Henry Ford's Challenge and a Jew's Reply
Vice-President of the Zionist Organization of America.
Q . . . "The work of a criminal or a madman." Thus Dr. Wise, this dynamic force in American Jewry, the peerless orator whose silvery tongue has more than once hushed the evil spirit of anti-Semitism that dared show its ugly head in American life, characterizes the spurious attacks of Henry Ford. Of especial interest to the readers of "The Maccabaean" is Dr. Wise's letter to the editor, which accompanied his article. It reads: Q My dear Mr. Weisgal: In response to your request, I have pleasure in sending you an abstract which I have prepared especially for the readers of "The Maccabaean." It gives the essence of what I have sought to make clear, with respect to the challenge of Henry Ford. Q It seems to me that if Mr. Ford and the men behind him had any knowledge of Zionism or if the authors of that mass of forgeries, the Protocol, had the faintest understanding of what Zionism means, they would not even have imputed the authorship of the Protocol to one in any wise associated with the Zionist Organization of America or indeed to any Jew. Q The Jew has no secret aims. The Jew has no hidden purposes. What the Jew needs most of all is a complete public understanding of his aims and ideals. Q The Balfour Declaration, the San Remo decision, the appointment of a British High Commissioner of Palestine together represent the attitude of the reasoning, well-meaning world in the face of the publicly uttered demand of the Jew that Palestine—as I have ventured to call it—the oldest of earth's treedentas, be restored to the earliest of earth's great surviving peoples.—THE EDITOR.
THERE is a putative "Jewish peril," the peril of a vile forgery entitled "The Protocols and World Revolution," published, one regrets to note, by a hitherto reputable publishing house of Boston, a forgery which is not only an indictment of but a crime against a whole people. The very phrase, "Jewish peril," sounds like some mad Nietzschean cry that the Jews have empoisoned the world with Christianity. Wherein lies the "Jewish peril"? Is it in the Jewish Bible, Old and New? Is it in the God of the Jewish Bible? Is it in the Sabbath of the Jew? Is it in the Prophets or the Apostles, or in Jesus the Jew? Is it in the spectacle of the unimpairable and miraculous loyalty of the Jew?
And yet certain perils are bound up with the so-called "Jewish peril"—perils that are real and not fictitious. The "Jewish peril" is the cry of every group in Europe today which desires the restoration of the old pre-war order, whether in militarist Germany or in Czarist Russia. It is a brazen attempt to find some scapegoat, an excuse for a return to the order that was. While mobs may be diverted for an hour from pursuing their purposes, the cry of the "Jewish peril" is no solution of the problem which has created world-wide unrest. Polish mobs may forget about the crimes of Polish imperialism whilst committing unspeakable crimes against Jewish men, women and children, but this solves no problem.
After the Jews shall have been crushed, if crushed they are to be, what is to become of their blood-whetted destroyers? Instead of seeking a true and abiding solution of the problems of the world, the anodyne of the "Jewish peril" is offered to a world largely under arms by them either responsible for the social and moral disorder of the world or ready to capitalize it to the end that the old order of imperialism and militarism may be re-established.
Yes, there is a "Jewish peril," real and undeniable—the
peril not occasioned by the Jew but to the Jew. If it be willed by the world, so shall it be! Physical pain and suffering can be borne for centuries without collective hurt. Not so spiritual hurt, which after a time leaves its ineffaceable mark upon its victims!
Consider what is happening in East European lands. Can these things be and be done without the doers being terribly and even curelessly hurt? If war leave its marks for evil upon them that wage it, what shall be said of them that wage war against such as answer not? War is redeemed in some part by the risks taken by the warriors. What of the morale of such as war upon the unweaponed, that make a business as does Eastern Europe of slaying the defenceless because they are Jews?
And this is happening in Europe today with results bound to be terrible if not fatal to East European nations. Can Europe hope to be spared the ruinous hurt done in its lands to every finer moral sentiment? - Europe cannot remain unhurt by the treatment of the Jew in which European lands indulge today, —by the virtual exile of the world’s greatest scientist, Einstein, from the academic halls of Germany; by Hıınoarv’s harharnns treatment nf jte
Jewish citizenry; by Poland's ghastly excesses against its Jewish men, women and children; by the Ukraine's hellish dealing with its Jewish victims.
Consider the character of the charges included in the general indictment, the "Jewish peril." The Jew is said to confuse the mind of the world through processes of disintegration and corruption of public opinion. The seriousness and credibility of the charges is shown by the accusation that the capitalist Jew is in league with the workingman Jew to upset the world, the Jewish millionaire and the proletariat Jew conspiring to bring about the overthrow of civilization.
No, Europe, that is Christendom, cannot remain unhurt and unbowed by this savage, godless treatment of its Jewish