The Jewish Question and the Mission of the Jews, published by Harper and Brothers, New York, 1894, contributes a valuable addition to historical literature. The work ably elucidates its comprehensive subject matter and deserves the careful perusal of every student of whatever creed. A few characteristic extracts are collated in the following:—
"If we turn to Europe, in which we are chiefly interested, we find that the Jews were settled there as early as Roman times, and lived on terms of perfect equality with all their neighbors, until religious intolerance set itself to repress them or directed and intensified the jealousy which their success elicited. When the west of Europe was raised out of its barbarism by Charlemagne, this great leader of modern civilization also took account of the valuable civilizing influence of the Jews, especially as regarded commerce and learning. He granted them privileges, and even made use of them for diplomatic services; and as he transplanted learned men from Italy into France and Germany in order that their wisdom might be diffused among those people, so he also desired to engraft the learning of the Jews in these districts. He encouraged them to found Talmudic Schools and transplanted from Lucca the learned family Kalonymos to Narbonne about the year 787, gave them a large tract of land, where the chief of the family and his successors were called princes, while the part of the town where they lived was called 'The Court of the King of the Jew.' The position which the Jew, Isaac, held in the embassy of Charlemange to Haroun al Rashid is a matter of history."
"As to the pluck and courage of the Jews it certainly did not die out with the Maccabees and the Zealots. I will not mention the spiritual courage it required for the whole race to survive at all during the persecutions which might have been avoided by the simple act of conversion, or of the thousands that burned at the stake singing. I should say, even numerically, more than the whole Christian martyrology has to show. The numbers who heroically during the Spanish Inquisition, and at other times and places, preferred burning at the stake to baptism, the perfidy which often met their heroic resistance, would fill volumes. In the history of the Spanish Jews more than in that of any other of their numerous communities do we meet with heroism, courage and chivalry. They fought, in the Spanish battles as the bravest knights. Alfonso X of Castile, rewarded them en masse for their war-like assistance against Seville and gave them, when the enemies' land was divided, a village which was called "Aldea de los Judeos." They fought desperately for Dom Pedro, even after the Black Prince had forsaken him, defended Burgos to the last man, so that even their opponent, Dom Enrico, recognized publicly their valor."
"Even in Germany during the Black Death and the butchery of Jews, and in Poland, the spirit of the Maccabees and the Zealots had not forsaken them. It very often met with the basest treachery on the part of their enemies and allies. One instance is a striking, if not a typical one. During the onslaught of the Cossacks into Poland in the Thirty Years' War the Jews were brave defenders of the Polish territory. When a horde of Hadamaks attacked the town of Tulczyn, six thousand Christians and about two thousand Jews retreated to the fortress. Nobles and Jews pledged themselves by oath to defend the fortress to the last man. The Cossacks resorted to a stratagem, and assured the Nobles that they were only fighting against their real enemies, the Jews. If they were handed over to them they would withdraw. The nobles asked the Jews to give up their arms; and when they complied, they opened the gates to the Cossacks. When the Cossacks had plundered the Jews, they proposed to them the alternative of death or baptism. Not one of them accepted the latter, and they were put to the sword. But the nobles suffered the same fate, as the Cossacks held that there was no cause to hold faith by the faithless."
"The late James Russell Lowell was wont to say that a large proportion of the great families of the English aristocracy had some admixture of Jewish blood, while some of the great names were in a direct line to be traced back to Jewish ancestors. So, for instance, he believed, and he must have had good grounds for his belief, that the families of the Cecils and the Russells were originally Jewish. Of course such conversational statements must not be taken literally. Many years ago I met a Russian scholar, deeply read in literature and science—the pure Russian, without any associations with Jews—who told me he was engaged upon a work which set itself the task of tracing the origin of most of the great men in letters and science that were then living in Germany, and that he was coming to the conclusion that, not only were a great many of them actually Jews, but that a large proportion of the best known among the Christian dignitaries had also some admixture of Jewish blood."