Jewish masses for any purpose. American Jewry will contribute its share towards the purchase price of a home for its homeless brothers. The work of Zionism is multiplying and expanding, and more men are needed to shoulder the burden. We hope that such men will be found in the Convention.
M
An Agrarian Class Needed
WE admire frankness. Even when it discloses a shallow mind or an unregulated imagination. We are amused often enough by Rabbi Moses P. Jacobson, whose rough pen trails a streak of three or four columns weekly in the “Jewish Chronicle” of Mobile, Birmingham, Montgomery, Shreveport, Atlanta, and Heaven knows of how many more towns, in which it appears simultaneously. His gaucheries are delightful. Where he gnashes his teeth there is typographical anarchy. His frankness even about the secrets of the Jewish editorial sanctum are naive and charming. We are disgusted with his “free and easy” English; we are repelled by his lack of dignity; but we are amused by his frankness. Occasionally he speaks sensibly.
In the following he is thinking of the Jewish Agricultural Aid Society of America:
"The old-time stigma against the Jews for not being farmers is due to an antiquated political economy, when the trader was considered a parasite, not a worker. Today the trader's economical value is appreciated. It is understood that so far from being less of a worker or a toiler, he is a worker and toiler on a higher plane; that but for him most of the farmer's work would be idle and fruitless. Such being the case, even if it were true that the Jews are engaged only in commerce, there is no need today to offer any apology for the fact; that is, there is no need to offer any such apology to the intelligent and the fair-thinking masses. With the non-intelligent, the brutishly prejudiced, not even the apology of ten million Jewish farmers would avail, and hence no apology need be considered as to them."
Which is all very true. But it is not merely to disprove the statements of those who oppose us that agriculture is being fostered among the Jews. There is a deeper reason. The Jewish people, as a people, cannot afford to be one-dwellers; we cannot afford to be altogether city dwellers; for our own good-health we must prevent it. And it is necessary to stimulate settlement on farms for another reason.
The city breeds diseases, it intensifies industrial
competition, it destroys vitality, and we cannot close our eyes to the vast number of Jews living in large cities whose religious natures have been destroyed and we cannot permit this crowding to continue if we can help it.
This view of the matter is aside from the remedies proposed by Zionism. Our friend also states:
“Such agricultural institutions, in addition then to giving countenance to a shallow, unscientific censure, throated (?) only by bigotry, contribute to perpetuate the lie which says that no Jews are natural farmers. We venture to maintain the statement that if the statistics be taken the Jews will be found proportionately as numerous in agricultural pursuits as are any other class of people; nay, we should not be surprised, judging but from our own limited acquaintance, were it to be discovered that there are proportionately more farmers among the Jews than among any other denomination or race in this country.”
The claim is not made that “no Jews are farmers.” Itis claimed by gentiles that Jews are exceptionally given to trade, which is borne out by facts. To admit this is not admission of the Jew’s viciousness or incapacity, but rather an admission that he is forced into situations where only his trade ability is required. We advocate agriculture for the Jew because, as a people, we must have an agrarian class. That class is not in evidence with us at present. It must be produced by organizations that understand the situation.
So we advise the editor of our contemporary to moderate his anger, to reserve his valuable space to discuss those subjects for which his theological training has fitted him, and to please have pity on the organizations working to make Jewish farmers, whose growth may be blighted irretrievably if his fulminations continue.
A Peculiar Mission
WE do not know what has impelled our good friend, Mr. Nissim Behar, to defend his mission to America. We are not aware that any one has questioned his good faith or his well-meant intentions. But since he voluntarily explains his mission in detail, we confess his aims are not easily comprehended. He states, in effect, that he was commissioned to call the attention of the American people to the wrongs suffered by the Jews living in Russia; that once public opinion is aroused, our government, Russia's friend, will bring home to the Russian government a realization of the in-