Albuquerque evening citizen. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1905-1907, 1905-11-25
OF JEWS

Today the Jews of the United States began celebrat-
ing the 250th anniversary of their first settlement IN
America. That event. originating in the persecution OF
the Jews in that day, and its observance now falling al
most simultaneously with the horrors of death and rum
so recently inflicted upon the same people IN Russia
naturally calls to public attention the fact that the Jews
have been a prosecuted race almost from time i'm
memorial.
The Denver Republican, the other day, said that 'the
atrocities committed against the Jews in Russia are
shocking all that is nobest in Christendom. But there
is nothing unique in these atrocities, for the persecution
of the Jew is a blot that stains history for nearly 1901
years"
The Republican is altogether out in its dates. When
the Jew first appears in profane history, he was in de-
plorable condition in Egypt, prosecuted because he null
tiplied and thrived, and reduced to servitude as a newer
of wood and drawer of water, a part of his task being 10
make brick without straw.
At the very birth of Christianity, he was hated and
prosecuted by the Romans, and one of the chief causes
of the early prosecutions Of the Christians was because
they were considered and treated as Jews.
The Republican is eminently correct, however, when
it says that in the middle ages it was almost as much as
a mans life was worth to be a Jew. No nobility of char
acter spared him. He was a Jew, and that was enough
To inhict torture or even take his life was no crime. He
was accused Of all sorts of high crimes and misdemean-
ors, which every enlightened man of today knows that he
never committed, yet the accusation had It's due erect
in preiudicing the minds of the people, and the prejudice
has not yet quite worn away.
There is even now a prejudice against the Jew which
is based upon nothing reasonable. One is often told that
he is clannish, that he does not mix freely with other
people. that he is an alien to the thought of the modern
world. But not one Of these statements is true. What
is called clannishness is the fruit of persecution and
social ostracism, and nothing more. He would willingly
associate with other people If social barriers were lev
eled. To say that he is an alien to modern thought is
ridiculously untrue, for much of modern thought is the
product of Jewish thinkers and scholars,
Where does modern scientific philosophy begin if not
with Spinoza? And Spinoza was a Jew. There is hardly
"a large university in the world that does not have learned
Jews on its faculty. Take Lord Beaconsheld out of the
nineteenth century and there would be a big gap in Eng
lish history. Everyone knows that Lord Beaconsied
was a Jew. Where do We hear a higher ethical note in
this day and generation than in the preaching of Profess
sor Felix Adler of New York, or DR.. Hirsch of Chicago?
The majority Of the Jews in this country are saturated
with modern thought
The Jew is one of the great idealistic forces of the
world. The Bible that rests upon every pulpit desk in
Christendom, the Bible from which the Christian preach
er takes his text, came from the Jews. Jesus was a Jew.
And so were Paul and the other early apostles of the
Man of Nazareth. The fourth Gospel may not have been
written by the Jewish John, it may have been written
by the Greek ~presbyter OF the same name, but the logos
theory Of the proem to that Gospel was derived from the
great Jewish philosopher, Philo, Of Alexandria,
These things ought to be borne in mind, and they
would be If we were able to get beyond the shallownes'
which maks the bulk of our so-called thinking.