The Jews.—Among the lesser nations with an affinity to the Semitic family, there is one remarkable by its historical importance, and by the manner in which it has managed to preserve its original type during the eighteen centuries in which it has been scattered all over the whole world: we mean the Jews or Israelites.[6]
[6] French politeness has made between these two words a distinction which is too odd to allow us to pass it over. In France, a rich Jew is called an Israelite, a poor Israelite is called a Jew. The Messrs. Rothschild are Israelitish bankers; but if by some impossibility they lost their millions and went to live at Frankfort, in the Jew’s quarter, in the old family house, which is still there, and which we have seen, they would become, like their ancestors, Jewish traders.
79.—WANDERING ARABS.
The Jews have preserved much of their own peculiar physiognomy. They are distinguished from the nations among whom they are dispersed, by peculiar features easily recognized in many paintings of the great masters. Still they have ended by adopting more or less the characteristics of the nations with whom they have long resided. Under the sole influence of external circumstances and mode of life, the medley of races amongst which they have existed has little by little altered their national type. In the northern parts of Europe the Jews have a white skin, blue eyes, and fair hair. In some portions of Germany many are to be seen with red beards; in Portugal they are tawny-coloured. In those districts of India where they have been long settled, in Cochin for instance, on the Malabar coast, they are black, and resemble the natives so exactly in complexion that it is often difficult to distinguish them from the Hindoos.
80.—JEW OF BUCHAREST.
[Fig. 80] represents a Jew of Bucharest.