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That Jewish
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By John Haynes Holmes
JOHN HAYNES HOLMES
Jew Are Stiff-necked, Stubborn.
I HAVE said that there are general causes and
special causes for the persecution of the Jew.
1 shall undertake to name one cause in each
of these two groups, the one in each case which
is fundamental, therefore characteristic and of
supreme importance.
From the standpoint of the general causes in
volved, 1 may say that Jews are persecuted, as all
persecuted peoples are persecuted, primarily be
cause they are different. There is a herd instinct
in man which resents any variation of type, and
which prompts him to stamp out such variation as
dangerous to his own survival. 1 his herd in
stinct, 1 may say, is native to animals as well as
to men, and therefore must be regarded as in
origin a part of our animal inheritance. Place
a strange dog, for example, in a kennel, and he
will immediately be set upon and destroyed hv
the kennel’s inmates. The white crow, a lighter
variation of the black species, has practically dis
appeared because invariably he is pecked to death
by his outraged companions. The black sheep is
not allowed to live with the rest of the flock, and
thus, poor animal, just because of his dark-hued
coat, has become a symbol for evil qualities which
have never been his at all. What animals thus
do in their herd life, men do as well. From the
beginning of time, we have instinctively hated the
stranger and feared the man who for any reason
lives apart. The heretic in religion is the perfect
illustration of the working of this impulse, l his
heretic, in all the personal qualities of his life, is
quite like other men. Hut he dares to think for
himself, to hold his own beliefs, to worship at
his own altar, and forthwith the hand of every
man is raised against him! Non-conformity, in
other words, is the unpardonable sin.
Now, Jews are the most distinctive of all peo
ples on the earth. They are not only different, but
they seem to want to be different. They are ob
stinate, stubborn, stiff-necked, heroic, sublime in
their resolution to walk in their own path, to be
faithful to their own character, and to follow their
own way of life. Their difference from other men
was rooted in the beginning in the discovery of
and a devotion to one God whose will was the will
of righteousness. In their loyalty to this deity,
the Jews refused to conform to the universal cus
tom of accepting the gods of other peoples when
it was convenient or useful to do so. They stead
fastly clung to their own God to the exclusion of
foreign gods, and thus, from the earliest moment
of their recorded history, were hated by the wor
shippers of these other gods. This difference,
which had become as it were a part of history,
w'as accentuated after the dispersion when the
Jews undertook the stupendous task of surviving
in a world in which they had no place. Ten tribes
of the Jews had already failed in this attempt, or
else had never undertaken it, and thus are re
membered only as “the Lost Tribes.” Hut the two
remaining tribes resolved heroically to live, and
have succeeded through the colossal achievement
of maintaining their own essential individuality in
the face of a world’s displeasure.
Thus, separated from their temple, they reared
their synagogues wherever they found themselves,
and there continued the worship of their God.
Porn from their homes, they built their family life
around the sanctified traditions of their race, and
thus made this life itself a sacred thing. Driven
from their native soil, they established Israel with
in their hearts, and thus on whatever soil they
stood made this soil their own. And always,
wherever they were, they cherished the Messianic
dream of the restoration of Israel and the return
to Zion. Thus, through all these centuries of their
scattered existence, the Jews have kept themselves
separate and apart. In their hopes, their dreams,
their ideals, their loyalty to themselves they have
refused to surrender to the world, or to conform
to its alien and ignoble ways.
Phis attitude of the Jews, however, is not the
whole of the story. For it is the irony of this cir
cumstance that persecution itself has inevitably
emphasized, deepened and perpetuated the very
difference which was the occasion of persecution.
What the Jews, in other words, deliberately chose
for themselves as a discipline of faith, was straight
way imposed upon them by their neighbors as a
punishment of fate. Through the long night of
medieval oppression, the Jews were driven apart
into a more terrible exile than they ever desired or
could have accomplished for themselves. Down
into the dark slums and noisome dens of the
ghettos, they were driven as rats into the sewers
of the streets. Great walls were reared about
their homes, through the gates of which they were
never allowed to escape. Hadges of infamy and
garments of disgrace were laid upon their persons
that, as veritable lepers, they should be cast out
of the society of men. For more than a thousand
years they struggled on as outlaws and pariahs,
hated centers of moral pestilence and contagion.
In later years, within a centuary and a half, they
have been released and, under varying degrees of
disability and prejudice, have mingled with other
men. To the influences of modern life they have
quickly adapted themselves, and into the culture of
every nation where they have been allowed to func
tion, have poured the rich genius of their spirit.
Hut always they have refused to assimilate, to
merge and be lost. On the contrary, in modern
times as in ancient, they have rigorously, stead
fastly, bravely been true to themselves, and thus
preserved themselves. Both voluntarily and in
voluntarily, they have lived as men apart, and
thus in a world and culture of their own.
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I
'This, I am persuaded, is the fundamental rea
son for the persecution of the Jews, as of all othrr
peoples who have ever suffered. It is not thr 1
character of the Jew but his difference which ha* I
made him objectionable to the Gentile. This dii I
ference, may l add .as a very important point. |
might not have been so obnoxious if only it had I
been synonymous with a proved or admitted in I
feriority. Many a “different” people had been I
able to survive, even under conditions of griev.., |
inequality and oppression, by accepting the brand!
of inferior origin and character. 'This is true ot j
the great mass of American Negroes in the South
today, and it has been true for thousands of vear«.
of the Untouchables of India. Both these group*
as well as other groups of the same kind, have
learned to avoid persecution and destruction,
whatever the burden of their outlawry, by accept
ing in the life of the society of which they are a I
part the status of inferiority. Hut the Jew ha>|
never been willing to be inferior. Indeed, he has|
seemed to take a positive delight in being superior. I
Challenged by the violence and hate of the Chris-1
tian world, he has matched these weapons ot I
tyranny with his intelligence and spirit, and there-1
with has managed not only to survive, but in thr I
end to climb to the highest seats of power and I
influence.
The one unforgettable offense of the Jew* in I
Germany today, as I have said, is their succev I
in excelling their contemporaries in every walk ot I
life. Not only in banking and business, in industn 1
and commerce, but also in art and literature, ir I
philosophy, politics, science, they have made them r
selves the leaders of their time. And what is true I
in Germany is true also in other countries! Ini
1927, for example, the British Journal of P$y-1
chology made a systematic investigation of the in I
telligence of children attending the public school'I
in England, and found as a result of its survey that I
“Jewish children were conspicuously superior to I
all other classes.” A similar investigation was j
conducted at Columbia University in 1928, and aL
similar finding was registered. More recently Pro
fessor Terman, of California, undertook to sift
out from the pupils in the public schools of that
state the one thousand most gifted boys and gir '
When he had isolated these children, he founc.
that there were twice as many Jewish boys ami
girls among them as were warranted by the rati**
of Jews to the total population of California.
Now, what are we going to do with people of this
kind? How are we going to live with them * v
get along with them? How are the Gentile
going to protect themselves from such outrageous
competition? Is it not adding insult to injury for
Jews to beat Gentiles in this fashion at their own
game? Not to be like Gentiles is bad enough, bu*
to be better than Gentiles (Please turn to page - v
* THE SOUTHERN ISRAEI ITE