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
“On my next visit, in 1902, more colonies had been planted, and a
serious effort was being made to turn the Jewish colonists into farmers.
The majority of the Jews who had come to Palestine, however, were
settled about Jerusalem, and the new Jerusalem without the walls was
larger, in space at least, than the old Jerusalem within. The Alliance
Israelite had developed there splendid schools to teach agriculture, and
manual and industrial arts. I was urgently solicited by the management
to visit and inspect these schools. Here I found Jew, Moslem and
Christian working side by side without prejudice. This was, in my
judgment, the best work of any sort being done in Palestine, for two
reasons: first, these schools were teaching the dignity and the worth of
manual labor, which the oriental of all sorts had theretofore despised,
regarding it as unworthy of any man of intelligence or capacity;
secondly, because they brought Moslem, Christian and Jew together on a
plane of common work and common worth, the most valuable agent for the
breaking down of those ancient prejudices, religious, racial and social,
which have been the curse and bane of the land.
“I was asked to put this down in writing because, I was told, _great
pressure was being exerted—I regret to say, especially from America—to
prevent the management from continuing this particular work_ of teaching
Jew, Christian and Moslem on the same plane, the demand being that the
Jew should not be brought into such contact with the Moslem and the
Christian, and that he alone should be trained, that he might not be
infected, as it were, by the others, _and that they might not be
prepared to compete with him for possession of the land. This spirit I
met in a more thoroughly organized and offensive form on my latest visit
in 1919 and 1920_.
“I found immense progress in the development of agricultural colonies.
There was still difficulty in persuading the Jew, except only the
African or Arabian Jew, to do the actual work of the colony, but
colonies were prospering, and fruit-culture, vine-culture and especially
the manufacture of wine and liquors on a grand and most scientific
scale, had progressed wonderfully. In general, the land occupied by
those colonies was not in a proper sense ancient Jewish land. They were
on the Sharon and Esdraelon plains and in the extreme upper end of the
Jordan Valley; but those regions were being enriched, and the country at
large benefited by the colonists. The great bulk of the Jews were still
gathered in Jerusalem as heretofore, and there were on one hand the
intellectuals and on the other the parasitic or pauperized Jew, what
would ordinarily be regarded as the very best and the very worst. Life
in the colonies was often very sweet and very lovely, a wholesome,
normal family life, and an exhibition in peace and prosperity of what
religious Judaism at its best may be.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account