As an instructive conclusion to our present subject we add the following extract from the New York Sun of September 1st, 1894. It needs no further comment:
"In the Jews, Judaism is deeply ingrained. As many as 10,000 or 12,000 of the Jewish tailors of this city were on a strike for higher wages all last week; and day after day they loitered in the streets, or congregated in their hall, or sat down any where to talk in their jargon. But upon the forenoon of Saturday last the strikers, who had been highly excited the day before, were not to be found at their usual places of rendezvous. Nearly all of them had gone to their synagogues. They were engaged in Divine worship. They were at prayer. They were listening to the voice of the rabbi. They were following a custom established by Moses, and kept up through all the ages ever since his time. In the hundreds of garrets, rear halls, and rickety old edifices which are used as synagogues in what is called the "ghetto," on the east side of New York, the Jews on strike celebrated the everlasting name of "Jahveh" last Saturday forenoon, the holy Sabbath.
"This is Judaism in New York and the world over.
"Lots of workingmen, who are called Christians, go on a strike from time to time, but who is there that ever heard of any body of strikers other than Jews, giving heed to the ceremonies of their religion during the heat of a strike? We are told that nearly all of these Jewish strikers are orthodox, and all wore their hats in the synagogues. Many of them, we are assured, are familiar with the Torah and the Talmud, and can quote Ben Ezra and Maimonides....
"Judaism is in the bones of the Jews, and of all Jews, from the equator to the poles.
"Was there ever any crowd of Presbyterian strikers, or of Baptist, Methodist, or Unitarian strikers, or of Roman Catholic strikers, who made it their business to go to church in a body, for the purpose of engaging in worship and prayer, during a strike? Let us ask Rev. Dr. John Hall, or Bishop Simpson, or that learned and mirthful priest, Father Flattery, not to speak of the eminent Dominican, Father O'Neil, or our three Universalist preachers.
"The Jews of New York, like the Jews of all the rest of the world, believe in Judaism, and are rooted and grounded in it.
"Oh, that we could say that the people who call themselves Christians believe in Christianity and practise it, either at work or when on strike!"
FOOTNOTES:
[122] Page 15.
[125] The officers of this organization were as follows:
President: Simon Muhr, Philadelphia.
Vice Presidents: Hon. Ferdinand Levy, New York; Rev. Dr. H. W. Schneeberger, Baltimore; Dr. Chas. D. Spivak, Philadelphia.
Secretary: Bernard Harris, Philadelphia.