Part 16

To “Jew down,” which is a synonym for beating down in price, is as current in business where he is no factor, as where he is. In Italy it is an economic disease, and in Russia, in those regions closed to the Jewish tradesman, the native haggles with the priest about the price of a funeral or a baptism, with the cab driver over the fare, and even attempts to bargain on the railroad when he buys his ticket.

To generalize about the good or bad characteristics of the Jew is as difficult as it is to portray those of any race. When he judges himself he is either unjustly severe or profusely apologetic, for a people which has lived for so many centuries under abnormal conditions, cannot be known by the stranger, nor can it know itself.

At present the Jew is somewhere between Shakespeare’s Shylock and George Elliot’s Daniel Deronda; and more Shylock where the hate of the middle ages makes it impossible for him to grow into George Eliot’s ideal. He is most uncomfortably felt in those countries where he is in the transition period, when he is apt to be over-bearing and given to sensuous pleasure; even then he is not so grasping as Shylock although not so lovable as Daniel Deronda. He does not need much time to come to his full development. His genius quickly manifests itself, and while he is charged with superficiality, the fact that in all sciences there are accurate scholars of the Jewish race, disproves that accusation, although his emotional nature does not best fit him for the patient task of the investigator.

His neighbours are quickly conscious of his faults because he is not yet schooled in the art of suppressing them, and his virtues are often unrecognized because they shine the brightest in the inner circle, from which the neighbour is usually excluded by mutual consent.

In Northern Africa we find him to-day just as he was thirty-five or forty years ago when Sir Moses Montefiore tried to alleviate his inhuman treatment and his impoverished and miserable condition. The Moors without knowing the prophecy concerning the fate of Israel are actively engaged in fulfilling it with a cruel literalness. In every city and village the Jews have their separate quarters and their own judges.

They are not permitted to study the reading and writing of Arabic lest their eyes defile the sacred pages of the Koran; they are not allowed to ride a horse although they may ride a donkey; and they must walk barefooted before the mosques.

They are prohibited from going near a well when a Mussulman is drinking, and must wear black, a colour despised by the Moors.

The men are all ugly because of the abject fear on their faces; their eyes are always cast down and their walk is unsteady while the whole posture is expressive of the worst kind of slavery.

They may be beaten, kicked and spit upon at any time without being able to protect themselves or even having the spirit to do it.

The women are unusually handsome and some of the homes are splendidly furnished and are hospitably opened to the traveller. The same conditions existed in Algiers until it passed under the rule of France, when the Jews asserted their superiority and became landowners, manufacturers and business men, so that nearly half of the property in Algiers is said to be in their hands, for which they are again beginning to feel hatred and persecution.

The Egyptian Jews are found only in the two cities of Cairo and Alexandria; but they have followed the victorious arms of England and have entered the heart of Africa where in Khartum and the fabled Timbuctoo there are Jewish communities.

In Asia Minor the largest Jewish population outside of Jerusalem is in Smyrna; where there are over thirty thousand in the city and vicinity. These Jews, like those of Morocco, are descendants of Spanish fugitives and are considered, even by their enemies, honest and industrious, performing the commonest and hardest labour.

Jerusalem remains to this day the unhappiest city in the world for the Jew, who sees in it his glorious past and his present shame, and who must feel the pangs of persecution most in the city in which once he was master and lord.

Highly interesting is the story of the Jews in China. That they existed there, was known as early as the sixteenth century when the Jesuit, Ricci, found them in Khai Fung Fu, the old capital of Honan.

How they came to China is not definitely known, but according to Chinese history they came as far back as 58 B. C.

In 1848 they were found by some English missionaries, who reported their synagogues in ruins and the Jews unable to read the one scroll of the law which remained. At present there are only about twenty families left, and but a few years ago, a number of Jews came from the interior to Shanghai, to be taught Hebrew by the English Jews and to have the rite of circumcision performed.

The real Jewish world, and that which touches our own each day is in the eastern part of Europe; in Hungary, Poland, Russia and Roumania.

While most of the Jews in the south of Europe and Asia are the descendants of Spanish Jews, from whom they inherit a peculiar language and certain tendencies of worship and belief,--those of Eastern Europe are nearly all under the cultural influences of Germany, whose language they speak, in a more or less corrupt form. They left Germany because of the persecutions of the middle ages and settled among the Slavs, where they have lived for many centuries; never quite sure of an abiding place, and suffering ever recurring persecutions of varying degrees of intensity.

The Jews of Bohemia, whose spiritual centre was the Ghetto of the city of Prague, as well as the Jews of Hungary, exhibit certain liberal tendencies in their faith, and are midway between orthodox and reformed Judaism. They are generally classed among German Jews, while the Jews of Poland, Lithuania and Bessarabia, are classed with the Russian Jews, by far the largest number, and the one great source of Jewish immigration to this country.

The cause of this immigration is found in the persecutions, not new in the history of Israel, but like death, always holding a new terror.

In Russia the horrors of these persecutions are shared by other non-Russians, yet there is in the Jewish persecutions an element of hatred and contempt which makes them exceptionally galling, and affects not only the Jews’ civic, social and economic condition but their self-respect also. They are classed with the Kalmuks, the Samoyedes, the Kirghese and other aboriginal tribes of low mental capacity and still lower standards of civilization; while not sharing with them their legal status, being as Jews, regarded as outlaws, for whom special repressive legislation is necessary.

Above all else, these laws tend to keep them within the pale, which pale is the old kingdom of Poland, and the western provinces originally belonging to Poland. On this territory which is by far the smaller portion of European Russia, over 5,000,000 Jews are virtually imprisoned, entrance into the larger Russia being permitted only to:

1. Merchants of the first class, who have to pay an annual tax of nearly $500.

2. Professional men who have university diplomas. As, however, of the entire number of pupils admitted to the higher schools only from five to ten per cent. are permitted to be Jews, this class is very small.

3. Old soldiers who have served twenty-five years in the army.

4. Students of higher education.

5. Apothecaries, dentists, surgeons and midwives.

6. Skilled artisans, who have no legal residence outside the pale but who may follow their vocation anywhere, provided they earn their living by their trade, and that they are members of their trade guilds; a privilege rarely granted to Jews.