Jews -- Periodicals; Jews -- United States -- Periodicals
The assimilation of different races can be brought about only by a
gradual acceptance of the same ideals and aspirations. For several
centuries this process of assimilation has been going on in many
parts of the earth, and is now going on at an accelerated pace,
resulting in larger conceptions of nationality and larger political or
governmental units.
_The Influence of Lofty Ideals on the Jewish Race_
The Jewish race affords the strongest instance of the influence on a
human stock of lofty ideals, persistently held wherever on the face of
the earth a fragment of the race has planted itself. In all
generations and in all environments the Jews have succeeded in
competition with other races to a remarkable degree. Among a poor
population they are less poor than their neighbors; among a free and
prosperous population the Jews become richer and more prosperous than
the average. Confined in unwholesome Ghettos, they retain to an
astonishing degree their health and vitality, helped doubtless by the
dietary and sanitary directions given in their ancient Scriptures.
Deprived of the right to bear arms in many countries, and, therefore,
unable to resist savage attack, they remain inextinguishable. Wherever
they become prosperous they develop an extraordinary community
feeling, and take care of their own poor or unfortunate. In short, in
all generations and in all their various environments they have
exhibited, and still exhibit, a remarkable racial tenacity and vigor.
It is manifest that this normal success of the race is not due to any
especially favorable material conditions, but to the rare strength and
significance of its ideals.
_"The Noblest of Human Ideals": Jewish Monotheism_
What are these ideals? What have they been for thousands of years? The
first of the Jewish ideals has been that of one God--the noblest of
all human ideals--early attained, and persistently clung to by the
whole race. Mohammedan monotheism is noble, and is the main source of
the strength of those races which have embraced the religion of
Mahomet; but the Mohammedan doctrine of One God arrived thousands of
years after the Jewish, and never was so pure. The most significant
sentence in the English speech is the first sentence of the Hebrew
Bible--"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." That
is the first of the Jewish ideals, to which the race has been true in
all environments, in weal and in woe; and that belief has delivered it
from many sorts of enfeebling and degrading terrors and superstitions.
_The Ideal of the Family_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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