“Indeed, I did not. If I had, I assure you, I shouldn’t have put my foot in it as I did—shouldn’t have made bold to patronize your race as I was doing. I meant every word I spoke, though. The Jews are a noble and beautiful people, with a record that we Gentiles might well envy.”
“You said nothing that was not perfectly proper. Don’t imagine for an instant that you touched a sensitive spot. I am a Jewess by birth, though, like your friend, Mr. Hetzel, I don’t go to the temple. Modern ceremonial Judaism is not to me especially satisfying as a religion.”
“You are not orthodox?”
“I am quite otherwise.”
“I am glad to hear it. I am glad that there is this tendency amoung the better educated Jews to cast loose from their Judaism. I want to see them intermarry with the Christians—amalgamate, and help to form the American people of the future. That of course is their destiny.”
“I suppose it is.”
“You speak as though you regretted it.”
“No; I don’t regret it. I am too good an American to regret it. But it is a little melancholy, to say the least, to see one of the most cherished of Jewish ideals being abandoned before the first step is made toward realizing it.”
“What ideal is that?”
“Why, the hope that cheered the Jews through the many centuries of their persecution—the hope that a time would come when they could compel recognition from their persecutors, when, as a united people, they could stand forth before the world, pure and strong and upright, and exact credit for their due. The Jew has been for so long a time the despised and rejected of men, that now, when he has the opportunity, it seems as though he ought to improve it—show the stuff he is made of, prove that Shylock is a libel upon him, justify his past, achieve great results, demonstrate that he only needed light and liberty to develop into a leader of progress. The Jew has eternally been complaining—crying, ’You think I am such an inferior style of personage; give me a chance, and I will convince you of your error.’ Now that the chance is given him, it seems a pity for him quietly to efface himself, become indistinguishable in the mass of mankind. I should like him to retain the name of Jew until it has grown to be a term of honor, instead of one of reproach. However, his destiny is otherwise; and he must make the best of it. It is the destiny of the dew-drop to slip into the shining sea.’ Probably it is better that it should be so.”