494 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



antiquity the citizen was bound to be of the same religion as his city, 

 but the profession of this religion called for very slight obligations so far 

 as belief was concerned. In matters of faith, the Greek colonies were 

 not at all exacting. It was this very eclecticism which the Jews seemed 

 to hate and made him break with the world about him. The result 

 was that he almost always asked that he be granted special privileges, 

 and almost invariably got them. At the same time he was very careful 

 to insist upon having his common rights, so the result was that he was 

 almost universally hated throughout all the great cities, and was con- 

 stantly compelled to seek a renewal of his privileges. Very much the 

 same story is repeated in the Byzantine Empire, in Ostrogothic Italy, 

 in Prankish and Burgundian Gaul and in Visigothic Spain. In all 

 these countries the Jew was at first admitted without prejudice, and 

 received on the grounds of political and social equality. In all these 

 countries he subsequently became the object of hatred and persecution. 



During the middle ages, when the Jew was truly a wanderer upon 

 the face of the earth, and he scarcely knew which way to turn, he found 

 safe haven in the Kingdom of Poland : in fact, for one hundred years 

 after the charter of King Boleslas in 1264, the Jews had the privilege 

 of mixing freely with the Polish population, and even after the modifi- 

 cation of the charter they were never wholly cut off from this privilege. 

 Although Poland never actually persecuted them, and for a long period 

 of time really treated them on an equality with her own people, they 

 have never, as a body, taken any interest in any of the great political 

 and national questions with which she has been so continuously agi- 

 tated. The German colonist, settled long after the Jew, has lost every 

 trace of his nationality but his name. The Stuarts and O'Eourke's, who 

 sought refuge in the republic from a hostile government, have become 

 as ingrained in the Polish community as the Pole himself, but the Jew 

 is still a stranger. 



In France, the Jews enjoyed equal privileges until long after Chris- 

 tianity became an active issue. In Spain they were first admitted on 

 equal terms. The same in England. In all these countries they finally 

 became disagreeable to the mass of the people and restrictive legislation 

 was directed against them. As late as 1879 Germany experienced an 

 active anti-semitic movement. When the cause of the modern anti- 

 Jewish feeling is analyzed, it seems to have about the same basis that 

 it had before the time of Christ. In both cases it has been at bottom 

 essentially a question of manners. The Jew, as a class, is different 

 from the people among whom he has settled, and he has insisted that 

 he be given certain special privileges which serve to emphasize the dif- 

 ference rather than obliterate it. In other words, he is inherently clan- 

 nish. Wherever this clannishness has been forgotten and he has laid 

 aside, or kept in the background, the customs and mannerisms which 

 mark him as a peculiar person, he has been a welcome addition to the 



