mple, under the heading of "What
Christianity has Meant," we read in a modern Jewish periodical:

We are thinking of what Christianity as an institution has meant to
us Jews. The twenty centuries of its existence have been coeval
with the long-drawn tragedy of the Jew's dispersal among the
nations.... What kindliness and consideration we have received at
the hands of Christianity has for the most part been tendered with
the lure of the baptismal font. To the extent to which
Christianity's embodiment, the Church, has been puissant has the
Jewish tragedy deepened. Only when and where the Church has been
weak has life been tolerable for the Jew.... Hatred of the Jew,
anti-Jewish outbursts and anti-Semitic campaigns, are traceable to
nothing so surely as to antipathy to the Jew which has been inbred
by Christianity.... There is thus precious little about which the
Jew has for rejoicing and gladness in the institution of
Christianity, etc.[831]

The most cursory study of history would reveal the falseness of this
contention. Antipathy to the Jew began long before the Christian era; in
Egypt, Persia, and Rome he became, whether just or not, the object of
suspicion to rulers. The reason given by Pharaoh for oppressing the
Israelites was that if they were allowed to grow too powerful they might
join themselves to the enemy in time of war[832]; the Emperors of Rome
regarded them as a turbulent element; Mohammed declared: "Their aim will
be to abet disorder on the earth, but God loveth not the abettors of
disorder."[833] Meanwhile, the antipathy shown by the "people" in every
country was mainly based on economic grounds. It was not simply the
possession of wealth--which according to the Socialist creed should
justify any amount of hatred--but the manner in which it was acquired
and the arrogance with which it was displayed that roused popular
feeling against the Jews. An Arab Fakih, Abu Ishak of Elvira, thus
warned his master of the growing power of the Jews in Spain in the
middle of the eleventh century A.D.:

The Jews, contemptible outcasts, have become great lords, and their
pride and arrogance know no bounds.... Take not such men for thy
ministers, but abandon them to curses, for the whole earth crieth
out against them--ere long it will quake and we shall all perish.
Turn thine eyes to other lands and behold how the Jews are treat