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Page 8 The Southern Israelite stinct to preserve ourselves makes us feel a challenge in the very existence of anything' foreign. Therefore, the native has always resented the alien; and the majority has always sought to crush the minority. If the ancient Jews were preyed upon, for instance, by the Assyrians, it was not because those Jews talked loudly on hotel verandas or owned all the theatres, but simply because they were not Assyrians. All the other lit tle Levantine nations for example, the Philistines and Edomites and Phoenicians and Arameans—were also prey upon by the Assyrians. Their ex perience differed from that of the Jews only in that after a while these other little nations tired of the strug gle and let themselves be crushed out of existence; whereas the Jew stub bornly carried on. Even after the Jews lost their land and ceased to be a nation, they con tinued to carry on. They carry on to this day. Why? No one can say for certain. Perhaps it is because once upon a time we Jews believed in our selves. Centuries ago we got the idea into our heads that we were the Chosen of God. That was not unique with us, for almost all other peoples, from the ancient Egyptians to the modern Cali fornians, have at one time or another been obessed with a similar idea. What alone was unique with my ancestors was that they interpreted their elec tion to mean that they were destined not to fatten on God’s favors but to suffer for His cause. Centuries ago there arose in their midst certain strange men called prophets who told them they were chosen for a holy mission unto man kind. These prophets said to my fath ers that they were the “suffering ser vants of the Lord," a folk graced with a supernal duty—to teach the nations of the earth to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk in the ways of peace. And my fathers believed it. Every other conceited nation imagin ed it had been chosen only to enjpy riches and power; and the moment it was robbed of those boons it ceased to be conceited—and died. But the an cient Jews, because they imagined the very opposite, thrived on disaster— and lived. The more they suffered, the stronger grew their belief in them selves; the closer they came to death, the nearer they thought themselves to eventual victory. And that was why they were able to survive: they be lieved in themselves. Of course, it would be absurd to maintain that the average Jew in America today persist as a Jew be cause he still consciously cherishes that old Messianic conviction. But it is indisputably true that in earlier days the average Jew did cherish it. His whole thought was steeped in the Holy Writ, and all his life was bound up with the prophecies. For centuries, therefore, he survived because he felt it his God-given duty to do so. And now we can’t help surviving. We are traveling on momentum. The will to remain Jewish has become a habit with us—as has also the world’s will to keep us Jewish. For it must be real ized that our present persistence is not all of our own volition. You non- J$ws contribute not a little toward preserving us as a separate folk. Even in America you discriminate against us. You close certain residential dis tricts against us, and certain clubs, colleges, even religious institutions. Well-founded rumors has it that at least one church on Fifth Avenue ac tually refuses to receive any more Semitic converts because its Jewish quota is filled! However, whether the cause be in the Jew or in the Gentile, the result is the same: the Jew has to remain a Jew whether he wants to or no. And that does something to him. The mere ordeal of keeping alive in spite of the world’s hostility gives him that dis tinctive manner about which we’ve been speaking. The fact that he is considered different compels him to be different. Now, the first and most pervasive symptom of this manner is a certain hyper-sensitiveness. We Jews are quick to see a slight, so quick, indeed, that often we see one where none in intended. But that is not to be won dered at. We’ve been harassed for so long that now our flesh is chronically raw, and we wince at the least gesture in our direction. We all admit this is a grievous fault in us, but we realize we are helpless to remedy it. For it is a fault not really of our own making. So long as we continue to be attacked or disdained, so long must we remain a chip-bearing people. A few r years ago many Jews in America showed signs of being in a fair way toward losing that sensitive ness. But then Mr. Ford began his anti-Semitic attacks, and the recovery was set back at least a generation. Mr. Ford has since apologized and his attacks in the Dearborn Independent have ceased; but the damage he did will not soon be remedied. I do not refer to the damage he did to many non-Jews in that he loaded their minds with ridiculous fears and filled their hearts with suspicion. I refer only to the greater damage he did to us Jews, in that he reopened in our flesh our half-healed wounds and reawakened in our souls our old terrors. Those who want to preserve the Jews at any price, have a right to be grateful to Mr. Ford. He did more for their cause, at least in America, than they were ever able to do for themselves. Any number of Jews who had drifted far out on the Gentile seas, suddenly dou bled in their course w’hen they heard the tinny thunderings from Fort Dearborn, and came racing back in a panic to the ghetto. The Jewish fra ternal orders took on a new' lease of life, and the synagogues were crowded as perhaps never before in the history of American Israel. Our most appro- pi iate coat of arms during those years would have been a tin shield bearing two Jews ramphant over a Ford sin ister! . . . It is because anti-Semitism contin ues to crop up even in this supposedly enlightened day that we Jews continue to be sensitive. And also because of anti-Semitism w'e exhibit our second most significant trait—intensity. We Jew's are anything but an easy-going, leisurely folk. On the contrary, it is characteristic of us to attack life with a rush and a fury, for we realize that —Photograph by V. Laviosa, N. Y. Lewis Browne, Jewish scholar, author of “This Believing World,” “The (trophic Bible,” “Strang er Than Fiction,” “The Story of the Jews,” and other books, was born in London thirty-one years ago. He came to America in 1012, and for a time urns a rabbi in Waterbury, Connecticut, and in the Free Synagogue at Newark, New Jersey. Several years ago he resigned the rabbinate to devote himself to writing. mi in I a Jew must push twice „ 3 hard to half as far as a non-Jew Then t ? whatever we attempt, be it the ama”* ing of wealth or the measuring Ji stars characteristically we attempt? impatiently. Of course, that does Jv us of grace at times; it does sometime make us a bit over-aggressive. But w simply have to be that way l n t u first place, it is part of our heritae* to work fast. For two thousand year! we have been involuntary gy psies f ever driven from city to city and’land to land. In the past if a Jew wanted to have his own house, he had to build it quickly, for he knew that otherwi* he might never be able to live i n it He was in incessant danger of depor- tation, and he dared not take h« time. It has become part of what one might call our inherited wisdom to be in a hurry. I do not mean that a*, gressiveness is to be found in our chromosomes, and that we inherit it like the color of our eyes. I have no doubt that a Jewish child reared from the moment of birth in a complete!' non-Jewish environment would, if never told of its origin, never grow to be especially aggressive. But if reared in the home of its own parent?, the trait would have to crop out al most inevitably. Why? Simply because nervous haste is in the air in the Jew ish home. From infancy we see par ents and friends about us who act with a peculiar impulsiveness and re act with a striking intensity, and from them we learn by imitation and emu lation to do likewise. And fortunate it is for us that we do learn it, for even today we still need to be excessively vigorous. The odds are still against us everywhere; not merely socially, but—and this is an infinitely graver matter—econom ically. Jewish stenographers are find ing it increasingly difficult to obtain positions in New York, and Jewish professors are finding it almost im possible to receive their deserved pro motion in most colleges in the land. Many banking establishments, not a few industrial corporations, many hos pitals, innumerable law firms, exercise a quite obvious boycott against Jews. Of course, that boycott is rarely ab solute, and an able Jew can almost always break his way in. But there s the rub: he has to be able, inordinate ly able. It is our clear knowledge of this sit uation that makes us as eager anC ambitious as we are. We realize tha. only by becoming indispensable can we make ourselves acceptable, and there fore we work with such prodigious vigor. Undoubtedly we overdo it a- times, pushing and crowding with ob noxiously indecorous haste. But must expect that. After all, if won’t be fair, how can we be deci- rous? isitiveness and aggressiveness. are the two major traits in u* —and both are patently a resut ir age-old struggle to survive hostility. Similarly, all our n»- ;raits have their origin in * gle. Take our socalled clannisn* for example. In reality we * t all inordinately clannish, ony there is within our own ® initely negative, not P° sitl ' e ‘ . r 3 one only in our reactions- 1 i ctions. We squabble among (Continued on Page — 1