The Jews

by Hilaire Belloc

The mere fact that the Jews exist, let alone that they are powerful, poisons life for such a man. He is led by his lop-sided enthusiasm into the most ridiculous errors. In this country every name of German origin at once suggests a Jew to him. Every financial operation, especially if it be of doubtful morality, must certainly have a Jew behind it; wherever a number of partners, Jewish and non-Jewish, are engaged in some bad work (as, for instance, in one of our innumerable Parliamentary scandals), a Jew must always for this sort of person be the prime mover and the evil genius of the whole.

As is the case with every other mania, this mania rapidly obscures the general vision of its victim. His prejudices soon lose proportion altogether. He comes to see the Jew in everything and everywhere, and to accept confidently propositions which he would himself see to be contradictory, could he give a moment's quiet thought to the matter.

Thus I have heard on all sides in the last few years these strange assertions proceeding from the same source, yet obviously incompatible one with the other: That modern scepticism was Jewish in its origin; that modern superstition, our modern necromancy and crystal gazing and all the rest of it, was Jewish in its origin; that the evils of democracy are all Jewish in their origin; that the evil of tyrannical government, in Prussia, for instance, was Jewish in its origin; that the pagan perversions of bad modern art were Jewish in their origin; that the puerility of bad church furniture was due to Jewish dealers; that the Great War was the product of Jewish armament firms; that the anti-patriotic appeals which weakened the allied armies came from Jewish sources—and so on. It is indeed true that there is a Jewish quality in all these diverse and contradictory things where a Jew mixes in them; just as there is a Scotch, or French, or English quality when a Scot, a Frenchman, or an Englishman is the agent. But to ascribe the whole boiling to the Jew, and to make him the conscious origin of all, is a contradiction in terms.

The Anti-Semite is a man so absorbed in his subject that he at last loses interest in any matter, unless he can give it some association with his delusion, for delusion it is.

In a sense, of course, this state of mind is a sort of compliment to the Jewish nation. If such a preoccupation with them be not amicable it is at least intense, and those against whom it is directed may well regard it as a proof of their importance in the world. But that aspect of the phenomenon is not consoling for the future of either of us—the Jew who now nervously awaits attack, and we who desire to forestall and prevent such attack.

The Anti-Semite is very much more numerous and very much more powerful than might be imagined from the reading of the daily press; for the press is still, for the most part, under the convention of ignoring the Jewish problem and under the terror of the financial results which might follow from a discussion of it. His universal activity is not yet to be read of in the great newspapers; but in conversation and in the practice of daily life we hear of it everywhere.

And here I may digress upon a modern feature which applies to all political problems and therefore to this Jewish problem among others. The great movements of our time have never originated in the press of the great cities. They rise and store up their energies in political cliques, in popular gatherings, and spoken rumours long before they appear in this main instrument for the spreading of news. That is because the press of our great cities is controlled by very few men, whose object is not the discussion of public affairs, still less the giving of full information to their fellow-citizens, but the piling up of private fortune. As these men are not, as a rule, educated men, nor particularly concerned with the fortunes of the State, nor capable of understanding from the past what the future may be, they will never take up a great movement until it is forced upon them. On the contrary, they will waste energy in getting up false excitement upon insignificant matters where they feel safe, and even in using their instruments for the advertisement of their own insignificant lives. In all this, the modern press of our great cities differs very greatly from the press of a lifetime ago. It was not always owned by educated men, but it was conducted by highly educated men, who were given a free hand. It therefore concerned itself with problems of real importance and it debated upon either side real contrasts of opinion upon those matters. This modern press of ours does none of these things; but precisely because it is so reluctant to express real emotion it does, when the emotion is forced upon it, let it out in a flood. Just as it would not tell the truth when a thing was growing, so when it reaches an extreme it will not exercise restraint. On the contrary, if the "stunt" be an exciting one, it will push it (once it has made up its mind to talk of it at all) in the most extreme form and to the last pitch of violence.

We have seen that plainly enough in the monstrous expressions of foreign policy during the last ten years, and we have seen it in the abominable hounding of individuals to which that same press has lent itself.

Now in the matter of Anti-Semitic feeling we shall have, I think, exactly the same phenomenon repeated. That feeling is now ubiquitous. It is spreading with an alarming rapidity, and the increase of its intensity is even more remarkable than the increase in the numbers of its adherents. Sooner or later—and fairly soon, I imagine—the press will give it voice. When it does, it will give it voice, we may be certain, in the most extreme, the most passionate, the most irrational form; and when that happens, in a field where passion is already so wild, God help its victims!

The Anti-Semitic passion, largely based though it is on imaginary things, has adopted one method of action highly practical. It is a method of action closely in touch with reality, and productive of formidable results. I mean its compiling of documents. It has here noted, all over Europe and America, with exactitude, and continues to put upon record, everything which can be said to the detriment of its victims.