Can fanaticism alone account for the persecution of the Jews? It is now
my conviction that it is responsible for hardly any of it.
In this connection I call to mind Genesis, chapter 47. We have all read
the story of the years of plenty and the years of famine in Egypt, and now
Joseph with that opportunity, made a corner in broken hearts, and the crusts
of the poor, and human liberty---a corner whereby he took away the nation's
money to the last penny; took a nation's livestock all away, to the last
hoof; took a nation's land all away, to the last acre. Then he took the
nation itself, buying it for bread, man by man, woman by woman, child by
child, till all were slaves; a corner which took everything, leaving nothing,
a corner so stupendous that by comparison with it, the most gigantic corners
in subsequent history are but baby things; for it dealt in hundreds of millions
of bushels, and its profits were reckoned by the hundreds of millions of
dollars. It was a disaster so crushing that its effects have not wholly
disappeared from Egypt even today, more than 3,000 years after the event.
Was Joseph establishing a character for his race which survived long in
Egypt, and in time would his name be familiarly used to express that character---like
Shylock's? It was hardly to be doubted. Let us remember that this was centuries
before the Crucifixion.
In the U. S. cotton states, after the war, the Jew came down in force, set
up shop on the plantation, supplied all the negroes' wants on credit, and
at the end of the season was the proprietor of the negro's share of the
present crop and part of the next one. Before long the whites detested the
Jew.
The Jew is being legislated out of Russia. The reason is not concealed.
The movement was instituted because the Christian peasant stood no chance
against his commercial abilities. The Jew was always ready to lend on a
crop. When settlement day came, he owned the crop, and the next year he
owned the farm, like Joseph.
In the England of John's time everybody got into debt to the Jew. He gathered
all lucrative enterprises into his hands. He was the King of Commerce. he
had to be banished from the realm. For like reasons, Spain had to banish
him 400 years ago, and Austria a couple of centuries later.
In all ages, Christian Europe has been obliged to curtail his activities.
If he entered upon a trade, the Christian had to retire from it. If he set
up as a doctor, he took the business. If he exploited agriculture, the other
farmers had to get at something else. The law had to step in to save the
Christian from the poorhouse. Still, almost bereft of employments, he found
ways to make money. Even to get rich. This history has a most sordid and
practical look. Religious prejudices may account for one part of it, but
not for the other nine.
Protestants have persecuted Catholics---but they did not take their livelihoods
from them. Catholics have persecuted Protestants---but they never closed
agriculture and the handicrafts against them. I feel convinced that the
Crucifixion has not much to do with the world's attitude toward the Jew;
the reasons for it are much older than that event...
I am convinced that the persecution of the Jew is not in any large degree
due to religious prejudice. No, the Jew is a money-getter. He has made it
the end and aim of his life. He was at it in Rome. He has been at it ever
since. His success has made the whole human race his enemy.
You will say that the Jew is everywhere numerically feeble. When I read
in the Encyclopedia Britannica that the Jewish population of the United
States was 250,000, I wrote to the editor and explained to him that his
figures were without doubt a misprint for 25,000,000. People told me that
they had reason to suspect that for business reasons, many Jews did not
report themselves as Jews. It looks plausible. I am strongly of the opinion
that we have an immense Jewish population in America. I am assured by men
competent to speak that the Jews are exceedingly active in politics...
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