(To Be Continued Tomorrow)
sition in the church itself awaited him if he could earn it.
The modern Jew has no such prospect anywhere, even if he so wished it. The assault on his personality is complete and the rising tide of hatred finds him efficiently caught in a cul-de-sac.
The final effect of anti-Semitism in the Jewish character finds itself in Jewish driving force and intellectualism. This latter is again largely the product of several thousand years of hardship and conditioning.
Thus Jew-hatred finds its pap in the preponderance of Jews in mercantile fields and the professions, a condition which it contributed to itself.
It would be extremely shortsighted to regard this new variant in anti-Semitism as having any actual validity other than being a mere expression of anti-Semitic directionalism.
Enisconalians in the United States and the Germans in prewar Russia also occupied for example, positions far out of proportion to their numbers without bringing down on their heads a storm of this kind.
POSITION NOW REVERSED
Our whole position in the west has largely reversed itself. Where the church was our original enemy, it is now by necessity largely our friend. The same theories which potentially are most dangerous to us are also the disintegrating forces of the Christian church.
A new pagan doctrine is being promulgated based on a postulate of racial purity and superiority. It combines eugenics and racial ego together with a totalitarian theory. If it is successful, the Jew in the western countries, at least, will simply be sponged off completely.
That it is an attractive doctrine to those exposed to it can only be denied by the stupid. That it has been gaining strength rapidly and could under some circumstances become a dangerous epidemic is also plainly evident to thoughtful men.
Even the downfall of Hitler will not necessarily abrogate it. This virus is far too deeply entrenched.
OBLIVION LOOMS
Despite the self-satisfied vaporings of our leaders, the Jew will shortly face a battle of life and death. Obliteration stares him in the face, possibly in as short a space as another generation.
In our own country the young Jew faces the following unenviable condition:
He is socially little more than an outcast since every social activity in American life is at pains to exclude him.
He faces numerus clausus at the colleges and seats of learning.
He is excluded from employment in the major utilities and corporations everywhere.
He is not only excluded from whole industries, but a movement is quietly under way to restrict him drastically in the professions.
More than a hundred “patriotic” societies are engaged in spreading anti-Semitic propaganda from one corner of the land to the other.
NET TIGHTENING
The net aimed at excluding the Jew from every important aspect of life is drawing tighter and tighter.
Men who would have looked ridiculous in the statement a few years ago openly discuss the possibility of pogroms, as our “friend” former Ambassador Gerard did a few days ago.
In contrast is offered the success of a few Jews who have achieved distinguished position in politics. If precedent gives an answer it lies in Germany, where prior to Hitler a few Jews also occupied high positions in political life. This condition can, therefore, be accepted as being in itself deceptive and not a true indicant of the course events are taking.
More dangerous than any part of this condition is the cowardly, demoralized state of the Jew himself in his inner life. He has no rallying point whatsoever in either spirit or action. He is hence brittle when of all times he requires resiliency most; and when he is crushed he will be hopelessly shattered, unless a new understanding and spiritual outlook quickly take hold of him.
(To Be Continued Tomorrow)
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.
