David Baron

“ The judicial hardening of the heart of Pharaoh and the Egyptians was in itself part of the punishment from a righteous God upon a cruel nation sinking lower and lower to the most contemptible depths of idolatry. ”

“ For we had, curiously enough, developed while in the Ghetto into a bourgeois people, and we stepped out of it only to enter into fierce competition with the middle classes. Hence our emancipation set us suddenly within this middle-class circle, where we have a double pressure to sustain, from within and from without. ”

“ It forgets, in its ignorance and narrowness of heart, that prosperity weakens our Judaism and extinguishes our peculiarities. It is only pressure that forces us back to the parent stem ; it is only hatred encompassing us that makes us strangers once more. ”

“ To the Bible student, with the key of the future in his hand, it is very interesting to watch some of the more recent phases in the development of this "ques- tion," and to observe how the great God is, in His providence, now rapidly preparing the way for its final and only possible solution. Anti-Semitism, though no doubt a symptom of the diseased moral, political, and economic systems of Christendom, for which Jew and Gentile must bear equal blame, is nevertheless of great significance, and an unmistakable sign of the times when viewed from a Scriptural standpoint. ”

“ For He remembered His holy promise, and Abraham His servant And He brought forth His people with joy and His chosen with gladness."
It is remarkable how history repeats itself, and in relation to Israel the words of the preacher may especially be applied : " The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ... and there is nothing new under the sun."
If we substitute the word "nations" for Egypt we have an epitome of the origin, development, and issues not only of the ancient but also of the modern phase of the Jewish Question in the three or four verses of the psalm which I have quoted. ”

“ The promises of God to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and passages from the prophets, are quoted as proofs of Jewish pride and arrogance, and when the prophets utter curses and scathing denunciations on account of sin, it is still brought up in proof against the Jews that they are, and ever have been, the very worst nation under heaven. ”

“ The Jews are all powerfully represented in every walk in life that leads to influence and fortune. In the professions of law, medicine, and literature their numbers are out of all proportion to their quota of the popula- tion. Finance and commerce are practically in their hands. The great business houses, the banks, the railways that do not belong to the State, are all con- trolled by them. The Produce Exchange, and of course the Bourse at Vienna, Prague, or Budapest, are deserted on Jewish holidays. The press, with the exception of the Czech organs, is almost exclusively in the hands of Jews. ”

“ And not only is it in point of numbers that God is again causing His people "to increase greatly," but by their superior wits and energy and by their habits of frugality and thriftiness He makes them " stronger than their enemies," so that in those regions where the bulk of the nation is to be found, wherever the Jew has a fair chance he naturally places his Gentile neighbour in a less favourable position in the struggle for existence. ”

“ Its remote cause is our loss of the power of assimilation during the Middle Ages ; its immediate cause is our excessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet down- wards or upwards that is to say, no wholesome outlet in either direction. When we sink, we become a revolu- tionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of the revolutionary party ; when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse. ”

“ The proportion of Jews in the Austrian Universities is far in excess of what might be expected from their actual number in the country. For instance, in the Vienna University in 1887-88, out of 6,530 students there were 2,500 Jews i.e., 40 per cent. In Vienna itself one person in every ten is a Jew, but the propor- tion of the Jewish population in the whole Empire is only 5 per cent. ”

“ An instance how an anti-Semite reads Jewish history is supplied by the brief summary of the life of Joseph, who in words of Scripture is made out to be first an ungrateful profligate, who immorally assaulted the chaste and virtuous wife of his master Potiphar, and later on robbed and despoiled the famished Egyptians for his own ends, and for the enrichment of his tribe. ”

“ Now, in these respects, too, the ancient Jewish Question in Egypt finds its parallel in the modern phases of the problem which are accentuated by anti- Semitism. The millions of the poor and less cultured orthodox Talmudic Jews in Russia, Galicia, and Rou- mania have long ago been convinced that these lands cannot much longer remain their resting-places, and that it is about time for them to "arise and depart" toward that land for which they have never ceased to cherish a yearning desire ”

“ The fact is that the professional "Judengegner" on the Continent, has been morally blinded by his hatred and prejudice to the extent of being no longer able to distinguish between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, and often allows himself to be carried by his passions to the greatest lengths of injustice and villainy. ”

“ For a little period they manage to tolerate us, and then their hostility breaks out again and again. The world is provoked by our prosperity, because it has for many centuries been accustomed to consider us as the most contemptible among the poverty-stricken. ”

“ If all careers in the Russian Empire were thrown open to the Russian Jew not a decade would go by before the whole Russian administration from Port Arthur to Eydtkuhnen, and from Archangel to Yalta, must pass into Hebraic hands. ”

“ The remarkable thing is that, as the result of the newest phases of the anti- Jewish movement on the Continent, the more cultured, wealthy, and rationalistic Jews are at last digesting the truths that it is not by the so-called "reform" move- ment which aims at assimilation with the nations that the Jewish Question will be solved ”

“ But all these efforts cannot be directed against Jews alone, and where they have nevertheless been made, severe economic crises, with far-reaching effects, have been their immediate consequence. The very impossi- bility of getting at the Jews nourishes and embitters hatred of them. Anti-Semitism increases day by day and hour by hour among the nations ; indeed, it is bound to increase, because the causes of its growth con- tinue to exist, and cannot be removed. ”

“ In Russia, impositions are levied on Jewish villages ; in Roumania, a few human beings are done to death ; in Germany, they get a good beating when the occasion serves ; in Austria, anti-Semites exercise terrorism over all public life ”

“ God has often chastened His people " with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men," but He has no pleasure in the scourge which He employs, and as a rule uses for the chastisement of His people men or nations whom He designs to give up to destruc- tion for their wickedness. ”

“ Our national character is too historically famous, and, spite of every degradation, too fine, to make its annihila- tion desirable. We might, perhaps, be able to merge ourselves entirely into surrounding races, if these were to leave us in peace for a space of two generations. ”

“ It is of course possible to get at shares and debentures in railways, banks and industrial undertakings of all descriptions, by taxation, and where the progressive income-tax is in force, all our realised property can eventually be laid hold of. ”

“ Possible by means of the ultimate perfec- tion of humanity.' Is it worth while pointing out the sentimental folly of this view ? He who would found his hope for improved conditions on the ultimate per- fection of humanity would indeed be painting a Utopia ! ”

“ Attacks in Parliaments, in assemblies, in the press, in the pulpit, in the streets, on journeys for example, their exclusion from certain hotels even in places of recrea- tion, become daily more numerous ”