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In our last we sketched briefly from the information
accessible to us a slight picture
of the sufferings and prospects of the Jews in Russia, and when one sits
down to consider it attentively, and then reflects that it never was
better with them, and occasionally even worse, as active persecution was
now and then added to fill to overflowing their cup of affliction, wonder
must cease at the great want of industry observable among them, and of
which the enemies of Judaism have made so often the basest uses to
denounce them as vile, intriguing, and indolent. Oppress a man day by day;
spit upon him when he is distressed; forbid him under pains and penalties
from following any noble pursuit; compel him to snatch up a living by any
resource which ingenuity can devise, except manual labour, agriculture, or
the learned professions; show him that you and every other one around him
are his enemies: and what do you think you will of necessity transform him
into? Into what you charge the Russian Jews to be, and which,
nevertheless, they are not,—artful, intriguing, and indolent. No doubt
they exhibit traits which we
would condemn, if we could rightfully judge them by the standard according
to which we judge those who are untrammelled in their actions; but we
cannot believe, in fact the confessions of all travellers are opposed to
it, that they are sunk so low, as a race less ardent in their love for the
pure and holy would have done had they been exposed to the same
deteriorating influences. We assume the worst as the truth; we will admit
that the moral sense of our fellow-Israelites has been greatly blunted,
that they have become inferior to the better classes of the other
inhabitants; but what do we admit thereby? only that the cruelties of
their oppressors have at length produced their natural results; that after
ages of ignominy our spirit has been subdued, and we have become willing
to submit to the evils of our position as a thing natural and almost
necessary to our being. With all this it is admitted that there is a
degree of enlightenment prevalent among the northern Jews, far above that
of the condition of the labouring classes, who also, from the force of
servitude and subjection to the owners of the soil, have become stinted in
their moral growth, and deformed in the capacity of their spirit. But what
produces this difference so apparent to those even who sketch our manners
with no especial degree of favour to ourselves or our religion? Even that
very religion, for the sake of which we are oppressed and trodden under
foot; its pure morality; the apparent truth with which it appeals to our
conviction; the simplicity with which it can be taught in all its essence
in a moment of time; the inextinguishable hope of a happy future it opens
to the minds of its possessors; the conviction it impresses on the spirit
of its followers, that all acts of God are for the ultimate good of the
world;—all these qualities of our faith combined, we insist, have thrown
a sanctifying influence over the children of sorrow, who only go to rest
to end a day of oppression, and rise again from their humble pillow to
look forward for new exactions.
But, see how thn tyrants of the earth gloss over
their new acts of iniquity, by appealing for justification to a state
which they or their predecessors have alone produced. They slay the spirit
by all means of mental torture, and still they profess to fancy that the
oppressed should be generous, cheerful, and obedient to laws which render
them aliens on their native soil. And there are Jews, too, who profess to
flatter their taskmasters, and join in. the hue and cry against their
suffering brothers; they, too, cast stones at those they deem behind the
march of improvement, forgetful, perhaps, of their earlier years, when the
evidence of fanaticism, the cantword “Hep, Hep,” was made a signal for
brutal assault upon Jewish dwellings; for this occurred as late as 1819, a
year memorable in this enlightened age, for a senseless attempted renewal
of the scenes of the middle ages. They forget it was the mere force of
circumstances, evidently the work of Providence, which placed them of late
in a more forward path for improvement; and still—still—what real
progress has been made in political equalization, except in a few
countries, amongst no more than two hundred thousand Jews? Let modern
history, the occurrences of every day, answer:—the Jew is still
oppressed, still regarded with aversion. Nay, even in liberal England,
enlightened France, educated Scotland, our free America, there are
associations to wipe out the Jewish name from the pages of the events of
the day, an attempt (though, blessed be God, unsuccessful in every point
of view) which, if it could be accomplished, would effect the very thing
to avoid which we braced all the persecutions of all the nations of the
earth; the Heathen, the Christian, the Mahomedan, of every shade of
opinion, of every form of government. Had we thought proper to yield to
what the converters ask of us to do, we need not have stood as the mark of
contempt, of obloquy, and hatred; we might have revelled in the luxuries
of the earth, been ourselves among those who now rule over their fellows.
And well was it said by the greatest of English poets of this
century [Byron]:—
“Were my bosom as false as thou deem’st it to
be,
I need not have wandered from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface
The curse which, thou say’st, is the crime of my race.”
It was our creed against which the tyrants of the
ancient world contended, and Antiochus, and Caligula, and Titus, and
Hadrian, and Sapores, and the Caliphs, and Philip Augustus, and Edward,
and Ferdinand, and who else the oppressors may have been, would gladly
have heaped honours on our heads had we but declared that we had no
portion in Israel, that we renounced the worship of Jacob’s God. But we
have sacrificed our earthly happiness to our God, to use the words of the
same poet:—
“I have lost for that faith more than thou canst
bestow,
As the God who permits thee to prosper loth know;
In his hand is my heart, and my hope;—and in thine,
The land and the life which for him I resign.”
In Palestine we might have remained as the allies and
friends of the Romans; our blood would not have flowed at Alexandria had
we worshipped the idols of Greece and of Italy; in the lands of the
Crescent we could have flourished as the followers of Mohammed; and in
Christendom our genius would have ruled the ascendant had we acknowledged
the Nazarene. But we went forth to battle, though the struggle was, to our
own conviction, in vain; whilst the column of smoke from the burning
temple ascended to heaven, the defenders of their country preferred death
to life; when the enemies in the cities of Egypt conspired to slay the
defenceless, these did not hide their devotion to the Redeemer of their
fathers; when the bloody banner of the Arabian prophet was borne aloft;
the children of Israel did not quail before the danger and the terrors
which walked over the earth before it; and when, at its fall in Hispania,
the rule of the man of Nazareth became firmly established in the western
portions of Europe, when no house of refuge was left whither the exiles
could wander, still the same truth was professed, the same faith was
proclaimed, and we perished—but perished with the hope of salvation in
Him who called Abraham from Ur in Chaldea.—Are not, then, those enemies
of Israel who endeavour to lure away the members of our household from the
secure fold of the everlasting Shepherd? And whether it be by governmental
tyranny or by private temptations, it is the same eternity which we have
to dread, and it is ours to wage the same uncompromising opposition as we
did during the fiercest struggle in the day of battle; not indeed with the
sword and the bow; but by opposing the same unconquerable will, the same
stubborn resistance to approaches of sin, no matter how tempting the
offers which the snarers of the innocent may and do hold out as a bait to
the unwary. It is worse than folly to flatter the modern governments for
their mercy, which circumstances, not their charity, have forced from
them; and equally wrong is it to denounce our suffering brothers for being
behind in the race of improvement. No one must understand us as though we
were ungrateful for the ameliorated state of our position in nearly every
country; on the contrary, we are truly thankful to the Saviour of Israel
for his bounty, and we feel gratitude to the instruments He chose to
effect his purpose, chiefly the estates of Holland, who first opened an
asylum to our fugitives from the dungeons of the Inquisition; to Oliver
Cromwell, the fitting messenger who destroyed arbitrary rule in the island
of Britain; to the members of the Convention who framed the Constitution
of the United States; and to the Constituent Assembly of France, in which
Abbe Sièyes declared that it ought only to be inquired whether the Jews
were men, to entitle them to the privileges of citizens. To these
circumstances was our amelioration owing, that is to say, to revulsions in
politics which forced their actors—who were men of profound sagacity,
and, no doubt unconsciously to themselves, instigated by that invisible
providential influence by which the wrath of men is rendered subservient
to the general good—to extend the range of liberty so as to oppose, by
this means, the attachment to a former order of things in the hearts of
their countrymen, in making it the interest of all who were benefited, to
resist the return of the systems which had been overthrown, not alone by
public resolves, but also by the force of arms in the hands of a
victorious faction or party. We do not deem it necessary to enlarge upon
the wellknown facts, that not one of the revolutions to which we have
just referred was the work of an harmonious public suffrage; for in all of
them rivers of blood were shed to force an improved state of political
affairs upon a large and unwilling party. But it is not our business to
discuss the subject any farther than it refers to the Jews; and we
contend, then, that we were benefited by political revulsions solely, and
that the progress in times of peace has been exceedingly slow; nay, that
even what was promised in times of need, as in Prussia and Poland, has
been withheld since a return to order left the rulers free to forge
new fetters for their subjects. If, then, Jews have not advanced in
agriculture and the mechanic arts; if they still cling with ardour to the
pursuit of small business; if they feel still an aversion to the
governments who oppress them, whose fault is it? are the sufferers alone
to blame? are the circumstances which coerce them to be accounted as
nothing?
But even go farther, and say, all the blame is ours;
that we are anti-social, repulsive, fond of exclusion, and all that. Still
we may allege, that as the sea does not become tranquil immediately upon
the cessation of the storm which caused its billows to be upheaved, even
so will the deteriorating influence of misgovernment remain long after a
new state of affairs has been introduced; time only can lay the waves
produced by the violence of the hurricane, and time only can assuage the
acerbities of feeling produced by ages of oppression, and remove the
cramped-like state of the limbs brought about by a long disuse of them, in
an exercise in some active and healthy employment. The Israelites have
been for ages the mark for every missile which malevolence could forge;
every disability imaginable was laid upon them; every pursuit but that of
mean traffic was interdicted to them; as a class they are to this day
unacquainted with those industrial employments which constitute the wealth
of a state, not because they have not been willing fo learn, but because
there has not been time yet to unlearn what so much pains was taken to
teach them, to despise as ignoble what, so to say, has become second
nature, and chiefly because there is not wealth enough among them to
acquire landed estates, and to set up their children as masters after they
have learned a trade. Those who have acquired the latter have had great
struggles almost every where to establish themselves in business, not the
least of which is the not working on the seventh day. Still the reports
which we have laid already before our readers at various times, prove that
a great progress has already been made in that regard; and there can be no
doubt that the advance will be sure though gradual, till we firmly believe
an outcry will be raised in the Christian states of Europe, that
the Jews monopolize all mechanical branches, as is now said they do all
sorts of business. But let it not be supposed that we are progressing
untramelled by the interference of governments; in our last number we gave
the views of Russia, and now we have to add the consistent conduct of
another imperial power, that of Austria, which has so successfully
laboured to shut out the light of liberty which has even penetrated into
the Turkish dominions. We extract from the “Jewish Intelligence,” a
part of the report of one of the apostate missionaries who passed through
Austria on his way to Palestine; and they who know the peculiar love
apostates bear or exhibit rather to Judaism, will not accuse him of saying
willingly any thing in favour of our people.
“The Jews contribute largely to the revenues of the
State. Thus, the Jews of Bohemia pay 261,000 gulden yearly, (about £26,100
sterling,) into the Emperor’s treasury; those of Moravia 185,000 gulden
(or £18,500 sterling), those of Galicia £70,000 sterling. The Jews have
also to pay many taxes besides: thus, for instance, the Jew is obliged to
pay to government for every pound of meat he buys, two kreutzers, or one
penny (two cents). On account of this tax many or the poorest Jews are
altogether deprived of meat. Another most revolting tax, is, that every
Jew has to pay to Government for every light he burns on the eve of the
Sabbath in his own house, five kreutzers, or 2½d. It is well known
that in each Jewish house there is found a lamp with seven branches; each
branch being so constructed that it may be filled with oil, and burn
separately; and that it is a commandment binding on the Jewish women to
light this lamp. A poor Jew might say, I cannot pay this tax, and
therefore will not light my lamp. The Austrian government has, however,
taken care to prevent such an excuse, for the law provides that every Jew
must pay for at least two lights. Thus every Jew, even the poorest, must
pay a tax of ten kreutzers every Friday. If they burn lights at a
marriage, they must pay two shillings (fifty cents) for every light; and
on the Day of Atonement ten kreutzers for every wax light used in the
Synagogues. With all these humiliating taxes, the Jews are excluded
from following many arts and
occupations. No Jew can be an apothecary throughout all the Austrian
empire.”
So far the extract. Our readers must recollect that
it is not from a Jewish source, but from one who labours to destroy us.
And still he exhibits such a picture as would almost appear incredible in
this age of enlightenment—at least so it loves to call itself. Here we
have the practical effects of Christian benevolence as exhibited by one of
the most Christian governments! We know not how others feel; but we would
spurn Christianity if it had no other objections than its treatment of our
poor exiles, even if we could admit the truth of its tenets. And still the
government employs this oppression to convert the Jews! and stranger yet
than all, there are men, among the rich especially, who love so much the
rod and the hand that smite them, that they embrace the faith and the
fellowship of their tyrants, so as to cease being Israelites. We take the
report of the same missionary as our guide; and we believe his statement,
though it appears incredible that men should have so little self-respect
as this defection betokens. But let such traitors go: “the poor and
afflicted remnant that is left will shelter themselves under the
protection of the Lord of hosts,” and maintain their identity after the
others shall have been forgotten. We can resist the treason of our members
as well as the hatred of the world; but it is this very faintheartedness
of the rich which the governments well enough understand, and they shape
their course accordingly; but were all who have ample means, to show their
adherence to the law and their identity with Israel, we imagine that
different measures would soon be adopted.—But we must stop again for the
present; we wanted to exhibit the goodness of another great power towards
us, and we do so without calling to aid other materials in our hands, than
the one paragraph which we have quoted; still this is enough to rouse the
indignation of all friends of the rights of man, and we leave herewith the
subject for the calm reflections of our readers, whether Jews or
Christian, certain that they will blame less than heretofore any defects
which they may discover in or see ascribed to the character of the
Hebrews, and that they will all admit that only a brave and heroic people
could have stood so much evil without losing every hope or noble
aspiration.
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