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Is There a Solution?
Jh.e Jewish. Problem Seen Jkrough. Non-Qewish. Cyes
Can anti-Semitism be outlawed/
The question is being seriously considered by
Jewish and non-Jewish leaders who are con
templating the calling of an international con
ference to combat anti-Semitism. The author
of this article is the secretary of the Interna
tional Student Fellowship, which has done much
to counteract anti-Jewish prejudice in the F.uro-
pean Universities . . . The Editor.
“T DON’T like Jews, hut I don’t know why.”
I Mention the Jewish problem to most people
and that will he their answer. Added to the
“instinctive” anti-Semitism which has come down
from the mediaeval Church, and is perpetuated by
the Sunday School, there is a whole complex of
feelings about Jews personally. There is a com
plete set of anecdotes about them, some simply
humorous and which are told of Scotsmen or of
Jews impartially, depending on whether at that
particular moment it is Scotsmen or Jews who
are being pilloried, hut others which are told ex
clusively about the Jews, and which are said to
he based upon “specifically Jewish” characteristics.
It is this, and the exactness of these stories, which
distinguishes anti-Semitism from other racial
hatred, such as the hatred of colored races by the
whites. There not only are the accusations more
vague and general, hut they are mixed up with
the general sense of the inferiority of the colored
race, which is supposed to exonerate them from
excessive blame. These things are “what you ex
pect” with a “nigger”—almost it is not his fault.
This element of recognition of extenuating cir
cumstances is almost completely absent in similar
accusations against the Jew. Yet there are more
extenuating circumstances in his case than in any
other. The memory of man is short; but the mem
ory of the subconscious is very, very long. No
ordinary man knows much about the his
tory of the Jews in Europe, and since they
are all about us, mixed in with European so
ciety, met with on every step of the social
scale, it is the presumption of the ordinary
man that the Jew has had approximately the
same history as the rest of us since he left
Palestine two thousand years ago, and that
he is therefore responsible to the same extent
as the rest of us, for his attitude to and his
place in the society in which we both find our
selves. Tin’s is far from true. Jewish tradi
tions have been narrowed by being drawn
from only a few classes and its characteristics
have been formed and deformed by oppres
sion and by self-defense.
Needless to say, we are not considering the
exceptional cases, either good or bad. Every
body knows Jew's who are conspicuous for
their learning or for their generosity, and
Jew's who have made themselves notorious at
the other end of the moral scale. But stories
about individuals, though useful as illustra
tions, cannot take the place of argument,
though it is a common human failure to use
them as such. General arguments cannot he
contradicted by stories about individuals. It
is not the man who moulds his own fate,
whether good or bad, but the man whose fate
is moulded by his setting, that is, the average
man, who must be the subject of such a study.
The Jewish Law' is largely of the static va
riety, but if we ask what arc the factors which
have created the European society of today w r e
are confronted with a dynamic norm, the force
By Dr. James Parkes
DR. JAMES PARKES
. . . “No ordinary man knows much
about the history of Jews." . . .
of public responsibility. The greatest humanizing
and civilizing agency of modern times has un
doubtedly been the evolution of democracy. Hu
manity rises from childhood to manhood in its
adoption of the ideal of the citizens in place of
the subject, whether in State or Church, or so
cial relationship. Ideally, democracy is the great
est discipline which man has yet invented, and
responsibility and tradition are together its strong
est supports. There is no community on record
possessing a morally healthy life which was de
prived of the exercise of that degree of responsi
bility of which it was capable. Neither good gov
ernment nor prosperity are substitutes. There »
an old saying that man does not live by bread
alone, and a newer one, equally true, that good
government is no substitute for self-government.
Tradition and responsibility expressed in discipline
of one sort or another. Dictatorships and autot ra
cies on the one hand, and colonial exploitation on
the other, provide the most glaring examples of
the truth of this. For the inner discipline is sub
stituted the single law: “'Fhou shalt not be found
out.” Autocracy produces moral rottenness in rhe
governing class holding their positions by the whins
of a ruler or by subservience to a slogan. Around
them gather a class of sycophants whose only creed
is to obey the behests of their rulers, and the rev
of the people are either servile or secretelv rebel
lious. In business autocracy there is the same rot
tenness, w hether it be “Graft” or the pitiless ex
ploitation of the feeble. In either case humanity
exercising or submitting to irresponsible control
shows its w’orst sides.
We know' how Jewish traditions have been nar
rowed down both by external causes and by in
ternal reactions. Turning from the past to the
Present, w'hat does this mean in terms of responsi
bilities and opportunities? What has conditioned
Jewish development in modern society?
In the answer is revealed the tragedy of their
situation. Circumstances have been such that the
Jew has developed under precisely those condition*
which are likely to bring out the worst in human
nature. Every government has been for him a dic
tatorship, for he has lived under conditions in the
making of which he has had no share, politically,
socially, or commercially. The mediaeval guilds
excluded him from their membership, but at
tempted to compel him to observe the rules. So
ciety may accept him, but expects him to observe
its own code. Countries may give him hospi
tality, but on condition of his observing their
manners and customs. He must either accept
what is offered him without criticism, or hi*
opposition must be underground. Law's are
made which affect him, but he has no open
and straightforward w-ay of opposing, or even
influencing them. It is only in quite recent
times, and in a restricted way, that there have
been openly Jewish political parties. Usually
he has had either to accept them, or to u«
such secret influences as financial pressure,
and the press, to alter them. He has been a
subject and not a citizen, and as such he ha*
had no ground for that instinctive loyalty to
society w-hich is expected from a free and
responsible member of it. It is in the light
of this that w-e ought to consider the many
accusations of disloyalty w'hich are made
against him.
The individualism of w hich the Jew is often
accused is but another form of social disloyalty
He is said to be self-centered and to seek only
his own advantage and to remain completely
indifferent to the public good. Here, also!
it is noticeable that when this accusation »
made in France or Germany, it is usually!
made against the recent emigrants from the 1
east who have made a rapid fortune in the
countries of their adoption. Jew'ish w r ar prof
iteers, and the Jew's who made fortunes out
of speculation in the post-w'ar currencies, and
who flaunted their wealth amid the general!
distress and poverty, are particularly often
quoted. Let it be said at once that such peo-l
pie, whether Jew (Please turn to page 12
. . . the late Boris Shaft interprets here a Jerusalem type . . .
[6]
* THE SOUTHERN ISRAELI!?