JUDAISM AND THE GOSPELS
(1910)
English Jewry is at ease. There are no doubt traces here and there of
anti-Semitism, nor are there wanting in the inner life of the community
indications of what may be called “servitude in freedom.” But when all
allowances are made, the Jews enjoy a firmer and a more secure position
here than in other countries, and anxiety for the future, with all that
it involves, plays a smaller part in their mental life. Hence their
internal development is more “normal” than elsewhere; it is less at the
mercy of external and accidental influences; it is rather determined by
the spiritual and cultural resources of the community itself, and
corresponds at any given time to the extent of those resources. To this
circumstance is due the comparatively late appearance of the Reform
movement in Anglo-Jewry. True, in the heyday of the German Reform
movement a few people in England attempted to follow the German example;
but their small experiment never grew to considerable dimensions, or
showed any capacity for development. The reason is that whereas in
Germany there was an external, political impulse towards Reform—the
desire to combat anti-Jewish feeling, and thus to facilitate the
attainment of civil and political rights—in England this motive was less
felt. For though certain political restrictions were still in force, the
position of the Jews was much better, and their relations with non-Jews
were much more satisfactory, than in Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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