Jewish Eugenics 



73 



tween dark-complexioned people was 

 not countenanced." 



"Raba advised every young man 

 not to marry a girl before he knew all 

 about her immediate family, especially 

 about her brothers, for 'children usually 

 inherit the traits of their mother's 

 brothers.' " 



"The attempt to limit the multiplica- 

 tion of the undesirable elements in the 

 Jewish race resulted in three kinds of 

 prohibitions. First, prohibition against 

 the marriage of defectives by reason of 

 heredity; secondly, the prohibition 

 against the marriage of personal defec- 

 tives; thirdly, the prohibition against 

 consanguineous marriages. 



"Besides the prohibition against de- 

 fective marriages mentioned in the 

 Mosaic code, the Talmud forbade one 

 to marry into a confirmed leprous or 

 epileptic family, or to marry a woman 

 who had buried three husbands. The 

 union between an old man and a young 

 girl was condemned in unequivocal 

 terms. Persons or families manifesting 

 continuous antagonism to each other 

 were advised not to intermarry. Great, 

 in the eyes of the Rabbis, was the offense 

 of him who married a woman from an 

 element classed among the unfit. His 

 act was as reprehensible as if he had 

 dug up every fertile field in existence 

 and sown it with salt. A quintuple 

 transgression was his, for which he will 

 be bound hand and foot by Elijah, the 

 great purifier, and flogged by God 

 himself. 'Woe unto him who deterio- 

 rates the quality of his children and 

 defiles the purity of his family,' is the 

 verdict of Elijah indorsed by God. On 

 the other hand, the mating of two per- 

 sons possessing unique and noble traits 

 cannot but result in the establishment 

 of superior and influential families. 

 When God will cause his Shechinah 

 to dwell in Israel, only such which have 

 scrupulously preserved the purity of 

 their families will be privileged to 

 witness the manifestation of the Holy 

 Spirit. 



REGARD FOR MENTAL TRAITS 



"The distinctive feature, however, of 

 Jewish eugenics lies in the greater 



emphasis laid on the psychical well- 

 being of posterity." The Rabbis relate 

 that when the question came up 

 whether or not the Gideonites shoiild be 

 permitted to intermarry with the chil- 

 dren of Israel, David tested them, in 

 order to ascertain not so much their 

 physical fitness but rather their psy- 

 chical fitness, and found them wanting 

 in three characters peculiar to Israel, 

 namely, sympathy, modesty, andphilan- 

 throphy. He, therefore, thought it 

 eugenically inadvisable to allow their 

 mating with a spiritually better-devel- 

 oped stock. 



"The Jew took his spiritual mission 

 as representing a 'kingdom of priests and 

 a holy kingdom' quite seriously, and 

 used all possible eugenic means to 

 preserve those rare emotional and 

 spiritual qualities developed during cen- 

 turies of slow progress and unfolding. 

 Intuitively, he felt the truth, so well 

 expressed by a modern student of 

 eugenics, that 'ReHgion would be a more 

 effective thing, if everybody had a 

 healthy emotional nature; but it can 

 do nothing with natures that have not 

 the elements of love, loyalty and 

 devotion.' The Rabbis would say: 

 Religion can do nothing with natures 

 that have not the elements of sympathy, 

 modesty and philanthrophy. Hence, 

 they urged that a man should be willing 

 to offer all his possessions for the 

 opportunity of marrying a member of a 

 psychically well-developed family. 



"The marriage between the offspring 

 of inferior stock and that of superior 

 stock, such as the marriage between a 

 scholar and the daughter of an am- 

 haarez, or between an am-haarez and 

 the daughter of a scholar, was considered 

 extremely undesirable, and was con- 

 demned very strongly. Moreover, no 

 Rabbi or Talniid Chacham was allowed 

 to take part in the celebration of such 

 a non-eugenic union. 



"An historical case is cited by Rabbi 

 Eliezer to prove that one should always 

 select his soiil-mate from amongst the 

 spiritually better-developed families. 

 Moses married a daughter of Jethro, a 

 heathen priest, and the result was 

 that one of his grandsons, Jonathan, 



