I was interested in all that I saw of the life of the Jew in Cracow, because it gave me some idea of the poverty, degradation, and squalor in which more than half of the Jewish race is living to-day in different parts of Europe. Of the twelve million Jews in the world, about nine millions live in Europe. Of this number more than six million live in Russia and nearly two million and a half in Austria, Roumania, and the other parts of southeastern Europe. I have given some idea of the poverty of the Jews in Galicia, where they are politically free. From all that I can learn the Jews in Russia and Roumania are very much worse off than they are in the Austrian province of Galicia. Most of us, who are acquainted with Jews only in America or in western Europe, have been led to believe, in spite of the evident poverty of many of the Jews who live on the East Side in New York and in the Whitechapel district of London, that, as a race, the Jews are extremely wealthy. I was surprised, therefore, to read recently the statement, made by Jews who have investigated the condition of their own people, to the effect that, while they are undeniably wealthier than their Christian neighbours in the countries in which, during the past hundred years, they have been granted their freedom, taking the Jews as a whole they are poorer than any other civilized nation in the world. In short, one writer has said: "If we were to capitalize their wealth and distribute it among the twelve millions of Jews they would dispute with any poor nation for the lowest place in the scale of wealth."[4]
The direction in which the Jews seem to be superior to all of the rest of the world is apparently not in wealth but in education. Even in Russia, where they do not have the same educational advantages that are given to the rest of the population, it is found that, while 79 per cent. of the total population can neither read nor write, the percentage of illiteracy among the Jews is 61 per cent. which is 18 per cent. less than that of the rest of the population.
In western Europe, where Jews have equal opportunities with their Gentile neighbours in the matter of education, they are far in advance of them in education. Statistics for Cracow show, for example, that while only a little more than 2 per cent. of the Jews who applied for marriage licenses were unable to read and write, between 15 and 20 per cent. of the Christians in the same category were illiterate. In Italy, where 42.6 per cent. of the men and 57 per cent. of the women of the Christian population over fifteen years of age are unable to read and write, only 3 per cent. of the men and 7.5 per cent. of the women among the Jews are illiterate.
In Austria over 25 per cent. of the students of the universities are Jews, although they represent only 5 per cent. of the population. In Hungary, where Jews represent 4.9 per cent. of the population, they furnish 30.27 per cent. of the students in the universities and other schools of higher education. In Baden, Germany, Jews have proportionately three and a half times as many students as the Christians. Since 1851 the number of Jewish students in Austrian universities has increased more than sevenfold, while the number of Christian students has scarcely more than trebled in that time.
One reason for this is that the Jews have almost invariably made their homes in the cities, where the opportunities for education existed. They have, at the same time, been almost wholly engaged in business, which not only requires a certain amount of education, but is in itself, more than other occupations, a source of education.
The name rabbi, or teacher, has always been a title of respect and honour among the Jews from the earliest time. It was the name that his disciples bestowed upon Jesus.
If there were no other reasons why the story of the Jew should be studied, it would be interesting and inspiring as showing what education can do and has done for a people who, in the face of prejudice and persecution, have patiently struggled up to a position of power and preëminence in the life and civilization in which all races are now beginning to share.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] M. Fishberg, "The Jews," p. 366.