mingling of spirit as well as of persons. In the nature of things,
from reasons of expediency and motives of courtesy, there
exists, and must continue a formal admixture, which is devoid
of any flow of soul. Against this, under any circumstances,
there can be no valid objection, for in it there is little if any sig-
nificance.

Life would not be worth living if it were not for the many
pleasures experienced in social intercourse. In the meeting of
friends or congenial companions the cares of life are forgot-
ten, the spirits are set free as the spring sunshine frees the ice in
the frozen river, and all the generous and better emotions are
put in exercise. Freedom from restraint, ease, the sense of
home must be present, to accomplish such results. Uncongenial
elements, if brought together, utterly fail to generate the happy
feelings which should predominate. We seek society in order to
obtain such pleasures. The associations which I have referred
to are the kind which are sought in compliance with the native
social demands of our being.

The better to facilitate such happiness in every country and
in every age, various kinds of organizations have existed as
they exist today. The Jews have theirs.

For many reasons they are exclusive. In theory they should
not be so. In our social organizations we should, in deference
to the argument which I have already named, admit any con-
genial and worthy Gentile who honors us with his application.
But what may be theoretically correct may be found practically
wrong. It certainly is a wrong to exclude a worthy person be-
cause he does not happen to be a Jew; but on the other hand
where are you to draw the line. If we make the qualities of
gentility prerequisites to admission among us, we shall exclude
those who may justly charge us with being no better than they.
When we shall have passed through the formative period and
have progressed far enough to have a true aristocracy of our
own we may carry out in practice what is undoubtedly true in
theory. But while we are undergoing formation, so to speak,
we must either remain unto ourselves, mix indiscriminately with



THE JEWS IN AMERICA. 267

Others, or the few advanced Jews must abandon their more un-
fortunate brethren. Of the three evils the first seems to me
unquestionably the least.

In advocating this view I have had to encounter the objection
that we are doing that which if done to us would give us great
pain. I have been asked, what if an organization should ex-
clude us because we are Jews? Would it be right? To such I
answer this : If a number of Roman Catholics felt that because
of that common tie they could enjoy social life by and through
an organization composed solely of Roman Catholics we should
not feel hurt at being excluded. Along with us would be ex-
cluded many others, and it would be apparent that the exclusion
was not directed outward but inward. In other words we
would not be excluded because we are Jews, nor the Protestant
because he is a Protestant, but we would all be excluded be-
cause we are not Catholics. So again if the Arnerican Colony
in Paris excluded from their social organization all but Ameri-
cans, the Austrian or Italian have no reason to complain. If
only Austrians were excluded there would be just ground for
complaint. If from any organization only Jews were excluded,
and the exclusion applied to all Jews, we would have a right
to resent the affront, for it would be designed as such. It is
clear, however, that when we exclude all but Jews from our or-
ganization, there is no assumption of superiority in ourselves,
there is no imputation of inferiority in others. We simply de-
clare that we can best attain the pleasures of social life by ex-
clusion, and for that reason we prefer to remain exclusive.
The gist of the whole matter lies in the intention. When Jews
are denied admission to a public place because they are Jews,
a stamp of inferiority is sought to be fastened upon us. But if
a Jew be denied admission to a Catholic institution because he
is not a Catholic nothing of ill or inferiority is imputed to him.
A Protestant Christian or a Mohammedan would meet with a
like rebuff.

But the question is an idle one. Gentiles do not trouble Jew-
ish organizations with their applications, nor do they feel hurt
at the knowledge that they can not be admitted as members.



268 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

The objection which is formulated in the question grows out of
a morbid fear that we will do that which will excite the anti-
Semitic spirit of the world. Such a fear is groundless. Wher-
ever that spirit exists it will develop without waiting for such
provocation. In America the great principles of liberty have al-
most destroyed that spirit/ and it is only individuals who re-
ceive censure ; the Jews as a class are not the objects of preju-
dice. The genius of this our new Jerusalem forbids such class
prejudice, and it is dying out.

"Fused in her candid light,
To one strong race, all races here unite ;
Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen
Forget their swords and slogan, kith and clan;
Twas glory once to be a Roman;
She makes it glory, now, to be a Man."*



*Bayard Taylor's "National Ode."



I CHAPTER IX.

i

Wherein is considered Jewish Charities.

The tendency toward generalization among modem Ameri-
can Israelites has in many instances been carried to a point from
which even sectarian charities are denounced. It is but the log-
ical issue of the doctrine which condemns exclusiveness in social,
educational and religious matters. There is no stronger argu-
ment against the confinements which surround our social and
religious life than against the limitation of our charities. From
the standpoint of those who eloquently advocate the universal
brotherhood of man, it must be sinful to house and feed and
clothe the Jewish orphan, while the juvenile and parentless Hot-
tentot is not sufficiently supplied with red flannel shirts and
Bibles. The answer to such objections is not difficult.

It is true that charity should be universal, just as it is true
that we should love all of our fellow-men. But, as already
shown, if we love one another with a like degree of affection
our love would be indifference, and would thus cease to be of
value. It is equally true that if we could distribute our char-
ities with impartial hands to all the needy in the world, it would
fail in its object, which is the relief of suffering. Charity
should be universal in the sense that everybody should be char-
itable, but it is absurd to contend that every charitable person
should bestow his gifts universally. Charity loses its virtue
when it is not effective, and it is more injurious than beneficial
when not wisely bestowed.

Each individual can afford only a certain contribution for
charitable purposes — so of communities and classes. Experience
has demonstrated that when the contributions of a large number
are combined more good is accomplished by the aggregated
fund than by a like sum distributed directly by the individuals.
I need not pause to explain the premises of this universally ac-

269



270 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME,

cepted conclusion. The reasons are obvious. The main reason
is the power and effect of concentration as contrasted with the
weakness and inefficiency of diffusion. A volume of water con-
fined between banks scours for itself a channel to the sea; if
diffused over a wide surface it becomes stagnant and evaporates.
Charitable contributions should be concentrated for intelligent
and effective distribution. The distribution should extend to
the furthest limits within which it will always be effective. The
object being effectiveness,, the limits should be fixed with ref-
erence thereto.

I do not by any means advocate that Jews should absolutely
confine their charities to the Jews — but I maintain that when
the means of the Jews are limited they should first be appro-
priated to alleviating the wants of those having the highest
claim. The doctrine that charity begins at home needs no cham-
pion. The heart of every humane person furnishes evidence in
its support that is unanswerable. It is upon that doctrine, and
no other, that I contend that since our means are not co-equal
with all objects of charity, we may and should properly first
devote them to caring for Jewish wants.

The wisest and purest international jurists hold that, while
in the abstract every man has the right to exercise his natural
prerogatives in any clime, yet it is competent for any nation to
abridge those prerogatives among foreigners in order the
greater to benefit its own citizens. Thus one nation may be
starving for want of a market for the exchange of its own
product for breadstuffs, and yet another government may be
justified in protecting its own people by denying the commerce.
Again, in case of pestilence, not only does one nation quaran-
tine against another, but communities in the same nation shut
themselves up against their neighbors. This is not only the law
of self-defense; it is also the principle that charity begins at
home. Nations and communities care first for their own suffer-
ings, as in duty bound they should, and so with classes by what-
ever limits they are defined. But it is contended that there
should be no classes founded on religious belief. As I have
already shown, the Jews are to be classed more by reason of



THE JEWS IN AMERICA. 2^\

the race idea than because of the Jewish reHgion. But con-
ceding the fact upon which the objection is made against classes
based on reHgious beHef, is it sound? I have not discovered
any reason for such a distinction save one, and of that I shall
make brief mention in the next chapter. It is conceded by all
that all suifering should be alleviated as far as possible, and
that every man should contribute his quota to that end. It
follows then that every Jew in want is entitled to aid, and that
every Jew of means should be charitable, and so of every Gen-
tile. It is too clear for argument that if Jewish contributions
were indiscriminately made, and Jewish suifering left to the
charity of the world at large, the suffering Jews would not re-
ceive as much aid, nor would Jewish contributions accomplish
as much good as now. Under a system of sectarian chari-
ties imposition can be better guarded against than under any
other system, and beyond all question a better organization can
be effected for the distribution of contributions. The world at
large is interested in such results as well and as much as we,
for if we effectually care for our own poor we relieve the bal-
ance of the world of that charge. ..

But there are a multitude of other arguments in favor of
sectarian charities. The contributors are brought into more
direct contact with the sufferers and are moved by this and the
further consideration of a common faith to more liberal con-
tributions.

•Again, in orphan asylums and homes for the widows, the aged
and infirm, if sectarianism be observed, the inmates move in a
congenial atmosphere; they can be educated from a common
standpoint and practice their religion at a common altar. These
and many other advantages are incidents to sectarianism which
argue in its favor. The corresponding disadvantages are equally
potent against mixed charities. But the great argument is ef-
fectiveness. Every church recognizes this and practices it, and
herein lies another advantage, for different churches emulate
one another in the good they accomplish, and are thus led to a
more liberal support of their respective charities.



CHAPTER X.

Wherein is considered the prejudice against the Jews.

I now come to consider the only argument I have ever heard
advanced by the Jews against Jewish charities : // gives rise to
prejudice! There is something so cowardly in this that I have
but little patience with it. If it were true that prejudice is
aroused against us because we house and clothe our poor and
educate our orphans, it would become us as men to defy a preju-
dice that would do us honor and shame those that display it.
Shall we shrink from virtue because it is jeered at or condemned
by the wicked? Alas, it is too frequently the case that men are
misled from the right because evil minds ridicule and decry it.
We have indeed degenerated if we can not endure what, under
this government, can only be a prejudice. Our history is full of
the manhood that withstood the persecution of every tyrant from
the earliest ages to the present.

But, is it true that the exclusiveness I have advocated ex-
cites prejudice? Have we not always been exclusive? And were
we not in the greatest degree the objects of persecution when
we were compelled by law to be exclusive ? Are we not respected
to-day as a class by right-thinking men for virtues that are pecu-
liar to us as a class? When Disraeli gave his **Coningsby" to the
world he was not the Premier of Great Britain, and, as such,
arbiter of the fate of Europe, but his genius smote a chord in
the public heart that furnished answering music, unhushed to the
present day. Read what he says of the Jews, and remember that
it was received with favor by the reading world of this progres-
sive century:

"You never observe a great intellectual movement in Europe
in which the Jews do not greatly participate. The first Jesuits
were Jews ; that mysterious Russian Diplomacy which so alarms
Western Europe is organized and principally carried on by Jews ;
that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in

272



THE JEWS IN AMERICA. 2/3

Germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater re-
formation, and of which so little is as yet known in England, is
entirely developing under the auspices of Jews, who almost mo-
nopolize the professorial chairs of Germany. Neander, the
founder of Spiritual Christianity, and who is Regius Professor
of Divinity in the University of Berlin, is a Jew. Denary, equally
famous, and in the same University, is a Jew. Wehl, the Arabic
Professor of Heidelberg, is a Jew. Years ago, when I was in
Palestine, I met a German student who was accumulating ma-
terials for the History of Christianity, and studying the genius
of the place ; a modest and learned man. It was Wehl, then un-
known, since become the first Arabic scholar of the day, and the
author of the life of Mohammed. But for the German profes-
sors of this race, their name is legion. I think there are more
than ten at Berlin alone.

"I told you just now that I was going up town to-morrow,
because I always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of
State were on the carpet. Otherwise, I never interfere. I hear
of peace and war in newspapers, but I am never alarmed except
when I am informed that the sovereigns want treasure; then I
know that monarchs are serious.

"A few years back we were applied to by Russia. Now, there
has been no friendship between the Court of St. Petersburg and
my family. It has Dutch connections, which have generally sup-
plied it ; and our representations in favor of the Polish Hebrews,
a numerous race, but the most suffering and degraded of all
tribes, have not been very agreeable to the Czar. However, cir-
cumstances drew to an approximation between the Romanoffs
and the Sidonias. I resolved to go myself to St. Petersburg. I
had, on my arrival, an interview with the Russian Minister of
Finance, Count Cancrin. I beheld the son of a Lithuanian Jew.
The loan was connected with the affairs of Spain ; I resolved on
repairing to Spain from Russia. I traveled without intermission.
I had an audience immediately on my arrival with the Spanish
Minister, Senor Mendizabel; I beheld one like myself, the son
of a Nuevo Christiano, a Jew of Arragon. In consequence of
what transpired at Madrid, I went straight to Paris to consult



274 LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

the President of the French Council: I beheld the son of a
French Jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so,
for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the
Lord of Hosts ?"

"And is Soulta Hebrew?"

"Yes, and others of the French marshals, and the most fa-
mous, Massena, for example; his real name was Manasseh; but
to my anecdote. The consequence of our consultations was, that
some Northern power should be applied to in a friendly and me-
diative capacity. We fixed on Prussia, and the President of the
Council made an application to the Prussian Minister, who at-
tended a few days after our conference. Count Arnim entered
the cabinet and I beheld a Russian Jew. So you see, my dear
Coningbsy, that the world is governed by very different per-
sonages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the
scenes."

"You startle and deeply interest me."

"You must study physiology, my dear child. Pure races of
Caucasus may be persecuted, but they can not be depised, except
by the brutal ignorance of some mongrel breed, that brandishes
fagots and howls extermination, but is itself exterminated, with-
out permission, by that irresistible law of Nature which is fatal
to ours.

"Favored by Nature and by Nature's God, we produced the
lyre of David; we gave you Isaiah and Ezekiel; they are our
Olynthians, our Philippics. Favored by Nature we still remain;
but in exact proportion as we have been favored by Nature we
have been persecuted by man. After a thousand struggles, after
acts of heroic courage that Rome has never equaled; deeds of
divine patriotism that Athens, and Sparta, and Carthage have
never excelled ; we have endured fifteen hundred years of super-
natural slavery, during which every device that can degrade or
destroy man has been the destiny that we have sustained and
baffled. The Hebrew child has entered adolescence only to learn
that he was the Pariah of that ungrateful Europe that owes to
him, the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all
its religion. Great poets require a public; we have been con-



THE JEWS IN AMERICA. 275

'' 'wm

tent with the immortal melodies that we sung more than two
thousand years ago by the waters of Babylon and wept. They
record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. Great orators
are the creatures of popular assemblies ; we were permitted only
by stealth to meet even in our temples. And as for great writers,
the catalogue is not blank. What are all the school men, Apuinas
himself, to Maimonides, and as for modern philosophy, all
springs from Spinoza.

"But the passionate and creative genius, that is the nearest
link to Divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though
it can divert it ; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by
its inspired sympathy, or governed senates by its burning elo-
quence, has found a medium for its expression, to which, in spite
of your prejudices and your evil passions, you have been obliged
to bow. The ear, the voice, the fancy teeming with combina-
tions, the imagination fervent with picture and emotion, that came
from Caucasus, and which we have preserved unpolluted, have
endowed us with almost the exclusive privilege of Music; that
science of harmonious sounds, which the ancients recognized as
most divine, and deified in the person of their most beautiful
creation. I speak not of the past; though were I to enter into
the history of the lords of melody, you would find it in the annals
of Hebrew genius. But at this moment even, musical Europe
is ours. There is not a company of singers, not an orchestra in
a single capital, that is not crowded with our children under the
feigned names which they adopt to conciliate the dark aversion
which your posterity will some day disclaim with shame and dis-
gust. Almost every great composer, skilled musician, almost
every voice that ravishes you with its transporting strains, springs
from our tribes. The catalogue is too vast to enumerate; too
illustrious to dwell for a moment on secondary names, however
eminent. Enough for us that the three great creative minds to
whose exquisite inventions all nations at this moment yield —
Rossini, Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn, are of Hebrew race ; and little
do your men of fashion, your muscadins of Paris, and your dan-
dies of London, as they thrill into raptures at the notes of a Pasta



2y^ LEO N. LEVI MEMORIAL VOLUME.

or a Grisi — little do they suspect that they are offering their hom-
age to 'the sweet-singers of Israel !' "

It will be observed that D'Israeli assumes and insists upon
classing the Jews as a race and not as a religious community.

When the ''Lasker Resolutions" and Bismarck's treatment of
them were before the American Congress, Mr. Cox, the veteran
member from New York, recognized Jewish merit in the fol-
lowing memorable words :

"This is not merely a matter of dignity or comity between
nations. It is a matter of much higher concern. This manly man,
Herr Lasker, was a type of a great class. He was a friend of
labor. He was its interpreter and prophet, its friend and ad-
viser in a realm where the word of the Kaiser was law, and lib-
erty was suppressed by penalty and force. He was the repre-
sentative of democracy in the largest sense of that term. He
was an orator and a splendid type of the great race that has
come down to us from the 'chosen people' in earlier times. The
tribute paid to his memory was also a tribute to the race from
which he sprung — a race whose history runs back into the dawn
of time. To that race we owe our entire system of ethics and
the preservation of the foundation of religion. Amid centuries
of glorious nationality, and through long ages of intolerance and
most cruel persecution, Hebrew virtue, pride and courage re-
main untarnished by the hand of time. In everj-thing that broad-
ens civilization, Hebrew genius, intellect, research and learning
stand forth pre-eminent.

''What a race has been stricken by the death of this dis-
tinguished German and Hebrew ? I say it is only a part of the
history of persecutions which in this day of the nineteenth cen-
tury are a humiliation and not to be tolerated in this country.
In the Middle Ages one nation alone sacrificed six hundred
thousand Jews. They were the flower of science, the devotees
of literature, skilled in art, and enthusiastic in poetry. They were
men of industry, enterprise and commerce, honest, social and
hospitable. I would not suffer for a moment that we should give
even a possible shadow of excuse for bowing before this terrible
specter of persecution.



THE JEWS IN AMERICA. 277

"Twice I have called the attention of the House — on the 21st
of May, 1880, and again on the 31st of July, 1882 — to the perse-
cutions of the Jews in Russia. We have become used to the per-
secutions in that country. It is a part of its barbarism. But it
is only within the past few years that the same ruthless system
of persecution has obtained in Germany. The time of Hebraic
liberty will come, and I trust soon, as it has come in this and some
countries in Europe, notably in Spain, which has invited the He-
brew exiles of Germany to her shores. To the Hebrew race it is
proclaimed by God Himself in Holy Writ : T will shake all the
nations, and the desire of all the nations shall come, and I will
fill this house with glory, said Jehovah the Lord of Hosts.*

"It becomes us especially, who have offered an asylum to
these stricken people, and in view of their remarkable attain-
ments in all that civilizes and blesses, that the indirect insult to
their race, through one of its distinguished sons, shall receive no
mitigation by tenders of semi-sympathy to the organ of auto-
cratic power, even where that power is concealed in the silken
glove of an accomplished statesman.

"If gentlemen have only noticed the signs of the times in
Russia, in Austria, and especially in Germany — where the anti-
Semitic movement is fomented by those very nearly connected
with Prince Bismarck — they will see the animus of this attempt
to humiliate us, or rather of the insult cast upon the American
Congress over the dead body of Herr Lasker."

I could multiply instances without limit to show the esteem in
which the Jews as such are held. We have our class defects for
which we all suffer, and which each individual must live down,
but we also have class virtues for which every Jew gets credit
until he proves himself an exception to his class. I repeat,
that in our charities we should not confine ourselves to Jews,
and indeed we do not. Having alleviated the wants of those near-
est and dearest to us, we should then extend our aid to others.
That such is our habit is proven by countless instances. Sir
Moses Montefiore devoted his life to Jewish charity, but having