The advantage both parties--the small but intense Jewish minority, the
great non-Jewish majority in the midst of which that minority
acts--would discover in such an arrangement is manifest. If it could be
maintained--as I think it could be maintained--the problem would be
permanently solved. At any rate, if it cannot be solved in that way it
certainly cannot be solved in any other, and if we do not get peace by
this avenue, then we are doomed to the perpetual recurrence of those
persecutions which have marred the history of Europe since the first
consolidation of the Roman Empire.
It has been a series of cycles invariably following the same steps. The
Jew comes to an alien society, at first in small numbers. He thrives.
His presence is not resented. He is rather treated as a friend. Whether
from mere contrast in type--what I have called "friction"--or from some
apparent divergence between his objects and those of his hosts, or
through his increasing numbers, he creates (or discovers) a growing
animosity. He resents it. He opposes his hosts. They call themselves
masters in their own house. The Jew resists their claim. It comes to
violence.
It is always the same miserable sequence. First a welcome; then a
growing, half-conscious ill-ease; next a culmination in acute ill-ease;
lastly catastrophe and disaster; insult, persecution, even massacre, the
exiles flying from the place of persecution into a new district where
the Jew is hardly known, where the problem has never existed or has been
forgotten. He meets again with the largest hospitality. There follows
here also, after a period of amicable interfusion, a growing,
half-conscious ill-ease, which next becomes acute and leads to new
explosions, and so on, in a fatal round.
If we are to stop that wheel from its perpetual and tragic turning,
there seems to be no method save that for which I plead.
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.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account