The Maccabaean

The Tragedy of the Jew

The tragedy of the Jew has held the world's stage for nigh two thousand years. The Jew is always on the center of the stage, in the rôle of martyr and sufferer—a true Model of Sorrows. But sometimes, though not often, the shifting scenes change from tragedy to comedy. For a moment the horizon brightens, and instead of the lamenting voice of Rachel weeping for her children, we hear the hollow ring of careless laughter, and instead of a form solemn and dignified we see a being thoughtless, proud and selfish. Then we scarcely recognize the Jew. Evidently comedy is not his natural element; the rôle but illy suits him. There seems to be a false note in it which we can always detect. But when, quick as a flash, the scene resumes its wonted tragedy, our Jew looms up before us again in all his native strength and originality, in all his individuality and intensity, in all his capacity for playing his part. . . . r. strong, passionate and inexhaustible. In tragedy the Jew is in his true guise again, the sphere which fate has fashioned for him.

It has been truly said that "the Jew is in love with misery." Misery having been his inseparable companion for many ages, he has learned to love it, and has even espoused it as a true lover who, after years of courtship and companionship, weds the object of his love.

And misery has stood the Jew in good stead, for suffering has always been the source of his strength. It softens all the rugged features of his toil-worn body-politic, and truly spiritualizes the members of his body-religious. His misery forces all the latent power which his race possesses to the surface. It uplifts him; it helps him to overlook the pettiness of the world—to see the good through the bad, and to pity, not despise, his enemies. It even inspires him to distinguish between the degrading and poetic sides of his persecution. It invests him with a dignity and solemnity which forces the world to respect him despite its will. It gives him the right to claim superiority, since not all the fused hatred of the world and the combined persecution of the nations of the earth have succeeded to vanquish him. Like a veritable Salamandra he has come out from every fire unscathed—a living proof of the law of the survival of the fittest.

Higher and higher as rose the walls that hemmed him in, mightier and mightier grew the power of his spirit, which penetrated through his dungeons to the great, wide world; even to the inner circles of his enemies, where it became an influence not easily dispensed with. He whom they despised and shunned took pity on their spiritual poverty, and showered upon them the wealth of his soul—for which they pelted him with stones and spat upon him.