Jews -- Periodicals; Jews -- United States -- Periodicals
It is these young French Jews of immigrant parentage, students and
professional men, who organized themselves, about two years ago, in an
"Association des Jeunes Juifs," known by its initials as A. J. J. The
aim of that organization, which is non-partisan in Jewish affairs, is
both cultural and practical. It publishes a monthly by the name of
"Les Pionniers," and occasionally holds debates and lectures on
various Jewish topics. It also carries on a program of social work
among the immigrant Jews. I might perhaps give a clearer idea of the
object of the A. J. J. by reproducing their following declaration:
"Notre But.--Nous voulons nous affirmer 'Juifs' sans forfanterie, mais
avec fermeté; cultiver, développer parmis nous, faire connaître au
dehors, l'âme juive; nous éduquer mutuellement; demander, par les
voies légales, le respect, la justice pour tous,--fussent-ils juifs;
aider nos frères émigrés à l'aquérir la qualité de citoyen; inculquer
à nos membres les principes de solidarité et de mutualité." In the
summer of 1913, Dr. Nahum Slouszch of the Sorbonne submitted to the
society a scheme for more extensive activities, both Jewish and
patriotic in their scope, namely, the participation in educational and
social work among the indigenous Jews of the French possessions in
Africa.
_The Jew of the Roman Ghetto_
It is a pity that so little is known to us about the life of the
Jewish masses in Italy. The fame of the Nathans and Luzzattis has led
us to believe that in Italy Jews form the class of society from which
mayors and statesmen are recruited. But in Italy the majority of Jews
still live in social and economic conditions not far advanced above
those of their ancestors in centuries past. Italy is the only country
in Europe outside those in the Eastern part where the so-called
ghettoes are populated by native Jews. Their political emancipation
has not raised them from the bottom of the social structure over the
heads of their Gentile neighbors. Nowhere is the average Jew so much
like the non-Jew in appearance, language, manners, and vocation than
the inhabitant of the Roman Ghetto on the bank of the Tiber. He is
engaged there in the petty trades of selling his olives, peaches, and
figs, and hires out as a journeyman in and outside his country. He
hawks with "cartiloni" and "ricordi di Roma" in front of the café
terraces, and his street waifs accost the foreigners for a "soldi."
Even at the door of his old-clothes shop you can hardly recognize in
him the Jew. It is this, more than the paucity of the number of Jews
in Italy, that explains the absence of anti-Jewish feeling there. For
the name Sacerdote by which Italian Cohens call themselves does not
suggest affluence, and the cognomen Levi does not necessarily
designate one's business.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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