JEWISH EUGENICS 



Perpetuation of the Race Explained by Application of Sound Biological Principles 



— Marriage Held in High Esteem and Its Success 



Measured by Eugenic Standard 



THROUGHOUT its history, the 

 Jewish race has been subject to 

 x'icissitudes greater than those 

 which have caused the disappear- 

 ance of many another people. Yet the 

 Jews have maintained to a considerable 

 degree their racial homogeneity and 

 to a high degree their average of 

 intellectual quality. 



Racial survival under such difficulties, 

 and racial continuity in so varied 

 environments, must permit explanation 

 in terms of eugenics, and Rabbi Max 

 Reichler,' among other students, has 

 attemi)ted such an interpretation. 



"To be sure," he says, "eugenics as a 

 science could hardly have existed among 

 the ancient Jews ; but many eugenic rules 

 were certainly incorporated in the 

 large collection of Biblical and Rabbin- 

 ical laws. Indeed there are clear indica- 

 tions of a conscious effort to utilize all 

 influences that might imj^rove the inborn 

 qualities of the Jewish race, and to guard 

 against any practice that might vitiate 

 the ])urity of the race, or 'impair the 

 racial qualities of future generations' 

 either physically, mentally, or morally. 

 The Jew approached the matter of sex 

 relationship neither with the horror 

 of the prude, nor with the passionate 

 eagerness of the pagan, but with the 

 sane and sound attitude of the far- 

 seeing prophet. His goal was the 

 creation of the ideal home, which to 

 him meant the abode of jDurity and 

 hapinness, the source of strength and 

 vigor for body and mind. 



"The very founder of the Jewish race, 

 the patriarch Abraham, recognized the 

 importance of certain inherited qualities, 



and insisted that the wife of his 'only 

 beloved son' should not come from the 

 'daughters of the Canaanites,' but 

 from the seed of a superior stock. 



"Abraham's servant, Eliezer, so the 

 Midrash states, desired to offer his own 

 daughter to Isaac, but his master 

 sternly rebuked him, saying: 'Thou art 

 cursed, and my son is blessed, and it 

 does not behoove the cursed to mate 

 with the blessed, and thus deteriorate 

 the quality of the race.' " 



"Early marriages were praised as 

 most desirable. Rabbi Ishmael claimed 

 that God was greatly disj^leased with 

 the man who did not marr>- before the 

 age of 20. Rav Hunah refused to see 

 Rav Hamnuna, a man of great repute, 

 after the former discovered that his 

 visitor was a bachelor. . . . Among 

 the seven types not acceptable before 

 God are included both the unmarried 

 man and the married man without 

 children." 



THE OHJKCTS OF MARRI.\GE 



"The Rabbis, like the eugenists of 

 today, measured the success of a 

 marriage by the number and quality 

 of the offspring. In their judgments the 

 main objects of marriage were the 

 reproduction of the human race, and 

 the augmentation of the favored stock. 

 Hence they advised that an extremely 

 tall man should not marry an extremely 

 tall woman, lest the children be 

 awkwardly tall; nor should one of 

 short stature marry a woman of the 

 same size, lest their offspring be 

 dwarfed. For the same reason, the 

 intermarriage between blonds or be- 



' Jewish Eugenics and other essays: three papers read before the New York Board of Jewish 

 Ministers, 1915. I, Jewish Euj^enics, liy Rahhi Nlax Reiihler; II, The Defective in Jewish Law 

 and Literature, by Rabbi Joel Ulau; IH, Caoital I'liiiishnunt among the Jews, by Rev. l^r. D. 

 de Sola Pool. New York: Bloch Publishin{^ C'o., 1910. The lectures are copiously ;mnotated with 

 reference to the original sources. 



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