THE JEWISH CHRONICLE

The only Jewish publication in the State of Michigan
Devoted to the interests of the Jewish people

DETROIT, MICH., JULY 20, 1917

Vol. II. No. 21

Jews and the New Russia

By Israel Zangwill

$1.50 per Year

Single CopiesIOCents

New York's East Side Welcomes
Russian Ambassador

The last day of the visit of the Rus- of belief. Jacob H. Schiff, Herbert
sian commission in New York saw Am- Parsons, Dr. Henry Moskowitz, Morris
bassador Boris A. Bakhmeteff and his Hillquit, Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram, Crystal
associates tumultuously greeted by Rus- Eastman, Miss Wald, Abraham Cahan,
sian exiles on the east side. The party and hundreds of other Democrats. Re-
made addresses at the Henry Street publicans, Socialists, Anarchists, inter-
and were received with up- nationalists, pacifists and settlement
Jews to Counteract German Influence. Settlement
roarious enthusiasm by the Russian- workers mingled in the rooms of the
house. Yet there was no clash, no out-
The leaders of the New Russia have born population.
indeed long since come to understand,
When the first news of the Russian break of one party against another. All
with the old Franciscan Father, that revolution sent a thrill through America were tumultuously for the revolution—
"whatever a man does unto others, he last March the center of exultant joy and emotion for that was supreme.
does unto himself," and they have was in New York's lower east side.
Greetings From Oppressed.
long blushed under the humiliation of There lived thousands of immigrant
M. Bakhmeteff spoke to the people
their Jews as some thing that tainted Jews who had fled from persecution,
themselves in the eyes of civilization. whose fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, in the street from a front window of
The loyalty of these pariahs, their sisters and brothers had been tortured, the house. He talked of liberty and
devotion to the common Fatherland, murdered or sent to the Siberian mines. what Russians had done and would do
has displayed itself in many touching whose eyes had seen in Russia revo- to win it.
forms during the war, and the great lutionists and political exiles fighting
"We want it," he said, "for all na-
fund they are now raising—with the what had seemed a hopeless, losing tionalities, and races, and religions. All
same symbolic instinct as their Ameri- fight against the Imperial Government. laws and prescriptions against oppressed
can brethren—to establish and endow The revolution meant something per- classes have been repealed. We have no
a "Palace of Equality" in Petrograd,
sonal and real to those east side Jews, more classes now."
shows how deeply they have felt their It came close home to them.
The people went wild with enthusi-
lack of status and how ardently they
Into the heart of Russian America asm. And then, as the uproar began to
welcome their inclusion in the new went Ambassador Boris A. Bakhmeteff subside, a woman raised herself to a
fraternity of creed and races.
and his associates of the Russian mis- window opposite the Ambassador.
Their industrial and commercial sion in the afternoon. No announce,
"I greet you in the name of my sis-
genius, given for the first time free m ent of their going was made, because
in Russia," she
play in Russia, will save her from it was feared that, in their emotion, the tees who were tortured .
future German penetration and supply people would make the streets impassa- cried. "I greet you in the name of my
brothers who slaved in Siberia. I greet
the missing factor necessary to bring ble. and might pour out in such a tu- you in the name of my dead father,
her into line with the Western Pow- m ultuous welcome that order and con-
ers to whom she is now allied and trol would be impossible. But word that whose eyes were burned out in a po-
i
whom—by an irony of history—she is
the Russian mission was coming spread grom."
The thousands who heard her voice
Jewish Weapon Is Finance.
now destined to liberalize.
from mouth to mouth among thousands.
and
when
the
automobiles
carrying
M.
made
her greeting their own.
For not all the "Russian supple-
That they should thus provide "hal-
Other members of the mision spoke
ments" of commercial journalism can Bakhmeteff and his comrades entered
ters for the patriots of Hungary," on
condition of being left free them- gloss over the fact that the Steam the east side streets were packed with when the crowd permitted them, but the
selves, scented monstrous to Mr. Roller is a rusty, ramshackle, anti- shouting, singing, struggling humanity; outbreaks of cheering and applause
ho, in fact, proposed the quated and hopeless piece of ma- Russian flags were waved in frantic en- were so loud and frequent that the
l'unch, who,
very next week that in recognition of chinery and that Russia, with her thusiasm. and the heroes of the revo- words of the speakers were more like a
the Sultan's services in saving Kos- dearth of roads, railways and business lution—they were such to the crowds make-and-break current of exclama-
suth from Francis Joseph, a British capacity, is as ill equipped for either —received a welcome such as only the tions than a succession of addresses.
three-decker should be presented by war or trade as she is rich in human east side can give to its idols. When one of the speakers told of what
the Russian Jews had done in the war
national subscription to the gallant and material potentiality. Nor, gifted
Enthusiasm Intense.
the demonstration reached its climax.
Abdul M edjid, and should sail up the as Russia is' spiritually, can she fail !.o
The Henry Street Settlement was the When the people outside had been sup-
Bosphorus, manned for the nonce by profit by that immense fund of antis -
British tars. To me the monstrosity tic and intellectual energy of which destination of the mission, the house plied, but not satisfied, with sight of
where Mme. Breshkovskava, "Babush- the mission and the sound of their
lies in the fact that the financial wea- the Jewish people is the matrix.
Since it has been found that even ka." as she was affectionately known • voices, Miss Wald called the several
pon, recommended by the Jewish cor-
respondent, should have remained so Great Britain and Ireland can no long- Marie Sutcloff, Prince Kronotkin. and hundred in the house together and had
cr, in the complexity of modern legis- many other revolutionists had found the little meeting she had planned.
long unused.
harbor when in America at different
A minority must fight for its liber- lation, be governed, save in large out-
Honor to Henry Street.
line,
from
one
center,
it
is
obviously
times.
Miss Lillian D. Wald, whose
ties with whatever weapons it pos-
name suggests the house on Henry
"Though
we of the house on Henry
still
more
impossible
for
Russia
to
go
sesses. and the only amusing thing in
Street.
had
invited
the
mission
down
street
have
many
duties that reach far
on
without
decentralization.
Those
Mr. Punch's article is the assumption
that the liberties of the Jews do not who talk most glibly of Russia seem for a little informal reception—hilt the out of neighborhood problems," she said,
east side took the reception entirely out addressing the Ambassador, "our basic
count, though Hungarian liberty is rarely to look at the map.
hone is to keen the torch of democracy
A moment's glance at a globe will of her hands.
holy. In this Austrian instance, how-
-
A
few
oolicemen,
had
been
detailed
to
lighted, and that is why we have been
show
Russia
as
a
colossus
over
ever, the bargaining was purely local
en-
shadowing
Europe
and
Asia,
at
whose
nrotect
the
mission
from
nonnlar
drawn
with so much sympathy for near-
and egoistic.
th,lc; a sm, but more were required to ly a quarter of a century to the gigantic
To Mr. Jacob H. Schiff, the Ameri- giant feet we petty nations crawl.
One-sixth of the land surface of the hold the neonle in check. Women shout struggle in RuSsia, which has seemed
can banker, belongs the glory of the
;., n in mingled Yiddish. .Rtiscian and to us a world movement for freedom
impersonal pioneer of liberty, for his planet and thrice as large as the
Fin-dish broke throlirli the lines and and progress. It became our struggle,
country
whose
name,
"The
United
financing of Japan in her war against
States," shows its federal organiza- clambered nn the sides of the antotro- t
That was deliberately belligerent.
Russia must now necessarily hales so that they might touch the too.
fhat he should now declare himself a tion.
"I had not planned to make this a
break
up
into similar departments hands and garments of the members of
very substantial" contributor to the
very
formal speech-making occasion. Our
locally
autonomous.
These
should
the mission : mothers held their babies
Russian Liberty Loan and should
was rather to realize in your of-
obviously be made to coincide as far in the air so that they might see the idea
.
moreover present a complete hospital
of h
of
democratic
Russiacia
visit
the accomp is
unit to Russia is significant of the as possible with the spheres of t le first Ambassado ,-
great
desire
and
to
link
up
the
visits
of
new Jewish orientation, and disposes separate races or nationalities of this and tell about it when they grew no.
finally
London of Times
the foolish
to represent
attempt
him
of as
the a veritable
continent,
especially
"the and hundreds of men and women dashed the many heroes, so often discouraged,
principle
of nationalities"
has as
been
but never daunted, with your coming.
proclaimed as a guiding policy of the tears from their eves so that they could We are happy, more happy than words .
pro- German puppet.
allies in a manifesto of which Russia see as they ran beside the motor cars. . can express, to 'add this triumphant
And his fellow Jews in America, re-
acting more intensely than even their The one big note of the meeting in chapter to Henry street's history of
street was the revolution.
first signatory.
And
if, as I have
al- Henry
fellow Americans to the great events —and
even the old
Russia—was
the
Russia."
Nothing
else
was talked of, save inci-
ready remarked in my little book on
in Russia—are they not, as Emma
Miss Wald told of what Mr. Schiff
this "Principle," it is not to be a mere d entally: the crowd was not concerned
Lazarus said, the "intensitive mood"
negative canon for destroying Aus- shout ideas of senarate neace, continua- had meant to the house and the Russian
of the nations with whom their lot is
trig, it must be applied all round, and tint, of the war. indemnities, no indem- revolutionists sheltered there, and then
cast?—have set on foot a national pro-
or any of the national nroblems. introduced him. Mr. Schiff, after wel-
iect for presenting Russia with a re- even
The fact of the revolution and that the coming the mission in the name of
nlica of the Statue of Liberty—a svm- even Future
to the Jews
of Russia.
of Jews
Is in Russia.
llad these Jews of Russia remained renresentatives of the new government
bolic offering which the New Russia
a
were actually among them was all that freedom, talked of Miss Wald which
and the
has
known
how
to
appreciate.
In
the
ti
da y in her life has
passed
in "Not
great and wonderful London meeting in their Pale, the extension of
their
Wald
he said:
f residence to the villages they grasped or tried to grasp. In the house. Of Miss
on page 4)
(Continued
to celebrate the Russian Revolution— rights o (Continued on page 4)
house were seen persons of every shade
at the Albert Hall—it fell to me to

The attitude of the Jews in the
anti-German countries toward the
New Russia has never for a moment
been in doubt. In the twinkling of an
eye hatred of Russia, or sullen acqui-
escence in the alliance to which the
devil of military necessity has driven
democracy, was transformed into that
trinity of emotion—"admiration, hope
and love"—by which, according to
W o rdsworth, humanity lives.
There is even among her escaped
step-children a nostalgia for Russia
and a palpable movement back, retar-
ded only by the absence of ships. Im-
ponderables, as Bismarck knew, some-
times count more in politics than con-
crete and measurable factors, and who
can estimate the myriad hostile in-
fluences by which the old Jew-baiting
and Jew-hated Russia was environed?
Some of these negatives may now
be appraised by their positive aspects.
The New Russia has, for example, a
good press—the Jews are a people of
journalists. In 1851 Mr. Punch was
righteously indignant with the Aus-
trian Jews because, according to a
Viennese correspondent of the Lon-
don Jewish Chronicle, they would
have nothing to do with the Austrian
Loan until they had received the gov-
ernment's assurance that they would
be left in possession of their liberties.

"

give the first expression to the univer-
sal feeling of Anglo-Jewry and to con-
gratulate Russia on having rid her-
self not only of the Romanoffs, but of
her suicidal policy of degrading six
millions of her ablest subjects.

