He has had bad environment for the development of business honesty, yet I know of scarcely a community in the world, in which the Jew plays any part, where he would not have a strong representation, if a group of the most trustworthy citizens was called together for any purpose.
The world in which he lives and in which he trades, is the world which he reflects, and he has not always created the conditions which exist there.
To “Jew down,” which is a synonym for beating down in price, is as current in business where he is no factor, as where he is. In Italy it is an economic disease, and in Russia, in those regions closed to the Jewish tradesman, the native haggles with the priest about the price of a funeral or a baptism, with the cab driver over the fare, and even attempts to bargain on the railroad when he buys his ticket.
To generalize about the good or bad characteristics of the Jew is as difficult as it is to portray those of any race. When he judges himself he is either unjustly severe or profusely apologetic, for a people which has lived for so many centuries under abnormal conditions, cannot be known by the stranger, nor can it know itself.
At present the Jew is somewhere between Shakespeare’s Shylock and George Elliot’s Daniel Deronda; and more Shylock where the hate of the middle ages makes it impossible for him to grow into George Eliot’s ideal. He is most uncomfortably felt in those countries where he is in the transition period, when he is apt to be over-bearing and given to sensuous pleasure; even then he is not so grasping as Shylock although not so lovable as Daniel Deronda. He does not need much time to come to his full development. His genius quickly manifests itself, and while he is charged with superficiality, the fact that in all sciences there are accurate scholars of the Jewish race, disproves that accusation, although his emotional nature does not best fit him for the patient task of the investigator.
His neighbours are quickly conscious of his faults because he is not yet schooled in the art of suppressing them, and his virtues are often unrecognized because they shine the brightest in the inner circle, from which the neighbour is usually excluded by mutual consent.
In Northern Africa we find him to-day just as he was thirty-five or forty years ago when Sir Moses Montefiore tried to alleviate his inhuman treatment and his impoverished and miserable condition. The Moors without knowing the prophecy concerning the fate of Israel are actively engaged in fulfilling it with a cruel literalness. In every city and village the Jews have their separate quarters and their own judges.
They are not permitted to study the reading and writing of Arabic lest their eyes defile the sacred pages of the Koran; they are not allowed to ride a horse although they may ride a donkey; and they must walk barefooted before the mosques.
They are prohibited from going near a well when a Mussulman is drinking, and must wear black, a colour despised by the Moors.
The men are all ugly because of the abject fear on their faces; their eyes are always cast down and their walk is unsteady while the whole posture is expressive of the worst kind of slavery.