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Page 22 The Southern Israelite Many Good Wishes For the NEW YEAR <> - HARTSFIELD Company 235-7-0 Peachtree Arcade ATLANTA, GA. Seasons Greetings B WE EXTEND Heartiest GOOD WISHES FOR THE NEW YEAR “PURVEYORS OF HAPPY MOVES” ZABAN STORAGE AND TRANSFER CO. 12 SPRING ST., S. W. WAInut 2701 ATLANTA WHY ARE JEWS LIKE THAT (Continued selves outrageously and show no more internal union than does the Demo cratic Party. Indeed, as someone has wittily put it, there is only, one thing any two Jews can agree on, and that is how much a third ought to give to charity! Solely when we are attacked from without do we achieve any sort of solidarity within; for, like any other herd, we realize that when one of us is attacked, all of us are men aced. That explains our intense family loyalty. It likewise explains our com parative extravagance in giving to charity. Finally, it explains our per sistent tendency to live near each oth er and frequent the same gathering places. We feel more comfortable among ourselves. In a measure we re act as did the pioneers when they pushed out across the prairies. They, too, clung together, and befriended each other, and huddled together be hind stockades. For we feel, even as did they, that there is danger, or at least hostility, abroad in the land. And again only on the ground of the prejudice against us can one ex plain another of our secondary traits —our radicalism. There is no denying that we Jews as a group are espe cially prone to favor change in the present order. But what else can you expect? If the present order won’t accept us how can we accept it? In this respect we are like most other vigorous minorities. Take the poets and artists for example. Predominant ly they are radical and for precisely the same reason. They find themselves “outsiders” in this world of Philistin ism; they are rejected and neglected and allowed to starve. Therefore they are opposed to this world as it is and they want to make it over into some thing they think better. The Jew is remarkably like the artist. He too suf fers the recurrent fate of being stoned while alive and enthroned when dead. It is no accident that in the eyes of the world the only good Jew—I am thinking, of course, of Jesus of Naza reth—is a dead Jew. . . . Yes, there is ample reason why we Jews are rarely to be found among the conservatives. It is because the world we see around us is not all worthy to be conserved. It is still nar row and fearful and vile with preju dice; and not until it becomes clean of these ills can we be expected to think it worthy. Finally, there is that most adver tised of our traits, our intelligence (or, if you will, our shrewdness)—and that, too, can be explained by the life we have led. It is no wonder if we Jews seem to exhibit inordinately sharp wits, for, after all, during al most two thousand years we have had naught else to live by save wits. While all the other peoples on earth were toughening their muscles to fight their way out of danger, we Jews had to be developing our brains so that we could talk our way out of it. For we were always and everywhere too few in numbers, and too scattered, ever to be able to protect ourselves by force. No, we always had to rely on our brain for our salvation, never our brawn. As a result, intelligence be came one of the primal virtues in our code of values, and the only aristocra- from Page 8) cy we cared for was that of the mind. While you folk hurrahed for your warriors, we Jews made heroes of our learned men. Love of learning became part of our tradition, and going to school—even centuries ago, I mean— seemed as natural and proper to us as going to war was to you. There was another element, aside from our lack of numbers which forc ed us to develop brain rather than brawn. We Jews for centuries were utterly unable to live on the soil. Once we were driven from our own homeland in the year 70 A. D., we were left with naught save trading as our means of making a livelihood. In most of the countries to which we fled we were not permitted to own land and become farmers. And even in those places where no such restrictions were put upon us, we felt in too great jeopardy to dare tie ourselves up to the soil. For centuries we were never sure from day to day whether our hosts might not turn on us and deport us bag and baggage. Therefore, we al ways had to have our possessions in an easily portable form. Fields and barns were not as easy to roll up and carry off in a sack on one’s back; cansequently, even in those few lands where we were not forbidden to own real property, we preferred to lay up our treasures in other forms. Nor was it feasible even for the poor among us to stay on the soil, for as farm laborers they found them selves too remote from each other, and too exposed to the world, for safety. Poor or rich, we preferred to live in the cities, where our existence, even though less healthy, was at least less insecure. And this protracted separation from the soil helped not a little to develop our mentalities. In the cities we were forced to live by trading, for prac tically all the industries were con trolled by guilds which discriminated severely against Jews. We had to eke out an existence in the cracks between the boulders in the social structure; we had to be the middle-men. It was a hazardous profession, and to a high degree demeaning; but we were de termined to keep alive and that was the one way we could do it. So we be came the hucksters of civilization. We bought and sold in all the mar ket places of Europe, settling down and opening shops, or else peddling with packs on our backs. Chiefly we dealt in objects which were easily portable and not fixed in value—as jewelry and textiles—for these we found most profitable. And that is why still to this day so many Jews deal in diamonds or have clothing stores. Or else we took to money-lending, which for centuries was forbidden to Christians by the church. We became fly-by-night financiers for the pretty princelings of Europe, and sometimes even for the kings and the popes; for though pious Christians considered moneylending a sin, they were right glad to have the Jews around to com mit it. And that is why still to this day so many Jews go in for pawn broking or banking. We’re old hands at the game of finance; we served our apprenticeship in it when most other folks were still trading in kind. But it must not be imagined that we Jews are good for nothing in tv world but trading. Given the oprJ tunity we can and will go down £ the soil and labor in it tenaciously any other people. The best proof of this is the amazing degree t 0 which Jews have taken up farming with " the last generation. In Palestine there are now thousands of Zionists tilli ne fields and planting vineyards in wha- was arid widerness until they Cam ‘ there. Enormous tracts of unculti vated land in Russia have been taker' up and colonized by Jews within the last decade. Or, to come closer home in New England you will find many hundreds of Jewish farmers who have bought up old homesteads, abandoned as useless, and have made them flour ish magnificently. It is absurd to think we are congenially and incorri gibly averse to the physical. Give ui the chance to live normal, vigorous physical lives, and we can produce farmers and fighters and football players and even circus strongmen. If we Jews are still prevalently a folk living in cities and subsisting by trade, it is only because we haven’t yet been able to outgrow our past Everything about us, our vices as well as our virtues, our sensitiveness, ag gressiveness, clannishness, and com mercialism, as well as our progressive ness, sobriety, decency, and intelli gence—all these traits are the result of the life we have been made to lead So if you, like my friend, ask: “Why are Jews like that?” I can only repea what I answered him: “Because we can’t help it!” X x x x xx x x x x x xx xxx a xx 1 * x a it a H 11 m.T v m X X X x x X X X X X X X X X X X s X x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x a a a ~ “ - Happy New Year FROM THE Arcade Restaurant I 10-1 12 N. Forsyth St. ATLANTA My Sincere Good W ishes For the IS civ I ear ISAAC N. RAGSDALE MAYOR Happy IS etc Year FOR YOUR ENTERTAINMENT The Metropolitan Theatre movietone VITAPHONE •••••••••••••• #••••••••