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The Southern Israelite
Page 5
y Views on the Present Situation in Rmssia
By JULIAN MORGENSTERN
i'h is article by Julian
,rgenstem, president of
i, Hebrew Union College, is
the nature of a reply and
• statement cm the now
nous Morgenstem Rich-
correspondence which
:lied forth considerable dis-
irbance in Jewish circles
nghout the United States.
This statement was pre-
«red for the Jewish Tele-
ruphic Agency who first
mode public the controversy
by publishing the original
rrespondence which started
it.
In a general way we know what
iitions in Russia are today. No
t the reports which we receive
considerable exaggeration
misrepresentation. But even
with proper discount for this, un
questionably conditions there are un-
;ipy and alarming in the extreme.
A ruthless campaign against religion
ing conducted. Its goal is the
iction of all religious belief and
practice, primarily in Russia, eventu
ally throughout the world. Its ar-
t is that religion is a thing of
ast, a delusion, a fallacy, con-
to reason, which acts as an
upon men’s minds and lulls
into a state of semi-insensibil-
md passive submission to condi-
of social and economic inequal
ity! oppression such as existed in
ist Russia, and such as, accord-
g to Bolshevik theory, obtain in all
untries and under all governments
t»t their own. From this tyranny a
nslavement the Bolsheviks would
the human race by destroying
i n utterly. Manifestly this is a
aign of the masses, and partic-
of the younger and more ag-
e radical element among them,
fstly, too, it is supported by
"viet government. It is directed
Christianity, Judaism and
alike, and also against the mi-
octs of Protestantism and other
which have gained a weak
■ Id in Russia.
doubtedly, too, Judaism is af-
by this anti-religious cam-
more than any other religion,
n the main they are matters of
and ritual practice and con-
while Judaism is all this
something more, something
r . a way of life. It is there-
ca.c
fur
he entire life of Judaism and of
ew m Russia which is affected
i; langered. The situation could
be worse. And yet it is worse,
infinitely worse and more
and horrible by the sad fact
ie most bitter persecutors of
and of the Jews who con-
r seek to conform to it, are
•emselves, the Yevseks, and
e V see *n to take a fiendish de-
the persecution of their fel-
' s and in the desecration of all
, vhich they, or at least their
• once held sacred.
Certainly our feelings are outraged
by these conditions, this program and
this manner of carrying it out. For
all this fanaticism and persecution
we can have only unqualified con
demnation and infinite loathing. 1
am sure that not even my most eager
and bitter critics will now misunder
stand me or fail to comprehend and
to admit where my strong sympa
thies lie. The question is, what can
be done; or explicitly, what can we
do, we Jews, here in America, living
in social and political security, and in
comparative ease, comfort and eco
nomic abundance.
The first impulse is to protest, to
protest against these wrongs and in
iquities, all the more iniquitous be
cause committed in the name of free
dom of thought and of human salva
tion, to protest against the Soviet
government which can condone, and
even approve, these iniquities, to pro
test as Jews and as Americans, and
to employ all possible pressure to
bring our American fellow-citizens
and our American government to pro
test with and for us. Unquestion
ably to protest in this manner is the
most natural and instinctive thing to
do. And not impossibly something is
to be gained from public opinion thus
aroused—something, perhaps; but I
fear not much. I have in mind the
nation-wide protest-campaign last
fall after the Palestine atrocities and
the meagre and pitiful results there
from. Nevertheless, it is not at all
improbable that I would have joined
in a general, representative, dignified
and formal protest, had I been in
vited to do so—which I was not. But
I must admit that I would have had
serious misgivings. I have little
faith in protests, and least of all in
the present case. On the one hand,
I fear that a protest now, no matter
how general and vigorous, even one
into which our government might be
drawn, can help but little. And on
the other hand, I fear that it might
even make matters worse for our
brethren in Russia, that it might only
irritate the Soviet government and
the Yevseks and encourage them in
their stubborn adherence to their vic
ious program.
Even more, I have the feeling that
a protest such as this, a protest of
which we may be fairly sure in ad
vance that it will have a little helpful
effect, is not much more than a ges
ture, a grandiloquent and self-satis
fying gesture, by which we relieve
ourselves of pent-up feelings of in
dignation and salve our consciences
by saying, “Now we have protested,
what else remains that we can do?”
Finally, I must say frankly that I
am suspicious of this general protest
and of the various local protest meet
ings scheduled to follow. I have had
one good lesson in Jewish politics by
a very competent teacher, and I have
learned a great deal in this one les
son. Protesting publicly and for
mally, with resolutions all drawn up
in advance, and the guileless public,
just as naive as I was myself two
months ago, expected, after the
speeches are all mnde, to sign on the
dotted line, and then go home and sit
quietly and ask no questions, but to
feel proudly that it has expressed its
united will and now something must
happen, all this is no doubt good poli
tics, yes—but is it statesmanship?
And again I ask, in the present tragic
situation confronting our brethren in
Russia, Palestine, Poland and other
lands, do we not need, not Jewish
politics, but Jewish statesmanship,
statesmanship of the highest order?
I myself make no pretense to
statesmanship. I have as yet had no
lesson in that. Nor am I authorized,
nor do I presume, to speak for any
Jewish wing, group, organization or
institution. Let this be clearly and
unequivocally understood. I speak
only for myself and voice only my
personal views. And before I can
formulate my thought upon any sub
ject or situation I must first endeav
or to analyze is, to understand its
causes and effects. A careful diag
nosis must always precede even the
most modest and hesitating sugges
tion of a cure.
In the present situation in Russia
this is not difficult—for those who
truly wish to understand it. Let me
say once more and in advance, so that
my views and sympathies may not
be again misunderstood and misrep
resented, I condemn the Yevseks un
qualifiedly and am horrified by the
fiendishness of their policies, their
program and the methods by which
they seek to carry this out. But I
may no more indulge myself in the
opiate of joining with the present
mass hysteria against them than may
the physician dealing with a dread
and loathsome disease. On the con
trary, I think I can understand them
quite well, not sympathetically, of
course, but objectively, even as the
physician studies and understands
disease.
They are fanatics, bigots in the ex
treme, as are all their Bolshevik com
rades. But why not? Conditions
have made them such, and they could
not well be aught else. Centuries of
oppression, of denial of human rights,
of enslavement of body, mind and
soul by a selfish, tyrannical govern
ment and an equally selfish, tyranni
cal church made the masses of the
Russian people what they were up to
fourteen years ago, ignorant, super
stitious, callous, culturally backward,
a powerful, lumbering creature in
chains, a Golem perhaps, exploited
cruelly by its master and hating this
master bitterly, gradually growing
more and more conscious of its power
and of its superiority to its master in
this respect, and cherishing wild
ideas of the destruction of its master
and of all that government and so
ciety which this master seemed to
typify. What little real knowledge
came to this creature was gathered
in the main surreptitiously and was,
of course, ill digested and resolved
itself into crude, extravagant, fan
tastic theories of radicalism, anarch
ism, nihilism, destruction and even
tual reorganization of life, society
and government upon a new scale and
in accordance with a new principle
and standard. At last the creature
arose in its power and crushed its
cruel master completely; and then,
feeling itself no longer a creature,
but now a man, it proceeded to real
ize its dreams, its ideals, its theories.
The result we see before us, a revo
lution like, yet infinitely more vast,
more cruel, more fanatic, more hor
rible than the French Revolution—
and the end is not yet.
And, now with a change of figure,
we on the outside are powerless to
interfere, to check the course of the
conflagration. Our puny, distant ef
forts to extinguish the fire will but
fan the flames still higher. He can
only watch, with fear and fellow-suf
fering snatching at our hearts, watch
and wait until the raging fires of fa
naticism should have burned them
selves out, and hope and pray, and
perhaps have faith in the lesson
which history, repeating itself, might
suggest, that something may survive
to salvage, something which may
even again eventuate in a precious
boon for mankind, a new and higher
and better social order. Certainly we
dare not hope for the complete and
speedy failure of the experiment and
the overthrow of the Soviet govern
ment; for that might well mean the
restoration of Czarism, something in
finitely worse. Then the whole strug
gle would in time have to be fought
through once more. We can only
hope and pray that very speedily ex
perience, common sense and growing,
tested knowledge may come into their
own, and the present era of destruc
tion and ruin yield to one of con
struction and social progress.
Within this peculiar setting we can
readily understand the Yevsek move
ment, if we will. Doubly the victims
of oppression, Judaism and the Jew
stood practically still culturally for
four hundred years. His language,
his dress, his habit of thought, his
outlook upon life and the world, his
conception and practice of religion
experienced but a minimum of change
and advance during all these centu
ries. A significant reform move
ment, healthy in its foundations and
rich in its promise, began in Russia a
little over a century ago. Had it been
allowed to evolve naturally and nor
mally it would undoubtedly have
achieved much, and Judaism and
Jewry in Russia and adjacent lands
would have experienced its full, bene-
nomic stability shall come to Russia,
then fanaticism and persecution will
cease automatically, and a new era of
freedom and progress for all, our
brethren included, will begin. Per-
(Continued on Page 15)