A word about the future. Now and then questions are asked about the future of the Jew in America. Will he live on? Will he continue in his present fortunate condition? We hear murmurs about a nascent anti-Semitism, and what not. To all these questions there is but one answer: It depends upon ourselves! Let us think of the noble words of George Washington in his reply to the address presented to him by the Jewish community of Newport in the year 1790. "It is no more," he said, "that toleration is spoken of, as if it were by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support." The Jew has nothing to fear from anti-Semitism in America. It amounts to nothing, except in so far as we help create it. What counts is our own life and what we do for the maintenance of democracy in America and elsewhere. As long as we do our duty, as long as we remain true to the best moral and spiritual traditions of the Jew, as long as we stand for the noblest ideals of citizenship, and as long as America remains what her founders designed and dreamed her to be--the home and the hope of democracy--so long the Jew will be safe for America and America will be safe for the Jew! VII THE WAR, THE JEW, AND THE FUTURE One of the chief benefits of the study of the past is that it throws light on the problems of the present and helps us to forecast the future. This is why during the terrible struggle that has been going on, so many of us have turned to the records of history for help and direction. It is no less true of our Jewish history. When we engage in a survey of it, and especially in a study of its course in the allied countries, it is not merely for the purpose of refreshing our memories of what happened in days gone by, but also in order to learn what we might expect to happen in the future and to be fortified in our duty today. "Universal History," says Lord Acton, "is not a rope of sand but a continuous development; not a burden on memory, but an illumination of the soul." The survey of the course of Jewish history convinces us, first of all, that nothing has been so helpful and profitable to the Jew as the progress of democracy. From of old Jewish progress and democracy have gone hand in hand. Every now and then we hear people complain that the Jew is not democratic. This has as much truth in it as the off-hand charge that the Jew is not patriotic or not idealistic. It is a generality unsupported by the facts.