The term applied by Christians to qualify their praise of noted Jews, “Yes, he’s a good man; too bad he’s a Jew,” is an epitome of the hard struggle of the Jews and is a condemnation of that Christendom which makes it necessary to add this to the praise of a man, Stephen S. Wise in his sermon Sunday in the Free Synagogue, Carnegie Hall, said:
“I have heard the expression applied to me at least a thousand times,” said Dr. Wise, “and it always makes me writhe. I had rather have hard words spoken of me than to hear the term, ‘What a pity he’s a Jew!’ Dr. Leon Harris tells the story of a Christian woman who, in a New York synagogue, turned to her friend and remarked of the preacher, ‘What a pity he’s a Jew!”
“Analyze the term, ‘too bad.’ It is but a circumlocution of ‘but’. Frequently it is said: ‘He is a gifted man’ or ‘He is a brilliant scientist-but he is a Jew.’ It is used in seeming compassion. But when the lady heard the preacher and remarked: ‘Too bad he’s a Jew.’ I wonder if she felt compassion. I feel that it was not compassion but cruelty-cruelty of mass judgment. It is not extenuation but condemnation.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.