Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

That Jewish Diff 0 f0 n cg 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. [10] 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