PROGRESSIVE WORLD STRUGGLE OF THE JEWS 



15 



and religious freedom to the Jews, but 

 brought into the various parliaments a 

 number of the leading Jews, and from 

 that time on they have had little real 

 trouble with the law in Austria, Ger- 

 many, France, Holland, and England. 



In Spain the Inquisition was revoked 

 in 1834, and the Jews have since been in- 

 vited back. By the Congress of Berlin, 

 in 1878, to which I shall refer more in de- 

 tail later, the Jews secured political and 

 civil equality in Bulgaria and Serbia. 

 Turkey had already granted it to them. 



On the whole, then, at the present 

 time, the sons of Israel have little to com- 

 plain of in statutory law except in Ru- 

 mania and Russia. This is not to say 

 that they do not encounter social preju- 

 dice in all countries, which in some coun- 

 tries has grown into bitter Anti-Semi- 

 tism and popular agitation against them. 



Prejudice cannot be banished by law. 

 It can only fade out as conditions pro- 

 ducing it change. It of course affects the 

 happiness and comfort of them against 

 whom it is directed ; but it does not limit 

 their useful activities nor the achieve- 

 ments of great success. 



why are: the: jews persecuted ? 



What are the reasons for this almost 

 constant persecution of the Jews from 

 the fourth century to the nineteenth? I 

 regret to say that it must be mainly at- 

 tributed to the religious intolerance of 

 the Christians. Other causes may be 

 pointed out in the characteristics of the 

 race which mistreatment and self-protec- 

 tion either developed or increased and 

 hardened. But, in the last analysis, the 

 initial cause was in religious prejudice. 



We find this prejudice in the hostility 

 of Constantine after his conversion; we 

 find it in the bulls of the Popes, begin- 

 ning in the fourth century and continu- 

 ing through the Middle Ages to the 

 Council of Trent, in 1563; we find it in 

 the course of St. Louis of France ; we 

 find it in the religious frenzy of Queen 

 Eleanor of England, of Elizabeth of 

 Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria; 

 we find it in the Inquisition in Spain ; we 

 find it in the words of Martin Luther 

 against them. 



Luther said; "Why should the Jews 

 complain of their captivity among us? 



We Christians suffered persecution and 

 criticism at their hands for nearly three 

 hundred years, so that we might com- 

 plain that they took us captives and killed 

 us, and to this very day we know not 

 what devil brought them into our land. 

 We did not bring them from Jerusalem. 

 Besides that, no one keeps them. The 

 country and the roads are open to them. 

 Let them return to their own land. We 

 will gladly give them presents if we can 

 be rid of them, for they are a heavy bur- 

 den upon us, a plague, a pestilence, a 

 sore trial." 



FORCED TO MAINTAIN THEIR 

 EXCLUSIVENESS 



We find the same spirit of religious 

 persecution in the reintroduction by Pius 

 VII of the Inquisition against the Jews 

 and his ordinance that the Jews should 

 forfeit the freedom enjoyed under the 

 first Napoleon's rule in Rome and for- 

 sake their beautiful houses and return to 

 the Ghetto ; and we find it today in the 

 attitude of the Russian Greek Church and 

 the severe methods adopted to secure the 

 baptism of the Jews. 



The persecutions which this religious 

 prejudice has engendered have stimu- 

 lated the Jews in self-protection to main- 

 tain their exclusiveness, to continue their 

 religious life and rigid adherence to their 

 ceremonials, and to avoid assimilation 

 with such an uncomfortable and hostile 

 environment. 



It increased their intense activity, their 

 cunning in business, in order that they 

 might live at all against such opposition, 

 and it produced in them the traits that arc 

 now made the basis for denouncing them. 



In 1877, Russia declared war against 

 Turkey because of the atrocities com- 

 mitted by the Turks against the Christian 

 peoples in the Balkans, and ultimately 

 won the war. She made the treaty oi 

 San Stephano with Turkey, and then the 

 great Powers insisted that there must be 

 a congress to revise that treaty. 



RELIGIOUS AND CIVIL LIBERTY URGED 



The congress was called at Berlin in 

 1878 and under it were established the 

 separate governments of Serbia, P>ul- 

 garia, and Rumania, who thus really 

 owed their freedom to Russia. 



