A CLEVER RACE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 134, 3 December 1935, Page 6

A CLEVER RACE

CONSTANT, TENACITY

I DEFENCE OF THE JEWS

DEBT OF SCIENCE AND ART

There have been many attacks on the Jews, but I have never been able to j find any book which is an adequate] defence of the Jews, writes JameJ Douglas in the "Daily Express." This' is strange, for the Jews have an over- j whelming defence against all their enemies. The case for the Jews, is that they were for several thousands of years a small band of wandering Semites and that they crested a vision of God out of which Christianity and Christendom miracuously grew. The other Semitic tribes have done nothing like this. Only this poor and weak branch of the Semitic stock has performed the matvel that has made the modern world. The supreme evidence in defence of the Jews is the basic fact that Jesus, the Founder of Christianity, was a Jew. If there had been no Je.Wothere would have been no Jesus. If there had been no Hebrew prophets Christianity would never have shaped the history of the whole world. The Bible is and always will be the greatest book in any language. It has been translated into every tongue and every dialect of the human race. It is the one book of man. It is a Jewish book, and the Christian religion is a Jewish religion. It is their religion and not their race which has preserved the Jewish people through all their perils ever since they escaped from their captivity in Babylon three thousand years ago. .The great empires of the ancient world'haVe'vanished and perished, but this small and obscure group of nobodies has survived them all through thirty centuries of exodus and dispersion. Our own Western civilisation may vanish and perish like the Greek, Roman, Assyrian, Sumerian, and Persian civilisations, but the Jewish people will'survive its destruction. The Jews are time-proof and'change-proof.. never Absorbed. No race has ever assimilated or absorbed the Jews. v Disraeli proudly said it .is. impossible for an inferior race to absorb a superior race. Their enemies have flung them into many melting-pots, but they have nevar found a pot which could melt them. "It is all very well," says Henry Ford, "to talk of the melting-pot, but so far from the Jews melting in the pot, it looks as if they would mcli the pot itself." ' . The persecution of the Jewish race is the darkest chapter in the history of .Christianity. "The heroism of the defenders, of every other creed," says Le^ky, "fades into insignificance before this martyred people, who for thirteen centuries confronted all the evils that the fiercest fanaticism could devise, enduring obloquy and spoliation, the of the dearest ties, and the I" infliction of the most hideous sufferings, rather than abandon their faith." .'They were outraged, tortured, < murdered, ," arid burned * alive, i They were imprisoned ' and ban-: l ished. They were shut up • in. i ghettos. They were convicted of the t worst crimes on the worst evidence, j But their genius triumphed over their j agonies. They have produced great, philosophers, artists, poets, physicians; 1 statesmen, philanthropists, inventors,- ( merchants, financiers, and men oi < science. Heine is one of. the greatest lyric ' poets, Spinoza is one of the greatest 1 philosophers. Felix Mendelssohn is 1 one of the greatest' composers. Disraeli ' is one of the greatest statesmen in the history of England. r ' TEST OF NATIONS. „ , Disraeli said; that Providence would • deal good or ill fortune to nations ac- ! cording as they dealt ill or well by ' the Jews. History certifies that pro- '■ found saying. In Spain thousands of ! Jews were burned alive. The Span- ' ish Empire perished. The Romanoffs i persecuted the Jews in a thousand pog- J roiris. Their .'Empire dissolved in ruins. Spain, and Russia attest the , truth of Disraeli's generalisation. j This is not. to say that persecution , of the Jews involves the-ruin of a j State: it is true, however, that a per- j secuting State contains. elements that \ may ultimately ruin it. \ There is no doubt that nations : which treat the Jews well are richly < rewarded for their liberality and tol- j eration. For example, the century ■< after the Norman Conquest witnessed an outburst of architectural energy which covered England with castles and cathedrals. Castle and cathedral alike owed their existence to the loans of the Jews. ' .There are still "Jews' houses" at Lin- . coin and elsewhere. They were al- J most the first houses of stone which , superseded the English hovels. There j was a Jewish medical school at Ox- , ford. In 1268 Roger Bacon studied , under Jewish rabbis. In the thir- ] teenth century royal displeasure fell \ upon the Jews in England. They were j forbidden to hold real property, to ( employ Christian servants, or to move 1 through the streets without the two ; white tablets of wool on their breasts 1 which distinguished their race. i : DRIVEN OUT. | At last Edward drove the Jews from ( his realm. Of the sixteen thousand < Jews who preferred exile to apostasy few survived. One shipmaster.., ma- i rooned his cargo' of- Jewish merchants j on a sandbank and told them to call a ( new. Moses to save them from the sea. i It was not until the nineteenth cen- « tury that the full emancipation of the ! Jews followed the emancipation of < the Catholics. England became the ] asylum of all the fugitive Jews in ( Europe. They played a great part in ] her economic development. Jews, became our national heroes. \ Henry Irving made Shylock a tragic figure. He romanicised the Jew • that Shakespeare drew. Sir "Walter 3 Scott, George Eliot, and Charles Reade ' ennobled the Jew. Disraeli conquered the Tory prejudice against the Jews. But he had a hard fight. While he was pleading for the Jews in the House of Commons, Lord John Russell said to Gladstone, "Look at him, how manfully he sticks to it, though he • knows that i every word he says is gall and wormwood to every man who sits around him and behind him." ' The talents of the Jews have found ! full scope in every English institution. ( They have adorned the law.and the \ Legislature. They have added lustre to every profession. They have promoted every enterprise. They have married into our oldest families. They j have become patrons of all the arts j and sciences. The theatre owes much to Jewish ! dramatists, actors, and actresses. Sir I Arthur Pinero and oir Herbert Beer- i bohm Tree are examples. Rachel and < Sarah Bernhardt, the two greatest 1 actresses of their day, were Jewish. EINSTEIN AND HERTZ. Perhaps the greatest man of genius , in the world of science since Sir Isaac ' Newton is Einstein.- Heinrich Hertz, j the wireless pioneer, was a Jew. Fritz ' Haber, a German Jew, during the war] '■

bestowed on Germany t!:e secret ol extracting nitrogen from the air. :

Jewish blood probably ran in the veins of William Booth, the founder o£ the Salvatic".. Army. His mother's name was Moss. There was a Jewish strain in the great' Victorian poets! Robert Browning- and Matthew Arnold.

The Je.vs invented the bill of exchange. They have wielded enormous power in the City, in the Bank of England, and the Stock Exchange. Persecution has forced the Jews to change their names. The Jews have no surnames. They were compelled by law to adopt surnames, so that they could be registered.

The Jew must get a surname of some sort. He.cannot invent one, so he takes a name that pleases him. It is not fair to blame him. The Jew likes the best of everything, and therefore he likes the best names.

Whatever may be the faults of the Jews, we must remember that they are largely the product of ancient oppression and persecution. In short the Jews are what the Christians have made them. They are the martyrs of history, but they have thriven and they will always thrive on their martyrdom.