Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-03-10
THE JEWISH CITIZEN.
Remarks by H. welnstock on IL

Coming Jewish-American Citizen spoke
as follows:
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen Not long
since it was my pleasure to receive letter
from Gentle friend who, among other
things in speaking of the Jew, said:
What glorious creature the Jew will
be fifty years from now. From present
indications he will be master of the world.
1t is to the interest of all that be who can
be master should be master. God has great
things in store for man, and the Jew will
ever DE one Of his chief instruments"
Coming, as this does, from one of the
ablest thinkers in the State-from one who
reflects the opinions of many thoughtful
minds-such an expression is indeed en-
couraging 10 the coming Jewish-American
citizen. Bnt let us consider whether our
Christian friend is warranted in his con-
clusion; let us stop to inquire whether we
can reasonably hope that the coming Jew
will fulfill this flattering expectation.
Our best guide in judging the future is by
the past. We may nghtfully expect greater
things from the man OF the race who have
already performed great deeds than from
those who have little TO point back to.
What has the Jew done for the world that
warrants US in expecting much from him
in the future. Has he shown Intellectual
strength? Has he shown moral strength
Let us see. When God, in His wisdom,
saw fit 10 give unto the world code of
morals that was to lift man from a brutal
to divine state; that was to make man
purer and nobler and bring him nearer to
his Maker. he chose Moses, the Jew, as his
agent, and through him the Ten Com
mandments were given 10 the world-com-
mandments that embody within them the
most Supreme wisdom, and that have had
a greater influence in ennobling the human
family than all other words ever voiced by
man.
When God in his wisdom deemed il well
10 reveal himself to those on earth, he in
spired the Prophets of Judea, through
whose genius the world became owner of
that supreme book of books, the Bible. A
work through whose humanizing influence
millions have cen lifted from the degrad-
ing moral condition of heathenism and
idolatry; work that is destined to inhu-
ence man for good so long as man will con-
tinue TO exist; work whose silent power
on the welfare of man will continue to be
greater than the results of the entire army
of the worlds conquerors. When God in
bis wisdom felt that the time was ripe to
bring nearer to him the heathenish nations
of the far East, Jesus, the man who was
born Jew lived Jew, and died Jew;
the man who to the end of his earthly
career preached Judaism in all lis purity,
came forth, and by force of his moral
power millions were led to desert their
idols, their degrading AID sensuous GUS
toms, and to become believers in the God
of Israel. When God in his wisdom felt
the time was at hand for the cultured
Roman to abandon the bloody arena, the
arena where, to crafty the british
nj tn fftNAn l..
man of culture, this aesthetic phi
losopher, brutality pitted men against
hungry and ferocious beasts of the forest
Paul, the Jew of Tarsus, came forth, and
under the cloak of Christianity implanted
the seeds of Judaism in the breasts of the
Roman, which ended, not alone in giving
spiritual nature to the Roman, but through
him 10 ali the civilized races. Go with me
to the land of the heather, where we will
find millions of Gods creatures destined to
be slaves of toll almost from the cradle to
the grave. Slaves, who, excepting an
occasional festal day, must labor from
dawn to sunset every day in every year of
their dreary lives. Compare the moral and
social condition of such as these with those
who live under the influence of Judaism or
under the influence of the daughters of
Judaism, Christianity and Mohamemdan-
ism and how great is the contrast.
If the Jew had done nothing more for
man than to give him his weekly day of
rest, his one day out of every seven wherein
he may commune with his God, eniov the
beauties of nature or the blessings of his
fireside, this alone would entitle him to the
everlasting gratitude of his fellow man. The
question arises, why were these great things
not accomplished by Romans or Greeks or
Persians or members of other races7 Since
they are all equally the children of God
he cannot love them less than he does the
Jew. As compared with other contempo-
rary races, the Jews were small in numbers.
commercially poor and financially weak.
But to spread spirituality throughout the
world, it needed not numbers nor material
strength, but il demanded intellectual
power and moral power. and in these
qualities the Jew was so richly endowed
that all other races have been living on the
crumbs of wisdom and morality which
have fallen from his table. 1t was because
of his intellectual and moral power that
the Jew was the chosen agent to establish
the belief in the unity of God. How well
he has thus far succeeded is evidenced en-
all sides by the absence of heathenish tenn
pies and bloody arenas by the elevation of
woman, and by the esi Establishment of
schools and churches
IAOh W Tie HOTES OIL the
great men of other races seem when COM
pared with the great works of the Jew.
For every curse that the world has for
the memory of an Alexander, Cesar or
men who during their lives car
ried with them carnage and destruction
and ruin and misery and death TO untold
men who were said to be great
but who lived Tor spoils and conquest and
personal ambition; for every curse that the
world has for the memory of such as these
it has blessings for the memories of the
great men of Judea, it has kindly and lov-
ing thoughts for the prophets and sweet
singers in Israel, who. through the Bible.
have given the world their matchless and
sublime thoughts; thoughts whose helpful
influence have permeated through all the
ages and stages of civilization thoughts
that will ever be consolation to the foot
sore and weary, and that for all time will
continue 70 lift man onward and upward |
While the heroes of other nations forgot |
the world and lived for self, the heroes of |
Judea forgot self and lived for the world. |
Such being the past of the Jew, can il |
be that he has outlived his power of good?
Can il be that what yet remains OF him is
mere hulk, and that bis spirit of the past
has left him for evermore? Can it be that
the centuries of persecution to which the
Jew was subjected have caused his de-
clineY Can it be that the iron heels of
despotic Popes and Euperors have success
fully ground out his spirituality? Can it
be that the outrages, the barbarltes. the
fortunes and the degradations that he has
suffered have destroyed the thinking and
left merely the calculating animal?
If it were so, it were sad, indeed. Sad,
not alone for himself but for the world.
Sad that an intellectual and moral force,
that has been the motive power in moving
should have been forced into
decay.
Among the many blessings that God has
showered upon man, one of the greatest
was the destruction of Israel as a nation,
and the scattering of the Jews the world
over.
thank God that Israel can never more
become reunited as nation. / thank God
that for all time TO come the Jew is des-
tined to be a citizen, not of his own
nation, but of the world. and that it will
continue to be his mission to teach man
kind, by precept and by example, how up
lifting and how sublime is the belief in the
unity of God The Jew in ages gone by
has suffered much at the hands of his fell
bowman. His has been all experience of
sorrow rather than of Joy life of suffer-
ing, rather than of gladness.
The Jew remembers but too well the
centuries OF misery and brutality which be
suffered. He remembers only too well the
tortures and the agonies 20 which he was