THE Jew has nearly always been an immigrant and a problem. Nowhere is he accepted as indigenous; neither in Russia, where he has lived for centuries, nor in New York, where he will soon represent the bulk of population. He is as much a stranger on his home soil in Palestine as upon the rawest bit of ground staked into a city, in Wyoming or the Dakotas. His going is nowhere regretted at the time and his coming is not welcomed; while his remaining in a place leads to the development of prejudice, which has its root in various causes, already discussed. In a peculiar sense, his coming in large numbers is felt by the toiler and the trader; by the most antagonistic Gentile groups and by those Jews who came earlier, from some more favoured spot in the culture centres of Europe.
The religious development of the Anglo-Saxon people, influenced more often by the Old Testament than by the New, as well as their familiarity with the Bible, has kept the Jew who lives among them immune from the grosser consequences of Anti-Semitism.
| A JEW OF THE POORER TYPE A product of persecution and orthodoxy. |
A JEW OF THE FINER TYPE A Russian Jew; cultured, artistic and cosmopolitan. |
Jehovah’s chosen people have often been regarded with peculiar interest by the Anglo-Saxons, if not always treated with marked favour; yet even among them, this feeling has gradually undergone a change, until, their coming has become a cause for special inquiry by the English Parliament and one of the chief difficulties of the whole immigrant problem, as it affects our cities.
I have had peculiar opportunities to note the development of these changes, and believe that the Jew has been too optimistic regarding his future in the United States; while the Gentile is too pessimistic as to the gravity of the Jewish problem.
A clergyman in the city of New York whose fame is international, who is in constant contact with the best type of Jews, startled me not long ago by saying that the Jewish problem in the city of New York was in a most acute stage. In analysing his own feelings, he said: “No matter what you do, you’re up against it; no matter how you prepare yourself to act the brother towards them, they won’t let you succeed. You can’t love them and you don’t dare hate them.”