THE JEWS OF YORK (1190)WHENRichardIascended the throne, the Jews, to conciliate the Royal protection, brought their tributes. Many had hastened from remote parts of England, and, appearing at Westminster, the Court and the mob imagined that they had leagued to bewitch His Majesty. A rumour spread rapidly through the city that in honour of the festival the Jews were to be massacred. The populace, at once eager of Royalty and riot, pillaged and burnt their houses and murdered the devoted Jews.The people of York soon gathered to imitate the people of London. The alarmed Jews hastened to Jocenus, the most opulent of the Jews, who conducted them to the Governor of York Castle, and prevailed on him to afford them an asylum for their persons and effects.The castle had sufficient strength for their defence; but a suspicion arising that the Governor, who often went out, intended to betray them, they one day refused him entrance. He complained to the sheriff of the county; and the chiefs of the violent party, who stood deeply indebted to the Jews, uniting with him, orders were issued to attack the castle. The cruel multitude, united with the soldiery, felt such a desire of slaughtering those they intended to despoil, that the sheriff, repenting of the order, revoked it; but in vain: fanaticism and robbery onceset loose will satiate their appetency for blood and plunder. The attacks continued, till at length the Jews perceived they could hold out no longer, and a council was called to consider what remained to be done in the extremity of danger.When the Jewish council was assembled, theHaham25rose, and addressed them in this manner: ‘Men of Israel! the God of our ancestors is omniscient, and there is no one who can say, Why doest Thou this? This day He commands us to die for His Law; for that Law which we have cherished from the first hour it was given, which we have preserved pure throughout our captivity in all nations; and for which, because of the many consolations it has given us and the eternal hope it communicates, can we do less than die? Death is before our eyes; and we have only to choose an honourable and easy one. If we fall into the hands of our enemies, which you know we cannot escape, our death will be ignominious and cruel. It is therefore my advice that we elude their tortures; that we ourselves should be our own executioners; and that we voluntarily surrender our lives to our Creator. God seems to call for us, but let us not be unworthy of that call.’ Having said this, the old man sat down and wept.The assembly was divided in its opinions. Againthe Rabbin rose, and spoke these few words in a firm and decisive tone. ‘My children! since we are not unanimous in our opinions, let those who do not approve of my advice depart from this assembly!’ Some departed, but the greater number attached themselves to their venerable priest. They now employed themselves in consuming their valuables by fire; and every man, fearful of trusting to the timid and irresolute hand of the women, first destroyed his wife and children, and then himself. Jocenus and the Rabbin alone remained. Their life was protracted to the last, that they might see everything performed according to their orders. Jocenus, being the chief Jew, was distinguished by the last mark of human respect in receiving his death from the consecrated hand of the aged Rabbin, who immediately after performed the melancholy duty on himself.All this was transacted in the depth of the night. In the morning the walls of the castle were seen wrapt in flames, and only a few miserable and pusillanimous beings, unworthy of the sword, were viewed on the battlements pointing to their extinct brethren. When they opened the gates of the castle, these men verified the prediction of their late Rabbin; for the multitude, bursting through the solitary courts, found themselves defrauded of their hopes, and in a moment avenged themselves on the feeble wretches who knew not to die with honour.ISAAC D’ISRAELI, 1793.
WHENRichardIascended the throne, the Jews, to conciliate the Royal protection, brought their tributes. Many had hastened from remote parts of England, and, appearing at Westminster, the Court and the mob imagined that they had leagued to bewitch His Majesty. A rumour spread rapidly through the city that in honour of the festival the Jews were to be massacred. The populace, at once eager of Royalty and riot, pillaged and burnt their houses and murdered the devoted Jews.
The people of York soon gathered to imitate the people of London. The alarmed Jews hastened to Jocenus, the most opulent of the Jews, who conducted them to the Governor of York Castle, and prevailed on him to afford them an asylum for their persons and effects.
The castle had sufficient strength for their defence; but a suspicion arising that the Governor, who often went out, intended to betray them, they one day refused him entrance. He complained to the sheriff of the county; and the chiefs of the violent party, who stood deeply indebted to the Jews, uniting with him, orders were issued to attack the castle. The cruel multitude, united with the soldiery, felt such a desire of slaughtering those they intended to despoil, that the sheriff, repenting of the order, revoked it; but in vain: fanaticism and robbery onceset loose will satiate their appetency for blood and plunder. The attacks continued, till at length the Jews perceived they could hold out no longer, and a council was called to consider what remained to be done in the extremity of danger.
When the Jewish council was assembled, theHaham25rose, and addressed them in this manner: ‘Men of Israel! the God of our ancestors is omniscient, and there is no one who can say, Why doest Thou this? This day He commands us to die for His Law; for that Law which we have cherished from the first hour it was given, which we have preserved pure throughout our captivity in all nations; and for which, because of the many consolations it has given us and the eternal hope it communicates, can we do less than die? Death is before our eyes; and we have only to choose an honourable and easy one. If we fall into the hands of our enemies, which you know we cannot escape, our death will be ignominious and cruel. It is therefore my advice that we elude their tortures; that we ourselves should be our own executioners; and that we voluntarily surrender our lives to our Creator. God seems to call for us, but let us not be unworthy of that call.’ Having said this, the old man sat down and wept.
The assembly was divided in its opinions. Againthe Rabbin rose, and spoke these few words in a firm and decisive tone. ‘My children! since we are not unanimous in our opinions, let those who do not approve of my advice depart from this assembly!’ Some departed, but the greater number attached themselves to their venerable priest. They now employed themselves in consuming their valuables by fire; and every man, fearful of trusting to the timid and irresolute hand of the women, first destroyed his wife and children, and then himself. Jocenus and the Rabbin alone remained. Their life was protracted to the last, that they might see everything performed according to their orders. Jocenus, being the chief Jew, was distinguished by the last mark of human respect in receiving his death from the consecrated hand of the aged Rabbin, who immediately after performed the melancholy duty on himself.
All this was transacted in the depth of the night. In the morning the walls of the castle were seen wrapt in flames, and only a few miserable and pusillanimous beings, unworthy of the sword, were viewed on the battlements pointing to their extinct brethren. When they opened the gates of the castle, these men verified the prediction of their late Rabbin; for the multitude, bursting through the solitary courts, found themselves defrauded of their hopes, and in a moment avenged themselves on the feeble wretches who knew not to die with honour.
ISAAC D’ISRAELI, 1793.
THE EXPULSION FROM SPAIN, 1492LOOK, they move! No comrades near but curses;Tears gleam in beards of men sore with reverses;Flowers from fields abandoned, loving nurses,Fondly deck the women’s raven hair.Faded, scentless flowers that shall remind themOf their precious homes and graves behind them;Old men, clasping Torah-scrolls, unbind them,Lift the parchment flags and silent lead.Mock not with thy light, O sun, our morrow;Cease not, cease not, O ye songs of sorrow;From what land a refuge can we borrow,Weary, thrust out, God-forsaken we?Could ye, suff’ring souls, peer through the Future,From despair ye would awake to rapture;Lo! The Genoese boldly steers to captureFreedom’s realm beyond an unsailedsea!26L. A. FRANKL.(Trans.by M. D. Louis.)
LOOK, they move! No comrades near but curses;Tears gleam in beards of men sore with reverses;Flowers from fields abandoned, loving nurses,Fondly deck the women’s raven hair.Faded, scentless flowers that shall remind themOf their precious homes and graves behind them;Old men, clasping Torah-scrolls, unbind them,Lift the parchment flags and silent lead.Mock not with thy light, O sun, our morrow;Cease not, cease not, O ye songs of sorrow;From what land a refuge can we borrow,Weary, thrust out, God-forsaken we?Could ye, suff’ring souls, peer through the Future,From despair ye would awake to rapture;Lo! The Genoese boldly steers to captureFreedom’s realm beyond an unsailedsea!26L. A. FRANKL.(Trans.by M. D. Louis.)
LOOK, they move! No comrades near but curses;Tears gleam in beards of men sore with reverses;Flowers from fields abandoned, loving nurses,Fondly deck the women’s raven hair.Faded, scentless flowers that shall remind themOf their precious homes and graves behind them;Old men, clasping Torah-scrolls, unbind them,Lift the parchment flags and silent lead.Mock not with thy light, O sun, our morrow;Cease not, cease not, O ye songs of sorrow;From what land a refuge can we borrow,Weary, thrust out, God-forsaken we?Could ye, suff’ring souls, peer through the Future,From despair ye would awake to rapture;Lo! The Genoese boldly steers to captureFreedom’s realm beyond an unsailedsea!26L. A. FRANKL.(Trans.by M. D. Louis.)
LOOK, they move! No comrades near but curses;
Tears gleam in beards of men sore with reverses;
Flowers from fields abandoned, loving nurses,
Fondly deck the women’s raven hair.
Faded, scentless flowers that shall remind them
Of their precious homes and graves behind them;
Old men, clasping Torah-scrolls, unbind them,
Lift the parchment flags and silent lead.
Mock not with thy light, O sun, our morrow;
Cease not, cease not, O ye songs of sorrow;
From what land a refuge can we borrow,
Weary, thrust out, God-forsaken we?
Could ye, suff’ring souls, peer through the Future,
From despair ye would awake to rapture;
Lo! The Genoese boldly steers to capture
Freedom’s realm beyond an unsailedsea!26
L. A. FRANKL.(Trans.by M. D. Louis.)
THE EXODUS(AUGUST 3, 1492)THE Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached high-roads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, wellnigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. ‘Mother, shall we soon be there?’3. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with fever.4. The panting mules are urged forward by spur and goad; stuffed are the heavy saddle-bags with the wreckage of ruined homes.5. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly carried silken scrolls.6. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army of misfortune.7. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! No friend shall close his eyes.8. They leave behind the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia and Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the altar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.9. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his flock, the peasant his plough, to pelt with curses and stones; the villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.10. Oh, the weary march! oh, the uptorn roots of home! oh, the blankness of the receding goal!11. Listen to their lamentations.They that ate dainty food are desolate in the streets; they were reared in scarlet embrace dunghills. They flee away and wander about. Men say among the nations, They shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our days are full, our doom is come.(Lam.4. 5, 15, 18.)12. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, and the East refuseth to receive.EMMALAZARUS, 1883.
THE Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached high-roads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns.
2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, wellnigh swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised and bleeding feet. ‘Mother, shall we soon be there?’
3. The halt, the blind, are amid the train. Sturdy pack-horses laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst with fever.
4. The panting mules are urged forward by spur and goad; stuffed are the heavy saddle-bags with the wreckage of ruined homes.
5. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly carried silken scrolls.
6. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure, plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army of misfortune.
7. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! No friend shall close his eyes.
8. They leave behind the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia and Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the altar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.
9. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his flock, the peasant his plough, to pelt with curses and stones; the villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.
10. Oh, the weary march! oh, the uptorn roots of home! oh, the blankness of the receding goal!
11. Listen to their lamentations.They that ate dainty food are desolate in the streets; they were reared in scarlet embrace dunghills. They flee away and wander about. Men say among the nations, They shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our days are full, our doom is come.(Lam.4. 5, 15, 18.)
12. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, and the East refuseth to receive.
EMMALAZARUS, 1883.
A SONG OF REDEMPTIONSURELY a limit boundeth every woe,But mine enduring anguish hath no end;My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow,My wound hath no amend.O’erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strongTo steer the bark to port, her longed-for aim.How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong?When shall be heard theDove’s27sweet voice of song?O leave us not to perish for our wrong,Who bear Thy Name!Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!Wounded and crushed beneath my load I sigh,Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low;How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry,My heart dissolve with woe?How many years without a gleam of lightHas thraldom been our lot, our portion pain?WithIshmael28as a lion in his might,And Persia as an owl of darksome night,Beset on either side, behold our plightBetwixt the twain.Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!SOLOMON IBNGABIROL, 1050.(Trans.Nina Salaman.)
SURELY a limit boundeth every woe,But mine enduring anguish hath no end;My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow,My wound hath no amend.O’erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strongTo steer the bark to port, her longed-for aim.How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong?When shall be heard theDove’s27sweet voice of song?O leave us not to perish for our wrong,Who bear Thy Name!Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!Wounded and crushed beneath my load I sigh,Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low;How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry,My heart dissolve with woe?How many years without a gleam of lightHas thraldom been our lot, our portion pain?WithIshmael28as a lion in his might,And Persia as an owl of darksome night,Beset on either side, behold our plightBetwixt the twain.Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!SOLOMON IBNGABIROL, 1050.(Trans.Nina Salaman.)
SURELY a limit boundeth every woe,But mine enduring anguish hath no end;My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow,My wound hath no amend.O’erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strongTo steer the bark to port, her longed-for aim.How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong?When shall be heard theDove’s27sweet voice of song?O leave us not to perish for our wrong,Who bear Thy Name!Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!Wounded and crushed beneath my load I sigh,Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low;How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry,My heart dissolve with woe?How many years without a gleam of lightHas thraldom been our lot, our portion pain?WithIshmael28as a lion in his might,And Persia as an owl of darksome night,Beset on either side, behold our plightBetwixt the twain.Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?Mercy we crave!O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,Our King will save!SOLOMON IBNGABIROL, 1050.(Trans.Nina Salaman.)
SURELY a limit boundeth every woe,
But mine enduring anguish hath no end;
My grievous years are spent in ceaseless flow,
My wound hath no amend.
O’erwhelmed, my helm doth fail, no hand is strong
To steer the bark to port, her longed-for aim.
How long, O Lord, wilt Thou my doom prolong?
When shall be heard theDove’s27sweet voice of song?
O leave us not to perish for our wrong,
Who bear Thy Name!
Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?
Mercy we crave!
O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,
Our King will save!
Wounded and crushed beneath my load I sigh,
Despised and abject, outcast, trampled low;
How long, O Lord, shall I of violence cry,
My heart dissolve with woe?
How many years without a gleam of light
Has thraldom been our lot, our portion pain?
WithIshmael28as a lion in his might,
And Persia as an owl of darksome night,
Beset on either side, behold our plight
Betwixt the twain.
Wherefore wilt Thou forget us, Lord, for aye?
Mercy we crave!
O Lord, we hope in Thee alway,
Our King will save!
SOLOMON IBNGABIROL, 1050.(Trans.Nina Salaman.)
SHYLOCKSHYLOCK is ‘the Jew that Shakespeare drew’. He is not the Jew of real life, even in the Middle Ages, stained as their story is with the hot tears—nay, the very heart’s blood—of the martyred race. The mediaeval Jew did not take vengeance on his cruel foes. Nay, more than this: with a sublime magnanimity he could actually preach and practise widest benevolence towards his oppressors. Throughout the Middle Ages, when Jews were daily plundered and tortured, and done to death ‘for the glory of God’, not a word was breathed against the morality of the victims. They suffered because they were heretics, because they would not juggle with their conscience and profess a belief that did not live in their souls. But Jewish ethics soared to still nobler heights. The Jew preserved his integrity in spite of his suffering; but more than this, he forgave—ay, even blessed—its authors. The Jews hunted out of Spain in 1492 were in turn cruelly expelled from Portugal. Some took refuge on the African coast. Eighty years later the descendants of the men who had committed or allowed these enormities were defeated in Africa, whither they had been led by their king, Dom Sebastian. Those who were not slain were offered as slaves at Fez to the descendants of the Jewish exiles from Portugal. ‘The humbled Portuguese nobles’, the historian narrates, ‘were comforted when their purchasers proved to be Jews, for they knew that they had humane hearts.’MORRISJOSEPH, 1891.
SHYLOCK is ‘the Jew that Shakespeare drew’. He is not the Jew of real life, even in the Middle Ages, stained as their story is with the hot tears—nay, the very heart’s blood—of the martyred race. The mediaeval Jew did not take vengeance on his cruel foes. Nay, more than this: with a sublime magnanimity he could actually preach and practise widest benevolence towards his oppressors. Throughout the Middle Ages, when Jews were daily plundered and tortured, and done to death ‘for the glory of God’, not a word was breathed against the morality of the victims. They suffered because they were heretics, because they would not juggle with their conscience and profess a belief that did not live in their souls. But Jewish ethics soared to still nobler heights. The Jew preserved his integrity in spite of his suffering; but more than this, he forgave—ay, even blessed—its authors. The Jews hunted out of Spain in 1492 were in turn cruelly expelled from Portugal. Some took refuge on the African coast. Eighty years later the descendants of the men who had committed or allowed these enormities were defeated in Africa, whither they had been led by their king, Dom Sebastian. Those who were not slain were offered as slaves at Fez to the descendants of the Jewish exiles from Portugal. ‘The humbled Portuguese nobles’, the historian narrates, ‘were comforted when their purchasers proved to be Jews, for they knew that they had humane hearts.’
MORRISJOSEPH, 1891.
ON THE EVE OF THERE-SETTLEMENTIN ENGLANDTHE Lord, blessed for ever, by His prophet Jeremiah(chap.29. 7)gives it in command to the captive Israelites that were dispersed among the heathens, that they should continually pray for and endeavour the peace, welfare, and prosperity of the city wherein they dwelt and the inhabitants thereof. This the Jews have always done, and continue to this day in all their synagogues, with a particular blessing of the prince or magistrate under whose protection they live. And this the Right Honourable my LordSt.John can testify, who, when he was ambassador to the Lords the States of the United Provinces, was pleased to honour our synagogue at Amsterdam with his presence, where our nation entertained him with music and all expressions of joy and gladness, and also pronounced a blessing, not only upon His Honour then present, but upon the whole Commonwealth of England, for that they were a people in league and amity, and because we conceived some hopes that they would manifest towards us what we ever bare towards them,viz.all love and affection.MANASSEH BENISRAEL, 1656.
THE Lord, blessed for ever, by His prophet Jeremiah(chap.29. 7)gives it in command to the captive Israelites that were dispersed among the heathens, that they should continually pray for and endeavour the peace, welfare, and prosperity of the city wherein they dwelt and the inhabitants thereof. This the Jews have always done, and continue to this day in all their synagogues, with a particular blessing of the prince or magistrate under whose protection they live. And this the Right Honourable my LordSt.John can testify, who, when he was ambassador to the Lords the States of the United Provinces, was pleased to honour our synagogue at Amsterdam with his presence, where our nation entertained him with music and all expressions of joy and gladness, and also pronounced a blessing, not only upon His Honour then present, but upon the whole Commonwealth of England, for that they were a people in league and amity, and because we conceived some hopes that they would manifest towards us what we ever bare towards them,viz.all love and affection.
MANASSEH BENISRAEL, 1656.
JEWISH EMANCIPATIONTHE whole question of emancipation, as it concerns only our external condition, is in Judaism but of secondary interest. Sooner or later the nations will decide the question between right and wrong, between humanity and inhumanity; and the first awakening of a higher calling than the mere lust for possession and enjoyment, the first expression of a nobler recognition of God as the only Lord and Father, and of the earth as a Holy Land assigned by Him to all men for the fulfilment of their human calling—will find its expression everywhere in the emancipation of all who are oppressed, including the Jews. We have a higher object to attain, and this is entirely in our own hands—the ennobling of ourselves, the realization of Judaism by Jews.SAMSONRAPHAELHIRSCH, 1836.(Trans.B. Drachmann.)IF the political privileges we have gained could in any way weaken our Jewish sympathies, they would have been purchased at a terrible cost, and would signally defeat the intentions of those who aided and laboured for the movement.BARONLIONEL DEROTHSCHILD, 1869.
THE whole question of emancipation, as it concerns only our external condition, is in Judaism but of secondary interest. Sooner or later the nations will decide the question between right and wrong, between humanity and inhumanity; and the first awakening of a higher calling than the mere lust for possession and enjoyment, the first expression of a nobler recognition of God as the only Lord and Father, and of the earth as a Holy Land assigned by Him to all men for the fulfilment of their human calling—will find its expression everywhere in the emancipation of all who are oppressed, including the Jews. We have a higher object to attain, and this is entirely in our own hands—the ennobling of ourselves, the realization of Judaism by Jews.
SAMSONRAPHAELHIRSCH, 1836.(Trans.B. Drachmann.)
IF the political privileges we have gained could in any way weaken our Jewish sympathies, they would have been purchased at a terrible cost, and would signally defeat the intentions of those who aided and laboured for the movement.
BARONLIONEL DEROTHSCHILD, 1869.
THE JEWISH QUESTIONTO approach the Jewish question is to be confronted with every great question of the day—social, political, financial, humanitarian, national, and religious. Each phase should be treated by an expert; but however discussed or dealt with, there is one point of view which should never be lost sight of, namely, the point of view of humanity. First and foremost we must be human if we would raise our voice on so human a theme.JOSEPHINELAZARUS, 1892.EVERY country has the Jews it deserves.K. E. FRANZOS, 1875.TO base the appeal for justice to present-day Jewry upon the cultural services of ancient Israel would be treason to the inalienable rights of man. A people may for a time be robbed of these rights, but—whatever the alleged political reason for such a crime—it cannot be legally or equitably deprived of them.M. STEINSCHNEIDER, 1893.IN a free State, it is not the Christian that rules the Jew, neither is it the Jew that rules the Christian; it is Justice that rules.LEOPOLDZUNZ, 1859.
TO approach the Jewish question is to be confronted with every great question of the day—social, political, financial, humanitarian, national, and religious. Each phase should be treated by an expert; but however discussed or dealt with, there is one point of view which should never be lost sight of, namely, the point of view of humanity. First and foremost we must be human if we would raise our voice on so human a theme.
JOSEPHINELAZARUS, 1892.
EVERY country has the Jews it deserves.
K. E. FRANZOS, 1875.
TO base the appeal for justice to present-day Jewry upon the cultural services of ancient Israel would be treason to the inalienable rights of man. A people may for a time be robbed of these rights, but—whatever the alleged political reason for such a crime—it cannot be legally or equitably deprived of them.
M. STEINSCHNEIDER, 1893.
IN a free State, it is not the Christian that rules the Jew, neither is it the Jew that rules the Christian; it is Justice that rules.
LEOPOLDZUNZ, 1859.
THE JEWS OFENGLAND29(1290–1902)AN Edward’s England spat us out—a bandForedoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.All mocked the faith they could not understand.Six centuries have passed. The yellow brandOn shoulder nor on soul has left a sign,And on our brows must Edward’s England twineHer civic laurels with an equal hand.Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacyUpon the martial breast of England glance!She seems of War the very Deity.Could aught remain her glory to enhance?Yea, for I count her noblest victoryHer triumph o’er her own intolerance.ISRAELZANGWILL, 1902.
AN Edward’s England spat us out—a bandForedoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.All mocked the faith they could not understand.Six centuries have passed. The yellow brandOn shoulder nor on soul has left a sign,And on our brows must Edward’s England twineHer civic laurels with an equal hand.Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacyUpon the martial breast of England glance!She seems of War the very Deity.Could aught remain her glory to enhance?Yea, for I count her noblest victoryHer triumph o’er her own intolerance.ISRAELZANGWILL, 1902.
AN Edward’s England spat us out—a bandForedoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.All mocked the faith they could not understand.Six centuries have passed. The yellow brandOn shoulder nor on soul has left a sign,And on our brows must Edward’s England twineHer civic laurels with an equal hand.Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacyUpon the martial breast of England glance!She seems of War the very Deity.Could aught remain her glory to enhance?Yea, for I count her noblest victoryHer triumph o’er her own intolerance.ISRAELZANGWILL, 1902.
AN Edward’s England spat us out—a band
Foredoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,
And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.
All mocked the faith they could not understand.
Six centuries have passed. The yellow brand
On shoulder nor on soul has left a sign,
And on our brows must Edward’s England twine
Her civic laurels with an equal hand.
Thick-clustered stars of fierce supremacy
Upon the martial breast of England glance!
She seems of War the very Deity.
Could aught remain her glory to enhance?
Yea, for I count her noblest victory
Her triumph o’er her own intolerance.
ISRAELZANGWILL, 1902.
WELCOME OF THE HEBREW CONGREGATION,NEWPORT,30RHODE ISLAND, U.S.A., TO GEORGE WASHINGTONSIR,Permit the Children of the Stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits, and to join with your fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport.Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of all events) behold a Government erected by the Majesty of the people—a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all, liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great Government Machine. This so ample and extensive Federal Union, whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual Confidence, and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the great God, Who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever seemeth Him good.For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great Preserver of men,beseeching Him that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the Wilderness into the Promised Land may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life. And when, like Joshua, full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life and the tree of immortality.Done and signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 17th, 1790.MOSESSEIXAS.
SIR,
Permit the Children of the Stock of Abraham to approach you with the most cordial affection and esteem for your person and merits, and to join with your fellow citizens in welcoming you to Newport.
Deprived as we heretofore have been of the invaluable rights of free citizens, we now (with a deep sense of gratitude to the Almighty Disposer of all events) behold a Government erected by the Majesty of the people—a Government which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance, but generously affording to all, liberty of conscience, and immunities of citizenship, deeming every one, of whatever Nation, tongue, or language, equal parts of the great Government Machine. This so ample and extensive Federal Union, whose basis is Philanthropy, Mutual Confidence, and Public Virtue, we cannot but acknowledge to be the work of the great God, Who ruleth in the Armies of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth, doing whatever seemeth Him good.
For all the blessings of civil and religious liberty which we enjoy under an equal and benign administration, we desire to send up our thanks to the Ancient of Days, the great Preserver of men,beseeching Him that the Angel who conducted our forefathers through the Wilderness into the Promised Land may graciously conduct you through all the difficulties and dangers of this mortal life. And when, like Joshua, full of days and full of honour, you are gathered to your Fathers, may you be admitted into the Heavenly Paradise to partake of the water of life and the tree of immortality.
Done and signed by order of the Hebrew Congregation in Newport, Rhode Island, August 17th, 1790.
MOSESSEIXAS.
BRITISH CITIZENSHIPBRITISH patriotism is not the mediaeval demand that the citizens of any one country all think alike, that they be of the same blood, or that they even speak the same language. Britain’s mild sovereignty respects the personality of the ethnic groups found within the borders of its world-wide dominion; nay, it fosters the linguistic heritage, the national individuality even, of Irishman and Welshman, of French Canadian and Afrikander Boer, and encourages them all to develop along their own lines. Any one, therefore, who deems that patriotism exacts from him the purposeless sacrifice of his religious tradition and historic memory—that man is an alien in spirit to the Anglo-Saxon genius, and is unworthy of his British citizenship.J. H. HERTZ, 1915.
BRITISH patriotism is not the mediaeval demand that the citizens of any one country all think alike, that they be of the same blood, or that they even speak the same language. Britain’s mild sovereignty respects the personality of the ethnic groups found within the borders of its world-wide dominion; nay, it fosters the linguistic heritage, the national individuality even, of Irishman and Welshman, of French Canadian and Afrikander Boer, and encourages them all to develop along their own lines. Any one, therefore, who deems that patriotism exacts from him the purposeless sacrifice of his religious tradition and historic memory—that man is an alien in spirit to the Anglo-Saxon genius, and is unworthy of his British citizenship.
J. H. HERTZ, 1915.
THE RUSSIANJEW31SCIENTISTS tell us that coal is nothing but concentrated sunlight. Primeval forests that for years out of number had been drinking in the rays of the sun, having been buried beneath the ground and excluded from the reviving touch of light and air, were gradually turned into coal—black, rugged, shapeless, yet retaining all its pristine energy, which, when released, provides us with light and heat. The story of the Russian Jew is the story of the coal. Under a surface marred by oppression and persecution he has accumulated immense stores of energy, in which we may find an unlimited supply of light and heat for our minds and our hearts. All we need is to discover the process, long known in the case of coal, of transforming latent strength into living power.I. FRIEDLANDER, 1915.
SCIENTISTS tell us that coal is nothing but concentrated sunlight. Primeval forests that for years out of number had been drinking in the rays of the sun, having been buried beneath the ground and excluded from the reviving touch of light and air, were gradually turned into coal—black, rugged, shapeless, yet retaining all its pristine energy, which, when released, provides us with light and heat. The story of the Russian Jew is the story of the coal. Under a surface marred by oppression and persecution he has accumulated immense stores of energy, in which we may find an unlimited supply of light and heat for our minds and our hearts. All we need is to discover the process, long known in the case of coal, of transforming latent strength into living power.
I. FRIEDLANDER, 1915.
YIDDISH32IHAVE never been able to understand how it is that a language spoken by perhaps more than half of the Jewish race should be regarded with such horror, as though it were a crime. Six million speakers are sufficient to give historic dignity to any language! One great writer alone is enough to make it holy and immortal. Take Norwegian. It is the language of only two million people. But it has become immortal through the great literary achievements of Ibsen. And even though Yiddish cannot boast of so great a writer as Ibsen, it has reason to be proud of numerous smaller men—poets, romancers, satirists, dramatists.The main point is that Yiddish incorporates the essence of a life which is distinctive and unlike any other. There is nothing of holiness in any of the outer expressions of life. The one and only thing holy is thehuman soul, which is the source and fount of all human effort.ISRAELZANGWILL, 1906.THERE is probably no other language in existence on which so much opprobrium has been heaped as on Yiddish. Such a bias can be explained only as a manifestation of a general prejudice against everything Jewish.LEOWIENER, 1899.
IHAVE never been able to understand how it is that a language spoken by perhaps more than half of the Jewish race should be regarded with such horror, as though it were a crime. Six million speakers are sufficient to give historic dignity to any language! One great writer alone is enough to make it holy and immortal. Take Norwegian. It is the language of only two million people. But it has become immortal through the great literary achievements of Ibsen. And even though Yiddish cannot boast of so great a writer as Ibsen, it has reason to be proud of numerous smaller men—poets, romancers, satirists, dramatists.
The main point is that Yiddish incorporates the essence of a life which is distinctive and unlike any other. There is nothing of holiness in any of the outer expressions of life. The one and only thing holy is thehuman soul, which is the source and fount of all human effort.
ISRAELZANGWILL, 1906.
THERE is probably no other language in existence on which so much opprobrium has been heaped as on Yiddish. Such a bias can be explained only as a manifestation of a general prejudice against everything Jewish.
LEOWIENER, 1899.
RUSSO-JEWISH EDUCATIONAMONG the Jews of Poland and Russia there was no learned estate, not because there were no scholars, but because the people itself was a nation of students. The ideal type for the Russian Jew was theLamdan, the scholar. The highest ambition of the Russian Jew was that his sons, and if he had only daughters, that his sons-in-law should beLomdim; and the greatest achievement of a man’s life was his ability to provide sufficiently for them, so that, relieved from economic cares, they might devote themselves unrestrictedly to Jewish learning. To be sure, this learning was one-sided. Yet it was both wide and deep, for it embraced the almost boundless domain of religious Hebrew literature, and involved the knowledge of one of the most complicated systems of law. The knowledge of the Hebrew prayers and the Five Books of Moses would not have been sufficient to save the Russian Jew from the most terrible opprobrium—that of being anAm-Haaretz, an ignoramus. The ability to understand a Talmudic text, which demands years of preparation, was the minimum requirement for one who wanted to be of any consequence in the community.I. FRIEDLANDER, 1913.
AMONG the Jews of Poland and Russia there was no learned estate, not because there were no scholars, but because the people itself was a nation of students. The ideal type for the Russian Jew was theLamdan, the scholar. The highest ambition of the Russian Jew was that his sons, and if he had only daughters, that his sons-in-law should beLomdim; and the greatest achievement of a man’s life was his ability to provide sufficiently for them, so that, relieved from economic cares, they might devote themselves unrestrictedly to Jewish learning. To be sure, this learning was one-sided. Yet it was both wide and deep, for it embraced the almost boundless domain of religious Hebrew literature, and involved the knowledge of one of the most complicated systems of law. The knowledge of the Hebrew prayers and the Five Books of Moses would not have been sufficient to save the Russian Jew from the most terrible opprobrium—that of being anAm-Haaretz, an ignoramus. The ability to understand a Talmudic text, which demands years of preparation, was the minimum requirement for one who wanted to be of any consequence in the community.
I. FRIEDLANDER, 1913.
PASSOVER IN OLDRUSSIA33THE Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful as if it had only just happened, was the time our Gentile neighbours chose to remind us that Russia was another Egypt. It was not so bad within the Pale; but in Russian cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered by special permission of the police, who were always changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs, and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was called a ‘pogrom’. Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the spot.MARYANTIN, 1911.
THE Passover season, when we celebrated our deliverance from the land of Egypt, and felt so glad and thankful as if it had only just happened, was the time our Gentile neighbours chose to remind us that Russia was another Egypt. It was not so bad within the Pale; but in Russian cities, and even more in the country districts, where Jewish families lived scattered by special permission of the police, who were always changing their minds about letting them stay, the Gentiles made the Passover a time of horror for the Jews. Somebody would start up that lie about murdering Christian children, and the stupid peasants would get mad about it, and fill themselves with vodka, and set out to kill the Jews. They attacked them with knives and clubs, and scythes and axes, killed them or tortured them, and burned their houses. This was called a ‘pogrom’. Jews who escaped the pogroms came with wounds on them, and horrible, horrible stories of little babies torn limb from limb before their mother’s eyes. Only to hear these things made one sob and sob and choke with pain. People who saw such things never smiled any more, no matter how long they lived; and sometimes their hair turned white in a day, and some people became insane on the spot.
MARYANTIN, 1911.
THE POGROMOCTOBER, 1905IT had already lasted two days. But as nobody dined, nobody exchanged greetings, and nobody thought of winding up the clock for the night (for people slept dressed, anywhere, on lofts, in sheds, or in empty railway carriages), all notion of time had disappeared. People only heard the incessant jingling of broken glass-panes. At this terrible sound, the arms stiffened and the eyes became distended with fright.Some distant houses were burning. Along the red-tinted street with the red pavement, there ran by a red man, whilst another red man stretched his arm, and from the tips of his fingers there broke forth quickly a sharp, snapping, cracking sound—and the running man dropped down.A strange, sharp cry, ‘They are shoo-ooting!’ passed along the street.Invisible and inexorable demons made their appearance. Houses and nurseries were broken in. Old men had their arms fractured; women’s white bosoms were trampled upon by heavy, dirty heels. Many were perishing by torture; others were burnt alive.Two persons were hiding in a dark cellar; an old man with his son, a schoolboy. The old man went up and opened the outer door again, to make the place look deserted by the owners. A merchant had run in. He wept, not from fear but from feeling himself in security.‘I have a son like you’, he said, tearfully.He then breathed heavily and nervously, and added reflectively, ‘Like you, my boy, yes!’The master of the house caught the merchant by his elbow, pulled him close to himself, and whispered into his ear:‘Hush! They might hear us!’There they stood, expectant. Now and then, a rustling; an even, sleepless breathing could be heard. The brain cannot familiarize itself with these sounds in the darkness and silence. Perhaps they were asleep, none could tell.At night—it must have been late at night—another two stole in quietly.‘Is it you?’ asked one of them, without seeing anybody, and the sudden sound of his voice seemed to light up the darkness for a moment.‘Yes’, answered the schoolboy. ‘It’s all right!’‘Hush! They might hear you’, said the owner of the cellar, catching each of them by the arm and pulling them down.The new-comers placed themselves by the wall, while one of them was rubbing his forehead with his hand.‘What is the matter?’ asked the schoolboy in a whisper.‘It is blood.’Then they grew silent. The injured man applied a handkerchief to his wound, and became quiet. There followed again a thick silence, untroubled by time. Again a sleepless breathing!On the top, underneath the ceiling, a very faint whiteness appeared. The schoolboy was asleep, but the other four raised their heads and looked up. They looked long, for about half an hour, so that their muscles were aching through the protracted craning of their necks. At last it became clear thatit was a tiny little window through which dawn peeped in.Then hasty, frightened steps were heard, and there appeared a tall, coatless man, followed by a woman with a baby in her arms. The dawn was advancing, and one could read the expression of wild fear that stamped itself upon their faces.‘This way! This way!’ whispered the man.‘They are running after us, they are looking out for us’, said the woman. Her shoes were put on her bare feet, and her young body displayed strange, white, malignant spots, reminding one of a corpse.‘They won’t find us; but, for God’s sake, be quiet!’‘They are close by in the courtyard. Oh! be quiet, be quiet....’The wounded man got hold of the merchant and the owner by the hand, while the merchant seized the man who had no coat. There they stood, forming a live chain, looking on at the mother with her baby.All of a sudden there broke out a strange though familiar sound, so close and doomful. What doom it foreboded they felt at once, but their brains were loath to believe it.The sound was repeated. It was the cry of the infant. The merchant made a kindly face and said: ‘Baby is crying....’‘Lull him, my dear’, said he, rushing to the mother. ‘You will cause the death of us all.’Everybody’s chest and throat gasped with faintness. The mother marched up and down the cellar lulling and coaxing.‘You must not cry; sleep, my golden one ... It is I, your mother ... my heart....’But the child cried on obstinately, wildly. There must have been something in the mother’s face that was not calculated to produce a tranquilizing effect.And now, in this warm and strange underground atmosphere, the woman’s brain wrenched out a wild, mad, idea. It seemed to her that she had read it in the eyes, in the suffering silence of these unknown people. And these unhappy, frightened men understood that she was thinking of them. They understood it by the unutterably mournful tenderness with which she chanted, while drinking in the infant’s eyes with her own.‘He will soon fall asleep. I know. It is always like that; he cries for a moment, then he falls asleep at once. He is a very quiet boy.’ She addressed the tall man with a painful, insinuating smile. From outside there broke in a distant noise. Then came a thud, and a crack, shaking the air.‘They are searching’, whispered the schoolboy.But the infant went on crying hopelessly.‘He will undo us all’, blurted out the tall man.‘I shall not give him away ... no, never!’ ejaculated the distracted mother.‘O God’, whispered the merchant, and covered his face with his hands. His hair was unkempt after a sleepless night. The tall man stared at the infant with fixed, protruding eyes....‘I don’t know you’, the woman uttered, low and crossly, on catching that fixed look. ‘Who are you? What do you want of me?’She rushed to the other men, but everybody drew back from her with fear. The infant was crying on, piercing the brain with its shouting.‘Give it to me’, said the merchant, his right eyebrow trembling. ‘Children like me.’All of a sudden it grew dark in the cellar; somebody had approached the little window and was listening. At this shadow, breaking in so suddenly, they all grew quiet. They felt that it was coming, it was near, and that not another second must be lost.The mother turned round. She stood up on her toes, and with high, uplifted arms she handed over her child to the merchant. It seemed to her that by this gesture she was committing a terrible crime ... that hissing voices were cursing her, rejecting her from heaven for ever and ever....Strange to say, finding itself in the thick, clumsy, but loving hands of the merchant, the child grew silent.But the mother interpreted this silence differently. In sight of everybody the woman grew grey in a single moment, as if they had poured some acid over her hair. And as soon as the child’s cry died away, there resounded another cry, more awful, more shattering and heart-rending.The mother rose up on her toes; and grey, terrible, like the goddess of justice herself, she howled in a desperate, inhuman voice that brought destruction with it.... Nobody had expected that sudden madness. The schoolboy fell in a swoon.Afterwards, the newspapers reported details of the killing of six men and an infant by the mob; for none had dared to touch the mad old woman of twenty-six.OSSIPDYMOV, 1906.
IT had already lasted two days. But as nobody dined, nobody exchanged greetings, and nobody thought of winding up the clock for the night (for people slept dressed, anywhere, on lofts, in sheds, or in empty railway carriages), all notion of time had disappeared. People only heard the incessant jingling of broken glass-panes. At this terrible sound, the arms stiffened and the eyes became distended with fright.
Some distant houses were burning. Along the red-tinted street with the red pavement, there ran by a red man, whilst another red man stretched his arm, and from the tips of his fingers there broke forth quickly a sharp, snapping, cracking sound—and the running man dropped down.
A strange, sharp cry, ‘They are shoo-ooting!’ passed along the street.
Invisible and inexorable demons made their appearance. Houses and nurseries were broken in. Old men had their arms fractured; women’s white bosoms were trampled upon by heavy, dirty heels. Many were perishing by torture; others were burnt alive.
Two persons were hiding in a dark cellar; an old man with his son, a schoolboy. The old man went up and opened the outer door again, to make the place look deserted by the owners. A merchant had run in. He wept, not from fear but from feeling himself in security.
‘I have a son like you’, he said, tearfully.
He then breathed heavily and nervously, and added reflectively, ‘Like you, my boy, yes!’
The master of the house caught the merchant by his elbow, pulled him close to himself, and whispered into his ear:
‘Hush! They might hear us!’
There they stood, expectant. Now and then, a rustling; an even, sleepless breathing could be heard. The brain cannot familiarize itself with these sounds in the darkness and silence. Perhaps they were asleep, none could tell.
At night—it must have been late at night—another two stole in quietly.
‘Is it you?’ asked one of them, without seeing anybody, and the sudden sound of his voice seemed to light up the darkness for a moment.
‘Yes’, answered the schoolboy. ‘It’s all right!’
‘Hush! They might hear you’, said the owner of the cellar, catching each of them by the arm and pulling them down.
The new-comers placed themselves by the wall, while one of them was rubbing his forehead with his hand.
‘What is the matter?’ asked the schoolboy in a whisper.
‘It is blood.’
Then they grew silent. The injured man applied a handkerchief to his wound, and became quiet. There followed again a thick silence, untroubled by time. Again a sleepless breathing!
On the top, underneath the ceiling, a very faint whiteness appeared. The schoolboy was asleep, but the other four raised their heads and looked up. They looked long, for about half an hour, so that their muscles were aching through the protracted craning of their necks. At last it became clear thatit was a tiny little window through which dawn peeped in.
Then hasty, frightened steps were heard, and there appeared a tall, coatless man, followed by a woman with a baby in her arms. The dawn was advancing, and one could read the expression of wild fear that stamped itself upon their faces.
‘This way! This way!’ whispered the man.
‘They are running after us, they are looking out for us’, said the woman. Her shoes were put on her bare feet, and her young body displayed strange, white, malignant spots, reminding one of a corpse.
‘They won’t find us; but, for God’s sake, be quiet!’
‘They are close by in the courtyard. Oh! be quiet, be quiet....’
The wounded man got hold of the merchant and the owner by the hand, while the merchant seized the man who had no coat. There they stood, forming a live chain, looking on at the mother with her baby.
All of a sudden there broke out a strange though familiar sound, so close and doomful. What doom it foreboded they felt at once, but their brains were loath to believe it.
The sound was repeated. It was the cry of the infant. The merchant made a kindly face and said: ‘Baby is crying....’
‘Lull him, my dear’, said he, rushing to the mother. ‘You will cause the death of us all.’
Everybody’s chest and throat gasped with faintness. The mother marched up and down the cellar lulling and coaxing.
‘You must not cry; sleep, my golden one ... It is I, your mother ... my heart....’
But the child cried on obstinately, wildly. There must have been something in the mother’s face that was not calculated to produce a tranquilizing effect.
And now, in this warm and strange underground atmosphere, the woman’s brain wrenched out a wild, mad, idea. It seemed to her that she had read it in the eyes, in the suffering silence of these unknown people. And these unhappy, frightened men understood that she was thinking of them. They understood it by the unutterably mournful tenderness with which she chanted, while drinking in the infant’s eyes with her own.
‘He will soon fall asleep. I know. It is always like that; he cries for a moment, then he falls asleep at once. He is a very quiet boy.’ She addressed the tall man with a painful, insinuating smile. From outside there broke in a distant noise. Then came a thud, and a crack, shaking the air.
‘They are searching’, whispered the schoolboy.
But the infant went on crying hopelessly.
‘He will undo us all’, blurted out the tall man.
‘I shall not give him away ... no, never!’ ejaculated the distracted mother.
‘O God’, whispered the merchant, and covered his face with his hands. His hair was unkempt after a sleepless night. The tall man stared at the infant with fixed, protruding eyes....
‘I don’t know you’, the woman uttered, low and crossly, on catching that fixed look. ‘Who are you? What do you want of me?’
She rushed to the other men, but everybody drew back from her with fear. The infant was crying on, piercing the brain with its shouting.
‘Give it to me’, said the merchant, his right eyebrow trembling. ‘Children like me.’
All of a sudden it grew dark in the cellar; somebody had approached the little window and was listening. At this shadow, breaking in so suddenly, they all grew quiet. They felt that it was coming, it was near, and that not another second must be lost.
The mother turned round. She stood up on her toes, and with high, uplifted arms she handed over her child to the merchant. It seemed to her that by this gesture she was committing a terrible crime ... that hissing voices were cursing her, rejecting her from heaven for ever and ever....
Strange to say, finding itself in the thick, clumsy, but loving hands of the merchant, the child grew silent.
But the mother interpreted this silence differently. In sight of everybody the woman grew grey in a single moment, as if they had poured some acid over her hair. And as soon as the child’s cry died away, there resounded another cry, more awful, more shattering and heart-rending.
The mother rose up on her toes; and grey, terrible, like the goddess of justice herself, she howled in a desperate, inhuman voice that brought destruction with it.... Nobody had expected that sudden madness. The schoolboy fell in a swoon.
Afterwards, the newspapers reported details of the killing of six men and an infant by the mob; for none had dared to touch the mad old woman of twenty-six.
OSSIPDYMOV, 1906.
UNDER THE ROMANOFFSTHE plaything of a heartless bureaucracy, the natural prey of all the savage elements of society, loaded with fetters in one place, and in another driven out like some wild beast, the Russian Jew finds that for him, at least, life is composed of little else than bitterness, suffering, and degradation.For magnitude and gloom the tragical situation has no parallel in history. Some six millions of human beings are unceasingly subjected to a State-directed torture which is both destructive and demoralizing, and constitutes at once a crime against humanity and an international perplexity.LUCIENWOLF, 1912.EACH crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,The tyranny of kings, combinedTo root his seed from earth again,His record is one cry of pain.Coward? Not he, who faces death,Who singly against worlds has fought,For what? A name he may not breathe,For liberty of prayer and thought.EMMALAZARUS, 1882.
THE plaything of a heartless bureaucracy, the natural prey of all the savage elements of society, loaded with fetters in one place, and in another driven out like some wild beast, the Russian Jew finds that for him, at least, life is composed of little else than bitterness, suffering, and degradation.
For magnitude and gloom the tragical situation has no parallel in history. Some six millions of human beings are unceasingly subjected to a State-directed torture which is both destructive and demoralizing, and constitutes at once a crime against humanity and an international perplexity.
LUCIENWOLF, 1912.
EACH crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,The tyranny of kings, combinedTo root his seed from earth again,His record is one cry of pain.Coward? Not he, who faces death,Who singly against worlds has fought,For what? A name he may not breathe,For liberty of prayer and thought.EMMALAZARUS, 1882.
EACH crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,The tyranny of kings, combinedTo root his seed from earth again,His record is one cry of pain.Coward? Not he, who faces death,Who singly against worlds has fought,For what? A name he may not breathe,For liberty of prayer and thought.EMMALAZARUS, 1882.
EACH crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.
Coward? Not he, who faces death,
Who singly against worlds has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
EMMALAZARUS, 1882.
‘SOLDIERS OFNICHOLAS’34THERE was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would be worse than death by torture. Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar’s agents and brought up in Gentile families till they were old enough to enter the army, where they served until forty years of age; and all those years the priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept baptism, but in vain. This was the time ofNicholasI.Some of these ‘soldiers of Nicholas’, as they were called, were taken as little boys of seven or eight—snatched from their mothers’ laps. They were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used them like slaves, and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified—a little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still herefused to be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, fine clothes, and freedom from labour; but the boy turned away, and said his prayers secretly—the Hebrew prayers.As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother’s face, and of his prayers perhaps only the ‘Shema’ remained in his memory; but he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honours. He remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home, without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family, hiding the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to door.There were men in our town whose faces made you old in a minute. They had servedNicholasI,and come back, unbaptized.MARYANTIN, 1911.
THERE was one thing the Gentiles might do to me worse than burning or rending. It was what was done to unprotected Jewish children who fell into the hands of priests or nuns. They might baptize me. That would be worse than death by torture. Every Jewish child had that feeling. There were stories by the dozen of Jewish boys who were kidnapped by the Czar’s agents and brought up in Gentile families till they were old enough to enter the army, where they served until forty years of age; and all those years the priests tried, by bribes and daily tortures, to force them to accept baptism, but in vain. This was the time ofNicholasI.
Some of these ‘soldiers of Nicholas’, as they were called, were taken as little boys of seven or eight—snatched from their mothers’ laps. They were carried to distant villages, where their friends could never trace them, and turned over to some dirty, brutal peasant, who used them like slaves, and kept them with the pigs. No two were ever left together; and they were given false names, so that they were entirely cut off from their own world. And then the lonely child was turned over to the priests, and he was flogged and starved and terrified—a little helpless boy who cried for his mother; but still herefused to be baptized. The priests promised him good things to eat, fine clothes, and freedom from labour; but the boy turned away, and said his prayers secretly—the Hebrew prayers.
As he grew older, severer tortures were invented for him; still he refused baptism. By this time he had forgotten his mother’s face, and of his prayers perhaps only the ‘Shema’ remained in his memory; but he was a Jew, and nothing would make him change. After he entered the army, he was bribed with promises of promotions and honours. He remained a private, and endured the cruellest discipline. When he was discharged, at the age of forty, he was a broken man, without a home, without a clue to his origin, and he spent the rest of his life wandering among Jewish settlements, searching for his family, hiding the scars of torture under his rags, begging his way from door to door.
There were men in our town whose faces made you old in a minute. They had servedNicholasI,and come back, unbaptized.
MARYANTIN, 1911.