The record-union., 1899-06-24
1.-THE JEW IN COMMERCE. =
n. wEINsToCK's LECTURE AT
THE SYNAGOGUE.
An Analysis Of the Hebrew as a
Factor In History and In
Business.

= Analysis or the Hebrew -
Factor In History and In
Business.
At the Synagogue IN this city last
night H. Weinstock delivered the fol-
lowing interesting lecture, entitled,
Inc Jew In Commerce:
The followinexis the description given
Soy' Josephus. the Jewish historian, who
lived shortly after Jesus, of Jewish life
IN his own time:
AS Tor ourselves, we neither lnnaplt
maratime country, nor do we delight
IN merchandise nor in such a mixture
with other men as arises from it; but
tne cities we dwell in are remote from
the sea. and, having a fruitful country
lot our habitation, we take pains to
cultivate that only. Our principle care
IS this-to educate our children well,
and we think it to be the more neces-
sary business of our whole life to OBJ
serve the laws that have been given us
and to keep those rules of piety that
have been delivered down to u.s.
Had Josephus been told that the
! Jews We're to become a race of buyers
they would be found in every part Of
the globe engaged in trading, it would
have seemed as improbable to him as
1t would seem to US. were We told that,
:, in ages to follow, the Jews are to again
become exclusively an agricultural peo-
pie, that the counting house will be
abandoned for the field the shop for
the pillow, the yard stick for the pruning
shears
:. For many hundreds of years before
the Christian era, the Jew lived as a
zcultivater of the soil. When not called
upon to take up arms in defense of his
country, his was the peaceful life of
the husbandmans Barter and trade
was calling he left to more enterpris-
ing neighbors, and such wants as his
own soil did not yield were supplied by
foreign merchants. in no other period
! In the worlds history did a people
come SO near the ideal condition sought
for by modern political economists as
did the Jews during their life as ma
,tion. Neither the pauper nor the mill
ionaire found a home in Palestine. The
people were neither rich nor poor, but
thrifty and prosperous.
The land Of Canaan was divided
among tribes and then among families
and held in small parcels. The law,
which compelled at the end of each
fifty years the return of the land to the
original owner or his heirs, prevented
alike large estates or. landless poor,
and perpetuated the existence of a
thrifty yeomanry.
To trace out the causes which led
this race Of plowmen to become a race
of traders is to go through those
pages of history during the last eigh-
teen hundred years which are filed
with all that is damnable and afro
e cious 1t is to journey through his
torical chapters filed with hate and
cruelty, with bigotry and despotism.
with crime and oppression. It is to
pass through the passages of history
that tell of the horrors of the inquisi-
ton, the tortures of the inhuman rack
and the thumb screw; the lingering
death at the burning stake.
1t is to the Caesars of Rome that the
Jew is chiefly indebted for his change
of vocation. Had it not been for the
Roman conquerors, the Jew might have
remained unknown in the marts of the
world.
For nigh unto hundred years did
the Jewish nation, the smallest, among
the peoples of the earth, hold the
mighty empire of Rome in check; an
empire that was wont to sweep all be-
fore it; IN empire whose mighty mill
tary genius had crushed the most pow
erful nations and forced them to bend
the knee in humble submission to the
Caesars.
When Judea, the smallest and yet the
most fearless and most courageous Of
all nations, was at last vanquished and
by sheer force of numbers completely
overcome, when all that was left of
Jerusalem was heap of ruins when
the savage soldiersof Rome was STEPPED
to his neck in Jewish blood, when the
Jewish bodies of the young and the in
nocent, the old and the decrepid lay
piled in great heaps; and when the
wanton and inhuman destruction of the
helpless and the defenseless ceased
only from sheer physical exhaustion on
the part of the victors, there arose a
shout of joy among the Roman horde
that was heard in the remotest cor
ners of their vast empire, shout of
joy that might have been looked for
had the conquered been the greatest
instead of the smallest nation; a shout
of joy such as had not been heard in
Rome even when its mightiest enemies
had been vanquished. So great was
this event looked upon that. the VIC
tory over Judea was celebrated by the
erection of a magnificent trfumphal
arch. So greatly did the Caesars fear
the indomitable spirit of Jewish indie
pendence that they determined toscom-
pletely crush and blot out the entire
Hebraie race. Accordingly, the Jews
were dispersed throughout the empire
The seyerest and hardest laws were en-
acted against them. They We're for
hidden to read their Bible or to trans
init their traditions; they were sub
jected to the most humiliating and
mental labors; thousands were sold in
to slavery and many thousands more
were made to give sport, as gladiators,
to the blood thirsty populace, by whom
they were pitted in the arena against
furnishing and ferocious beasts. And
so. bereft of home, bereft of country,
bereft of his liberties, bereft of all that
was dear to him except his faith in
Monotheism, the religion of his faith
ers. which, in spite of the efforts of
his conQuerors he could inwardly still
believe in, the Jew ended his career as
q tiller of the soil. Bereft of the privi-
lege of becoming an owner of land, be-
IAnuo0kDo