The Jewish South. [volume], May 06, 1898, Image 4

About The Jewish South. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1893-1899

Image provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA

                
sounded patriotic, of course, but the firm that was
thus getting so much free advertising did not call the
public's attention to the fact that with the exception
of a few floor walkers and heads of departments,
most of their clerks are women ! It is even rumored
that a large reduction will soon be made in the store's
force, and that most of those who will be thrown
out of employment will be males. But the firm got
the cheap advertising all the same. — Hebrew Stand
ard.
tlbe Jews of Germany ano
Hbe Hntt*semft(c Question.
By Charles Hutzler, Esq.
[Address delivered before the Progressive Literary Association, of Rich
mond, Va., April 13, 1898, and published by request.]
[Concluded from Last Week.]
As we are now approaching the heights from
which we not only view the past but link our experi
ence with the present and endeavor to look into the
future, I feel as if I am in the presence of a task some
what beyond my capacity. The history of the past
having been written for us it only remains that we
employ our perceptive faculties to read it aright.
But when it comes to the present, one must needs be
something more than human to command those
qualities which should enable us to divorce personal
impressions from general conditions and tell with
unprejudiced language a story of events that unfold
themselves in our presence, the while we are engaged
in a struggle to turn back the wave-forces that come
in with irresistible strength from a sea of manifesta
tions that has been fed by exhaustless streams of
animosity.
Anti-Semitism in Germany ! What is it? Whence
came it? Why does it manifest itself? These be
questions of moment, and I shall endeavor partly to
answer them.
Professor Goldwin Smith, who is one of the most
prolific writers on the Jewish question from the anti-
Semitic standpoint, charges that "the Jews every
where refuse to live the life of the country in which
they dwell, or to support themselves and their fami
lies by productive industries." It is upon this that
he grounds the hatred and assaults upon them and
justifies the movement. Starting out with this false
impression as a sentiment, presently it becomes a
passion, is gradually evolved into a theoretic .system
with a final contention for political sanction, intend
ed by its advocates to become universal.
In civilized countries it has been fostered in Spain,
England, Italy, Russia and Germany and, I regret to
say, we have not always been able to ignore its pres
ence in the United States. The inquisition of Spain and
the diabolical inventions of Torquemada have left
their ineffaceable records in history. England's share
of infamy for the inhuman treatment of the Jews dur
ing the 13th century and their exclusion from her
domains for more than three centuries is a blot upon
her escutcheon that time has not yet sufficed to erase.
Rome exhausted the lines of iniquity by lending as
sistance to every other country that passed laws of
oppression. Russia has earned the title of the mod
ern barbarian in her treatment of fewish subjects.
Austria has been fed upon passion so generously that
her legislative body or Reichsrath has aptly and ap
propriately been termed a " Bear-garden." Germany
has but recently been emancipated from laws of op
pression—jwhen, alas! it is again becoming not only
attached to its discarded idols of hatred, but bids
fair to become the head centre of a movement in
tended to extend its alarming influence over measures
that shall make justice hide her face in shame rather
than witness the acts falsely done in her name.
Like the aurora borealis, that comes at will and
disappears as suddenly to come again when least ex
pected, or like the meteoric train that comes atstated
intervals in the revolution of the planetary system,
anti Semitism comes and goes. At times it breaks
out in unexpected places tc display its violence, and
as suddmly the exerted energy expends itself and
disappears. At others it comes around with the reg
ularity of solar movement to chill the path of Israel
and to return and then come again a*s time rolls on
ward. Just at present Germany is the home of the
plant and so luxuriant is its growth and so well
grounded are its roots that shoots have crossed the
Rhine into France to bring misery to a slandered sol
dier's family, unmerited disgrace to a literary de
fender, and anxiety to every Jew within the confines
of the Republic.
Again and again has the question been asked:
What is the cause of this race-hatred? and to-day.
as in days long past, the answer that comes is unsat
isfactory and inadequate.
To quote from Goldwin Smith again. In speaking
of the expulsion of the Jews from Russia and the
anti-Semitic feeling of Europe, he justifies both by
charging the Jew with being a "parasitic creature
who eats out the core of nationality."
In a most admirable article written in reply by
Bendavid for the North American Re
view, September, 1891, he quotes from Frederick the
Great, who laid it down as an axiom that "to op
press the Jew has never brought prosperity to any
government "
The professor further accused them of "carrying
the burdens of state as lightly as they could," to
which Mr. Bendavid again replies: that Napoleon,
when he established the kingdom of Westphalia, was
the first to grant the Jews of Germany civil rights;
yet when Germany rose against Napoleon on his re
turn from Russia, the Jews of Germany remembered
only that they were Germans. As Germans they
took the field and gave their blood freely for the Fa