When I reached Prague in Bohemia I learned that among the masses of the people there is little distinction made between Jews and Germans, since both speak the same language, and the Czechs, confusing the one with the other, hate both with a double hatred, first, for what they are, and then for what they seem to be.
In Vienna and Budapest the Jews, through the newspapers which they control, seem to exercise a powerful influence on politics. I remember hearing repeated references while I was there to the "Jewish press." In Prague it is said that every German paper but one is controlled by Jews. Jews are represented, however, not only in the press in Austria-Hungary, but in the army and in all the other professions. They are not only financiers and business men, but doctors, lawyers, artists, and actors, as elsewhere in Europe where they have gained their freedom. Nevertheless it is still against the law for Jews and Christians to intermarry in Austria-Hungary.
I have referred at some length to the condition of the Jews in other parts of Europe where they have profited by the social and political freedom which was granted them in the course of the nineteenth century, because their progress there is in such striking contrast with their condition as I saw it in and around Cracow, in Galicia; as it is, also, just across the borders of Austria-Hungary, in Russian Poland and Roumania, and as it seems to have been in other parts of Europe seventy-five or a hundred years ago, before the gates of the Ghetto were opened and the inhabitants emancipated.
Some notion of the conditions under which the Jews lived, in almost every part of Europe, a hundred years ago, may be gathered from the restrictions which are imposed upon them to-day in Russia and Roumania. In Roumania a Jew can neither vote nor hold office in the civil service. He is excluded from the professions; he is not permitted, for example, to become a physician or even open a pharmacy; he is not permitted to live in the rural districts; he may neither own land outside of the town nor work as an agricultural labourer. In the mills and factories not more than 25 per cent. of the employees may be Jews. Although they are practically restricted to business enterprises, Jews may not become members of chambers of commerce. Jews are bound to serve in the army, they pay heavier taxes, proportionately, than other portions of the community, but they are classed under the laws as "aliens not subject to alien protection."
In Russia, Jews are not allowed to live outside of what is called the "Pale of Settlement," which includes twelve provinces on the western and southwestern borders which Russia has annexed during the past two hundred years. Only merchants who pay a special license of 1,000 rubles, or about $500, university graduates, and a few others may live outside the pale. A Jew is not even permitted to live in Siberia unless he has been sent there in punishment for crime.
Inside the pale, Jews are not allowed to live outside the cities and incorporated towns. Although Jews are allowed to vote in Russia and send representatives to the Duma, they are not permitted to hold office or to be employed in the public service. They are compelled to pay in addition to the ordinary taxes, which are heavy enough, taxes on the rents they receive from property owned by them, or inheritances, on the meat killed according to the Jewish law, on candles used in some of their religious observances, and on the skull caps they wear during religious services. In spite of this they are excluded from hospitals, schools, and public functions, which, in the pale, are mainly paid for out of the extra taxes imposed upon them.
The most singular thing about it all is that the disabilities under which the Russian Jew now labours are at once removed by baptism. Not only that, but every Jew who allows himself to be sprinkled with holy water, in sign of the renunciation of his religion and his people, receives thirty rubles, "thirty pieces of silver," as a reward.
The Jews whom I saw in Galicia are not subject to any of the medieval restrictions which are imposed upon members of their race in Russia and Roumania. They enjoy, in fact, all the political rights of other races. Nevertheless, Jews in Galicia are said to be poorer than they are in some parts of Russian Poland, although very much better off than in some parts of southern Russia.
Elsewhere in Europe, where they have had their freedom, Jews are as a rule more prosperous than the people by whom they are surrounded. In Berlin, Germany, for instance, where Jews represent 4.88 per cent. of the total population, 15 per cent. of those who had an income of 1,500 marks, or more, were Jews. Statistics show that similar conditions exist in other parts of Europe.[3]