The Jewish advance. (Chicago, Ill.) 1878-1881, 1880-12-24

fore my Imagination: when | was driven
into this world, some supernatural being,
at my entrance, struck these words with
a dagger into my heart: Aye, have per-
ceptions, view the world as it is seen by
few, be great and noble, and, ever wax
ing thought, neither can 1t taken from
thee; but one thing has been forgotten:
be Jewess!-and now my whole life
has bled itself into exhaustion She
imagined that her birth had shut herou
from life and that her faith was him
drance toward the fulfilment of her
plans and her position in life, while, in
reality, her supposed ill-luck was attri
butable only to concatenation of unfa-
vorable circumstances,
She awoke from this dream and recog-
nized her mistake. Like all her pros
elyte sisters in faith, she was never,
spite of St. Martin and Baader, whose
mystic works she often studied, true
Christian. yes, she returned, in spirit,
to the old faith, and became proud Of the
fact-that she was Jewess. For the
Jews and the improvement OF their po-
litical position, she showed lively inter
est whenever an opportunity presented
itself; she always defended her people,
individually and as nation, with all
her power and sympathized in all the
injury and oppression it sustained. She
urgently requested her brother law,
Karl Asser, the husband Of her sister
Rosa, who lived first at Amsterdam,
then in the Hague as chief clerk of the
States Council of Justice, to interest
himself in the cause of her suppressed
coreligionists, and it was she who led
him to edit treatise in defence of the
Jews When, in the summer Of 1919,
a wild cry against tAe Jews angthropgh
all Europe aaa a96.
Hin! Hip .tResaa 1Fqfe att4eEeu, we're
prosecuted and pipndcred, Size wrote t5
her brother, Ludwig Robert, who lived
at Karlsruhe and was witness Of that
storm: L am unutterably grieved, and
in manner entirely new to me. Con
cerning the Jews. What is to become
of these innumerable exiles! The coun-
try wishes to keep them, but only to
torture and scorn, to taunt with their
Jewish jargon', to push with the feet,
to kick from their doors. The hypo-
critical, newl y-awakened love for Christ
ianity God forgive my sind, to the
middle ages and their art, their poetry,
their outrages and horrors, incites the
masses to the consummation of the only
horror to which, reminded of old and by
gone occurrences, they will still allow
themselves to be melted! An assault on
the Jews - I am deeply grieved. A
governing religion is of no worth, it is
irreligious.
Rachel Levin, who had earnestly SYM
pathized with everything, the develop
ment of mankind, the progress, polit-
cal asthetical and intellectual of the
whole world, died in Berlin on the 9TH of
March, 1888.
As, when writing to her favorite
brother, Ludwig, with whom she cor
responded in Hebrew script up to her
death, she reminded him, with the word
of their mutual agreement, "Beim 10
chidF', by the Only One, so did she
speak with great emotion in the hour of
her death, remembering the great sig
niicance of Judaism: with loftiest
transportation do | recall my origin and
this entire relation Of history through
which the most ancient memories of
mankind are connected with the latest
condition ofaffairs, and things and events
separated most widely by time and space
are intimately associated with each other
That which, for so great portion Of my
life, was the greatest disgrace, the
keenest sorrow: to be Jewess,-above
all price in this knowledge to me now"
On the occasion of of her death, Vern-
hagen Won Ense sent a considerable sum
to the Jewish poor.
(T'o be COntinued.)