ARE THE JEWS A "PURE RACE"? 71 



constitute eighty per cent, of all the Jews in the world. Does this 

 uniformity indicate unity of race? Not at all, according to Dr. Fish- 

 berg. The gentiles in these regions, who, we know, are of different races, 

 also have remarkably uniform heads. It follows that the Jews acquired 

 their uniformity of head-shape by fusion with their non-Jewish neigh- 

 bors. That is to say : When Jewish heads are various in shape, it proves 

 that the blood of various races flows in their veins, and when their 

 heads do not vary much in shape, the same thing is proved. On one 

 page Dr. Fishberg writes as if head-form were an unchangeable racial 

 characteristic — on that page, since the heads of Jews in Europe, Africa, 

 and Asia vary — the Jews are not a race. On another page, the Jews are 

 not a race for the opposite reason, namely, because eighty per cent, of 

 them have heads of the same shape — since it happens that the many 

 gentile races living in the same part of the world also have similar 

 heads ! 



Dr. Fishberg introduces his table showing how much alike are the 

 heads of the Jews in eastern Europe with a remark from Professor Kip- 

 ley's " Races of Europe." " The perfect monotony and uniformity of 

 environment of the Russian people," says Ripley, " is most clearly 

 expressed anthropologically in their head-form." If the environment 

 is clearly expressed in the head-form of the gentiles, why is it 

 not also expressed in the head-form of the Jews ? The Jews have lived 

 in that environment for the last ten centuries, at least. Would Dr. Fish- 

 berg suggest that Jewish heads alone are impervious to environmental 

 influence? That environment has an effect upon head-form has been 

 confirmed by the recently published measurements of Professor Boas on 

 30,000 immigrants and their descendants. These measurements show 

 that, " The head-form undergoes far-reaching changes due to the trans- 

 fer of the races of Europe to American soil. The east European 

 Hebrew, who has a very round head, becomes more long-headed ; the 

 south Italian, who in Italy has an exceedingly long head, becomes more 

 short-headed ; so that both approach a uniform type in this country so 

 far as roundness of the head is concerned ... we are compelled to 

 conclude that when these features of the body change, the whole bodily 

 and mental make-up of the immigrants may change." Environment, it 

 thus appears, may act directly upon Jewish heads as well as upon 

 Russian or Italian. 



Head-form has been regarded by anthropologists as the most stable 

 of racial characteristics. If that, together with " the whole bodily and 

 mental make-up of immigrants, may change," one need hardly be sur- 

 prised to find that color of eye and hair too are modifiable by environ- 

 ment. Dr. Fishberg does not, however, allow such a possibility to 

 disturb the serene course of his argument. You may mix colors by inter- 

 marriage of races, but nothing else can affect their everlasting fixedness. 



