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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 Pan-American Life Insurance Co. A. J. SHROPSHIRE General Agent Rhodes-Haverty Building WALNUT 2807 PEACOCK SERVICE CO. Battery Service Albert C. Peacock, Mgr. 23 Baker Street, N.W. WALNUT 9186 H. C. MONTGOMERY OPTICIAN 309 Candler Building MAIN 9291 GENERAL AUTO REPAIRS RADIATOR REPAIRS PERRIN’S GARAGE Service That Satisfies Main 1558 NATIONAL LIBRARY BINDERY CO Walnut 7753 Southern Improvement Co. 228 Marietta St., N.W. New Roofs Applied Over Old Roofs Chanukah Greetings Ten Months to Pay 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) ENTREKIN DISTRIBUTING COMPANY KRAFT-PHENIX CHEESE PRODUCTS JOHN F. JELKE GOOD LUCK HARGARINE H. TEN BRUIN & SON HORSE RADISH 1075 SYLVAN ROAD, S.W. RANDOLPH 1769 Chanukah Greetings HARRIS RIM & WHE L COMPANY 376 Spring Street, N.W Jackson 4320 “Better Be Safe Than Sorry” J. L BURNET CO. WALLPAPER Service Since 1881 177 Whitehall St., S.W. Ma. 7114 Season's Greetings A. G. MOSER JEWELER 36 WALTON, N.W. JA. 6734 A. L. Quinn Auto Top & Body Company Wrecked Fenders and Auto Repairs 780 Gordon St., S.W. Ra. 3000 TOM BILL Season's Greetings Smith & Livingstone General Auto Repairing Oldsmobile Specialists! 78 Auburn Ave. Wal. 2814 Holiday Greetings SPRING STREET GARAGE “WE NEVER CLOSE” 212 SPRING ST., N.W. Wa. 7521