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Published Weekly by The Jewish Chronicle Publishing Co., Inc.

JOSEPH .1. CUMMINS
JACOB H. SCHAKNE

Entered

S

President
y and Treasurer

as Second-class matter March 3, 1914. e the Postoffice at Detroit.
Mick., under the At of March A 1479.

General Offices and Publication Building

525 Woodward Avenue

Telephone Cadillac 1040

London °fits e

Cable Address: Chronicle

14 Stratford Place, London, W. I, England.

'11

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To Insure publ kat ion. all correspondence and new% matter must reach this
office by Tuesday evening of each week, When mailing notices,
kindly use one aide of the paper only.

The Detroit Jewish Chronicle invites correspondence on subject. of Interest to
the Jewish people, but disclaims responsibility for an indorsement of the views
expressed by the writers.

August 26, 1927

Ab 28, 5687

Fred Butzel.

Congratulations!
The Detroit Jewish Chronicle joins with Detroit
Jewry in giving you greeting on your fiftieth birthday.
And we believe that we are voicing the sentiment of
the Jewish community when we give you thanks for
many deeds of charity and justice.
For your many years of service to the organized
charities of Detroit.
For your many personal bequests to the poor of our
own city and the relief of our brethren across the seas.
For your splendid citizenship which has reflected
honor upon our community.
For your service to the community in general on
behalf of the wayward and the delinquent.
For your guidance and council in the work of Jew-
ish education.
For your self-sacrificing devotion to the cause of
the widowed and the orphaned.
For your many acts of kindness towards the
wronged and the unfortunate.
For, your clear vision) and inspired guidance in all
communal problems.
' For all these and many more acts of wisdom and
devotion we join with all Detroit Jewry in expressing
our gratitude. •
May you be spared to do your-work of charity and
kindness for many a long year to come:

=1=Mr.4M

The Zurich Conference.

The Conference on Jewish Rights at Zurich has
come and gone.
What did it accomplish?
To answer this question fairly it is necessary first
to ask the question: What did it seek to accomplish?
According to Dr. Stephen S. Wise the conference
was called for the purpose of reorganizing and recon-
structing the committee of Jewish delegations. This
purpose it achieved. A council on the rights of Jew-
ish minorities, membership in which is to be open to all
Jewish organizations dealing with the defense of Jew-
ish rights and Jewish parliameittary representatives,
was decided upon. The organization committee pro-
posed that the committee of Jewish delegations, estab-
lished in 1919 during the peace conference, be reorgan-
ized and renamed. This organization is to work through
a biennial conference and will have headquarters in
Geneva. In so far as resolutions can be said to create
anything, the conference can be said to have achieved
its principal purpose.
This council consists of 51 members repiesenting 30
countries. Twenty-one of these members are Ameri-
cans. Dr. Stephen S. Wise is the American representa-
tive on the praesidium, the executive body of the
council.
It is always easy to criticize a conference for not
accomplishing the things it never expected to accom-
plish. The Zurich conference was, from the first, an
organizational conference. Its critics, however, refused
to accept turfs limited definition of its aims. They
pointed out that such a body could do no more
than pass resolutions of condemnation. That it could
have no official status. Now that the conference
has ended and no attempt has been made to take "offi-
cial" action these critics are probably convinced that
the conference was a failure.
We have no great faith ourselves in the efficacy of
resolutions. But we are willing to wait and see what
the Council on Jewish Rights can do. After all there
are other organizations that have no "official" status
and yet are able to function effectively. The Zionist
Organization of the World has always been such a
body. The word "official" as it is used today in inter-
national politics has come to be very loosely defined.
It the Council on Jewish Rights is fairly representative
and enjoys the support of a large section of world
Jewry it can not fail to find ways and means to make
its resolutions heard in the capitals of Europe and in
the sessions of the League of Nations. The personnel
of the council and its praesidium is of a high character.
The issues that this council will be expected to raise are
clear and well defined. Its cause rests upon the founda-
tion of the peace treaties–,not too secure a foundation,
of course—but a good deal better than mere opinion.
• It can accomplish much if it acts wisely and vigorously.

Freud On Immortality.

AEI

Dr. Sigmund Freud was interviewed recently by
George Sylvester Vierick.
Among the questions put to the father of psycho-
analysis was this one: "Do you believe in the persistence
of personality after death?" Dr. Freud replied, "I
give no thought to the matter. Everything that lives
perishes. Why should I survive?"
Nothing that Dr. Freud has ever said or written
reveals him more completely as the Jew than does this
remark. For there is one feature of the Jewish mind,
one school of Jewish philosophy that seldom finds a
place in the pulpit. That is the traditional Jewish phil-
osophy of progressive skepticism. The Jewish point of
view is not the little collection of catch-words and the-
ological platitudes that are so monotonously voiced by
the rabbinate. It is not a one-ply philosophy. The phil-
osopical books of *the Bible are really a catalogue, a
museum, of the works of the human mind. Dr. Freud
could have quoted good scripture, if he chose, in de-
fense of his philosophy.
"I give no thought to the matter," said Dr. Freud.
How many Jews might have uttered the same words in
all truth? Does the hope of immortality really play
the large part in the life of the Jew that our rabbis
believe it does? If the common conversation one hears

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is any clue to the hopes of men we must come to the
conclusion that it does not. The mind of the Jew—and
the mind of the Gentile, too—dwells chiefly on the prob-
lems of life and not on the problems of death and im-
mortality. La Rochefoucald once said that most people
would never fall in love if they never heard the term.
Is it not possible that most people would never think
about immortality if they were not taught this concept
by their spiritual leaders? The so-called "instinct" of
self-preservation that the theologians are now so fond
of citing as it proof of the "natural" desire of man for
immortality, is, after all, a desire to live on earth, not
in heaven. And, as fur the doctrine of reward and pun-
ishment in the hereafter, it is doubtful whether the
good and the bad deeds of men are much effected by
the remote possibility of heavenly judgment.
Nor can it be said that the renunciation of the doc-
trine of personal immortality and everything that goes
with it—reward for good and punishment for evil deeds
—necessarily makes pessimists of men. Dr. Freud
said: "Seventy years have taught me to accept life with
cheerful humility,"
"Cheerful humility." How many texts out of the
Bible could be quoted to support this courageous phil-
osophy of life! Surely Dr. Freud is no less the Jew for
all his apparent worldliness. It is only to the chronic
wish-thinkers (to use a phrase of Dr. Freud's coinage)
that Judaism is synonimous with the hope of personal
immortality.

Local Charities.

I. M. Rubinow, writing in the Menorah Journal for
August, discloses some very interesting facts concern-
ing local charities. In his article, "The Future of Local
Charities," Mr. Rubinow points out that the virtual
cessation of immigration does not lessen the need for
the local charities.
It will come as a surprise to those who have always
been accustomed to thinking of the local charities as
primarily organizations for the relief of immigrants
that, as a matter of fact,- the native-born Jew is just as
likely to become a public charge as is the immigrant
Jew. That poverty has shown no tendency to diminish
as a result of the cutting off of the stream of immi-
gration.
Says Mr. Rubinow :

In 16 out of 21 cities the percentage of foreign-born
dependents was slightly lower than the percentage of for-
eign-born inhabitants might lead one to expect. For most
racial groups there was, so to speak, less dependency than
they were entitled to by their numerical weight in the
community as a whole. At any rate, it is clear that the
foreign-born, as a class, need relief in no greater degree
than does the native population.

Mr. Rubinow goes further and shows that "all avail-
able data indicate that the more recent immigrants do
not figure materially among clients of relief agencies."
Of 851 immigrants among all the clients of the Jewish
Welfare Society of Philadelphia in 1925, only 71, or
shout eight per cent, had arrived subsequent to 1915.
Of the remaining 92 per cent who had entered the
country before 1915, more than half had been in the
country at least 20 years. "We have been dealing with
immigrants and children of immigrants thus far," says
Mr. Rubinow, "simply because six-sevenths of the Jew-
ish community are immigrants."
When the bars were raised against immigration
there were many Jews, and not a few of them profes-
sional social workers, who concluded that the time NVI4
not far off when the local charities could be practically
dispensed with—when there would be no more need
for charity since there would be no more immigrants.
This rosy vision is not being justified by the facts.
Native-born Jewry is producing its "normal" quota of
dependents.
As Mr. Rubinow concluded, "The task of the social
worker is not temporary ; he is the vehicle of a broader
and deeper social ethic. The task of the community is
now, more than ever before, to provide him with the
means of continuing and extending and perfecting his
efforts."

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JOSEPH-I--

It's out! "Ask the Rabbi!" The Jewish Quiz Book.
Two thousand questions and answers. It's about the best
thing I've seen in many n long day for the average Jew
and Jewess to get in predigested capsule form interesting
and worthwhile data on Jewish life and Jewish affairs.
Albert Weinberg and Rabbi Morris Lazaron are respon-
sible for the questions and the answers, though Rabbi
Lazaron, in the foreword, gives most of the credit to
Mr. Weinberg. They are both Baltimoreans. It is really
a most valuable book and I am quite enthusiastic about
it. Even mah jong players need not sacrifice much of
their valuable time to learn something about Jewish peo.
pie, Jewish literature, Jewleir ritualism, Jewish events
if they will look it over while one of the number is
shuffling the tiles preliminary to building the coolie wall.
And what a relief it would be to have such a book at
hand when the "dummy" in bridge whist has time hang-
ing on his or her hands. I strongly recommend "Ask
the Rabbi" to the curious as well as to those genuinely
interested in obtaining additional information relating
to Jewish life.

Ha! What's this! A challenge? I sense a sinister
note in this Kiwanian note. Writes Barry M. Lewis of
Brooklyn, N. Y:

In the July 29 issue of the Brooklyn Review,
you take exception to an address delivered before
the Kiwanis Club of Lawrence, Mass., by Frank
A. Goodwin, Massachusetts registrar of motor ve-
hicles. Your objection to the subject of his ad-
dress may or may not be well founded. I have
made no study of the case involving the conviction
of Messrs. Sacco and Vanzetti, and am therefore
in no position to debate with you. Like thousands
of other citizens, I feel that substantial justice
has been meted and am willing to leave it to the
courts for final adjudication. I do find objecion
to the closing sentence of your article: "It was
quite proper that such an address should be deliv-
ered before the Kiwanis.." What do you know
about Kiwanis? Bring your pen and vinegar pot
around to the. St. George Hotel in Brooklyn some
Tuesday and turn some of your Random Thoughts
into words. And get a line on the men who make
up the membership.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I appreciate the invitation.
I haven't been in Brooklyn for 25 years, and on that
occasion I attended a funeral in Greenwood Cemetery.
I presume that cemetery is still there. Since that time
I have had no occasion to journey to the city of Judge
Guysnutr, Rabbi Lyons and Judge Moskowitz, to say
nothing of Nathan Sweedler and Abraham & Straus. The
last time I met anyone from Brooklyn was last spring,
at a dinner given at the Fifth Avenue Restaurant, in
New York City, in honor of Dr. Will Durant, author of
"The Story of Philosophy," and there were three Brook-
lynites (and I ant sure, readers of the Review) at my
table. They were sit friendly to a stranger that I gained
a much more favorable impression of Brooklyniles than
I had previously entertained. Which encourages me to
accept the invitation of the Kiwanis—hut in the future,
because "bringing my vinegar pot and pen around to St.
George" involves a journey front Pittsburgh, Pa.

In the meantime, I recommend to my Kiwanian friend
that he ponder this paragraph from the newest book of
Professor Raymond Pearl, the famous scientist and biolo-
gist, entitled "To Begin With:"

Everybody who calls himself a man ought to
read and reread I'lato's Euthyphro, the Apology
and the Crito. Socrates was undoubtedly a pest.
If be was in our midst today he would meet pre-
cisely the same fate at the hands of the Rotarians,
Kiwanians and other orthodox uplifters, that he
did from the Dikastery. And for two simple rear
sons. He was a superior man and he was aggres-
sively attacking Fundamentalism.

Well, I certainly stirred up sonic excitement in Bal-
timore social circles. The gentleman who advised me
that :luring his sojourn at a hotel in Pen Mar, l'a., he
was disturbed by the goings on of a gay social crowd
from Baltimore has greatly increased my correspondence
during the past week. He was pained that co-religionists
should have acted in such an unseemly manner. Among
other things he accused them of "moving beds from one
room to another (early in the morning); shooting off
firecrackers under a bed (that was occupied); gathering
in one room and singing and yelling; telling stories that
would have brought the blush of shame to the cheek of
the late Anthony Comstock" and so on and so forth.
Naturally, he complained—to me. I, too, became indig-
nant that our young folk should have acted so unre-
strainedly. In fact, I was reminded of my friend, Oliver
Berri:sirs witticism, "On with the :lance, let the joy b"
unrefined."

Orthodoxy Militant.

From Jerusalem conies the news that the orthodox
Jews of Palestine. discontented with the religious views
of certain Zionist groups, have taken steps to form a
separate synagogue.
Representatives of the Kohelim, whose function it
is to raise funds in the Diaspora for the maintenance
of the Chalukah institutions, held a meeting and, under
the leadership of Rabbi Sonnenfeld,_ organized them-
selves into a separate group.
Grouping and' re-grouping of this sort has been
going on everywhere and all the time. What makes
this particular schism important is the fact that it con-
tains a hint of certain grave consequences for Pales-
tinian Jewry.
It has been well said that Palestine rests on a sound-
ing board—that the slightest word from Palestine
reverberates around the world. It is a country of many
races and many creeds. Nowhere in the world is the
so-called minority problem so complicated and so vex-
Mg. As it is. the Jews are a minority in Palestine. If
religious squabbles are now to divide this minority and
split it up into still smaller groups its political power is
bound to diminish. Differences in social and economic
outlook already divide the Jewish community of Pales-
tine into more than a dozen parties. It is not difficult
to imagine the situation if, now, in addition to these
political groupings there is to be a subdivision along
religious lines.
What strikes us as significant in the present schism
is the fact that in this instance it is orthodoxy that is
taking the lead. In the past it was always the reform-
ist group that broke with orthodoxy and went its own
way. Today orthodoxy is no longer on the defensive.
It begins to recapture some of its old virility—to take
the offensive against dissenters. Let us hope that in
doing so orthodoxy does not attempt to revive some of
the more objectionable forms of persuasion that so
often accompany religious zeal.
It is plain that orthodoxy is in a militant mood, not
only in Palestine but all over the world. In America we
have lately heard some very plain language from the
lips of our orthodox brethren. There are now three
major divisions or groupings in American Judaism.
The natural tendency is for these groups to merge but
strong forces are at work to keep them apart.
We American Jews can ill afford the wranglings of
separatists. And to Palestinian Jewry it can be nothing
less than ruinous.

. AP•A 9.%9A.9.

.Q.

I published my opinion based upon the letter. As a
result, I an: in receipt of protests from some who were
in the party. They are much incensed at me. One of
the writers admits that one firecracked was shot off while
another says that "a heavy article was accidentally drop.
pad." Was that article a bed or a kitchen range? My
complainant says that the "sheriff was called to put out
the offending parties." The writers from Baltimore say
there wasn't a police officer anywhere in the vicinity.
Probably Ed Wynn escaped from the screen and appeared
on the scene as a graduate of the Eureka Detective Cor-
respondence School. Now, my friends, I an: not a pro-
fessional reformer, and neither am I interested in devot-
ing my life to correcting the manners of the present-day
generation. If I had nothing else to do. I would go to
Pen Mar, Pa., (wherever that is and spend a few days
i•rsonally investigating, but I just haven't the time. If
•
the charges made were unjustified, I am very happy to
hear it, as I dislike exceedingly to think that awn:hers if
the Jewish group would so conduct themselves publicly
as to invite severe criticism and add to the prejudice
against the Jew. I want to thank the courageous young
lady who was one of my correspondents for signing her
name. And I hope that she will continue to read Random
Thoughts, skipping the paragraphs that annoy her.

The Irish World certainly got its "Irish" up the other
day and went after Marcus 'mew, the Warner Brothers
and the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Corporation as a result of
the picture "The Callahans and the Murphys." It urged
an Irish rebellion against the picture. I really can't
blame the paper, but it was a bit raw, to may th e least,
It is unfortunate that the motion picture producers cari-
cature the Irish and the Jews to an unwarranted degree.
Innocent fun is one thing, but the extravagant figures
that are presented to us as actual types serve only to
bring ridicule and misunderstanding upon certain groups.
For years we put up with agonized patience the Jewish
and the Irish comedian on the vaudeville stage. Jews
caricatured Jews and Irishmen caricatured Irishmen.
Which seems strange, but it's true. So the Irish World
need not think itself alone in its indignation. But I am
sure that the editor will calm down a bit when he realizes
that the Jews alone are not the guilty parties, but they
include their own people. Nevertheless it is about time
the motion picture industry cut out much of the trash
and insulting nonsense that offends decency.

In looking over the list of Jews who have intermar-
ried with nobility, I find this item in the new Jewish Mag-
azine, the Reflex:

A daughter of the New York grain dealer,
Levy Z. Leitner, also married into the nobility and
became the Marchioness of Curzon. She married
Colonel Campbell, a relative of the Scotch Dukes
of Argyll, and thus became a relative of King Ed-
ward the Seventh, whose sister Louise married the
Duke Argyll."

I wonder if this should not read: "Levi 7.. Leiter, the
Chicago grain dealer," and was Leiter a Jew? Will some
reader please answer?

te

tra

As a Frenchman Sees It

By ANDRE SIEGFRIED.

(Editor's Note:—The contention that in spite of the great
value of Jewish cu-operation, the Protestant American has
adopted a hostile attitude which has developed into an anti
Semitic movement in the Unied States is made by Andre Sieg-
fried, author and professor at the French School of Social
Sciences in Paris, in a book entitled "America Comes of Age,"
the English translation of which is published by Ilarcourt,
Brace Si Co. The author dwells at length on American Jewish
conditions, describing what he terms the "melting pot problem"
in his chapter entitled "The Melting Pot."—The Editor.)

In the American melting pot,
the temperature at which fusion
takes place varies with the different
races. In certain cases It occurs at
a very low degree, being practically
automatic. In others, however, a
high temperature is needed, and
then even after prolonged heating
an insoluble residue is liable to re-
main. This is particularly true of
the Jewish race, for although their
transformation at first seems to
take place easily and quickly, the
operation later proves to have been
incomplete. The difference in these
reactions to the melting pot is of
utmost importance; in fact, since
the war the Americans have made
it the keynote of their immigration
policy.

A century of experience has
proved that Protestants of Nordic
origin are readily assimilated, and
Calvinists particularly so. There is
almost no question of Amerivaniz-
ing an Englishman or a Scotchman,
for they are hardly foreigners and
feel quite at home for many reasons
that go far deeper than the mere
similarity of the language. The
Dutch, the Germans, the Scandi-
navians and the German Swiss all
have low melting points, though if
they are Lutherans or Catholics
they are less easily assimilated.
Though the Germans frequently
retain their identity for several
generations, it is less owing to a
difference in their customs than to
their political outlook, and to the
fact that they are always conscious
that behind them in Europe lies an
organized government, powerful
and ambitious. The result of these
low melting points is that 'wherever
the foreign population is mainly
German or Scandinavian, there is
really no problem of assimilation.
In Wisconsin, which might almost
be described as a German princi-
pality, there is something very com-
fortable, well kept and old-fash-
ioned about the countryside, a feel-
ing of German Gidnuthlichkeit. Yet
it does not strike one as being for-
eign. In the Viking states of Min-
nesota and North Dakota, the men
occupying the various government
posts give the impression of being
vigorous Scotchmen, although actu-
ally they are Scandinavians. In
many of these :western capitals
overlooking their oceans of wheat,
both the attorney general and the
Assimilation only begins to be
troublesome with the Catholics,
even German and Anglo-Saxon
Catholics, and it is a question
whether it is not civilizations rather
than races that resist. The Irish
Catholic, who speaks English and
whose mode of living is perfectly
normal, does not assimilate in the
true sense of the word, for after
two or even three generations we
find him and his priest as distinc-
tive as men Although one would
never think of referring to either
the English or Scotch as foreigners,
the Irish, on the other hand, have
remained apart in the large Amer-
ican cities, funning, their own com-
munities, with their own tendencies
and individuality and even an Irish
patriotism. In the same way, large-
ly because they are Catholics, the
FrenchsCanadians group them-
selves around their priest and live
isolated in the cotton manufactur-
ing towns of New England. In
every case the resistance to ASSillli-
lation conies from the church,
which scarcely conceals its hostility
to the efforts of the puritans to
change the mode of living of the
country by means of the law.
When we come to the Slays and
the Latins, we must ascertain
whether religion is the real ob-
stacle to a rapid Americanization
or whether it is not the inevitable
resistance of a civilization that dif-
fers fundamentally in its concep-
tion of the individual, the family,
and the clan. People with a strong
sense of blood ties like the Italian,:
or the Greeks are absorbed only
with difficulty. They continue to
lead their frugal lives, un-Ameri-
can in their thrift, and haunted by •
the thought of their home country
and of the relatives to whom they
send their savings.
As for the raves that are indivi-
dualists in their works-the French-
man who insists on thinking for
himself and by him-elf ; the static
terranuan with his genius for gar-
dening and love of the soil; the
Finnish lumberman and the Mexi-
can navvy—thi y all aggressively
assert their individuality as if they
could not fit into the American ma-
chine. Thus the really obstinate
elements are in the last analysis the
Latins, the French, the Finns, and
the Mexicans, who all resist for the
same reason, because they are anti-
social at heart. Americanization
tends to destroy the family and to
reduce the originality of the indi-
vidual. The instinctive resistence
to it may rise from a longing for
social conditions that possibly are
incompitable with modern develop-
ments and mass production. The
new immigration policy in its turn
may simply express the antagon-
ism of the dominant group to this
individualistic revolt.
The Jew gives the impression at
first of being very quickly Ameri-
canized, for no other foreigner has
his easy adaptability. In any case,
the American atmosphere offers
him every attraction. Ile respects
money, success and worldliness; he
is restless and ambitious, and his
eagerness to succeed is not without
■ certain vengefulness for centuries
of hatred and oppression. In moral
origin, he is closely allied to the
Puritan—the name biblical tradi-
tion, the same belief that his is the
chosen race, the same easy step
from religious mysticism to the
conquest of power and riches.
The Jew passes through the first
phase of his Americanization with
disconcerting rapidity — there is
something suspicious about this ex.
cessive zeal. If the Stars and
Stripes is waved at a jingo demon-

6 F.V, ;=a4:4;.=,,1==t1'61 114-4,6

1

stration in New York, you may he
sure that it is a Jew who holds the
standard, while the 100 per cent
American whose great great grand-
father was it friend of Washington
stands aside disgusted. taught
suddenly into the rhythm of the
New World, he is soon more Amer-
ican than the Americans them-
selves. lie seems at first to throw
off his traditions gaily. Ile changes
his name, and Schonberg, becomes
Belmont, Jonas becomes Jones. Be
"passes," as the negroes say; that
is, he moves among the Christians
without being remarked. Thus, in
the shortest possible period, like the
law student who crams a three-year
curriculum into three months, the
bearded Jew from a far-off Euro-
pean ghetto is Americanized until
no trace of the alien remains. Ile
even makes light of his religious
tradition, for although in the first
generation the immigrant remains
faithful to his Sabbath, in the sec-
ond he is content with half-way
measures. Ile joins societies for the
promotion of ethical culture, where
he mixes with broad-minded Prot-
estants anxious about their duty to
society. The number of .taws ,who
disappear in this way in the ocean
of An•rica must be considerable.
Of course there are orthodox
Jews who remain faithful to their
synagogue and who are always on
the alert to reclaim their lost
brethren. Also, not only in the for-
eign quarters of the large cities but
even in the well-to-do districts, it
must be admitted that the Jews
keep more or less apart in spite of
themselves, bound to each other less
by their religion than by racial ties.
Socially they are only too anxious
to attach themselves to the Chris-
tians. Surreptitiously they have
invaded their hotels until they have
crowded the Gentiles out. They
have wormed their way into the
clubs in spite of the ostracism and
insults designed to exclude them.
With their brilliant intellects. they
have firmly established themselves
in the universities, where the medi-
ocre element tries instinctively to
oust them. So this pseudo-Ameri-
can ferments at the bottom of the
melting pot, unassimilated to the
end.
Thu' fact remains that notwith-
standing its material adaptation,
the original traits of the race per-
sist and leave their indelible mark
on every thought and action.
Though they' may be willing to sa•-
rifice everything, even their mysti-
cism, and be ready to adopt that
dreary social pragmatism which is
the real religion of modern Amer-
cannot escape the spirit of their
ica, yet these children of Abraham
ancestors, for they are infinitely
more religious than the Americans.
Their outlook may have coincided
for a moment with Protestanisin,
hut the soul of their religion has
survived untouched. During the
last 20 years of the nineteenth cen-
tury, when the Crest influx of Bus-
Man Jews uas commencing, there
were already in America many dis-
tinguished Israelites who - had
adapted themselves to American
culture, but many of thent who had
thrown off their religion were now
brought hack into the fold. Today
the mystical traditions of °Mho.
doxy have been reimposed in mod-
ern form on those Jews whose re-
ligion had become bitter and dry
through the taint of their contact
with the Christians. Even in the
lowest grades of st•iety we come
across those irreconcilables who at-
tempted to become a part of west-
ern civilization only to repudiate
it in the end.
The knowledge that the Ameri-
cans have encountered something
which they cannot assimilate has
long stirred up an anti-Semitic
feeling which accounts fur the
aloofness of the Jew in his Amer-
ican environment. First, the Gen-
tile fears, and with reason, the com-
petition of the .lew in business, and
despises hint as a matter of course,
although regularly at the end of
every month the balance sheet
shows that the Jew has outstripped
hint again. This is doubtless the
result of his commercial 1.1 ■ JuteeeSs •
but it is due also to his insatialh•
ambition and to his business activ-
ity, which at times amounts to
frenzy. The Americans, especially
in New York—that new Jerusalem
—have a grudge against hint, be-
cause he forces them to keep up
with his feverish pace.
If the pace set by the Wandering
Jew is killing in business, in haul-
lectual circles it is worse, for there
the American is decidedly not at his
best. Left to himself, the 100 per
center is not given to brain work.
In the universities, he prefers (0 go
in for sport and flirtations, and in
the libraries all he wants is light
reading. Now the Jew, on the con-
trary, in the same universities and
the same libraries, is deep in some
serious book on science, sociology,
or philosophy—it isn't a fair fight,
they protest.
Just what use dues he make of
his alert intellect, this descendant
of the prophets, who according to
Peguy has never stopped reading
for 2,000 years? He has a mind
that can neither be tamed nor dis-
ciplined, for he questions everything
for his own particular ends. This
is just what the Americans do not
want. They require a type of mind
that can be dealt with collectively
and fitted into an organization in
which the individual is asked to
make his own personality subservi-
ent to the common good. The Jew
on the contrary is an intellectual
revolutionary to the point of sus-
picion, and therefore in spite of
their apparent similarity when
they first crime in contact, the l'rot-
estant and the Jew soon diverge.
In spite of the great value of Jew-
ish collaboration, the Protestant
American has adopted a hostile at-
titude which has developed into an
anti-Semitic movement.

R.9 AA"

6 1'

(TAV,;744

