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The drawing of Shaw reproduced with this feature
is by Karl Stacy, who is associated with the First Ka-
tional Hank in Atlanta. Although rated as an amateur,
his works merit the best efforts of the professional.
Covering a broad scope, Mr. Stacy's drawings have
received much favorable comment throughout the South.
GEORGE BERNARD SIIAW
7 deny pro-Jewishness—/ reject anti-Semitism.
A Serious Rejoinder
By George Bernard Shaw
i
1 IS always difficult for a British author to
avoid creating misunderstandings on the Con-
■ tinent when he makes an observation concern-
ling the Jews. For England has no anti-Semitism
|to force him to handle the subject w ith silk gloves.
I rue. there is a mass prejudice against Jews in
jEnglanJ, just as there is mass prejudice against
[the Scotch, the Irish, the Welsh and all foreigners.
Jokes about the avarice of Jews are as hardy per
ennials as those about the stinginess of Scotchmen.
The Jew is caricatured with a Hittite nose, just
the Irishman is shown with the mug of a
Spanish muleteer. But this is not anti-Semitic any
[more than it is anti-Hispanic or anti-Caledonian.
When Charles Dickens was reproached with
[having offended the Jewish people by making one
of the two criminals in “Oliver Twist,” a Jew,
the accusation distressed him so that in a later
b<>ok he represented a Jew as the paragon of all
the virtues. Since neither of these two characters
[was specifically Jewish, and since the Jewish crimi-
Inal—who, incidentally, bore an Irish name—was
|by far the more pleasant of the evil pair, neither
■the supposed insult nor the amend had any signifi-
|cance whatsoever. But the incident shows how a
tan in British public life feels when he is taxed
I'vith anti-Semitism. England, reared in the spirit
I THE SOUTHERN ISRAELITE *
of the Old Testament, is Zionist in her sympa
thies and accepted Disraeli as her Prime Minister
—in the days when Prime Ministers W'ere great
men—as readily as she recognized Rothschild as
her banker.
Attempts to introduce anti-Semitism as a lit
erary tendency in London have been made by
Catholic authors who, living in a Protestant coun
try, felt themselves obliged to be more popish than
the Pope. In G. K. Chesterton they found a new
convert, an amazingly zealous adherent of Cathol
icism and one of first-rate literary' gifts and in
disputable sincerity. But when Mr. Chesterton
went to Jerusalem to execrate Zionism the book he
produced on the subject could easily have been the
work of the prophet Nchemiah; between the lines
one could recognize its author as an unconscious
Zionist, much more of a Zionist than any Jew'
with whom I ever discussed the matter.
Hence the persecution complex which causes
the sensitiveness of Continental Jews has no
raison d’etre in England. Among our public men
Mr. Hilaire Belloc is the most perfect imitation
of an anti-Semite. In comparison with him I
would have to be counted among the pro-Jews,
if such a division existed in England; but com
pared with M. Urbain Gohier, Mr. Belloc is a
present-day Maccabean. Henry Bernstein con
siders me an anti-Semite and believes that when
I said that beside the Jews the French are but
barbarians of yesterday, I am indulging in that
clumsy sort of irony which consists of calling
black w'hite. But every Englishman could tell
him that I meant it quite seriously and that 1
am for the Jews to the same degree that Mr.
Belloc has it in for the Jews. Probably my per
sonal friendships with Jews are more numerous
than M. Bernstein would consider advisable. My
most famous translators are Jew's. Jewish groups
constantly ask me to address them, Jewish papers
are always asking me to write for them—for they
know very well that I am sympathetically in
clined toward them. Yet I must deny pro-Jew
ishness as energetically as I reject anti-Semitism.
As an Irishman I know too well the morbidly
violent national consciousness called for by op
pression and persecution to be able to encourage
the Jew's in their dreams. To my ow'n people
I said often enough, in the days when they were
not free, that they were no chosen people, that
their sufferings had not made them better than
others, that indeed they w'ouid have become w'orse
than the others had not these others been just as
bad as they; and to the Jews I shall say the same
whenever the opportunity presents itself. The
teachings of the Bible, with their presentation of
subjugation, disinheritance and even extermina
tion of nations as a divine policy, I regard as ex
tremely pernicious and largely responsible for the
infamous predatory imperialism of the nations and
for the exploitation that threatens to imperil our
entire civilization. I believe that a Jew makes
himself ridiculous by taking his stand on the side
of this imperialism, by waving the flag of the
country in w'hich he lives, by laying stress on
being more French than any Frenchman, like
Henry Bernstein, or, like some English Jews,
more British than any Briton. But such views
are not anti-Semitic; all sensible Jew's share them.
And it is just because I hold these views that
I am—I hope—at least as popular among Jew’s
as among non-Jews.
Copyrighted 19)2 lor The Soctm*** luuiirn
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