adation, impaling in ghettos, and what not--but in vain. The same
policy is continued to this day as far as the present more civilized
state of the Christians permits; but still in vain. So far are their
persecutors from having brought the Jews to their knees, that the
self-consciousness of the race, as a whole, has deepened; and their
advance in general culture enables them to measure swords,
intellectually, with their accusers and to give a reason for the faith
that is in them.
All the conditions of this interminable conflict are against them. In
numbers they are a vanishing minority, and still more weakened by
their dispersion over the face of the earth, unorganized, without any
ecclesiastical authority in their Church that could direct them or act
in their name. Every individual Jew must face the world's hostility
single-handed, and be, religiously, his own priest, his own pope.
Allies he has none, advocates of his cause are few and far between.
The favors of his friends are often more humiliating than the attacks
of his enemies. Still he holds his own, and if for the last century or
so he has carried on a reformation of his ancient rituals, he has done
so from his own initiative and in his own way, which is not that into
which it has been tried so long to force or to lure him. At the same
time a revival of Jewish literature has taken place which not only has
brought to light the long-forgotten treasures of the past, but has
shown the large part the Jews have in the general progress of mankind.
The ecclesia triumphant has no victory to record in this section of
her battlefields, and it is not in ordinary human nature frankly to
admit a defeat in such an unequal struggle. Only one had a right to
expect that a Church that claims to have regenerated the human race
and to have lifted the slave of his blind instincts into "the glorious
liberty of the children of God" would have risen superior to the
common weakness. Instead of that, almost throughout Christendom, the
crusade against the Jews is being preached and the policy of
repression loudly demanded.
On what ground? It is said that they dominate everywhere--in finance,
in law courts, in politics, in art, in literature, in the press, in
trade and manufacture. But how do they achieve this astounding feat?
How do the Jews succeed in so lording it over the immense majority? By
witchcraft? Is it by magic that a few bankers and brokers keep all
their competitors in sub
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