“O God-head, give me Truth!” the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted, he became the slave
Of “Truth,” a pilgrim far and wide.
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged, with none to save.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
III
OUR JEWISH NEIGHBOR
The Numbers that Come. So great has been the volume of Jewish immigration that the eyes of the country have been turned upon it in anxiety and question. In the ten years last past 1,012,721 have come. The largest number in any one year was in 1896, when 154,748 passed through the various ports. In 1911, 94,556 arrived. To better understand the meaning of these figures let us take a large map of the United States. Now be ready with a blue pencil and draw a circle around the cities I name. Perhaps I shall name the place in which some of you live. We will start with a city right on the Eastern coast of the United States, where you could step on board a steamer and sail away for Europe and see the homes of some of these people we are studying. The first city is Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound. The next is the capital of New York State, the city of Albany. The third city to get a blue circle is where a famous university stands, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then we will journey away West and draw a blue pencil mark around the name of a city that stands near a famous lake out of which no one ever drinks. Yes, that is the name, Salt Lake City, Utah. While we are West we will mark Spokane, Washington. Then we will move South and place a circle about San Antonio, Texas; then come East to Reading, Pennsylvania, and Trenton, New Jersey. Michigan is a big state with beautiful forests, and we will blue pencil the city of Grand Rapids. One more city is needed to make the ten. If none of you lives in the cities I have named perhaps you may live in the last one we mark, Kansas City, Kansas. I hear some one say, “Why do you ask us to place a circle about these cities?” Because I want you to know that in the last ten years enough Jews entered the United States to make ten as populous cities as the ones we have just marked.
From Where Does the Jew Come? Five-sixths of the Jewish immigration comes from Russia. While the Jews number probably 11,000,000 in the world, about 5,000,000 of them live in that empire, mostly in what is called the Jewish Pale of Settlement. Why there are so many in Russia needs a brief statement. Poland invited the Jews to settle within her borders in order to build up her cities. Here was gathered the largest population of Jews since the destruction of Jerusalem. In some of the provinces of Poland the Jews number one-sixth, and in some of the cities one-half of the population. When Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and Austria, fifteen provinces fell to the share of Russia. These form the Pale of Settlement, for there the Jew is allowed to dwell and there he is engaged in all forms of industry, including farming.
Why They Come. We have learned some reasons why the Jew leaves Russia. Other reasons are his desire for a better education for his children, freedom to engage in any business he may choose, and the privilege of worshipping God and of saying what he thinks without danger of arrest and imprisonment. Strange as it seems to us, there are still many places in the world where if a man thinks the judge or the ruler has done wrong he dares not say so openly. If he were heard to criticise them he would be in danger of prison. Sometimes when we complain of our own country we forget how fortunate we are to live in such a land of liberty.
Let us now find some of the reasons for the Russian hatred of the Jew. There could be no such merciless persecution of any race without some cause, and it is pretty well understood that the Russian government encourages and often provokes the attacks upon these people. The Russians dislike the Jews because the Jews are not Christians, and because they are much smarter business men than the average Russian, and would soon own all the land of the ignorant peasants if they were allowed to live among them and loan them money; the American Indian was cheated in this way by the smarter and better educated white man. Then the government does not like the Jew because the Russian government is corrupt and does not want the people to have a voice in governing themselves, and the Jew stands for the rights of the common people. Thus we see that while there is some just cause for dislike of the Jew, there are other reasons why he should be praised and commended.
As a Good Citizen. The Jew, having no country of his own has yet always been loyal to that of his adoption. The records show that when war came the Jew was willing to shed his blood for his adopted land. They are good to their own poor, providing hospitals for their sick, and homes for children who are without father or mother. The Bible tells us of the love of David for Absalom and the Hebrew king’s prayer for the recovery of his little sick son. The Jew is no different to-day, he is kind and affectionate in his home. We know the evil the saloon does in every city and town and village in America where it exists. The Jew is generally an enemy of the saloon. The liquor business does not prosper where he lives. The Jews are lovers of books and education, and some of the greatest scholars, musicians, artists, and writers of the world have been Jews. Some of the noblest people who come to America are to be found among the Hebrew immigrants.
Not All Money Lovers. Jewish people are often accused of prizing money more highly than any other race and of setting a greater value upon it than they do upon either truth or justice. Some years ago a great strike took place in New York among the garment workers, who were mostly Jews. It lasted till the savings of the workers were exhausted. I was talking with one of the strike leaders one day and he produced a letter he had just received from his former employer. It said, “If you will come back I will make you foreman and double your salary.” I knew the man was without any money, and I asked, “What will you reply?” “There is only one reply,” he said as he tore up the letter, “I couldn’t accept because I couldn’t be a traitor.”
The cheerful suffering that goes on among many East Side Jewish strikers is heroic, for they feel that they are fighting for principle and these battles that mean less food, thinner garments for the winter winds to pierce, and less fire in the homes, are fought with astonishing cheerfulness. In fact, it would be well for old as well as young folks to remember that the great battles being fought in these days are not with machine guns; these settle no principle. But the right to live, the right to live better than the brutes, the conviction that all one’s time should not be required in the struggle for bread, for shelter and for clothes, that the life is more than meat, and the body than raiment,—for these things the Jews fight by enduring hunger, sorrow and even death for the sake of simple justice. They are the preachers of world brotherhood.
We do not mean that all Jews can be placed in this exalted class. Among them are the hardest and most merciless task-masters. Just the other day I heard a Russian complain bitterly because the Jews for whom he had been expelled from Russia were paying him the pitiful salary of $4.00 per week for his toil. But among them are a great multitude of noble men and women battling for a better day.
The Jew Intellectually. If I were to ask the question, “Are Jewish boys and girls at the head or at the foot of their classes in school?” I know the answer would be, “They are at the head.” The Jew is delighted at the boundless opportunities for education in America. He is like one long locked out from a treasure which he could see but could not touch.
As a Business Man. As a money getter the Jew is without a peer in the world to-day; he seems to possess the golden touch we read of in the Wonder Book. But when we know how it is done there is little mystery about it. A Jewish family sent their children to my Sunday-school. They were poorly dressed and had the appearance of being ill-fed. After a year or two these signs of poverty disappeared and there was every evidence of comfort. I wondered what the cause might be and said to the children. “Your father is doing better, is he not?” “Oh, yes,” they said, “he has gotten over the hard times he had when he went into business. He always used to get up at four o’clock in the morning and go to the factory and get the work ready before the tailors came. Then after they were gone he used to work until eight or nine o’clock every night, but he has a good business now and doesn’t work so hard.” Most men would succeed if they worked such long hours.
The Jew Spiritually. The Jew is a religious man but he seems to be losing his religion in America. In Europe the synagogue was a rallying point, in America the rallying place is the Labor Union, and many have turned away from the old faith. Family life, once loyal and beautiful, now shows many desertions, the father leaving the family to care for itself. The streets at night are trodden by too many Jewish girls, and the criminal courts are thronged with too many Jewish boys. Contempt for old age is one of the saddest products of American life. I have frequently seen young Jewish boys, twelve and fifteen years of age, mocking Jews as venerable as Abraham, both by pulling their beards and by sundry insults. The ignorance of Jewish children on sacred things is widespread. It is a question if any religious body has a more solemn festival than the Day of Atonement. It is supposed to be a day of fasting and prayer, but the restaurants are full, and numerous Jewish organizations use the day to make money by hiring a hall and selling the seats at a good profit to all who can be induced to buy. Many Jews who are members of congregations never attend service except on two or three of the principal fast days.
And yet, careless as the Jew may be of his old time religious faith, Christianity calls forth the bitterest opposition. He cannot forget the many things he has suffered in the name of the Christian church.