The Maccabaean

I HAVE undertaken to discuss the present topic not because of any qualifications for the task, but because of the fascination of the topic itself. For the student of human manners and morals, there is no spectacle more dramatic, tragic and at the same time inspiring than that afforded by the history of the Jewish people. Circumstances have conspired to emphasize their racial identity. This is the only people that are at the same time ancient and modern, oriental and occidental, national and cosmopolitan. The student of any social problem endeavors to isolate it by examining it in as many different contexts as possible. Similarly it would seem that in the case of the Jews, history itself has been performing a gigantic experiment in racial characteristics. There have been the ancient Jews of Palestine, the Hellenistic Jews, the mediæval Spanish Jews, the Jews of Holland in the seventeenth century, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and, finally, American Jews, all of whom have been and are none the less Jews. This people has lived under the most diverse circumstances, geographical, economic, political and cultural. Nevertheless the problem of analysis, as indeed is always the case with anything racial or national, is extremely difficult. If I were merely to enumerate the different ideas or traits which may be said to be Jewish, it would be possible to duplicate every one without exception. Thus Jewish theocratic principles were adopted by the early New England Puritans, Jewish thrift has been characteristic of trading peoples the world over, and

Jewish quietism may yet be found among the Quakers. That which is distinctive in any race consists in no elementary idea or trait, but in a characteristic blend, and in the symbols and memories through which this is cherished and sanctified. There is a peculiar difficulty in the present problem because of the fact that, as I have said, Jews are both an ancient and a modern people. Their civilization is both dead and living, or rather it is being perpetually reincarnated. If one were to identify Judaism, as is so often done, with the age depicted in the Old Testament, one would be sure to have missed the living germ which is still fruitful and adaptable to a constantly changing environment. Indeed, the general failure to understand the Jews is largely due to the habitual neglect of their recent history. This history is, to be sure, extremely obscure; there is something esoteric and evasive about it that makes it the despair of any external observer. . . .

In the present discussion I do not propose to attempt a solution of the so-called "Jewish question." I wish rather to interpret Judaism from the standpoint of civilization. Indeed, I am not even so much interested in that which is characteristic of Judaism, as in that which is true in Judaism. What are those Jewish ideals which may be said to be qualified to be the ideals of humanity? I cannot, of course, answer this question without by implication throwing some light on the question of the conservation and perpetuity of Judaism. But if Judaism is to fulfil its mission and mediate a