Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar PeopleZangwill, Israel
Religion
Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People
Zangwill, Israel
Jewish fiction; Jews -- England -- London -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction
"But how is the Messiah to redeem his people?" he asked. "Not now-a-days
by the sword but by the tongue. He will plead the cause of Judaism, the
cause of Socialism, in Parliament. He will not come with mock miracle
like Bar Cochba or Zevi. At the general election, brothers, I will stand
as the candidate for Whitechapel. I, a poor man, one of yourselves, will
take my stand in that mighty assembly and touch the hearts of the
legislators. They shall bend before my oratory as the bulrushes of the
Nile when the wind passes. They will make me Prime Minister like Lord
Beaconsfield, only he was no true lover of his people, he was not the
Messiah. To hell with the rich bankers and the stockbrokers--we want
them not. We will free ourselves."
The extraordinary vigor of the poet's language and gestures told. Only
half comprehending, the majority stamped and huzzahed. Pinchas swelled
visibly. His slim, lithe form, five and a quarter feet high, towered
over the assembly. His complexion was as burnished copper, his eyes
flashed flame.
"Yes, brethren," he resumed. "These Anglo-Jewish swine trample unheeding
on the pearls of poetry and scholarship, they choose for Ministers men
with four mistresses, for Chief Rabbis hypocrites who cannot even write
the holy tongue grammatically, for _Dayanim_ men who sell their
daughters to the rich, for Members of Parliament stockbrokers who cannot
speak English, for philanthropists greengrocers who embezzle funds. Let
us have nothing to do with these swine--Moses our teacher forbade it.
(Laughter.) I will be the Member for Whitechapel. See, my name
Melchitsedek Pinchas already makes M.P.--it was foreordained. If every
letter of the _Torah_ has its special meaning, and none was put by
chance, why should the finger of heaven not have written my name thus:
M.P.--Melchitsedek Pinchas. Ah, our brother Wolf speaks truth--wisdom
issues from his lips. Put aside your petty quarrels and unite in working
for my election to Parliament. Thus and thus only shall you be redeemed
from bondage, made from beasts of burden into men, from slaves to
citizens, from false Jews to true Jews. Thus and thus only shall you
eat, drink and be satisfied, and thank me for bringing you out of the
land of bondage. Thus and thus only shall Judaism cover the world as the
waters cover the sea."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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