It is most important to keep this from slipping out of sight when
thinking of them. I was reading a short time ago a most depressing
account of life in some Jewish villages in a certain part of Russia, of
the dirt and degradation of the people there, their cunning and greed,
their hang-dog expression of countenance, and disgusting clothing. Every
one is familiar with the stories told of the usurer and the extortioner
who suck the blood of their inexperienced and unsuspecting victims, and
it is not for me to question their accuracy. We may all admit that
Shylock is a type. But still environment plays its part, and it would be
difficult to picture any other result from the treatment which has been
meted out to Jews in Russia than the degradation which has followed.
A very different picture, however, is given for us by Mr. Rothay
Reynolds, in the report of a _Russian_ official, sent out by his
government to visit the settlements of Russian Jews in the Argentine
Republic. He made a formal report, but it was no dry and formal
statement, but a real picture, painted in glowing colours, of the
"change wrought in them by the free and open life of the new land," and
he described with enthusiasm the rich farms possessed and admirably
cultivated by the former children of the _ghetto_. He drew a contrast
between the peaky, timorous Jewish boys of the Russian pale and the
lusty Jewish youngsters astride half-tamed horses on the ranche. And the
settlers spoke of Russia as our colonists speak of the old country, as
"home." No Jew _in Russia_ dreams of calling himself a Russian, but when
he goes and settles in another land far away, and prospers there, then
he can speak of Russia as "home."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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