American Jews

“ American Jews have made immeasurable contributions to our country's economic, political, social, and cultural development. The remarkable and varied achievements of American Jews have greatly enriched the lives of all Americans, from medicine and mathematics to movies and the musical theater.
It is appropriate at this time of year that we remind ourselves of the tragedy and glory of Jewish history. The Jewish people have recently celebrated Passover, the holiday that commemorates their deliverance by God from the bondage of Egypt to freedom in the Holy Land. ”

“ In the new world of the colonies, and in the United States, the numerous and prosperous Jewish communities, owing to their speaking European languages, are of course more readily recognisable as Jews, although, in America especially, the Judaism of these dispersed and transplanted Jews is not always in a very much better state of preservation than among the semi-savage sects of ancient civilisation. Among some American congregations Judaism seems to be occasionally rather a religion of sentiment and of complaisant remembrance, than of active and steadfast observance. ”

“ BUT I wish also to state that I cannot for an instant recognize that the Jews as such constitute a nation in any sense in which that word is recognized in political science, or that a national basis is a possible concept for modern Judaism. We Jews in America, bound to the Jews of other lands by our common faith, constituting our common inheritance, cannot as American citizens feel any bond to them as members of a nation, for nationally we are Americans and American only, and in political and civic matters we cannot recognize any other ties. ”

“ When the history of the emancipation of the Jews is written, a place of honor surely will be accorded to the help rendered by America, through some of her foremost and most humane statesmen, from Theodore Fay [86] to John Hay, and through the energy and self-sacrifice of her Jewish citizens.
Nor would our survey be sufficient without a reference to the patriotism of the American Jew. If the patriotism of the Jew has been proved in every country, nowhere has it been more ardent and ready than here. ”

“ The ousting of American Jews from the Zionist movement at the behest of Eastern Jews indicates that if the political center of world Jewry has shifted to the United States, the power is still in the hands of aliens resident here. The center is still in Jewry; the United States is merely a square on Jewry’s world checker-board. ”

“ In all the years spent in America I do not recall meeting a Jew at dinner in Washington, New York, or Newport. They are disliked, and as a rule associate entirely with themselves, having their own churches, clubs, etc. Yet they in large degree control the finances of America. They have almost complete control of the textile-fabric business, clothing, and many other trades. Why the American Christians dislike the American Jews is difficult to understand, but the invariable reply to this question is that their manners are so offensive that Christians will not associate with them. ”

“ And it is not race prejudice to prepare for it, and to invite American Jews themselves to consider the fact and contribute to the solution of the problem which it presents.
3. Every idea which has ruled Europe has met with transformation when it was transplanted in America. It was so with the idea of Liberty, the idea of Government, the idea of War. It will be so with the idea of anti-Semitism. The whole problem will center here and if we are wise and do not shirk it, it will find its solution here. A recent Jewish writer has said: "Jewry today largely means American Jewry . ”

“ It is certainly true that to no group of people has America proved more truly a land of opportunity than to the Jews. A mere survey of the American period of Jewish history is sufficient to convince us of this, and such a survey is especially appropriate at present when the history of the world is being recast and remade, and the future destiny of both America and the Jew is a subject of frequent discussion. ”

“ It is too soon yet to foretell whether or not this vast and growing body of Jews from eastern Europe is to melt and disappear in the American population just as numbers of Portuguese, Dutch, English, and French Jews in our early days became blent with the rest of the people. In any case the immigrant Jews are being assimilated outwardly. ”

“ These, only to name the industries with national and international sweep, are in control of the Jews of the United States, either alone or in association with Jews overseas.
The American people would be vastly surprised if they could see a line-up of some of the "American business men" who hold up our commercial prestige overseas. They are mostly Jews. ”

“ And to entitle the American people to this proud distinction, the Jews have done as much as any other class of citizens—nay, I may repeat in their presence what I have frequently said in the presence of others—the Jews have, in proportion to their numbers, done far more. ”

“ The Jews, then as ever engaged in their age-long battle for religious and economic toleration, found in the American colonies, not complete liberty, but certainly more freedom than they enjoyed in England, France, Spain, or Portugal. ”

“ Jewish Americans have played an important part in the success of the American experience. They have dedicated themselves to the challenges of building a better America; and their patriotism, hard work, and faithful commitment to community and family have enriched our culture and improved our country.
Since our Nation's founding, millions of Jews have immigrated to America, embracing the promise of opportunity and tolerance that forms the heart of the American dream. ”

“ That the Jews exert an influence, they themselves loudly proclaim. One is permitted to think that they really claim a stronger influence than they possess, especially in those higher regions where excellent and determinative influences have been at work. The Jews claim, indeed, that the fundamentals of the United States are Jewish and not Christian, and that the entire history of this country should be rewritten to make proper acknowledgment of the prior glory due to Judah. ”

“ Contrary to popular belief, the Jewish race is far from a pure stock, and has been colored by various and repeated admixtures with other bloods. Hence Jews of different nationalities differ considerably in their physical status and aptitude for American institutions, and for amalgamation with our body politic. ”

“ LASTLY, if cooperation and harmony between the Zionists and the non-Zionists be permanently needed for the welfare of American Judaism, they are needed a thousandfold now when the catastrophe which has overwhelmed the ancient centers of Jewry has turned the eyes and the hopes of the whole Jewish world toward the Jews of this country. Ever since the Jews of Russia, fleeing from the wrath of the oppressor, began to wend their steps toward these hospitable shores, thoughtful European Jews have been looking upon America as the future center of the Jewish Diaspora. ”

“ Most of the Jews here pride themselves on their piety. They think themselves above the Jew who has suffered long contamination by mixing with foreigners, and some of them especially despise the American. Meeting one on the street they may slap him on the stomach and sneeringly ask how much pork he ate when he was in the United States. ”

“ This is why, in the same profession at the same time, those most active in [155] breaking down standards are Jews and those most active in raising standards are Jews—of an earlier coming or a later generation. "On the average," says a Jewish leader, "only the third generation feels perfectly at home in American society." This explains the frequent statement that the Jews are "the limit"—among the worst of the worst and among the best of the best. ”

“ Now, when the United States appeared as “the new Jerusalem,” its Jewish citizens conceived the idea of using the American Government to achieve for the Jews what other means had failed to achieve. Russian and German Jews would come to the United States, become naturalized as quickly as possible, and go back to Russia as “Americans” to engage in trade. Russia knew them as Jews and held them to be subject to the laws relating to Jews. ”

“ Here, however, they are free, and are always successful when they do not by some fault of their own mar their best hopes of success. The Jewish people too have had great success in America, but the later emigration, directly from Russia, has not been acceptable to many of our citizens. They have run the gauntlet, as my countrymen had to do some fifty years ago. They must learn wisdom and patience."
As an instructive conclusion to our present subject we add the following extract from the New York Sun of September 1st, 1894. It needs no further comment:
"In the Jews, Judaism is deeply ingrained. ”

“ Jews, for illustration, have proved the statement that they are the best organized people in the United States. They have proved that they are more closely grouped together in their own national interest than are the citizens of the United States whose whole nationality is defined by their citizenship. The government of the United States itself is not so well organized as American Jewry—and that fact is not due to anything American ”

“ Many Jewish Americans carry on this belief as they instill these traditions in their children. Seeking to preserve their culture and start anew, Jewish immigrants have departed familiar lands to pursue their own American dreams for more than 300 years. During some periods, Jews sought refuge in the United States from the horrors and tragedies of persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust. During other times, they came to seek better lives and greater economic opportunities for themselves and their children. ”

“ Widespread Jewish associations are on the lookout for likely towns in which to settle a few Jews, who in time become a larger colony, and in a little longer time run the place. There is nothing haphazard about it. The Jew is not an adventurer, he does not cut himself off from his base, but all his movements are made under consultation and direction. New York is the great training school in which the newly arrived immigrant receives his instructions as to the method of handling the American goyim. ”

“ The second group, the “Ashkenazim” or German Jews, has most quickly adjusted itself to the life in America and has developed what might be called an American Judaism, in which liberal tendencies have prevailed and have played havoc with the traditions of the past, very often at the expense of the spirit of Judaism. Some of these congregations have made Sunday the Sabbath of their week, and the service is conducted in the English language with the Hebrew almost entirely eliminated. ”

“ Thus it is that this marvellous and paradoxical race, the parent of philosophers, artists, reformers, martyrs, and also of the shrewdest exploiters of the poor and ignorant, has, in two decades, come to America in far greater numbers than in the two centuries preceding.
It should not be inferred that the Jews are a race of pure descent. Coming as they do from all sections and nations of Europe, they are truly cosmopolitan, and have taken on the language, customs, and modes of thought of the people among whom they live. ”

“ If the Czar, by keeping up the pressure which has already rid him of two million undesired subjects, should succeed in driving the bulk of his six million Jews to the United States, we shall see the rise of a Jewish question here, perhaps riots and anti-Jewish legislation. No doubt thirty or forty thousand Hebrews from eastern Europe might be absorbed by this country each year without any marked growth of race prejudice ”

“ The number decreases as we approach Egypt and Palestine, the ancient center of Jewish dispersion. As to America, it is estimated, although we know nothing certainly, that there are about a half million Jews scattered through our cities in the United States. New York city, according to the last census, contained about eighty thousand Poles and Russians, most of whom, it may be assumed, were Jews. But they have come since in ever-increasing numbers, with the great exodus from Russia, at the rate of scores of thousands annually. ”

“ Here, then, is a tremendous body of Jews who are also foreigners, who speak the Yiddish language, adhere to traditional Jewish religious practices, and who are massed in great bodies in certain cities and in certain industries. The foreign Jew is thus more conspicuous today than any other immigrant group, even than those much larger in number. New York City alone has 1,500,000 Jews, such a huge number of whom are of obviously foreign origin that they are a conspicuous attraction for the intolerance of other groups in America. ”

“ Its basis is sixty per cent German of the sixteenth century, showing the main origin of the people, and forty per cent the language of the countries whence they come.
That which most of all has made the Jew a cause of alarm to the peasants of Eastern Europe is the highest mark of his virtue, namely, his rapid increase in numbers. A high birth-rate, a low death-rate, [Pg 95] a long life, place the Jew as far above the average as the negro is below the average. These two races are the two extremes of American race vitality. ”

“ These issues were of particular and immediate significance for the Jews in this country; for America has, in less than one generation, become the second largest center of the Jewish Diaspora, and bids fair to become the first, instead of the second, within another generation. ”

“ At least, not the most intrepid Jewish leader will shout much about the American characteristics of the most conspicuous Jewish colony in the world, that of New York.
The lofty buildings in this district are filled with clothing workshops, of which the Jew has a monopoly in the United States. Coatmakers, pantmakers, buttonhole workers, ladies’ garment workers, these men are engaged in the “needle trades” in which adult men of no other race participate. ”