Anti-Semitism

“ The Jews contend that anti-Semitism is a mere atavistic revival of the Jew-hatred of the middle ages. The extreme section of the anti-Semites, who have given the movement its quasi-scientific name, declare that it is a racial struggle—an incident of the eternal conflict between Europe and Asia—and that the anti-Semites are engaged in an effort to prevent what is called the Aryan race from being subjugated by a Semitic immigration, and to save Aryan ideals from being modified by an alien and demoralizing oriental Anschauung. ”

“ Anti-Semitism has unquestionably swayed large sections of humanity at various times, warping the vision, twisting the characters and staining the hands of its victims, but the most amazing statement that can be made of it is that it has never accomplished anything in behalf of those who used it, and it has never taught anything to the Jews against whom it was used. ”

“ We call upon our fellow citizens to remember that anti-Semitism is a threat to democracy and a denial of the fundamental principles upon which this nation is founded. We extend to our brethren and fellow citizens of Jewish race and blood our solemn assurance that by the constraint of our deepest Christian conviction we shall oppose unceasingly 'the sin of anti-Semitism' and we shall strive continuously for the realization of that brotherhood which humanity needs, democracy requires and Christianity demands. ”

“ I believe that I understand Anti-Semitism, which is really a highly complex movement. I consider it from a Jewish standpoint, yet without fear or hatred. I believe that I can see what elements there are in it of vulgar sport, of common trade jealousy, of inherited prejudice, of religious intolerance, and also of pretended self-defence. I think the Jewish [76] question is no more a social than a religious one, notwithstanding that it sometimes takes these and other forms. ”

“ An unusually well-informed Briton says that anti-Semitism is always ready to break out in England upon sufficient cause, but it cannot break out against the inaccessible rich Jews who control in politics and international finance. It us probably true that the commonest real cause of anti-Semitism is the action of the international Jew who is often unknown and always secure, but the innocent victim of it is the poor Jew. ”

“ Though anti-Semitism has been unmasked and discredited, it is to be feared that its history is not yet at an end. While there remain in Russia and Rumania over six millions of Jews who are being systematically degraded, and who periodically overflow the western frontier, there must continue to be a Jewish question in Europe; and while there are weak governments, and ignorant and superstitious elements in the enfranchized classes of the countries affected, that question will seek to play a part in politics. ”

“ All the anti-Semitism that exists in the United States today is the deliberate creation of the Jewish leaders and is a recent creation.
The Jewish leaders want anti-Semitism here. Unable to create it among non-Jews, they are seeking the effects of it among the Jews by telling them that it exists. ”

“ The contamination of anti-Semitism has also reached our own country. Infamous and false propaganda is being spread from plague centres within our own borders. We have hitherto belittled this danger. Now we see to where it is leading. It is time for us to wake up! We must also at this hour think of the mass persecution of Jews which is taking place in other countries. From available information it appears that the anti-Semitic wave is still rising. The threat now also concerns half-Jews. Our taking a stand might seem meaningless to all of these. We cannot stop violence. ”

“ I have lived to see people who accused me of Anti-Semitism become far more Anti-Semitic than I am or ever was. I have heard people talking with real injustice about the Jews, who once seemed to think it an injustice to talk about them at all. ”

“ While the main activity of anti-Semitism has manifested itself in Germany, Russia, Rumania, Austria-Hungary and France, its vibratory influences have been felt in other countries when conditions favourable to its extension have presented themselves. In England more than one Great Britain, &c.attempt to acclimatize the doctrines of Marr and Treitschke has been made. The circumstance that at the time of the rise of German anti-Semitism a premier of Hebrew race, Lord Beaconsfield, was in power first suggested the Jewish bogey to English political extremists. ”

“ I have confidence that the anti-Semitic propaganda will be met by the stout resistance of the great mass of our citizens of Gentile birth and heritage who will fight and crush anti-Semitism in defense of Christian civilization and of American ideals, traditions, and institutions. That seems to me to be a rational faith; it affords firm anchorage. On the other hand, it is a stupendous and dangerous folly to believe that you can cultivate, as part of our national psychology, anti-Jewish fear and prejudice without reaping in due course a harvest of hatred and violence toward the Jewish people. ”

“ In countries which now are Anti-Semitic my view will be approved. In others, where Jews now feel comfortable, it will probably be violently disputed by them. My happier co-religionists will not believe me till Jew-baiting teaches them the truth; for the longer Anti-Semitism lies in abeyance the more fiercely will it break out. The infiltration of immigrating Jews, attracted to a land by apparent security, and the ascent in the social scale of native Jews, combine powerfully to bring about a revolution. ”

“ For anti-Semitism is the cry of despair of defeated mediocrity, or it is the plaint of the blinded Christian maddened by jealousy because he has been beaten by the wandering Jew in his own game of trade, commerce, politics, or art. But the Jew is kind, his kindness is unsurpassed, and the Hebrew line in which his people are called 'merciful sons of the merciful' is literally true. He pities the anti-Semite as he pities all who suffer and who are in want of the good things and the good qualities of life. ”

“ But the actions of the anti-Semites, deplorable as they are, are less deplorable than the social conditions which they illustrate. Anti-Semitism is a movement retrogressive in a twofold sense. Retrogressive inasmuch as it shows that the current of European humanism is flowing backwards, and retrogressive inasmuch as it has actually checked the gradual and voluntary assimilation of the Jew. It is a resurrection of the mediaeval monster of intolerance with a fresh face, and its effects are those which attended mediaeval persecution. ”

“ Ethnographical speculations are in this case mainly interesting as having supplied a plausible explanation for the rise of anti-Semitism. Those who are able to see through new guises, and to detect what old things they conceal, know that anti-Semitism is little more than a new Protean manifestation of Jew-hatred. Divested of its academic paraphernalia, the movement is revealed in all its venerable vulgarity—a hoary-headed abomination long since excommunicated by the conscience of civilised mankind. ”

“ National exclusivism and international finance, and not religious intolerance, are the root causes of anti-Semitism, and as long as those causes are operative the effect will remain. As long as the Jews constitute distinct colonies within the community, as long as the Jews specialize in the predatory and parasitic activities of finance, so long shall we witness outbursts of anti-Semitic feeling. ”

“ There were other elements which had created a milieu peculiarly favourable to the transplantation of the German craze. In the first place the medieval anti-Semitism was still an integral part of the polity of the empire. The Jews were cooped up in one huge ghetto in the western provinces, “marked out to all their fellow-countrymen as aliens, and a pariah caste set apart for special and degrading treatment” (Persecution of the Jews in Russia, 1891, p. 5) . ”

“ Despite its excesses and outrages, anti-Semitism is within its rightful province when it assails the worship of money, the scandalous barter of political influences, and the shameless exploitation of the people by the men whom they have elected; or, again, when it unmasks the hypocritical intolerance of inconsistent free-thinkers, who have erected irreligion and corruption into a method of government.
Modern society is ailing indeed, more ailing that the most honest anti-Semite imagines. The error of anti-Semitism lies in its misapprehension of the origin and the seat of the evil. ”

“ A final type of anti-Semitism in America was a direct importation from Europe through a group of Russian emigrés, some of them living in this country as private citizens, others as employees of the section on Russia of the Department of State. These men were bitterly anti-Soviet, anti-radical, and (whether for propaganda purposes, or through the convictions of the Russian aristocracy as a whole) bitterly anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitism is an article in the creed of every reactionary movement in Europe, with the single exception of the Italian Fascisti, and is strongest of all among the Russians. ”

“ The Jew has a distinct religion, a peculiar tradition and appearance which can sometimes be distinguished—he is different from other people. And the extreme bitterness of this anti-Semitism, more than of any other anti-party the world over, is simply because everywhere the Jew lives on a frontier, in direct group contact with the intolerant of other peoples. Every Jew lives on a Franco-German frontier, or a Mexican-American one. Even in the United States of America, with its proud tradition of tolerance written into the Federal Constitution, there is now a movement of anti-Semitism. ”

“ Anti-Semitism is sin against God and man. Only as we give convincing evidence to our Jewish neighbours that we seek for them the common rights and dignities which God wills for his children, can we come to such a meeting with them as would make it possible to share with them the best which God has given us in Christ.' The Assembly renews this plea in view of the fact that situations continue to exist in which the Jews are subject to discrimination and even persecution. The Assembly urges its member Churches to do all in their power to resist every form of anti-Semitism. ”

“ Those who think that they have to see in Anti-Semitism a movement serviceable to the general good we pity because they are on the wrong track, and we hope that we shall be able by convincing proofs to bring them back to the right path. Those that have found in Anti-Semitism personal means for personal ends we despise, as every honorably-thinking man despises him who uses unfair means to promote his own interests. ”

“ Let us suppose, for the argument's sake, that anti-Semitism in this country develops, as predicted in Mr. Ford's paper, along less brutal lines; that there will be no such orgies of murder and lust and spoliation as some other nations have had to their shame and dishonor. In that case, how will the organized hostility to the Jews be manifested? Specifically, what is the program of the group of anti-Semites in this country with which the Dearborn Independent is identified? Are they prepared to announce that program, and to have it measured by the standard of the American ideal? ”

“ I will confess, however, that I have no very full sympathy with the new Anti-Semitism which is merely Anti-Socialism. There are good, honourable and magnanimous Jews of every type and rank, there are many to whom I am greatly attached among my own friends in my own rank; but if I have to make a general choice on a general chance among different types of Jews, I have much more sympathy with the Jew who is revolutionary than the Jew who is plutocratic. ”

“ If these general principles of intolerance are true, we can apply them at once to the peculiar situation of the Jew—everywhere at home, yet everywhere the creature of prejudice; not so very different from the other white nations among whom he lives, yet always distinct from them and always the target of intolerance. Every movement of bigotry, aristocracy, militarism, junkerism in every land makes anti-semitism one of its cardinal shouting-cries, from the emigrés of Russia to the royalist anti-Dreyfusards of France. ”

“ We call upon all the Churches we represent to denounce anti-Semitism, no matter what its origin, as absolutely irreconcilable with the profession and practice of the Christian faith. Anti-Semitism is sin against God and man...". ”

“ Anti-Semitism is making fearful progress everywhere. From Russia my co-religionists are expelled like savage beasts. In France, civil and military employments are closing against Jews. They have no longer access to aristocratic circles. My nephew, young Isaac Coblentz, has had to renounce a diplomatic career, after passing brilliantly his admission examination. The wives of several of my colleagues, when Madame Schmoll calls on them, display with intention, under her eyes, anti-Semitic newspapers. ”

“ With the Gentiles there are only two classes, as far as this special question is concerned: those who dislike Jews, they cannot tell why; and those who are disposed to fairness, in spite of the accident of congeniality or uncongeniality, and who recognize the Jewish Question as, at least, a problem. Both these attitudes, whenever they become apparent, are subject to the charge of "anti-Semitism."
Anti-Semitism is a term which is bandied about too loosely. It ought to be reserved to denote the real anti-Jewish temper of violent prejudice. ”