The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1899-12-10
WHY REMAIN JEWS?

Al the Synagogue on Friday evening
= Weinstock delivered an address on
Why Remain Jews?" He said:
think it was the German poet Heine
who said Judaism is not religion-it
as a misfortune
This was said to have been uttered at
. time when the Jew in Germany, as
well as the Jew Of most other countries,
was laboring under many disabilities
Wnen. IN the language of modern
writer, The Jews of Germany were
9Th separated from the rest of human
Aind and compelled to reside in the mis-
cradle ghetto that had to be locked with
Mlenty gates after dark, and, on the
SIeat holidays, to keep plundering and
Phlag1ng mobs from them.
restrictions bounded the Jews wher-
ever they turned.
Where others could walk where they
pleased, the Jews were confronted
everywhere with the sign Jews not
Permitted
Where others could follow whatever
profession or callngs they chose, the
Jews had to content themselves with
the lowest of callings-that of peddler
or petty trader or oney-lender, which
the city government graciously per-
mitted them to follow in return for
exorbitant sums of money.
Where other denominations found no
restrictions in the number of their an
nual marriages, the Jews were re-
stricted to twelve couples annually. and
many a bethrothed couple had to tarry
many a long year before their turn
came, and had to pay dearly for the
privilege when it came.
Where others could promenade in
the walk the Jews had to tramp along
side 1t and endure any ruffians jeer and
insult and assault, without as much as
the right to bring legal charges against
their Christian assailants."
Is it to be wondered at that under
such conditions on the one hand and
the condition on the other hand, of a
Judaism thoroughly rabbinized and
deadened, with it's beautiful spirit
largely throttled by form and cere-
mony, with it's dogmas and traditions
worshipped as the religion itself; with
the mind of the Jew blunted and stunt
ed by his hundreds of years of perse-
cutiOn; and the sordiness of the Jew
keenly developed by the degraded oc-
equations into which he was forced by
Christian oppressorS; is it to be WON
dered at that, under such conditions,
rare intellects as those possessed by
the Mendelsohns, the Hers, the Ger
man poets Boerns and Heine, and the
thousands of other intelligent Jewish
men and women, should have aban-
doned the faith of their fathers?
Is it to be wondered at, with so little
fn ~ f1o ind in az
Judaism of the early part of the nine
teenth century, and so much to appeal
in the way of removal of social and
material disabilities, that many of the
most brilliant Jewish minds who lived
in Germany during the early part of
this century, should have flown, in the
hope of relief to Christianity?
Graetz, the historian, tells US that in
a few years in Germany, over twenty
five hundred Jews became Christians,
nearly decimating to one-half the Jew
ish population of Berlin, including
many of the best German Jewish intel
lects. How futile the hopes were of
many of those converts, is made plain
when we read how the Christians, be-
fore the Jew became a convert, placed
upon him every disability and every in
dignity and subjected him to every in
suit in order to force him to become an
apostate, and how these very Christians,
after the conversion of the Jew, would
taunt him with being traitor to his
faith and his people.
Human nature, at best, is weak and
fallible. The heroic is a quality that
is not given to US all. If heroes were
as common as the sands of the shore,
we would not immortaliZe them in
poetry and in song, nor decorate their
graves, nor build high and enduring
monuments to their memories. 1t is
because heroism is so rare that we
bow down and worship it. 1t is be-
cause greatness is SO uncommon that
so many make of it a fetch. -
Living as we do in an age of toler-
ance and religious independence; living
as we do in land of liberty of thought
and freedom of action, it is easy for us
to condemn, as towards and as traitors,
the Jews of the earlier part of this CEN
fury, who became Christian converts,
not from conviction. but for the sake of
convenience; not for love of the new
faith. but in the hope of place or gain.
But let US put ourselves in their place.
Let US lIHdSIife OURSELVES SuIIOuildcu
on the one hand with a religious spirit
which makes no appeal to heart or
mind, and because of this religion, la
boring under every social and political
disability, and an opportunity present
ing itself, on the other hand. for a
higher, broader development of all the
qualities within us-to say nothing of
the removal of such disabilities, how
few of us could withstand the terrible
temptation to abandon the faith looked
upon by many as a misfortune?
The wonder is not that, in those days,
so many became Christian converts, but
that so few abandoned the faith which
word, cross and a burden. No other
religious faith in all history presents,
as does Judaism, the picture of its
members being subjected to such
frightful physical and mental sufferings
in all countries and n.nearly all ages,
and nevertheless showing comparative
ly so few apostates.
If to suffer, for centuries, all the
humiliation that the human mind can
DEVISE if to submit to outrage and to
persecution, to unspeakable cruelty and
to the deepest degradation for century
after century, in country after country,
and all for an idea, all for the belief in
the doctrine of a one and only God; If
to suffer all this for principle. Is hero
ism, then are the Jews truly the world S