Olin CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY HANNAH G. HALPERIN 39 BOOK 1-UND I':(V1NG LCVITAS 3512 GXFORR AV BRONX '>JV 10^63 All books are subject to recall after two weeks Olin/Kroch Library DATE DUE JUI1 r&H$8g 1 ! 1 CAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924075064968 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY THE JEWS OF TO-DAY BY DR. ARTHUR RUPPIN TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MARGERY BENTWICH WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JOSEPH JACOBS, LiTT.D. AUTHOR OF "studies IN JEWISH STATISTICS" NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1913 CONTENTS PART I. ASSIMILATION Section I. Assimilation in the Diaspora a constant menace to Judaism :HAP. PAG I. Review of Jewish Assimilation,— His- torical AND Sociological, The process of disruption in the present day. Social life of the Jews before their emancipation. The eman- cipation of the Jews. The disintegration of Judaism by adoption of modern education. Analogous assimilative movements of the Jews in the epochs of Greek and Arabic culture. The assimilation of minor nationalities — a common social phenomenon. Reasons for the power of resistance to assimilation shown by the Jews hitherto. The breakdown of the obstructions to assimilation and consequent breaking-up of Jewry. II. The Numerical Strength of the Jews, - 30 Retrospect on the number of Jews since the dispersion. Lost branches of Judaism. The existing numbers of Jews, and the spread of Jewry. The local distribution of the Jews. vi CONTENTS Section II. The Causes of Rapia Assimilation in the Present Day CHAP. PAGE III. Economic Progress of the Jews, - - 47 New value attached to the commercial activities of the Jews since the dawn of the capitalistic era. Success of the Jews in capitalistic enterprise. Wealth of the Jews in industrially developed countries. Poverty of the Jews in industrially backward countries. The prin- cipal vocations followed by Jews. Non-wage earning dependents of the West-European Jews. Possibilities of advance in the industrial position of the Jews of Eastern Europe. IV. The Declining Birth-Rate, - - - 69 Decline in the Jewish birth-rate and its causes. Low death-rate of the Jews partially equalises the effect of the low birth-rate. Decrease in numbers resulting from birth-rate. V. Dispersion, 85 Immigration to the United States. Immigration to England. Summary of immigration and emigration. Influence of emigration on assimilation. Inland migrations. VI. Congestion in the Large Towns,- - 98 Causes of rapid assimilation in large towns. Statistics of the centralisation of Jews in large towns. Preference for the capitals. London and New York. CONTENTS vii Section III. The Various Phases of Assimilation CHAP. PAGE VII. Adoption of the Language of the Country, 109 Changes of language in the history of the Jews. Causes of the changes of language. The spread of Yiddish. Extent of the adoption of European languages. Changes of language and its relation to assimilation. VIII. Adoption of Cosmopolitan Culture, - 119 The Jew's craving for education. The decline of the " Cheder." Increasing importance of secular schools. The Universities. Modem culture and assimilation. IX. Decreasing Importance of Religion, - 137 Origin of the Jewish religion. Jewish orthodoxy in the present day. Liberal Judaism. Destructive forces. X. Intermarriage, - -' - - - 157 The increase of intermarriage. The children of mixed marriages. Losses to Judaism caused by intermarriage. XI. Baptism, - - - - - - 181 Conversion in former times. Baptism at the present day. Missionary societies. Prognostics for the future. XII. Anti-Semitism an Ineffective Check TO Assimilation, - - - - 197 Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria. Anti-Semi- tism in other countries. Causes of anti-Semitism. The importance of anti-Semitism in the assimilationist movement. viii CONTENTS PART II. JEWISH NATIONALISM Section IV. The Foundations of Jewish Nationalism PAGE XIII. Race Value of the Jews, - - - 211 The justification for the continued existence of the Jews as a separate nation. The intellectual gifts of the Jews. The artistic proclivities of the Jews. The Jews and ethics. The value of the Jewish race. XIV. Cultural Value of the Jews, - - 229 Race and culture. The value of modern Jewish culture. The new Jewish culture a combination of Jewish tra- dition with modern education. Section V. The Aims of Jewish Nationalism XV. Creation of a Self-Contained Jewish Economic Life by a return to Agriculture, ----- 241 The importance of agricultural occupation for a com- munity of Jews. Small participation of Jews in agri- culture. Results of Jewish agricultural colonisation hitherto. Economic possibility of a return to agri- culture. Colonisation — ^philanthropic and national. XVI. Revival of the Hebrew Language, - 259 Yiddish and Hebrew. Hebrew as the national language in Palestine. CONTENTS ix XVII. Local Segregation of the Jews, - 265 Local segregation and its relation to culture. Pros- pects of segregation in Eastern Europe. Prospects of segregation in the colonies — ^Territorialism. Prospects of segregation in Palestine — Zionism. Section VI. Zionism XVIII. Zionism, ------ 275 Origin and growth of Zionism. Revival of Judaism by Zionism. Economic activity of the Zionists in Palestine. Zionism and the Turkish Government. Relations with the non- Jewish population of Palestine. Economic possibilities for Jewish immigrants in Pales- tine. The prospects of Zionism. Index, - - - - - - 303 INTRODUCTION " Life is interesting, if not happy," Sir John Seeley used to say. The same may be said of the Jews who have had the unfortunate knack of attracting the world's attention to themselves for the last two thousand years, with results often disastrous to themselves. Formerly the interest was theological. The Jews were the solitary exception to the Christian consensus. Yet, curiously enough, just as theology is losing its hold on the world's attention, the interest in the Jew has risen again to the same heights as before. Indeed, the modem Jew is anomalous enough to attract the attention of a world curious, above all things, about anomalies. The most modem of men with the most ancient of faiths, sceptical yet loyal, materialist and idealist in one, cosmopolitan yet priding himself on his patriotism, conspicuous among ' both capitalists and socialists, exploiter and exploited, the Jew remains the Sphinx of the nations, asking the sempiternal Jewish question. Or, rather, he is always raising a whole Cadmean crop of questions, economic, demographic, religious, social, eugenical, even political. Are the Jews of to-day the direct descendants of the Israelites of old ? Will Judaism survive the assaults of modern criticism and scepticism ? Are Jews a people, a nation, a sect or a race ? Is there a specific xii INTRODUCTION Jewish culture differing from the civilisations of the nation among whom they live ? Is there a Jewish music, a Jewish art ? What is the cause of the com- parative superiority of the Jewish intellect, if there be such superiority ? These are but samples of questions that have been raised in our own times about Jews and still lack definite answers. There is even a certain scientific interest about investigations into Jewish phenomena. Thus the question about the purity of the Jewish race, on which so much has been written of recent years, has a direct bearing on the opposition noticed by the late Sir Francis Galton, between the nature and the nurture of men. In other words, does birth or training deter- mine human characteristics ? The Jews throw light upon this subject whether they are a distinctive race or not. If they are, their common characteristics shown in such different p9,rts of the world is evidence of the influence of breed or nature. If they are not, the same characteristics prove the influence of nurture, education or environment. Jewish characteristics have even been made the subject of discussion in the struggle now going on between the Mendehans and the Biometricians. The former assert, the latter deny, that Jewish features are hereditable in mixed marriages, according to the Mendelian Law. So too, the sociologist can find facts for or against his generalisations from Jewish phenomena. Jews, for example, are predominantly town dwellers, and it is a problem for the sociologist to ascertain how far their common characteristics, e.g., their shorter height, is due to this fact. Or again, the difference in nurture may show striking phenomena even in the same town area. Thus, Sir Isidore Spielmann and myself, on INTRODUCTION xiii measuring the heights of a number of London Jews, arrived at the interesting result that the heights of those dwelUng in the West End or richer parts of London were, on an average, two inches greater than those dwelling in the East End where poverty prevails. As all our subjects were descendants of the same class of Jews the increase of height was obviously due to better nourishment. The general form of these problems, anthropological, sociological or demographic, is by way of comparison both in the popular and the scientific interest. Jews are the more musical, or more materialistic, or richer, or meaner, than their Gentile neighbours, is the general way of making statements about Jewish characteristics. Yet in every case we are met with the curious fact that while some Jews are more musical than their non- Jewish neighbours, they have a larger number of deaf mutes who cannot be musical ; or again, while some of them are richer, a very large proportion of them are poorer than others. Such contrasts raise problems which have something more than a mere poptdar interest of curiosity. The very methods by which such problems can be approached have not yet been determined. The nearest approach is afforded by the Galtonian curves of fre- quency, as developed by Prof. Karl Pearson. Roughly speaking, this method consists in determining how many Jews out of each million fall within each of the sixteen classes into which any given body of men may be divided with regard to the possession of any specific characteristic— musical ability, riches and poverty, intellect and insanity, and the Uke. Of course, the vast majority of men, when ranged in order of merit with regard to any of these quahties, cluster round the xiv INTRODUCTION centre or average classes. But if we assume that the curves of distribution thus obtained are normal or symmetrical, the differences between them at both extremes should be the same. Thus, if at the superior limit of the distribution of Jewish intellect, there are more geniuses among a milUon Jews than among the same number of Germans, there should be, at the other end of the Jewish curve of intellect, more idiots and insane persons among Jews than among Germans : this is found to be the case. Similarly they have both more rich and more poor, more persons musically gifted, but yet more deaf mutes, more philanthropists at one end of the curve of altruism and more greedy and stingy persons at the other end. Thus, by a mere deduction from rigid mathematical laws many of the anomalies that the Jewish people present are, to some extent, explained. The difficulties of applying such a method are enormous, and indeed I believe that, up to the present, I have been the only person sufficiently daring to attempt such an explanation. Your average man is so predominant in point of numbers that he swamps all those much above or much below the average, and yet it is only the exceptional persons, as a rule, that we can count. Hence in making deductions about the relative position of two races, judged by their respective ciirves of distribution, or rather by the ends of such curves, it would seem as if we were making the tail or even the tip of the tail, wag the dog. Take, for example, an instance which I recently had occasion to work out. In the fifth edition of Wer Ist's, the German equivalent of our Who's Who, I have found 1064 Jewish names out of the 16,000 therein mentioned, or, in other words, 6.5 per cent., whereas the Jews in the German-speaking INTRODUCTION xv countries are not much more than i per cent. Yet it would be precarious in the extreme to deduce any conclusions as to the relative superiority of intellect of the average German-speaking Jew as compared with his Gentile neighbour. Jews are predominantly of the mercantile classes, and it is from these classes almost exclusively that the professional element, which fills out such books of celebrities, is mainly recruited. Thus figures when applied to Jewish phenomena are often deceptive, or at least have to be interpreted with great care. Yet without figures what have we ? Merely impressions or, often, only prejudices, which are specially strong in the case of Jews. Hence, when examining, some thirty years ago, into the charges which anti-Semites brought against the Jews, I foimd it necessary to get as many numerical facts as possible about the Jews in their various aspects, economic, demographic, and the hke, and thus started a series of investigations which have grown into a whole literature, of which this book of Dr. Ruppin's is a striking example. He treats his subject, at least in the second edition, now represented in this English version, from the standpoint of a single problem, which, however, touches upon most of the other problems which the Jewish question raises. When the walls of the Ghetto fell some fifty years ago the admission of the Jews into modem society on comparatively equal terms raised the question how far their distinctive characteristics — intellectual, cultural, rehgious and the rest — ^would survive the contact with modem culture, from which repressive l^islation had hitherto restrained them. Would they, could they be assimilated into modem European cultm-e and still remain Jews in the charactoistics they had retained throughout the h xvi INTRODUCTION Christian ages ? That is the problem which Dr. Ruppin sets himself to solve, and the answer he gives is a decided negative. Dr. Ruppin comes to this conclusion after the widest possible induction of the cultural and demographic facts relating to modern Jews. He starts with the assumption that there was a specific Jewish culture developed out of the old biblical culture of Jews into the Ghetti of the Middle Ages with their autonomous organisation and isolation from the rest of the world. This culture found its appropriate medium in the sacred language of Hebrew, in which most Jewish children were trained from their earhest youth, and was fostered by a sense of common descent and creed, and, in later centuries, of common persecution. This Ghetto Ufe and culture continued down to the middle of the nine teenth century with most Western European Jews and is still predominant among the Jews of Eastern Europe. But it is being broken down mainly by Jews themselves who, in West Europe and America, have deserted the " Chedarim," or special Jewish schools in which Hebrew is taught. They frequent the schools and colleges of the nations among which they dwell and, in many ways, adopted the interest of their neighbours in preference to, or side by side with, those of their own people. Dr. Ruppin also points out the rapid increase of intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles, especially in Germany and Austria, which almost necessarily breaks down the transmission of the special Jewish culture to the children. In the same countries baptism has, of recent years, considerably increased as a means of getting social recognition and professional advancement. Dr. Ruppin appears to think that the congestion of Jews in large towns is also a factor tending INTRODUCTION xvii to assimilation. But it is difficult to agree with him on this point. Surely the bringing together of many Jews is rather a cause of the retention of the Jewish spirit than otherwise. So too, the recent decline in the birth-rate among Jews has little bearing upon the problem of assimilation except, in so far as by limiting the numbers of Jews in the future, it may render the proportion of the assimilated comparatively larger. However, there can be no doubt that, on the whole. Jews, especially in Western Europe and America, have become more like their neighbours in social practices and in the adoption of the siurounding culture in its widest sense. And if this were to resxilt in the dis- appearance or diminution of the specific Jewish spirit this would be a misfortune not alone for the Jews them- selves but for the world in general. The great danger of modem times is the tendency towards what may be termed Qiinesism, a fated and monotonous similarity and mediocrity invading aU sections of national life. One of the outward signs of this is the deadly monotony of dress and furniture, which is becoming more and more international. The growth of inter-commimica- tion is gi\'ing a common set of ideas and ideals to the whole world and making it more and more difficult for anj' special culture like the Irish, or the Japanese, or the Jewish, to hold its own. Every such specific cultmre that disappears would make the final form of humanity, which seems so rapidly approaching, less rich and manifold. There would be nothing gained for the world and much would be lost for it if aU Jews were to-morrow to become indistinguishable firom their neighbours. But does it altogether foUow that the advance of modem culture among Jews must necessarily destroy xviii INTRODUCTION their specific characteristics and ideals ? Modern civihsation, in some of its chief aspects, is based upon the Hebraic ideals, and the rapid manner in which Jews have acquired modem culture is itself a proof that there is no incongruity between the Jewish folk- soul and European civilisation. In England, France, Germany and America the Jew, in the immediate past, has shown himself quite capable of being strongly and patriotically English, French, German and American, but still retaining his devotion to his faith, his interest in the fate and misfortunes of his fellow Jews throughout the world. Such Jews have had a duplex culture, and their nature has, in consequence, become richer and more iridescent. So far as this is so, both Jews and the world have gained by their adoption of modem culture. But in one respect Jews have certainly suffered incalculable harm by their assimilation of modern thought. The centre of Jewish life was religion ; to uphold the ancestral faith was their raison d'itre. Yet modern thought has largely undermined the older revelational views of religion, of which Judaism was the typical example. It is one of the ironies of history that just when Jews have been released from their mediaeval bondage and have been admitted to political and, to some extent, social equality with the European nations, the faith that has kept them alive, and at the same time isolated them from their neighbours, has been disrupted by the assaults of modern rationalism. Anti-Semites assert that much of modem scepticism has been due to Jewish influence on the press and general literature. The process has been rather the other way, and the late Anatole Leroy-Benaieu was undoubtedly right in asserting that it was modern INTRODUCTION xix culture that had made Jews sceptical rather than that Jews had interpenetrated modem culture with scep- ticism. There is a rationalistic strain in Jewish thought and theology, as is illustrated by the specula- tions of Abraham ibn Ezra, Maimonides and Spinoza ; and this rationalism has, undoubtedly, helped the rapid assimilation of modem thought by Jewish thinkers. But the dismpting effect came, in the first place, from the Encyclopedists and Kant. Yet there are those who consider that the funda- mentals of Judaism are identical with the most pro- minent aspects of modem thinking. Its two main dogmas, the Divine Unity and the Messianic Hope, only express, in historic form, the fundamental scientific conception of the Unity of Energy and the essentially modern notion of Progress. Whatever changes the ureUgious consciousness may undergo in the near future, these conceptions wiU survive, and Judaism has at least as great a chance of passing uninjured through the critical transition of religious thought as any of the historic faiths. It will thus be seen that Dr. Ruppin's work raises a world-problem of the highest interest. The answer he gives to the question he himself has raised is the Zionist solution. This, as is well known, regards the revival of Israel as a political entity as the only means of combating the disappearance of the Jewish spirit. By creating a Jewish nation on the soil of the ancient fatherland in Palestine Zionists hope to revive and intensify the special Jewish culture which has lasted on through the ages till its existence is now threatened by the assimilation of modern culture. It is recog- nised that it wiU be impossible to transfer the whole of the fourteen million Jews of the world to the narrow XX INTRODUCTION confines of the Holy Land ; but if there were estab- lished a spiritual as well as a political centre in Zion its example and influence would radiate through all Jewish communities throughout the world and thus keep alive the Jewish folk-soul. The romance of the notion must appeal to every heart, Jewish or Gentile, conscious of the aspirations and ideals that have clustered round the Holy Land ever since the fall of the Jewish State. Without going into the general question, we may doubt how far the Zionist solution meets the parti- cular problem raised by Dr. Ruppin in his interesting work. Jews outside Palestine — and the majority of them, it is recognised on all hands, must remain outside for all time — will be just as much subject to the assaults of the assimilative forces after as before the foundation of a new Jewish State. The difficulties of the Jewish position, now due to their being an inter-nation, will be rather increased than diminished, if they once more form a nation. There will be troubles of Ultrama- rinism corresponding to the difficulties of Ultramon- tanism in the Catholic State. The source of all the troubles that beset the Jews, in their relation to the outer world, is to be found in the continuance of their mediaeval status in one great modern Empire, which still retains a constitution based on mediaeval conceptions. Russia is still a Church-State, in which only those who belong to the National Church have full rights as citizens. This obsolete conception must break down in Russia as it has done elsewhere, with the development of industrial democracy within the Czar's dominions. When that day arrives the Russian Jews will take their fitting place in their native country and will no longer be INTRODUCTION xxi thrust elsewhere into that sudden contact with modern thought which leads to the assimilation so much dreaded by Dr. Ruppin. Jews throughout the ages have faced this problem of assimilation with success, as was notably shown in the great Spanish-Arabic period, when Jews acquired all that their Arab con- querors could teach them of Greek science and philo- sophy without losing aught of their Jewish feehng and culture. The same occurred in Holland, in France, in England, and, to a large extent, in Germany. The danger of a conflict of cultures, which Dr. Ruppin so much deprecates, is the danger of religion in general, which would assail Jews even on the sacred soil of Palestine with as much intensity as elsewhere. Dr. Ruppin has another and more personal reason for advocating their return to the Holy Land as a prophylactic against assimilation. He regards a return to the soil, in a literal sense, as a necessary means of salvation for the modem man, debased and degenerated by urban conditions. In its general aspects this is a problem too large to be discussed in this place, though it may be remarked that the increase of urban taxation and the development of electrical power will probably send back even the industrial population to the land before another generation is past. Jews, however, have a special need of an agricultural element owing to their having been so long cooped up in towns, leading to a one-sided development towards intellect'ualism. Jewish leaders have recognised this need both within and outside Palestine, the most prominent examples of the latter being the Baron de Hirsch colonies in the Argentine and the 40,000 Jewish farmers of the United States. In Palestine itself Zionistic feeling may well aid the first settlers in overcoming the natural repug- xxii INTRODUCTION nance of town-bred men to the toilsome work in the fields. Recently an agricultural station has been established mainly by American Jews in Haifa, Pales- tine, under the direction of Mr. Aaronsohn, the dis- coverer of "wild wheat." The world-wide tendency to make agriculture a branch of applied science is thus made effective on the very spot where, it would seem, agriculture first took its rise. I have now discussed most of the points raised in the following pages sufficiently to put the reader in a posi- tion to appreciate their wide significance both for Jews and others. It remains only to say a few words of the man to whom we owe these suggestive pages. Dr. Arthur Ruppin was born on March ist, 1876, and after studying law and economics entered the Prussian State service. He has written upon the Theory of Value, expounded by Thiinen (1902), and on Dar- winism and Sociology (1903), besides the present work, which appeared in its first edition (1904), and in a second form in 1911. He was the founder and first editor of the Zeitschrifi fuer juedische Statistik und Demo- graphic, of which eight volumes have already appeared. He helped to found as well a Bureau of Jewish statistics, which has issued a dozen valuable monographs ; so that he writes on matters Jewish with the fullest knowledge of all the information that can be obtained in quantitative form. Dr. Ruppin has proved the ardour of his convictions as a Zionist by taking up his residence in Palestine for a number of years, and he is thus in a specially favourable position to speak||of the solution he proposes of the problem he has raised. JOSEPH JACOBS. PART I. ASSIMILATION. SECTION I. ASSIMILATION IN THE DIASPORA A CONSTANT MENACE TO JUDAISM. CHAPTER I. REVIEW OF JEWISH ASSIMILATION- HISTORICAL AND SOCIOLOGICAL. A. The -process of disruption in the present day. The structure of Judaism, once so solid, is crumbling away before our very eyes. Conversion and inter- marriage are thinning the ranks of Jews in every direction, and the loss is the heavier to bear, in that the great decrease in the Jewish birth-rate makes it more and more difficult to fill up the gaps in the natural way. Until lately this breaking-up process was con- fined to Central and Western Europe ; a few years ago it was thought it could only gain ground there, and that the six million Jews on the other side of the Vistula would be untouched by it. Since then, however, a revolution has taken place in Russia, and with it comes the glaring revelation of the ardour with which the Russian Jew throws in his lot with that of the land of his birth, and how readily the intellectual Jew, in par- ticular, sacrifices his Judaism to plunge headlong into the vortex of Russian life. Thus here, too, we see disruption seizing on the great mass of East European Jews and threatening to undermine the last bulwark of Judaism. Many circumstances conspire to forward the move- ment. The progressive development of trade among 6 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY 1729, that he came to Beriin in 1743, that he there became the friend of Lessing, translated the Bible into German, and wrote a number of important philosophical works.i It need hardly be said that such a view reveals a puerile attitude to history. The real cause of the so-called emancipation of the Jews is not to be found in the achievements of any single Jew, but in the sudden change of outlook, social and economic, which characterised the whole of the eighteenth century. The development of commerce and industry, which then finally shook off the fetters of the mediaeval corporations by taking on an individualist and capitalist character, brought Christians and Jews into contact with one another. Not only were Jews and Christians associated in great business enterprises, but the Jewish profession of money-lending suddenly lost its unpleasant savour. Whereas the Jew had formerly only been able to sustain the credit of the consumer, and was thus condemned to the calling of a usurer, he now found himself in a position, by assisting the credit of the producer, to become a valuable aid to business men, 1 It may be said at once that Mendelssohn's contributions to Jewish literature are surrounded by a halo which would surprise none more than their modest author himself, were he here now to witness it. Mendelssohn, to whose mind and character all homage is due, was nevertheless no great philosopher ; he walked in the well-worn paths of WolflE's philosophy, and cannot be mentioned in the same breath with Kant, much less compared to him. His attitude to Judaism is anything but logical. His great achievement for Jewish emancipation was the translation of the Pentateuch, which, by bringing German Jews into touch with the pure German language, gave them access to German literature and culture. But can this — 250 years after Luther — justify making a hero of him ? Bemfeld was right (Jews and Judaism in the Nineteenth Century, Berlin, 1898) in denouncing the exaggeration of Moses Mendelssohn's share in the emancipation of the Jews. JEWISH ASSIMILATION 7 and a promoter of industries which required his capital. The change in their economic condition had a rapid effect on the social status of the Jews. The French philosophers of the second half of the eighteenth century, had proclaimed the equality of men, and when these ideas became embodied in laws, the yoke of the Jews was correspondingly lightened. They gained at once greater freedom for participation in commercial life, and a rise of status ; and in proportion as trade and industry took on greater importance in the European States, and the citizen class gradually sup- planted the aristocratic, so the Jews advanced in the social scale. Breach after breach was thus made in that wall which separated Christian from Jew ; through personal intercourse with Christians the way was opened into the great Christian world of thought. Jews began to read German and French books, etc., and their newly acquired culture influenced them so strongly — in Germany and Western Europe, at least — that in less than fifty years they completely abandoned Yiddish (the so-called Jargon) in favour of the pure language of the country, and approached as nearly as possible to the Christians in dress and customs. From this to complete renunciation of Judaism was but a step. At first, indeed, before the final abandonment of Judaism, many attempts were made to reconcile it with the Christian world of thought. But this world of thought was that of the French and German freethinkers (Voltaire, Holbach, Lamettrie, Diderot, Wolff, Lessing, Rei- marus), which, with its championship of atheism and extreme materialism (in France), its glorification of reason, its demand for a rationalistic basis for 8 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY everything, its ardour for science, and its antagonism to metaphysics and any positive religion, stood in direct opposition to the contemporary spirit of Judaism. Many a Jew must have been torn between conflicting impulses in hours of doubt. But from this impasse the Jewish religion rarely emerged triumphant ; according to the education and character of each individual Jew, some gave it up entirely in favour of the new knowledge, while others, through a more or less contradictory compromise, sought to bring it into outward harmony with prevail- ing thought. Mendelssohn belonged to the latter section. He adhered to the ceremonial law, and though he admitted in his open letter to Lavater that " he found many accretions and abuses in Judaism which obscured much of its lustre," though he declared emphatically ^ " I recognise no other eternal truths than those which cannot only be conceived by human reason, but can be demonstrated and verified by human experience " ; nevertheless he comes finally to a glorification of the Jewish Law : " What is ordained by Divine Law cannot be set aside by the no less Divine Reason," ^ and he ends by the following appeal to his co-religionists : " We are allowed to meditate on the Law, to fathom its spirit ; here and there to assign a reason where no reason is given by the Law- giver for enactments made for a specific time and place, and which different times and circumstances necessitate changing — if it should please the greatest Lawgiver to make His will known to us with the same irrefutable truth and infallible directness, with no room for the shadow of a doubt, as He revealed the * Jerusalem, Complete Works, p. 256 (Vienna, 1838). ^ Loc. cit. 285. JEWISH ASSIMILATION 9 Law itself to us. When this is not the case, when we can point to no such authority for setting aside the Law, then our petty reasoning is not sufficient to release us from the rigid obedience the Law demands, and the fear of God sets a boundary between specula- tion and practice which no conscientious man may override." ^ It is not surprising that Bruno Bauer should ridicule ^ this parody of the sovereignty of Reason ; still less surprising to find that such an illogical position could nowhere find acceptance. Everyone knows that Men- delssohn's own children threw their father's doctrines to the winds, cut themselves free of all the ordinances of the Jewish religion, and finally became converts to Christianity. In a letter from the famous etcher Chodowiecki to the Countess von Solms-Laubach,* dated December 12th, 1783, we read that the Jews of Berhn are no longer concerned with any kind of ritual, they buy and sell on Saturdays, eat all the forbidden foods, keep no fast days, etc. ; only the lower classes (that is, those still untouched by German culture) are still orthodox. The theories of enlightenment, originally directed against Christianity, proved to be much less destructive of Christianity than of Judaism. The Christian, while theoretically convinced of the untruth of the Christian dogmas, could stiU remain a Christian ; Christianity imposed no special mark of peculiarity upon him, he was to a certain extent Christian without knowing it ; his Christianity did not disturb him. It was other- wise with the Jew, the adherent of the religion, of a ^ Loc. cit. 287. 2 Die Judenfrage, p. 83 (Braunschweig, 1843). ' Reprinted in Ost und West, December, 1903, p. 832. 10 THE JEWS dF TO-DAY minority. Every way he turned he was constantly reminded of the exceptional position his religion placed him in ; unlike the Christian he could not rid himself of it by disregarding its dogmas and rites, to set him- self absolutely free he had to perform an external act. This act was conversion, and the cultured Jews of Berlin were not slow in availing themselves of it to its fuU extent. D. The disintegration of Judaism by the adoption of modern education. Berlin was the centre of Jewish enlightenment, and presented the most vivid spectacle of the loosening of the bonds of Judaism; yet similar phenomena were everywhere apparent, as the recognised social status of the Jews improved, and they were able to take advantage of Christian culture — that is to say, all over Central and Western Europe. Hitherto a well-defined nation, characterised by a specific language, religion, education and customs, they now, by denuding them- selves of all peculiarities, became completely denation- alised. As in chemistry a compound is dissolved into its elements under the influence of fermentation, and these elements unite again in a new compound, so modern culture, working on the old homogeneous Ghetto- Judaism as a ferment, brought about denation- alisation, which, beginning with the splitting up of Judaism into several different grades of culture, culminates in the union of the highest culture with Christianity. The Jews did make some effort to stem the stream ; in Mendelssohn's time the orthodox section were at great pains to check the circulation of his translation of the Pentateuch, to declare his writings heretical, and to warn the BerUn community JEWISH ASSIMILATION ii of this dangerous spirit. When this failed, and clear- sighted Jews realised that the cause of orthodox Judaism was irreparably lost in Germany, they tried to save what stUl remained, though with questionable success, by reforming the service, making it more up-to-date (in 1818 the first Reform Synagogue was opened in Hamburg, with an organ, a sermon in German, and a revised Prayerbook), and by modifying the ritual. If Reform Judaism has proved a refuge for many Jews who are deterred from baptism, for many more it has proved but a halfway house from Judaism to Christianity. If we survey the whole of Jewry as it has emerged from the last century-and-a-half of disintegration, we can distinguish four classes : I. First we have the great mass of Jews, hitherto, or until very recently, untouched by modern culture, and therefore on the same plane of thought as those we have described as characteristic of the period of 1750. To these belong the great majority of Jews in Russia and Galicia, the native Jews of Morocco, Asia, and European Turkey. They have their own colloquial language called Yiddish or Jargon, or Spaniolisch (a corrupt Spanish) in Turkey and North Africa, and their hterature is entirely written in this language and in Hebrew. They keep themselves as a nation apart, wear a pecuhar costume (the Ashkenazim, in particular, cultivating side-locks when not forbidden by law), live for the most part under the old Jewish Law which is expounded by their Rabbis ; and disparaging pro- fane learning, rely for their culture on ancient Jewish hterature, knowledge of which they acquire from their earhest childhood in the Cheders (religious elementary schools). They are for the most part small traders i2 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY (pedlars), artisans, and agents, and are miserably poor. Their birth-rate is very high, families of ten children or more being nothing unusual. Numerically this class is stiU the biggest in Jewry ; about six millions, that is, one half of the nation, belonging to it. 2. The second class has been influenced by modern culture, and speaks the language of the country, and sometimes Jargon as well. It has reUnquished its strange apparel (and also the side-locks), and dresses in Christian manner. The Jewish ritual is adhered to — modified in some cases, like that of the Sabbath Laws, when their observance demands too great a sacrifice : there is much less intolerance of all things non- Jewish, imitation of Christian manners and interest in non- Jewish literature being no longer denounced or despised. The children attend Jewish elementary schools by preference, and there receive elementary secular education along with religious teaching. The families are large, though not so large as those of the first class. The members of this second class have an income just sufficient for their wants ; some are moderately well-to-do. They include the Russian and Galician Jews who have emigrated to England and America, the Jews of Algiers and the Christian Balkan States, the lower classes of the Jewish population of Holland, and the Jews of the small towns of Austria (always excepting Galicia), Hungary, Eastern Germany, and Alsace Lorraine. Their total may be roughly estimated at three millions. 3. The third class almost entirely ignores Jewish ritual, particularly the observance of the Sabbath ; speaks exclusively the language of the country, is educated in the public schools, and no longer concerns itself with Jewish literature. Its adherence to Judaism JEWISH ASSIMILATION 13 consists only in its members marrying within the faith, the circumcision of the sons, and occasional attendance at Synagogue (usually limited to two or three festival days). This class, mostly business men who live in comfortable circumstcinces and have small families, includes the so-called Jewish bourgeoisie in Germany, England, the Colonies, Italy, France, HoUand, America, and the large towns of Austria-Hungary (again excluding GaUcia). They number about two millions. 4. The fourth class has completely broken away from Judaism, and remains Jewish only because — either out of conscientiousness or a sense of honour, or out of family and social considerations — ^it hesitates to take the decisive step of marriage with Christians. Inter- marriage and child-baptism are frequent — two children in a family is the rule. To this class belong the rich Jews of the large towns, and Jews of University education all the world over. They total about one million. We have roughly indicated four classes, and have for easier reference, tabulated their chief characteristics in an appended table. They must on no account be taken for definite, rigidly marked groups, but are simply landmarks in an ever-flowing stream, which, constantly replenished from the great reservoirs of Jewish orthodoxy in Eastern Europe, finds a final outlet in Christianity. In proportion as the Jews become penetrated with modem culture, so they become denationalised, and t)rthodox Judaism (the first section) supplies the liberal class (the second section), this the free-thinking (the third section), and this again the Jews in name only (the fourth section), imtil we are finally led up, through 14 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY conversion and intermarriage, to the Christianised type itself. It is very rare indeed that a Jew belonging by upbringing and education to the first or second sections becomes baptised. A certain time must elapse before he can throw off the influence of his orthodox- Jewish milieu, and the altered conditions and impressions of his later hfe do not, as a rule, outweigh the influence of the orthodox Judaism of his youth. On the other hand, we may quite well take the four sections as representing four succeeding generations, though in point of fact the distance between orthodoxy and con- version is frequently covered in three and sometimes two generations. We are four or five generations removed from the times of Moses Mendelssohn. Of all the Jews who lived at that time in Berhn, hardly one has a Jewish descendant to-day ; they have all gone over to Christianity. On the other hand, the rich Jews of present-day Berhn — those whom we class among the fourth section, and whose children are for the most part baptised in their cradles, or likely to become so later — are descendants of rigidly orthodox Jews, who two or three generations back, left their small native towns in the East Prussian provinces or just over the frontier, to emigrate to Berhn. To any- one who has studied the conditions of Jews in the large European towns, this process is as familiar as it is clear. JiiWlSH ASSIMILATION 15 Pi w I—* h O O H O m O w w H ill ill I r M fii SS'E I 1 S. JS s 1 I 1 ! J 1 i i 1 it iili vj P CQ en if ■9 IS (2g =11 O-o 3 1, "•a . ^1 .a a +j II li |3 if il otW-< B l-ajl 1 1 ^1 || h'1 li g ll 1 1 u ■ i6 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY E. Analogous assimilative movements of the Jews in the epochs of Greek and Arabic culture. The breaking-up of Judaism, of which we of the present day are witnesses, is by no means without precedent in its history. On the contrary, we see the very same thing happening on both the previous occasions when Judaism came under the influence of foreign culture — ^in the Greek period two centuries before and one century after Christ ; and in the Arabic period, from the eighth to the twelfth century a.d. While the Jewish State was stiU in existence, the great party of Sadducees — similar to the Reformers of the nineteenth century — ^repudiated the " tradition " {i.e. the endless number of ritual ceremonies) on account of their Greek sympathies. Grecian gym- nastics were practised in Jerusalem, and Jewish youths were so ashamed of their nationahty that they actually submitted to a painful operation in order to remove aU traces of circumcision, so that they should not be recognised as Jews in the Gjonnasia. The Greek language was substituted for Hebrew and Aramaic, and Greek for Hebrew names. Philo, the leader of the HeUenising party, wrote his books in Greek ; with the aim of defending Judaism against the attacks of paganism, he divested it of individuality and repre- sented it as merely an offshoot of Greek philosophy. He thereby prepared the way for the triumphant pro- gress of Christianity. The one million Jews who lived in Egypt — ^the centre of Hellenic culture in the first century, — became so utterly merged into Paganism and Christianity that in the following century we hardly hear of the existence of Jews in Eg57pt at all. It was only in distant Babylon, whither a great portion of JEWISH ASSIMILATION 17 Palestine Jews had migrated, and where they main- tained, through their separatist organisation as exiles, a certain measure of autonomy, that the Jews dis- played their " will to live," and, through the compila- tion of the Talmud, raised the Law to its sovereign authority. Another wave passed over Jewry under the influence of Arabic culture. In the eighth century there arose the great party of Karaites — probably an off-shoot of the Jewish-Arabian colony in Syria — ^who repudiated the whole Talmud, of which the Jews were so proud, and recognised no authority but that of the Bible. We must not estimate the strength of the Karaites by their miserable descendants of to-day. At the time of their foundation they constituted a danger which threatened the continued existence of Judaism, and were at least the equals in strength of the Talmud Jews. Karaism failed because it set up a new ritual of its own, prac- tically a new Talmud, and thus nullified its very raison d'etre — antagonism to the superabundance of ritual, and to the exclusiveness of Rabbinic Judaism. The influence of a Mohammedan environment was no less strong on the Jews of North Africa and Spain than on those of Sjniia. Jewish literature, hitherto con- cerned with the revision and interpretation of the Talmud, took on an absolutely different character. The famous Saadiah ben Joseph (892-942), the real founder of Jewish philosophy, is far removed from those who studied only the letter of the Law; his works form a philosophy of religion ; he translated the Bible into Arabic, and set himself the task of reconciling tradition with the demands of reason and of altered social conditions, in a manner which is strikingly similar to the work of Moses Mendelssohn, i8 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY nine centuries later. In the tenth century we ,find Jews in North Africa and Spain criticising the Talmud, the Bible, the doctrine of revealed religioh, till we even get Unbelief exalted into a principle — the last, cer- tainly, under the influence of the Arabic philosophy of the Mutazilites, then in vogue. Something of this new spirit penetrated even into Babylon, where we have a Gaon of the College of Sura, Samuel ben Chofni Hakohen (960-1034) declaring " That anything opposed to reason need not be accepted." The great men of this period — a Salomon ibn Gebirol, a Maimonides — are not Jewish in teaching, but draw their wisdom from the newly discovered writings of the Greek philosophers. Samuel David Luzzatto in the nineteenth century had his reasons for calling the doctrine of Maimonides un- Jewish, and the contem- poraries of Maimonides in France and Germany, who still held fast by the tradition, had reason also to be horrified at this enlightened Spanish Jew who was so loudly acclaimed. " They dreaded the destructive force of this foreign wisdom, and opposed it for hun- dreds of years with increasing bitterness." ^ But they struggled in vain. Even if the Talmudists of other countries were successful in enforcing their decree that " no Jew under thirty should read Maimonides," in Spain it was all over with the old Jewish tradition, which, indeed, has never been able to recover lost ground. As soon as the Jews had laid hold of this culture — this Arabic-Spanish philosophy which was founded on the Hellenistic — the way was clear to complete assimila- tion. Already under the rule of Islam, conversion and * M. Braun, History of the Jews and their Literature [{Breslau, 1899). JEWISH ASSIMILATION 19 intermarriage were of no rare occurrence, and when, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Christianity triumphed in Spain, the Jews went over to it in multitudes. The fact that in the year 1492, when confronted with a choice between baptism and exile, so many Jews chose exile, cannot be put down to strength of any rehgious belief : under similar pressure, the most enlightened Western Jews of to-day, who have no sort of connection with Jewish religion as such, would probably act in exactly the same way. Just such ruthless measures were needed to stiffen the backs of the vacUlators ; and it is hardly too much to say that the Jews in Spain would in a very short time have been lost to Judaism if they had not been forced back into it through persecution. These periods of assimilation in Hellenistic and Moorish times are not isolated phenomena ; they are but the visible culmina- tion of a movement which has always undermined Jewry in the Diaspora. Even in the times when the Jews lived in their Ghettos under most terrible oppres- sion, and were cut off as a community from all contact with Christian culture, we see to our astonishment, individual Jews (either baptised or very nearly so) in the courts of princes and bishops in high positions, or else like Spinoza, leading progressive thought. The yeUow badge which the Jews of the Middle Ages were forced to wear, and which every Jewish history speaks of as the greatest disgrace, was not introduced merely as a badge of dishonour ; it was designed rather to make it impossible for Jews to mix unrecognised with Christians, and to deport themselves as Christians. It shows us that even in the time of their greatest degrada- tion many Jews sought to fuse themselves with the Christian majority. We may read Jewish history in 20 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY the Diaspora as one long battle between, on the one hand, the ideals of isolation and race purity, implanted into the Jewish people by Ezra and Nehemiah, and ever since the corner-stone of their religion ; and on the other, the tendency to assimilate ; and we shall find it a useful clue to the right understanding of that history. So long as the Jews live together, as in Babylon, in a large compact body with a higher state of culture than the surrounding non- Jewish majority, assimilation is nothing more than a tiny stream which draws few into its current ; but this stream becomes a torrent, carrying everything before it as soon as the culture of the non- Jewish majority is raised, and the Jews are scattered in smaU groups among that majority without having to struggle for their daijy bread. How great the losses suffered by Judaism through assimilation have been, may be appreciated by the fact that the Jews number to-day only twelve million souls, while in the first century a.d. they numbered five miUion. Even allowing for the thousands and tens of thousands who succumbed to persecution, Judaism to-day should be stronger than it is by millions and tens of millions, were it not for the con- tinuous secession to Christianity.'- F. The assimilation of minor nationalities — a common social phenomenon. The similarity between the assimilative movements of Greek and Moorish times and that of our own day ^'' It is generally admitted that but for the secession of thousands of its sons in every generation to Christianity, Judaism would number 4 or 5, perhaps even 10 times the total of its adherents," Leroy-Beaulieu, Jews and Anti-Semitism. JEWISH ASSIMILATION 21 is obvious. By comparing the three epochs we shall arrive at an understanding of their conunon causes and effects, and shall be able to deduce a general principle in Jewish assimilation. This principle lays down that the rate of assimilation is higher — (a) The smaller the percentage of Jews in compari- son with the non- Jewish population of their immediate environment. (6) The livelier the economic intercoiurse between Jew and non- Jew. (c) The higher the standard of non- Jewish culture. {d) The greater the wealth of the Jews. This is incontestably estabhshed by historical facts ; and the causes are not far to seek. They are the same causes which everywhere bring about the same result : namely, that minor nationalities — ^unless they come like the Manchus in China, as conquerors, and retain their power as ruling caste by mUitary prowess and organisation — tend always to gravitate towards the national majority. Man is a social animal ; to satisfy his needs he must come into touch with his fellow-man, and thus set up any number of new relations with them. In the first place, there are economic relations : they are the most important and far-reaching, since everyone is subject to them in order to secure, by means of exchange, those necessaries of life which he cannot produce. In a peaceful commimity, where the Law of Might holds no sway, the better a man gets on with his fellows the more likely he is to achieve his aim, the satisfaction of his immediate wants. To this end he requires not only a common language, but capacity to observe and enter into the Ufe of others. Classes whose calling precludes them from actually producing any of the 22 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY necessaries of life, who rely on exchange in order to earn their daily bread, and have to seek customers for their wares, these classes are most liable to be assimi- lated. They are for the most part merchants and business men. The peasant is, in comparison, far more independent ; he is able, especially in the early stages of development, to provide for himself, to satisfy the needs of his household by the work of his hands. We see the Germans in the United States being assimilated very quickly, whereas in Brazil, Transylvania and Russia, the process is very slow ; this must be put down not so much to the higher state of culture in the United States, as to the fact that whereas the Germans there are merchants and business men, in Brazil, Transylvania and Russia they are peasants and husbandmen. For similar reasons, the Jewish pedlar or artisan who emigrates from Eastern Europe to Germany or America is not only forced to give up Jargon and adopt the Gennan or English language, he must also adapt himself to the manners and customs of his new country. In the early stages this is confined to imitation of outward forms of intercourse, deport- ment, dress, etc., whereas at a more advanced stage it becomes complete identification with the German or American outlook, habits and culture. In the Middle Ages, so long as the Jews were econo- mically in touch with the Christians as merchants and bankers, they spoke the language of their surroundings and dressed like Christians. It was only when they were excluded from the larger spheres of commerce, their activity confined to pawnbroking and peddling — the inevitable outcome of their isolation in the Ghettos and the simultaneous growth and spread of the power of the Catholic Church — that their intercourse with JEWISH ASSIMILATION 23 Christians was reduced to a minimum, and that they ceased to come into contact with Christian culture and activity. It was the Ghettos that created the spirit of stagnation in Judaism, the spirit that persisted in carrying the language and costume of the fourteenth century into the eighteenth. With the re-entry of the Jews into the economic life of recent times, this stagna- tion has disappeared. Assimilation set in at once, and brought about those rapid changes which at one stroke, transformed the Jews of What we have called the first class into those of the second, or even the third. Equal in importance to the economic are the social relations, which satisfy man's need of friendly com- munion, by the exchange of mutual experiences in the reahns of affairs and of thought, and by the fostering of common ethical, artistic and scientific aspirations. Into these circles the individual finds his way, not only by sharing the common language, costume and manners, but by proving himself worthy in culture and knowledge to come among them. He will there- fore have to exert himself to acquire that culture, and thus to attain to a standard precisely equal to that of his associates. This is how our Jews of the Second section pass over into the third section, and — generally a generation later — ^into the fourth. The tendency is intensified by the struggle for social status, which lays hold of men as soon as they no longer have any need to struggle for mere existence. We see this most plainly in the prevalence of fashion in dress, which is simply due to the fact that the lower classes do not want to be outdone by the upper, and strive, as a beginning, to appear their equals in visible outward things such as dress. With the proletariat, which 24 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY still has to battle for daily bread, the fight for social status is not yet developed ; it grows in intensity as the struggle for gain decreases after achieving its aim ; and it is typical of a class which has risen to wealth and culture from the most abject poverty. The Jews of Western Europe are just such a class : their success in business and in letters tempts them to seek position and social status among the rich bourgeoisie and in the scholastic world, and yet as Jews they are looked askance upon, and their efforts are frustrated. Con- fronted with this situation, many make conversion a means of wiping out their last distinctive mark, hoping thereby to secure, and often actually securing, admis- sion as equals to circles hitherto rigidly closed. These are the causes which lead the Jews — a small minority in every country — to adopt the language, the costume, the habits, culture and finally the religion of their non- Jewish surroundings, a compli- cation of phenomena which we call the process of assimilation. G. Reasons for the power of resistance to assimilation shown by the fews hitherto. It is certainly remarkable that, in spite of the ten- dency to assimilation, there still remain, after eighteen centuries a goodly number of Jews ; that Judaism has after all survived its most critical periods, the epochs of Greek and Arabic culture. In our opinion there are three causes which have enabled the Jews to hold fast to the doctrine of isolation and exclusiveness established by Ezra and Nehemiah, and so prevented them from being absorbed by other nations. {a) Even before the destruction of their State, the Jews of Egypt, Syria and other parts of the Roman JEWISH ASSIMILATION 25 Empire, were principally engaged in trade and com- merce, and according to Sombart,i developed money- lending into a fine art. With the migration of the nations they found themselves among peoples in the most primitive stages of domestic economy. Upon these the Jews, with their habits of trafficking and storing up wealth, produced an effect as foreign and uncanny as the nomad Gypsies of to-day on the settled population — be it noted that the Gypsies, like the Jews, have also hitherto defied assimilation. The Jews had nothing to do with the industrial constitu- tion of the Christian majority, which rested on agri- culture and the manorial organisation ; and the latter being based on a traditional grouping of societies foimded on blood-relationship, the foreign Jew could never become a member. Afe the ruling organisa- tions were built on the foundations of these ancient co-operative unions, it follows that neither do we find a single Jew exercising any such function.^ Simi- larly the Jews were excluded from the guilds and corporations into which conamerce and handicrafts were organised in the Middle Ages, whose object was elimination of all competition, with a view to increasing the prosperity of the guilds. Sombart has pointed out that the Jews were forced to be in constant confiict with these guilds and with the principle on which they were based, in order to gain a livelihood. On the other hand, their monopoly of the business of money-lending prevented them to a certain extent from becoming dependent upon Christian custom, and indeed had rather the opposite effect. These 1 Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (Leipzig, 191 1). ' O. Bauer, Die Nationalitatenfrage und die Sozialdemokratie, p. 367 (Vienna, 1907). 26 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY economic and professional divergences prevented Jews and Christians from ever entering into intimate relations with one another. The only exceptions were in those parts of the Roman Empire, such as Southern Italy and Egypt, which were not affected by the migrations to the extent of losing aU their former culture and the system of finance established under the old Roman regime. Here the Jews were never so rigidly excluded as in Central Europe ; in consequence they succumbed to assimilation in masses. (b) The second cause for the survival of Judaism is, that in both periods, just when their extinction seemed imminent, great numbers of Jews were forced out of those countries where the state of culture was high, and had to take refuge in lands in a lower state of civilisation, where assimilation offered no attraction. The first time they were driven from Palestine and Syria to Babylon ; the second time, from Spain and France to Poland and Turkey. But for these happy chances there would in all likelihood be no such thing as Judaism to-day. (c) The great natural prolificness of the Jewish race — a result of the careful nurture of the children — enabled the Jews to make good the losses caused by conversion. If only a remnant withstood assimila- tion, in a relatively short time a new Jewry was bom from it. H. The collapse of the obstructions to assimilation and consequent breaking-up of Jewry. What can we prognosticate for Jewry in the present period of assimilation ? Will a remnant stiU remain to carry on Judaism even if the masses fall away ? JEWISH ASSIMILATION 27 Or is the danger from assimilation already so great as to give us cause to contemplate seriously a total merging of the Jews into Christendom ? Most emphati- cally it is. The economic system of capitalistic finance — the monopoly of the Jews of the Middle Ages — ^has now become the common property of the whole world. Any vestige that may still remain of the old guild and corporation system is foredoomed to extinc- tion, and is disappearing before our eyes. With it disappears the distinctive economic status which formerly stigmatised Jews and prevented assimilation. And the other factors which contributed to the pre- servation of the Jews exist no longer either. Whereas formerly the Jews migrated under stress of persecution from countries of a high to those of a lower culture — the persecutions thus actually helping to preserve Judaism — nowadays oppression drives the Jews from countries on a lower plane of civilisation to those on a higher — ^from dark, unenlightened Eastern Europe to progressive Western Europe and America, and thereby the danger of assimilation is enormously increased. Lastly, the natural prolificness of the Jews has lately suffered a relapse, and in many countries their fertility is less than that of Christians. So the way is clear to assimilation. It goes without sajang that there can be no question of the Jews disappearing from off the face of the globe in a few decades. A people numbering some twelve million souls cannot be wiped out so quickly as aJl that. It may be a hundred years and more before the last Jew is absorbed — the actual time is a minor detail. What we are concerned to know is, whether the causes that have hitherto -preserved the Jews as a separate com- munity, will hold good for the future and protect them 28 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY from total assimilation. If the answer is in the negative, the fate of the Jews is sealed. Just as a tree whose roots are rotten will yet stand a long time though fatally diseased, so also the Jews can go on existing for some time to come; but as a community they will decline and not advance. It is false optimism to make light of this crisis, and say that because Judaism has endured for two thousand years in the face of the greatest dangers and hardships, that therefore it is proof against all happenings. The past can prove nothing for the present, because present-day condi- tions are totally different from what they have ever been before. And besides this, do we not know that in the past the Jewish population of whole countries did become absorbed ? We have already spoken of the Jews in Egypt. In China too, where two centuries ago numbers of Jews were settled, there is no longer any trace of them. Where are the great Jewish communities which flourished in Greece and Sicily in the Middle Ages ? Jewish historians unfortunately pay far too much attention to outstanding events and to persecutions ; the undermining of Judaism by assimilation, a more difficult but far more important side of the question, still awaits a historian. The danger with which modem assimilation threatens Judaism has only just begun to be appreciated, because hitherto its last results — conversion and intermarriage — were confined to certain countries. They were looked upon as signs of temporary weakness. But now that we see the same thing repeating itself in every country, it is clear that we have to do here with a universal phenomenon, the inevitable result of assimilation. We see iip the assimilative movement the greatest danger that has assailed Judaism since JEWISH ASSIMILATION 29 the Dispersion. It is the purpose of this b|Ook to discuss to what extent Jews are already assimilated, and what is to be expected in the way of future development — more especially from the Jewish national movement, the outcome of reaction against assimilation. CHAPTER II. THE NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS. A. Survey of the number of Jews since the Dispersion. To estimate correctly the number of Jews in the various centuries we must begin by ignoring the mythical numbers given in the Pentateuch (Ex. xii. 37, Numbers i.-iii.). The first approximately reliable estimate is found in the Book of Ezra ii. 64, where the number of Jews who returned from the Babylonian exile under Zerubabel is given as 42,360. To these we must add those who stayed behind in Babylon, as well as those who were settled in Phoenicia and Egypt ; nor must we forget that quite a considerable number of Jews had not been led away captive into Babylon after the destruction of the first Temple, but had been left behind in Palestine. With aU these addi- tions, the Jews, about 500 B.C. could not have numbered much above 100,000. They had increased enormously by the time of the destruction of the second Temple (70 a.d.). Though Josephus'- prob- ably exaggerates grossly in putting the number of Jews besieged in Jerusalem at 1,100,000, and again in stating that in the time of Nero 2,700,000 Jews were gathered together in Jerusalem to celebrate the pass- over ; yet we have Tacitus ^ estimating the population of Jerusalem shortly before the destruction, at 600,000. ^ Wars of the Jews, vi. 9. ' Historiae, v. 13. NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 31 At that time, however, the major portion of the Jews lived outside Palestine, for since the time of Alexander the Great, masses of them had gone to settle in the lands on the coasts of the Mediterranean. According to Philo's estimate,^ which is accepted by Mommsen, the Jews contributed one million to a population of eight millions in Egypt. Of these, 200,000 lived in Alexandria alone, the total population of which was only 500,000. Of the seven million inhabitants of Syria in the time of Nero, more than one million, according to Beloch,^ were Jews. Josephus teUs us there was no people in the civilised world with- out settlements of Jews, and this statement is borne out by other writers, in particular Strabo and Seneca. Estimating the number of Jews in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian era at 700,000 (Hamack^) and those in other countries (excluding Egypt and Syria) at one and a half millions, we have a total of about 4J mUlion Jews living within the Roman Empire. As, according to Beloch, the total population of the Roman Empire at that time was 54 millions, the Jews constituted one-twelfth of the entire population, and it is this extraordinarily high percentage which explains the important rolp they played at that period. With the Dispersion we lose all accurate records of their numbers. It is probable that up to the four- teenth century, owing to continual conversions to Christianity and Islam, their numbers did not increase, though they did not perceptibly decrease. But with the fourteenth century there begins a period of great losses to Judaism, due partly to voluntary conversions, ' • In Flaccum, vi. ^ Die Bevolkerung der gnech.-rom. Welt, p. 248 (Leipzig, 1886). ' The Mission and Spread of Christianity in the first three Centuries. 32 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY partly to oppression and persecution, which in many cases ended in wholesale conversions or wholesale massacres. In either case the consequent deteriora- tion and unsettled nature of the Jews' social position produced a much higher death-rate, particularly of children. Between the years 1290-1474 the Jewish population in the kingdom of Castile decreased from 850,000 to 150,000 — a fact attributable for the most part to conversions to Christianity, which have left their mark to the present day in the numerous markedly Jewish types stiU found in Spain. Italy throughout the Middle Ages possessed large and flourishing Jewish communities ; one would expect to find hundreds of thousands of Jews in Italy to-day, instead of which there are only 35,000, and we have no record of great persecutions or emigration. The only reason we can assign is gradual absorption. The period of the Thirty Years' War marks the time when Judaism had reached its lowest ebb ; in the decade between 1648-1658 a quarter of a million Jews perished in Poland alone during the Cossack rising under Chmielnicki, while the Western nations of Europe, with the exception of HoUand and Italy, admitted no Jews at aU. The kingdoms of Poland, Austria- Hungary and the Balkans were the only countries in which large numbers of Jews were to be found. In the German Empire, according to Graetz,^ there were not more than three or four considerable Jewish communities — Frankfurt-am-Main with 2,000, Worms with 1,400, Prague with 10,000, Vienna with 3,000 Jews. It is doubtful whether the total number of Jews in the world at that time amounted to one million. How greatly the Jews suffered during that time of ' History of the Jews. NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 33 persecution is best appreciated by the enormous rapidity with which they increased during the two succeeding centuries, when the fury of persecution and enforced baptism had somewhat abated, and their safety was more assured. In the year 1772 the total Jewish population of Poland and Lithuania is calcu- lated at 308,500 souls, while a Polish writer estimates them at 450,000 at the beginning of the nineteenth century.^ In 1856 in Russian Poland alone, there were 563,000 2 and in 1897 1,321,100 Jews. In Galicia the census of 1785 gave 212,002 Jews, that of 1857, 448,973, that of 1900, 811,371. In Moravia and Austrian Silesia we have in 1775, 23,382, in 1830, 32,244, in 1850, 40,681, and in 1900, 56,243 Jews. European Russia (without Poland) possessed, in the year 1838, 1,023,543 Jews against 3,789,448 in 1897. Prussia had in 1816, 123,921, in 1843, 206,529, in 1858, 242,416, and in 1905, 409,501 Jews. These numbers show that in all these countries the Jewish population has trebled itself in about one hundred years, and they give some idea of the enormous number of Jews there would be in the world to-day but for the assimilation and persecution of over sixteen centuries. The Jewish population in the Diaspora may be divided into a descending and ascending curve. The descent took place during the sixteen centuries following the loss of their territory, during which time they decreased in numbers from five millions to one million ; the ascent began in the seventeenth century ; in the eighteenth their numbers had increased to three 1 T. Czacki Rozprawa o Zydach. Wilna, 1807 ; quoted from Leroy- Beaulieu, The Jews and Anti-semitism. 'Wengierow, "Die Juden im KSnigreicb Polen" in Judische Statistik. vol. i. p. 295 (Berlin, igos). c 34 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY millions, while at the present day they number over twelve millions. There is not the slightest doubt that the numerical strength of the Jews to-day is far greater than it has ever been at any other period of their history. But, on the other hand, the dangers which threaten their existence are also greater than they have ever been. The climax we have reached in numbers — which places the Jews numerically higher than the Greeks, the Roumanians and Bulgarians, and only slightly behind the Poles — is due to three causes : first, that the Jews of the eighteenth and the greater part of the nineteenth century have shunned baptism and intermarriage; secondly, their death-rate has been a low one ; thirdly, contrary to modem civihsed practice, they indulge in very large families. The decline of this spirit must inevitably lead to another descent. B. Lost " Branches " of Judaism. For the most part, those Jews who have cut them- selves oft from Judaism by assimilation and baptism have mixed with their non- Jewish environment and become absorbed into it. Still there are cases where whole groups abandoned Judaism together, yet pre- served the consciousness of their former attachment to Judaism for a long period of time, and married only among themselves. The best-known examples of this are the Jews of Spain known as Marranos. Forced into baptism in the fifteenth century, they main- tained for more than two hundred years, a separate existence, which endured tiU the eighteenth century. The last remnant of them has survived in the Balearic Islands, where about 6,000 of them are known under the name of Chuetas or Anussim. In rehgion they are Christian, but they are conscious of their Jewish NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 35 origin and marry mostly among themselves. Much the same thing may be said of the Maimins or Donmes of Salonica, a sect called into being by Sabbatai Zevi, and numbering some 4,000 souls, who are Mahommedan by religion, and the Gdid al Islam in Khorassan, some 2,000. And with these we must mention the 200 Samaritans — ^the remnant of the once great sect of Samaritans at Nablous (Shechem). Whereas the above-mentioned groups are all Jews not by faith but by origin, there are on the other hand Jewish proselytes, that is, Jews by faith but not by race. Jacobs ^ reckons the following as such : 50,000 Falaschas in Abyssinia.^ 20,000 Karaites in the Crimea and in Turkey.* 10,000 Daggatuns in the Sahara. 6,500 Beni Israel in Bombay. 1,000 Black Jews in Cochin. As regards the Karaites, it is open to question whether, in spite of an influx of Tartar blood, they •" On the Racial Characteristic of Modern Jews," in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute. ' The numbers of the Falaschas are variously given. Faitlowitch, who visited them in 1904, estimates them at 50,000 {Notes d'un voyage chez les Falaschas, Paris, 1905) ; Haim Hahoum, sent by the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1908 to Abyssinia, at only 7,000. •The Karaites in Russia in 1897 numbered 12,894. Their centre was the Crimea with 6,166 Karaites. Outside Russia there are still Karaites in Turkey and in small scattered communities in Galicia, for instance in the town of Kalicz. We might mention here as a curious fact the hundred or so individuals, who, Magyar by race, and belonging to the Christian sect of Sabbatarians, embraced Judaism in the year 1868, and now live in the village of Bozod Ujfalu bei Schassburg in Transylvania. Again, there is in Russia a sect called Sabbotniki, the members of which live according to Jewish law, some of whom have emigrated to Palestine, wjiere they live in the Jewish colonies under the name of " Gerim." 36 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY did not originally come from Jewish stock. Many look upon them, indeed, as descendants of the Chazars who all embraced Judaism ; while there is ground for believing that they are descended from the Syrian Jews who belonged to the Karaite sect. All the other Jewish proselytes, as has been ascertained from their anthropological characteristics, are certainly not of Jewish descent. The Falaschas are probably nearer in origin to the Abyssinians, the black Jews of Cochin and the Beni Israel of Bombay to the Indians, the Daggatuns to the Arabs. In the following survey of the numbers of the Jews in each separate country, none of these side branches have been taken into account. Only those have been counted as Jews who belong both by religion and by descent to the Jewish race — ^that is to say, those who can trace themselves back with more or less purity of blood to the Jews of the time of the downfall of the Jewish State, when that State was their national centre. C. The existing numbers of Jews, and the spread of Jewry. It is only in the last few years that we have had anything like accurate calculations of the numerical strength of the Jews all over the world, namely, since the Russian census of 1897 gave the number of Jews living in European and Asiatic Russia at 5,215,805. Till that time, estimates of the strength of Russian Jewry had varied to an extraordinary degree. Most statisticians and geographists estimated from two to three million Jews to be in Russia, so that until lately the total number of Jews was given variously at six to eight millions, whereas in reality it re^hes to-day practically twelve millions. NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 37 In the synopsis which follows we have put together from the best available sources the correct figures for Jews in every country. Only in very few cases have we been compelled to give our own estimate. Accuracy is not possible, in the first place, because many countries — for lack of a census — can only give us approxima- tions,^ in the second place, because the latest census was taken in different years in the various countries. More- over, the Jews have migrated so much in recent years that many changes would already have to be made in the latest censuses. We should not lay too much stress on this, however, because we may take it that the countries from which the Jews emigrate in the greatest numbers — Russia, Galicia, and Roumania — soon make good their loss, thanks to the great fertility of the Jews, so that the number of Jews there to-day is practically what it was at the time of the last census. The countries into which there is most immigration (England, South Africa, Canada and the United States of America) furnish us with quite recent statistics, which we use in the synopsis. According to our table, out of a world-total of 11,558,610 Jews, 8,854,037, i.e. 76.6 per cent., live in 'Europe, and of these 5,110,548, i.e. 44.2 per cent., in • In Europe, England, France, and Turkey, besides some smaller states, make no record of religion in their census. In America, Africa, and Asia censuses of very few states are available. It is only in Australia that they are complete. For the Oriental coun- tries an inquiry instituted by the Alliance Israelite Universelle in 1904 — ^the results of which were published in the Bulletin of the All. Is. Univ. II. Series, No. 29 (Paris, 1905) — has been invaluable to us. For America, Asia, and Africa — ^whenever official or special calculations were not forthcoming — we have followed the figures of The Statesman's Year Book (1908), The English Jewish Year Book (1909), and The American Jewish Year Book, 5669 (Phila- delphia, 1908). 38 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Russia alone ; 1,898,000, i.e. 16.4 per cent., live in America. This marks an extremely important change of locality for the Jewish people, when we consider that fifty years ago there were only about 50,000, and twenty-five years ago only 230,000 {i.e. 2.5 per cent, of the total number) in America. Asia has 427,523 {i.e. 3.7 per cent.) ; Africa, 361,857 {i.e. 3.1 per cent.) ; and Australia, 17,106 {i.e. 0.2 per cent.) of the total number. AMOUNT AND DENSITY OF THE JEWISH POPULA- TION OF THE WHOLE WORLD. To every Actual 10,000 of Source of ■ Country. Year. Figures. General Population. Information. I. EUROPE. Russia (Pales of Settlement out- side Poland) 15 Government Pro- vinces, 1897 3,578,227 112 Census 1897 2. Poland, - 1897 i,3Zi,ioo 1405 „ 1897 3. Baltic Provinces (Courland, Liv- onia, St. Peters- burg), 1897 101,875 249 ., 1897 4. Rest of Euro- pean Russia, 1897 109,346 19 .. 1897 5,110,548 497 ., 1897 Austria — Galicia, 1 900 811,371 1 109 igoo Lower Austria (including Vi- enna), - 1900 157.278 507 1900 Bukovina, - 1900 96,150 1317 1900 Bohemia, - 1900 92,745 147 ,, 1900 Moravia, - 1900 44.255 182 1900 Silesia in Austria, 1900 11,988 176 1900 Rest of Austria, - 1900 11,112 20 468 1900 1,224,899 „ 1900 NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 39 AMOUNT AND DENSITY OF THE JEWISH POPULATION OF THE WHOLE WORhB—Contintied. To every Country. Year. Actual Figures. 10,000 of General Population. Source of Information. Hungary, igoo 851.378 442 Census 1900 Germany — Prussia, 1905 409,501 no .. 1905 Bavaria, - 1903 55.341 85 ,. 1905 Alsace-Lorraine, 1905 31.708 175 ., 1905 Baden, 1905 25.893 129 .. 1905 Hesse, 1905 24,696 204 .. 1905 Hamburg, - 1905 19,602 224 .. 1905 Saxony, - 1905 14.697 32 .. 1905 Wurtemberg, 1905 12,053 52 .. 1905 Rest of Germany, 1905 14.371 35 .. 1905 607,862 100 ,. 1905 Roumania, - 1899 266,652 448 ., 1899 Great Britain (Ire- land excepted), - 1905 250,000 65 S. Rosenbaum, Journal for Sta- tistics of the Jews, 1906, p. 123. European Turkey, - 1904 188,896 320 Calculated by All. Isr. Uni. The Netherlands, - 1899 103,988 204 Census 1899 France, - 1905 100,000 25 Our own cal- culation Bulgaria (including East Roumelia),- 1905 37.653 93 Census 1905 Italy, - 1901 35.617 II .. 1901 Belgium, 1905 25,000 22 Our own cal- culation Switzerland, - 1900 12,551 38 Census 1900 Bosnia and Herze- govina, 1895 8.213 52 .. 1895 Greece, - 1907 6,127 24 .. 1907 Servia, - 1900 5.729 23 .. 1900 Sweden,- 1900 3.912 7 „ 1900 Ireland,- 1901 3.898 9 1901 40 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY AMOUNT AND DENSITY OF THE JEWISH POPULATION OF THE WHOLE VfOKLV— Continued. To every Country. Year. Actual Figures. 10,000 of General Population. Source of Information. Denmark, I90I 3.476 14 Census 1901 Spain, - 1905 2,500 I \Eng.Jew.Year j Book 1909 Gibraltar, 1908 1,300 p Luxemberg, - 1905 1,210 49 Census 1905 Portugal, 1908 1,200 2 Engl. Jewish YearBookigog Crete, - 1900 728 24 Census 1900 Norway, 1900 642 3 „ 1900 Malta, - 1901 58 3 ,, 1901 Total (approx.), - 8.854.037 II. AMERICA. United States,^ - 1907 1.777.185 210 American Jew- ishY ear Book 5669 Canada, - 1908 60,000 112 English Jewish Year Book 1909 Argentina, 1907 40,000 70 Report of the Jew. Col. Assoc. 1907 Mexico, - 1895 8,972 7 Census 1895 Cuba, - 1895 4,000 20 American J ew- Brazil, - 1895 3,000 2 ■ ish Year Jamaica, 1908 1,300 16 Book 5669 Surinam, 1902 1,158 150 Statesman's Curacao, 1902 863 161 ■ Year Book Peru, - 1876 498 2 1908 Venezuela, - 1908 411 a American Jew- Rest of Central and ■ ish Year Southern America, 1908 700 ? Book 5669 Total (approx.), - 1,898,087 * Of the Jews of the United States about one million live in the State of New York, about 100,000 in the States of Illinois, Penn- sylvania and Massachusetts, the remainder in the other States; of these about 200,000 in the Northern States, 150,000 in the Southern States, 50,000 in the Western States. NUMERICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 41 AMOUNT AND DENSITY OF THE JEWISH POPULATION OF THE WHOLE WORLT3— Continued. Country. Year. Actual Figures. To every 10,000 of General Population. Source of Information. III. ASIA. Turkey in Asia — ' Palestine, - Asia Minor and Syria, Mesopotamia, - Arabia (including Aden), - - I90S 1908 1908 1908 85,000 75,000 40,000 40,000 1400 ? Our own calcu- lation 240,000 Russia in Asia — Caucasus, - Siberia, „ Central Asia, 1897 1897 1897 56,783 34.792 13,682 II 60 18 Census 1897 ., 1897 „ 1897 105,257 46 „ 1897 Persia, - 1908 35.000 37 > Statesman's Year Book 1908 Turkestan and Af- ghanistan, - India, - 1908 I90I 18,435 18,226 ? I Jew. Year Book 1909 Census 1901 Dutch East India — Java and other colonies, - China and Japan, - 1905 1908 8,605 2,000 2 0.04 Census 1905 Jew. Year Book 1909 Total (approx.), - 427.523 * For Turkey in Asia (not including Arabia) the Alliance calcu- lates a total of 220,484 Jews, which concurs approximately with Vital Cuinet's estimate of the number of Jews in Turkey in Asia (not including Arabia) as 201,998 Jews in his Book La Tmquie d'Asia (Paris, 1892, 1906). 42 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY AMOUNT AND DENSITY OF THE JEWISH POPULATION OF THE WHOLE -WOR-LD— Continued. To every Country. Viar. Actual Figures. 10,000 of General Population. Source of Information. IV. AFRICA. Morocco, 1908 150,000 300 Jew. Year Book 1909 Algiers, - 1901 57.044 120 Census 1901 Tunis, - 1908 62,500 310 Jaques Chalom 1909 (Welt of 19. II. 09) Transvaal, - 1904 15.481 115 Census 1904 Cape Colony, 1904 19.537 80 1904 Egypt, - 1907 38.635 34 .. 1907 Tripoli, - 1905 18,660 186 Alliance Isr. Ufiiv. Total (approx.), - 361,857 V. AUSTRALIA. Australia, 15.239 40 Census 1901 New Zealand, 1.867 17,106 21 1906 In the whole World, 11,558,610 D. The local distribution of the Jews. We see from the foregoing synopsis that the pro- portion of Jews to the general population is very small, and in few countries exceeds lo per cent. These countries are the fifteen Government Departments of the Russian Pale of Settlement, Poland, Galicia, Bukovina, Roumania and Palestine. Of these, Pales- tine has only recently become a land for immigrants, whereas the other countries belonged formerly to the kingdom of Poland, or bordered on Poland, and owe JNUMEKICAL STRENGTH OF THE JEWS 43 their large Jewish population to the masses of Jews who concentrated themselves in the Polish kingdom between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The density of the Jewish population never exceeds 20 per cent, in any single Russian or Russo-Polish Govern- mental Department. It reaches : 18.22 p^r cent, in the Government of Warsaw. 1749 » .. .. Grodno. 16.06 15-85 15-77 15.69 Minsk. Petrokow. Lomscha. Sedlecz. In thirteen other governments of the Russian and Polish Pales of Settlement the proportion of Jews to the general population is 10-15 P^r cent., in five govern- ments it falls as low as 4-10 per cent., in the Government of Poltawa to 3.99 per cent. Outside the Pale of Settle- ment the Jews constitute hardly anywhere more than I per cent. In GaJicia the Jewish population in the municipal districts of Cracow and Lemberg is 28.11 per cent, of the general population, five districts have from 15-20 per cent., and in all other districts the percentage of Jews is less than 15 per cent. In Roumania three departments have more than 10 per cent, of Jews, namely the department of Jassy, 24.3 per cent., Boto- sani, 17.1 per cent., Dorohoi, 11.4 per cent. Besides the above-mentioned countries the Jews of Hungary and Morocco constitute quite a considerable fraction of the population ; in all other countries the percentage of Jews varies from i to 2 per cent, of the entire population. The dispersion of the Jews, as we see from the fore- going figures, is perhaps more thoroughly consummated 44 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY to-day than ever before. In former periods of the Diaspora the Jews had at least one country (Babylon till the eleventh, Spain and the South of France till the fifteenth, Poland till the eighteenth centuries) in which the great majority of Jews lived, and which served as a national and cultural centre for the Jews who were scattered in smaller communities in other lands. A hundred and fifty years ago the Jews were almost exclusively concentrated in the kingdom of Poland ; those Jews who lived outside Poland, in Turkey, Italy, Holland, England, and Germany, only composed a small fraction of Jewry. To-day the province of the smaller kingdom of Poland with its neighbouring districts still harbours half the Jews, but the other half has left this centre and spread in all directions, and this process of dispersion is making great headway in the present day. Assimilation thus gains impetus, because the smaller the percentage of Jews amongst Christians, the more susceptible they are to the assimilative influences of their surroundings. SECTION II. THE CAUSES OF RAPID ASSIMILATION IN THE PRESENT DAY. CHAPTER III. ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS. A. New value attached to the commercial activities of the Jews since the dawn of the capitalistic era. The clue to the right understanding of the present-day assimilative movement lies in recognising the fact that social intercourse between Christian and Jew under- went a complete change with the coming of the capital- istic era. For five hundred years Jewish finance had consisted merely in lending to needy Christians or buying up their goods. With the rise of great manu- factures came a tremendous demand for njoney : this was where the Jew came in. The money of the Jews, from being the capital of the usurer, became the capital of the merchant and of the industrial employer, and the giving of credit was thereby shorn of its unpleasant connotations. The obligation to pay interest, and eventually to repay the sums lent, that burden which pressed so heavily on the necessitous noble or commoner and eventually brought ruin upon him — ^this was nothing to the enterprising business-man, who, with the help of Jewish capital, had been able to make great profits. The Jewish money-lender, from being a hard- hearted bigot and an enemy to society, became the friend and colleague of the Christian borrower, all the more as the increasing legal security of his position 48 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY enables him to demand only a low rate of interest, whereas in the Middle Ages the risks attending money- lending had compelled him to demand a very high rate. It was not only as a provider of credit that the Jew came to be looked upon by the Christian as " honest " ; as man of business and pioneer of industrial develop- ment he was everywhere welcomed. Under the guild system it had been considered dishonourable for any individual to make great profits, because that would have been prejudicial to the other members of the guild. The Jew, who stood outside the guild, and sought only his own advantage, sinned against the spirit of guilds and corporations. His whole conduct of business was immoral according to their conceptions.^ With the pass- ing away of the guilds, the " dishonesty " of the Jew passed away too ; what he did the Christian did also ; private trade, the race for money and profit, has become the foundation of modern economic life. So the activi- ties of the Jews came to be considered "honest" because the general population adopted Jewish methods. B. Successes of the Jews in capitalistic enterprise. As merchants and entrepreneurs, the Jews were soon briUiantly successful, showing all that great business capacity which for 2,000 years had seemed to mark them out as predestined for commercial callings. It is a mistake to account for the fact that the majority of Jews are occupied in trade, by sa3^ng that the Christians of the Middle Ages shut them out from all other callings. It was not in Europe that the Jews first became traders ; since the Babylonian exile they ^ An echo of this is heard in the cry raised against the modem " store." The small shops which are hard hit by the competition of the great emporia denounce these latter as immoral. iiCONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 49 had devoted themselves in ever-increasing numbers to trade in Syria, Egypt, Babylon, etc., while in Palestine itself, till the destruction of their nationality, they lived on the products of the land. In the Diaspora the Jews have never occupied themselves with agriculture to any extent.i The Middle Ages did not turn them into traders, but merely intensified and increased an apti- tude that was already there. It may be taken as a general rule that legislation does not produce new con- ditions in domestic economy, it only legalises existing conditions, and thus secures . them against changes. Laws would never have succeeded in confining the Jews to work as traders and pedlars if the Jews had not already come to Europe in these capacities. On the other hand, the Christians of the thirteenth and four- teenth centuries, when they took up commerce, and when aU the great trades sprang up, did exclude Jews from their organisations, and thereby drove them from respectable and respected trades into the despised ones of peddlingi pawnbroking, and usury. It is commonly agreed that the Jews do not owe their commercial eminence to chance, but to an extra- ordinary inborn business capacity. " The Jewish race is— on one side of its character — the incarnation of the capitalistic business spirit," says Sombart,^ whose verdict wiU stand for that of others.* This means, in • The opposite is the view taken by Schipper {Ang&nge des Kapi- talismus bet den abendl&ndischen Juden im fruheren Mitielalter). • Dermodertie Kapitalismus, vol. ii. p. 349 (Leipzig, 1902). Sombart has recently depicted in detail the eminent part played by Jews in the development of capitalism, in his book Die Juden wnd das Wirtschaftsleben (Leipzig, 191 1). ' Corroborations of this verdict can be found in Russell and Lewis, The Jew in London, p. 63 ; B. Webb, The Jew of East London, chap. ii. ; Woltmann, PoUtische Anthropologie, p. 308, etc. P 50 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY fact, that Jews, to a far greater extent than Christians, produce men who not only have energy and daring, but possess alert minds, with a special gift for swift comprehension and combination. It is this gift which makes the Jews the greatest chess players, excellent skilled workmen, technical inventors and first-class business men. It is only because this business capacity, from its great importance in industrial life is so strikingly in evidence that we are apt to form the erroneous con- clusion that the talents of the Jews are exclusively commercial.^ It is not unlikely that the Middle Ages helped to foster this natural inclination of the Jews ; the continual persecutions and restrictions acted as a sort of natural selection by which the less cunning and resourceful Jews were removed, and only the very cleverest — those who could extricate themselves from the greatest difficulties — were able to survive. Similarly the smartness of the American is most simply explained by this theory of natural selection ; that is to say, it was only the most energetic, adaptable and courageous elements of Europe who risked the voyage over the ocean, and left these gifts as an inheritance to their descendants. The ' When we speak of the commercial superiority of the Jews, it is only in comparison with the European peoples among whom they live. Compared with some other peoples, particularly Indians, Greeks, Armenians and Chinese, this superiority is no longer apparent. In the East there is even a proverb to the effect that in business one Armenian is equal to three Greeks, and one Greek to three Jews. It is perhaps more than a coincidence that all these rivals of the Jews belong, like them, to the oldest civilisations, to nations who had reached a high state of culture at the time when the peoples of Central and Northern Europe were totally uncivilised. An ancient culture seems thus calculated to develop a predisposition to trade and commerce. ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 51 commercial ascendancy of the Jews must not be taken to mean that every Jew is ipso facto a good business man, and that no Christian is his equal. There are and always were great business men among Christians. But the proportion is much greater among Jews than among Christians. The extraordinary part played by Jews in the building up of modern international trade and finance is proof of this. Jews have had no small share in inaugurating the present-day system of joint- stock enterprises, and of banks, with their facilities for exchange, for the concentration of capital, for improve- ment in communications, for unbounded competition and wild speculation. In Germany the new kind of shop — the store — is entirely the creation of Jews, and the latest industrial combinations, trusts, syndicates, etc., are, if not creations of Jews, at least used by them to the greatest advantage. In the struggle for life, besides intellectual gifts, the industry, versatility, and powers of adaptation of the Jew stand him in good stead. The Jew does not despair if one of his enterprises fails ; he begins again straight away with another. If he should be altogether un- successful in one calling, he is ready at once to take up another.^ In this he is totally unlike the German Christian, for example, who is slow to change his vocation, but similar to the North American, who also changes his profession without the slightest hesitation. The adaptability of the Jew is shown also in another direction ; he changes his manner of living according to circumstances, without being in the least upset by *That is, provided the calling is not held in contempt. For instance in Galicia, a Jew who had his fire-wood chopped by a Ruthenian told me in answer to my question why a Jew was not employed for this work, that no Jew would undertake it for double the wage. 52 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY the change. Thus he can exist on less than the European Christian, and yet not be satisfied with the best that money can buy. This is due to the fact that the Jew, unhke, let us say, the German peasant, has no fixed standard of life : he is therefore always in a state of uncertain equilibrium, always pushing forward, never satisfied ; whereas the Christian is usually content when he has arrived at the standard of his class. C. Wealth of the Jews in developed countries. Wherever there are no Armenians, Greeks or Indians to compete with him, and the geographical, industrial and political conditions are favourable to the free play of his commercial instinct, the Jew rises to wealth and position. This is clearly exemplified by the immi- gration of Jews into the United States. Although they are one of those peoples who bring least money with them as immigrants, their condition there is, as Joseph Jacobs says, highly satisfactory.^ Nothing is more extraordinary than the rapidity with which the new inhabitants find a means of livelihood. Those even who, on arrival, seek assistance from charitable institutions, soon get along without help. In a World Almanac for the year 1900, a list of 4,000 millionaires included 114 Jewish names. This is the more remarkable since, in the last decades, Jewish immigrants have been relatively much poorer than non- Jewish. In Surinam (Dutch Guiana) the Jews, who emigrated thither from Brazil in 1644 and were able to develop themselves in absolute political freedom, attained to the highest standing and prosperity : " They became through industry, sobriety and thrift, masters of the country, though they only numbered 1,400. They control all trade, all the gold- ' Jewish Encyclopedia, xii. (" Immigration "). ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 53 fields, all the most influential situations. The colonial troops (Schutterij) from their commandant down to their youngest lieutenant are officered only by Jews." * In Germany the prosperity and higher social status of the Jew in comparison with the rest of the population is shown in many ways : primarily by the fact that to a far greater extent than the Christian he belongs to the " independent " class — that is, to the highest of the three categories : independent, official, and wage- earning. This independent class constitutes three- fifths of the total number engaged in business, while for RELIGION AND INCOME TAX IN BERLIN 1905-6. Religion of the Income Tax payer liable to more than 21 Mks. Income Tax {ue. with income ex- ceeding 1500 Mks. a year). Number of Tax Payers. Per cent, of total number. State receipts from Income Tax (in Mks.). Per cent, of the total. Income Tax average per head. Evangelist- Catholics, - Other Christian sects aiid Dis- senters, - Jews, - Other Religions, - Garrison, - 156,590 14.756 1,068 29,426 17 4.271 75-96 7.16 0.32 14.28 O.OI 2.07 20,812,113 1,641,917 288,474 10,517.535 879 922,013 60.88 4.80 0.85 30.77 O.OI 2.69 132-91 III.27 270.11 357-42 51-71 215.88 Total,- 206,128 100.00 34,182,931 100.00 165.84 the Christian it is barely one-fourth.^ In Berlin, the greater wealth of the Jews is manifest in the accom- pan3dng table, from which it wiU be seen that the Jews, who in 1905 constituted only 4.84 per cent, of the total > Prof. Joest in Globtis. Vol. 60. p. 304 (1891). » I am here repeating some remarks made in my publication Die sozialen VerhSltnisse der Juden in Preussen und Deutschland. 54 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY population of Berlin, gave 14.27 per cent, of house- holders liable to an income tax of 21 marks (that is, having over 1,500 marks (£75) yearly income) ; and the sum realised by taxation of these householders came to almost a third of the total, namely 30.77 per cent. The Jews of Berlin numbered on ist December, 1905, 98,893 souls, and of these, two-thirds were non-earning children and women. Therefore the fact that 29,426 Jews were liable to the 21 Mk. income-tax means that only a small fraction of wage-earning Jews had less than 1,500 Mks. income, whereas among Christians this class constitutes the majority. In the Arch-Duchy of Baden in the year 1907 we get the following : Protestants. Catholics. Jews. Capital, Real estate and Trade Earnings,- Income, Mks. 1,007,242,320 1,153,062,100 172,760,510 Mks. 632,064,030 1,354,649,080 141.597.035 Mks. 180,399,900 177,686,920 31,815,480 Against this the average per head of the population was: Protestants. Catholics. Jews. Property (Capital, Real Estate and Earnings), Income, ... Mks. 2,806 244 Mks. 1,646 117 Mks. 13.829 1,229 In Frankfurt-am-Main (famous for the wealth of its Jews) we get on a tax levied on those with more than 3,000 Mk. income, Jews, 63.15 %, Protestants, 25.45 %, Catholics, 16.93 %. ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 55 In Copenhagen the greater prosperity of the Jews is patent from the fact that to every two of the indepen- dent class there is only one of the working class (against ten of the general population) ; and again from their better conditions of housing and domestic service. Among Jews. Among General Population. Houses with 1-2 rooms, .. 3-4 ,. 5-7 „ „ 8 and more. 11. 9 percent. 21.7 47-2 19.2 48.5 per cent. 35.8 ,. 12-9 >> 2.8 „ Jews. General Population. Families without servants, - 34.8 per cent. 87.2 per cent. „ with I servant. 37-6 10.4 ,, „ 2 servants. 21.0 „ 2.0 .. 3 .. - - 4-7 .. 0.3 ,. „ „ more than 3, - 1.9 0.1 ,, In Italy the notable number of Jews engaged in the higher and more independent callings (officials, lawyers, doctors, engineers, teachers), and the high percentage living on their incomes (9.26 per cent, of Jews as against 2.86 per cent. Christians), are attributed to the greater material prosperity of the Jews. D. Poverty of the Jews in industrially backward countries. We have shown that the Jews acquire great wealth wherever the modem system of capitalised trade and manufacture has been introduced ; this is far from being the case in countries of backward economic develop- ment. The lack of manufacture and of trade on a large scale in Galicia, and their backward state in 56 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Russia, Roiimania, and Turkey have made it impossible 'for the Jews of these countries to make the best use of their talents ; so they eke out a miserable existence with petty handicraft and peddling, and — the supply of shop- keepers and artisans already far exceeding the demand — compete with one another murderously. In Russia this competition is aggravated by the Jews being confined to the Pale of Settlement and thus prevented from sharing in the life of the Greater Russian Empire. The hardship which this entails on the Jews can be numerically estimated by comparing the number of Jews engaged in their specific callings within and without the Pale area. Take, for instance, four similarly constituted governments — Witebsk and Mohilew within the Pale area, and Pskow and Smolensk outside it. To every i,ooo of the general population we have : Engaged in Witebsk and Mohilew. Pskow and Smolensk. Hawking, ----- Tailoring, ----- Carrjfing Trade, - - - - Teaching and Education, 52-9 24-3 6.8 6.0 19.5 "•3 1-7 2.3 As we are here dealing with callings directed to local markets, and the Jews make two-thirds of the total numbers engaged in these callings, we see that the specifically Jewish branches of trade have two and three times the numbers engaged in them within the Pale of Settlement, as compared with those outside it. We can imagine the overcrowding in these callings.^ Besides this, there are within the Pale, any number of * Bnitzkus, Itn russischen Ansiedelungsgebiei und ausserhalb desselben. ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 57 Jews with no fixed business — broker one day, clerk the next, teacher the next. Halpern tells of a Russian Jew whose chief means of livelihood consisted in un- corking sealed butts of brandy with a corkscrew on market days.^ With luck the man earned 15 copecks a market day. In a special study of conditions in Odessa ^ we read that in the year 1900, of 150,000 Jewish inhabitants no less than 48,500 were supported by such feeble communal charity as there was : 63 per cent, of the dead in Odessa had pauper burials, and a further 20 per cent, were buried at the lowest possible rate. It is not without reason that Leroy-Beaulieu says : "I can certify that nothing in Europe is so poor, no beings earn their crust of rye bread with such bitterness, as nine-tenths of the Russian Jews." In Gahcia we see the same thing. Only a fraction of the Jews have any sort of assured existence, the rest live from hand to mouth and often do not know in the morning where to procure a meal for themselves and their families. Max Nordau has coined the word " Luftmenschen " (men of air) for such types. In statistics these " Luftmenschen " come under the head- ing of " Casuals " or " Independents of no vocation," and it is noteworthy that the Jews of Galicia, who constitute only 11.09 P^^ cent, of the population, give 31,754, i.e. 51.51 per cent., of these " Independents of no vocation," and 61,829, i.e. 39.80 per cent., of "Casuals." A Jewish artisan or shopman who earns from 8-10 gulden a week is considered almost well off, and is looked upon by the masses, who generally have to support numerous families on 6, 5, and even 4 and 3 guldens a week, as a man to be envied. I visited over ' Diejiidischen Afbeiter in London, p. 7. " J. Brodowski, DasjUdische Elend in Odessa. 58 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY 100 families of the artisan class in small Galician towns in the year 1903, and found that the majority earned a weekly wage of from 5-7 gulden, of which at least i or i| gulden went to rent and Hebrew instruction for the children. On the remaining 4-5 gulden the family of 5-8 persons had to feed and clothe themselves 4 Perhaps conditions in Roumania are even worse than in Galicia, and the Jews suffer the more acutely because until the eighties, their lot there was a very good one. But since then the influx of Jewish immigrants from Galicia and Russia has set up such terrible competition among the Jews themselves, that this, combined with the anti-Semitic legislation, has literally robbed the majority of Jewish small shop-keepers and artisans of any sort of means of livelihood. E. Principal vocations followed by Jews. Accurate statistical information as to the vocations followed by the Jews are to hand from Italy, Germany, New South Wales, Austria and Russia, and are set down in the following table. We see from it that the majority are engaged in trade and commerce ; in Italy, Germany and New South Wales about one-half, and in Austria and Russia about two-fifths of all Jewry is engaged in it, against 5 to 10 per cent, of Christians. On the other hand. Christians are engaged in agri- culture to the extent of 75 per cent, in Germany, 50 per cent, in Austria and Italy, and even 66 per cent, in Russia, while the Jews are a negligible quantity. Austria is a slight exception to this, 11.42 per cent, of Jews — quite a considerable percentage — ^being occupied there in agriculture. Still it would be wrong to imagine these Jews as peasants ; they are for the most part lessees and lessors of property, administrators, sellers ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 59 To EVERV 10,000 Christians. Vocation. Italy 1 (1901). Germany (1907). New S. Wales (igoi). Austria' (1900). Russia 3 (1897). Agriculture, Christians, Jews. 5326 31 3166 128 174 5444 1 142 7157 381 Manufac- tures, Christians. Jews. 2244 867 3587 2151 2494 2668 2867 1 144 3463 Commerce, Christians. Jews. 832 5034 1068 4972 4985 607 3826 543 4315 Public Service, Christians. Jews. 648 1871 551 647 884 460 723 413; 630 Casual labour. Christians. Jews. 83 78 555 210 614 224 543 443 661 Domestic Service, Christians. Jews. 136 31 — — — Of indepen- dent means. Christians. Jews. 492 1798 1073 1892 713 440 377 226 400 Of no vocation. Christians. Jews. 239 290 — 136 157 522 74 150 of agricultural produce. The noticeably large share taken by the Jews in manufacture in Austria and Russia is explained by the great number of Jewish operators in these countries, whereas in other countries the Jews belong by preference to wholesale manu- facturers. In the division "Public Service" Italy claims a large number of Jews. This is because in • The figures for Italy represent males of over fifteen years. » The figures for Austria and Russia include both workers and those dependent on them. 'The figures for Christians in Russia refer to Greater Russia only. 6o THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Italy all civil and military positions are open to them, and the Jews there are not, as in Germany and Austria, limited to unofficial, voluntary professions (such as those of doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc.). In the divisions of Casual Labour and " Domestic Service " there is a marked difference between the two groups Germany and Italy — Austria and Russia. In the former countries the Jews take a smaller share than the Christians. The reason for this has already been given ; all branches of industry open to Jews in Austria and Russia are overcrowded, making a large surplus of Jews who have to seek their fortune as chance dictates, one day in one, one day in another occupation. The " men of independent means," of whom private gentlemen and pensioners make up the largest con- tingent, are most numerous in Italy and Germany, illustrating the greater prosperity of Jews in these countries. In general it may be said that the five countries represent stages in the gradual ascent of the Jews from peddling and hawking to wholesale trade and manu- facture. Russia and Austria show them on the lowest rungs of petty trading and handicraft. They are here, in an overwhelming majority, small artisans, shop- keepers, innkeepers, usurers, pawnbrokers, pedlars — earning a scanty existence, which the slightest mis- chance suffices to destroy. New South Wales shows an advance in the direction of wholesale trade and more liberal professions, while in Germany, and still more in Italy, we see the Jews exchanging their former petty occupations for the great industries and all liberal callings. In Rome, Berlin and London the type of Jew (apart from the " greener " immigrant) ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 6i is no longer, as he was 150 years ago, the shabby hawker and pawnbroker, but the successful man of business, the factory manager, the wholesale merchant, the banker. Of all Jews engaged in business there are employed, in the highest departments of commerce — in particular, in banking and finance — 5.63 per cent, in Italy, 3.90 per cent, in Germany, as against only 0.36 per cent, in Russia. In Roumania, which could not be included in the table because it had no complete statistics, the Jews are the backbone of the young Roumanian industry, and provide a very considerable number of artisans. An official enquiry instituted in the year 1901-02 ascertained that there were : As Employers. As Officisils and Workmen. Roumanians - - 53.9 per cent, 77.0 per cent. Aliens of foreign nationality - - 26.6 ,, 17.7 Aliens without foreign nationality - - 19.5 „ 5.3 On 1st April, 1908, it was ascertained in Roiunania that of the 127,841 persons engaged in handicraft, 25,184 = 19.70 per cent., belonged to the Jewish creed,^ while the Jews numbered : 10,831 among 41,260 master-workmen, i.e. 26.26 551 „ 6,189 foremen, " ^-9° 10,699 " 64,023 artisans, „ 16.72 13,103 „ 16,369 apprentices, „ 18.96 In certain districts the majority of artisans are Jews ; for instance, 68.70 per cent, in the district of Botoschani, » Jewish women figure largely in all handicrafts. Out of a total of 15,070 women engaged in handicraft, 39.41 per cent, were Jewish. 62 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY 63.05 per cent, in the district of Jassy, 65.57 ii^ t^^ district of Dorohoi, etc. Similarly in certain branches of handicraft there is a majority of Jewish workmen, for instance, among plumbers, modistes, watchmakers, goldsmiths, brushmakers, gold-lace makers, box-makers. To go by figures, the greatest number of Jews are employed in tailoring (9,259), shoemaking, plumbing, carpentering and baking. Their excess of numbers and the consequent terrible competition, combined with the preference shown to the Christian workman as against the Jew, tend to make the position of the Jewish work- man in Roumania as bad and even worse than that of his brother in Galicia. The Russian and Galician immigrants to England and the United States have created new industries in their new homes, such as dressmaking, laundry, and the manufacture of footwear, caps, cigars, boxes and domestic furniture. Most immigrants are employed in these industries, the centres of which in England are London, Manchester, Leeds ; in America, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago. The condition of these Jewish working men is not very brilliant, but at any rate it is a great advance on that in Galicia and Russia. The conditions of housing and labour may be very bad according to English standards, but they are not to be compared to the overcrowding, the dirt and the misery of Eastern Europe. Besides, there is always the chance of escape from the sweating system, and of finding some better paid employment ; and most of them do succeed sooner or later in becoming their own masters. This is their most ardent desire, almost as Halpem says, a mania with them.^ " The Jewish working-man, almost without exception, cherishes the hope of one day ' Die Judischen Arbeiter in London, p. 49 (Stuttgart, 1903). ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 63 becoming a small master, dealer or shopkeeper — ^in short, of living rather on profits than on wages." ^ It is a peculiarity of the Jewish working man of Eastern Europe that he is not proud of his calling, as, for instance, German and English workmen are. Jewish handicraft is seldom in a healthy state ; it is weak and stunted. This js partly attributable to the generally bad economic conditions in Eastern Europe ; but it is certainly partly due to the fact that Jews cannot take a real pleasure in handicraft ; their excess of mental energy makes them feel the need of change and emotion such as they find in trade, but not in labour.* The New York Ghetto poet, Morris Rosefeld, does not speak for himself alone in describing his agony of weariness and desolation in the workroom and factory : he voices the general feeling of the Jewish workman. Miserable dwellings, scarcity of food, renunciation of pleasures — these are to him as nothing compared to the influence of machine and factory. It is not from dread of any physical strain, but simply from dislike of uniformity and monotony, as can be seen from the fact that in work that requires skill and intelligence, Jews are to be found in great numbers in Western Europe. Thus almost the whole industry of diamond-cutting, which is centred in Amsterdam, is in Jewish hands ; of the 10,000 engaged in it there, 80 per cent, are Jews, and ' Russell and Lewis, The Jew in London, p. 192. * It is the same craving for excitement and chance that makes Jews addicted to gambhng. Nowhere in England is there so much lottery play as among the poor Jewish immigrant population ; and in Eastern Europe, betting, lottery, and card-playing is widespread. What the poor Jew does in a small way, the rich Jew does in a large way, in speculation, on the Exchange, in the Casino, and on the racecourse. It is characteristic that the Jewish immigrants in England go in for the branches of trade where most risk is involved, such as the perishable fish and fruit markets. 64 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY of these, the 1,300 female workers are practically all Jewesses.^ That we are here dealing with superior workmen is apparent from the average wage of the men, which amounts to 50-80 Mks. per week, and the fact that they constitute one of the strongest trades-unions in the world. The Jews are engaged in large numbers in the gold and silversmith trade in aJl countries ; they are numerous also as opticians, higher mechanics, and master tailors. The Jew's dislike of factory work is increased by the slight chances of promotion it offers — the unlikelihood of his ever being able to realise his ambition of becoming his own master. The strict discipline of the factory, with its suppression of any independent initiative, is in the highest degree anti- pathetic to him. He actually prefers to work under the sweating system, in spite of the unhygienic con- ditions of its workrooms, and the excessive hours ; he prefers it because of the freedom of intercourse between the workers (including the employer), and because there is less supervision and discipline. The Jew only becomes an ordinary artisan when trade has ceased to pay at aU, and the great number of Jewish workmen and their organisation into unions in Eastern Europe shows that the Jew can at any rate make a living as a workman and an operative. But wherever trading is possible, he trades. Nor can we wonder at this ; he is thereby only carrying out the universal law that everyone strives to do that for which he is best fitted. F. Non-wage-earning dependents of the West European Jew. In comparison to the East European Jew, the Western Jew has few non-wage-earning dependents 1 N. W. Goldstein, Die Juden in der Amsierdamer DiamanUn- Industrie. ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 65 (children and grown-up daughters). In Germany, by the census of 1882, 15.94 per cent., and by that of 1859, 21.97 per cent, of Jewish females were wage-earners ; whereas in Eastern Europe the principle that the man is the wage-earner, and the place of the woman is in the home, is generally acted upon ; it is only during the last few decades that conditions have altered sufficiently for the female worker to be no longer a rarity. If we compare the number of non-wage-earners (0-15 and over 60 years) and wage-earners (15-60 years) of Jews and non-Jews, we see that in Russia and Roumania, Galicia and Bukovina, the Jews have more, in all other countries fewer non-wage-eamers than the Christians. The same difference is noticeable between the Eastern and Western European Jews. The West European Jews are seen to be less burdened with dependents even than West European Christians, and this, in spite of the fact that the number of persons over 60 years is larger with the Western Jews than anywhere else. This is because many persons over 60 years still go on earning, and their number in any case is only a fraction of the number of children. Leroy-Beaulieu says : " It is as if, clever reckoners that they are, they had solved by instinct the difficult problem of population in the manner the most convenient for themselves, and the best for national economy." The burden of " dependents with no vocations " on the Jews of Western Europe would be stiU less, and the comparison with the Christians stiU more favourable, were it not that Jewish children on an average attend schools to a higher age than Christian children. The latter leave school for the most part at the legally prescribed age of fourteen years, while Jewish 66 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY children often remain till their eighteenth and nine- teenth year. G. Possibilities of advance in the industrial position of the Jews of Eastern Europe. The foregoing discussion shows that the Jews have attained to a high standard of prosperity in all countries which are commercially well developed — such a high standard indeed, that it is a rarity to find a native bom Jew in England, Germany, France or Italy who is poor. In Eastern Europe, on the other hand, the badge of poverty is on the whole population. We must, of course, take into consideration that this poverty is all the more striking by contrast with the wealth of the Western Jews. If we compare it to the economic position of the Christians of Eastern Europe, the result is not always unfavourable to the Jews. In Galicia, for instance, judging from the proceeds of taxation, in twenty-seven large towns in 1904 the Jews stand financially higher than do the Christians, the number of taxpayers and particularly of super-tax- payers (those earning Kr. 100 a year and over), being relatively more numerous among Jews than Christians.^ And if we were to compare the economic condition of the Jews in Eastern Europe to-day with that of twenty or fifty years ago, we should find in all probability that, bad as it is, it is still an advance on former conditions. Signs are not wanting that at no very distant date we may expect a further advance, and a very great one. Wholesale trade and industry are slowly but gradually insinuating themselves into Eastern Europe, and all the opposition of the Government and the non- Jewish 1 Thon, Die Juden in Oesterreich, p. 133 (Berlin, 1908). ECONOMIC PROGRESS OF THE JEWS 67 population will not be able to hinder the Jews from exercising their natural gifts in the industrialisation of Eastern Europe. Thus Roumania, in spite of the most stringent and repressive laws against the foreigner, i.e. the Jew, could not prevent Jews creating great industries in Roumania and thus bettering their con- dition. The laws of economic development prove stronger in the end than paper legislation. We have seen that the poverty of the Jews in Eastern Europe is caused not only by the lack of wholesale trade, but also by the overcrowding in the various Jewish vocations, and the consequent murderous com- petition. This overcrowding has been lessened of late by increased emigration into the interior and to foreign countries. In Russia the Jews force their way out of the Pales of Settlement within which anti- Jewish H < , « legislation seeks to enclose them. In 1897 there were 211,221 Jews outside the Pale of Settlement, and their number has since appreciably increased in spite of all rights of residence being withheld. Once out of the Pale the Jews find wide fields for their energy and achieve such prosperity as was unattainable before. In Galicia the Jews leave the villages and small towns where the increasing State-protection of peasants, the spread of the co-operative spirit, and the competition of Christian dealers make it harder than ever for them to get a living, and turn their steps to the large towns. But much more important than these migrations is the emigration to foreign countries. This takes hundreds of thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe, and not only opens up a brighter future to the immigrants themselves, but also to the Jews who stay behind, who are thus relieved of some of the pressure of competition. In particular, the insecurity 68 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY of the artisan as to whether there will be work for him on the morrow, an insecurity which hangs like a shadow over the broad mass of Eastern European Jews, becomes less and less, and the number of " Luft- menschen " is on the decline. On the whole, therefore, we may hope that at no very distant date better days will dawn for the Jews of Eastern Europe. The prohibition against residing out- side the Pale, which the Russian Government is now modifying, must sooner or later become a dead letter ; industry advances, communication is improving ; Jewish emigration assumes larger proportions year by year. Thus the Jews of Eastern Europe will in all likeli- hood advance industrially within the next ten years to the point their Western brethren have already reached. This industrial advance — founded on progressive capitalism- — will not only improve the economic con- dition of the Jews, enable their children to enjoy good schooling, and widen their intercourse with Christians ; above and beyond all this, it will, as we have already seen in Western Europe, wipe out the economic anti- thesis between Jew and Gentile, and generally smooth the way for rapid assimilation. CHAPTER IV. THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE. A. The decline in the Jewish birth-rate and its causes. In face of the great increase in the Jewish population in the nineteenth century, which, according to Schudt, had been going on from the very beginning of the eighteenth century, it is rather surprising to see how slow is the natural increase in the present day. CHILDREN BORN. Actual Numbers. To EVERY 10,000 Persons. Town. Year. Jews. Gentiles. Jews. Gentiles. Prussia, 1908 7,112 1,262,214 17-37 34.22 Berlin, - 1906 1.744 49,689 17.64 25.60 Breslau, 1906 306 14.427 1503 32.02 Bavaria, 1908 892 224,684 16.12 34-73 Netherlands, 1906 2,491 168,461 2395 3369 Amsterdam, - 1903 1,341 13,881 22.70 30.72 Europ. Russia (not includ- ing Finland and Poland), I90I 136,948 4,676,310 36.14 52.16 Austria, 1900 39,990 927,949 32.65 37-23 Vienna, 1900 2,973 49.391 20.23 32-32 Hungary, 1900 28,787 723,931 3381 39-34 Budapest, - 1900 4.701 18,798 28.29 34-99 Bulgaria, 1900-02 1,333 147,890 39.60 39-86 Roumania, - I897-I902 9,769 228,857 36.63 40.22 Bukarest, 1904-05 1.047 7.047 Europeans. 29-51 24.19 Europeans. Algiers, 1903 2,471- 17,617 Mohams. 126,042 -43-25- 3155 Mohams. 30.56 70 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY The above table shows how (except in Algiers and Bukarest) the percentage of Jewish births is lower than that of other faiths. The table shows extra- ordinary differences in the birth-rate between Jews of different countries ; that of Algiers, for instance, being 2^ times as high as that of Bavaria or Prussia. It cannot be climatic conditions which cause this, because we find the same divergency in neighbouring countries with similar climates. Thus in Austria, for instance, the birth-rate varies from 17.85 per cent, in Bohemia to 38.01 per cent, in Galicia : CHILDREN BORN IN THE YEAR 1900 IN DIFFERENT PROVINCES OF AUSTRIA. State. Actual Numbers. To EVERY 1,000 Persons of THE General Population. Jews. Gentiles. Jews. Gentiles. Bohemia, Lower Austria, Bukovina, - Galicia, - 1.655 3,226 2,840 30,842 217-134 94.474 27.143 293-326 17-85 20.51 29.54 38.01 34.88 32.10 42.81 45-09 It is clear, then, that we have to seek the cause of this divergency not in climatic but in social differences, and we have not far to seek, when we compare the prosperity and commercial development of South Austria with the utter industrial misery of Galicia, and bear in mind the publicly recognised fact that, accord- ing as a population increases in well-being and culture, so its birth-rate decreases : the difference in the material conditions brings about the differences in the birth-rate. How great these are is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the statistics of the town of Charlotten- THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 71 burg. In the year 1904-5 in the wealthy eastern quarter the birth-rate was 10.95 ; while in the poor workman's quarter of Martinikenfelde it was 39.48, almost four times as large. In the same proportion as the material conditions of the Jews have improved during the nineteenth century, so has their birth- rate decreased. The figures in the accompanying table are illuminating : AVERAGE YEARLY NUMBER OF BIRTHS PER 1,000. 1S22-40. [841-66. 1878-82. 1B89-92. 1893-97. iSgS- 1902. Christians, Jews, 40.01 3546 39-55 34-75 37-92 29.96 37-03 23-75 36.89 21.61 36.19 19.71 33-80 17.79 They show how in Prussia the Jewish birth-rate has fallen from 35.46 per cent, in 1822-40 to 17.79 ^^ 1903-07. With the Christians the decrease is nominal only, and they bring into the world to-day almost double as many children as do the Jews. In Hungary we have much the same thing. With this decrease in the birth-rate the Jewish family has assumed a totally different character. Whereas at the beginning of the nineteenth century families of 4-6 and more children abounded, to-day families of 2-4 children are the rule. For example, in the year 1828, 40 per cent, of the Jews of Darmstadt were imder 14 years of age, in 1867 the percentage had fallen to 31.23, and in 1905 persons under 15 constituted only 25.86 per cent, of the Jewish popula- tion. In less than eighty years the average number of children to a Jewish family had been reduced by almost one-half. The average issue of a Jewish marriage in 72 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Prussia in the years 1875-79 was 4.57 (against 4.68 among Christians), in 1903-07 only 2.47 (against 4.26 among Christians). The shght decrease with the Christians becomes an alarming one with the Jews : a change from a system of four and five children to one of two and three in a family in the space of less than thirty years. It would not be sufficient explanation to account for the falling off of births by the increase of prosperity, were there not some intervening stages to connect the two together. In the first place we have the well- established fact that the more wealthy and cultured a population is, the later it postpones, and the more cautious is it in entering, the bond of marriage, sometimes evading it altogether. In the countries where the Jews are poor, marriage takes place much earlier and more MARRIAGES. Actual Numbbe. Per 1,000 Inhabitants OF SAME Creed, In Year. Jews. Gentiles. Jews. Gentiles. Germany, 1907 4.512 499.452 7.42 8.32 Bavaria, 1907 422 50,658 7.62 7-83 Prussia, 1907 3.094 309,945 7-56 8.40 Berlin, - 1906 763 22,482 7.72 11.58 Breslau, 1906 150 2,goo 7-37 8.66 Hungary, 1900 6.853 162,628 8.04 8.84 Bohemia, - ^ - 1903 688 49,494 7.42 7-95 Budapest, 1900 1,236 5.091 7-44 9.48 Amsterdam, - 1904 378 3.638 6.40 8.05 Note. — Mixed marriages are counted half to the Jews, half to Gentiles. regularly than amongst the Jews of more prosperous countries, partly because the poor Jews are practically all orthodox, and in orthodox circles marriage is a THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 73 specific religious duty. In Galicia, for instance, there is only an infinitesimal number of Jewish bachelors, while an old maid would be looked upon as a mon- strosity. Unfortunately, reliable marriage statistics are lacking in the countries with poor Jewish popula- tions, because the Jews of these countries do not marry by the laws of the land, but in accordance with the ordinances of the Tahnud (in GaUcia the majority do this), and such marriages are not registered in the ofiicial statistics. On the other hand, in countries with a well-to-do Jewish population, where Jews are married in accordance with the law of the land, statistics prove — as the foregoing table has shown — that Jews are behind Christians in marrying. The low rate of marriage among Jews is the more remarkable, seeing that since they have fewer children than the Christians, they ought to have a higher marriage rate. In Berlin, ist December, 1900, of married inhabitants over the age of 20 years there were : 60.38 per cent. Christian males. 51.62 per cent. Jewish males. 53.83 per cent. Christian females. 52.51 per cent. Jewish females. In Copenhagen in 1906 : Males. Females. Jewish. Christian. Jewish. Christian. 20-25 years of age, 25-30 „ 30-35 „ 35-40 „ 40-45 .. 92.4 56.3 38.7 26.1 16.2 89.0 47.2 245 16.5 12.6 79-7 471 32-3 351 35-4 77.8 48.2 330 27.1 22.5 We see from this that Jews and Jewesses remain single to a greater extent than Christians ; again, the Jews, even when they do marry, do so later in life ; thus, of the married inhabitants of Berlin on December, 1st, 1900, under 30 (or, to be exact, bom after 1870) there were : 15.56 per cent. Christian males. 6.89 per cent. Jewish males. 24.34 psr cent. Christian females. 20.41 per cent. Jewish females. It is a palpable as well as a statistically established fact that the issue of late marriages is smaller than that of early ones.^ Nevertheless, the frequent cases of celibacy and of late marriage must not be looked upon as the only causes of the small number of children. The chief cause is undoubtedly illicit sexual intercourse, which has attained extraordinary proportions during the nineteenth century, principally in the large towns, and here again among the well-to- do classes. The Jews of Western and Central Europe, living as they do in large towns and in greater luxury than the Christians, are affected more nearly by the spread of this practice, while with the Christians the consequences are to a certain extent nullified by the high percentage of the population living in the villages and small towns, where illicit sexual intercourse is imknown. As long as the birth-rate in the country- side continues to be high, the general birth-rate is not much affected by the falling off in the large towns. We see how far behind the birth-rate of the country 1 Compare Rubin and Westergaard, p. 95 ; and Galton, Genius and Heredity, p. 340. ' THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 75 population is that of the towns by the following table from Roumania : In the Year. jews. Gentiles. In Bukarest, - - - - In the Villages, 1904-I905 1897-I902 29.51 38.69 24.19 41.64 In addition to the above reasons there may also be physiological causes which would account for the barrenness or decreasing fertility of the wealthier Jews. Though we may doubt whether there is any truth in the contention that better nourishment leads to barrenness, there is scarcely any doubt that the prevalent nervousness of the educated classes is pre- judicial to the propagation of the species ; especially the harmful effects of not exercising the natural functions — ^more often found with men of the upper classes who marry late, than with the early marrying lower classes — these are as potent factors as the ever- increasing physical incapacity of the society woman to bear children. B. The low death-rate of the Jews partially equalises the effect of the low birth-rate. The low birth-rate of Jews — in some countries lower even than that of the French (compare Prussia with 17.37 per cent, as against France with 22.1 per cent, in 1891-1900)— would result in a great falling off in the Jewish population, far greater even than we are at present experiencing, were the ill effects not to a certain extent modified by a low death-rate. We see from the accompanying table that the Jews everywhere (if we except the Mohammedans of Algiers) 76 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY DEATHS. Actual Figures. Per 1,000 Inhabitants. In Year. Jews. Gentiles. Jews. Gentiles. Prussia, - 1907 5.717 675.232 13.96 18.31 Bavaria, - 1907 703 137.993 12.70 21.33 European Russia (not including Finland and Poland,)- I90I 68,492 3,156,436 18.08 32.51 Hungary, - 1900 14.459 500,775 16.98 27.21 Austria, - 1900 22,506 636,174 Christian 18.37 25-52 Christian. Algiers, - 1897-99 1,420 ,12,457 29.12 39.16 V inclusive. Mohammed. 71,837 Moham. 19.08 Frankfort on the Main, - 1907 296 4.790 12.61 15-38 Budapest, - 1900 2,322 12,480 13-97 23-23 Roumania, | 1896- 1902 } 5.557 159,337 20.84 28.00 Bukarest, - 1904-05 690 6,272 14.44 26.27 BerUn, 1905 1. 310 33.141 1345 17.08 Berlin, 1906 1,302 31.346 1317 16.15 Breslau, - 1905-06 325 10,200 1597 22.64 Charlottenburg, - 1904-05 180 2,767 11-33 12.42 Amsterdam, 1904 692 7,611 11.72 16.85 Vienna, 1900 1,841 32.462 12.53 21.25 Lemberg, - 1903 829 3.249 19-3 29.0 have a considerably lower death-rate than non-Jews — a phenomenon which caused a Roumanian statistician to remark : " The Jews apparently enjoy the privilege of a special immunity from early death." In con- sidering the figures we must not forget that infants (under i year) always constitute a large proportion of the death-rate, and that the low birth-rate of the Jews would explain in part the lower death-rate. And, besides this, Jewish infants and children have everything in their favour. In Prussia in 1882 we THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE ^^ find that in every 1,000 legitimate births (including stiU-born children), there survived over the first year : Protestants, - - 753 boys. 789 girls. Catholics, - - 758 boys. 796 girls. Jews, - - . - 814 boys. 843 girls. In Frankfurt-am-Main in 1907, of every 100 infants (under i year) there died : Protestants 11.86, Catholics 11.67, Jews 4.56 ; whUe, in Breslau in 1906, among non-Jews 21.72, among Jews 6.21. The causes of the smaller infant mortality among Jews are not to be put dowji to any difference of race, but rather to the absence of drunkenness in the parents, and the better nourishment and care which the poor Jews bestow on their children. Self-sacrificing care for the children is one of the most remarkable traits of Jewish family hfe. It can even be proved statistically. It is well known that of all infant scourges stomach and bowel troubles are the most deadly, and these in their turn are for the most part directly traceable to insufficient nourishment. In Berlin in 1905, 8.48 per cent, of Christian babies under I year of age died in their first year of stomach and bowel disorders, as against 2.57 per cent. Jewish ; and in Budapest between the years 1886-1890 in every 100 children under 5 years of age 4.14 Catholic children died of rupture, against 1.44 Jewish children. So we see that Jews pay far more attention to the care of these and other childish ailments than Christians. A further proof that the small infant mortality among Jews is directly traceable to economic and social causes is to be seen in the fate of illegitimate 78 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Jewish children ; here, where care and solicitude for the infant is usually lacking, mortality is as high and even higher than among non- Jewish children. In Prussia in the year 1882 — the same year in which we have just demonstrated the superiority of the Jews in rearing legitimate children — ^we find that of every 1,000 illegitimate births, there survived over the first year : Protestants, - - 606 boys, 642 girls. Catholics, - - 588 boys. 617 girls. Jews, - - - 578 boys. 607 girls. We see from this that illegitimate Jewish babies have less chance of Hving than any others. The same gulf between the chances of life of legiti- mate and illegitimate Jewish children is found in Budapest, 1901-1905, where of every thousand chil- dren bom alive, there died : Catholics, - 161. 9 legitimate. 176.8 illegitimate. Jews, - 92.0 „ 143.4 Other creeds, 136.2 ,, 148.5 We can get an exact picture of the proportions of mortality by dividing up different groups according to ages : thus, infants (o-i year), children (1-15 years), adults (over 15 years), and examining the proportion of deaths among each separately. The statistics of the Grand Duchy of Hessen and of the town of Budapest enable us to compare the mor- tality of Jews and Christians at various ages, thereby giving us an accurate idea of conditions. The figures of Hessen in the accompanying table speak for them- selves, and show how the Jews by superior care and THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 79 nourishment save many infant lives which non-Jews lose in infants under 5 years. ^otal number AvEHAGE Number of Deaths Years. Number pf Jews according to Census 1905. ( Jewish (not in still-bi 1903 neatbs TO EVERY 1,000 Lives. Age in eluding rths in -06). Jews 1903KJ6. General Population igos-06. m. f. m. f. m. f. m. f. under i 206 209 75 61 75-5 148.1 1 to 5 784 838 14 19 4-5 5-7 153 14.9 5.. 10 1,044 1,013 5 10 1.2 2.5 30 2-7 10 „ . 15 1,125 1,169 3 8 0.7 1-7 1.8 2.6 15.. 20 1,007 1,032 11 9 2.7 2.2 3-6 3-6 20 .. . 30 2,229 2,220 28 26 31 2.9 51 5-6 30,, , 40 1.752 1,892 26 49 3-7 6.5 6.6 7.2 40.. . 50 1,402 1.533 37 40 6.6 6.5 11.8 9-4 50,, , 60 1,104 1.338 89 87 20.2 16.3 23.1 17-3 60 „ , 70 869 956 162 127 46.6 33-2 46.5 41.8 70.. 80 361 389 130 145 go.o 93-2 97-9 96.8 80 and 0^ rex no 117 88 100 200.0 213-7 231-7 223.1 Total, 11,991 12,706 668 681 13-9 13-4 17.4 16.4 The weeding out which goes on among Christian infants from 0-5 years of age improves the chances of living of the succeeding age-divisions until the age of 20, while with the Jews there is a certain falling off at this age, and many die who, thanks to good nourish- ment and care, had survived the difi&cult first years. Between the ages of 20-50 years the mortality of Jewish men is ahnost one-half, of Jewish women one-third, less than that of Christian men and women. After the fiftieth year the chances are about equal for Jew and Christian, though there remains a slight balance in favour of the Jew. The following table for Budapest ^ shows how the Jews (with the exception 1 Compare Elias Auerbach, Die Sterblichkeit der Juden in Budapest, I90I-I9O5' 8o THE JEWS OF TO-DAY only of male Jews from 10-15 years, and of Jewesses between the ages of 50-60 and over 80) have at all ages a lower death-rate than the Catholics. MORTALITY IN BUDAPEST. To EVERV 1,000 IN EACH DIVISION OF AgE. Number of Deaths. Catholics. Jews. Male. Female. Male. Female. 0-5 years, - - - - 89.9 76.7 38.5 36.4 5-10 . , - - - - 7.8 6.3 3-9 4.6 10-15 . . - - - - 2.6 2.9 30 2.0 15-20 , 1 - - - - 4.2 4-5 30 2.6 20-30 , , - - - - 8.4 8.3 5-2 4.4 30-40 , , - - - - I4.I 10.6 7-1 5-6 40-50 , . - - - - 27.7 14.1 12.9 10.2 50-60 , . - - - - 36.8 19.6 24.7 20.3 60-70 , , - - - - 62.9 41.4 41.9 34-9 70-80 , 1 - - - - II4.9 91.6 104.7 67.3 Over 80 years, 212. 1 II5-9 196.9 182.8 The Jews have the greatest advantage in the division 0-5 years. And it is worthy of remark, also, that with the Catholics, men die in far greater numbers than women between the ages of 40-60 years — probably because of their emplo3mient in unhealthy or dangerous occupations, whereas with Jews of those ages there is no great difference in the mortality of men and women. Nevertheless, the small infant mortality among Jews does not always mean a lower death-rate ; it some- times produces the opposite effect, for, even if numbers of weak children are preserved to life by careful tending, they usually die off before reaching old or middle age. This explains why, as the table shows, the death-rate of Prussian Jews over 15 has slowly risen (from 10.13 per cent, to 11.30 per cent.), whereas THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 8i within the same space of time the death-rate among Christians has fallen from 11.82 per cent, to 9.69 per Deaths in Prussia per 1,000. 1878-82. 1888-92. Under iS- Over 15- Total. Under Over IS- Total. Christians,- Jews, 13-41 7.40 11.82 10.13 25-23 17-53 12.17 5.06 11.09 10.65 23.26 15-71 Deaths in Prussia per 1,000. 1898-1902. 1903-07. Under 15- Over 15. Total. Under 15- Over. 15- Total. Christians, - Jews, 10-43 3-26 lO.II 11.03 20.54 14.29 9.09 2.63 9.69 11.30 18.78 13-93 cent. Between the years 1903-1907 the Jewish death- rate for adults over 15 years is higher than that of Christians (11.30 per cent, against 9.69 per cent.). C. Decrease in numbers a result of lower birth-rate. In consequence of their low birth-rate the Jews in many countries are behind the Christians in natural increase. The table 1 overleaf shows us that this is felt most in Prussia and Bavaria ; in Russia they are slightly behind (Russian Christians being extra- ordinarily fruitful), but in Austria, Hungary and Algiers the Jews multiply to a greater extent than the Christians. 1 In certain towns, instead of natural increase we find natural decrease ; in Breslau, for instance, in 1906 there were 339 still- born Jewish children against 306 born aUve, making a decrease of 1.62 per cent, to the Jewish population. F 82 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY NATURAL INCREASE OF THE JEWISH POPULATION PER THOUSAND INHABITANTS, COMPARED WITH OTHER CREEDS. Births. Deaths. Natural Increase. Country. Year. Non- Non- Non- Jews. Jews. Jews. Prussia, 1907 17-37 33-96 13-96 18.31 3-41 15-65 Bavaria, 1906 18.47 35-91 12.36 21.39 6.11 14-52 Roumania, - 1 896- 1 902 36.63 40.22 20.84 28.00 15-79 12.22 Eur. Russia (not includ- ing Finland and Poland), I90I 36.14 52.16 18.08 32.51 18.06 19-65 Austria, 1900 32.65 37-23 i«.37 2552 14.28 11.71 Hungary, - I goo 33-81 39-34 Europ. 16.98 27.21 Europ. 16.83 12.13 Europ. Algiers, 1903 43-25 31-55 Mobam. 30.56 20.58 23-14 Moham. 19.66 22.67 8.41 Moham. 10.90 If we analyse conditions in Prussia we find that the excess of births over deaths amounts on an average annually per thousand : Christians Jews (including illegiti- mate children and children of mixed marriages according to religion of the mother, - - - 1820-66. 16.80 1888-92. 13-77 8.04 1893-97. 15-05 6.88 1902. 15-65 5-42 190307. 15-02 3-86 The excess of births has thus increased with the Christians until within the last five years, whereas with the Jews it has rapidly decreased. THE DECLINING BIRTH-RATE 83 The small increase of Jews in Germany and the allied States is evidenced in the census returns, which shows how the Jews are a dwindling fraction of the population. Thus, in every 10,000 of the total population the Jews numbered : In 1870. 1880. iSgo. I goo. 1905. Germany, Prussia, Bavaria, 125 132 104 124 133 lOI 115 124 96 104 114 89 100 no 85 This decrease in numbers would be still greater if the Jews of Germany were not reinforced by immigrants from Eastern Europe. The deduction from aU this is that, inasmuch as the Jews until a few decades ago were remarkably prolific, they have lost this quality wherever they have acquired culture and prosperity — ^when they have thrown them- selves into the cultural and industrial life of the land. The four different sections which we classified in our introduction, as marking the various grades of dis- integration among the Jews, may be taken as so many stages in matrimonial fertility, from large families down to families of four, three and two children. With the first class — the poor orthodox Jews of Eastern Europe — families of from five to ten children are the rule, while with the rich Jews of the capitals the two-in-family rule holds good. It follows that wherever the Jews have to recruit principally from this class their numbers must always decrease in proportion to the general population. This is the fact to-day in all the countries of Western Europe 84 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY (Germany, Holland, Denmark, etc.), when immigra- tion does not come to the rescue. Hitherto the Jews, by their great natural fertility, have always been able to make good the losses they suffered by assimilation. When this source has given out, how will they fill in the breaches ? CHAPTER V. DISPERSION. A. Immigration to the United States. Migrations play a large part in the absorption of the Jews. By these we do not mean merely the ordinary emigrations which, during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century, took the Jews of Eastern Europe to Germany, Holland, France, England and America (such, for instance, recorded by the Jewish Encyclopaedia, vol. viii. p. 584, the emigration in 1871-1880 of 41,057 Jews to the United States). We mean the migrations en masse which began in the year 1881, impelled by the drastic anti- Jewish laws imposed by the Russian government, and by economic distress. These migra- tions have only one parallel in the whole of Jewish history, namely, those in the time of Jesus Christ, when multitudes of Jews were uprooted from Palestine to be planted along the coast of the Mediterranean. No less than two million Jews have, during the last quarter of a century — since 1881 — exchanged their home in Eastern Europe for homes in the United States, Canada, the Argentine, South Africa, England and France. The main stream of the emigrants flowed into the United States of America. Jewry there in the year 1880 consisted of about 230,000 souls, old estabhshed 86 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Portuguese and German Jews, who had emigrated in considerable numbers between 1840 and 1870. In the ten years from July ist, 1898, to June 30th, 1908, alone, 932,631 Jewish immigrants were passed through the ports of the United States. If we add to these all the Jews who were registered not as Hebrews but as Germans, French and so forth, and those who came into the United States via Canada, we can say that one single decade brought one million Jews from Eastern Europe to the United States. Of the 932,631 immi- grants there came : From Russia, - - 666,557 =71-47 P^r cent. „ Austria-Hungary, 159,229=17.07 „ „ Roumania, - - 51,736 = 5.55 „ Other Countries, - 55,109 = 5.91 „ Before 1898 — for which time we have accurate statistics only of the Russian Jews — the emigration was on a smaller scale. It began in 1880-81 with 8,193 emigrants from Russia ; in 1891-92 — the year of the recrudescence of Jewish persecution in Russia — it rose to 76,417, then fell to 27,221 in the year 1897-98. Altogether from July ist, 1880, to June 30th, 1898, there came 526,120 Jews from Russia to the United States, so that if we add to these the approximate number of immigrants from other countries — the statistics of which are not to hand — we may roughly estimate the total number of Jewish immigrants during the eighteen years from 1880-1898 at 700,000. Of the 1,700,000 Jews who have immigrated into the United States during the twenty-eight years from 1880-1908, only a small fraction have returned. Whereas non- Jewish immigrants to a large extent only, go to the United States to earn money there, and DISPERSION 87 then return to their homes (as do the Syrians and Italians) ; Jews go there to settle. Thus, for instance, in the critical year 1907-1908, when there were vast emigrations from the United States, 387,371 non-Jews and only 7,702 Jews returned to the land of their origin. NUMBERS OF JEWISH IMMIGRANTS INTO THE UNITED STATES. From ist July to 30th June. 1 Total. Country of Origin. Russia. Austria- Hungary. Roumania. Otlier Countries. 1898-1899, 1899-1900, 1900-1901, 1901-1902, 1 902- 1 903, 1903-1904, 1904-1905, 1905-1906, 1906-1907, 1907-1908, 37.415 60,764 58,098 57,688 76,203 106,236 129,910 153,748 149,182 103.387 24.275 37,011 37.660 37.846 47.689 77.544 92,388 125.234 114.932 71.978 11,071 16,920 13,006 12,848 18,759 20,211 17.352 14,884 18,885 15.293 1.343 6,183 6,827 6,589 8,562 6,446 3.854 3.872 3.605 4.455 726 650 ! 605 i 405 2,035 1 16,3261 9,758^ 11,760' 11,661* 1 Of these 14,299 from Great Britain. * „ 6,113 ' „ 7.032 * „ 6,260 „ The largest contingent of these Jewish emigrants to the United States comes — as we have already shown — from Russia ; but the migrations from Galicia and Roumania are very considerable. From Galicia, in particular, emigration has been going on on a very large scale in recent times. We can estimate the' number of GaUcian emigrants with approximate accuracy by comparing the figures of the census of 31st December, 1890 (772,213), with that of 31st December, 1900 (811,371). Taking into consideration 88 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY the registered births and deaths during the years 1891-1900 (315,073 births, 166,966 deaths), we have here a deficit of 108,949 souls, which must be attributed to emigration. This emigration is directed ahnost exclusively to the United States ; America has become such a familiar idea to the Galician Jew, and the voyage thither such an every-day matter, that he talks of it almost as of an ordinary business journey. Several small Galician towns have been reduced to half their number of Jewish inhabitants by emigration, and there is hardly a Jew in Galicia who has not some relative in America. Emigration on a large scale from Roumania started in 1899, the incentive being the passing of legal restric- tions which still further reduced the political and industrial rights of the Jews. An official report of the Roumanian minister of the Interior (Moniteur Officiel du 13 aout, 1906) gives the number of Jews who left Roumania during the seven yeais 1899-1905 as 55,000. Of these about 40,000 went to the United States, the remainder to England and other countries. Jewish emigration to the United States usually takes the following form : the young working members of a family go out first, who, when they succeed in making a living, send for the rest of the family to come out after them. For example, in the year 1907-1908, among 103,387 Jewish emigrants, no less than 63,492 had received their boat tickets from relatives who were already living in America. This labouring emigrant class varies in age from 14 to 45 years ; in 1907-08 69.05 per cent, of the total of Jewish emigrants belonged to this class, whUe 25.16 per cent, were children under 14 years, and only 5.79 per cent, over 45 years. DISPERSION 89 By far the greatest number of Jews settle in the State of New York in preference to any other. In 1907-08 there emigrated to New York, ----- 62,697 Jews. Pennsylvania, - - . - 10,193 Massachusetts, - - - - 6,581 Illinois, ----- 5,928 New Jersey, ----- 3,696 Ohio, ------ 2,228 Maryland, ----- 1,682 Connecticut,- - . . . 1,599 Missouri, ----- 1,570 Texas, ------ 1,206 and all the other States together received only 6,107 Jewish immigrants. The professions they belonged to were : Independent professions (musicians, actors, teachers), - - - 713 Skilled trades, - - - - 36,193 Varied callings, - - - - 19,759 Of no calling (including children), 46,722 Of the trained industries, men's tailors predominated with 14,882 ; after these came : Cabinet-makers, - - - - 2,907 Bootmakers,- - - - - 1,981 Ladies' tailors (male and female), - 2,310 Clerks and bookkeepers, - - 1,968 Painters and glaziers, - - - 1,257 Seamstresses, - - - - 1,268 Of the " varied callings," servants formed the largest contingent, 7,463 persons ; after these, day labourers. 90 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY 6,824 persons ; pedlars and brokers, 2,416 ; and 1,896 agricultural labourers. The result of the heavy immigration is seen in the extraordinary increase in the Jewish population of the United States. This is estimated :^ In the Year 1818 by Mordechai M. Noah - at 3,000 1824 1826 1840 ,, Salomon Etting ,, Isaac C. Harby „ The American Almanac - 6,000 6,000 15,000 1848 1880 1888 „ M. A. Berk - ,, Wm. B. Hackenburg „ Isaac Markens ,, 50,000 ,, 230,000 ,, 400,000 1897 : 1902 , ,, David Sulzberger - , The A merican Jewish Year Book ,. 937,800 „ 1,136,240 1907 , „ ., 1,777.185 Of this population no fewer than 1,000,000 live in New York, which has thus the largest Jewish popula- tion of any town in the world. After New York the towns which contain the largest numbers of Jews in the United States are Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Baltimore. B. Emigration to England, After the United States, England receives the greatest flow of Jewish emigrants. We have no reliable figures, as the English immigration statistics are registered not by religion but by national extrac- tion ; even so they convey a false impression, because many of the immigrants only stop in England in transit for America. Thus when the official English immigra- tion report* says that the immigrants from Russia, ^From the American Jewish Year Book for 5667 (Philadelphia, 1908). > Compare Report to the Board of Trade on Emigration and Immi- gration during 1904, London, 1905. DISPERSION 91 Poland and Roumania are practically all Jews, and puts their numbers at : 1900. igoT. igo2. 1903. 1904. Russians and Poles, Koumanians, 25.633 3.2i6 20,914 1,162 28,511 1,282 30,046 565 46,095 513 these numbers are considerably higher than the actual number of Jewish immigrants who settle permanently . in England. This can be seen from the following figures : the number of Jews in England in 1905 was fairly accurately estimated at 250,000, in 1880 at 40,000, and in 1891 at about 101,000. Taking into account the excess of births over deaths, the number of immigrants during the years 1891-1905 can only have been about 100,000, while the number of registered immigrant Russians and Poles from 1891-1904 is given as 259,406.^ London has the greatest number of Jews, 150,000; then comes Manchester with 30,000, Leeds with 25,000, Glasgow and Liverpool each with about 7,000. C. General summary. In the following table an attempt has been made to show the effect of emigration and immigration on the countries most affected. Here we see that from 1881 to 1908 the number of Jews who left their native countries amounted to 2,136,000 ; the principal immigrant coimtry being the United States with 1,700,000 immigrants; the principal emigrant country Russia, with 1,545,000 emigrants. The United States, England, Canada, and South Africa together received 1,950,000 Jews, i.e. 91.4 per cent, of the total immigrants. ^Many Russian Jews bound for America stay a few weeks or months in London from poverty and from the conditions imposed by some of the steamship companies. See Halpem, Die Judischen Arbeiter in London. 92 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY During the years 1881-1908 Jews migrated From To Russia. Austria- Hunfary. Rou- mania. Other Countries. Total. United States, Canada, - - - Argentine, 1,250,000 30,000 20,000 250,000 5,000 75,000 125,000 5,000 10,000 1,700,000 40,000 30,000 America, - England, Germany, France, - - - Belgium,- 1,300,000 150,000 15,000 30,000 5,000 255,000 10,000 25,000 10,000 75,000 20,000 140,000 10,000 10,000 5.000 1,770,000 190,000 40,000 50,000 10,000 West Europe, - South Africa, - Egypt, - 200,000 15,000 10,000 45.000 20,000 25.000 5,000 10,000 290,000 20,000 20,000 Africa, - Palestine, 25,000 20,000 5,000 1,000 15,000 10,000 40,000 36,000 Total, 1.545.000 305,000 96,000 190,000 2,136,000 Statistics of the immigration of Jews to Germany are not to hand. We know, however, that immigra- tion from Eastern Europe must go on, from the following circumstances : in the year 1900 it was ascertained that there were 41,113 alien Jews in Germany, of which number 17,410 had been bom in Austria, 12,752 in Russia and Finland. In Prussia the census of 1905 registered 38,844 foreign Jews ; of these 16,665 were Austrian, 13,185 Russian, and 3,386 Hungarian. On 1st December, 1900, Berlin alone contained 11,651 foreign Jews among a total of only 35,142 foreigners. The kingdom of Saxony receives many Austrian Jews ; thus in the year 1905 in Leipzig, of 7,676 Jews, 4,843 ( = 63.09 per cent.) were foreign (3,010 Austrian, 1,401 Russian, 117 Hungarian, 315 other nationalities)*. In DISPERSION 93 Dresden, of 3,514 Jews, 1,715 ( = 48.80 per cent.) were foreign. In Munich in the year 1905, of 10,056 Jews, 2,388 ( = 25.74 per cent.) were foreign bom (mostly Russian and Austrian) ; of the Christians only 4.3 per cent, were foreign bom. D. The influence of emigration on assimilation. The migration en masse of the Jews of Eastern Europe to these highly developed English-speaking countries means something more than mere change of locality. Though the full significance has hardly yet been appreciated, there is no doubt that this migration is of the very greatest importance for the future of Judaism, especially as there is no sign of its abating. It means bringing into play all the latent strength and co-operation of millions of intelligent Jews in the ferment of life in the large towns, in great industries and manufactures, in the trade of the world — Jews who had hitherto eked out the most penurious existence in the villages and small towns of their native undeveloped countries. It means an advance from poverty and misery to prosperity and security. It means the rais- ing of pohticaUy oppressed and degraded men to the dignity of free independent citizens of a free country. It means, finally, the substitution of the most highly developed and advanced surroundings in the world for those of a civilisation still blankly unenlightened. In proportion as the Jewish immigrant advances in prosperity, the ties which bind the Jew of Eastern Europe so closely to his brethren tend to fall away. It is true that the Jewish quarter of New York is little else than a Russian or Galician Ghetto on American soil, and its inmates toil under the sweating system as tailors, cobblers and carpenters for their daily bread ; but how long will this be so ? The Jew will 94 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY not remain for ever in the sweated workrooms. At first, in order to get a footing in an absolutely foreign economic system, he cannot do without them : it has been rightly said that these workrooms turn out not so much work as workers ; that is to say, the Jew is here prepared for American economic life. But he is on the watch for other activities, his present ones are but a stepping-stone to better things. As soon as he is able to leave the East End, and find a foothold outside, thus climbing the fhrst rung of the economic ladder, he submits himself absolutely to the influence of American culture, which in a few decades, or at most in one or two generations, lures him away from Judaism, or at any rate so weakens its hold that a formal profession is all that remains of it. A Jew emigrates to the United States to-day a strictly ortho- dox Rabbi, speaking only Yiddish ; after the lapse of ten years, once outside the East End, he has become tolerant, has learnt to murder the English language, and attends a slightly modernised synagogue service. After twenty years he often attends reform synagogues with their Sunday Sabbaths, speaks English by pre- ference, and gives his chUdren a modem American education. Thus the children, or at best the grand- children, grow up with little or no Jewish communal feeling, and the slightest inducement will take them over to Christianity. It is now only thirty years since these immigrations began, and the immigrants are still for the most part in the first generation ; the fate of the second and third generations will show what to-day can only be surmised. Rapid as is the process of assimilation once outside the Ghetto walls, transforming a Jew of our often- quoted " first class " into one of the third or fourth DISPERSION 95 within the space of two or three decades, the process within the East End boundaries is much slower. The immigrant here rarely raises himself above the second class, and it is only his children and grandchildren who become assimilated. E. Inland migrations. Of less importance than these migrations from country to country are the inland migrations, i.e. changes of residence within the country itself ; though similarly here the Jews naturally seek a district where the economic pressure is less heavy — ^with possibilities of greater prosperity — thus indirectly tending to assimilation. In Russia, the broad lands of which seem to invite such migrations, they are prevented by law, which denies all Jews (with the exception of merchants of the first guild, those holding university degrees, and master mechanics) the right of moving out of Poland or the fifteen other governmental divisions where alone they are allowed to live. Within this so-called Pale of Settlement there live 4,899,327 Jews, that is 93.93 per cent, of the whole of Russian Jewry, though this Pale of Settlement is only one twenty- third part of the whole Russian Territory. We see how unequally divided the Jewish population of Russia is from the following figures : — Of total Population. In Poland, - - - - 14.05 per cent. In the 15 Governmental Depart- ments of Pale of Settlement, 11. 12 „ In the 3 Governmental Depart- ments, Kurland, Livland, St. Petersburg, - - - 2.49 „ In the remaining 32 Governmental Departments of European Russia, 0.19 „ 96 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Inland migrations of the Jews from the overcrowded Pale of Settlement to other parts of Russia would be to their greatest possible advantage, but the Russian Government insists on their remaining within the prescribed areas. The opposite policy prevails in Italy, where the Jews avail themselves freely of the right of change of domicile, and constitute the most mobile element of the population. Only 61.5 per cent, of the Jews (according to the census of 1901) were born in their present domicile. They migrate principally from Northern Italy to Rome and the Southern States. In Galicia the Jews tend to move from West to East. Dr. Buzek, Decent at Lemberg University,^ ascertained that in the year 1869 there were 147,356 Jews in East Gahcia, 428,077 in West Galicia, whereas in 1900 there were 192,371 in West Galicia and 618,751 in East Galicia. In 1900 the Jews constituted 12.9 per cent, of the whole population of East Galicia ; 6.9 per cent, of the whole, and 29.8 per cent, of the town population of West Galicia. In Germany the Jews migrate from the country- side to the towns (cp. the similar tendency of the general German population), but, unlike the Galician movement, its trend is not from West to East, but from East to West. Between the years 1871 and 1905 the number of Jews in the East Provinces — East Prussia, West Prussia, Pomerania, and Posen — de- creased from 116,075 ( = 22.67 per cent, of the whole Jewish population in Germany) to 69,785 ( = 11.48 per cent, of the whole Jewish population in Germany), a decrease of 46,290 souls ; of these, 31,549 in the Province ^ Quoted by Korkis, " The Movement of the Jewish Population in Galicia," Jewish Statistics, vol. i. p. 311. Ulbl'iiKblON 97 of Posen alone, the numbers there being reduced from 61,982 to 30,433. Against this, the number of Jews in the West Provinces (Saxony, Hanover, West- phalia, Hessen, Nassau, Rhineland) has increased from 110,765 ( = 21.63 per cent, of the total Jewish popula- tion in Germany) in 1871 to 149,812 ( = 24.65 per cent, of the total Jewish population of Germany) in 1905. The Jewish population has increased more especially in Berlin and the Province of Brandenberg (to which the suburbs and environs of Berlin belong), namely from 47,489 to 139,320, i.e. 91,831 souls. Berlin attracts an ever-increasing number of Prussian Jews. The following table shows that whereas in 1816 only 2.72 per cent, of all Prussian Jews resided in Berhn, the percentage has steadily increased till in 1905 it reached 24.15 per cent. If we include with Berhn its 29 suburbs, we find that of a total population of 2,993,441 there were in 1905 about 130,000 Jews : i.e. 31.75 per cent, of all Prussian Jews hve in Berlin. Percentage op Jews in In Berlin were Berlin to Total Number Year. OP Prussian Jews. Non-Jews. Jews. Non-Jews. Jews. 1816, - 194.372 3.373 1.89% 2 72 % 1843, - 341.457 8,351 2.24% 404 % 1861, - 528.618 18,953 2.90 % 7-44% 1867, - 585.054 24,189 2-47 % 7-72 % 187I, - 786,382 36.105 3-23 % "■09% 1880, - 1,068,414 53.916 3-97 % 14.82 % 1885. - 1,250,904 64.383 448 % 17-56% 1890, 1,499,508 79.286 5.07 % 21.31 % 1895, - 1,591.152 86,152 5.06 % 22.69 % 1900, 1.796,642 92,206 5-^7% 23.50 % 1905, - 1,941.255 98,893 5-26 % 2415 % CHAPTER VI. CONGESTION IN THE LARGE TOWNS. A. Causes of the rapid assimilation of Jews in large towns. Large towns are one of the great factors of assimila- tion — veritable hot-beds of the process, which goes on more actively and rapidly there than in other parts of the country. There are many reasons for this. First of all, the capitalised economic life of the day is there focussed ; there are to be found the banks, the great markets, the centres of exchange. There hundreds of thousands of Christians are occupied in the same callings as Jews, whence the obliteration of that diversity of occupation which is still felt in the country between Jew and Christian. Further, the large towns are the homes of irreligion, or at least of religious indifference ; Christianity, which exerts a powerful influence over the individual in villages and smaU towns, is here of little account, and the religious differences between Jew and Christian are hardly noticeable. On the other hand, large towns with their public schools, universities, and similar institu- tions, offer exceptional opportunities for acquiring higher education and culture, which, as we shall see, render the Jew especially receptive to assimilative influence and apt to renounce his Judaism. CONGESTION IN THE LARGE TOWNS 99 In a small town the Jewish convert to Christianity must be prepared to create something of a scandal, and probably to be cut by the majority of those with whom he has hitherto associated ; whereas, in a large town, where people meet more easily, he can make new social connections without much difficulty, not only among other converted Jews, but with professing Jews and Christians. The Christians are ignorant for the most part of how recent is the conversion, and the Jews themselves are often so far assimilated, that they readily forgive the step, especially if it goes no further than allowing the children to be baptised. In addition to this, it should be noted that the forma- lities to be gone through in connection with the actual ceremony of conversion are much less rigorous in large towns. Further, a large town, where religious sects abound- — agnostics, theists and dissenters of all sorts — puts no obstacle in the way of a dissenting Jew, who would be looked upon as a wicked unbeliever in a village or small town. The broad-mindedness of the town dweller is the greatest contrast to the limited horizon of the villager. B. Statistics of the centralisation of Jews in large towns. Seeing that large towns offer such special oppor- tunities for the assimilation of the Jewish to the Gentile population, we must give particular attention to the departure of the Jews from villages and small towns, and to their centralisation in the large cities. It is true that Jews in the Diaspora have always been mainly townspeople; in proportion to the Christians they have always been scantily represented in the open country, and this even in countries where they are at 100 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY perfect liberty to settle where they will. Thus there were : Year. Jews. Op Total Town Population. In In the Towns. In the Country. Jews. Christians. Denmark, Galicia, - Prussia, - Servia, - Bulgaria, - Norway, - igoi 1900 1905 1900 1900 1900 3,310 274,478 351.550 5.726 32,482 565 166 536,893 57.951 3 I,i8i 77 94.98% 34.04% 85.85% 99.95% 96.49% 87.90% 39.06% 7.30% 13.88% 19.39% 28.30% In Russia there are indeed stringent legal restrictions limiting the number of Jews in villages. Thus we find that there were in 1897 50.5 per cent, of the total number of Jews as compared with 11. 8 per cent, of the total number of non-Jews who were town- dwellers. Perhaps the crowding of the Jews in the towns can be yet more clearly appreciated when we remember that the Jews constitute only 4.15 per cent, of the total population of Russia, but 15.6 per cent, of the town population. Characteristic of the present migratory movement is the emigration of the Jews from towns to larger towns. The reason for this is the change in economic conditions. Just as the Jews used to seek the towns as being the centres of trade, they now troop to the large towns, because the development of international trade and commerce and the rapid advance of industry and manufacture are becoming more and more centred in the large towns, whUe trade between the small towns is fast losing its old importance. From the Grand Duchy of Hessen we have convincing statistics in proof CONGESTION IN THE LARGE TOWNS loi of this movement. Of the whole number of Jews in Hessen there hved : In Actual Figures. Percentage. 1828. 1871. 1905. 1828. 1871. 1903. In Places with less than 20ooInhabs., In Places with 2000- 13.617 13.063 7,871 64.13 51.49 31.86 10,000 Inhabitants, In Places with over 5.443 5.846 7.789 25.63 33-03 31.54 10,000 Inhabitants, 2,176 6,464 9.039 10.24 25.48 36.60 We may say that the more highly developed are the trade and commerce of a country, the greater the pro- portion of Jews in its large towns. Of the Jewish immigrants to England, 60 per cent, choose London, and 30 per cent. Manchester, Leeds, Glasgow and Liverpool as their domicile. In the United States, about 60 per cent, of the Jewish immigrants settle in New York. In Germany, according to the census of 1900, 42.72 per cent, of all the Jews, against only 15.90 per cent, of all the Christians, lived in large towns (i.e. towns of over 100,000 inhabitants). In Prussia (1905) there Uved r Inhabitants In Actual Figures. Percentage. Christians. Jews. Chris- tians. Jews. In cities with more than 200,000 4.748.565 188,926 12.87 46.13 ,, „ 100,000-200,000 2,484.583 36,588 6.75 8.93 ,, „ 50,000-100,000 1,683,923 18,269 4.56 4.46 *» „ 30,000- 50,000 1,141,976 15.007 310 3.66 „ 20,000- 30,000 1.432.338 16,960 3.88 4.14 .* ,, 10,000- 20,000 1,615,469 17.459 4-38 4.26 „ „ 5,000- 10,000 1,516,623 23,618 4.11 5-76 ». „ less than 5,000 Total No. in towns, 1.932,978 34.723 5-24 8.47 16,556,455 351.550 44.89 85.85 „ villages, 20,327,368 57.951 55." 14.15 102 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY The large towns of Prussia thus contained 55.06 per cent, of all Prussian Jews, but only 19.63 per cent, of the total of its Christians. In Bavaria in 1900, in towns of over 20,000 inhabitants, Jews were 46.2 per cent, of their total number. Christians 21.9. These great numerical differences are easily explained when we bear in mind the trade census of 1895, when it was ascertained that 33.15 per cent, of those engaged in trade lived in large towns. The industrial pursuits determine the place of residence. Nor must we ignore that there are other motives for migration — the access to higher education for the children, the possibility of greater comfort and enio5nnent, and the greater freedom of action offered by a large town. Anti- Semitism in the Eastern Provinces is also responsible for the departure of the Jews thence to Berlin. In Roumania the respective percentage of the total number of Jews and Christians is 72.27 per cent, and 13.34 psr cent, in the 32 capitals of the departments. In Italy in 1901, of a total of 35,617 Jews, 30,792, or 86.4 per cent., lived in the 69 chief towns : of these 20,698, or 58.11 per cent., in the six towns, Rome, Milan, Turin, Florence, Leghorn, and Venice. In Bulgaria, where in 1900 no fewer than 96.49 per cent, of all the Jews lived in towns, 45.82 per cent, alone hved in the three towns, Sophia, Rustschuk, and Philippopel. In the Austro-Hungarian kingdom, in towns of more than 50,000 inhabitants, there lived in 1900 : Of all Jews. Of all Christians . Austria, - - 23.33 10.60 Hungary, - - 26.11 6.39 The relatively thickest Jewish population is found in the towns of the Russian Pale of Settlement and in CONGESTION IN THE LARGE TOWNS 103 GaJicia and Bukovina. In Russia the town of Ber- ditschew with 41,617 Jews has the highest percentage of Jews, i.e. 78 per cent, of the whole population ; in 15 other towns with over 10,000 Jews, and in 31 towns with over 5,000, the Jews constitute more than 50 per cent, of the whole population. In Galicia the town of Brody with 11,854 Jews has the highest percentage of Jews, i.e. 72.1 per cent, of the whole population ; besides Brody, there are nine other large towns in which they constitute the majority of the population.^ In Palestine, Jerusalem, Safed and Tiberias are largely Jewish towns. In Salonica also they are in a majority. C. Preference for the Capitals. Capitals exert the greatest attraction for Jews, because they are pre-eminently the centres of trade and industry, and also of those other caUings with which Jews love to identify themselves : joum^ism, art, literature, etc. In actual figures, the following towns have the greatest number of Jews : New York, . - - - 1,000,000 Warsaw, ----- 250,000 Budapest,- - - - - 169,000 Odessa, ----- 150,000 London, ----- 150,000 Vienna, ----- 147,000 Chicago, Philadelphia, Berlin and Paris have about 100,000 each. In these ten towns there live about ^ In Roumania the following towns have a Jewish majority : Herta with 66.2 per cent., Milhaileni with 65.6 per cent., Harlau with 59.6 per cent., Falticeni with 57 per cent., Dorohoi with 53.6 per cent., Botosani with 51.8 per cent, and Jassy with 50.8 per cent. 104 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY one-fifth, and in the first six about one-sixth of the entire Jewish population of the world, NUMBER OF JEWS IN THE CAPITALS OF VARIOUS COUNTRIES. Living IN CapI- Jews to TAL OF Country every 100 IN Question. In the In Year Jews. Non-Jews. Inhabi- tants of the Capital of Per 1,000 Per 1,000 Non- Jews. Capital. Jews. Austria, 1 900 146,926 1,528,031 8.77 123 61 Roumania, - 1899 43.274 282,071 13.30 161 50 Italy, - I901 7,121 655,200 1.08 200 20 Poland, I901 254.712 457.276 35-77 193 57 Hungary, 1900 166,198 537.250 23.63 195 29 Prussia, 1905 98,893 1,941,255 4-85 241 53 U.S.A., 1908 1,000,000 3,300,000 23.25 563 39 Netherlands, 1899 59.065 451,788 11.56 568 90 England and Wales, - 1908 140,000 6,581,327 2. II 560 156 Denmark, - I90I 2,826 397.749 0.70 813 163 New South Wales(Syd- ney). igoi 5,137 482,763 1.05 797 357 Bulgaria, 1900 8,720 59,069 12.86 259 16 Victoria (Mel- bourne), - 1901 5.103 488,853 1.04 863 411 D. London and New York. It is noticeable that in the towns which receive the greatest influx of immigrants, namely New York and London, the Jews congregate in one particular quarter. Thus in London in 1901, 85 per cent, of the Russian and Polish immigrants were living in the borough of Stepney, and in New York the great majority of immi- grants are concentrated in the East End. This concentration may be put down partly to religious motives (proximity to synagogues and Kosher butchers), though the real reason is undoubtedly that the immi- CONGESTION IN THE LARGE TOWNS 105 grant Jew — ^ignorant of the English language and of English and American life — instinctively seeks inter- course among his own people, and wishes to be as near them as possible. But, in proportion as he learns EngUsh and begins to get famihar with English and American life, he finds the East End with its sweated workrooms too narrow for him, and seeks employment outside. The East End serves as a sort of distiUer, in which all those immigrants who are too old or unable to fit themselves into the new Ufe, sink to the bottom. The others, and especially the second generation, flow out of the reservoir. The overcrowding of the East End is often cited as a proof that Jews like to con- gregate together ; but this is not the case. The Jews crowd into the East End because in the first years their only chance of a livelihood is there ; but their desire is not to remain everlastingly in the sweated industries. They aspire to be independent merchants and business men, and this aspiration will carry them out of the East End, even though that district should remain for many decades the refuge of the new immigrant. SECTION III. THE VARIOUS PHASES OF ASSIMILATION. CHAPTER VII. ADOPTION OF THE LANGUAGE OF THE COUNTRY. A. Changes of language in the history of the Jews. Language, handed down from generation to genera- tion, is one of the most precious of spiritual possessions. It directs the thought of the child's mind into a fixed groove, the result of the mental effort of former generations, the written and printed masterpieces of which become, later on, the principal intellectual food of the child. All culture is bound up with language, and only accessible through it. The Jews in the course of their history have had many changes of language. Hebrew ceased to be the general national language after the fifth century B.C., when it gave place to Aramaic (in its two forms Chaldaic in Palestine, Sjrriac in Babylon), and later to Greek. Hebrew only ceased to be a colloquial language at the end of the second century A.D., having been renewed in Palestine at the time of the Maccabees. The cultured Jew of Alexandria in the first and second centuries a.d. was an exception if he spoke Hebrew fluently, besides Greek. As a written language it never died out, though the prevailing language of the Babylonian Talmud and of Jewish literature in Babylon until the tenth century was not Hebrew but Aramaic. no THE JEWS OF TO-DAY A great change came in the seventh and eighth cen- turies, when Islam triumphantly spread the culture of the Arabs from Arabia across North Africa to Spain. The Jews, taking up this movement with enthusiasm, gave up Aramaic in favour of Arabic. The poets and sages of the Jews at that time wrote most of their works in Arabic, though Hebrew — cultivated as a literary language in the schools of Sura and Pumbedita — ^was not forgotten, and was much used in that capacity. For about five centuries Arabic remained the principal colloquial language of the Jews till it gave way to the Latin languages — to Spanish in Spain under the dominion of Christian Castile, to French in France. The oldest known French elegy (written at the end of the thirteenth century) was written by a Jew on the bmning of Jewish martyrs ; and in Spain the Spanish language took such firm root among the Jews that after their exile in 1492 they took it with them to their new homes, and speak it in European Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine to this day. It is no longer pure Spanish, but is mixed with many Turkish and Hebrew words, and is called " Spaniolisch." ^ As Spaniolisch is to Spanish, so is the " Yiddish " or " Jargon " ^ of Eastern Europe to German. The 1 Spaniolisch is spoken not only within the present Turkish dominions but also in those countries which were formally under Turkish rule. In Bulgaria in 1900 SpanioUsch was the every-day language of 96.76 per cent, of the Jews ; in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1895 of 69.75 per cent, of the Jews; in Servia in 1900 of 26.95 per cent, of the Jews. * Latterly many protests have been raised by Jews against the designation " Jargon " — ^jargon signifying a mutilation, and con- veying a false impression of an organically developed language. But " Jargon " has, we think, become the generally accepted name for " Yiddish," and as such carries with it no derogatory extraneous significance. ADOPTION OF LANGUAGE OF COUNTRY iii Jews in Germany, as we learn from old authorities and contemporary writings, spoke the same German as the Christians up to the thirteenth and fourteenth cen- turies. Not tin they were shut up in Ghettos — thus falling out of touch with Christian culture and being thrust back on themselves — did their language begin to differ from that of the Christians. It kept to the old forms (Mittelhochdeutsch) and had introduced into it many Hebrew words (especially for all incidents of religious or specially Jewish life), for Hebrew had never ceased being the literary language of the Jews. During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the German Jews emigrated in vast numbers to the Kingdon of Poland, taking their colloquial " Yiddish " with them, and to this they have adhered to the present day : while in Germany itself — since the beginning of the emancipa- tion, i.e. since the middle of the eighteenth century, it was given up in favour of pure German, and from the beginning of the nineteenth century, was no longer used at all. B. Causes of the changes of language. How was it that within a hundred years " Jargon " disappeared altogether from Germany ? It is explicable only in view of the equally rapid change in the economic conditions of the Jews. Till the year 1750 nothing but a number of pedlars and pawnbrokers, they began, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to be bankers and promoters of every new industry — the pioneers of the dawning capitalistic era ! The numerous dealings they had with Christians made the acquiring of the German language — a luxury they had been able to dispense with in their previous petty callings — an absolute necessity. And along with the economic 112 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY motive came the introduction of compulsory schooling and the establishment of state education — ^both of great importance for the promotion of German. As was the case with German in the eighteenth cen- tury, so with former changes of language among the Jews — ^we find economic causes the prima mobilia. The extension of their economic activities brought about the adoption of Aramaic when this was the pre- vailing language in Western Asia : similarly when, later, Greek became the universal language, and the seafaring Jewish merchants of Syria and Egypt were unfamiliar with it, they adopted Greek as their language. So in turn it became necessary to learn Arabic, Spanish, French and German when the Jews became the carriers of trade, bearing the goods of the Orient to Spain, France and Germany. In the present day we see how the Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe to England and America are forced to give up Yiddish in favour of Enghsh as soon as they once get outside the Jewish quarters in New York and London and set up business for themselves ; the same thing happens with the Russian Jew outside the Pale of Settlement, while even within the Pale, all those Jews who have deal- ings with Christians in a large way of trade and industry are bound to learn the language of the country. C. The spread of Yiddish. Though Yiddish has suffered much from the emigra- tion from Eastern Europe and the changes in European economic conditions, it still remains the language of the great majority of Jews. In Russia, Russian Poland, Galicia and Roumania it is the mother tongue of about six millions ; in England and the Colonies and America ADOPTION OF LANGUAGE OF COUNTRY 113 of a further million, and it is both written and printed (in Hebrew characters). Though a great number of these millions have at any rate some knowledge of the language of the country and of Hebrew, Yiddish remains the dominating language — the mother tongue. In aU the Jewish quarters of Russian and Galician towns Yiddish is used on the hoardings and shops — Yiddish is the language of secular literature and of the news- papers. In Russia we learn from the census of 1897 that of a total of 5,215,805 Jews, 5,054,300 ( = 96.90 per cent.) spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue, and only 161,505 had any other mother tongue (Russian, Polish or German). Within the Pale of Settlement 97.96 per cent, speak Yiddish as their mother tongue. Beyond the Pale the percentage falls to 80.4 per cent., so that even here Yiddish is the prevailing language among the Israehtes, though they are bound to have some knowledge of Russian also. In Galicia, Yiddish is not accounted a language in the official statistics, and, though there is not the slightest doubt that the majority of Galician Jews speak Yiddish as their mother tongue primarily, and Polish or Ruthenian only secondarily, the statistics give a false impression by registering the language of the Jews as German, Pohsh, Ruthenian, etc. Only thus are the following results explicable, obtained from the Austrian census of 1900 : Languages spoken by Jews in Galicia. German, - - - - 17. i per cent. Polish, - - - - 76.6 Ruthenian, - - - - 50.. Other Languages, - - - 1.3 „ H 114 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Languages spoken by Jews in the whole OF Austria. German, - - . - 34.33 per cent. Bohemian, Slovak,- - - 4.72 Polish, - - . - 50.81 Ruthenian, - - - - 3.35 Italian, . _ . - 0.24 Roumanian, - - - - 0.02 Magyar, . - - - o.oi Other Native Languages, - 0.09 Foreign Languages, - - 6.53 In England and America, Yiddish, wherever it is used as the mother tongue, becomes influenced by English forms and idioms, and takes on numerous new words and phrases. The peculiarity of Yiddish is that it inflects the Hebrew verb in German fashion, and it does the same with English, thus coining some extra- ordinary words. Thus Halach (Hebrew for " to go ") becomes halchenen ; " to let " becomes verleten, and so forth. Further, the English words are spelt not according to their English spelling, but by the sound, so that very curious-looking words ensue. D. Extent of the adoption of European languages. Jews who have resided some generations in England and America speak perfect English as their natural language, just as the Jews in Germany, France and Italy speak faultless German, French and Italian, and can barely understand Yiddish, let alone speak it. Nevertheless, as in practically every country the Jews are constantly being recruited from their European brethren, Jews in aU parts of the world show a pre- ADOPTION OF LANGUAGE OF COUNTRY 115 ference for German — the parent language of Yiddish — and it may be generally accepted that every Jew, Australian, African or Asiatic, understands some German from the broken fragments which have come down to him. Therefore it was that the Zionist Con- gress — made up of delegates from all parts of the world — chose German for the official language of the Congress. Statistically this prevalence was proved in Hungary in 1900, when 25.45 per cent. Jews were found to be using it as their mother tongue, as against 10 per cent. of the Christians. In Bohemia and Moravia they show their preference for German by letting their children attend almost exclusively German schools and uni- versities (as opposed to Cszeckish), so that, for example, during the summer term of 1904 the percentage of Jews at the German University of Prague was 25.7 per cent., while that at the Bohemian University of Prague was only 1.2 per cent. In Bukovina in 1900, 91,907 Jews out of a total of 96,150 ( = 95.6 per cent.) were speaking German or Yiddish as their mother tongue, and thus constituted the major portion of the German-speaking population of Bukovina, namely 57.6 per cent., so that without the Jews, Bukovina would lose its German character. The German language — in its capacity of common medium of expression for all Jews — ^has lately encountered a rival in English. This is the result of the great influx of Jews into English-speaking countries. Fifty years ago hardly 100,000 Jews lived in English- speEJsing countries ; now almost 2,200,000, or 19.2 per cent, of all Jewry, are established there. We must remember, however, that of these 2,200,000 Jews only about one-half have as yet adopted English as their every-day language, while the other half still ii6 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY speaks Yiddish. The following table is intended to give a general idea of the languages spoken by the Jews. Language of Country. Number of Jews in Country. Number of Jews who speak this language as Mother- tongue. (Slavonic, i.e. Russian Polish, Cszechick, Ruthenian, Bul- garian, Servian), - 6,225,000 400,000 English, - 2,200,000 1,100,000 German, - 900,000 1,250,000 Hungarian, - . 850,000 600,000 Turkish and Arabic, - 650,000 250,000 French, - 175,000 150,000 Dutch, - 110,000 110,000 Italian, - 40,000 40,000 Other Languages, 400,000 Jargon Spaniol. 300,000 7,000,000 350,000 11,550,000 11,550,000 Hence we see that of the 11,550,000 Jews in the world 7.350,000 ( = 63.6 per cent.) speak their own dialects (Yiddish and Spaniolisch), the remaining 4,200,000 ( = 36.4 per cent.) speaking pure European languages. We see also that German is the only language which is spoken by Jews outside its own province ; in Italy and Holland the language of the country is equally that of the Jews, while all the other European lan- guages are used to a much smaller extent than the number of Jews resident in the countries would lead one to expect. Especially striking is the decrepancy in the Slav countries, where only 400,000 of the 6,225,000 resident Jews, i.e. 7 per cent., habitually speak the language of the country. ADOPTION OF LANGUAGE OF COUNTRY 117 E. Change of language and its relation to assimilation. The overthrow of Yiddish — a work begun in the eighteenth century, and continued in the nineteenth — will be consummated in the twentieth century. This prophecy is based not only on the increasing develop- ment of capitalism, but on the progress of culture in Russian Europe and in the Esist. One of the most potent reasons for the resistance of the Eastern European Jew to acquiring the Slav languages, and of the Ottoman Jew to acquiring Turkish was un- doubtedly the conviction that the culture and litera- ture, to which he would thereby gain access was of a lower standard than his own Hebrew literature and culture. On the other hand, his anxiety to acquire , the German and English language is directly attribut- able to the high standard of German and English culture. The transformation of Russia and Turkey into constitutional States and their consequent pro- vision for national education, will do much to induce the Jews to acquire the Russian and Turkish languages. But with the overthrow of Yiddish the last barrier which separated the mass of East European Jews from' modem culture is broken down. The adoption of the language of the country, which goes, of course, hand in hand with the adoption of all the manners and customs of that country, is the first stage to assimila- tion, and a very important one. It cuts away at a single stroke the chain by which Jewish tradition was handed down for centuries in unbroken continuity from father to chUd. Children and parents no longer understand one another. Yiddish — the sole language of the parents — is despised by the children who attend the national pubUc schools not only in America and ii8 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY England, but already to some extent in Eastern Europe, and this contempt for the language is trans- ferred not only to those who use it but to everything which is conveyed to them by means of it. The differ- ence of language means at the same time difference of outlook on aU Jewish peculiarities and on the Jewish religion. One may say that the Jewish religion is on firm ground only where Yiddish is the mother tongue. With the abandonment of Yiddish the way is open for the triumphant march of capitalism, for the adoption of universal culture, for the depreciation of Jewish religion, and finally for intermarriage and conversion. CHAPTER VIII. ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE. A. The Jew's craving for education. The process of assimilation, beginning with the adoption of the language of the country, passes into its second stage with the adoption of Christian {i.e. universal) education and culture. One reason for this is that Jews, who are already engaged in social and commercial intercourse with Christians, find the attainment of this culture a great asset as a means of advancement ; but another reason is that Jews are always eager to seize any opportunity for further developing the intellect, and turn at once from the language to its literature. Appreciation of the Vcilue of learning and study is a tradition among Jews to an extent unequalled perhaps by any other people. It is noteworthy that already in the time of Mohammed they were called the " People of the Book." During the whole period of the Middle Ages the wealthy Jew sought a husband for his daughter not from among the rich, but from the most learned, the greatest Talmud scholar, and to secure such a one he was willing to make every possible material sacrifice. His ambi- tion was to have a learned man for a son-in-law, as the ambition of his present-day descendants in Berhn, Paris or London is to have for son-in-law some Lord 120 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY or Count. In Poland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, at the time of the great annual fairs (Messe), there used to be a sort of market for sons-in-law, in which rich Jews sought out the young Talmud students who most distinguished themselves in public Talmudic debates and discourses — " The Jews used to outbid one another to secure the most promising young Rabbis for their daughters." Even among the very poorest class of Jews in Eastern Europe, opportunities for learning and study, at any rate for the sons, is considered so essential that in Galicia thousands of poor artisans and pedlars willingly pay one-tenth and even one-sixth of their week's earnings (up to one gulden out of about six guldens) to their son's " Melamed " (teacher of Hebrew and the rudiments of general knowledge). They would rather starve than that their children should go without education. This esteem for learning is very apparent in those countries where compulsory education is not ILLITERATES. Year. Of all Persons. Per 100. In Jews. M. F. Non.Jews. M. F. Russia, Budapest, - Italy, Bulgaria, - 1897 1900 1901 1902 1900 1901 1901 Of all Ages, - Of all Ages, - Over 15 years. Married in 1902, Of all Ages, - Over 15 years. From 5-15 „ 50.6 15-5 30 . 4-1 71.1 21. 1 7-5 21.3 70.6I 20.8" 42.6 34-1' 91.2' 25.9'' 57-0 8l.2» Servia, N.S. Wales, Victoria, - 42.99 3-15 6.81 83.02 3.81 10.00 'The figures have reference only to Roman Catholics. ' The figures have reference only to Greek -Orthodox Christians. " The figures have reference only to Orthodox Christians. ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 121 rigidly enforced, and where the attendance of the children at school depends very much on the inclination of the parents. Here statistics show that the number of illiterates among Jews is considerably less than among Christians. In view of these figures, we must not forget that the Jews are mainly townspeople and merchants, and thus need good schooling more urgently than the village peasant; and a school education is much more easily obtainable in towns than in country districts. B. The decline of the Cheder. Just as philosophy in the Middle Ages was only " the handmaid of Theology," so Jewish learning until the end of the eighteenth century was confined to the precincts of reUgion, entailing a thorough knowledge of the great mass of Hebrew literature. Sectilar knowledge was not only despised, but pro- scribed. During the reign of Frederick the Great a young Jewish student (grandfather of the Banker Bleichroder) was expelled from Berlin for having been discovered in the act of reading a German book. The same spirit still prevails in the Jewish educational institutions of Eastern Europe. The Hebrew School, called " Cheder " (Hebrew for " Room ") teaches its pupils only religious and Hebrew subjects. For the teacher (Melamed) and his pupils, the Talmud is the beginning and the end of knowledge. " Everything that man needs to know is to be foimd in the Talmud, and whatever is not there it is not necessary to know," this is their motto. The language of the country is not taught there, for fear of the consequences to orthodoxy. It is pathetic to hear of the almost insuperable obstacles put in the way of lads who seek to slake their thirst for knowledge by teaching them- 122 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY selves the language and literature of the country they live in. The Cheder guards the Jewish child from any contact with modem culture, and it is in its school- rooms that orthodox Judaism is born anew from generation to generation. The pious Jew of Eastern Europe thinks, and per- haps knows from experience, that any secular addition to the Cheder instruction is a danger to orthodoxy. The schools in GaUcia instituted by Baron Hirsch in 1891, which in 1907 employed 181 teachers, and were attended by about 10,000 pupils,^ had a hard struggle against the mistrust of the Galician Jews. Although their curriculum includes a large amount of Hebrew, many Jews fear that their children may lose their nationahty there, and prefer to bear the burden of the cost of the Cheder rather than send their sons to the Hirsch Schools, where not only are there no fees, but in many casesfood and clothing are providedin addition. The Alliance Israelite Universelle encountered the same distrust when, in addition to building Agricultural and Handicraft Schools, it built Elementary Schools in Morocco, Bulgaria, European Turkey, Asia Minor, Syria, Mesopotamia, Tripoh, Egypt, Tunis and Persia — schools attended by 30,000 children (boys and girls), and entaihng an annual expenditure of two million francs. The Jewish father is less particular about his daughter's education ; in his eyes there is no necessity for it, as it is only the sons who have to know the Torah : it is not even right for girls to know about it. " This principle " — as Graetz says — " has had disas- trous results. While every congregation devoted itself ' Report of the Baron Hirsch Institution. According to this Report, between the years 1891 and 1907 about 9,640,000 Kn. were expended by the Institution for school organisation. ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 123 to the support of elementary and higher education for the male sex, the female sex was systematically kept in ignorance." In Russia the majority of Jewish girls are taught nothing ; by the census of 1897, 49.4 per cent, of Jewish males, but only 28.9 Jewesses, could read. In Galicia, where education is compulsory, the parents willingly send their girls to the public {i.e. Christian) schools, while they withhold their boys from them as much as possible. The result is that in general knowledge the girls are much better informed than their Cheder-taught brothers. " It often comes to this," says Fleisher,'^ " that in many families there exists a regular dualism — the male members speak Yiddish, and the female speak PoUsh, and the two cannot imderstand one another. The result of these unhealthy conditions is seen in the numerous unhappy marriages and dissolutions of marriage among the Galician Jews, and also in the so-called kidnapping of young girls, who are often only too willing to leave the parental home and go over to Christianity." It is impossible to state more strongly the importance of the effect of education on Jewish conditions. The Jewish Colonisation Association instituted an enquiry in the year 1898-99, the results of which were published under the title Material collected on the Economic Condition of the Jews in Russia (2 vols., St. Petersburg, 1904, Russian). In this it appeared that 507 places within the Pale of Settlement, with a Jewish population of 1,420,653, possessed altogether 7,358 Chedarim and Talmud Torah Schools, with 108,289 pupils. At this rate the whole Pale of Settle- ment would number about 370,000 Cheder pupils ; 1 Inquiry into the state of the Jewish population of Galicia. Jewish Statistics, vol. i. p. 230 (Berlin. 1903). 124 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY that is, one to every thirteen Jews. In the Government Province of Kieff alone, an official report for 1900 counted 165,000 Jewish children for whom education was obligatory. Of these there attended the Jewish Elementary Schools, - Christian Private Schools, - Christian Public Schools, Gymnasiums, . - - Chedarim, - - - . - 13.115 = 130% 710= 0.7% 8,280= 8.2% - 4,010= 3.9% about 75,000 = 74.2%^ of children -attending schools SO that about 60,000 — ^probably mostly girls — were having no education at all. Here the influence of the Cheder is clearly seen. In recent times the aversion to sending their sons to the public schools has tended to disappear. In 1880 only 13,618 Jewish boys attended the public schools of GaJicia and Bukovina (with 22,864 Jewish girls) : in 1900 the number of boys had increased to 36,999 and girls to 50,322. In Galicia, too, Jews are beginning to attend secondary schools. In the Gymnasium there attended Year. Number of Jews. Percentage. 185I 1876 I903-1904 Polytechnics, 1903-1904 260 963 4.318 981 6.1 13-5 19.5 28.8 In Bukovina the number of Jewish boys in secondary schools rose from jgg jn the year 1864 to 512 „ 1876 to 1645 „ 1903-04. In Russia also there is a distinct wave which is sending boys to the public secondary schools. This is proved statistically by the census of 1897, which showed that ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 125 the new generation of Jews (10-30 years of age) num- bered six or seven times as many persons who had had secondary education as the old generation (those over 50 years of age). Altogether there were in 1897, 44.631 Jews ( = 0.89 per cent.) who had attended secondary schools. C. Increasing importance of secular schools. The process of the decline of the system of specifi- cally Jewish education which we have been observing in Galicia and Russia during the last 10 to 20 years, had set in long before in Western and Central Europe, and has ended in the cornplete overthrow of the Cheder. Jewish children receive all their education in secular schools, and the efforts of the parents are all directed to secure if possible better education than the ordinary elementary schools provide. The following table shows that the number of Jewish children attending secondary schools (these including Gymnasiums, Polytechnics, and, in Austria, Commercial Schools) is far in excess of their proportion to the general population. JEWISH PUPILS IN BOYS' HIGH SCHOOLS. In every In every Country. Year. Number of Jewish Pupils. Percentage of Jewish Pupils. 10,000 Christ. 10,000 Jews. Christ. Jew. Pupils. Pupils. Prussia, - 1906 15,762 6.53 61 385 Grand Duchy of Baden, - I905-I906 1,096 6.24 83 423 Bavaria, - I905-I906 1,607 4.27 56 290 Austria, - I903-I904 15,880 1374 33 106 Hungary, - 1904 14.790 21.59 29 174 Alsace-Lorraine, 1906 840 7.86 ' 55 264 Hamburg, - 1906-1907 1,403 9.28 175 722 Berlin, 1905 4.257 17-73 102 . 430 126 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY Similarly with secondary girls' schools, where the per- centage of Jewesses was as follows : In Hungary (excluding Croatia and Slavoni), - 1906-07 31.28 per cent. In Prussia, - - - igo6 8.54 ,, In Bavaria, - - - 1905-06 7.57 ,, Taking boys and girls together, of the total number of school children the following received secondary education : Country. Year. Christians. Jews. Prussia, ... - Bavaria, - - - . Baden, . . . . Hamburg,' - - - - Berlin, Frankfurt-a.-M.,- I906-I907 1905-1906 I905-I906 1906-1907 1906 1906 7-93 % 5-49 % 7.14 % 20.94 % 14.07 % 26.47 % 58.91 % 39.62 % 45 20 % 95.59 % 67.53 % 86.61 % As regards Prussia — for which we append a separate table — only 7.93 per cent. Christian children receive more than the elementary schooling, as against 58.91 per cent. Jewish children. Here we see that Jewish children, though only represented in half their proportion in elementary schools, are four, eight and ten times out of propor- tion to their numbers in their percentage of scholars in the middle, secondary boys' and secondary girls' schools respectively. During the last two decades the percentage of Jewish school children in Prussia who ' Hamburg has Higher Jewish Foundation Schools with free education. ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 127 SCHOOL ATTENDANCE IN PRUSSIA, 1906. Schools. Number op Children. Percen- tage of Jewish Chil- dren. Pbrckntage OF Children Educated. Christian. Jewish. Christian. Jewish. Elementary Schools (boys and girls), - Middle Schools, etc. (boys and girls). Secondary Girls' Schools, Secondary Boys' Schools (Polytech- nics, etc.), - 6,206,178 165,684 143.55° 225,482 24,288 5.650 13.403 15.762 0.39 3-30 8.54 6-53 92.07 2.46 2.13 3-34 41.09 956 22.68 26.67 Total, - 6,740,894 59.103 0.87 100.00 100.00 supplement the elementary school education has been steadily rising : In the year 1886 it was 46.51 per cent. 1891 „ 48.55 1896 „ 51.07 1901 „ 56.29 1906 „ 58.91 This increase is due to the growing prosperity of the Jews, to their interest in trades which demand educa- tion, and to their domicile in large towns where schooling is easier to obtain. These factors must be added to the already mentioned natural love of know- ledge inherent in the Jew, and should not be forgotten when comparing the education of Christian and Jewish children. An example is furnished by Berlin, where in 1906, 14-07 per cent, of Christian and 67.53 per cent, of Jewish school children received supplementary education to the elementary schools — a far greater disparity of numbers than elsewhere in Prussia. 128 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY In contrasting the Cheder with the secular school, we meant by secular those schools which teach primarily secular subjects (Arithmetic, Higher Mathe- matics, Nature Study and Science, Geography, History and Languages). Whether such schools accepted pupils of any creed, or were specifically Jewish schools with exclusively Jewish teachers and pupils was no concern of ours, though it is a matter of some import- ance. In specifically Jewish schools, along with modem education, considerable time is given to the teaching of Jewish religion and Hebrew, which instils into the pupils a certain respect for Jewish tradition that is altogether lost in Christian schools. To such schools (of a specifically Jewish character, but with a modern system of education) belong a number of Jewish public schools in Germany, England and America, the Baron de Hirsch schools in Galicia, and the schools of the Alliance Israelite Universelle in the East. In Prussia in 1906 the 240 Jewish public schools were attended by 6,065 Jewish children, i.e. by one-fourth of the total number of Jewish school children in Prussia. The number of these has, however, steadily decreased during the last 20 years ; in 1886 they numbered 13,249, i.e. 37.4 per cent, of Jewish school children. Similarly, the number of Jewish schools has decreased in Alsace-Lorraine from 61 in igoo to 51 in 1907 ; the Jewish pupils going over in large numbers to the non-confessional schools. Secondary schools and girls' high schools of a specifically Jewish character are few and far between in Germany.^ By far the greater number of Jewish children in Prussia and Germany (more than f our-fif ths^ receive their education side by '■ The best known are the " Philanthropin " in Frankfurt-a.-M., the Jacobson school in Seesen, and the Samson school in Wolfenbiittel. ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 129 side with Christian children, either in primary or secondary schools or in the " Gymnasiums." The only difference consists in the religious instruction which in Germany, France and England is limited to a few hours a week and includes Hebrew and Jewish history ; instruction in these subjects is usually given by a special teacher authorised by the congregation. D. The Universities. Just as they throng to the higher schools, so do the Jews throng to the Universities, in Eastern as much as in Western Europe. Till the year 1760 the few Jews who went in for study (almost exclusively medicine) had to betake themselves to Dutch, Danish and Italian Universities, except for a few isolated cases in Halle, Gottingen and Frankfurt-a.-O.: ^ towards the end of the eighteenth century the Jewish student was already no rarity, and in the nineteenth century the number of Jewish students at German Universities had increased in the same degree as Jews had advanced in material prosperity and in the general standard of education. As their increasing wealth enabled them to defray the expenses of their sons' education at the Universities, so their improved social status and education enabled them to regard University education very differently from their attitude of 100 and 150 years ago — or as the Galician Jews look upon it to-day. In GaUcia, owing to the lack of a Jewish middle class there is no bridge between the University-bred doctor or lawyer and the great mass of Jewish poor. ' The first Jewish student in Prussia was Tobia Kohen, who re- ceived a special permit from the Great Kurfurst about 1675 to study medicine at Frankfurt-a.-M. I 130 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY The following table shows the number of Jews studjang at Prussian Universities and their principal branches of study. (It should be mentioned here that Jewish theology is included in the Faculty of Philosophy.) Of the Total Population there Percentage of Total Popu- STUDIED IN Prussian Universities lation Studving During 1 V a ^ •a i 1 •3 1 the Terms. 3S •c 1 ■s 1^ 5 |l| c c 1886-87-91 193 644 297 8.22 I8-.55 8.10 11-95 8.98 Jews - 1891-92-95-96 — 266 .529 259 9.17 17.07 8.12 11.47 8.97 1899-99-1900 — 3«3 453 364 8.67 14.60 7.16 9-52 8.11 I 1905-05-06 — 539 319 443 9-35 16.14 4.88 7-73 6-97 1886-87-91 3143 2i.'i.5 2827 3371 91.78 81.45 91.90 88.05 91.02 Non- 1891-92-95-96 2562 2b3» 2572 2926 90.83 «2-93 91.88 ««.53 91.03 Jews 1899-99-1900 2199 403.5 2646 4718 91-33 85.40 92.«4 91.48 91.89 "- 1905-05-06 1847 5226 1658 »635 90.65 83.86 9512 92.27 93-03 It shows that the average number of Jews during the summer and winter terms of 1905-06 was 6.97 per cent, of all the students. The medical faculty, with 16.14 per cent., claims the greatest number of Jewish students in proportion to the total number of students engaged in this faculty, then comes jurisprudence with 9.35 per cent., and lastly philosophy with 4.88 per cent. During the last two decades Jews have shown an increasing preference for jurisprudence ; their numbers have increased in this faculty (while they have decreased in medicine) — an increase which, it must be remarked, is not confined to Jewish students alone. If we compare the proportion of any hundred Jewish students in each faculty in 1886-87-91 with the ADOPTION OF COSMOPOLITAN CULTURE 131 proportion 1905-06, we shall see that the percentage in the faculty of jurisprudence has risen from 17.02 to 41.43, in the facultj^ of medicine has fallen from 56.79 to 24.52, and in the faculty of philosophy has risen from 26.19 to 34.05. The proportion of Jews to the whole number of students has fallen from 8.98 per cent, in 1886-91 to 6.97 per cent, in 1905-06. But this must be ascribed to the rapid growth of the Christian population, and it must not be thought that Jews are behind-hand in sending their sons to University. Thus in 1886-91 of 10,000 Jews 30.48 were students, whereas in 1905-06 their percentage was 31.77 per cent. Their proportion in 1886-91 was almost seven times as large as that of the Christian population when there were only 4.71 students to every 10,000 of the population. The South German Universities have no statistics with regard to the religion of the students. The Uni- versity of Strassburg aJone furnished the following figures : For the summer term 1907, of 1,613 students, 90 or 5.6 per cent, were Jews. Of these 19 belong to the faculty of jurisprudence, 32 to that of medicine, 17 to that of philosophy, and 22 to the faculty of mathematics and natural science. In Austria in the academic year 1903-04, 3,016 Jews were studjdng at Universities, making 15.54 P^^^ cent, of the whole number of students. In comparison to their numbers there are four times as many Jewish as Christian University students. Of the 3,210 Jewish students of the winter term 1903-04 — 1,729 or 53.9 per cent, were studying Jurisprudence. 681 or 21.2 „ „ „ Medicine. 800 or 24.9 „ „ „ Philosophy. 132 THE JEWS OF TO-DAY At the same time of 15,751 students of other creeds — 7,686 or 48.8 per cent, were studying Jurisprudence. 1,828 or 11.6 „ „ „ Medicine. 6,237 or 39.6 " " " Philosophy. Hence we see the Austrian Jewish students applying themselves to Medicine in greater numbers than their Christian fellows, while they are behind them in the philosophical faculty.^ Besides the Universities, the great technical schools of Austria numbered among their pupils in 1904, 1,231 Jews, i.e. 17.66 per cent, of their total number — 6,978 ; the high school for agri- culture 3 per cent. The conditions in Hungary may be seen from the following table : At the Universities. In Technical Studying. Juris- prudence. Philosophy. Medicine. Chemistry. All Subject!!. High Schools. During the Year ^1 u 1 " ^1 1 " ll ^1 1 1 1=1