JEWISH EMANCIPATION
THE whole question of emancipation, as it concerns only our external condition, is in Judaism but of secondary interest. Sooner or later the nations will decide the question between right and wrong, between humanity and inhumanity; and the first awakening of a higher calling than the mere lust for possession and enjoyment, the first expression of a nobler recognition of God as the only Lord and Father, and of the earth as a Holy Land assigned by Him to all men for the fulfilment of their human calling—will find its expression everywhere in the emancipation of all who are oppressed, including the Jews. We have a higher object to attain, and this is entirely in our own hands—the ennobling of ourselves, the realization of Judaism by Jews.
SAMSON RAPHAEL HIRSCH, 1836.
(Trans. B. Drachmann.)
IF the political privileges we have gained could in any way weaken our Jewish sympathies, they would have been purchased at a terrible cost, and would signally defeat the intentions of those who aided and laboured for the movement.
BARON LIONEL DE ROTHSCHILD, 1869.