Perhaps the greatest charm and beauty of the Jewish heart is its kindliness. Forbearance and general sympathy are instinctive in the Jewish mind for all those who suffer. The act of causing pain to others is totally repugnant to the soul of our people.
This beauty of the Jewish character is one of its most sublime traits. Some of my opponents realizing this have played upon it. Unable to answer my arguments, they have in effect been reduced to calling me names.
It seems self-evident to their peculiar minds that since my outlook is unalterably opposed to theirs, it must be that I am a Fascist. Just what my purpose is in being a Fascist and what the result I hope to attain might possibly be, no one attempted to explain. They simply reutttered the old classical folderol, and built me into a new Frankenstein whose ultimate aim is to degrade and exploit the Jewish working masses. In the light of the fact that I am merely a lone correspondent who is attempting to recite the truth as he sees it, this becomes positively funny.
RESENT PIN-STICKING
Their stock statement is: “Why should he be allowed to stick pins into all our leaders in this fashion? They are after all nice old gentlemen who mean no harm.” The inference of course is not only that I am a Fascist but that I am at the same time a sadist, terms which to these gentlemen mean one and the same thing.
Now actually when it comes down to it, I am as sorry as anyone if the routine ways of these kind old gentlemen must be disturbed. I realize that they mean well, with the possible exception of a certain amount of self-seeking and a little vanity.
If they had gotten any kind of results at all I could understand why anyone who called attention to their errors could be impeached as an uncivilized fellow.
At the moment the great question is not whether this type of Tammany Hall intrigue, or another type, is desirable. The great question is simply whether the Jewish people can be preserved; whether as it appears, they are likely to be annihilated; whether even Zionism itself is not on the verge of collapse.
THE REAL PROBLEM
Under pressing weight of this type of life and death problem I am not at all interested in complicating it with civilities to nice old gentlemen who happen to be in the way. I am merely interested in the unfortunates whose lives are in despair and what is worse whose souls are sick.
Under these circumstances the nebulous heroics indulged in by some of our gentlemen concerning social justice and the new order of society simply fills me full of pain.
If our people were safe of body and sound of soul the matter would be materially different. I believe I would be found among others, heavily on the side of social justice. I would then be against sticking pins into nice futile old gentlemen. I would be immovably against any attempt to put workingmen in the sweatshops, as I would be against the exploitation of any honest human being.
NOT A FASCIST
Considering all these things, I hardly believe they make me a Fascist. I therefore believe I can safely state that I am not a Fascist.
As a matter of fact, every time some fellow writes in attacking me roundly, publication of his letter is sure to bring a few dozen others which lend support to my viewpoint.
I am convinced that the mass of Jewry sees eye to eye with me on this proposition, that I am merely offering expression to the sound instincts which lie in their hearts. Therefore I am afraid that merely calling me a Fascist will prove wholly ineffective in stopping my ideas.
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.
