Jewish influences in American life : $b volume III of the International Jew, the world's foremost problem : being a reprint of a third selection from articles appearing in the Dearborn IndependentFord, Henry
Religion
Jewish influences in American life : $b volume III of the International Jew, the world's foremost problem : being a reprint of a third selection from articles appearing in the Dearborn Independent
Ford, Henry
Antisemitic literature; Jews -- United States; United States -- Ethnic relations
“The Jewish Question cannot be solved by tolerance. There are thousands
of well-meaning people who take to themselves great credit for
exhibiting a spirit of tolerance toward the Jews.” (Page 98)
Mr. Levi also lays down rules for “the study of the Jewish Question,”
and he says that if they were followed the result “would be startling at
once to the Jews and the general public.” (Page 93) How far present
Jewish leadership has departed from that frank and broad view taken by
Mr. Levi, is everywhere evident.
Not that Mr. Levi was a critic of his people, but he was a lawyer who
was accustomed to weighing facts, and he saw facts that weighed against
his people. But he was pro-Jewish even in his most severe observations.
He could make an attack on the rabbis, taunting them with the saying
that “many of you are ‘rabbis for revenue only,’” but he could also
insist on Jewish solidarity and exclusiveness.
In this connection it may be interesting to see how strongly Mr. Levi
supports the contention of Jewish leaders (as outlined in THE DEARBORN
INDEPENDENT of October 9 and 16, 1920) that the Jews are a _race_ and
not merely a _religion_, a nation and not merely a church, and that the
term “Jew” is biological rather than theological. This is specially
commended to the attention of those dim-minded shouters of “religious
prejudice,” who come into action whenever the Jewish Question is
mentioned. (Of “religious prejudice” there are many examples to give in
future articles.)
“Certain it is that thus far the race and the religion have been so
fused, as it were, that none can say just where the one begins and the
other leaves off.” (Page 116)
Attacking the contention of the “liberals” or “reformed Jews” to the
effect that “Jew” is the name of a member of religious denomination, and
not of a member of a certain race, Mr. Levi says:
“Nothing to my mind is more pregnant with error than this postulate of
unreason. (Page 185) It is not true that the Jews are only Jews because
of their religion.” (Page 189)
“The Jews are not simply an indiscriminate lot of people who hold to a
common belief.” (Page 190)
“A native Eskimo, an American Indian might conscientiously adopt every
tenet of the Jewish church, might practice every form and ceremony
imposed by the Jewish laws and the Jewish ritual, and as far as the
religion is concerned, be a Jew, but yet, no one who will reflect for a
moment would class them with the Jews as a people. If the truth were
known, a very large percentage of so-called Christians would be found to
be believers in the essentials of the Jewish religion, and yet, they are
not Jews.
“It requires not only that men should believe in Judaism, but that they
should be the descendants in a direct line of that people who enjoyed a
temporal government and who owned a country up to the time of the
destruction of the second commonwealth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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