ARE THE JEWS A "PURE RACE"? 75 



the comparatively immune. That dietary scrupulousness has had 

 nothing to do with lowering the mortality from tuberculosis, argues Dr. 

 Fishberg, is proved by the fact that the Jews in Harlem, who have 

 become more indifferent to dietary regulations, are less susceptible to 

 the disease than the Jews on the East Side. Here we have a very 

 palpable example of Dr. Fishberg's special pleading and his effort to 

 support his thesis even at the expense of consistency. If it be true, as 

 he says, that Jews become more addicted to alcoholism as they emerge 

 from the Ghetto, and if alcoholism is one of the chief causes of suscepti- 

 bility to tuberculosis, then why are not the Jews of Harlem, emanci- 

 pated from the Ghetto and more alcoholic as they are, according to the 

 author, more rather than less susceptible to tuberculosis than the Jews 

 on the East Side ? 



When no other explanation than race, or habits governed by religious 

 or moral ideas, occurs to him, Dr. Fishberg prefers to plead ignorance 

 rather than admit the effectiveness of these causes. He grudgingly 

 confirms, for example, the comparative immunity of Jews from cancer. 

 The striking exemption of Jewish women, especially, from cancer of the 

 uterus has been confirmed by many physicians and Dr. Fishberg also 

 affirms it. As usual, race and diet have been offered as explanations. 

 Dr. Fishberg refrains from presenting a counter explanation because of 

 the meagerness of our knowledge of the nature of cancer, but dismisses 

 without another word the explanations that have been suggested. 



If ever one would be justified in looking to religious and moral 

 peculiarities for causes, it would surely be when dealing with statistics 

 of crime. The Jews, Dr. Fishberg argues, are not a racial unit. They 

 are some sort of a unit, or Dr. Fishberg's book would be without a sub- 

 ject and without a title. Call them a religious community, then, 

 although scattered over the whole world. It is hardly necessary to 

 dwell upon the close relationship between Jewish religion and Jewish 

 morals. The Ten Commandments, the preaching of the Prophets, the 

 minute legislation of the Talmud, all are aimed at regulating conduct. 

 Can we assume that the Jews have remained a religious community for 

 so many centuries, bound together by loyalty to these moral maxims, 

 incessantly rehearsing and teaching them, without an appreciable effect 

 upon actual practise? Dr. Fishberg's position implies that we must 

 make this assumption. The statistics of Jewish criminality in those 

 countries where they have been kept are remarkable. In Hungary, for 

 instance, in 1904, there was 10.5 times as much manslaughter, 9 times 

 as much robbery, 7 times as much homicide, 6.3 times as much assault, 

 4.23 times as much arson, in proportion to their numbers by Christians 

 as by Jews. Similar statistics are available from several other countries. 

 On the other hand, more Jews than Christians were convicted of bank- 

 ruptcy, duelling, usury, fraud, perjury and forgery. 



