It was not without reason that Philo, the famous Graeco-Jewish scholar of Alexandria, regarded Aaron’s rod, which “was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds,” as an emblem of his race. Torn from the stem that bore and from the soil that nourished them, and for nearly twenty centuries exposed to the wintry blasts of adversity and persecution, the children of Israel still bud and blossom and provide the world with the perennial problem now known as the Jewish Question—a question than which none possesses a deeper interest for the student of the past, or a stronger fascination for the speculator on the future; a question compared with which the Eastern, the Irish, and all other vexed questions are but things of yesterday; a question which has taxed the ingenuity of European statesmen ever since the dispersion of this Eastern people over the lands of the West.
“What to do with the Jew?” This is the question. The manner in which each generation of statesmen, from the legislators of ancient Rome to those of modern Roumania, has attempted to answer it, forming as it does a sure criterion of the material, intellectual and moral conditions which prevailed in each country at each period, might supply the basis for an exceedingly interesting and instructive, if somewhat humiliating, study of European political ethics. Here I will content myself with a lighter labour. I propose to sketch in outline the fortunes of Israel in Europe from the earliest times to the present day. It is a sad tale, and often told; but sufficiently important to bear telling again. My object—in so far as human nature permits—will be neither to excuse nor to deplore; but only to describe and, in some measure, to explain.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Jews have been in Europe for a longer period than some of the nations which glory in the title of European. Ages before the ancestors of the modern Hungarians and Slavonians were heard of, the keen features and guttural accents of the Hebrew trader were familiar in the markets of Greece and Italy. As early as the fourth century B.C. we find the Hebrew word for “earnest-money” domiciled in the Greek language (ἀρραβών), and as early as the second century in the Latin (arrhabo)—a curious illustration of the Jew’s commercial activity in the Mediterranean even in those days.[1] And yet, despite the length of their sojourn among the peoples of the West, the majority of the Jews have remained in many essential respects as Oriental as they were in the time of the Patriarchs. A younger race would have yielded to the influence of environment, a weaker race would have succumbed to oppression, a less inflexible or unsympathetic race might have conquered its conquerors. But the Jews, when they first came into contact with Europe, were already too old for assimilation, too strong for extermination, too hardened in their peculiar cult for propagandism. Even after having ceased to exist as a state Israel survived as a nation; forming the one immobile figure in a perpetually moving panorama. The narrow local idea of the ancient Greek state was merged into the broad cosmopolitanism of the Macedonian Empire, and that, in its turn, was absorbed by the broader cosmopolitanism of Imperial Rome. But the Jew remained faithful to his own olden ideal. Monotheism superseded Polytheism, and the cosmopolitanism of the Roman Empire was succeeded by that of the Roman Church. The Jew still continued rooted in the past. Mediaeval cosmopolitanism gave way to the nationalism of modern Europe. Yet the Jew declined to participate in the change. Too narrow in one age, not narrow enough in another, always at one with himself and at variance with his neighbours, now, as ever, he offers the melancholy picture of one who is a stranger in the land of his fathers and an alien in that of his adoption.
The upshot of this refusal to move with the rest of the world has been mutual hatred, discord, and persecution; each age adding a new ring to the poisonous plant of anti-Judaism. For this result both sides are to blame—or neither. No race has ever had the sentiment of nationality and religion more highly developed, or been more intolerant of dissent, than the Jewish; no race has ever suffered more grievously from national and religious fanaticism and from intolerance of dissent on the part of others. The Jewish colonies forming, as they mostly do, small, exclusive communities amidst uncongenial surroundings, have always been the objects of prejudice—the unenviable privilege of all minorities which stubbornly refuse to conform to the code approved by the majority. The same characteristics evoked a similar hostility against primitive Christianity and led to the persecution of the early martyrs. No one is eccentric with impunity. Notwithstanding the gospel of toleration constantly preached by sages, and occasionally by saints, the attitude of mankind has always been and still is one of hostility towards dissent. Sois mon frère, ou je te tue is a maxim which, in a modified form, might be extended to other than secret revolutionary societies. The only difference consists in the manner in which this tyrannical maxim is acted upon in various countries and ages: legal disability may supersede massacre, or expulsion may be refined into social ostracism; yet the hostility is always present, however much its expression may change. Man is a persecuting animal.
To the Jews in Europe one might apply the words which Balzac’s cynical priest addressed to the disillusioned young poet: “Vous rompiez en visière aux idées du monde et vous n’avez pas eu la considération que le monde accorde à ceux qui obéissent à ses lois.” Now, when to mere outward nonconformity in matters of worship and conduct is superadded a radical discrepancy of moral, political, and social ideals, whether this discrepancy be actively paraded or only passively maintained, the outcome can be no other than violent friction. It is, therefore, not surprising that the “black days” should vastly outnumber the “red” ones in the Jewish Calendar—that brief but most vivid commentary on the tragic history of the race. The marvel is that the race should have survived to continue issuing a calendar.
At the same time, a dispassionate investigation would prove, I think, to the satisfaction of all unbiassed minds, that the degree in which the Jews have merited the odium of dissent has in every age been strictly proportionate to the magnitude of the odium itself. Even at the present hour it would be found upon enquiry that the Jews retain most of their traditional aloofness and fanaticism—most of what their critics stigmatise as their tribalism—in those countries in which they suffer most severely. Nay, in one and the same country the classes least liable to the contempt, declared or tacit, of their neighbours are the classes least distinguished by bigotry. It is only natural that it should be so. People never cling more fanatically to the ideal than when they are debarred from the real. Christianity spread first among slaves and the outcasts of society, and its final triumph was secured by persecution. We see a vivid illustration of this universal principle in modern Ireland. To what is the enormous influence of the Catholic Church over the minds of the peasantry due, but to the ideal consolations which it has long provided for their material sufferings? Likewise in the Near East. The wealthy Christians, in order to save their lands from confiscation, abjured their religion and embraced the dominant creed of Islam. The poor peasants are ready to lay down their lives for their faith, and believe that whosoever dies in defence of it will rise again to life within forty days. It is easy to deride the excesses of spiritual enthusiasm, to denounce the selfish despotism of its ministers, and to deplore the blind fanaticism of its victims. But fanaticism, after all, is only faith strengthened by adversity and soured by oppression.
Jewish history itself shows that the misfortunes which fan bigotry also preserve religion. Whilst independent and powerful, the Jews often forgot the benefits bestowed upon them by their God, and transferred the honour due to Him to the strange gods of their idolatrous neighbours. But when Jehovah in His wrath hid His face from His people and punished its ingratitude by placing it under a foreign yoke, the piety of the Jews acquired in calamity a degree of fervour and constancy which it had never possessed in the day of their prosperity. The same phenomenon has been observed in every age. When well treated, the Jews lost much of their aloofness, and the desire for national rehabilitation was cherished only as a romantic dream. But in times of persecution the longing for redemption, and for restoration under a king of their own race, blazed up into brilliant flame. The hope of the Messianic Redeemer has been a torch of light and comfort through many a long winter’s night. But it has burnt its brightest when the night has been darkest. If at such times the Jews have shown an inordinate tenacity of prophetic promise, who can blame them? They who possess nothing in the present have the best right to claim a portion of the future.
CHAPTER I
HEBRAISM AND HELLENISM
In spite of the well-known influence which Greek culture and Greek thought exercised over a portion of the Jews under Alexander the Great’s successors, the mass of the Hebrew nation never took kindly to Hellenism. Alexander proved himself as great a statesman as he was a warrior. An apostle of Hellenism though he was, he did not seek to consolidate his Empire by enforcing uniformity of cult and custom, as short-sighted despots have done since, but by encouraging friendly intercourse between the Greeks and the various peoples that came under his sceptre. Gifted with rare imagination, he entered into the feelings of races as diverse as the Egyptian and the Jewish. To the latter he allotted the border-lands which had long been the bone of contention between themselves and the Samaritans. He relieved them from taxation during the unproductive Sabbath year. He respected their prejudices, honoured their religion, and appreciated their conscientious scruples. While, out of deference to Chaldean religious feeling, he ordered the Temple of Bel to be rebuilt in Babylon, he forgave the Jewish soldiers their refusal to obey his command as contrary to the teaching of their faith. Conciliation was the principle of Alexander’s imperialism and the secret of his success. ♦301 B.C.♦ The Ptolemies, to whose share, on the partition of the Macedonian Empire, Palestine ultimately fell, inherited Alexander’s enlightened policy. The High Priest of the Jews was recognised as the head of the nation, and it was through him that the tribute was paid. So fared the Jews at home.
Abroad their lot was equally enviable. Some modern critics had doubted the settlement of Jews in Egypt until the third century. But recent discoveries (notably Mr. R. Mond’s Aramaic Papyri) prove that a Jewish community existed in Egypt even in the centuries preceding Alexander. Now persuasion and the hope of profit drew many thousands of them to Alexandria, Cyrene, and other centres of Hellenistic culture. In all these places they lived on terms of perfect equality with the Greek colonists. The newly-built city on the mouth of the Nile soon became a seat of Jewish influence and a school of learning for the Jewish nation. Under the benign rule of the Ptolemies the Jews prospered, multiplied, and attained success in every walk of life, public no less than private. Of the five divisions of Alexandria they occupied nearly two. Egypt was then the granary of Europe, and the corn trade lay largely in Jewish hands. Refinement came in the train of riches, and freedom begot tolerance. The Jews cultivated Greek letters, and some of them became deeply imbued with the spirit of Greek philosophy and even of art. This friendly understanding between the Jewish and the Greek mind gave to the world the mystic union of Moses and Plato in the works of Philo and the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, which was to prepare the way for the advent of Christianity. And yet the bulk of the Alexandrian Jews remained a peculiar people. Greeks and Egyptians had fused their religions into a common form of worship. But the Jews were still separated from both races by the invincible barriers of belief, law, and custom. They still looked upon Jerusalem as their metropolis, and upon Alexandria as a mere place of exile. In the midst of paganism they formed a monotheistic colony. Their houses of prayer were also schools of Levitical learning, where the Torah was assiduously studied and expounded. Their one link with the State was their own Ethnarch, who acted as supreme sovereign and judge of his people, and represented it at Court.