THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS,.
Tolstoy Discusses What Is A Jew
By LEV TOLSTOY
(Editor's note: The
Zionist Information
News Service [ZINS] re-
cently reprinted this arti-
cle by Russian author
Lev Tolstoy [1828-1910].)
What is a Jew? This ques-
tion is not at all so odd as it
seems.
Let us see what kind of
peculiar creature the Jew is,
which all the rulers and all
the nations have together
and separately abused and
molested, oppressed and
persecuted, trampled and
butchered, burned and
hanged — and in spite of all
this is yet alive? What is a
Jew, who has never allowed
himself to be led astray by
all the earthly possessions
which his oppressors and
persecutors constantly of-
fered him in order that he
should change his faith and
forsake his own Jewish reli-
gion?
The Jew is that sacred
being who has brought
down from heaven the ever-
lasting fire and has illumi-
nated with it the entire
world. He is the religious
source, spring and fountain
out of which all other
peoples have drawn their
beliefs and their religions.
The Jew is the pioneer
of liberty. Even in those
olden days, when the
people were divided into
but two distinct classes,
slaves and masters. Even
so long ago had the law of
Moses prohibited the
practice of keeping a per-
son in bondage for more
than six years.
The Jew is the pioneer of
civilization. Ignorance was
condemned in olden Pales-
tine more even than it is
today in civilized Europe.
Moreover, in those barbar-
ous days, when neither the
life nor the death of anyone
counted for anything at all,
Rabbi Akiba did not refrain
from expressing himself
openly against capital
punishment, a practice
which is recognized today as
a ,highly civilized way of
punishment.
The Jew is the symbol :of
civil and religious
tolerance. "Love the
stranger and the sojourner,"
Moses commands, "because
you have been strangers in
the land of Egypt." And this
was said in those remote
and savage times when the
principal ambition of the
races and nations consisted
in crushing and enslaving
one another.
As concerns religious
tolerance, the Jewish faith
is not only far from the mis-
sionary spirit of converting
people of other denomina-
tions, but on the contrary
the Talmud commands the
rabbis to inform and explain
to everyone who ,willingly
comes to accept the Jewish
religion, all the difficulties
involved in its acceptance,
as to point out to the
Enlist the interests of
stern morality and religious
enthusiasm in the cause of
political liberty, as in the
time of the old Puritans, and
it will be irresistible.
would-be proselyte that the
righteous of all nations
have a share in immortal-
ity. Of such a lofty and ideal
religious toleration not
even the moralists of our
present day can boast.
The Jew is the symbol of
eternity. He whom neither of God; he who has been for
slaughter nor torture of so long the guardian of
thousands of years could de- prophesy, and who trans-
stroy; he whom neither fire mitted it to the rest of the
nor sword nor inquisition world — such a nation can-
was able to wipe off the face not be destroyed. The Jew is
of the earth; he who was the everlasting as is eternity it-
first to produce the oracles self.
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