The Jew, The Gypsy and El IslamBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
Islamic
The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Islam; Jews; Romanies
Lady Burton had _The Jew_ next on her list for publication at the time
of her death. In publishing it now, therefore, one is only carrying
out her wishes and those of her husband. But in the exercise of the
discretion given to me, I have thought it better to hold over for the
present the Appendix on the alleged rite of Human Sacrifice among the
Sephardím and the murder of Padre Tomaso. The only alternative was to
publish it in a mutilated form; and as I hold strongly that no one has
a right to mutilate the work of another writer, least of all of one
who is dead, I prefer to withhold it until a more convenient season.
I can do this with a clearer conscience, because the Appendix has no
direct bearing on the other part of the book, and because the chapters
on _The Jew_ which are retained are by far the more important. The
tone of even this portion is anti-Semitic; but I do not feel justified
in going contrary to the wishes of the author and suppressing an
interesting ethnological study merely to avoid the possibility of
hurting the susceptibilities of the Hebrew community. It has been
truly said, “Every nation gets the Jew it deserves,” and it may well
be that the superstitions and cruelties of the Eastern Jews have been
generated in them by long centuries of oppression and wrong. From these
superstitions and cruelties the enlightened and highly favoured Jews in
England naturally shrink with abhorrence and repudiation; but it does
not therefore follow they have no existence among their less fortunate
Eastern brethren.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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