harmony 
 with the purely intellectual and technical 
 course. 
 
 They have acquired here no liking for 
 schemes beyond the natural ambition of 
 an industrious farmer or gardener or ex- 
 pert in dairy or other departments where 
 skill, patience, and fidelity are duly re- 
 warded. They have not been inspired to 
 attempt the impossible to indulge in ex- 
 travagance or absurdity by way of diver- 
 sion to undertake raising in New Jersey
 
 178 Jewish Farmers 
 
 crops which demand tropical soil and en- 
 vironment to compete with syndicates 
 having enormous advantages for gigantic 
 enterprises, facilities of transportation, ex- 
 traordinary resources. They have been 
 cheered by the prospect of an honest and a 
 permanent livelihood out of the soil. They 
 have received adequate instruction, theo- 
 retical and practical. Their future is in 
 their own hands. 
 
 It has been said that Jews cannot be 
 farmers as if a Jew were other than a 
 man ! No more adaptable individual than 
 the Jew no race more readily affected by 
 environment than the Jewish. There are 
 seven hundred Jews owning farms in the 
 New England States and they are almost 
 all men who came hither from Russia, 
 and about ten per cent, needed finan- 
 cial aid beyond that which any bank or 
 capitalist would give as a matter of course 
 to the farmer who showed himself indus- 
 trious and thrifty and owned land, and this 
 help we have extended. And all over the 
 Union West and South, as well as in 
 these hospitable Middle States, New Jer- 
 sey, Pennsylvania, and New York there
 
 Jewish Farmers 179 
 
 are farmers who claim lineage with an an- 
 cestry denied the right to till the soil, to 
 own land, or to exist as ambitious human 
 beings. 
 
 Those who deny the race capacity to 
 become farmers forget the lessons of 
 the Bible. The patriarchs were farmers 
 Abraham a very extensive owner of 
 arable land ; Isaac, the student, is in our 
 favorite picture " meditating in the field." 
 He was a man of thought rather than of 
 action, but he loved the country, and when 
 he was blind and his son Esau asked a 
 blessing, the old man enjoyed the savor 
 of the field characteristic of his son. 
 
 In the oriental story we have the inter- 
 esting sketch of Rebecca at the well, prof- 
 fering water to Eleazar and his camels, 
 and Rachel protected from the shepherds 
 by her faithful lover, Jacob, who, for her 
 sake, tended Laban's flocks. This was 
 in a grazing country. In Goshen, where 
 the children of Jacob sojourned while Jo- 
 seph was Pharaoh's chief counsellor, there 
 was abundant grass for the cattle, and 
 these early Israelites were husbandmen. 
 
 There are two pictures of life in Bible
 
 i8o Jewish Farmers 
 
 days we ought not to forget. When Mo- 
 ses enacted the laws of inheritance, there 
 was one owner of a great farm who had 
 died "leaving no sons but only daugh- 
 ters." Well, the daughters of Zelophehad 
 were allowed to own and cultivate the 
 land with the like authority as though 
 they were boys. 
 
 One of the most enchanting pictures of 
 country life the favorite inspiration of 
 poets and artists is the story of Ruth 
 gleaning in the field belonging to Boaz, 
 her kinsman. That was a farmer whom 
 all ages hold in esteem. He carried out 
 the Bible injunction, leaving the corners 
 of the field for the widow and the orphan, 
 and his fidelity led to his perfect happi- 
 ness, as the husband of Ruth, loveliest of 
 women, dearest of daughters, the ances- 
 tress of David. No wonder that the 
 Psalmist justified his ancestry by his love 
 of the country. In the beautiful psalm 
 how he thanks God : 
 
 " In pastures of tender grass 
 He causeth me to lie down." 
 
 David, the shepherd, the poet, is the
 
 Jewish Farmers 181 
 
 hero of pastoral life as surely as any cele- 
 brated in Virgil's verse or in Dryden. 
 " He changeth into rivers a wilderness, and to 
 
 water-springs the parched ground. 
 And there he causeth to dwell the hungry, that 
 
 they may be found an inhabited city ; 
 And they sow fields, and plant vineyards, that 
 
 they may yield the fruits of the soil ; 
 Whoever is wise, let him observe these things, 
 and let all understand the kindness of the Lord." 
 
 Nor should we overlook two institu- 
 tions of the Mosaic system : the festival 
 of the first fruits and of the harvest 
 Pentecost and Tabernacles the latter 
 dignified as the Jewish holiday observed 
 in the captivity. Disraeli wrote sympa- 
 thetically of the Jews of Damascus who 
 continue to hold the Feast of Taberna- 
 cles, their booths erected upon the house- 
 tops a harvest home for a people who 
 had no country. 
 
 Certainly the ages have dealt very se- 
 verely with the pastoral people. And the 
 return to flocks and herds, the cultivation 
 of the soil, vineyards, and the " land over- 
 flowing with milk and honey," is not an 
 easy transition. Centuries ago, the swords 
 were beaten into pruning hooks and there
 
 1 82 Jewish Farmers 
 
 was to be no war. But there has never 
 been peace for Israel, and now the hospi- 
 tality of an American State invites these 
 descendants of Boaz to resume their an- 
 cient vocation. And was Pope prophetic 
 when he said : 
 
 " Haste to yonder woodbine bower, 
 The turf with rural dainties shall be crowned, 
 While opening blooms diffuse their sweets around." 
 
 Our agricultural school opens wide its 
 doors that all may partake of the boon con- 
 ferred by Maurice and Clara de Hirsch. 
 Come all ye that are thirsty for know- 
 ledge, come hither and drink of the pure 
 water of life. And you who graduate to- 
 day, take with you grateful memories of 
 what you have learned here, and apply 
 yourselves to your work in the world with 
 all your heart, all your soul, all your might. 
 Whatever you do, do it with resolution to 
 be good Jews, upright men, citizens true 
 to the Republic which knows no distinc- 
 tion of sect or race, which sets mankind 
 an example of liberty without license, a 
 fair field in which the humblest can aspire 
 to the highest condition and attain it. 
 
 The founders of the Republic left their
 
 Jewish Farmers 183 
 
 farms to fight for liberty. Washington 
 and his neighbors, like Cincinnatus, re- 
 turned to their ploughs when the bugle 
 no longer called them to battle. After Ap- 
 pomattox, the horses that carried the war- 
 riors to the bloody fields of Virginia, were 
 given by the victor to the vanquished, that 
 they might return to the farms and serve 
 in gladness for the recovery of fortunes 
 lost. 
 
 We have offered you the chance to 
 which, as faithful in labor and study, you 
 are entitled. The rest depends on your- 
 selves.
 
 M. LEROY BEAULIEU. 1 
 
 WE are gratified to have an opportunity 
 of extending to our distinguished guest a 
 cordial welcome, this not only because of 
 his reputation as a scholar and a publicist, 
 but also because he has been just to the 
 Jewish race and religion. 
 
 He has gathered with industry and 
 analyzed with consummate skill the facts 
 upon which the prejudices of centuries are 
 based, prejudices which have excused in- 
 cessant hate and persecution of the Jewish 
 rate, which persuade the Russian govern- 
 ment that patriotism and statesmanship 
 demand the concentration of Jews within 
 confines and amid surroundings dangerous 
 to liberty, property, and life, which have 
 led Roumania to exult in her defiance of 
 treaties and of the united public opinion 
 of mankind. 
 
 To recount the studies and the argu- 
 ments of our guest in support of a just 
 
 1 Delivered before the Judeans, May 15, 1904. 
 184
 
 M. Leroy Beaulieu 185 
 
 cause so dear to us, so important to civili- 
 zation, is not my purpose. I shall content 
 myself with observations upon a theory 
 which may have been already propounded ; 
 but the application I desire to offer is 
 based upon conditions in America, where 
 Anti-Semitism does not exist. 
 
 There has arisen in the United States 
 an ungenerous sentiment a social anti- 
 pathy for which no substantial or ade- 
 quate cause can be suggested. It did not 
 prevail a generation ago. It is emotional 
 a matter of social feeling, as inexplicable 
 as many a decree of fashion. It is not 
 powerful enough to affect the position of 
 Jews in the activities of life ; it merely 
 makes sensitive people uncomfortable it 
 is a grievous disappointment to be sin- 
 gled out as the special object of remark, 
 as meriting exclusion from a club one 
 would like to join because of scholarly 
 associations. 
 
 The barrier is social : it cannot disturb 
 the civil rights, the political equality, of all 
 Americans. Starting with the Children 
 attending church and Sunday-school, the 
 dislike is fostered by secret societies in
 
 1 86 M. Leroy Beaulieu 
 
 institutions of learning, and is accentu- 
 ated by the rivalry of the newly rich of 
 American origin as against the newly rich 
 of foreign birth. But will not such bar- 
 riers disappear before the sunshine of the 
 bright day which discloses high ideals 
 attained by some men and women of the 
 Jewish race, and admired by all men and 
 women of the Jewish race ? Will they 
 not disappear as it is made clear that ma- 
 terial success alone is not the goal to 
 which Jews aspire ? They will disappear, 
 as Jews thoughtful, patriotic, brilliant, 
 brave think with effect, write with 
 power, discover and publish truths use- 
 ful and grateful to mankind, proclaim 
 far and wide the brotherhood of man. 
 They disappear as the world honors the 
 benefactor of humanity who declares 
 that " he holds his wealth in trust for 
 those oppressed by fate." They disap- 
 pear before the lofty resolution which 
 inspired and impelled the Jews of the 
 United States, who had in 1881 a position 
 of respect and equality, socially as well as 
 financially, commercially, and politically, 
 to hazard all in their superiority to ma-
 
 M. Leroy Beaulieu 187 
 
 terialism, as they extended a helping hand 
 to "kin beyond the sea," "exiles for 
 conscience' sake." 
 
 The barriers disappear as Jewish or- 
 ganizations, charitable and educational, 
 display originality, persistence, and gen- 
 erosity in maintaining a high standard. 
 Institutions like the Educational Alliance 
 and the Trade School were formed to 
 educate, elevate, and Americanize the 
 new-comers who arrived in great num- 
 bers, differing, in language, dress, man- 
 ners, ideas, methods, and habits, from the 
 people among whom they were to dwell. 
 They aspire to citizenship, are progressing, 
 and begin to assimilate. Centuries of 
 liberty attained in America are impressed 
 upon these heirs of ages of despotism en- 
 dured in Russia. How hopeless was their 
 condition as they reached our shores until 
 they were cheered by the sight of Lib- 
 erty Enlightening the World the statue 
 placed in our harbor by France a souve- 
 nir of ancient friendship and admiration, 
 recalling Washington and Lafayette, com- 
 rades, heroes, typical sons of the great 
 nations.
 
 1 88 M. Leroy Beaulieu 
 
 When the blood of the Russian Jews 
 cried from the ground, we did not turn 
 away coldly, saying, " Am I my brother's 
 keeper ? " We strove to animate and re- 
 store to hope and home the most unfor- 
 tunate of mankind. From the President 
 to the humblest citizen of the Union, there 
 was a generous note of sympathy as the 
 story of Kishineff went round the world. 
 
 The barriers will wholly disappear in 
 time, and it depends upon the American 
 Jews to hasten the coming of that day. 
 Where Anti-Semitism had reared its gor- 
 gon head, commercialism and bigotry had 
 been supreme. Let the Jews of this land 
 perform their duty to their fellow-believers 
 and to the Republic, let them be steadfast 
 in their faith, and their neighbors will 
 appreciate the spirit which has elevated 
 the ideal above the material, constituting 
 the love of one's fellow-men the most po- 
 tent influence, outweighing all care for 
 gain, all fear for censure. 
 
 Our honored guest has the thanks of 
 American Jews for helping to expose and 
 to conquer Anti-Semitism. Manifested so 
 terribly in Russia and Roumania, when it
 
 M. Leroy Beaulieu 189 
 
 dared to rise to the surface in France, 
 Germany, and Austria, it incurred the 
 contempt and condemnation of the best 
 minds. Causing needless and intense sor- 
 row and suffering, it has no excuse for 
 existence anywhere, will be stamped out 
 as a plague, and is destined soon to dis- 
 appear forever.
 
 THOUGHTS FOR THE TIME 1 
 
 I 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE JEW 
 
 THE Jew is not content forever to fol- 
 low in the wake of others. He aspires 
 to leadership. An opportunity to forge 
 ahead is now open to him, and to make 
 the world, and especially America, his 
 eternal debtor. 
 
 For fifty years the representative 
 American Jew of the day has devoted 
 himself with considerable zeal and ability 
 to the acquirement of wealth. His nat- 
 ural thriftiness, and all the powerful 
 influences around him urged him in that 
 pursuit. Originally one, and not the most 
 important, of many ambitions, it rap- 
 idly gained a commanding place. Many 
 Jews have to-day acquired a considerable 
 competency, and a few have attained to 
 great wealth. 
 
 1 From The Jewish Messenger. 
 190
 
 Thoughts for the Time 191 
 
 They have given this ambition full 
 scope, and have realized to a consider- 
 able extent its possibilities, and are now 
 in a position to know what it has yielded 
 them. 
 
 Some it has intoxicated, and they are 
 hopeless money inebriates. With these 
 we have not here to deal. But to the 
 sober, self-respecting, self-restraining Jew 
 with wealth the question must inevitably 
 present itself, "Has it brought what it 
 promised?" "Am I satisfied with the 
 result ? " 
 
 Has it brought social entree where 
 most desired, affection true and unselfish 
 where most needed? Has it sweetened 
 domestic life, brought purity, morality, and 
 refinement into the home? Has it in- 
 vested sons and daughters with strength 
 for the battle of life ; power to resist 
 temptation and sterling capacity to hold 
 their own and turn their way howsoever 
 circumstanced ? Has it been able to ban- 
 ish gloom and misery; or, if not, when 
 sorrow came has it supplied the staying 
 forces to meet it firmly and to survive it 
 nobly, with greater strength as a result
 
 192 Thoughts for the Time 
 
 of the strain ? If it has not done, or can- 
 not do these things, certainly its power has 
 marked limitations. These are, of the 
 realities of life, the most precious, and no 
 reasonable being would sacrifice them to 
 attain other less important results. 
 
 What a superb figure the Jew will be 
 if, with his shrewdness and sagacity, he 
 places principle above interest ; the pure 
 life, unwavering integrity, wisdom, truth, 
 honor, and the spiritual life above mate- 
 rial possessions. He is no mere dreamer, 
 no speculative idealist ; he knows the re- 
 alities of life, and knowing them places 
 the true estimate upon their respective 
 values. Such an example, brilliantly dis- 
 played, would have an enormous influ- 
 ence for good. It would make the name 
 of Jew synonymous with the noblest man- 
 hood and purest, fairest womanhood. It 
 would save the Jew, and none the less the 
 nation. He is the best equipped for such 
 a r6le. His religion, his heritage, his 
 optimism, his destiny, all most forcibly 
 invite to such a course. Not all can have 
 the sturdiness, the self-reliance, and the 
 initiative to enter upon this high engage-
 
 Thoughts for the Time 193 
 
 ment, but the bone and sinew of the Jew- 
 ish people, the remnant untainted and 
 uncorrupted, have still the energy that 
 can make it possible. It is the Jew's 
 great opportunity. Will he embrace it ?
 
 II 
 
 THE JEWISH LIFE 
 
 FEW can deny the general advancement 
 in American Judaism, judged by the ma- 
 terial development that marks a growing 
 and prosperous denomination. And yet 
 one cannot disguise an uneasy feeling at 
 the laziness that prevails respecting the 
 requirements of our faith. 
 
 If conservatives have been unduly rigid 
 in their demands and exactions in an age 
 when self-sacrifice is out of fashion, surely 
 our radicals have gone to the other ex- 
 treme and are in danger of making Juda- 
 ism ethical sentimentalism, a flabby and 
 nerveless string of phrases which we must 
 listen to in the pulpit and press. 
 
 Surely, Jewish life is no misnomer. 
 Has progress ended with synagogue 
 transformations ? These prove nothing. 
 These mean little. These have but scant 
 moral power. We are old-fashioned 
 194
 
 Thoughts for the Time i 95 
 
 enough to believe that the Hebrew's 
 faith is clear and distinct enough in its 
 conceptions of home duties as well as of 
 temple service. 
 
 The religious aspect of that Jewish life 
 we need not glance at this concerns the 
 individual Jew in his private and personal 
 relations. But the social and public point 
 of view is not to be neglected. That we 
 number dishonest as well as irreligious 
 men among us, is not a fact true of the 
 Hebrews alone. But with us more than 
 with any other class, the reputation of 
 the individual affects the entire body. 
 The Jew of commanding personal char- 
 acter unconsciously elevates us ; the dis- 
 honest, tricky scamp, the mean, coarse 
 fellows, born Jews, reflect discredit upon 
 us. 
 
 It should be the aim and purpose of 
 every Israelite to ennoble and dignify his 
 character by a consistent life of upright- 
 ness and integrity, and to discountenance 
 every Jew, no matter how wealthy or 
 prominent, who defiantly lives at variance 
 with the law of truth in its broadest 
 meaning. We have no right to object to
 
 196 Thoughts for the Time 
 
 our neighbor's ignorance of the true Jew 
 and acceptance of its miserable counter- 
 feit, if we cringe before our dishonest 
 brother because he has money and posi- 
 tion, and give him a high seat in the 
 synagogue instead of spurning his bribes 
 and shunning his favor if he refuses to 
 amend. 
 
 Jewish life to-day means the life of an 
 upright, loyal citizen. It signifies a con- 
 sistent adherence to the law of God, a 
 courageous belief in the future of Israel, 
 and a conscientious devotion to duty as 
 a citizen of the world. Jewish life, apart 
 from the rites of family worship, signifies 
 nothing that clashes with the State. 
 
 We have no reason to be ashamed of 
 our household gods. There are Virtue 
 and Love to preside over our homes ; 
 there are the imperishable records of the 
 devotion and martyrdom of our heroic 
 sires to preserve and reverence ; there are 
 the glorious histories of the women of 
 Israel to arouse our affection and admira- 
 tion. The Jewish home is the child's 
 object-lesson in Judaism. 
 
 The peculiar purity and sanctity of the
 
 Thoughts for the Time i 97 
 
 Jewish household, indicated by the virtue 
 and uprightness of the family circle, as 
 well as by the simple prayer, the lovely 
 rite, with their holy reminiscences of the 
 dear ones gone from our side, so far from 
 being at variance with the world, con- 
 tribute to the universal good and happi- 
 ness. The State is protected by pious 
 homes and righteous lives. The Israel- 
 ite at home and in the synagogue is 
 an American in society, in commerce, in 
 the professions. Discouraging pseudo- 
 religious movements, which would re- 
 duce the Jew to the status of a gypsy, 
 and arouse ridicule against Israel as a re- 
 ligious community, he should discoun- 
 tenance and avoid clannishness and 
 exclusiveness a Judaism of isolation and 
 desolation. 
 
 Jewish life assumes and presents its 
 highest and holiest aspects when it sig- 
 nifies the perfect Israelite in the house of 
 God and in the family temple home ; 
 and the faithful, upright citizen above and 
 beyond sectarianism and narrowness and 
 eager to work in all good causes for the 
 betterment of mankind.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE REPUBLIC'S IDEAL 
 
 IN our age of rapid achievement and 
 unceasing activity, it is healthful for the 
 Republic that there are a few pause-days 
 each year which enforce sober reflection. 
 That these national holidays are receiv- 
 ing more thoughtful observance is a hope- 
 ful sign of the times. 
 
 In to-day's celebration, one may par- 
 don for the young people's sake its atmos- 
 phere of fireworks although many cities 
 are curbing the youngsters and insist 
 upon quieter and safer merry-making if 
 its plain, sober meaning be not wholly 
 lost sight of, and the American Republic 
 learn anew its olden lessons. 
 
 The impulse to freedom is humanity's 
 bird-song, whose strains have been heard 
 in all ages and climes. But the struggle 
 in 1776 was original in the men who 
 united in the Declaration, in the age which
 
 Thoughts for the Time 199 
 
 witnessed the conflict, and in the influence 
 it has wielded to our time. 
 
 The men were united by a community 
 of interest, it is true, which gave point to 
 Franklin's jest, that " if they did not hang 
 together, they would hang separately." 
 But that phrase was no mask for selfish 
 enrichment. They were not greedy pro- 
 moters under the cloak of high-minded 
 patriotism. They sought life, liberty, and 
 the pursuit of happiness that was their 
 ideal a freeman's life, liberty under the 
 law, and the happiness of following their 
 own convictions. They had the prophet's 
 insight, the statesman's courage, the sol- 
 dier's heroism. And that is why they 
 conquered. 
 
 Nor was the age less remarkable. 
 Providentially, for a hundred and fifty 
 years, England had been preparing the 
 colonists for independence. Roundhead 
 and Cavalier, Protestant, Catholic, Jew, 
 and Dissenter, all were being sent to a 
 new school. The virginal forest taught 
 them freedom their first clearing made 
 them lose traditional shackles. In the 
 shadow of the hills they saw a vision of
 
 200 Thoughts for the Time 
 
 a loftier humanity than a series of Euro- 
 pean courts and usages. When England, 
 then, strove to use them as vassals, the 
 bird-song of liberty could not be re- 
 pressed, and they fought for civil and 
 religious freedom. 
 
 The influence of the struggle is never- 
 ceasing. But beyond its visible results, 
 about which whole libraries are written, 
 the invisible is apt to be disregarded. 
 When the two commissioners appointed 
 by Congress some years ago visited Rus- 
 sia to investigate the emigration problem, 
 they tell how they came to a town, and 
 when the rabbi, surrounded by his poverty- 
 stricken people, saw them he exclaimed : 
 " Are you Americans ? Do you come 
 from that promised land ? " The Ameri- 
 can ideal had penetrated darkest Russia 
 it was a promised land where all could 
 enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of 
 happiness. 
 
 That was a wondrous spectacle a few 
 days ago in London, when Mohammedan, 
 Buddhist, Fire-worshipper, Brahmin, Ca- 
 nadian, Indian, Protestant, Catholic, and 
 Jew offered prayers for their monarch's
 
 Thoughts for the Time 201 
 
 recovery. But still more sublime is the 
 spectacle which our Republic makes pos- 
 sible eighty millions of people of dif- 
 ferent creeds and none, in one land, and 
 under one banner, following quietly and 
 resolutely the Republic's ideal of life, lib- 
 erty, and happiness for all. There may 
 be harassing problems to solve there are 
 serious obstacles to be faced and sur- 
 mounted. But that is no reason to de- 
 spair of the Republic, which shall grow 
 from strength to strength so long as it 
 holds fast to the ideal enshrined in the 
 Declaration of Independence. 
 
 THE END
 
 
 
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