5 
 
 073 
 
 071 
 
 An Historical Stuck 
 
 BY 
 
 KHV. DR. ISAAC SCHWAB 
 
 (839 East B2d Street, New York.) 
 
 PRICE, 23 CENTS. 
 
 NK\V YORK. : 
 
 ')F THK HKBRKW oRI'HAX ASVI.l'M.
 
 BE PATRIOTS? 
 
 An Historical Study 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. DR. ISAAC SCHWAB, 
 
 (339 East 32d Street, New York.) 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL OF THE HEBREW ORPHAN ASYLUM, 
 
 76TH STREET, BETWEEN THIRD AND LEXINGTON AVENUES. 
 
 1878.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, 
 
 By BEV. DB. ISAAC SCHWAB, 
 in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington
 
 CAN JEWS BE PATRIOTS? 
 
 ARE the Jews able to love and cling to the country of their 
 birth or adoption ? 
 
 Professor Goldwin Smith, of England, denies it It was 
 during England's political complications with Russia that he, 
 in an article entitled: "England's Abandonment of tne Pro- 
 tectorate of Turkey," expressed himself: "They have now 
 been everywhere made voters; to make them patriots while 
 they remain genuine Jews, is beyond the legislator's power." 
 In another paper he plainly charges the English Jews with 
 using their influence towards drawing England into a war, and 
 asks that, in the presence of such political danger, the exercise 
 of political power be watched rather closely. He pretends 
 also to know that the ruling motives of the Jewish commu- 
 nity are not exclusively those which actuate a patriotic 
 Englishman, but are specially Jewish and plutopolitan. 
 
 The Jews are to him a "jealously separate race," Judaism 
 is a " distinction of race," ' and an English Jew is not an 
 " Englishman holding particular theological tenets, he is a 
 Jew with a special deity for his own race." 2 Consequently, 
 he argues, the English Jews cannot love their country and 
 boar allegiance to it. He demands that they "cease their 
 clinging to this miserable idolatry of race, which has in the 
 
 1 Rev. Robert Hall gives us credit for being the " depositaries of 
 true religion." 
 
 '-' James Anthony Froude has it. that among the ancient Hebrews 
 God was the supreme Lord of the world. Did we degenerate since 
 from this faith ? 
 
 2117235
 
 present actually lost its character," and then they could be 
 regarded as loyal citizens and patriots. What in his opinion 
 disables them most from becoming such, is their refusal of 
 intermarriage, for, says he, "It would be difficult to name 
 anything more distinctive of those relations with the rest of 
 the community on which patriotism depends, than the refusal of 
 intermarriage. Mere soil is not the country, but the soil 
 inhabited by the race, the race which is in every sense ours, 
 and to which \ve are proud and happy to belong." He would 
 not let them pass as full citizens, unless they submit to inter- 
 marriage, though he is generous enough not to wish them 
 deprived of their emancipation, should they even conclude to 
 remain "genuine, strict'' Jews. It is only this class of Jews 
 to whom lie would deny the possibility of being patriots, 
 while to the rest, the liberal who are on a level with the the- 
 ists, stripped of every Jewish peculiarity, he concedes the 
 right to that name. 
 
 Such extravagant reasoning is Professor Smith's ! Dr. Her- 
 mann Adler, of London, ably refuted some of his arguments 
 in the April number of the Nineteenth Century, leaving, how- 
 ever, ample scope for others to take up the same task. I, for 
 my part, shall also review the Professor's assertions, in the 
 following pages. 
 
 Let me, at the outset, ask in the name of common sense: 
 Would an English Je\v, if England were threatened with im- 
 mediate danger, fail to stand up resolutely with his Christian 
 compatriots to defend her, because he keeps the Sabbath and 
 not the Sunday ? Would he refuse to offer nis money or his 
 strength on the altar of patriotism, because he has never been 
 baptized ? Does the Jewish religion forbid patriotic senti- 
 ments and actions? I defy any one to prove it from the 
 Bible or the Talmud. Professor Smith could, after some 
 inquiry, have found just the contrary statement in a Catechism
 
 for the Jewish youth of England, written by Ascher, which 
 I presume is yet in use there. In that book we find the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 " Has the Jew a fatherland besides Jerusalem * 
 
 "Yes, the country wherein lie is bred and born, and in 
 which he has the liberty to practise his religion, and where 
 he is allowed to carry on traffic and trade, and to enjoy all 
 the advantages and protection of the law, in common with 
 the citizens of other creeds, this country the Israelite is bound 
 to acknowledge as his fatherland, to the benefit of which he 
 must do his best to contribute. The sovereign who rules 
 over this land is (after God) his sovereign ; its laws, so long 
 as they are not contradictory to the Divine Law, are also the 
 Israelite's laws ; and the duties of his fellow-citizens are also 
 his duties." 
 
 This catechism was written by a "strict" Jew, as the 
 orthodox turn of the quoted question indicates, and for the 
 "genuine " Jewish youth. From it they are assuredly taught 
 to love their country. Since, then, the Sabbath-school does 
 not foster notions of unpatriotic separatism, where else does 
 the English youth gather them ? At home, perhaps, in their 
 intercourse with their parents? I need not hesitate solemnly 
 to declare, in the name of all Jewish parents of England, may 
 they be ever so " genuine and strict," that they would reject 
 the idea of teaching their children that they are not by their 
 religion and conscience bound to love and abide by their 
 country. 
 
 What is one's country? Certainly not the mere soil, as 
 Professor Smith himself truly says, and as everybody will 
 admit. Not the soil, nor the climate or latitude, where a 
 certain number of men settle together, makes this habitation 
 their country, but their society organized on the basis of 
 right, justice, and humanity. The confederation of all those
 
 6 
 
 inhabitants by the ties of common laws and human rights 
 makes their surroundings their country, may they differ ever 
 so widely from one another in their religious persuasions. 
 Where the law of the commonwealth protects their interests, 
 and permits them to enjoy life un marred by illegal encroach- 
 ments, they, in turn, will be its true friends, whether they be 
 Christians, Jews, or Mohammedans. Nor should the national 
 descent, foreign or native, or the relations of race and the 
 peculiar complexion, be made a test of one's attachment to 
 his country. For, as the wise Nathan rejoins to the bigot 
 Templar, "we have not ourselves made choice of our race." 
 And the foreigner having settled in that land permanently, 
 and interwoven his interests with those of the native citizens, 
 will just as heartily be devoted to it as they, provided he have 
 equal rights and liberties, untainted by sectarian prejudices, 
 or the fanaticism of race. He will be devoted to it both as a 
 matter of course and of necessity ; that is, from gratitude for 
 the protection enjoyed, as well as from the latent motive of 
 self-interest. And, I think, the assertion can easily be sus- 
 tained, that this motive is not altogether foreign to thousands 
 of non-Jews glorying in their patriotism. They are necessa- 
 rily concerned in the welfare and safety of their country. 
 When it is imperilled, their own interests are so also, and 
 therefore they watch jealously over their territory, securing 
 it from the invasion of foreigners, whu would injure their 
 property, and use all sorts of violence against them. Com- 
 mon patriotism is not so much ardent affection for the 
 general good, as implicit or disguised love for one's own 
 fireside. 
 
 But, agreeing that all patriotism springs from pure senti- 
 ments of gratitude and disinterested attachment to one's 
 country, is the Jew incapable of such virtues? As little as 
 he is incapable of tender love to his parents. He will very
 
 rarely be found lacking in this supreme virtue. It is infused 
 into his mind from his early childhood as the most sacred 
 obligation. We may then safely conclude that, if one is ten- 
 derly attached to his parents for being his kindest benefac- 
 tors, he will bear a similar love to his country, if it also 
 prove a true benefactor to him. 
 
 He cannot be expected, however, to love it more than his 
 parents, to demand which, as Cicero did in his treatise upon 
 duties, would be quite unnatural. He says : " Dear are the 
 parents, the children, the relatives and friends, yet the 
 endearments of all these are comprised in the one common 
 country, for which no good man will hesitate to give up his 
 life, could he serve and benefit it thereby." Such a doctrine 
 was tit to be preached in Rome, to a martial nation, given to 
 the vainglory of subduing all the rest of the world to their 
 iron rule. It is yet preached by the mercenaries of despotic 
 governments, to inflame the passions of the masses for a war 
 of invasion or revenge upon another nation. Judaism never 
 made such an extreme demand upon the human heart as to 
 hold patriotism the highest duty of all, but simply enjoins it 
 as great and sacred. 
 
 And the Jews commonly heeded this injunction. They 
 loved their country under all circumstances, and were ever 
 ready to sacrifice individual interests and, eventually, their 
 lives, for its integrity and safety. It was not because their 
 ancient country had the name of Palestine that they loved it 
 so dearly, but because they cherished the inherited belief of 
 God superintending it specially for the sake of their fore- 
 fathers, with whom He had made a covenant; and their 
 polity was founded on the venerable Law of Moses, which, 
 if properly followed and executed, would secure to them a 
 state of peaceful progress ; besides that, the national temple 
 was their religious centre, exercising a powerful attraction
 
 upon them. Had another country in the West, affording 
 them like advantages, been assigned to them, they would 
 have been given to it with the same degree of devotion as 
 they were to Palestine. 
 
 They lost their country to the Babylonian conqueror 
 Nebuchadnezzar, and were sorely grieved. What nation 
 would not have been grieved at having to surrender their 
 dear country and its acustomed institutions ? Does it follow 
 therefrom that, if the exiles found in the new country shelter- 
 ing homes and friendly protection, they had to be forever 
 embittered about their loss, holding themselves forlorn stran- 
 gers amidst kindly benefactors, and continue regardless of the 
 well-being of others, caring only for themselves ? By no 
 means. It is true that at the first time they were subjected to 
 many hardships ;' and they could not have loved their hea- 
 then masters who treated them cruelly and scoffed at their 
 religion. But we know they were not of very long duration. 
 The exiles must have materially been encouraged, too, by the 
 exhortations of the inspired prophets who shared their exile 
 with them, such as Ezekiel and the second Isaiah, the great 
 unknown. Jeremiah's pathetic appeals, who communicated 
 with them from Jerusalem, were also to that effect. 
 
 These prophets pointed out to them the sure though slow 
 arrival of the divine help and deliverance from their captivity. 
 Thus their grief subsided in course of time, and they endur- 
 ed their existing dependence as best they could. They took 
 up various pursuits in which they were left unmolested, and 
 became gradually used to the new order of things. 
 
 While continuing to cherish the hope of restoration, they 
 did not fail in their duties to the Babylonian government, 
 which for the most part consisted in paying taxes to it, their 
 
 1 See Isaiah xlii. 22, li. 13 ; Ps. cxxxiv., cxxix.
 
 communal and common affairs being, from the beginning of 
 the captivity, conducted by a ruler of their own, the so-called 
 Exilarch ; the first one was Shealthiel, the grandson of the 
 exiled prince Jehoiachin. In his family this dignity was 
 inherited till the eleventh century of the Common Era. 
 
 To be loyal to their gentile rulers they were heartily ad- 
 vised by Jeremiah in a letter sent to them from Jerusalem : 
 " Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens and 
 eat the fruit of them ; take ye wives, . . . and take wives for 
 your sons. . . . And seek the peace of every city whither I 
 have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto 
 the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace " 
 (Jerem. xxix. 5-7). They had also a noble example of true 
 loyalty in Daniel, who was made ruler over the whole province 
 of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. ii. 48), and served as 
 minister both to Darius the Mede, and to Cyrus (ib. vi. 29). ' 
 He knew how to combine the duties of a loyal citizen and 
 true patriot with a profound veneration and pious longing 
 for the holy city. After praying three times a day, with his 
 face turned to Jerusalem (Dan. vi. 11), or after his fervent 
 supplication that " God may cause his face to shine again 
 upon His sanctuary that is desolate," he could with refreshed 
 spirits return to the duties of his post and discharge them 
 not the less faithfully for having once more expressed that 
 veneration and longing for the city and site of Israel's deso- 
 late sanctuary. He was, no doubt, for all his attachment to 
 the far-off holy city, as true to his charge, as any minister of 
 a modern Christian state can be to his. 
 
 The rest of the Jewish exiles were also, for aught we know, 
 
 1 The Assyrian kings had already Israelites as public officers. King 
 Salnianasar made Tobit his purveyor. Esarhaddon appointed the lat- 
 ter's nephew Achiacharus over his father's accounts, and over all his 
 affairs (Tobit i. 13, 21).
 
 10 
 
 dutiful citizens to the Babylonian and afterward Persian 
 rulers, though they at the same time yearned for restoration. 
 Cyrus would certainly not have given them permission to 
 return and rebuild the city and temple (Ezra v. 14 ; Josephus, 
 Ant., xi., 1), had they not deserved such royal favor by their 
 loyalty to him. Nor would Artaxerxes I. have granted Ezra, 
 the scribe, so large a commission and bountiful presents for 
 the temple, and allowed all the Jews who desired it to accom- 
 pany him to Jerusalem in 459 (Ezra vii.), or shown such kind 
 regard to his Jewish cup-bearer Nehemiah, had all of them 
 not proved worthy of his kindness. 
 
 ''There was," says Rawlinson, "a friendly intimacy 
 between the Persians and Jews that caused the latter to 
 continue faithful to Persia to the last, and to brave the 
 conqueror of Issus (Joseph , Ant., xi., 8, 3), rather than 
 desert masters who had showed them kindness and sym- 
 pathy. 1 
 
 After the defeat of the last Achaemenian monarch, Darius 
 Codomannus, they were also faithful to Alexander the 
 Great and his successors in Syria and Egypt. "They 
 fought in the armies of Xerxes against the Greeks, in the 
 service of the Syrians against Rome and Egypt, as well 
 as in the latter country against its foes from without. 
 Antiochus the Great intrusted two thousand Babylonian 
 Jews with guarding his provinces Lydia and Phrygia, 
 where a sedition had broken out; for, wrote he to his 
 general Zeuxis, " I am persuaded that they will be well- 
 disposed guardians of our possessions, because of their 
 piety towards God, and because . . . they are faithful, 
 and with alacrity do what they are desired to do." 2 Another 
 
 1 The Five Great Monarchies, Vol. IV., p. 340. 
 
 2 Jos. Ant., xii., 3, 3.
 
 11 
 
 Syrian king, Demetrius, granted to the Maccabee Jon- 
 athan that there be enrolled among the king's forces about 
 thirty thousand Jews, unto whom pay shall be given . . . and 
 of them some shall be placed in the king's strongholds, 
 of whom also some shall be set over the affairs of the 
 kingdom which are of trust." 1 
 
 When the Parthians ruled over Babylonia, the Jews were 
 likewise faithful to them. They even joined their armies in 
 their expeditions to the West, especially against Jerusalem. 2 
 The Arsacidan governors were generally tolerant in religious 
 matters, 3 which must have also benefited the Jews. Their 
 sympathy for them was in proportion to the kind treatment 
 they received at their hands. It is best illustrated by the 
 saying of a rabbi of old, who compared their hosts with those 
 of king David. 4 But for all their attachment to the Par- 
 thian rulers and their country, the Babylonian Jews did not 
 relax their pious veneration for Jerusalem and its temple. 
 They made their pilgrimage there in the holy seasons (Jos., 
 Ant, xvii., 2), paid their yearly contribution of half a shekel 
 to wards the national sanctuary (ib., xviii., 9), and made them- 
 selves, besides, dependent on the instructions and decisions 
 of the great council, the Synhedrin, residing at Jerusalem, 
 especially in calendarial matters. All this dependence on the 
 mother country had. however, only a religious bearing. In 
 political respects, they felt themselves children of Babylonia, 
 and were devoted to it and its rulers from their heart. 
 Gradually even this religious dependence on Jerusalem 
 decreased. When the temple was no more and the culti- 
 vation of religious science had, through prominent rabbis of 
 
 1 1 Mace. x. 36. See Jost, History of Judaism, I., p. 2f)">. 
 5 Jost, ib., p. 338. 
 
 3 Vaux, History of Persia, p. 154. 
 
 4 Kidushin, p. 72.
 
 12 
 
 their own academies, as those of Suva and Nehardea, ad- 
 vanced so far that they needed no longer support from the 
 mother country, the Babylonian Jews tried to liberate them- 
 selves from this dependence. 1 This was in the latter part of 
 the second century Com. Era. From this time Babylonia was 
 respected as another holy land. 
 
 To one great Babylonian, Mar Samuel, who was at that 
 time president of the academy of Nehardea, belongs the 
 memorable maxim : " The law of the country has to rule 
 us," were it even in conflict with some of our religious cus- 
 toms. This maxim met with no opposition from other 
 rabbis, but was readily adopted and observed by all the Jews 
 thereafter. A modern Jewish historian, Gratz, says of it, 
 that eminent Babylonian rabbi translated Jeremiah's admo- 
 nition of old into a religious precept, and that to both these 
 leading men Judaism owed the possibility of its existence in 
 foreign l.inds. 2 
 
 Samuel's disciple, Rab Judah, pronounced it even a sin to 
 emigrate from Babylonia to Palestine, and this saying was 
 quite congenial to the sentiments of all the Jewish people 
 there, who had a profound love of their country at heart. 
 
 Samuel's patriotic labors tended materially to soften the 
 sectarian prejudices nourished against the Jews through the 
 fanatic Magi, who arose to great influence when Ardeshir, the 
 first Sassanian king, assumed the reins of the Parthian gov- 
 ernment, in 226, Common Era. Samuel was a true friend to 
 his son and successor, Sapores, and supported him with all his 
 might and influence ; he, on his part, was very p riendly to his 
 Jewish subjects, much like Cyrus of old. 3 
 
 After following up the history of the exiles and their 
 
 1 See Mar Samuel's Life by Hoffman, p. '65. 
 
 2 History of the Jews, IV. , p. 288. 
 
 3 Hoffman, p. 46.
 
 18 
 
 descendants in Babylonia through more than eight cen- 
 turies, and proving from it, as we did, their patriotism to 
 the various gentile governments, let us also review briefly 
 the bearing of the Egyptian Jews in those remote periods. 
 
 Those of Alexandria in Egypt were also faithful citizens, 
 and equal rights with the Macedonians were given them by 
 Alexander the Great, "because he had, upon a careful trial, 
 found them all to have been men of virtue and fidelity to 
 him " (Josephus against Apion, ii., 4). Ptolemy, son of 
 Lagus, " intrusted the fortresses of Egypt into their hands, 
 as believing they would keep them faithfully and valiantly 
 for him " (ib.). Ptolemy Philometor and his wife Cleopatra 
 "committed their whole kingdom to Jews, when Onias and 
 Dositheus, both Jews, were the generals of their army " (ib.). 
 These Jews, loyal to the crown, brought also the insurgent 
 Alexandrians "to terms of agreement, and freed them from 
 the miseries of a civil war." And it was Onias who "under- 
 took a war against the usurper Ptolemy Physco, on 
 Cleopatra's account ; nor would he desert that trust the royal 
 family had reposed in him, in their distress." His army was 
 mainly composed of Jews, as is evident from Josephus' 
 report. And these Jews were as loyal and patriotic to the 
 Egyptian line as the English race ever could be to Her 
 Majesty in any critical condition of her empire. 
 
 Speak of patriotism as the exclusive property of the 
 "English race," when the Egyptian Jews, though followers 
 of Jehovah, had already in such a remote period, from 
 Alexander to Augustus, proved a sincere and valorous 
 devotion to gentile governments ! They were as little urged 
 to it by a "Jewish and plutopolitan motive," as any descen- 
 dant of the Saxons, who worshipped the great Woden, the 
 German god of war, can ever be suspected of a similar motive, 
 when called by his country to defend and protect her interests.
 
 14 
 
 Let us also examine Jewish patriotism in the time of the 
 Maccabees. For although their only aim was to save the 
 Jewish state and religious institutions from the reckless 
 violence of the Syrians, it must be conceded that people who 
 are so warmly attached to their country as to fly to arms and 
 fight bravely for maintaining and restoring civil and religious 
 liberty to themselves and their countrymen, are patriots 
 indeed, whether they hail from the East or the West, and 
 be their religious creed whatever it may. Such stanch and 
 heroic men, urged by the dictates of their brave spirit to 
 help rescuing their country from present or impending perils, 
 would do the same and manifest the same patriotic zeal for 
 the threatened interests of England or America as for Judea. 
 Politically, Judea was to the Maccabees no more and no 
 dearer than England or America is to any of her present 
 Jewish citizens, enjoying as they do equally with those of the 
 Christian faith all civil rights and the beneficial protection 
 of the law. History exhibits no more illustrious patterns of 
 patriotism than the Maccabees. When Antiochus Epiphaues 
 issued and enforced his edict that all the Jews of his empire 
 should forsake their religion, enacting the first religious 
 persecution against our race, the venerable Mattathiss, 
 a resident priest of Modin, arose and lamented bitterly: 
 " Woe me ! wherefore was I born to see this misery of my 
 people and of the holy city !" (1 Mac. ii. 7). Nor did he stop 
 short at mere remonstrance ; he left his comfortable home, and, 
 summoning all the courage of his old age, worked zealously 
 with his sons and followers, few as they were, to rescue the 
 sacred Law from the revilements of the heathen (ib. ii. 48). 
 The maintenance of this Law was to the Maccabees 
 identical with that of their political independence. Church 
 and state were to the Israelitish commonwealth of old one 
 and the same. The Mosaic Code was their law, governing
 
 15 
 
 both their civil and religious affairs. To secure that law 
 from outward infringements and profanation was the noble 
 task of the Maccabees. 
 
 To that end Judas Maccabee fought the powerful armies 
 of the Syrians, who were bent on destroying the land and the 
 people. He and his brothers led the brave warriors with the 
 fixed purpose of relieving their downtrodden brethren, and 
 recovering both their independence and the security of the 
 national sanctuary (ib. iii. 43). Judas' brother Eleazar, " put 
 himself in jeopardy to the end he might deliver his people," 
 (ib. vi. 44). When Judas' position against Bacchides be- 
 came so desperate that his men warned him against ven- 
 turing upon an engagement with the superior forces of the 
 enemy, asking him to retreat for a while until they could be 
 reinforced by others troops, he would not heed their advice, 
 rejoining resolutely : " God forbid that I should do this 
 thing and flee away from them : if our time be come, let us 
 die manfully for our brethren and let us not stain our honor " 
 (ib. ix. 10)." 
 
 He died, indeed, in the ensuing battle, for his brethren 
 whom he strove so patriotically to relieve and save. Such 
 patriotism has never been surpassed. His own patriotic zeal 
 kindled that of his brave followers, so that they were ready 
 to die " for the laws arid the country " (ib. ii. 8, 21, see also ib. 
 11, 7 and 13, 10). They prepared themselves for the bloody 
 task by fasting, praying, and other religious exercises, leaving 
 their camp for the battle-field with the memorable watch- 
 word : " The help of God " or " Victory is of God " (ib. ii. 8, 
 23 ; 13, 15). 
 
 Can the members of the English race consecrate their 
 patriotism in a more appropriate way? Would that all, 
 Christians and Jews, follow the noble example of the
 
 16 
 
 Maccabean heroes, whenever they are called upon to defend 
 a good cause ! 
 
 Who must not wonder at the remarkable valor displayed 
 by the Jews in their tremendous struggle of independence 
 against the Romans which was carried on for five years, from 
 65 to 70, Common Era. This struggle resembles the Ameri- 
 can Revolution in many respects. The Jews had the same 
 grievances against the Roman dominion as the American colo- 
 nies against the English; theirs were even more and stronger. 
 The Romans levied exorbitant taxes upon the inhabitants of 
 the Jewish provinces; of course, without their consent, as 
 the colonists complained in our Declaration. Since Augustus 
 subdued Judea and incorporated it as a province into the 
 Roman empire, their duties and the way of exacting them 
 became more and more intolerable. This provoked their 
 keen discontent and a strong desire for redress. They had 
 formerly, without opposition, borne the most burdensome 
 taxation. Until the time of Antiochus the Great they were 
 paying to their foreign rulers the poll-money, the crown-tax, 
 and other taxes (Jos., Ant., xii., 3, 3). The tribute imposed by 
 him and his successors was also oppressive enough (1 Mace, 
 xii. 29-31, 42 ; xi. 34-35). The Jews calmly submitted to it. 
 
 The new Roman system, however, with all its heinous 
 annoyances, stung their national pride to the quick and 
 offended their feelings greatly. It was heinous to them, not 
 from any superstition, because their names were to be entered 
 in the tax-roll which would be sinful, like David's numbering 
 the people (2 Sam. xxiv.), as Renan states in his Life of 
 Jesus. We are not informed by the historians that their 
 religious sentiments rebelled against the enrollment itself. 
 It was only the taxation by Quirinius "of their substance,'* 
 
 'Jos., Ant., xviii., 1, 1.
 
 17 
 
 their income, that aroused their disaffection, as it would open 
 the way for dishonest practices and cruel exactions by the 
 tax farmers. Their hard-earned produce was now valued by 
 irresponsible publicans. Subjecting it to a fluctuating price, 
 they could the easier defraud the Jewish husbandmen. 
 
 This class of Roman officers was generally corrupt, exhib- 
 iting such an infamous greediness that they were shunned 
 and hated by all. Jesus was aware of it when he told those 
 coming to him to be baptized : " Exact no more than that 
 which is appointed you (Luke Hi. 13). The popular voice 
 branded them as sinners (ib. xix. 7), an appellation too rnild^ 
 indeed, for such pitiless wretches. For they not only taxed 
 the substance of the people at their arbitrary estimate, they 
 frequently brought to account those who were unable to pay. 
 This we learn from an old Jewish source (Pesikta, Shekalim, 
 p. 11) : " The Romans first ask the poll-tax, then the demos 
 (the state tax), and the eranos (another tribute), and, if one 
 cannot pay, he has to swear to it, and to suffer corporal 
 penalties." 
 
 Such abuses, entailed by the new system of taxation, must 
 have provoked even the most peaceable citizens. It is very 
 likely, therefore, that the movement of Judas, of Galilee, the 
 founder of the party of the zealots, against it in the " days of 
 taxing," sprang from these abuses, real and apprehended, 
 rather than from his opposition to paying tribute at all, were 
 it justly imposed and collected. Josephus does not say 1 
 that he dissuaded the people from paying it at the first 
 introduction of the census, so we are free to presume he did 
 so only after this vicious system had been in operation for 
 some time. 
 
 But admitting that he and his zealous partisans were 
 
 'Jos., Wars, ii., 8, 1.
 
 18 
 
 fiercely opposed to Roman taxation at all, were they to 
 blame for it? It was altogether too burdensome. The 
 Jews were already in the reign of Tiberius so much borne 
 down by the tribute that they had to appeal to him for its 
 diminution (Tacitus Annal., ii., 42). Even Jesus was oppos- 
 ed to it as an unheard-of irregularity (Matthew, xvii. 24), 
 disapproving only its open refusal (ib. xxii. 15). In like 
 manner did the rabbis warn from eluding the tribute 
 (Talmud, Succah, p. 30), though they felt the Roman oppres- 
 sion as deeply as their common brethren. 
 
 And were these not patient long enough? For nearly 
 sixty years, from the beginning of the census, they endured 
 the most inhuman exactions without resorting to an open 
 revolt, until it was inevitable. 
 
 It was mainly brought on through the Roman procurators, 
 who were, with few exceptions, unprincipled, greedy, and 
 cruel men, offering the greatest insults to the Jews and their 
 religious sentiments. 
 
 Pilate brought by stealth the images of Tiberius into the 
 holy city, an aifront the Jews could not bear, from their reli- 
 gious horror of all image worship. Petrouius was to place 
 Caligula's statues in the temple at the emperor's request. 
 The contemptuous behavior of a Roman soldier under 
 Cumanus, and this man's insolent disregard of the Jewish 
 rights, increased the dissatisfaction. The emperor Claudius 
 was urged to banish him for it. The same Claudius, who, as 
 L'acitus reports, " gave over the province of Judea to Roman 
 knights and freedmen, one of whom, Felix, wielded the 
 despotic power with a knavish spirit, committing all kinds 
 of cruelty and tyranny." 1 "And yet," adds this historian, 
 "did the Jews keep patience until Florus became procura- 
 tor; under him the war bioke out." 
 
 'Histor., v., 9.
 
 19 
 
 This corrupt and rapacious hireling stole seventeen talents 
 out of the temple treasury, and " publicly proclaimed it all 
 the country over, that all had liberty given them to turn rob- 
 bers, upon this condition, that he might go shares with them 
 in the spoils." 1 
 
 Such outrages perpetrated by the Roman authorities and 
 soldiery were beyond bearing. They had to look on them 
 as fixed enemies. No wonder, then, that the patriots rose 
 up zealously in defence of their honor and liberty. Had 
 they been unanimous, not divided into factions, each pursu- 
 ing the aim of independence in its own way, the Roman 
 power might have been crushed at the outbreak of the revo- 
 lution. But despite their party conflicts, they were one in 
 their exasperation at the Ro.ni an outrages, and all of them 
 were kindled with a sincere, patriotic zeal. They aimed at 
 no worldly gain ; all they strove to acquire was personal and 
 religious freedom. For this they were ready to die. Their 
 glory is by no means diminished by the co-existence of a 
 class of low Jews, who were gratifying their grudge against 
 suspected opponents- of the common cause by frequent assas- 
 sinations, or who sought to profit by the disorder and 
 anarchy of those excited times. It is true there were then 
 Sicarii, robbers, among the Jews. But to speak of the war- 
 riors of the revolution as robbers, as the Jewish historian 
 Josephus did, is a flagrant calumny. He calls John of 
 Gischala a tyrant, his men robbers, and all the revolution- 
 ists "the seditious." But they deserved these opprobrious 
 names as little as the heroes of the American revolution 
 deserved to be called rebels by the British. 
 
 History chronicles no more signal defence of a beloved 
 place than that by the Jewish patriots of their temple in the 
 last phase of their fearful struggle, when all the factions of 
 
 1 Josephus, Wars, xiv., 2.
 
 20 
 
 the zealots forgot their mutual hostilities in their common 
 interest to save that national sanctuary. Even the peaceful 
 and retired sect of the Essenes took up arms against the 
 common foe, like a large number of Quakers in the American 
 war who joined the Philadelphia companies to fight for 
 independence, though their religious scruples forbade them 
 the use of arms. 
 
 The Roman legions, led by Titus, when about to raise 
 banks against the tower of Antonia, were greatly discouraged, 
 because " they found the Jews' courageous souls to be 
 superior to the multitude of the miseries they were under." 
 Even Josephus, while he could but belittle the merits of the 
 revolutionists, declared, at the same time, their courage to 
 be "peculiar to our nation " (Wars, vi., 1, 3 . 
 
 This very courage it was that kept the Jewish patriots 
 fighting to the last. Although Josephus states elsewhere 
 that their great encouragements were " their fear for them- 
 selves and for their temple and the presence of the tyrant," 
 John of Gischala, whom he reports to have boasted ; ' that 
 he did never fear the taking of Jerusalem, because it was 
 God's own city," we know that it was only his personal 
 grudge against this leader that bade him deny the bravery 
 of the Jewish warriors at that time. Their high cour- 
 age and great patriotism, however, availed them nothing. 
 The fortress of Antonia fell, and then the temple. But 
 it took the Romans fully six weeks before the tem- 
 ple was destroyed. The Roman colossus had to strug- 
 gle hard with the "constancy and patience of the* Jews 
 even under their ill-successes," a confession made by Titus 
 himself in his address to the army (Wars, vi., 1, 5). 
 
 In this theatre of war there were famous actors, such as 
 Eleazar, John, and Simon, and hundreds of other patriots 
 who fought gallantly, in the severe straits of famine, for
 
 21 
 
 their independence and freedom. "There were more Jews 
 who furnished themselves with arms for the defence of the 
 national cause than could actually participate," reports 
 Tacitus, adding, moreover, that, "in firmness the Jewish 
 women were equal to the men ; and when the Jews were 
 forced to surrender their positions, they manifested a greater 
 fear of life than death." 1 If such an historian as Tacitus, 
 who was all but a friend of the Jews, bears testimony to 
 their great valor and patriotic zeal, we can easily pass over 
 their denunciation as robbers by Josephus, who was, never- 
 theless, bold enough to say that, " while he is alive, he 
 would never be in such a slavery as to forego his own 
 kindred." 
 
 Jerusalem fell a second time. The temple was laid in 
 ashes. The Jewish state ceased. The insolent victors took 
 the most cruel advantage over the captive matron, Judea. 
 The survivors of the bloody struggle were at the mercy of 
 the Romans. And now they began to scatter broadcast 
 over all parts of the inhabited globe. Vespasian converted 
 the traditional yearly temple tax of the didrachma into a 
 tribute to the Capitol of Rome, initiating the famous Jew 
 tax that lasted, in its various modifications, more than seven- 
 teen hundred years, as an emblem either of the longevity of 
 the Jews or of undying prejudice. This tribute was levied 
 alike on the eastern and western Jews. It seems, however, 
 to have been abolished after Vespasian's death, because we 
 are told that the Jewish patriarchs of Palestine used to col- 
 lect it for themselves until Emperor Theodosius II. peremp- 
 torily decided it must be paid into the imperial treasury, in 
 the year 429. 
 
 This tribute was afterwards claimed by the German em- 
 perors, who assumed also the title and privileges of Roman 
 
 1 Ib. v. 13.
 
 22 
 
 kings. The Schwabenspiegel, one of the oldest German 
 codes of law, edited before the year 1276, speaks of the Jews 
 as the property of the German -Roman empire inherited from 
 Titus, and that they, therefore, stood under its immediate 
 protection. In reward for such protectorate, the German 
 emperors, from the tenth centuiy on, asked of the Jews that 
 ancient tribute under the name of crown money (aururn coro- 
 narium). Had it proved efficient, securing their life and 
 property, it would have well been worth its amount one 
 Rhenish gilder for every Jewish head of twelve years on every 
 Christmas. But neither could the best of the emperors pro- 
 tect them thoroughly, nor did- they confine their claims upon 
 the Jews to that yearly tribute alone. They had, besides, to 
 pay to each one after his election the so-called third penny 
 or the crown tax, as a ransom for their lives that could be 
 taken by him, according to a later interpretation, any time at 
 his pleasure ; only that he would have to leave alive a few 
 for a constant memorial. Thereto was added the common tax 
 on their real estate, half of which belonged to the emperor, 
 and the other half to the provincial or municipal authorities. 
 Then came the tenth penny, a kind of income tax for their 
 privilege of free traffic. Then certain obligatory presents to 
 some state officials. They had also to furnish the parchment 
 for the chancery of the empire, and at Frankfort, to lend all 
 the bedding required for the imperial court, whenever it held 
 its session there. In the train of these impositions was the 
 tithe collected by the churches, and other arbitrary requisitions 
 by princes and ecclesiastical rulers. 
 
 Such were their duties during the middle ages, and in part 
 to the end of the last century. Were they to love a country 
 crushing them with intolerable burdens "? And did these 
 secure them life and property ? They did not. 
 
 A regular system of massacre and pillage was inaugurated
 
 23 
 
 against them from the beginning of the crusades, those " wild, 
 and romantic adventures." The best meaning emperors and 
 citizens were generally unable to prevent and sometimes even 
 to suppress these persecutions. The " holy warriors " gave 
 the Jews the alternative of conversion or death, or simply 
 plundered them under the pretext of their being outlawed 
 enemies of Christ. Count Emicho had in the first crusade 
 alone appropriated 12,000 ducats of the Jews' money. The 
 Archbishop of Mayence himself was believed -to have shared 
 in the spoils of the then plundered Jews of that city. Some of 
 his near relatives were on solid testimony held to account 
 for participating in that robbery by Henry IV., who, on 
 his return to the empire in 1098, was earnestly intent on all 
 possible restitution being made to the Jews who had lost so 
 much in the bloody raids, or were the heirs of the victims 
 two years before. Even the property of the Jews yielding 
 to conversion, forced on them in these benighted times, was 
 not always safe. Some kings and princes losing through 
 their conversion the regular Jewish revenue, sought to in- 
 demnify themselves by confiscating their property, though 
 they were now nominal Christians. 1 This was a short and 
 easy financial process, as was that of the noble kings John 
 and Henry III., of England, the former imprisoning his Jews 
 to force them to surrender their money, from one of whom 
 were taken seven teeth, one on each subsequent day, till on 
 the eighth he ransomed the remainder of his teeth at the pi-ice 
 demanded, 10,000 marcs of silver ; the latter extorting 10,000 
 marcs from the Jews by making ten of their richest men 
 bound for their payment. 2 Well may the "English race" 
 be " proud " of such magnanimous princes, and " happy " to 
 count them among the leaders of English Christian civilization ! 
 
 1 Montesquieu, L'esprit des lois, II., 21, 16, who states that this out- 
 rageous practice had been abolished by law in 1392. 
 - Tovey, Anglia Judaica.
 
 24 
 
 The Christian Councils held under the auspices of the 
 Frank and Visigoth rnonarchs sowed the seed of intolerance 
 against the Jews which soon grew into a rank crop. Greedy 
 potentates, fanatic and rapacious masses, and demoralized 
 priests were eagerly gathering it. They drove the Jews out 
 of the pale of society, nay treated them as outcasts of human- 
 ity deserving no human sympathy. The Christian law of the 
 Middle Ages forbade the Jews to hold Christian servants. 
 When they had to take an oath in court, they were compelled 
 to stand on a hog-skin, repeating after the magistrate the 
 most abominable execrations as a threat for perjury. To be 
 outwardly known from Christians, as their complexion was 
 often deceiving, they had to wear badges on their clothes, as 
 if their common "badge of sufferance " alone had not sufficed 
 to distinguish them from others. 
 
 The Council at Narbonne, in 1227, decreed it should be of 
 cloth in the form of a wheel, and the synod of Augsburg, 
 in 1452, was seriously engaged in ordering separate badges 
 for both sexes, a round rag of 'saffron color about the breas 
 for the male, and two grayish ruffles for the female Jews. 
 Those of England had to wear a yellow badge, by virtue of 
 an act of Parliament under Edward I. They were not long 
 adorned with it, however, that generous king expelling them 
 from his domain in the year 1290. 
 
 Another mark of distinction was the Jew hat. The synod 
 of Vienna, in 1267, and of Salzburg, in 1418. made it a penal 
 law for the Jews to wear cornered hats, that they might be 
 known distinctly from Christians. Susskind von Trimberg, 
 the homeless Jewish minstrel of the 13th century, alludes in 
 his poems, as Delitzsch 1 supposes, to this monstrous out- 
 growth of Christian intolerance. 
 
 The German emperors and the kings and princes of 
 Christian Europe assuming the ownership of their dependent 
 
 1 See Orient of 1840, p. 145 seq.
 
 25 
 
 Jews, they were from time to time presented by them as 
 gifts, or mortgaged like inanimate property to other rulers or 
 imperial cities. Every public calamity was laid to their 
 charge, even the pestilence of 1348-50 that ravaged fearfully 
 throughout Eui'ope. They were falsely act-used of having 
 poisoned the wells, and thereby caused that fell plague. 
 Innumerable innocent Jews were then murdered or publicly 
 burned at the stake ; their princely protectors could not 
 overawe the excited populace. In the Age of Reformation, 
 when a broader intelligence began to spread among the 
 masses, releasing their benumbed minds from the bane of 
 religious ignorance, the wholesale massacres and pillages of 
 the Jews ceased, to give way only to their wholesale expul- 
 sions from their oldest settlements. 
 
 Could they have loved a country where their race was 
 doomed to continued oppression, misery, and disgrace, and 
 kept in constant jeopardy of life and property? Had they 
 really a country in the dark Middle Ages ? No, they had 
 " but the grave." 
 
 And yet even in these barbarous ages the Jews were not 
 wanting in patriotism to those communities w hose government 
 and gentile citizens had sense of humanity enough to treat 
 them as human beings, if not as equal brethren. Not to 
 speak of the many high and honorable positions given to 
 prominent Jews of Mohammedan Spain, I will quote several 
 instances of the kind occurring in Christian countries proper. 
 
 It can be proved beyond doubt that, despite the Christian 
 law forbidding the Jews to hold administrative or judicial 
 offices, or to serve in the armies of Christian states ev.en in 
 urgent cases of defense, 1 some princes and communities be- 
 
 1 Edict of Theodosius II. from the year 439. Only the burdensome 
 and expensive office of decurions was allowed to or rather imposed on 
 them by Constantino, according to his order for Cologne in 321, and 
 afterward by Justinian.
 
 26 
 
 stowed various posts of honor and trust on such of their Jews 
 as they found trustworthy and able. In one of the 
 gloomiest periods of Jewish history, in the year 1259, the 
 provincial Council of Mayence issued an ordinance forbidding 
 the Jews to continue in any secular dignity or public office. 1 
 This shows that they were until then actually occupying 
 such positions. 
 
 Duke Leopold of Austria, in the twelfth century, had a 
 Jew, Solomon, appointed as superintendent of his mint, au 
 office of trust he held also under his son and successor, Fred- 
 erick. 2 Two Jewish brothers, Lublin and Nekelo, were 
 functionaries of an Austrian Duke, about the year 1257. 3 it 
 may not be amiss to mention here also, that the Jewish 
 physicians of the middle ages, were, notwithstanding the con- 
 trary ecclesiastical injunctions, 4 of great service to many 
 municipalities, popes, and princes. Even the bigoted 
 Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, the grandson of the Emperor 
 Lewis, in his sickness, sent abroad for a Jewish doctor, 
 Jacob, who attended him in his palace till he was cured. 
 This was in the year 1392. 
 
 And though the old German-Christian law interdicted the 
 Jews to bear arms, 5 they knew nevertheless how to wield 
 and use them in their own defense/' as well as of those 
 governments and cities which afforded them protection. 
 
 1 Mansi, Conciliorum nova collectio, vol. xxiii., p. 997. 
 
 - Monumanta boica, IV., No. 115. 
 
 ; Meickelbeck, Historia Frisingensis, II., p. 47. 
 
 4 The council of Vienna, 1267, ordered that no Jewish physician 
 should practise in Christian families. 
 
 5 Sachsenspiegel, libr. iii., art. "2. 
 
 6 During their persecution by Rindfleisch. in 1298, the forts of 
 Nuremberg and Neumarkt were offered them as places of refuge. 
 Therein they defended themselves by force of arms, many Christians 
 of those cities joining and assisting them. Pertz, Monumenta Ger-
 
 27 
 
 When once, in the thirteenth century, the city of Worms 
 was besieged, Rabbi Eleazar, the leading divine of the Jews 
 there, requested them to fly to arms, and this on a Sabbath 
 day, as he considered it their urgent duty to defend the 
 threatened place. 1 King Philip the Handsome, of France, 
 is said to have had thirty thousand Jews in his army, in his 
 expedition against Count Guy of Flanders, 1297, who had 
 renounced his allegiance to him Whether he levied them 
 against their will is not reported, though it is very likely, 
 from his tyranny to his Jews soon after, that he aimed to 
 expose them to the fatal chances of the first engagements, 
 as the chronicler has it. 2 
 
 The Jews had also in previous centuries proved their sin- 
 cere patriotism and bravery in defense of Christian cities. 
 The Jews of Aries in France, after it was conquered by the 
 Visigoth king Euric, in 477, enjoyed perfect liberty and 
 equality, and were in return so much attached to the city 
 that they offered readily their lives in its defense. ^Vhen 
 it was besieged by the Franks and Burgundians, in 508, 
 they held firmly to the rightful king, resisting by force of 
 arms the assaults of the invaders. They disclosed also the 
 traitorous conspiracy of the bishop Cassarius against the 
 city, for which he was sentenced to prison. 3 
 
 Likewise did the Jews of Naples exhibit a brave spirit 
 when it was threatened with immediate danger by the 
 besieging forces of the Byzantine conqueror. Belisarius. 
 
 mani;i:, vol. xvii., p. 41!>. The Christian community of Augsburg 
 guarded their Jews from the assaults of this villain. Out of gratitude 
 for it, they built at their own expense, alongside their cemetery, a 
 wall for the protection of the city. 
 
 1 Kokeach, I'.Hj, a treatise by the same rabbi on Jewish rites and 
 customs. * 2 Pertz, Mouumenta Germanize, xvii., p. 417. 
 
 Dr. H. Gross in Griitz' Monatschrift, March, 1878.
 
 28 
 
 He was sent, at the command of the Emperor Justinian, 
 to take the city by force, in 536. The Jewish inhabitants, 
 who were enjoying greater toleration than their brethren 
 living in the Byzantine empire, held themselves bound to 
 their king, the Ostrogoth Theodoric, and would not 
 forsake him in the hour of peril. They called upon their 
 gentile fellow- citizens to stand up resolutely in the de- 
 fense of their common liberties, offering even to furnish 
 the entire population gratuitously with the necessaries of 
 life during the siege. Their own companies held the sea- 
 side all alone, fully prepared to meet the foe, who, however, 
 did not dare to attack this so well-defended part of the city. 
 They met bravely all the dangers surrounding them at last, 
 when one night the foe suddenly broke into the city, and 
 captured it after a desperate battle. The Jews fought as 
 heroes. 1 
 
 Their number and names have not been recorded by jeal- 
 ous history. But the fact of their sincere patriotism suffices 
 to convince any unprejudiced mind that the Jews can be 
 and are true friends to their country, if the country is a 
 true friend to them. 
 
 But from the time of Charlemagne to the great Napoleon, 
 Christian countries manifested an unaccountable hatred to 
 the Jews, debarring them from common society by the most 
 offensive treatment, aiid trampling on all their human rights. 
 Say what you will, the Jews were never wanting in patrio- 
 tism, but the Christians were in charity. The Reformation 
 clearing away abuses of the Church, by no means carried 
 away prejudices against our race. The intolerance of its 
 leaders was as great as of the overbearing dignitaries of the 
 ruling church, Xor was the Christian populace more inclin- 
 ed to tolerate the Jews, since they had imbibed the new doc- 
 
 1 Gratz, History of the Jews, v., 50-57.
 
 29 
 
 trines. It was asserted that in the Peasants' War, 1525, the 
 Jews suffered no ill-treatment, because they supported the 
 cause of the imperial cities and the revolted peasants of Ger- 
 many against the princes and nobility. But this assertion has 
 been refuted by an able Jewish writer, who proved that the 
 insurgent peasants were not at all disposed to spare the 
 Jews and their property. Pillages and expulsion of Jews 
 were the order of the day in that revolution, which they may 
 have kept off here and there by rich presents. 1 
 
 They were hated then as they were Afterwards, the light 
 of the Reformation notwithstanding. It was left to the grow- 
 ing enlightenment of the last century gradually to soften and 
 dispel the fierce prejudices against our race. Its apostles con- 
 tributed greatly to the amelioration of their condition. The 
 great Lessing did mighty service to the German Jews. His 
 friend Mendelssohn, the German Socrates as he was called, 
 co-operated with him in destroying the popular hatred and 
 ill-will against them. The latter had himself sorely suffered 
 from it. It hurt him painfully that "in so many a beloved city 
 of the fatherland no Jew, even after paying the prescribed tax 
 on his body, was in broad daylight allowed to stay without 
 being closely watched, for fear he might pursue a Christian 
 child, or poison the wells; when at night they would not tol- 
 erate him at all, for his reputed communication with evil 
 spirits." He worked hard to bi-eak down the wall of social 
 separation and discrimination between Christians and Jews- 
 It was hard work, as he himself despondently remarked, "You 
 may cut the roots of prejudices in twain, and yet they will 
 thrive, drawing their nourishment from the air, if not from the 
 ground." But contemporaneously with the praiseworthy ef- 
 forts of those and other champions of humanity in Christian 
 
 1 Alfred Stern, in Geiger's Zeitschrift, 1870, first number, p. 67 
 seq.
 
 30 
 
 Europe, a political storm arose on the American continent, 
 uprooting systematically all that was left of the mediaeval 
 prejudices of race and rank. The solemn Declaration by the 
 American Congress of 1776 of "the self evident truth, that 
 all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their 
 Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are 
 life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" was the new gos- 
 pel removing in principle all civil disadvantages and disabil- 
 ities imposed on any class of human beings on account of 
 their descent or religion Every letter of it was inspired and 
 could safely be adopted by sensible and upright people of all 
 creeds. Jew and Christian alike could swear to its infallible 
 truths. And while the fathers of our Republic made this 
 Declaration good by vindicating and securing unshackled lib- 
 erty to the thirteen colonies, they at the same time vindicated 
 implicitly the human rights of the Jews, withheld from them 
 for nearly fifteen hundred years. 
 
 The French Revolution followed, destroying the old society 
 and its ancient abuses. Till then, "society had yet the 
 forms of the middle age. The common people had no rights 
 at all." The privileged orders, the nobility and clergy, al- 
 lowed them no ascendency. The revolution replaced these 
 privileges by the equality of all citizens. This was guaran- 
 teed to all French citizens alike, the Jews, of course, includ- 
 ed. The year 1793 brought them this long-desired boon. 
 
 However, one must not think that their liberties passed at 
 once from the statute into reality. As there were yet many 
 bloody battles to be fought, from the Declaration of American 
 Independence to its practical existence, so had the French 
 Jews to struggle many years till the principle of full equality 
 was actually applied in their relations to the state. 
 
 Even Napoleon the Great, pretending, as he did, to put an 
 end to the rotten state of the past, would not regard the Jews
 
 31 
 
 as citizens, even so late as in the year 1806. Fie then declar- 
 ed: "The Jews are not in the same category with the 
 Christians. We have to judge them by the political, not the 
 civil right, for they are no citizens." He had, however, the 
 earnest desire to make citizens of them. To that end he 
 convened a respectable number of Jewish deputies, in 1806. 
 charging them to state and explain truly the obstacles, if 
 there were any, to Jewish citizenship, emanating from their 
 religion. One of the questions put to that body was : 
 
 Do the Jews born in France, and considered by the law as 
 her citizens, regard this country as theirs, even so far as to 
 be obliged eventually to defend her? 
 
 They solemnly answered: "People who chose for them- 
 selves a fatherland, living therein since many centuries, and 
 who, even under oppressive laws, felt such an attachment to 
 it that they did rather forego the enjoyment of civil liberties 
 than quit it : such cannot but think themselves French- 
 men in France, and the obligation to defend her is to them 
 an honorable and precious one. Jeremiah advised the Jews 
 of Babylonia to regard this land as their country, though they 
 were to have stayed there only seventy years. They followed 
 this advice to such a degree that, when Cyrus permitted the 
 exiles to return to their mother country, only 42,360 of them 
 would avail themselves of that permission. 
 
 "Love of country is such a natural and profound sentiment 
 among the Jews, and so corresponding to their religious belief, 
 that a French Jew would think himself a stranger on English 
 territory, even in his intercourse with co-religionists, the 
 same being true of English Jews in France. 
 
 " This sentiment prevails among them in such a measure that 
 in the late wars one could see frequently French Jews 1 fight 
 
 1 Of 77,000 Jews in all the French provinces, there were, about that 
 time, 797 in active military service (Gratz's History, Vol. xi., p. 304).
 
 32 
 
 with fierce animosity against those of the hostile ranks. 
 Many of them are now beset with scars, as the glorious 
 marks of their patriotic devotion, and others have been 
 praised and distinguished for their bravery on the field of 
 honor." 
 
 This declaration of the Jewish deputies was, the next year, 
 sanctioned by the Synhedrin, the Jewish council, convened 
 at Paris. Napoleon acted henceforth according to this trust- 
 worthy information, treating the Jews, in all the countries 
 that were under his rule, as full citizens. Those of the new 
 kingdom of Westphalia and of Frankfort were released from 
 the miserable bondage they had so many centuries endured. 
 The gates of their gloomy quarters were, with the entrance 
 of the French officials, suddenly opened, and out they could 
 go and stride, along with the hitherto privileged race, on 
 the highway of freedom, secured by the mighty conqueror. 
 Adjoining states could not well stand back any longer, and 
 commenced also liberating the Jews. King Frederick Wil- 
 liam III. had given the Jews of Prussia the local citizenship 
 in 1809, followed, in 1812, by their perfect emancipation, on 
 the condition of performing all civil duties, especially military 
 service. 
 
 No sooner were they promised this equality with their 
 Christian fellow-citizens, than they hastened to prove them- 
 selves worthy of the royal kindness and confidence. In the 
 ensuing wars of independence, they responded readily to the 
 summons of their king, rallying round the Prussian standard 
 with an exemplary patriotism. According to the Prussian 
 Military Gazette of 1843, there served in the campaigns of 
 1813-14, out of the then small Jewish population, 263 volun- 
 teers and 80 regulars. The same paper states that in 1815, 
 when the Prussian army had its largest strength, the num- 
 ber of Jewish soldiers in it may have been, according to the
 
 33 
 
 forme 1 .' ratio, 731. This computation was, however, con- 
 tested by well informed Jewish writers as being too low, 
 considering the fact that in 1815 there were 30 Jews in one 
 battalion of volunteer riflemen alone. In one such detach- 
 ment of but 200 men there were 7 Jews, 2 of them the 
 brothers Simon were among the first fifteen who joined the 
 ranks as volunteers. Hardenberg, the Prussian chancellor 
 in a letter to the Count von Grote, dated January 4th, 1815, 
 gave the Jews the following testimony : "The history of our 
 late war with France shows already that the Jews have, by 
 their faithful allegiance to the state conferring equal rights 
 on them, proved worthy of it. The young men of the Jewish 
 faith were the military comrades of their Christian fellow- 
 citizens, of whom we can present instances of true heroism and 
 glorious braving of the dangers of war. The rest of the 
 Jewish inhabitants, especially the ladies, vied with the Chris- 
 tians in all kinds of patriotic sacrifices." To this we could 
 add several more faithful testimonies of the gallantry of 
 Jewish soldiers in the Prussian army. 1 Where did this 
 patriotism spring from ? From a "Jewish and plutopolitan 
 motive," or from growing love to a country that seemed 
 gradually to arrive at the sense of justice towards their op- 
 pressed race ? Even Professor Smith will beware of imputing 
 an impure motive to these Prussian Jews. Nor will he be 
 able to uphold his pretext any longer, that the Jews serve 
 as soldiers only where military service is compulsory, as in 
 modern Prussia. Their service in the Prussian and other 
 German armies, during the wars of independence, was, for 
 the most part, voluntary. 
 
 So was also that of the Jewish soldiers in our late civil war. 
 Co. H, of the Sixty-sixth Volunteer Regiment, that took part 
 in many battles, had mainly co-religionists in its ranks. 
 1 See Griitz's History, Vol. ii., pp. 320-21 aud 384.
 
 34 
 
 One of the Missouri regiments was principally composed 
 of Jews. One-half of the line officers of the sixth New 
 York regiment were Jews. The officers of Col. Einstein's 
 Philadelphia regiment were mostly Jews. Generals Lyon 
 and Newman, who fell on the field of battle, were Jews. 
 The American Jews displayed a laudable readiness in 
 responding to the call of their country for its protection. 
 "Everywhere in the loyal States they had come nobly forth 
 among the very first to offer upon the altar of the sacred 
 Union their might, intellect, treasure, and, if need be, their 
 very heart's blood." "No body of citizens surpassed us 
 Israelites in the devoted love for this glorious Union, in fer- 
 vent patriotism, and the firm determination in its defense 
 'to do or to die.' " There were out of half a million men of 
 the Union army not less than five thousand Jews in active 
 service. They enlisted in the same proportion with the 
 rest of the population, not as Jews, but as free and equal 
 citizens of this Kepublic. They were largely represented, 
 not only among the privates, but also among the commis- 
 sioned officers. 
 
 Moreover, many of the Jews who were then sworn in for 
 the war were mechanics with large families to support, which 
 they had to commend to the charge or charity of others, 
 whilst they would be absent on their highest duty to their 
 country. Was this no patriotism ? If not, will Prof. Smith 
 be kind enough to define what else it was? Or will he not 
 rather change his prejudiced mind and do us justice again by 
 allowing us the same love of country as other races, even the 
 English, after reading the following account of a Jewish par- 
 ticipant of that civil struggle ? "Here, in the forests of Vir- 
 ginia, are the descendants of the Hebrew patriarch Abra- 
 ham ; behold them now in the New World shedding their 
 blood for the maintenance of the liberties secured to them by
 
 35 
 
 this Republic; and that while thus reflecting, he had lu-anl 
 some of his brethren utter the old Jewish declaration of 
 faith : Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. " 
 
 This touching instance at the same time answers Professor 
 Smith 'squery as to the political bearing of Judaism, and what 
 are the relations between country and race in the mind of a 
 strict Jew. Judaism teaches gratitude to whomsoever it is due 
 and the American Jews proved their heartfelt gratitude for 
 their civil and religious equality, which, throughout the 
 Union, is the unquestioned right of every citizen, in helpino- 
 to defend their country to the last moment. Judaism teaches 
 the Unity of God, and therefore a strict Jew will profess it 
 even on the battle-field. Judaism teaches fraternal good-wil] 
 to all fellow-beings; therefore, a strict Jew readily joins 
 with his Christian brethren in furthering the welfare of the 
 community. In times of peace or war he is, by virtue of his 
 religion and modern education, as good a subject and citizen 
 as any one else. This proposition ought to "convince " Pro- 
 fessor Smith and make him " cease to cling to the miserable '' 
 prejudice that Judaism is a religion of race and tribal. If 
 the Jew have tribal affiliations, they do not prevent him 
 exercising his various duties to the commonwealth of which 
 he is a member. No tribal relations whatever were con- 
 sidered by the American Jewish soldiers of both armies. 
 The Confederate Jew, defending the cause of his section, saw 
 in his co-religionist of the other side, had he even recognized 
 him as such in the heat of battle, but a foe whom he held it 
 his patriotic duty to conquer; and so did the Jew of the 
 Union forces. The ruling motives of all the Jewish soldiers 
 in both armies were exclusively those which actuated every 
 other patriotic American. This will readily be acknowledge- 1 
 by all Americans living. And the General-in-Chief include' I 
 certainly in his praise to the Union soldiers, on dismissing
 
 36 
 
 them, June 2d, 1865, the great number of Jews who had also, 
 " in obedience to their country, left their homes and families, 
 and volunteered in her defense." They were among those 
 who, " by their patriotic devotion to their country in the 
 hour of danger and alarm, have maintained the supremacy of 
 the Union and the Constitution." 
 
 And what the American Jew was and is capable of, should 
 not the English be ? Is he of a different nature ? By no 
 means. Only a morbid hatred of our race could have dictat- 
 ed Prof. Smith's disparaging opinion, that it is beyond the 
 legislator's power to make patriots of the English Jews. It 
 ever and everywhere depended solely on legislation to make 
 the Jews love their country. The ordinance of Edward I., 
 banishing all the Jews from the English soil, could certainly 
 not have inspired them with love for it. The 16,511 wretch- 
 ed Jews who were on the 31st of August, 1290, pitilessly driven 
 from a country inhabited by their ancestors as far back as the 
 eighth century, if not earlier, could no longer be attached to it 
 and its monarch. Nor even was it reasonable to expect from 
 those Jews who, by the connivance of the rulers came into 
 London in the latter part of the seventeenth century, to be at 
 once warm patriots. They had to pay dearly for such tolera- 
 tion which allowed them only to live there as isolated stran- 
 gers, without the right to purchase houses or practise profes- 
 sions. 
 
 To make them patriots it was necessary to make them citi- 
 zens first. As our venerable Cremieux remarked once : " If 
 you persecute, you make slaves; only by declaring equal 
 rights for all you will make good citizens." Nevertheless, 
 the third generation of those Jewish settlers who were natives, 
 and more so thefourth, being purely English, felt themselves 
 as Englishmen. They were grateful for the scanty tolera- 
 tion they enjoyed, and proved themselves " zealously national
 
 37 
 
 already in the reign of George I., firm adherents to the 
 Protestant succession." 1 
 
 The naturalization act followed in 1753. It was strenu- 
 ously advocated by the liberal ministry of George II. But 
 the opposition was too strong to carry it into effect. It was 
 repealed by the next session of Parliament " a sacrifice to the 
 bigotry of the populace." 2 And, let us add, to their narrow 
 jealousy. 
 
 It is true, the religion of the Jews had ever alarmed the 
 English fanatics. In the council held by Cromwell on their 
 re-admission, the invited preachers were fiercely Opposed to 
 it, on the ground that Judaism might once become the estab- 
 lished religion. 3 In 1703, but a short time after their silent 
 re-admission, when under Charles II., in 1663, 4 there resided 
 altogether twelve Jews in London, an anonymous appeal to 
 the'clergy was issued, denouncing their toleration as illegal 
 the laws banishing them having never been repealed. 5 And 
 so late as 1841, in the parliamentary debate on the Jews' 
 Declaration Bill, Sir Robert Inglis expressed his fear that, if 
 it were passed, it would unchristianize England. 6 
 
 It was alleged again and again, also by E. W Gladstone, 
 that the Jewish disqualification was due to their religion, 
 Christianity being part and parcel of the law of England. 
 
 We are unable to ascertain whether any or how much of 
 narrow jealousy was mixed with the outspoken prejudices of 
 those objectors to Jewish emancipation. We only know 
 that it was ever prevalent in England. Their religion was 
 often but the pretext put forth to lessen the odium of the 
 meanest prejudices against them. The above-mentioned 
 anonymous writer, arguing against those favoring their 
 
 1 Christian correspondent, Jewish Messenger, May 30th, 1862. 
 
 2 Hannah Adams, History of the Jews. 3 Tovey, Anglia Judaica. 
 4 Ib. 5 See Jewish Messenger of 1861. 6 See Orient of 1841.
 
 38 
 
 re-admission because of their commercial activity which 
 promotes English trade, said it was " certain that none but 
 kings and princes and their favorites ever gained by the 
 Jews. They do boldly presume to engross the principal 
 part of our trade now . . . and have outdone our English 
 merchants." And the opponents of the Naturalization Bill 
 in 1753 argued in the same strain that, if they were admitted 
 to the rank of citizens, they would engross the whole com- 
 merce of the kingdom. 1 
 
 Neither of these anticipations, however, came to pass after 
 their actual emancipation. Judaism did not become the 
 established church of England, nor even shake the pillars of 
 the present one, and the few Jewish establishments in Eng- 
 lish cities by no means drove the merchants of the Christian 
 creed to poverty. The number of the English Jews, about 
 18,000 up to 1841, was altogether too insignificant to incite 
 any grounded fear of their overwhelming influence in matters 
 of religion, politics, and trade. Their small number was the 
 cause rather of their just claims being so long disregarded. 
 Had they been as numerous as the Catholics or the Dissent- 
 ers, they would have won their rights at a much earlier 
 period. The government could not have ignored the threat- 
 ening power of millions of oppressed people without 
 apprehending serious injury to the crown and constitution. 
 The comparatively few Jews, however, could exercise no 
 mighty pressure upon the ruling power, therefore their full 
 political equality was deferred from one decade to the other. 
 
 The noble courage of the great Macaulay, of Lord John 
 Russell, and some other unbiased champions of humanity, 
 was required to remove one disability of the Jews after the 
 other. When it was argued against them, that they are 
 more attached to their nation than they are to the people of 
 
 1 Hannah Adams, ib.
 
 39 
 
 England, Macaulay refuted this argument as unfair "till we 
 have tried the experiment whether, by making Englishmen 
 of them, they will not become members of the community." 1 
 When it was objected that the Jews look forward to the 
 coming of a great deliverer and that, therefore, they could 
 not heartily be attached to their present country, he rejoined : 
 "Many Christians believe that Jesus will reign on earth 
 during a thousand years; according to some the time is close 
 at hand. Are we to exclude all millenarians from Parliament 
 and office on the ground that they are impatiently looking 
 forward to the miraculous monarchy which is to supersede 
 the present dynasty and the present constitution of England? " 
 The truth is that bigotry will never want a pretence." He 
 held further, "there is nothing in their national character 
 which unfits them for the highest duties of citizens." 3 
 
 Such cogent arguments, one should expect, must have 
 stopped the cry of the fiercest opponents of the Jewish 
 cause. It took, however, fully eight years more until their 
 admission to civil and municipal offices became a law, April 
 1st, 1841. In that session of Parliament, Macaulay again 
 defended their rights manfully, calling " on every gentleman 
 who thought the Jews competent to discharge the duties of 
 municipal officers to vote for this Bill." 3 His efforts were 
 this time crowned with success. The majority of the 
 members had " enlightened toleration " enough to vote in 
 the affirmative. 
 
 The natural consequence was to relieve them from all civil 
 disabilities whatever, permitting them even to enter Parlia- 
 ment. After seventeen years of additional struggle, they 
 obtained also this privilege, in 1858. 
 
 1 Speech in the House of Commons, April oth, 1830. 
 
 2 Speech on the Jewish Disabilities, April, 1 833. 
 
 3 Speech on the Jews' Declaration Bill, March 31st, 1841.
 
 40 
 
 That year ended their practical persecution. For, as 
 Macaulay properly said, " persecution it is to inflict any 
 penalties on account of religious opinions." There is 
 certainly no more humiliating penalty for a citizen than to- 
 be denied the right to hold office. 
 
 Now comes Professor Smith, after twenty years have passed 
 since the English Jews were granted political power, and 
 charges them with misdirecting it in conjuring up political 
 danger to the country, and decries all of them as unpatriotic 
 for the imaginary wrong of a few representatives ! Now 
 comes Professor Smith leading " that new-fangled class of 
 our Liberals who ask themselves whether Jews can be 
 patriots." 1 And now the Jews are "suddenly declared to be 
 worthless strangers to the land solely because many of 
 them uphold the views which the best English statesmen of 
 all parties had hitherto maintained." 2 Is this not cruel on 
 his part ? Is it not cruel to impugn the past patriotism of 
 the English Jews, so often acknowledged by truthful Christ- 
 ians, because some of them hold diverse political views and 
 advise diverse measures at a crisis in their common country ? 
 Though it cannot be disputed that they have " on several 
 trying occasions laid on the altar of public safety noble 
 sacrifices of their lives and their fortunes," and that "the 
 blood of Israel profusely flowed in the fields of Waterloo," : 
 what matters it? "The Jew must be burned," as the 
 Patriarch said to the Templar in Nathan the Wise, or at least 
 branded with the suspicion of Jewish and plutopolitan 
 motives in all his public actions. 
 
 The enemies of the Jews will never acquiesce in their liber- 
 ties. They will continue to misjudge the Jews' relation to the 
 community, and doubt their devotion to it. As one who was 
 
 1 Westminster Review, July, 1878. - Ib. 
 
 3 According to the above correspondent, Jewish Messenger.
 
 41 
 
 unsuccessful in an enterprise, or defeated by a rival in a canvass, 
 is apt to make his subordinates or even his family suffer for it 
 by peevish conduct, so would they make the Jews suffer for 
 every misfortune or defeat of the community. They do not 
 shrink from charging upon them all the perils of a crisis into 
 which it has fallen by a combination of causes imperceptible 
 to the unreasoning brain of the masses ; and how easily are 
 these excited into the belief or pretext that the Jews, that 
 peculiar people among us, the deadly enemies of Christ, have 
 wrought all this mischief! This was, indeed, the practice in 
 the Middle Ages, and it is so still. It was the outcry of many 
 German literati raised against the Jews at the conclusion of 
 the late Franco-Prussian war, in which thousands of Jews had 
 nobly participated. Many of them had died a glorious 
 soldier's death, in reward for which those favorites of the 
 Muses sought to rouse and excite the common people against 
 their Jewish compatriots. 
 
 Alas ! reward for services rendered to the community was 
 ever very miserly, or rather miserably, portioned out to the 
 Jews. Those of Prussia had, in 1813, readily responded to 
 the summons of the king. They strove to show their thank- 
 fulness for the gift bestowed on them a short time before. 
 It was the edict of March Hth, 1812, declaring them as 
 native citizens with equal rights and liberties, even the right 
 to municipal offices, and to teach in public schools and 
 universities, reserving only their admission to other public 
 offices to after-legislation. 
 
 This was a rather fair precedent on the part of Frederick 
 William. In return for it, the Jewish young men were 
 among the first answering his appeal to come forth and 
 defend the fatherland. Their service was gladly accepted, 
 not the least objection being made on account of their reli- 
 gious creed.
 
 42 
 
 How was it rewarded after the French conqueror was 
 overthrown, and all dangers diverted ? Not long after the 
 splendid victories of the Allies, in 1814, the king retracted, 
 first silently, then openly, the privileges granted the Jews in 
 the period of distress and humiliation. 
 
 First it was decided that the edict of 1812 was not to 
 apply to the reconquered or newly- won provinces. Again, 
 the Jewish invalids, returning home from the battle-fields, 
 where they had redeemed the Jewish honor with their 
 blood, were denied any public employment, 1 in violation of 
 the solemn pledge made before the war to the whole people 
 that the government would provide suitable positions for 
 the disabled soldiers. The Jews were henceforth excluded 
 even from the office of surveyor and commissioner of auctions, 
 under the pretext that these were state offices, the admission 
 to which was in the edict left undecided. 
 
 The just hopes of the Jewish young men preparing for an 
 academic career were cruelly betrayed. They could get no 
 appointment as teachers and professors unless they submitted 
 to baptism. An ordinance of 1822 repealed the respective 
 franchise guaranteed to them in that edict, and so the fate of 
 the ablest Jewish students was sealed. They were, in the 
 whole Prussian monai'chy, not even allowed to be druggists. 
 In this way the king kept his promise! Such was the 
 reward for their vaiious sacrifices to the country. 
 
 In the provinces that were formerly under French rule, 
 the Jews did not fare much better. Although an instruction 
 was issued in 1830 that the condition of the Jews in the new 
 and regained provinces should, until further action, remain as 
 it was found on retaking possession of them by Prussia, they 
 were nevertheless even there not allowed to hold office, serve 
 as jurors, practice law, or be druggists. 
 
 1 Ministerial decree of 1826.
 
 43 
 
 Their liberties entering into the large kingdom of West- 
 phalia with the French officials, in 1807, disappeared after 
 the glorious year 1814. 
 
 So it was also at Frankfort-on-the-Maine. The Jews 
 there, in an address published in 1832, complained as fol- 
 lows : " In the war called by them (the despots) the war of 
 independence, we, too, have borne arms. Before that war, we 
 of Frankfort, as everywhere else in Germany where the French 
 law was ruling, enjoyed equal rights with our Christian fellow- 
 citizens. When we returned from the battle-fields, however, 
 we met our fathers and brothers, whom we had left as free 
 citizens, again as serfs, and such we have been until to-day. 
 They have assumed over us the right of the pest, viz., to 
 diminish our population, as they do not let us contract more 
 than fifteen marriages a year, though we number five thou- 
 sand. They now advance against us that we came from the 
 Orient and were strangers in the land, and that we considered 
 even our Christian countrymen as such. However, this is our 
 creed, this the doctrine inherited from our fathers : When God 
 created the world, he created man and woman, not master 
 and slave, Jews and Christians, rich and poor." Borne wrote 
 in 1819, " After the overthrow of Napoleon, the Jewish liber- 
 ties were here and there decried as pernicious to the state. 
 The Jews were also suspected of being friendly to the French 
 dominion. Their peculiarities were such that their haters 
 would not tolerate them as citizens. Only Germans, such as, 
 according to Tacitus, came forth from thp woods with red 
 hair and light-blue eyes, were in their opinion entitled to 
 civil rights, whereas the dark-complexioned Jews contrasted 
 too disagreeably with them." 
 
 This sarcastic utterance of his was the melancholy outcry 
 of a member of the suffering race rather than a wanton 
 reflection upon the ruling one. " He was born a slave,
 
 44 
 
 therefore he loved freedom more than they," wrote he at a 
 later period. He became indeed a sturdy and fervent apostle 
 of freedom, in a country where despotism ruled supreme. 
 
 The oppressed Jews, it is true, could find some comfort in 
 the similar sufferings of the entire German population ; and 
 to win their rights was to the Jews no more than the right 
 to share in the endurance of wrongs. Their grievances, 
 however, were increased by the popular hatred and contempt 
 under which they were yet smarting. 
 
 The German Jews had to struggle long and hard till they 
 obtained equal rights. Their participation in the wars of 
 independence availed them nothing. Nor was their military 
 service which followed, of any considerable benefit to them. 
 The before-mentioned Gazette has put their number enlisted 
 from 1814 to 1842, at 3,314. Notwithstanding this respect- 
 able showing for a still persecuted class, their advancement 
 in military rank was a very rare occurrence. 
 
 The wild year of the revolution, 1848, brought them some 
 relief. The Constituent Assembly at Berlin had declared all 
 civil and political rights independent of any religious denomi- 
 nation, whereby the Jews also gained their liberties. These 
 were even acknowledged by the constitution of 1850. But 
 the subsequent reaction overturned this beneficial re- 
 sult ; so they had to fight again for their rights. They did 
 so persistently till at last, in 1869, the law of the North 
 German Confederacy relieved them from the mediaeval yoke 
 they had so long borne. Their full political equality in all the 
 confederate German states was now a sanctioned law, though 
 by no means an accomplished fact. God knows when the 
 time will come for that. The Teutonic race will not so soon 
 cease their pandering to mediaeval prejudices against the 
 Jews. 
 
 The German Je\vs havi- since th^n. in tlu- Franco-Prussian
 
 45 
 
 war, evinced their love of country in an unexampled degree. 
 Philippson, in his " Memoirs of that war for the German 
 Israelites," states that in this national rising the Jews took 
 an ample part. Besides the conscripts and regulars, there 
 served in the united German forces a large number of them 
 as volunteers. Among these, there were young men who 
 had come from Holland and England, even from America 
 and Cairo, to stand by their offended and imperilled father- 
 land. That indefatigable journalistand author collected a list 
 of the Jewish-German soldiers paiticipating in the campaign 
 which resulted in showing their number at 2,531 men. 
 Considering that this list was but the first of a series to be 
 published after he would have received more complete 
 reports, and that none at all were sent him from the largest 
 Jewish communities, as Berlin, Breslau, Posen, Frankfort, 
 no one, not even Professor Smith, will deny this to have been 
 well proportioned to their relative number in the country. 
 Cannot the Jews then be patriots ?
 
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