Jewish community

“ Thus the Society will find out for the first time whether the Jews really wish to go to the Promised Land, and whether they ought to go there. Every Jewish community in the world will send contributions to the Society towards a comprehensive collection of Jewish statistics. ”

“ The Jewish community in America has helped shape our Nation's heritage and further our efforts toward building a land where all people can live free and be treated equally under the law. As entrepreneurs and public servants, scholars and philanthropists, and countless other callings, Jewish Americans have provided wisdom, energy, and leadership wherever they settled and in whatever calling they followed. ”

“ In many ways, the Jewish experience is unique, freighted with the anguish of frequent persecution, but ennobled by an unyielding spirit that has always found a way to turn darkness into light. In the crucible of sorrow, the Jewish people have reaffirmed, time and again, the basic human values of faith, community, justice, and hope. ”

“ America bade fair to become an ideal Jewish center, where the practical wisdom of emancipated Jewry and the idealistic intensity of Ghetto Jewry would be merged in one united Jewish community, fully conscious of its duty as the future leader of the Jewish Diaspora and acknowledging its indebtedness to the center of all Jews in the land of our Fathers. ”

“ It lays no stress on orthodoxy, but welcomes all who strive to render Jewish conduct an adequate reply to the theories of the anti-Semites. Both these movements are elements of fresh vitality to Judaism, and they are probably destined to produce important fruit in future years. A splendid spirit of generosity has also been displayed by the Jewish community in assisting and relieving the victims of the Jew-haters. ”

“ Throughout history and through times of profound adversity, the Jewish people have built their lives on the strength of family and the spirit of community. Millions have made a home in America-a Nation filled with opportunity and blessed with the miracle of freedom. And here, with hard work and dedication, the Jewish-American community has flourished. ”

“ Jewish citizens have made vital contributions to every sector of our society. From academia to the arts, from business to government, from the smallest towns to the largest cities, Jewish Americans have infused our Nation with a powerful faith, a commitment to family and community, and a devotion to scholarship and self-improvement. ”

“ A Jew of to-day has a much greater aversion to forsake the Jewish community than any other man has to renounce his country; and his associations of nationality are manifested wherever a Jewish society is to be found, or wherever he can meet with another Jew. ”

“ They were scrupulously exact in their interpretation and observance of the Jewish law as the rule to regulate the life of the Jewish community in every department, and were the representatives of that legal tendency which gave character to the development of Judaism proper during the period which elapsed between the date of the Captivity and the advent of Christianity. ”

“ Communal Progress.—Meanwhile, by marriage or by conversion, or by simple aloofness and indifference, some of the more weak and the more selfish members of the community every now and then slipped from under the many burdens which their Judaism imposed upon them. ”

“ Building on the Jewish tradition of hospitality toward strangers and acutely aware of the long and tragic history of prejudice and persecution against their people, Jews in America have committed themselves to tolerance, justice, human rights, and the rule of law. American Jews have shared their resources generously with health and human services programs, civil rights groups, educational institutions, arts organizations, and so many more. In communities across our Nation, in small towns and big cities, synagogues and yeshivas have become centers of community service and civic responsibility. ”

“ The Jewish philanthropic tradition, dating back to ancient times, has flourished in America, bringing hope and help to those in need through numerous Jewish charitable organizations and activities. In public service and education, in science and medicine, in entertainment, law, the arts, and many other fields of endeavor, Jewish men and women strengthen our national community and uphold the fundamental American ideals of faith, community, compassion, and responsibility. ”

“ As we have seen, there always was a natural tendency for the children of Israel to gravitate towards the same point—a habit which originated the Jewries of England, the Judenstadt of Germany, the Juderias of Spain and the Jewish quarters in most mediaeval countries. But we have also seen that, under tolerable conditions, the Jews entertained no unconquerable aversion from dwelling amidst the Gentiles, and that, when treated as human beings, they developed a certain degree of community of feeling and interest with their fellow-creatures. ”

“ Firstly, that the Jews will themselves take up the matter universally and unanimously. Secondly, that the European Powers will aid them in their views. It is for the Jews to make a commencement. Let the principal persons of their community place themselves at the head of the movement. ”

“ The short answer to it in the case of the Jews is that it is an invention, and that not only is there no trace of it in the history of the Dispersion, but that, on the contrary, the Jews, even as a Church, and still more in their secular relations, have suffered more from the want of international organisation and uniformity than any other Church or religious community. ”

“ In a number of places the local Jewish community has readily joined in the relief work, doing its utmost to meet the demand for food, shelter, clothing; the local philanthropic and communal Jewish institutions thus becoming valuable agencies of the General Relief Committee. On the whole, however—particularly as far as Poland is concerned:—the organization of assistance to the war sufferers is meeting with endless difficulties, [105] due largely to the fact that the suffering population is in such a state of frantic terror, that many Jews do not even dream of applying to anyone for assistance. ”

“ The appalling misery of the refugees is fully described in the appended report of the Russian Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Sufferers (see p. 98) . The Jews of the Empire living outside of the war zone, have assumed [67] a system of self-taxation which, added to their normal—or rather normally excessive—burden of taxation is practically impoverishing them. The small Jewish community of Moscow alone gives about 85,000 roubles a month, ranging from an average of 200 roubles per month imposed upon 265 manufacturers down to the 10 roubles per month imposed upon their poorest clerks. ”

“ Often our representatives have to seek these people out in their hiding places, to rouse them from their lethargy, to exercise moral pressure on the more prominent members of the community, before anything can be done for the sufferers. This attitude of the people becomes intelligible when we consider the conditions that they live in under ordinary circumstances—their poverty, their lack of education, the contempt they are accustomed to meet with on the part of the non-Jewish population. ”

“ From science and the arts to business and the law; as teachers, physicians, journalists, judges, musicians, and policymakers; from neighborhood stores to the corridors of Congress; from the Armed Forces to the Supreme Court, generations of American Jews have succeeded in every sector of our society. And the rewards of that success are shared by us all. Our Nation has benefited immeasurably from the character, values, and achievements of our Jewish citizens. ”

“ After enduring centuries of hardship and bigotry in nations throughout the diaspora, many Jewish people found their ways to America's shores. Some came early in our Nation's history, seeking to make their mark in a newly free society. ”

“ While numerous towns and townlets have, in generous hospitality, opened their gates to the unfortunate refugees and exiles from the war area, the native Jewish population of these places is itself suffering a severe economic crisis, an acute attack of unemployment, which as a matter [102] of fact, is further intensified by the influx of refugees eager to offer their services, for the smallest remuneration. Thus poverty and misery are growing in these places too, the burden of relief becoming too heavy for the local community to bear. ”

“ On the contrary, the influence of the Jews who remain scattered will be strengthened and supported by the consciousness which they will then possess that they are members of a united and recognised community. ”

“ We therefore perceive in Judaism a general pervading anti-social element, which has been carried to its highest point by the historical development, in which Jews in this bad relation have zealously co-operated, a point at which it must necessarily dissolve itself. ”

“ They have pursued education to advance their mission to make the world a better place. In every aspect of the country's cultural, spiritual, economic, and civic life, American Jews have stood at the forefront of the struggles for human freedom, equality, and dignity, helping to shine a light of hope to people around the globe. ”

“ Jews accepted the new state of things. They bravely adapted themselves to the altered circumstances of their lot, and made the best of it. They had to live, though a hard and hurried and undignified sort of living it became. With a quickness which experience taught and self-interest quickened, they tried to make themselves useful and acceptable. Their own wants, as wayfarers in strange lands, made them swift to perceive the wants of others. ”

“ Yet we meet the Jew everywhere in the upper circles, literally everywhere there is power. He has the brains, the initiative, the penetrative vision which almost automatically project him to the top, and as a consequence he is more marked than any other race. ”

“ The Jew, for instance, must cease to be a Jew if he will not allow himself to be hindered by his law from fulfilling his duties towards the State and his fellow-citizens, going, for example, to the Chamber of Deputies on the Sabbath and taking part in the public sittings. ”

“ As long as the Jews were self-respecting and self-governing, they and their government and their religion had been respected and left alone. As soon as their leaders began to riot and quarrel among themselves the fate of the bundle of sticks fell upon the people. ”

“ Doubtless the Jews have the genius to do, wherever they go, the things in which we see them excel. But does this account for the relations which exist between the Jews of every country, for their world councils, for their amazing foreknowledge of stupendous events which break with shattering surprise on the rest of the world, for the smoothness and preparedness with which they appear, at a given time in Paris, with a world program on which they all agree? ”

“ Amid all the wretched physical squalor of the street he would have found little mental and less spiritual destitution. If the law of the land bid Jews shrink before men, the law of the Book bid them rejoice before God. ”

“ The international Jew, as already defined, rules not because he is rich, but because in a most marked degree he possesses the commercial and masterful genius of his race, and avails himself of a racial loyalty and solidarity the like of which exists in no other human group. ”

“ It is not a very pleasant sight—this crowd of emaciated, white-faced men and women, and big-eyed children. “The most damnable thing about it all is the dozen Jews who flit like magpies through the crowd. They are young, soft, well-groomed and prosperous. ”

“ Impelled by this historic and traditional attachment, Jews strove in every successive generation to re-establish themselves in their ancient homeland. In recent decades they returned in their masses. Pioneers, defiant returnees, and defenders, they made deserts bloom, revived the Hebrew language, built villages and towns, and created a thriving community controlling its own economy and culture, loving peace but knowing how to defend itself, bringing the blessings of progress to all the country's inhabitants, and aspiring towards independent nationhood. ”

“ None whatever, except the Jews’ own consciousness that the course they are pursuing is due for a check. The Jews always know that. They are not in the stream of the world, and every little while the world finds out what Judah always knows. ”

“ They accepted their mission; ‘All that the Lord has spoken will we do,’ came up a responsive cry from ‘all the people answering together,’ and in that supreme moment the ill-fed and so recently ill-treated groups were transformed into a nation. ‘I will make of thee a great people’; ‘Through thee shall all families of the earth be blessed’; the meaning of such predictions was borne in upon them in one bewildering flash, and in that flash the national idea of Judaism{149} found its dawn; they, the despised and the downtrodden, were to become trustees of civilisation. ”

“ Moreover, no matter how prone a modern generation may be to disregard such things, the mere fact that they may have existed as a secret racial ideal for centuries is a powerful argument for their respectable acceptance, if not active execution, by the generation that now is. There is no idea deeper in Judaism than that Jews constitute a Chosen People and that their future is to be more glorious than their past. ”

“ Judaism has persisted alongside of Christianity not only as religious criticism of Christianity, not only as the embodiment of doubt in the religious parentage of Christianity, but equally because Judaism has maintained itself, and even received its supreme development, in Christian society. The Jew who exists as a peculiar member of bourgeois society, is only the particular expression of the Judaism of bourgeois society. ”