In terms of their own society the thing would have been simple enough.
They would have felt no surprise to hear that some man of our own race,
who had made a rapid fortune and purchased a political position,
suffered from a disreputable relative, also of our own race. But because
in the case of the Jew there were the two unusual elements of a foreign
name and distant origin, they were bewildered. They even thought it in
some way specially scandalous. They had not appreciated the material
with which they were dealing, and that is the mark of unintelligence.
But the cream of unintelligence, the form in which unintelligent
treatment of him most exasperates the Jew, is undoubtedly that typical,
that ceaseless case of the man who is perpetually crying out against
Israel, and purposing nothing--the man who nourishes a sterile
grievance; who has not even the clarity or vigour to attempt
suppression; who would be horrified at persecution, almost equally
horrified at any breach of convention, and yet continues to cry out
against a state of affairs which he does nothing to put right and for
which he has not even a theoretic solution.
The last of the main causes of friction between the Jews and ourselves
is lack of charity, and that in the simplest form of refusing to go half
way to meet the Jew, and of refusing to put ourselves in the shoes of
the Jew so as to understand his position in our society and his attitude
towards it. It is a universal fault just as common in those who daily
associate with, live off, and fawn upon Jews as in those who keep aloof
from them. It never seems to occur to anyone on our side who has to deal
with the Jewish problem, to make the imaginative effort required. And
yet we have the parallel ready to our hands. The Jew feels among us,
only with far greater intensity, what we feel when we are resident in a
foreign country--a sense of exile, a sense of irritation against alien
things, merely because they are alien; a great desire for companionship
and for understanding, yet a great indifference to the fate of those
among whom he finds himself; an added attachment, not, indeed, to his
territorial home, for he has none, but to his nation. If we could
perpetually bear in mind that parallel, the friction on our side would
be greatly modified.
There are many Jewish societies which ask nothing better than to have
occasional addresses from non-Jews. Those addresses are given, those
Societies are visited, but not nearly as much as they should be.
There is a great Jewish literature--I mean a great mass of books dealing
specially with the Jew's position from the Jew's own point of view. It
is not read or known. I may be told that the fault of all this is
largely that of the Jews themselves on account of their use of secrecy.
I do not think the objection applies. With all his use of secrecy the
Jew is there present among us for us to approach, if we will, and to
understand as best we can. And I say that the approach is not made.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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