The Southern Israelite. (Augusta, Ga.) 1925-1986, October 25, 1929, Image 8
Page 8
The Southern Israelite
The Lesson Of The
Wailing Wall
In writing an article upon the act
ual state of affairs in Palestine, I can
not but feel that my first sentence
must be a tribute of respect to the
Jewish people. There is not, and never
has been in the world a parallel to
the history of the Jews. It is in vain
that writers such as the late Profes
sor Goldwin Smith have essayed to
set them on the same level with other
races. No other race has maintained
during so many centuries its integ
rity, and even its insolation, in the
face of so many unjust antipathies
and persecutions, such social inequal
ities and such religious disabilities as
the Jews. None has clung with such
invincible tenacity to the volume of
its own sacred Scriptures. None has
cherished so unique and age-long hope
as the Messianic faith of Judaism;
none has seen its hope attained in so
unique a personality, whether he be
the promised Messiah or not, as
Jesus Christ. I am often tempted to
think of the Jews as having been pre
served as a separate people, that they
may be the abiding witnesses to the
substantial verity of the Old Testa
ment. For how is it possible to sepa
rate the Jews from their history or
their literature? What can the most
modern of Modernist Biblical critics
know about the Old Testament in
comparison with the unbroken heredi
tary tradition of the Jews them
selves? How wonderfully was the
lesson of continuity in the annals of
Judaism illustrated, when the King’s
Proclamation of his newly consti
tuted authority over Palestine under
the International Mandate was read
at Jerusalem! For our Lord’s title
upon the Cross has been written in
three languages, and the King’s Pro
clamation was read in three lan
guages; but of the three languages
the only one which had survived was
the Hebrew. Among the outward man
ifestations of Jewish national patri
otic sentiment, none has made or can
make a deeper impression on the
minds of all witnesses than the spec
tacle of the Jews in Jerusalem, wail
ing on the occasions of their great
religious services, and indeed on all
Fridays, by the wall which they be
lieve to be a relic of their ancient
temple. Who that has seen can ever
forget how the aged Jews of many
nationalities would stand against the
weather-beaten wall, gazing at its
stone and shedding tears, while they
recite such prayers as these—
For the palace that lies desolate;
For the walls that are overthrown;
For our majesty that is departed;
We sit in solitude and mourn,
or again—
We pray thee have mercy on Zion,
Gather the children of Jerusalem,
Haste, haste, Redeemer of Zion,
Speak to the heart of Jerusalem,
May the kingdom soon return to
Zion!
Comfort those who mourn over
Jerusalem.
There is no Christian who must not
feel his heart moved by a well nigh
unspeakable compassion at the sight
of a mourning so profound, so his
torical, so pathetic.
It is not necessary to describe the
relation of the Jews as a people to
their ancient home in Palestine, ever
since that home passed under the
control of alien peoples from the
Roman to the.British.
By THE REV. BISHOP J. E. C. WELLDON, D. D.
Former (Jiaplain to Queen Victoria; Lecturer at Cambridge Lniver-
sity; Head master of Harrow; Bishop of Calcutta and
Metropolitan of India
Two events of recent history have
profoundly affected the mind and the
heart of the Jews. One is the decla
ration of the Earl of Balfour, when,
as Secretary of State for Foreign Af
fairs, he wrote to Lord Rothschild
on November 2nd, 1017: “His Ma
jesty’s Government views with favour
the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people,
and will use their best endeavors to
facilitate the achievement of this ob
ject, it being clearly understood that
nothing shall be done which may pre
judice the civil and religious rights
of existing non-Jewish communities
in Palestine.” That declaration is de
scribed in a pamphlet entitles Great
Britain, Palestine and the Jews; or,
Jewry’s Celebration of its National
Charter, as “the greatest event in the
history of the Jews since their dis-
“Israel Of Th
persion.” The other event was Lord
Allenby’s victorious campaign, ending
in the emancipation of Palestine from
the Turkish rule, and the mandate
transferring the government of Pal
estine, by the consent of all the na
tions which had won the war of 1914,
to Great Britain.
In these circumstances there can be
no wonder that a state of tension be
tween the Arabs and the Jews should
exist and increase. The Arabs, as be
ing Mohammedans, feel sore at the
defeat of the Turks; for, however
grave may have been the faults of the
Turkish Government, yet at least the
Turks were in their social life as in
their theological belief not widely
alien from the Arabs. They are an
noyed, too, at the Jewish invasion, as
they conceive it to be, of Palestine;
e Cross-Ways”
Exrvrpl oj Addrrm hy l>l{. STEPHEN S. WISE
Rabbi of the Free Synagogue, President of the Jewish Institute of
Religion, before the Free Synagogue at Carnegie H(dl, on the eve
of tin* Atonement I fay, Sunday, October 14, 1020.
In the centuries of the long journey,
Jewish history may be said to be a
succession of baitings at the cross-
ways. Israel began its history with
an emergence from Paganism and
Polytheism, and in the time of that
first emergence to Monotheism and
mono-moralism, it stood alone, accept
ing the challenge of its loneliness with
zest and high passion.
And the second stage of the journ
ey resolved itself into a battle or con
flict with contending faiths, with com
peting civilizations, all of them alien
to its own inmost spirit. But in this
second stage of its history, through
out the centuries of which the tempta
tion to self-submergence was strong,
Israel no longer stood alone in its
spiritual upreaching. Nearly two mil-
lenia passed, and, when the day of
emancipation came, it found the Jew
with head bloody but unbowed, even
as his spirit today seems, alas, bowed
and bloodless.
If the temptation during the cen
turies was to assimilate, and to fail
to offer a high self-persistence be
cause of the parity of other faiths and
cultures, today there is another peril,
as Israel, perhaps for the last time,
stands at the parting of the ways. The
forms of faiths are common to all,
and nothing but a great devotion to
the substance of our people’s faith and
idealism can move us now.
Today it may be said that the Jew,
perhaps only half-consciously, must
choose between faith and irreligion,
and irreligion for the Jew too often
means not only philosophic atheism
but substantive cynicism. Israel must
choose today, especially what is known
as Liberal Judaism, between becoming
pulseless sect or living people, be
tween lapsing into a feeble memory
or rising into a full-orbed life.
Whatever some Jews may think
about it, there is the temptation
among many of us to surrender our
faith, to abandon our people, to re
nounce our life and its standards. Is
rael, instead of rising in this hour to
a magnificient renascence, may suf
fer itself to be overcome not by a
larger faith, but through yielding to
the lower temptations of the world.
Liberal Judaism must save its discip
les from degenerating into the veiled
Paganism of an anti-nation list sect
arianism. Nor yet must Israel become
a secularized people rather than a re
ligious brotherhood. It must build its
idealism into the integrity of self-rev
ering life in the ancient homeland of
the Jew and into an equally worthy
life throughout the lands of the Dis
persion. From all this it is net enough
to be saved by the pressure of the
world without,—Israel’s must be a
free and uncoerced and inmost choice.
Elsewise the end of the long journey
of the centuries will be spiritual con
fusion and moral chaos. If Israel now
nobly choose, the journey shall prove
to have been the noblest of the world’s
pilgrimages!
for it is a challenge to the super
ority which in their eyes rightly b*.
longs to them, as being the nvr
numerous element in the population
They are therefore in some degr*
disappointed, suspicious and ready *
take offence. The Jews, on the othe*
hand, are elated by the hope that
their return to their own country. V
much desired and so long postponed
is drawing near; they look forward to
the day when they shall be recognised
to be the foremost power among the
inhabitants of Palestine. Their lan
guage or their behavior may because
of the enthusiasm of Zionism have
been at times less considerate than
it would have been if they had borr.^
in mind the difficulty which Great
Britain or any other Mandator,
Power must find in keeping order
among conflicting races and religions.
It was perhaps a mistake that the
Zionists should last August have been
permitted for the first time to march
in procession to the Wailing Wall
The Zionists are reported rightly or
wrongly, to have excited some angry
feeling at the time of the procession
by waving a flag and singing an an
them.
But whatever may have been the
offence of the Jews, it is impossib
to demand or excuse the savagery of
the attacks which the Mohammedans
made upon them, not only in Jerusa
lem, but in other parts of Palestine
especially at Hebron, where a young
student of Wycliffe College, Mr. Best
Dst his life. There is some reason to
ear that the attacks made upon the
ews, as they broke out almost siro*
iltaneously in a good many places
ad been pre-arranged by the Arabs,
'he lesson of all these events is that
he British Government in Palestine
oust be upheld by a military fore
o strong as to ensure order all over
he country, and it must be prepe
nd resolved to prohibit, whe.n«
imong the Jews or among the Ara -•
,11 such provocative conduct as n,a;
lot improbably create a breat.
he peace. There will be great
if good feeling, tact, discipline an
orbearance among the peoples
ire living side by side in a ia.
ull of historical and religious men^
ies, which excite the deepest
trongest feelings in all heart.
The Arabs must slowly but sure)
earn the principles of civilize _
rhe land cannot remain a deseri - •
vas under the Turks; it mus 4l .
^eloped to the full extent o s
iral resources. Christians vv ^
vith natural sympathy upon
urn of the Jews to
;ee in that return the fU ' fl “ bser „rs.
indent prophecy. 13 rhristiati-
vhether Christian or n ° n ,
vill confidently anticipa e
lews, and as may be hoped It* ^
>f the Jew's w r ho live m * _jjf v ani
•ultivate the land, wil es jdent*
itilize its products and. ^ ^
vhose services to th ®. j^tern th*"*
ess conspicuous in the living
he Western world, will set
ixample of good citizens • ^
Dopyright by the Jewis