ARE THE JEWS A "PURE RACE"? 73 



the intermingling proceeds by chance, that there are neither artificial 

 accelerations nor restrictions. Admit, however, that the mingling does 

 not go on by chance, that there is a much more powerful tendency for 

 kind to mate with kind than for intermarriage, and admit, further, that 

 all the children of mixed marriages are drained off into one of the 

 groups, leaving after the second or third generation none in the other, 

 and you have a totally different result. Your smaller group, from 

 which the offspring of intermarriage are drained off into the larger, 

 will remain pure for ages, and a more interesting problem than of the 

 purity of the smaller group arises, viz., the extent to which its constant 

 losses have leavened the larger group. 



It has been suggested by Professor Eipley that the Jewish type, if 

 not due to racial continuity, may be due to choice, or, in other words, to 

 sexual selection. Others have pointed out that in the principle of sexual 

 selection we have an explanation for the resemblance between the 

 Jews and the gentiles in every country where they live together. The 

 gentile type being the dominant one, it becomes a distinction and a 

 social advantage for a Jew to be of the gentile type. The gentile type 

 of manhood and of beauty, commonly bolder, freer and happier than the 

 Jewish, excites the admiration and envy of the victims of oppression. 

 Hence, the gentile features are prized, selected and preserved. Dr. 

 Fishberg agrees with Professor Eipley as to the effectiveness of sexual 

 selection, but he denies that the gentile type would be the one selected. 

 He contends that the Ghetto Jew abhors the gentile type. On this point 

 we have only his own unsupported opinion. When it suits his purpose, 

 Dr. Fishberg sees nothing but the Ghetto. He seems to forget the very 

 considerable periods of comparative freedom the Jews have enjoyed in 

 Europe. And what becomes of his thesis at this point? How could 

 the intermarriages that he is so sure have taken place if there had al- 

 Avays existed an abhorrence for the gentile type? 



Dr. Fishberg finds nothing racially distinctive in any of the com- 

 monly alleged vital, social or moral characteristics of the Jews. Their 

 great " tenacity of life " has often been spoken of. Statistics from the 

 United States Census confirm the opinion as to their lower mortality. 

 In the census for 1900 it is shown that their death rate is astonishingly 

 below that of other people living under the same conditions. In three 

 of the most crowded wards of New York city the mortality of the Jews 

 was 17 per thousand; whereas the mortality of the Germans living under 

 the same conditions was 22, of the Irish 36, and of the native Americans 

 45. Dr. Fishberg remarks upon this phenomenon that what we have 

 here is not a racial characteristic. The low death rate of the Jews is 

 not due to " tenacity of life " ; in fact, adult Jews die as soon as other 

 adults. The figures of the census merely indicate the fact of a low 

 infant mortality, and this is due not to any racial peculiarity but to the 



