The American Jewish world. [volume] (Minneapolis ;) 1915-current, 1916-05-19
May 10, 1916.

Tor Cnom 10 SHOW CHolI lOydlIy
and patriotism. Has history witnessed
irony more tragic than this? The love
of country for the people that dwell
in it, it's benevolent protection, it's kindly
sympathy-these make for patriotism.
Could Russia then, or any OF the other
Continental countries have produced
patriots among their Jewish subjects?
When men are deprived Of every human
right hated with a devilish hate, perse-
cuted with fiendish lust, shamed and
degraded, tortured and burnt, can their
hearts glow with love for country in re-
turn for such treatment? Can you ripen
patriots in the fierce heat of oppression?
Refuse any people justice and protection,
deny them the right of citizenship, for
bid them entrance to the halls OF learn
ing, lock them up in restricted districts,
deny them their rights to life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness, and then
answer me how many patriots have you
produced under these conditions?
And yet, though Israel's mission is
peace, you will ever find the Jew at the
front in all the armies of the world.
Not only was he prepared to live for
the country in which he dwelt, but to die
for it as we'll. In all the battles of which
history takes note, the Jew furnished his
quota of men and officers. The most re-
cent example l can give you, one which
you can appreciates that OF the seven
teen American marines killed at Vera
Cruz, two were Jews. The military rec
ord of the Jew is one of which he may
we'll be proud; the Hebrew has ever
been a true patriot.
And today, after two thousand years,
Israel stands divided at Armageddon. In
every army of Europe you will find these
sons of David fighting bravely and val
iantly in quarrel not of their making.
Brother meets brother in a death Crap
pie, and for what? For a Fatherland
which has never treated them as sons.
The Jew has ever been the step-child Of
the nations. Yet three-fOurths of a mil
lion Jews fight in the different armies
CT the belligerents; and thousands upon
thousands have already laid down their
lives. Grim Tragedy himself must have
chuckled sardonically at some of the
anomalies which have taken place. At
the DardanelleS two Jewish legiOnS met
in bloody conflict, one legion recruited
by the Allies from Alexandria, the other
by the Turks from the Jewish colonies at
Palestine. In the regions of Russian
Poland, Austrian Galicia and the Pale of
Settlement, the Jews were overwhelmed
as they stood, and over their bodies
CIOSS0u dIlu I0-CIOSSOu IuO ARMIES vi NSI-
many, Russia and Austria. When the
Austrians captured a Polish town, the
Jews were accused of helping the Rus
slams, and shot. Then when the Rus
slams re-took the town, the Jews would
again be hunted out and this time shot
on the charge of aiding the Austrians
But the Jews in Galicia suffered the most
at the hands of the Russians. These
Jews were subjects of the enemy and no
excuse was needed to maltreat them. So
thousands of Russian Jewish soldiers
were forced to give up their lives in
vain attempt to inf1ict on the free Jews
of Galicia that sef-same slavery which
they themselves longed so ardently to
escape in Russia.
Were this the only sorrow of the Jew,
that brother was at the throat of brother
our woe would not be so great We ac-
cept the logic of war as a matter of
course. 1t is the bitter irony of war