To a Jew such as this, nothing can be more intrinsically repugnant than the idea of marriage with a Christian--or, more accurately, with a Goy, which term is applied equally to all human beings who are not of Jewish faith and lineage. The average Caucasian would pretty certainly hesitate at the idea of marriage with a Mongolian. How much more positive would his hesitation be, if race antipathy were, as it is in the case of the Jews, reenforced by the terrors of a supernatural religion. It is no figure of speech, but a literal statement of the fact, to say that an orthodox Jewish father would rather have his son die than marry outside of Israel. He would prefer a funeral to such a wedding. Indeed, such a wedding would be regarded as equivalent to a funeral. The name of the bridegroom would be published among the names of the dead in the Jewish newspapers. His parents, his brothers and sisters, his nearest relatives, would put on mourning for him; and henceforward, if they should pass him in the street, they would refuse to recognize him. In the synagogue he would be excommunicated and cursed. All pious Jews would be enjoined from holding any intercourse whatever with him; from speaking with him; from buying of him, or selling to him; from giving him food, drink, clothing or shelter; from succoring him in danger or in sickness; even from pronouncing his name. “Be he accursed, and be his name forever accursed among men.” Furthermore, all pious Jews would cherish the conviction that sooner or later the vengeance of the Lord would overtake and overwhelm him. They would predict the direst calamities, the most fearful retribution. Superstition never pays attention to statistics, and is never shaken by them. No conceivable misfortune that can fasten upon a human being in this world, but they would promise it to him. Poverty, disease, disgrace; an adulterous wife; deformed children, unsound of mind and evil of heart; whatever the imagination can depict of horrible and disastrous would inevitably fall to his lot. In this faith, among these traditions, Elias Bacharach had grown up. For hundreds, for thousands, of years, his ancestors on every side had nourished these superstitions. * * It would seem hardly necessary, yet it is no more than fair to say that among the better-educated and more intelligent Jews in America, orthodoxy of this stripe is not common. Even among them, notwithstanding, it prevails to a sufficient extent; and among the ignorant classes it is the rule. It is a curious circumstance, however, that, in the majority of cases, those very Jews who have cast quite loose from their Judaism, and proclaim themselves “free-thinkers,” “agnostics,” or what not, retain their prejudice against intermarriage, and even their superstitions anent its consequences.