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Page 44
The Southern Israelite
if i Were a Jew
(Continued from page 35)
I confess I have little sympathy with the
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Jew who, while not hiding or denying
his Judaism, still tries to live in the Gen
tile world and as much like Gentiles as
possible. As though it meant anything
to a Jew to belong to a Fifth Avenue
church or a Long Island club! Is there
not something essentially unworthy in this
attempt to live the life of other people,
as though one were ashamed of one's
country or one’s home?
But if I were a Jew, I would not con
fine myself to the Jewish world. I
would not turn my home into a ghetto,
nor my family into pariahs. There are
two sides to this business of Jewish seg
regation. There is the side of the Gentile,
who drives the Jew in scorn and con-
tumly from his presence. There is also
the side of the Jew, who despises the
Gentile, flees from his world, and now
that the physical ghetto is gone, straight
way proceeds to build a social and
spiritual ghetto of his own. And if ever
this segregation is to end, there must be
work upon both sides of the wall of
separation. Not only the Gentile but, the
Jew must beat down the barrier, and each
cross voluntarily into the other’s world.
So if I were a Jew, while I would not
sacrifice one iota of my Jewishness, I
would deliberately seek contacts with the
larger world. I would be a man among
men, a citizen among my fellow-citizens.
I would live where other men live, go
where other men go, share what other
men share. Wherever a door is open, I
would enter it; wherever a hand is of
fered, I would clasp it. I would do this
as my duty to the world, that it may get
acquainted with the Jew, and find in
whatever virtues I possess the virtues of
my tribe. But I would do this also as
my duty to myself and to my people, for
before I am a Jew I am a man. Deeper
than my Judaism is my humanity. Just
to the extent that I am a human being,
1 must keep contact with all my kind, for
litis is the larger family of my devotion.
As I must not desert Jews, in other words,
because they are my brothers, so I must
not desert humanity, because these also
are my brothers. Therefore, if I were
a Jew, I would walk freely and openly
among my fellows. Always a Jew, I
would still always be a citizen, a neighbor,
a comrade, an American, a human being.
In my person would the tribe of Israel
and the tribes of earth unite, and man
kind thus truly be made one.
The great Rabbi Elijah Beramozegh,
of Leghorn, summed up the whole truth
of a Jew’s relations with his fellows,
when he said:
“Mankind cannot rise to the essential
principles on which society must rest, un
less it meets with Israel.
“And Israel cannot fathom the deep
of its own national and religious tradi
tion, unless it meets with mankind.”
Lastly, if I were a Jew, I would claim
the fullness of my promise in tha future.
By this I mean, specifically, that I would
be a Zionist. I would be a Zionist, first,
because a hundred and sixty thousand of
my people are at this moment in dire need
in Palestine, and I have been taught that
Jew's never fail their own in any part of
the world when they are in distress.
Particularly would I be a Zionist today,
when these Palestinian pioneers are smit
ten by the British Empire not because
they are Zionists but because they are
Jews. Is there any Jew anywhere who
does not know that when Britain strikes
at Zionism she is striking at every Jew
high and low in every quarter of the
world? If you are a Jew, the cause of
Zionism is your cause at this hour if it
never was before, and you should make it
your own if you would not be a traitor
to your race.
I would be a Zionist, secondly, because
I see in Zion the fulfillment of the age
long hopes of all my tribe, the dream
fulfilled of patient and persecuted Israel.
For centuries the Jews have wandered
homeless over the surface of the earth.
They live today in every country, includ
ing this country, on sufferance. Nobody
wants them. If not persecuted now as
they used to be, they are treated with the
prejudice which kills the soul even if it
does not destroy the body. Is the Jew
to have no portion on the earth which
he can call his own, no home in which his
soul may find its refuge? Zion is the
answer to the hunger of the Jewish heart
through generations of distress and agony
for peace and safety. Now that the home
land is in sight, should it not be received
and welcomed by all who boast the herit
age of Israel’s race and faith?
And I would be a Zionist, if I were a
Jew, for the sake of mankind as well as
for the sake of my own people. For
Palstine, thanks to the Zionist experi
ment, is one of those few places in the
world where new hopes are dawning for
the human race. Soviet Russia, one of
the great social experiments of all time,
is seeking to impose a new ideal of society
upon vast numbers of people by authority
from above. Zionism, on the other hand,
is seeking to build a new fabric of society
out of the willing lives of humble workers
on the land from the bottom up. I had
the feeling when I was in Palestine that
I was seeing a surer vision of the happy
future of my race than I had ever seen
before. If I were a Jew, I would cherish
this vision, and out of love for my fellow-
men everywhere, give my life to making
it come true.
So, if I were a Jew, I would be a
Zionist. But not a Zionist in any
separatist sense 1 I would not welcome
but deplore the establishment of the new
homeland of the Jews if it were to be
one more nation added to the many un-
(Continued on page 46)
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