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 Cornell University Library 
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 The Jews in America 
 
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 3 1924 032 763 264 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 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/cu31924032763264 
 
The Jews in America 
 
 A SHORT STORY OF THEIR PART IN 
 THE BUILDING OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Commemorating the Two Hundred and Fiftieth 
 Anniversary of Their Settlement 
 
 BY 
 
 MADISON C. PETERS, D.D. 
 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 CHICAGO igoe TORONTO 
 
 
/](^poj^ 
 
 CoPYEIGHTRD 1905 
 
 By 
 The John C. Winston Co. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES in his 
 "Over The Teacups," says: "If the 
 creeds of mankind would try to under- 
 stand each other before attempting mutual ex- 
 termination, they would be sure to find a meaning 
 in beliefs which are different from their own." 
 Christians have many things in common with the 
 Jews. We can readily agree with Lessing, when 
 he makes the Christian monk say to the Jewish 
 Nathan : 
 
 Heaven bless us! 
 That which makes me to you a Christian 
 Makes you to me a Jew. 
 
 It was said of Sydney Smith that he would not 
 read a book which he was to review, — reading it 
 might prejudice his judgment. When Charles 
 Lamb was berating an enemy, some one said to 
 him, "Why, you don't know him," Lamb re- 
 3 
 
PREFACE 
 
 plied, " I don't want to know him, for fear I 
 should like him." 
 
 Christians and Jews make ignorance of each 
 other a claim for judgment, and seem to be afraid 
 to become acquainted for fear that they might like 
 each other. 
 
 Few Christians know the relatively enormous 
 part taken by the Jews, emancipated but a few de- 
 cades, in the civilization of mankind. Lord Bea- 
 consfield, when taunted in the House of Lords for 
 his Jewish extraction, exclaimed, " I can well af- 
 ford to be called a Jew." When the modern Jew 
 enlightens himself upon the achievements of his 
 race, practises the virtues and avoids the faults of 
 his ancestors, he will prepare the way for a glori- 
 ous future for himself and his descendants. 
 
 When an impartial historian shall write the 
 wonderful achievements of the geniuses who pro- 
 duced our civilization, Jewish names will be found 
 on every page, and the Jewish people might well 
 take to heart Goethe's true lines : 
 
 Willst du immer weiter schweifen? 
 Sieh, das Gute liegt so nah. 
 
 4 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This brief story of what the Jew has done for 
 America is written in commemoration of the 250th 
 anniversary of the settlement of the Jews in Amer- 
 ica, and is intended for popular use. It is a book 
 of facts rather than opinions. It puts into brief 
 space for the busy reader some facts the American 
 public should know. The book is written with 
 the hope that it may modify the views which the 
 Gentile world holds with regard to the position of 
 the Jew, and the Author's fervent prayer is that 
 its facts may lead Christians to grant to the pos- 
 session of the Jew, the mental, moral, social and 
 spiritual qualifications which history affirms. 
 
 Special attention is given to the Jew as a pa- 
 triot. Renan said, "A Jew will never be a pa- 
 triot; he will simply live in the cities of others." 
 This implies that the Jew is never a patriot. Such 
 in substance is the indictment brought against the 
 race by the anti-Semites of Europe and America. 
 
 Descent from the Jewish stock determines, with 
 the author, who is to be regarded as a Jew. The 
 almost incredible narrow-minded illiberality and 
 antagonism to Jewish interests, of which the 
 
 5 
 
PREFACE 
 
 modern anti-Semites are still giving the world 
 too frequent and too infamous exhibitions, ac- 
 counts, for instance, for the descendants of Moses 
 Mendelssohn having abandoned Judaism and 
 professed Christianity. Such eminent men as 
 Heine, Moscheles, Joachim, Rubinstein, Disraeli, 
 Herschel, and other distinguished English, Ger- 
 man, Polish, Hungarian and Russian- Jewish mu- 
 sicians, poets, painters, litterati, scientists and 
 statesmen, finding that faithfulness to their ancient 
 creed would interfere with the free exercise of 
 their professional career, renounced its practice 
 and professed the dominant religion of their na- 
 tive country. This, at once, removed every ob- 
 struction, all restriction and the religious 
 prejudice, from which they would otherwise have 
 suffered. 
 
 I have gathered the facts for these chapters 
 from every available source. I wish to acknowl- 
 edge my indebtedness to the Hon. Simon Wolf, 
 whose " Jew as an American Citizen, Soldier and 
 Patriot" gives nearly 8,000 names of Jews who 
 served on both sides in the Civil War. 
 6 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The author has incorporated some of the best 
 things from the original edition of "Justice to 
 the Jew," and the " Jew as a Patriot," and besides 
 he has added much new material. The most 
 painstaking care possible has been exercised to 
 verify every statement and to bring all the facts 
 and figures down to date. 
 
 The author is conscious that what he has writ- 
 ten gives but a meagre though general idea of 
 what the Jew has done for America. If what he 
 has written will remove prejudice, and lead to 
 justice, the author will feel well repaid for the 
 labor involved in this refined study of history. 
 
 Madison C. Peters, 
 
 New York, Oct. i, 1905. 
 
Opposite Page 
 
 Damaged in 
 
 Printing and 
 
 Binding 
 
 Best Image 
 Available 
 
Opposite Page 
 
 Damaged in 
 
 Printing and 
 
 Binding 
 
 Best Image 
 Available 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. 
 Jews in the Discovery of America. 
 
 Not Isabella's Jewels, but Jews, the Real Finan- 
 cial Basis of the First Expedition of Columbus. 
 Dr. Kayserling's Investigations. Emilio Castelur 
 quoted. Without the Scientific Achievements of 
 the Jews, Columbus' Wonderfully-planned Voy- 
 ages would have been impossible. The First 
 White Man to Set Foot on American Soil a Jew 15 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Jewish Pre-Revolutionary Settlements. 
 
 First Arrival in Amsterdam. Governor Peter 
 Stuyvesant's Persistent Hostility. Denied Civil 
 and Religious Liberty Under the English. Roger 
 Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty in 
 America, attracting the Jews to Newport. The 
 Early Jews in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, 
 Savannah, Boston, etc 27 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Jews in the Wars of the Republic. 
 
 New York the First State Actually Granting 
 Full Religious Liberty to the Jews. The Part 
 the Jew took in the Colonial Cause prior to the 
 
 II 
 
Revolutionary War. Haym Salomon and other 
 Jews who Sacrificed their Fortunes for Indepen- 
 dence. Noted Hebrews who Served with Dis- 
 tinction Throughout the Revolutionary War, 
 and the War of 1812. Jewish Patriotism in the 
 Mexican War. Honorable Record in the Regu- 
 lar Army and Navy. The Conspicuous Part 
 which the Jews took in the Civil War. Jews 
 and the American Anti-Slavery Movement. Jews 
 who Served in the American Armies during the 
 War with Spain 39 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 The Jew in American Politics. 
 
 Jewish Congressmen and United States Sen- 
 ators. Judges and Diplomats. Other Jewish 
 Office Holders and their Power for Good in 
 Political Life 65 
 
 Chapter V. 
 The Jew^ in Finance. 
 
 Jews not so Rich as Popularly Supposed. The 
 Part of the Jews in rearing the Great Metro- 
 politan Centres of Commerce . . . .75 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 Jews in the Arts and Sciences. 
 
 America's Poets, Dramatists, Novelists, Paint- 
 ers, Musicians, Editors, and Professors of the 
 Jewish Faith. Jewish Inventors, Doctors and 
 Jurists 85 
 
 12 
 
Chapter VII. 
 The Number of Jews in the United States 
 
 Jewish Emigration. Population in Time of 
 Revolutionary War. In Time of Civil War. 
 Population by States. Population the World 
 Over. Population by Continents and Countries 95 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 Characteristics of the Jews. 
 
 Longevity; next to the Quakers, Jews are the 
 Longest Lived People on Record. Why the 
 Jews are less subject to Consumption, etc. A 
 Law-abiding People. The Tew in Charity. The 
 World's Debt to the Jew for the Bible . . 103 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 Anti-Semitism in America. 
 
 The Jew does not Receive the Treatment he 
 Merits as a Man, even in America. Samples 
 of Injustice. The Jew is what we Made him. 
 The Prejudice that exists Against Him must be 
 Traced to this Leading Cause : One is Made 
 Responsible for All and All are Made Responsible 
 for One. The Anti-Semite is a coward. The 
 cry of a Jew Hater is the Cry of the Beaten 
 Man. Why the Jew Wins . . . .123 
 
 J 3 
 
The Jews in America 
 I 
 
 JEWS IN THE DISCOVERY 
 OF AMERICA 
 
 THE great majority of Americans, Jews and 
 non-Jews, are but little acquainted with the 
 part the Jews played in the discovery and 
 early settlement of the United States. With the 
 same hand and the same pen, and on the same 
 day, on which Ferdinand and Isabella signed that 
 infamous edict, which drove more than two hun- 
 dred thousand Jews from the land of their birth, 
 because they declined to have Christianity forced 
 upon them, they also signed the articles of agree- 
 ment that authorized Cristobal Colon, as the 
 Spaniards called Columbus, to go forth in search 
 
 15 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 of another world, where, in the words of Castelar, 
 the distinguished Spanish pubHcist, " Creation 
 should be new-born, a haven be afforded to the 
 quickening principle of human liberty, and a 
 temple be reared to the God of enfranchised and 
 redeemed conscience." 
 
 Dr. Moses Kayserling, of Buda-Pesth, for 
 years the acknowledged master of Spanish-Jewish 
 history, has made a thorough search of the Span' 
 ish archives and records, including those of the 
 Inquisition, which had never before been open 
 to such a Jewish investigator. The result is his 
 valuable work, entitled " Christopher Columbus 
 and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish 
 and the Portuguese Discoveries." Although an 
 English translation has been published, the work 
 is so heavy and so specialized that very few 
 people seem to have read the book. Since that 
 time, the late Prof. Herbert B. Adams, in one of 
 the valuable series of historical studies published 
 by the Johns Hopkins University, has said, " Not 
 Jewels, but Jews, were the real financial basis of 
 the first expedition of Columbus." 
 i6 
 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 
 Dr. Kayserling has, beyond a doubt, pointed 
 out that two Marranos, or secret Jews, Luis de 
 Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez — the former 
 the chancellor of the royal household and comp- 
 troller-general in Arragon, and the latter chief 
 treasurer of Arragon — enormously rich mer- 
 chants, who enjoyed the favor of Ferdinand and 
 Isabella, supplied the funds needed to fit out 
 Columbus' caravels. Isabella did not sell her 
 valuable jewels to fit out Columbus for his voy- 
 age. It is generally supposed that she had al- 
 ready pawned or sold them to defray the expenses 
 of the wars then devastating her country. Dr. 
 Kayserling clearly shows that the jewel story is 
 false and mythical, — a fact previously proved by 
 another Jew, that great authority on Columbus, 
 Henry Harrisse. Justin Winsor, in his " Chris- 
 topher Columbus," has this to say of the jewel 
 story : " But Harrisse finds no warrant for it, 
 and judges the advance of funds to have been 
 made by Santangel from his private revenues and 
 in the interests of Castile only. And this seems 
 to be proved by the invariable exclusion of 
 
 17 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Ferdinand's subjects from participating in the 
 advantages of trade in the new lands, unless an 
 exception was made for some signal service. 
 This rule, indeed, prevailed even after Ferdinand 
 began to reign alone." Dr. Kayserling cites high 
 Spanish authority from original account-books 
 and records, and narrates Santangel's interview 
 with the Queen as follows : " Santangel, the 
 story continues, was much delighted at the 
 Queen's resolve, and declared that it was not 
 necessary for her to pledge her jewels ; he would 
 be pleased, he said, to advance the money neces- 
 sary for the expedition, and would be glad of 
 the opportunity to perform so small a service for 
 her and for his master the King." Columbus' 
 son, Fernando, and Oviedo give similar accounts 
 of the interview. Dr. Kayserling continues: 
 " At that time neither Arragon nor Castile, 
 neither Ferdinand nor Isabella, had at their dis- 
 posal enough money to equip a fleet. Santangel, 
 who was always ready to oblige the Crown, ad- 
 vanced 17,000 florins — nearly 5,000,000 mara- 
 vedis. The Queen's jewels were not demanded 
 18 
 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 
 as security; all of them were not, in fact, in her 
 possession at that time, for she had pledged her 
 necklace during the late war, Santangel's extra- 
 ordinary services in this matter are clearly demon- 
 strated by the excessive praise which Ferdinand 
 accorded his ' well-beloved ' Luis de Santangel, 
 and by the many proofs of gratitude which the 
 King gave him. That he advanced this money 
 out of his own pocket is proved beyond question 
 by the original account-books which were former- 
 ly in the archives of Simancas, and which are still 
 preserved in the Archivo de Indias in Seville. In 
 the account-book of Luis de Santangel and the 
 treasurer, Francisco Pinelo, extending from 1491 
 to 1493, Santangel is credited with an item of 
 1,400,000 maravedis which he gave to the Bishop 
 of Avila for Columbus* expedition. In another 
 account-book, that of Garcia Martinez and Pedro 
 'de Montemayor, there is the following item : 
 'Alonso de las Calezas, treasurer of war in the 
 bishopric of Badajoz, by order of the Archbishop 
 of Granada, dated May 5, 1492, paid to Alonso 
 de Angelo for Luis de Santangel, the King's 
 
 19 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 escribano de racion, whose authorization was pre- 
 sented with the aforesaid order, 2,640,000 mara- 
 vedis, to wit, 1,500,000 in payment to Isaac Abra- 
 vanel for money which he had lent their Majesties 
 in the Moorish war, and the remaining 1,140,000 
 maravedis in payment to the aforesaid escribano 
 de racion of money which he advanced to equip 
 the caravels ordered by their Majesties for the 
 expedition to the Indies, and to pay Christopher 
 Columbus, the admiral of that fleet.' On May 20, 
 1493, on which day Ferdinand was particularly 
 occupied with Columbus and his expedition, the 
 King ordered his treasurer-general, Gabriel San- 
 chez, to pay 30,000 florins gold to ' his beloved 
 councillor and escribano de racion, Luis de San- 
 tangel.' This sum certainly included the re- 
 mainder of the loan." 
 
 Emilio Castelar, the Spanish statesman and 
 orator, already quoted, has given us the facts, as 
 to Columbus' long and futile efforts to interest 
 the Spanish sovereigns in his project, as well as 
 to Columbus' actual departure from the Spanish 
 Court, discouraged and turning to France: 
 20 
 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 
 " Quintanilla had opened to Columbus the path- 
 way to the court, Santangelo (as Castelar names 
 Luis de Santangel) opened the road to Palos. Of 
 a family of converts, himself but recently a Chris- 
 tian, one of those antique Jews who have so 
 greatly helped to enlighten the Christian world, 
 like the Caragenas of Burgos, for instance, he 
 joined, as is the nature and tendency of his race, 
 the love of the ideal, appropriate to the prophets 
 divinely inspired of the Lord, to the reflective 
 calculations of the schemer and the mathematician. 
 It is a historical fact that one day Ferdinand V., 
 on his way from Arragon to Castile, and needing 
 some ready cash, as often happened, owing to 
 the impoverishment of those kingdoms, halted his 
 horse at the door of Santangel's house in Calata^ 
 yud, and, dismounting, entered and obtained a 
 considerable sum from the latter's inexhaustible 
 private coffers. He must have enjoyed great 
 power, for although some of his near kinsfolk 
 took part in the immolation of Pedro Arbues, the 
 first inquisitor, who was slain in the cathedral of 
 Saragossa in the frenzy of a popular uprising, no 
 
 21 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 harm came to Ferdinand's treasurer, neither did 
 he fall from royal favor nor incur the usual pen- 
 alty of infamy. As soon as Santangelo heard 
 of the flight of Columbus he went to the Queen's 
 chamber and implored her to order him to return, 
 being supported in this by the Marchioness of 
 Maya. And when the Queen complained of the 
 exorbitant demands of the discoverer, he reminded 
 her that the cost would be but a trifling considera- 
 tion if the attempt succeeded, and if it failed could 
 be reduced to next to nothing. When to this 
 cogent reasoning the Queen objected the empti- 
 ness of the Castilian treasury and the need of 
 again pawning her jewels to raise the means, San- 
 tangelo unhesitatingly assured her of the flourish- 
 ing state of the Arragonese finances, doubtless be- 
 cause of the revenues yielded by the expulsion of 
 the Jews, and of the resources there available, 
 promising at the same time to win over the per- 
 plexed and inert mind of Ferdinand the Catho- 
 lic. Thereupon messengers were sent post-haste 
 who stopped Columbus at a neighboring bridge 
 some two leagues away, and made him turn back 
 
 22 
 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 
 to Granada, where, in April, 1492, the articles 
 of agreement known as the capitulations of Santa 
 Fe were signed, granting Columbus all he asked." 
 The maps, which Columbus used, were drawn 
 up by Jafuda or Jehuda Cresques, known also as 
 Mestre Jaime Ribes, the " Map- Jew," or " Com- 
 pass-Jew," who was director of the Portuguese 
 Academy at Sayres and instructor in the art of 
 navigation and the manufacture of nautical instru- 
 ments and maps, while he made many improve- 
 ments in the compass and in the application of 
 astronomy to navigation, which alone made pos- 
 sible Columbus' wonderfully well-planned voy- 
 ages. Columbus derived much value from the 
 astronomical tables of Abraham Zacuto. These 
 tables were translated from the Hebrew into Latin 
 and Spanish by Joseph Vecincho, Zacuto's 
 pupil, another Jew, distinguished as a physi- 
 cian, cosmographer, and mathematician; and 
 it was he who presented a copy to the Genoese 
 navigator, which Columbus found of great service 
 on his voyages. This copy, with notes and glosses 
 in Columbus' handwriting, still exists in Spain. 
 
 23 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Without these Jewish inventions, the discoveries 
 of Columbus would have been impossible. 
 
 Columbus wrote : " I have had constant rela- 
 tions with many learned men, clergy and laymen, 
 Jews and Moors and many others." In his will, 
 Columbus refers to one of these Jews, whose iden- 
 tity is unknown. Washington Irving says that 
 this legacy of a half-mark of silver to a poor Jew 
 who lived in Lisbon was probably a trivial debt of 
 conscience or reward for some service received. 
 
 Rodrigo Sanchez, a cousin of Gabriel Sanchez, 
 was designated to accompany the expedition as 
 veedor, or superintendent, at the special request 
 of Queen Isabella. The ship-physician, Maestre 
 Bernal, the surgeon, Marco, and a sailor, Alonso 
 de la Calle, were Jews. It was a Jew, Rodrigo 
 de Triana, who first saw the land, and another 
 Jew, Luis de Torres, taken along because he un- 
 derstood Hebrew, Chaldee, and some Arabic, as 
 interpreter in the Oriental lands which Columbus 
 expected to reach, who was the first white man 
 to set foot on American soil, having been sent 
 ashore to greet the Grand Khan of India, whose 
 
 24 
 
IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 
 
 country Columbus believed he had reached by a 
 new route. Torres was also the first European to 
 discover the use of tobacco. 
 
 Columbus in his Journal, writing of his first 
 voyage of discovery as coincident with the 
 expulsion of the Jews from Spain, has the 
 following suggestive sentence : " So after hav- 
 ing expelled the Jews from your dominions, 
 your Highnesses, in the same month of Jan- 
 uary, ordered me to proceed with a suffi- 
 cient armament to the said regions of India." 
 Castelar, commenting on this point, writes : " It 
 chanced that one of the last vessels transporting 
 into exile the Jews expelled from Spain by the 
 religious intolerance of which the recently created 
 and odious Tribunal of the Faith was the embodi- 
 ment, passed by the little fleet bound in search 
 of another world. As though the sun were not 
 to shine for all, as though the will of Heaven 
 had not made us equal, the assured spirit of reac- 
 tion was wreaking one of its stupendous and fu- 
 tile crimes in that very hour when the genius of 
 liberty was searching the waves for the land that 
 
 25 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 must needs arise to ofifer an unstained abode for 
 the ideals of progress. Following their narrow 
 views, the powers of the Middle Ages denied 
 even light and warmth to the Jews at the same 
 time that they revealed a new creation for a new 
 order of society, that was predestined by Provi- 
 dence to put an end to all intolerance, and to 
 dedicate an infinite continent to modern democ- 
 racy." 
 
 26 
 
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II 
 
 JEWISH PRE-REVOLUTIONARY 
 SETTLEMENTS 
 
 THERE seems to be evidence that Jews, sol- 
 diers and sailors, reached New Amster- 
 dam, as New York City was then called, 
 as early as 1652, having been sent here by the 
 directors of the West India Company. It has 
 been suggested that the Amsterdam merchants 
 came over with special grants of rights and priv- 
 ileges from the Dutch West India Company, in 
 which Jews were heavily interested as stockhold- 
 ers, and which is said to have had some Jewish 
 directors. 
 
 The first Jewish settlers in New Amsterdam 
 whose names have been handed down, were Jacob 
 Barsimson and Jacob Aboaf, who arrived on No- 
 27 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 vember 9th, 1654, in the ship " Pear Tree." They 
 were followed in the same year by a party of 23 
 who arrived in the bark " St. Catarina," from 
 Brazil (the part of America first inhabited by a 
 large number of Jews), abandoning Brazil when 
 the Dutch evacuated that country, and once again 
 in all possible haste they sought the shelter of a 
 Dutch colony. Upon arrival their goods were 
 seized and sold at public auction for the payment 
 of their passage, and the amount realized by the 
 sale being insufficient, the master of the vessel 
 applied to the court for an order that two of the 
 new arrivals as principals, be held as hostages un- 
 til the full amount was paid. Accordingly David 
 Israel and Moses Ambrosius were placed under 
 civil arrest, pending payment in accordance with 
 the debtors' laws of that day. 
 
 The following spring other Jews arrived and 
 the expulsion of the Jews from Brazil increasing 
 the Jewish residents in New York gave ground 
 for the belief that their number would grow enor- 
 mously. The bigoted Governor, Peter Stuy- 
 vesant, requested the director of the West India 
 28 
 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 
 
 Company in Amsterdam that " none of the Jewish 
 nation be permitted to infest the New Nether- 
 lands." The answer was worthy of tolerant Hol- 
 land — that his request "was inconsistent with 
 reason and justice." Incensed at Stuyvesant's 
 unwarranted assumption of authority, an act was 
 passed permitting the Jews to reside and trade in 
 New Netherlands, " so long as they cared for their 
 own poor." If those narrow-minded old burghers 
 could see how well the Jews kept their promise, 
 they would open their eyes in surprise at the many 
 magnificent benevolent institutions, covering every 
 conceivable case of need and suffering, which tes- 
 tify to the inborn kindness of the Hebrew's heart. 
 The Jews of New York alone for their twelve 
 leading charities are now contributing upwards of 
 $1,000,000 a year. 
 
 In 1656 D'Andrade was denied the privilege of 
 holding real estate. During the same year the 
 governor through the council, which he absolutely 
 controlled, as well as the burgomasters, refused 
 De Lucena permission to prepare a burial ground 
 for the Jews. A few months later this decision 
 29 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 was revoked. An interesting example of the 
 " good old times " is the fact that the Pilgrim 
 Fathers appealed in vain to the Dutch government 
 for permission to settle in its American domains 
 before the Plymouth settlement was made. 
 
 In 1664 the city was captured by the English, 
 and its name changed to New York in honor of 
 the Duke of York. The charter of liberties and 
 privileges adopted by the Colonial Assembly in 
 1683 extended religious freedom to all but Jews, 
 and the Mayor and the Common Council of New 
 York in 1685, considering the Jews' petition " for 
 liberty to exercise their religion," referred to 
 them by Governor Dongan, decided that no 
 " public worship is tolerated by act of assembly, 
 but to those that profess faith in Christ, and 
 therefore the Jew's worship was not to be al- 
 lowed." 
 
 When James, Duke of York, became King 
 James II., Governor Andros, who succeeded Don- 
 gan, was instructed to " permit all persons, of 
 whatever religion, freedom to worship," and we 
 find in 1695 a synagogue (on the north side of 
 
 30 
 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 
 
 Mill Street, a street no longer in existence) which 
 may have been built as early as 1691, for a his- 
 torian of this period speaks of the Jews as one of 
 the sects, and then adds that each sect had its 
 church. 
 
 The prohibition against the Jews going into 
 retail trade, which was a Dutch law which some- 
 how remained operative under English law, was 
 gradually dropped, for we find Jews engaged in 
 retail trade in the early part of the eighteenth 
 century. One of the great merchants of this 
 period (about 1768 to 1790) was Hayman Levy, 
 who traded with the Indians, and an historian of 
 that day claims that he was " actually worshipped 
 by the red man." John Jacob Astor acquired his 
 first experience in the fur trade while in Levy's 
 employ. Upon his books are entries of moneys 
 paid to John Jacob Astor, for beating furs at 
 $1.00 per day. Nicholas Low, ancestor of Seth 
 Low, served as Levy's clerk for seven years, arid 
 then laid the foundation of his great fortune in 
 a hogshead of rum purchased from his former 
 
 31 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 employer, who besides rendered him substantial 
 assistance. 
 
 On a question concerning the contested seat 
 of Colonel Frederick Phillips of Westchester 
 County, the general assembly of New York, on 
 September 23rd, 1737, resolved that Jews could 
 neither vote for representatives nor be admitted 
 as witnesses. 
 
 The Jews of New York were not on a footing 
 of political equality with Christians prior to the 
 Revolution. By the first constitution of the 
 State of New York, adopted in 1777, they were 
 put on an absolute equality with all other citi- 
 zens. New York having been the first State actu- 
 ally granting full religious liberty. 
 
 Bancroft has referred to Maryland as among 
 the first colonies which " adopted religious free- 
 dom as the basis of the State." But its religious 
 freedom was limited to those within the province 
 who believed in Jesus Christ, and was accom- 
 panied by a proviso which declared that any per- 
 son who denied the Trinity should be punished 
 with death. Maryland therefore was no place for 
 
 32 
 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 
 
 the Jew. Even after the Revolution, though un- 
 der the Constitution of the United States, a Jew 
 was eligible to any office, no one could hold any 
 office under the government of Maryland without 
 signing a declaration that he believed in the Chris- 
 tian religion. This disability was not removed 
 until February 26th, 1825, when the legislature 
 finally passed the bill according to the Jew' his full 
 civil rights. 
 
 From the period of the riot, in 1749, " directed 
 against a Jew and his wife," according to Gov- 
 ernor Clinton's report to London, to the Revolu- 
 tion, there was but little increase in the Jewish 
 population in New York. A few additions were 
 made by immigration from England, but not suf- 
 ficient to counteract the emigration to Charleston, 
 Philadelphia and especially to Newport. At- 
 tracted by the tolerance of Roger Williams, a 
 fugitive himself from persecution, and disheart- 
 ened by Stuyvesant's persistent persecutions, 
 many Jews made their way to Newport as early 
 as 1657, and for twenty years preceding our 
 Revolutionary War, Newport was one of the prin- 
 
 33 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 cipal cities in the American colonies, in commer- 
 cial importance ranking with Boston and Phila- 
 delphia, for Edward Eggleston tells us that " he 
 was thought a bold prophet who then said that 
 ' New York might one day equal Newport,' " for, 
 about 1750, New York sent forth fewer ships than 
 Newport, and just half as many as Boston. It 
 was the fair treatment of the Jews under Roger 
 Wilhams, the pioneer of religious liberty, which 
 caused the Puritan, Cotton Mather, in his " Mag- 
 nalia " to characterize Newport as " the common 
 receptacle of the convicts of Jerusalem and the 
 outcasts of the land." 
 
 An occasional Jew may have strayed into other 
 parts of New England, but the Puritans had no 
 use for the Jew — unless he became a convert. 
 The best known of the early settlers was Judah 
 Monis, who embraced Christianity and filled the 
 chair of Hebrew in Harvard College from 1722 
 until his death in 1764. 
 
 The first documentary evidence regarding the 
 settlement of Jews in Philadelphia dates from the 
 year 1726, although it is known that Jews settled 
 
 34 
 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 
 
 in Schaefersville, Lancaster, York and Easton as 
 early as 1655. In 1662 the Mennonites drew up 
 articles of association, their object " being to es- 
 tablish a harmonious society of persons of differ- 
 ent religious sentiments, it was determined to 
 exclude from it all intractable people, such as 
 those in communion with the Roman See; usuri- 
 ous Jews ; stiff-necked English Quakers ; Puri- 
 tans; foolhardy believers in the millennium, and 
 obstinate modern pretenders to revelation." Evi- 
 dently there were Jews in Pennsylvania at least 
 twenty-five years prior to the landing of William 
 Penn. 
 
 It is likely that Maryland was the first colony 
 in which Jews settled, though they were probably 
 only stragglers, they seem to have arrived shortly 
 after the establishment of the provincial govern- 
 ment in 1634. As early as 1657 Dr. Jacob Lum- 
 brozo was settled there and letters of denization 
 were issued to him September 10, 1663. He had 
 a plantation, and also practised medicine. 
 
 On the 7th of July, 1773, a party of forty Jews 
 sailed up the Savannah River on a vessel direct 
 
 35 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 from London, arriving in the very midst of a 
 public dinner given by Oglethorpe, who had as- 
 sembled the colonists for the purpose of allotting 
 to each settler his proportion of land, and of or- 
 ganizing a local government. 
 
 In spite of much determined opposition to the 
 newcomers, the benevolent Oglethorpe befriended 
 the Jews, wrote to England praising their enter- 
 prise and worth, calling special attention to one 
 of their number, Dr. Nunes, for his attention to 
 the sick, and other valuable services. Another 
 of their number was Abraham de Lyon, a horti- 
 culturist, who was the first in this country to in- 
 troduce successfully useful foreign plants. 
 
 It was the industry and intelligence of the Jews, 
 and the subsequent arrivals of a few Moravians 
 and Highlanders from Scotland, who made a suc- 
 cess of Oglethorpe's scheme, for it is a well 
 known fact that the colonists were idle, dissolute, 
 mutinous and unwilling to protect the colony from 
 the Spaniards, who threatened its destruction. 
 
 With the departure of Oglethorpe from Geor- 
 gia, and on account of the persistent hostility of 
 
 36 
 
PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS 
 
 the trustees of the London Company, subject not 
 only to civil disabilities, but with the rest of the 
 population, to unreasonable demands, many Jews 
 gradually moved from Savannah, and settled in 
 the rising city of Charleston. 
 
 On the following day, the Jewish New Year, 
 1750, the first Hebrew congregation was formed 
 in Charleston. During the struggle for Independ- 
 ence the Jews of Charleston, as elsewhere noted, 
 distinguished themselves by their patriotism ; not 
 a single Tory was found among them. In 1816 
 Charleston numbered over 600 Jews, then the 
 largest Jewish population of any city in the 
 United States; to-day it has about 2,000, a pro- 
 portion smaller than in 1816; this is owing to the 
 fact that the city is no longer the commercial cen- 
 tre it was before the war. 
 
 V? 
 
Ill 
 
 JEWS IN THE WARS OF 
 THE REPUBLIC 
 
 THE Non-Importation Resolutions in 1765, 
 the first organized movement in tlie agita- 
 tion for separation from the mother coun- 
 try, — a document still preserved in Carpenter's 
 Hall, Philadelphia, contains the following Jewish 
 names : Benjamin Levy, Samson Levy, Joseph 
 Jacobs, Hayman Levy, Jr., David Franks, Ma- 
 thias Bush, Michael Gratz, Bernard Gratz, and 
 Moses Mordecai. 
 
 In 1779, a corps of volunteer infantry com- 
 posed chiefly of Hebrews under command of Cap- 
 tain Lushington, was raised in Charleston, South , 
 Carolina. These soldiers afterward fought with 
 great bravery under General Moultrie at Beaufort. 
 39 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 The decision, reached in New York, in 1770, 
 to make more stringent the Non-Importation 
 Agreement which the colonists had adopted to 
 bring England to terms on the taxation question, 
 had among its signers Samuel Judah, Hayman 
 Levy, Jacob Moses, Jacob Meyers, Jonas Phillips, 
 and Isaac Seixas. 
 
 At a time when the sinews of war were essen- 
 tial to success, Haym Salomon, of Philadelphia, 
 the countryman and intimate associate of Pulaski 
 and Kosciusko, responded to Robert Morris's ap- 
 peal with $300,000 ; and it is variously estimated 
 that he gave, all told, $600,000, not a penny of 
 which has ever been repaid to the heirs of the 
 philanthropist and patriot. 
 
 The late Judge Charles P. Daly (" History of 
 Jews in North America," page 58) summarizes 
 the character of Haym Salomon thus : " He was 
 a man of large private fortune, engaged in com- 
 mercial pursuits, of great financial resources and 
 ability, and of the highest personal integrity. He 
 espoused the cause of the Colonies with great 
 ardor, and supplied the government from his own 
 40 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 means with a large amount of money at the most 
 critical periods of the struggle. As appeared 
 from documentary evidence afterward submitted 
 to Congress, he advanced to the government al- 
 together $658,007.13, an enormous sum at that 
 period for a private individual, when all com- 
 merce and business were prostrated. 
 
 " But in addition to this he supplied delegates 
 to Congress and officers of the army and of the 
 government with the means of defraying their 
 ordinary expenses, among whom were Jefferson, 
 Madison, Lee, Steuben, Mifflin, St. Clair, Wilson, 
 Monroe, and Mercer." 
 
 After reciting Salomon's unselfish patriotism in 
 refusing all interest or recompense, of his capture 
 by the British, and of his long imprisonment in 
 New York in a jail called the Prevot, Judge Daly 
 says : " He died before he had taken any steps 
 to secure a reimbursement by the government of 
 the large amount he had loaned it, and left a wife 
 and four small children, to use the language of 
 the Congressional report, ' to hazard and neglect.' 
 Applications have been made to Congress by his 
 
 41 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 heirs for the repayment of the amount loaned, or 
 at least for some part of it. These applications 
 led to the most thorough searches in the archives 
 of the government and among the papers of 
 Robert Morris, but nothing was found showing 
 that any portion of the amount had ever been re- 
 paid. Madison in 1827 urged that the memorial- 
 ists might be indemnified, and reports in their 
 favor have frequently been made by Congressional 
 committees, but down to 1864 not a dollar had 
 been repaid to them — a fact, I regret to say, 
 which affords support to the oft-repeated observa- 
 tion of the ingratitude of republics." 
 
 Down to 1905 nothing has been paid to the 
 heirs of Haym Salomon. 
 
 Jared Sparks wrote many years ago that Salo- 
 mon's associations with Robert Morris " were 
 very close and intimate, and that a great part of 
 the success that Mr. Morris attained in his finan- 
 cial schemes was due to the skill and ability of 
 Haym Salomon." 
 
 The late Prof. Herbert B. Adams and Dr. Hol- 
 lander, both of Johns Hopkins University, have 
 42 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 shown that Salomon was the negotiator of the 
 war subsidies obtained from France and Holland, 
 which he endorsed and sold in bills to the mer- 
 chants in America at a credit of twO' or three 
 months " on his own personal security," witlliput 
 the loss of a cent to the country and receiving only 
 one quarter of one per cent, and that he was ap- 
 pointed by the French government paymaster- 
 general of the troops in America, which trust he 
 executed free of charge. 
 
 The secret support of Charles III. of Spain is 
 alleged to have been due partly to his efforts. He 
 maintained from his own private purse Don Fran- 
 cisco Rendon, the secret ambassador of that mon- 
 arch, for nearly two years, or up to the time of 
 Mr. Salomon's death. 
 
 On the accession of the Count de la Luzerne 
 to the embassy from France, Mr. Salomon was 
 made the banker of that government. A lettei 
 from Count de Vergennes, the Foreign Minister, 
 to De la Luzerne, ambassador to this country, 
 states that in two years 150,000,000 livres were 
 disbursed in this country through Mr. Salomon. 
 
 43 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 But Haym Salomon was not the only Jew, who 
 sacrificed his fortune for independence, for we 
 find that among the signers of the bills of credit 
 for the Continental Congress, in 1776, were Ben- 
 jamin Levy of Philadelphia and Benjamin Jacobs 
 of New York. Samuel Lyon of New York was 
 among the signers of similar bills in 1779. Isaac 
 Moses, of Philadelphia, contributed $15,000 to the 
 Colonial Treasury, and Herman Levy, another 
 Philadelphian, repeatedly advanced considerable 
 sums for the support of the army in the field. 
 Manuel Mordecai Noah of South Carolina not 
 only served in the army as an officer on Wash- 
 ington's staff, and likewise with General Marion, 
 but gave $100,000 to further the cause in which 
 he was enlisted. 
 
 Cyrus Adler has called attention to the follow- 
 ing incident. His information was based on an 
 unpublished letter of Jared Sparks : " At the out- 
 break of the Revolutionary War a Mr. Gomez, 
 of New York, proposed to a member of the Con- 
 tinental Congress that he form a company of 
 soldiers for service. The member of Congress 
 
 44 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 remonstrated with Mr. Gomez on the score of 
 age, he then being sixty-eight, to which Mr. 
 Gomez replied that he ' could stop a bullet as well 
 as a younger man.' " 
 
 Among the patriots of the South none worked 
 more unselfishly than Mordecai Sheftall, " Chair- 
 man of the Rebel Parochial Committee," organ- 
 ized to regulate the internal affairs of Savannah 
 and composed of patriots, opposed to the royal 
 government, and who, after active hostilities were 
 begun in the South, was appointed Commissary- 
 General to the troops of Georgia in July, 1777, 
 and soon thereafter was also appointed commis- 
 sary to the Continental troops; and when the 
 British attacked Savannah in December, 1778, 
 Sheftall's name appears not only foremost among 
 the patriot defenders of that city and as one who 
 advanced considerable money to the cause, but as 
 one who was placed on board the prison ships be- 
 cause of his refusal to flock to the royal standard. 
 In 1780, when the British authorities passed the 
 disqualifying act, we find the name of Mordecai 
 
 45 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Sheftall near the head of the list with the most 
 prominent patriot names of Georgia. 
 
 Colonel Isaac Franks became aide-de-camp to 
 Washington, holding the rank of colonel on his 
 staff, and served with distinction throughout the 
 war. Major Benjamin Nones, a native of Bor- 
 deaux, France, who came to America in 1777, 
 served on the staffs of both Lafayette and Wash- 
 ington. He entered service under Pulaski, as a 
 private ; and, as he writes, " fought in almost 
 every action which took place in Carolina, and in 
 the disastrous affair of Savannah shared the hard- 
 ships of that sanguinary day." He became major 
 of a legion of four hundred men, attached to 
 Baron de Kalb's command and composed in part 
 of Hebrews. And when the brave De Kalb fell 
 mortally wounded. Major Nones, Captain Jacob 
 de la Motta, and Captain Jacob de Leon carried 
 their chief from the field. 
 
 Colonel David S. Franks of Montreal openly 
 
 sympathized with and aided the Americans under 
 
 Generals Montgomery and Arnold during their 
 
 invasion of Canada, and was forced to flee from 
 
 46 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Canada in 1776, when the American forces aban- 
 doned the country. The name of David S. 
 Franks appeared on Governor Carleton's list of 
 twenty-nine prisoners, sent to the British min- 
 istry early in 1777, "being the principal persons 
 settled in the province who very zealously served 
 the rebels in the winter of 1775-1776, and fled 
 upon their leaving it." Franks, who left Canada 
 with the intention of joining the American army, 
 although his course in this matter resulted in 
 heavy pecuniary losses in his business affairs and 
 also alienated him from his father, became aide- 
 de-camp to Arnold, the intrepid, zealous, and able 
 soldier that he was, until jealousy, extravagance, 
 and spite led him to take up the traitor's role. 
 Franks gave testimony to Mrs. Arnold's inno- 
 cence of all complicity in her husband's treason. 
 Suspicions were aroused against Franks on ac- 
 count of Arnold's treason; nevertheless, after a 
 searching inquiry into his conduct, he was not 
 only acquitted, but he was sent to Europe with 
 important dispatches to Jay and Franklin, with 
 instructions to await their orders. In a letter 
 
 47 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 from Robert Morris to Franklin, dated Philadel- 
 phia, July 13, 1781, we read: "The bearer of 
 the letter. Major Franks, formerly an aide-de- 
 camp to General Arnold, and honorably acquitted 
 of all connection with him after a full and im- 
 partial inquiry, will be able to give you our public 
 news more particularly than I could relate them." 
 
 Philip Moses Russell, in the spring of 1775, en- 
 listed as a surgeon's mate under command of Gen- 
 eral Lee. After the British occupation of Phila- 
 delphia in September, 1777, he became surgeon's 
 mate to Surgeon Norman of the Second Virginia 
 Regiment. Russell went into winter quarters 
 with the army at Valley Forge, 1 777-1 778. 
 Sickness forced him to resign in August, 1780. 
 He received a letter of commendation from Gen- 
 eral Washington " for his assiduous and faithful 
 attentions to the sick and wounded." 
 
 Solomon Bush, Emanuel de la Motta, Benja- 
 min Ezekiel, Jason Sampson, Colonel Jacob de la 
 Motta, Ascher Levy, Nathaniel Levy, David Hays 
 and his son, Jacob, Reuben Etting, Jacob I. 
 Cohen, Major Lewis Bush, Aaron Benjamin, 
 48 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Joseph Bloomfield, Moses Bloomfield, Isaac Israel, 
 and Benjamin Moses are the names of a few of 
 the other Jews who distinguished themselves upon 
 the battle-fields of the Revolution. 
 
 The commemoration of the first battle-field of 
 the Revolutionary War was made possible 
 through a Jew. Upon learning that Amos Law- 
 rence of Boston had pledged himself to give $io,- 
 ooo to complete the Bunker Hill monument, if 
 any other person could be found to give a like 
 amount, Judah Touro, of New Orleans, who came 
 to the aid of Andrew Jackson during the memora- 
 ble defense of that city, immediately sent a check 
 for the amount. In the History of the Bunker 
 Hill Monument, which was published by George 
 Washington Warren, appears the following 
 tribute to Judah Touro : " He was one of that 
 smallest of all classes into which mankind can be 
 divided — of men who accumulate wealth with- 
 out ever doing a wrong, taking an advantage, or 
 making an enemy; who become rich without be- 
 ing avaricious ; who deny themselves the comforts 
 of life that they may acquire the means of pro- 
 
 49 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 moting the comfort and elevating the condition 
 of their fellow men." At a dinner given at Fan- 
 euil Hall on June 17, 1843, to celebrate the com- 
 pletion of the monument, the two great bene- 
 factors of the association were remembered by 
 the following toasts : 
 
 " Amos and Judah, venerated names, 
 Patriarch and Prophet press their equal claims ; 
 Like generous coursers running ' neck and neck,' 
 Each aids the work by giving it a check. 
 Christian and Jew, they carry out one plan, 
 For though of different faiths, each is in heart a 
 Man." 
 
 The War of 1812 
 
 One of the most distinguished soldiers in the 
 War of 1812 was Brigadier-General Joseph 
 Bloomfield. Colonel Nathan Myers, Samuel 
 Noah, Captain Meyer Moses, Judah Touro, Lieu- 
 tenants Isaac Mertz, Benjamin Gratz, David 
 Metzler and Adjutant Isaac Meyers, are a few of 
 the Jewish names on the roll of honor in our sec- 
 ond war with England. 
 
 50 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 The Mexican War 
 
 At the time of the Mexican War, in 1846, the 
 Jewish population was perhaps 15,000. General 
 David de Leon twice took the place of command- 
 ing officers who had been killed or disabled by 
 wounds, and twice received the thanks of the 
 United States Congress for his gallantry and 
 ability. Surgeon-General Moses Albert Levy, 
 Colonel Leon Dyer, quartermaster-general under 
 General Winfield Scott, Lieutenant Henry Seelig- 
 son, who was sent for by General Taylor and by 
 him complimented for his conspicuous bravery at 
 Monterey, Major Alfred Mordecai, Sergeant 
 Jacob Davis, Sergeant Samuel Henry, and Cor- 
 poral Jacob Hirschborn are a few of the sons of 
 Israel who left valuable evidences of their patriot- 
 ism in the Mexican War. 
 
 In the Regular Army and Navy 
 
 From the earliest period of the republic to the 
 present time the Jew has been a conspicuous figure 
 in our regular army and navy; and, in every 
 
 51 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 branch of the service, he has made an honorable 
 record. 
 
 Major Alfred Mordecai is a recognized au- 
 thority in the military world, in the field of 
 scientific research, and in the practical applica- 
 tion of mechanical deduction to war uses. His 
 son and namesake has been an instructor at West 
 Point and is inspector of ordnance, holding the 
 rank of Colonel, being attached to the Ordnance 
 Office in Washington, D. C. 
 
 Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy at the time of 
 his death, 1862, was the highest ranking officer 
 (flag officer) in our navy, and upon his tomb- 
 stone at Cypress Hills is recorded this fact, " He 
 was the father of the law for the abolition of the 
 barbarous practice of corporal punishment in the 
 United States Navy." 
 
 In the Civil War 
 
 In the Civil War, the part the Jew took is so 
 conspicuous that it is difficult to pick out the most 
 prominent men in the conflict. Mayer Asch, 
 Nathan D. Menken, and Louis H. Mayer served 
 
 52 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 on the staff of General Pope, Mayer serving also 
 with Generals Rosecrans and Grant. Dr. Morris 
 J. Asch served on the staff of General Sheridan. 
 Major Lully, who during the Hungarian Revolu- 
 tion served on Kossuth's staff, rendered valuable 
 service under the direction of the Secretary of 
 War. Captain Dessauer, killed at Chancellors- 
 ville, and Newman Borchard served on the staff 
 of General Howard. Max Cornheim and M. 
 Szegley served on the staff of General Sigel. 
 
 Jewish staff officers in the Confederate army 
 and navy are equally conspicuous, showing the 
 spirit of Hebrew loyalty to conviction. Hon. 
 Simon Wolf (to whom the writer is indebted for 
 many of these facts, and whose elaborate volume 
 led him to pursue the subject to the fullest extent 
 possible) tells us that North Carolina sent six 
 Cohen brothers, South Carolina five Moses broth- 
 ers; Georgia Raphael Moses and his three sons; 
 while yet another Moses brother came from Ala- 
 bama; Arkansas furnished three Cohen brothers ; 
 Virginia sent out three Levy brothers ; Louisiana's 
 muster-rolls also contain three brothers of the 
 
 53 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 same name ; while still another trio of Goldsmiths 
 went forth from the South, two from Georgia and 
 one from South Carolina. Mississippi provided 
 five Jonas brothers, Edward, fighting in the 
 Fiftieth Illinois against his four Confederate 
 brothers, one of whom was Benjamin F. Jonas, 
 former United States Senator from Louisiana. 
 
 On the Union side New York alone furnished 
 1,996 soldiers, among them the five Wenk broth- 
 ers. Colonel Simon Levy and his three sons — ■ 
 Captain Benjamin C, Lieutenant Alfred, and 
 Captain Ferdinand, former Register of New York 
 City. The Feder brothers also came from New 
 York. From Ohio, which furnished the next 
 largest quota, 1,004, in the War for the Union, 
 we have the three Koch brothers ; while Pennsyl- 
 vania, which sent 527 Hebrews, also sent three 
 Jewish brothers Emanuel. Thus, fourteen Jew- 
 ish families sent 53 men to both armies; and ac- 
 cording to Mr. Wolf, 7,884 Jewish soldiers served 
 in the Union and Confederate armies during the 
 Civil War, although there were only 150,000 
 Jews in the country at that time. 
 
 54 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Among the Hebrew officers in the Union army 
 who achieved high distinction I may mention 
 Frederick Knefler, a native of Hungary, who at- 
 tained the highest rank reached by any Hebrew 
 during the Civil War. He enlisted as a private 
 in the Seventy-ninth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, 
 and fought his way up to the colonelcy of his regi- 
 ment, soon rising to the rank of brigadier-general, 
 and then brevet major-general for meritorious 
 services at the battle of Chickamauga. He 
 fought gallantly in all the principal battles of the 
 Army of the Cumberland, under Generals Rose- 
 crans, Thomas, and Grant, and took part in all 
 the conflicts of Sherman's resistless march to the 
 sea. 
 
 Edward S. Solomon, colonel of the Eighty- 
 second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, fought at 
 Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary 
 Ridge, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and through- 
 out all the campaign in the Southwest, and was 
 brevetted brigadier-general. He was for four 
 years governor of Washington Territory by the 
 appointment of President Grant. 
 
 55 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Leopold Blumenberg, a Baltimore merchant, a 
 native of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, decorated for 
 meritorious service rendered the Prussian army 
 in the Prussian-Danish war of 1848, abandoned 
 his business when Fort Sumter was fired upon, 
 and helped to organize the Fifth Regiment, Mary- 
 land Infantry, of which he was appointed major. 
 His regiment was engaged in the battle of An- 
 tietam under him as colonel. He was brevetted 
 brigadier-general, and died in 1876, the result of 
 the wound that he had received at Antietam. 
 
 Philip J. Joachimsen organized the Fifty- 
 ninth New York Volunteer Regiment, and 
 went to the front with it as colonel. A fall 
 from his horse disqualified him for military 
 duty. He rendered great services, while stationed 
 at Fortress Monroe, as United States paymaster, 
 and for his assistance to General B. F. Butler at 
 New Orleans, Governor Fenton of New York, in 
 acknowledgment of his eminent services, ap- 
 pointed him brevet brigadier-general. 
 
 Colonel Marcus M. Spiegel, of the One Hun- 
 dred and Twentieth Ohio Infantry, who died be- 
 
 56 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 fore he could receive the promotion to a brigadier- 
 generalship, for which his superior officers recom- 
 mended him for bravery at Vicksburg and Snaggy 
 Point ; Max Einstein, colonel of the Twenty-sev- 
 enth Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers ; Col- 
 onel Max Freedman, of the Fifth Pennsylvania 
 Cavalry; Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Moses, of 
 Sickels' Brigade; Isaac Moses, adjutant-general 
 of the Third Army Corps of the Army of the Po- 
 tomac; Colonel H. A. Seligson, of Vermont; 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Leopold C. Newman, to whose 
 dying bed President Lincoln brought his commis- 
 sion promoting him to the rank of brigadier-gen- 
 eral; Colonel Ansel Hamberg, of the Twelfth 
 Pennsylvania Infantry; Abraham Hart, brigade 
 adjutant-general of the Seventy-third Pennsyl- 
 vania Infantry ; Elias Leon Hyneman, of the Fifth 
 Pennsylvania Cavalry; Captain Joseph B. Green- 
 hut, of Illinois, who owns the controlling interest 
 in the Siegel-Cooper Co. ; Lieutenant Max Sachs, 
 who was killed at Bowling Green; Adolph A. 
 Meyer, Inspector-General, by special appoint- 
 ment of President Lincoln, transferred from New 
 
 57 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Mexico to Pennsylvania; David Manheim, col- 
 onel First ISTevada Cavalry ; Herman Bendell, sur- 
 geon Eighty-sixth New York Infantry, brevetted 
 lieutenant-colonel for meritorious and honorable 
 conduct; Adjutant Abraham Cohn, of New 
 Hampshire ; Captain A. Goldman, of Maine ; Ser- 
 geant Leopold Karpelles, of Massachusetts; Ser- 
 geant Major Alexander M. Appel, of Iowa; 
 David A. Brauski, Henry Heller, Abraham Gum- 
 wait, and Isaac Gans, of Ohio, are a few of the 
 Jews who distinguished themselves upon the bat- 
 tle-fields of the War for the Union. 
 
 Major-General O. O. Howard, after speaking 
 of one of his Jewish stafif officers as being " of the 
 bravest and best," and of another killed at Chan- 
 cellorsville as being " a true friend and a brave 
 officer," and highly praising two Jewish brigadier- 
 generals, said : " Intrinsically there are no more 
 patriotic men to be found in the country than 
 those who claim to be of Hebrew descent and who 
 served with me in parallel command or directly 
 under my instructions." 
 
 58 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Jews and the American Antislavery 
 Movement 
 
 In the political movements for the abolition of 
 slavery, the Jews took a leading part in creating 
 public opinion. As early as 1853, a fugitive 
 negro, arrested by a United States marshal, was 
 liberated by a crowd of citizens, led by Michael 
 Greenbaum ; and, on the evening of the same day, 
 a big meeting was held to ratify that act. The 
 first official call to organize the abolition move- 
 ment was signed by George Schneider, Adolph 
 Loeb, Julius Rosenthal, Leopold Mayer, and a 
 cigar-dealer, named Hanson — four Jews among 
 the five leaders of the German population of Chi- 
 cago in a great political movement. 
 
 In the columns of the New York Tribune 
 Michael Heilprin, who had previous to his coming 
 to America shown his love of liberty as a mem- 
 ber of Kossuth's civil staff during the Hungarian 
 Revolution, vigorously exonerated the Old Testa- 
 ment from favoring slavery. Dr. Edward 
 Moritz, of the Philadelphia Demokrat; Rabbi 
 
 59 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Samuel M. Isaacs, as preacher and editor of the 
 Jewish Messenger; Rabbi Liebman Adler, in De- 
 troit ; Dr. Horwitz, in Cleveland ; and Dr. Felsen- 
 thal, in Chicago, were sowing the seeds of liberty. 
 
 Rabbi Sobato Morals, on account of his anti- 
 slavery sentiments, was elected an honorary mem- 
 ber of the Union League Club of Philadelphia, an 
 honor shared with Rev. Dr. David Einhorn, who, 
 in 1856, came to pro-slavery Baltimore from Aus- 
 tria, where his temple had been closed against 
 him by the imperial government on account of his 
 alleged revolutionary utterances. From the 
 sacred desk of the Har Sinai congregation, with 
 fiery eloquence, and in his Sinai, a German 
 monthly, in unanswerable arguments, Dr. Ein- 
 horn poured forth shot and shell from the Old 
 Testament armory into the ranks of the advo- 
 cates of slavery and the time-serving attitude of 
 the churches, until driven out of the city and 
 his return prohibited under martial law. 
 
 Dr. Einhorn, in Baltimore and later in Phila- 
 delphia, did as much as any man of his day to 
 create the public sentiment which shivered that 
 60 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 colossal iniquity. In New York, Judge Philip J. 
 Joachimsen, as Assistant United States District 
 Attorney, vigorously prosecuted certain slave- 
 dealers. Moritz Pinner, on January i, 1859, be- 
 gan the issue of an abolitionist paper, the Kan- 
 sas Post, at Kansas City. As delegate to the 
 National Republican Convention, he with other 
 Jews, like Judge Dittenhoefer of New York, 
 worked earnestly among the Germans for the 
 nomination of Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 The Spanish-American War 
 
 The Jewish Year Book for 1901 has had the 
 records of the War Department searched, and 
 pubHshes the names of over 4,000 Jewish sol- 
 diers, who served in the American armies during 
 the war with Spain. The first man to volunteer 
 was a Jew, and the first American to be killed iri 
 battle was a Jew. So eager were the Jews 
 to prove their loyalty to the United States that 
 5,000 Jews of New York offered their services to 
 the Governor, through Nathan Strauss, and as the 
 then chaplain of the Ninth Regiment, N. G. N. Y., 
 61 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 the writer can testify to the eagerness with 
 which the Jews came to enHst and demonstrate 
 their patriotism when war was declared. A care- 
 ful perusal of the rolls by States, as published in 
 the Jewish Year Book, ought to be sufficient evi- 
 dence to refute the assertion made by certain un- 
 informed and prejudiced persons that the Jew- 
 ish people were not patriotic Americans. The 
 slur upon the patriotism of the Jew cannot hold 
 up its head in the presence of the records of the 
 War Department, which ratified more than 4,000 
 furloughs, which were granted to such soldiers 
 as desired to celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom 
 Kippur at home. 
 
 " When war was declared," Captain A. W. 
 Murray says, " the Jewish press throughout the 
 country reminded their people of the wanton per- 
 secution of the Hebrews by Spain, covering many 
 years. They had been driven from their country 
 and deprived of their property by the cruel, un- 
 just Spaniards. The young Hebrew men did 
 not require urging. Their love for America 
 alone was enough, and they flocked to the stand- 
 62 
 
IN THE WARS OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 ard of liberty, the Stars and Stripes." The first 
 man to fall in the attack on Manila was Ser- 
 geant Maurice Justh, of the First California Vol- 
 unteers (which regiment numbered lOO Jews). 
 Theodore Roosevelt, the intrepid leader of the 
 Rough Riders, declared that in that brave regi- 
 ment, which has challenged the admiration of the 
 world, the most astonishing courage was dis- 
 played by the seven Jewish Rough Riders, one 
 of whom became a lieutenant. 
 
 The Astor Battery numbered ten Jews among 
 their ninety-nine men. Fifteen Jews went down 
 to death in the Maine, destroyed in the harbor 
 of Havana; and there was not an engagement 
 during the war with Spain, in which Hebrews did 
 not take part. Many Jewish names appear on 
 the list of killed and wounded, while the much- 
 maligned Russian Jews furnished more than 
 double their share of volunteers. Commander 
 Adolph Marix, of the navy, a Hebrew, was Judge 
 Advocate of the Maine Disaster Board of In- 
 quiry, and many cases could be cited where 
 Americans of Hebrew extraction performed gal' 
 
 63 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 lant and meritorious service under the flag in 
 Porto Rico, Cuba, and in the PhiHppines — fight- 
 ing as bravely as did their fathers before them 
 at Leipsic and Waterloo; under Kossuth and 
 Garibaldi ; before Sadowa and Sedan ! 
 
 64 
 
IV 
 
 THE JEW IN AMERICAN 
 POLITICS 
 
 PERHAPS the first Jew elected to office in 
 this country was Colonel Frederick Phil- 
 lips, of Westchester County, who was 
 elected to the General Assembly of New York. 
 On September 23, 1737, the General Assembly 
 resolved that Jews could neither vote for repre- 
 sentatives nor be admitted as witnesses. Colonel 
 Phillips was denied his seat. 
 
 Jewish Congressmen 
 Israel Jacobs was the first Hebrew member of 
 Congress from Pennsylvania, 1791 to 1793. 
 David S. Kauffman, after serving as speaker of 
 the Texas Assembly, represented his State in Con- 
 gress from 1847 to 1857. In 1845, Lewis C. Le- 
 
 65 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 vin was sent to Congress from Philadelphia, and 
 was twice re-elected. Meyer Strouse was Con- 
 gressman from Pennsylvania, 1848 to 1852, and 
 Philip Phillips from Alabama, 1853 to 1855. 
 Emanuel B. Hart, of New York, was elected to 
 Congress in 1857; after serving his first term 
 he was made Surveyor of the Port of New York. 
 Henry M. Phillips, of Philadelphia, in his day one 
 of the best constitutional lawyers in this country, 
 was elected to Congress in 1856. Leonard Mey- 
 ers, of Philadelphia, represented the Third Dis- 
 trict from 1863 to 1875. Meyer Strouse, of 
 Pottsville, Pennsylvania, served in Congress 
 from 1863 to 1867; Edwin Einstein, of New 
 York City, from 1879-81. Isidor Strauss, one 
 of New York's public-spirited citizens, was sent 
 to Congress in 1892, declining a re-election. 
 Among other Jewish Congressmen may be 
 named Leopold Morse of Boston; Nathan 
 Frank of St. Louis ; Adoph Meyer of Louisiana ; 
 Jefferson M. Levy, Mitchell May, Montague 
 Lessler, Henry M. Goldfogle and Lucius M. Lit- 
 tauer of New York ; Martin Emerich of Illinois ; 
 66 
 
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IN AMERICAN POLITICS 
 
 Julius Kahn of San Francisco, and Isidor Rayner 
 of Baltimore, former Attorney-General of Mary- 
 land and counsel for Rear-Admiral Schley, 
 whose three hours' speech at the close of the in- 
 vestigation made him nationally famous as an 
 orator, the mingled irony, invective, lively humor 
 and passionate appeal recalling the fervid periods 
 of Henry, Calhoun, and Clay. 
 
 In the United States Senate 
 
 Judah P. Benjamin, vi^ho declined President 
 Pierce's offer of a judgeship on the Supreme 
 Court Bench on account of his extensive private 
 business, but who, in 1852, was chosen United 
 States Senator from Louisiana, was the ablest 
 legal advocate slavery ever had. On one occa- 
 sion, he appeared against Daniel Webster in the 
 United States Supreme Court. Webster talked 
 for three hours and made one of his finest efforts. 
 Then came Benjamin, a little weazened, dried-up 
 man, with a thin and hollow voice, and talked for 
 twenty minutes, when the Chief Justice turned to 
 his colleagues and whispered : " Great heavens ! 
 
 67 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 that little man has stated Webster out of court in 
 twenty minutes." 
 
 On his withdrawal from the United States Sen- 
 ate, on February 4, i860, he was at once ap- 
 pointed Attorney-Gener'al in the Provisional gov- 
 ernment of the Southern Confederacy. In the 
 following August he was appointed Acting Secre- 
 tary of War; subsequently he became Secretary of 
 State, which position he held until the downfall of 
 the Southern Confederacy. He was, in truth, the 
 brains of the Southern Confederacy. 
 
 When Richmond fell, Benjamin fled with other 
 members of the Cabinet. He was separated from 
 them and escaped from the East Coast of Florida 
 to the Bahamas in an open boat. From there he 
 made his way to Nassau, reaching Liverpool in 
 1865. He had little money. He was fifty-five 
 years old. He entered Lincoln's Inn as a student, 
 having previously devoted himself to English law. 
 In the following summer he was called to the bar. 
 
 London refused to notice him. He turned to 
 journalism to make a living. His " Treatise on 
 the Law of Sale of Personal property " is to-day 
 68 
 
IN AMERICAN POLITICS 
 
 the authority on the subject in English law. 
 Then the fame and practice of Benjamin grew 
 rapidly. He was recognized at the time of his 
 death as the leader of the English bar, and one of 
 the great legal minds of the world. When fail- 
 ing health compelled him to retire, in 1883, a 
 great banquet was given him in the hall of the In- 
 ner Temple in London, where gathered all the 
 foremost men in England — a tribute such as few 
 men have ever received. 
 
 Other Jewish United States Senators have been 
 David L. Yulee of Florida, B. F. Jonas, from 
 Louisiana, Joseph Simon of Oregon, and at pres- 
 ent Isidor Rayner of Maryland. Joseph Selig- 
 man declined, for personal reasons, the Secretary- 
 ship of the Treasury in President Grant's cabinet, 
 and Isidor Strauss declined the Postmaster-Gen- 
 eralship in President Cleveland's cabinet. 
 
 Jewish Judges 
 
 The following are some of the Hebrews who 
 have held important judgeships: Moses Levy, 
 whose admission to the Bar of Philadelphia dates 
 
 69 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 back as far as March 19, 1778, after occupying 
 various offices became Presiding Judge of " the 
 District Court for the City and County of Phila- 
 delphia." The first Jew to hold a judicial posi- 
 tion in Philadelphia was Isaac Miranda, in 
 1727. Mayer Isaac Franks has been men- 
 tioned as a judge of the Supreme Court of Penn- 
 sylvania, but the exact time when he served 
 cannot be determined. Among the most honored 
 Judges of Philadelphia to-day is Mayer Sulz- 
 berger. 
 
 Franklin J. Moses (1804-77) was Chief Jus- 
 tice of South Carolina, Solomon Heydenfeldt was 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of California in 
 1 85 1. Among the Supreme Court judges of 
 New York, we can recall Joseph E. Newburger, 
 W. N. Cohen, David Levintrit, Samuel Green- 
 baum and Alfred Steckler. Among the judges 
 of minor courts may be mentioned Simon M. 
 Ehrlich, Leo C. Dessar, Joseph H. Steiner, Her- 
 man Joseph and Leon Sanders. 
 
 70 
 
IN AMERICAN POLITICS 
 
 Jewish Diplomats 
 
 During the first decade of the present century, 
 Solomon B. Nones was Consul-General to Portu- 
 gal. President Madison appointed Mordecai M. 
 Noah, Consul-General to Tunis. Colonel Max 
 Einstein was appointed by President Lincoln, 
 Consul at Nuremberg, Germany. B. F. Peixotto 
 was Consul at Lyons during the administrations 
 of Presidents Hayes, Garfield and Arthur. Mar- 
 cus Otterbourg, of New York, was the first He- 
 brew to occupy the high office of Envoy Extraor- 
 dinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Mexico. 
 Oscar Straus was President Cleveland's and Pres- 
 ident McKinley's Minister to Turkey. Solomon 
 Hirsch was President Harrison's Minister to 
 Turkey. 
 
 Robert Etting, of Philadelphia, first captain of 
 the Independent Blues in 1798, was appointed by 
 President Thomas Jefferson United States Mar- 
 shal for the State of Maryland in 1801. 
 
 By appointment of President Pierce, Isaac 
 Phillips was made General Appraiser of the Port 
 
 71 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 of New York, a position which he occupied for 
 fifteen years. Colonel Louis Fleischner and Ed- 
 ward Hirsch have been State Treasurers of Ore- 
 gon. B. Goldsmith and Philip Wasserman have 
 been mayor of Portland, Oregon. Edward Kan- 
 ter has been State Treasurer of Michigan. Jacob 
 H. Hollander, of Johns Hopkins, was Treasurer 
 of Porto Rico, and organized the treasury de- 
 partment and devised and introduced the present 
 revenue system of the island. Morris Cohen, of 
 Arkansas, whose " Introduction to the Study of 
 the Constitution " forms part of the historical 
 publications of Johns Hopkins University ; Julius 
 Fleischman, who became Mayor of Cincinnati at 
 28 years of age, and Herman Meyers, who has 
 been again and again re-elected Mayor of Sa- 
 vannah; Simon Wolf, appointed by President 
 Grant Recorder of Deeds for the District of 
 Columbia; S. W. Rosendale, formerly Attorney- 
 General of New York; Julius M. Mayer, the 
 present Attorney-General of New York; Ran- 
 dolph Guggenheimer, Jacob A. Cantor, Nathaniel 
 Elsberg, the Seligmans, Theo. W. Myers, Edward 
 
 72 
 
IN AMERICAN POLITICS 
 
 Lauterbach and Louis Marshall, who practically 
 framed the important charity and judiciary arti- 
 cles of the New York State Constitutional Con- 
 vention of 1894, and Nathan Straus, whose love 
 of humanity has made his name a household word 
 in New York, and who declined the Democratic 
 nomination for the Mayoralty of the metropolis, 
 these are only a few of hundreds of Jews, who 
 might be named in every section of our country, 
 whose courageous and persistent advocacy of 
 righteousness in politics have made the Jew a 
 mighty power for good in municipal, State, and 
 national life. 
 
 73 
 

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V 
 
 THE JEW IN FINANCE 
 
 IN finance the Jew has for four hundred years 
 been the factor that supplied the nations of 
 the earth with money. The financial system 
 of the world, its inventions and perfection, we 
 owe to the Rothschilds, who were the first to make 
 national loans popular. 
 
 The Jew in finance is invariably a creator and 
 not a puller-down. Many of the great fortunes 
 which have been made, notably in America, have 
 been made by wrecking railroads and other estab- 
 lished and incorporated industries. The Jews, 
 with comparatively few exceptions, made their 
 money as manufacturers and merchants. Polia- 
 koff, the Russian railway king; the Pereires, the 
 French railway kings; and the Rothschilds are 
 among the few exceptions. Capital and Jew are 
 
 75 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 not synonymous terms ; the leading spirits of the 
 antagonistic forces — capital and labor — are 
 Jews. There are financiers like the Rothschilds, 
 and there are socialistic Jews like Lassalle, Marx 
 and Singer. The capitalists cannot curse the 
 Jews, and the sociahsts cannot dynamite the Jews, 
 without abandoning their very leaders. Samuel 
 Gompers, President of the American Federation 
 of Labor, with a membership estimated at over 
 2,000,000, the largest body of workingmen in the 
 United States, possibly in the world, is a Jew. 
 At his instance have been passed the eight-hour 
 work day for mechanics and laborers in govern- 
 ment service, the ten-hour limit for street-railway 
 workers, and Labor Day. 
 
 Six hundred thousand Jews living in Africa 
 and Asia are poor. The five millions who live in 
 the east of Europe are only just raised above 
 pauperism, while a goodly proportion are sunk 
 below even that level. Among the nearly five 
 millions of Russian Jews, only a few names, like 
 Gunsburg, Iseman, Kronenberg, Posnanski, Breg- 
 man, Zuckerman, the Zabludowskis, Raffalovitch, 
 76 
 
IN FINANCE 
 
 Poliakoff, Ephrussi, Brodsky, de Bloch, and 
 Rothstein rise above the general level of hard- 
 working poverty. On the Continent, besides the 
 Rothschilds we find not more than twenty Jewish 
 capitalists. 
 
 About three years ago the Jewish World, of 
 New York, published a list so far as could be as- 
 certained, of the names of those Jews who have 
 amassed fortunes estimated above $1,000,000. 
 Taken as a whole, the list may be regarded as 
 fairly summing up the success reached by Jews in 
 the commercial struggles of the past thirty years 
 or more. In all some 115 Jews had reached the 
 million mark out of about 4,000 millionaires 
 throughout the States. The number has increased 
 rapidly within a few years, and from 150 to 175 
 is perhaps more nearly the number to-day. 
 
 The Jews are about one-seventy-fifth of our 
 population, but since the Jews do not live in the 
 country, we must take the city and town popula- 
 tion where the Jews live, and of which Jews form 
 'only one-thirtieth, so that from this viewpoint 
 they are rather under than above their due pro- 
 
 77 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 portion. From brewing to pork packing, from 
 realty to dry goods, from law to liquor, from 
 banking to clothing, from newspaper publisher 
 to manufacturer, from cotton to tobacco, from 
 grocer to miner, these Jewish captains of industry 
 run through the whole gamut of trade and com- 
 merce. 
 
 Among the more than 1,200 millionaires of 
 New York there can be found only about 60 Jew- 
 ish names. Surely this is a small proportion for 
 so great a population — 750,000 Jews in New 
 York, the world centre of modern Jewry. 
 
 It is estimated that the Jews in New York City 
 have property holdings that exceed $870,000,000 
 in the single item of real estate. The Hebrew 
 wholesale trade is rated at $950,000,000. Most 
 of the big department stores are controlled by 
 Jewish capital. 
 
 Originally the Jews were an agricultural peo- 
 ple and their civil policy was framed specially for 
 this state of things. The sons of Shem built 
 their first cities remote from the channels of trade, 
 while the race of Ham and Japheth built upon the 
 
 78 
 
IN FINANCE 
 
 seashore and the banks of the great rivers. But 
 the misfortunes of persecution made traders of 
 them. Denied citizenship, subject at any time to 
 spoliation and expulsion, their only possible 
 chance of living was in traffic, in which they soon 
 became skilled. They naturally followed the 
 great channels of commerce the world over. 
 Gentile persecution kept them on the go, and to 
 protect their property against Gentile thieves their 
 wealth had to be portable, and so they frequently 
 turned it into jewels, because they could be most 
 securely and most secretly kept, and, in case of 
 flight, most easily removed ; this accounts for their 
 prominence in the jewelry business from early 
 times, and hence, too, their introduction of bills 
 of exchange. 
 
 Prevented in many countries from holding 
 land, they had no inducement to settle in the coun- 
 try. Besides, their religious enactments require 
 that the sacred functions of public worship be per- 
 formed in the presence of not less than twelve 
 males about the age of thirteen, the minimim 
 for a congregation; this requires that at least 
 
 79 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 forty souls shall dwell within accessible distance. 
 This may explain the fact that so few Jews dwell 
 in small villages. That the Jews tend toward 
 large cities is not peculiar to them. It is a con- 
 stant feature of modern statistics. 
 
 The Jew is everywhere pioneering and building 
 up States. Dr. Kaufman Kohler has truly said: 
 " Commerce and the diffusion of civilization are 
 closely allied. Follow all the tides of mod- 
 ern civilization, and wherever you see the pros- 
 perous conditions of commerce you see civiliza- 
 tion on the boom. Jewish commerce centered 
 around the great cities the world oyer, and thus 
 opened the gates for Christianity. The flourish- 
 ing trade of the Jews, which made Spain the fo- 
 cus of mediseval culture, furnished not only the 
 great discoverers with the key to unlock the new 
 worlds with their inexhaustible treasures, but ex- 
 ercised its influence on entire Christianity." 
 " Jewish Commerce," says Lecky in his " History 
 of Rationalism," " liberated mankirid from the 
 thraldom of the Church, giving the world the 
 
 80 
 
a 
 3 
 
IN FINANCE 
 
 much-needed lesson of sound practical common 
 sense." 
 
 The Jew, we are told, is only a middleman ; men 
 cannot eat their own manufactures as a general 
 thing — engines, shovels, linens and woolens, boots 
 and gloves, useful as they are in their way, are 
 failures as articles of diet. The merchant or even 
 the peddler, who takes these inedible things and 
 disposes of them is as important a cogwheel in 
 the machinery of society as the railroad which 
 takes the wheat or the cotton, the coal or the iron 
 ore, from regions where it cannot be worked up 
 into shape, and places them where the manu- 
 factory or the consumer awaits them. 
 
 In their dealings Jews are as honorable as other 
 men. At a meeting in New York of the Associa- 
 tion of Credit Men, at which but a few Jews were 
 present, the late Hon. Wm. L. Strong, former 
 mayor of the city, and for many years in the 
 wholesale dry goods business, said ; " I have lost 
 less money selling goods to men who are not 
 worth anything than in selling goods to wealthy 
 concerns. I have a case in mind of one who began 
 8i 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 buying on credit of me one case of goods. In two 
 years his credit with us amounted to $30,000. He 
 was a Jew. In sixteen years he divided $250,000 
 with his partner. I am about one-fourth Jew 
 myself. That is, I have more faith in Jews pay- 
 ing than I have in Gentiles doing so. We have 
 lost four times with the latter to one of the 
 former; and of Jews who failed, ten have paid 
 100 cents on the dollar to one of the Gentiles." 
 This was not said at a gathering of Jews, but 
 given as a fact of value to be borne in mind by 
 credit men in arriving at decisions. 
 
 The inordinate love of gold is the sin of our 
 day, and one of the grave perils of our civiliza- 
 tion. The jingle of coin is the snare of all re- 
 ligious creeds and races alike. If we loved God 
 as we love gold, we should soon be lifted into 
 angelhood. The almost frenzied strife to get 
 money is never ceasing, and to obtain it many a 
 Christian imperils alike his body and his soul ; and 
 no matter how despicable the man may be, if he 
 gets money, by hook or by crook, and either of 
 them is far from being straight, he will be 
 82 
 
IN FINANCE 
 
 idolized, though mentally deficient, vulgar in per- 
 son, ugly in features, and coarse in language. 
 Let us remember this truth when we sit in judg- 
 ment upon the Jewish people. --^ 
 
 The love of money is the curse of Jew and 
 Gentile alike. Is not the Christian to blame for 
 the money-lending characteristics of the Jew? 
 Did not the Christian drive him from all other 
 branches of trade with a price on his head, and 
 place his home at the mercy of others? Is it 
 right now to insult his race and religion, because 
 of that fact, in sneeringly calling him a Jew? 
 You can throw a stone into any of our Christian 
 churches and hit a Shylock. The Jew knows how 
 to deal in money, but the Christian gave him the 
 points in the game of usury. 
 
 Yes, Jews love money, and so do Christians. 
 Look at our American Congress and our State 
 Legislatures and tell me if those who sell their 
 votes to the corporations for class legislation are 
 Jews. Are all who have monopolized the lands, 
 watered the railroad stocks, looted life insurance 
 companies, and cornered the homes, are they all 
 
 83 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Jews ? Who owns the mortgage on your house ? 
 Nine times out of ten it is a Christian. Ask him 
 to be lenient with you and he will demand his 
 pound of flesh, and go old Shylock one better by 
 sucking the blood along with it.* 
 
 Among Jews as among Christians, there are 
 those who think more of the man with bonds in 
 his pockets than of the bonds on his feet and 
 hands. Among Jews and Christians alike you 
 find vulgar, loud-mouthed, money-inflated, of- 
 fensive snobs who fill you with insufferable dis- 
 gust. 
 
 * The only historical foundation for the pound of flesh story re- 
 verses the position of the Tew and Christian. Tn his life of Pope 
 Sixtus v., Gregoris Letti, the biographer, records the following epi- 
 sode: In 1587. Paul Mario Secchi, a merchant of Rome, gained tne 
 information that Sir Francis Drake, the English admiral, had con- 
 quered San Domingo.^ He communicated this piece of news to 
 Samson Cenado. a Jewish merchant, to whom it appeared incredible, 
 and he said: I bet a pound of flesh that it is untrue." (An 
 ancient expression in Italy, used with no intention of literally 
 forfeiting a pound of flesh.) " And I lay one thousand scudi 
 against it," replied Secchi. A bond was drawn up. The Jew lost 
 and the Christian insisted on the literal fulfilment of the bond. 
 In his extremity the Jew went to the governor, the governor com- 
 municated the case to the Pope, who condemned both to the galleys 
 — the one for making the wager and the other for accepting it. 
 They released themselves from imprisonment by paying a fine 
 toward the hospital of the Sixtus Bridge, which the Pope was then 
 rebuilding. 
 
 84 
 
VI 
 
 JEWS IN THE ARTS 
 AND SCIENCES 
 
 WHEN we turn to the arts and sciences we 
 find that the Jews in America are 
 nothing like as conspicuous as the Jews 
 in Europe, due mainly to their more recent ef- 
 forts along these lines. We cannot boast such a 
 poet as Heine, a soldier in the intellectual 
 war of liberation which has freed Euro- 
 pean thought from its mediaeval shackles, and 
 whom Matthew Arnold, the English critic, went 
 so far as to term " the most important Ger- 
 man successor and continuator of Goethe in 
 Goethe's most important line of activity"; nor 
 can we lay claim to such novelists as Auerbach, 
 Benjamin Disraeli, Nordau and Zangwill; such 
 
 85 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 dramatists as Halevy and D'Ennery; such actors 
 as Sonnenthal and Possart, or actresses as Rachel 
 and Sara Bernhardt; or such singers as Paul- 
 ine Lucca and Caroline Gompertz-Bettleheim ; 
 or such litterateurs of essayist type as Lud- 
 wig Borne, Karl Blind and Grace Aguilar; or 
 such literary critics as Isaac Disraeli and George 
 Brandes; or such musical geniuses as Mendels- 
 sohn, Halevy, Offenbach, Goldmark and the 
 Strausses ; or such great performers as Rubinstein 
 on the piano, or Joachim on the violin. 
 
 Among America's numerous writers of verse 
 may be named first of all Emma Lazarus, Peni- 
 nah Moise, Miriam Del Banco, Nina Morais- 
 Cohen, Cora Wilburn, Dr. S. Solis-Cohen, Mary 
 Cohen, Rebekah Hyneman, Felix N. Gerson, Mil- 
 ton Goldsmith, and Morris Rosenfeld, the Ghetto 
 poet. 
 
 Next to poetry the highest form of literary art 
 is the novel. In this branch occur many names, 
 among others, Leo C. Dessar, Herman Bernstein, 
 Ezra S. Brudno, Alfred J. Cohen, the dramatic 
 critic, better known under the nom de plume of 
 86 
 
IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 
 Alan Dale, and Mrs. Annie Nathan Meyer, one 
 of the founders of Barnard College — the first 
 women's college in New York City. 
 
 Jewish dramatists may follow Jewish novelists. 
 Among the earliest and most prominent American 
 dramatists was Mordecai M. Noah, and his first 
 play enacted in Charleston, South Carolina, was 
 " Paul and Elexis, or The Orphans of the Rhine." 
 Its name was changed to "The Wandering Boys," 
 and in 1820 brought out at the Park Theatre in 
 New York with great success, and remained for 
 years one of the popular attractions on the stage. 
 His other plays were " She Would Be a Soldier, 
 or The Plains of Chippewa," " Marion, or the 
 Hero of Lake George," " The Grecian Captive," 
 etc. 
 
 Samuel B. Judah, born in New York in 
 1799, was another celebrated dramatist. In 1838 
 Jonas B. Phillips produced a melodrama called 
 " Cold Stricken." H. B. Sommer attained dis- 
 tinction as the author of " Our Show," and " Help 
 Wanted." David Belasco, Sydney Rosenfeld, 
 
 87 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 and Martha Morton are among our most versatile 
 dramatists to-day. 
 
 The introduction oi opera into the United 
 States was due largely to Jewish instrumentality. 
 Among famous actors we may name Samuel 
 Bernard, David Warfield, Louis Mann, Joseph 
 Weber, Lewis Maurice Fields, Joseph P. Adler, 
 and Herman, the prestidigitateur. Among 
 actresses. Bertha Kalische, Clara Lipman (Mrs. 
 Louis Mann), Anna Held, Minnie Seligman, and 
 Victoria Maud Peixotto (Victoria Addison). 
 
 Among the great musical conductors may be 
 named Sam Franko, Alfred Hertz and Dr. Leo- 
 pold Damrosch, one of the great conductors of 
 modern times, whose crowning achievement was 
 his successful establishment of German Opera in 
 New York. His son, Walter Damrosch, is con- 
 tributing more than any other American to-day 
 to the cultivation of good music. 
 
 Klaw, Erlanger, Nixon, Hammerstein, Schu- 
 bert and the Frohmans practically control the 
 theatres of the United States. 
 
 From the drama we may turn to the press. 
 88 
 
IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 
 Many of the dailies are either owned or edited by 
 Jews, as for instance, Joseph Pulitzer, " The 
 World," New York; Adolph S. Ochs and George 
 W. Ochs, " The Times," New York, and " Public 
 Ledger," Philadelphia; M. H. De Young, 
 " Chronicle," San Francisco ; Edward Rosewater 
 and his son Victor, Omaha "Bee"; Fabian 
 Franklin, the " News," Baltimore, and William 
 Frisch, the Baltimore " American." 
 
 As painters the Jews have just begun to achieve 
 distinction. Henry Hosier, who has won honors 
 innumerable at home and abroad, must be named 
 first. His " The Return of the Prodigal " was the 
 first work of an American artist produced for the 
 Luxembourg Gallery. Max Rosenthal and his 
 son Albert have become known to fame as etchers 
 and portrait painters of high rank. Of illustra- 
 tors none is better known than Louis Loeb. 
 George D. M. Peixotto, deserves mention because 
 of his excellent portraits of William McKinley, 
 John Hay and Moses Montefiore. Ben Aus- 
 trian's fame was secured by " A Day's Hunt," an 
 exquisite game piece, which sold for $2,500, the 
 89 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 largest sum ever paid for a still-life painting in 
 America. His "A Golden Harvest," a painting 
 of seed-corn against a weather-stained old barn 
 upon which it hangs, is natural enough to make 
 a farmer lift his hat and wipe his eyes. 
 
 Among sculptors Moses J. Ezekiel stands sec- 
 ond to none. His works have been exhibited in 
 all art centres of Europe. His work, " Re- 
 ligious Liberty," at Fairmount Park, Philadel- 
 phia, is perhaps the most celebrated of his numer- 
 ous productions, and was the first public monu- 
 ment erected by Jews in the United States. 
 Charles H. Israels, Leopold Eidlitz, Dankmar 
 Adler and Arnold W. Brunner are splendid rep- 
 resentatives of the genius of their race as archi- 
 tects. Mendez Cohen, a pioneer railroad builder, 
 ranks as one of the most scholarly and skillful 
 civil engineers in the country. Alfred R. Wolf 
 is a recognized authority in his specialty of steam 
 engineering. Clemens Herschel is a recognized 
 authority on hydraulic engineering. 
 
 Among the many Jews holding conspicuous 
 professorships in great colleges are: Maurice 
 90 
 
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IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 
 Bloomfield and Jacob H. Hollander, of Johns 
 Hopkins ; E. R. A. Seligman, Adolphe Cohn and 
 Richard Gottheil, Columbia; Charles Gross, Har- 
 vard; Morris Jastrow, University of Pennsyl- 
 vania ; Jacques Loeb and Max L. Margolis, Uni- 
 versity of California; Isidor Loeb, University of 
 Minnesota; Joseph Jastrow, University of Wis- 
 consin; Max Winkler, University of Michigan; 
 Adolph Werner, College of the City of New 
 York, and Abram S. Isaacs, University of the 
 City of New York. Among the Jews belonging 
 to the faculty of the University of Chicago may 
 be named Professor Michaelson, head of the de- 
 partment of physics, Julius Stieglitz, chemistry, 
 Ernest Freund, jurisprudence, Julius M. Mack, 
 professor of law, S. H. Clark, elocution, and Emil 
 G. Hirsch, rabbinical literature and philology. 
 The professorships filled by Jews show that they 
 have a peculiar aptitude for the highest political 
 sciences, and an innate talent for languages. 
 Their dispersion among all nations no doubt con- 
 tributed to this. The Jews are the founders of 
 our scientific philology. Among the leaders in 
 
 91 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 university circles of a few decades previous were 
 Adler, of German dictionary fame, Nordheimer, 
 the Orientalist, and Newman, the Hebraist. 
 
 Felix Adler, aside from his professorship in 
 Columbia, and lecturer of the Ethical Society, 
 has in active operation so many practical edu- 
 cational and philanthropic enterprises as to 
 make him one of the most useful men in 
 New York. Dr. Cyrus Adler is regarded as an 
 authority on Oriental history and archaeology. 
 
 Emil Berliner invented the telephone transmit- 
 ter. Dr. Koller discovered the use of cocaine. 
 
 As physicians the Jews have always held pe- 
 cilliarly high positions. In every specialty they 
 are so numerous and so eminently successful that 
 to publish any names at all would be an invidious 
 distinction. 
 
 Medicine of all callings is one in which 
 the Jews have been least interrupted. During the 
 Middle Ages they were sought for all over the 
 world, so that even Popes who issued bulls against 
 them and interdicted the practice of medicine, 
 would only intrust their bodies to the care of Jew- 
 92 
 
IN THE ARTS AND SCIENCES 
 
 ish physicians, while there was hardly a king or 
 a queen in all Europe during the Middle Ages but 
 employed a Jewish physician. 
 
 As advocates, jurists and writers the Jewish 
 lawyers are acknowledged by their Christian 
 brethren as their close competitors. And yet not 
 many years ago in New York an estimable and 
 accomplished gentleman was rejected as a mem- 
 ber of the Bar Association " for no other reason 
 that can be conceived," indignantly said one of 
 the leading members, " except that he was a 
 Jew." 
 
 That old and at one time almost universal 
 prejudice represented by those few hostile votes 
 has rapidly given away to the enlightened feeling 
 that a man who is an honorable member of the 
 Bar should receive the same recognition which is 
 accorded to his Gentile brethren, and his honor 
 and ability, regardless of his race or creed, should 
 make him a fit member of the association. 
 
 93 
 
VII 
 
 THE NUMBER OF JEWS IN 
 THE UNITED STATES 
 
 THE total Jewish immigration to the United 
 States, through the ports of New York, 
 Philadelphia and Baltimore, from 1881 to 
 July I, 1904, was 827,424. This does not take 
 into account immigration through Canada or at 
 ports other than those mentioned above. The 
 immigration at the same port from July i, 
 1903, to June 30, 1904, was 92,801. 
 
 At the time of the revolution the Jewish pop- 
 ulation of the United States was about 700 
 families. Mordecai M. Noah, in 1818, esti- 
 mated the Jewish population of the United 
 States as 3,000; after the revolution many re- 
 turned to England, others went to the West 
 
 95 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Indies. Isaac Harby, in 1826, estimated that 
 there were not over 6,000 Jews in the United 
 States. The " American Almanac " in 1840 gives 
 the number as 15,000, while M. A. Berk In his 
 " History of the Jews," published in 1848, puts 
 down 50,000 as the number of Jews in the United 
 States, 12,000 residing in New York and 4,000 
 in Philadelphia. 
 
 Throughout the period of the Napoleonic wars, 
 many obstacles hindered the departure of the Ger- 
 man Jews, and for a time afterward, in view of 
 the great political concessions which they gained 
 from the German rulers in return for their valor 
 and heroic sacrifices of life and substance for the 
 Fatherland, there was little immigration. It was 
 not until the beginning of steam navigation on the 
 Atlantic that any considerable Jewish immigra- 
 tion was made to this country. At the time of 
 the Civil War there were about 150,000 Jews in 
 the United States. In September, 1880, the 
 Union of Hebrew Congregations published 221,- 
 064 as the number of Jews in the United States. 
 
 96 
 
NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Isaac Markens, in 1888, put the number at 
 400,000. 
 
 In 1897, according to the estimate of David 
 Sulzberger, our Jewish population was 937,800, 
 while the American Jewish Year Book for 1905 
 gives 1,253,213 as the number, distributed as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 Alabama . 7,000 
 
 Arizona 2,000 
 
 Arkansas 3,085 
 
 California 28,000 
 
 Colorado S,8oo 
 
 Connecticut SiSOO 
 
 Dakota, North and South . . 3,500 
 
 Delaware 928 
 
 District of Columbia. . . . 3,500 
 
 Florida 3,000 
 
 Georgia 7,000 
 
 Hawaiian Islands .... 100 
 
 Idaho 300 
 
 Illinois 100,000 
 
 Indiana 25,000 
 
 Iowa 5,000 
 
 Kansas 3,000 
 
 Kentucky 12,000 
 
 Louisiana 12,000 
 
 Maine 5,000 
 
 Maryland 26,500 
 
 Massachusetts 60,000 
 
 Michigan 9,000 
 
 97 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Minnesota 10,000 
 
 Mississippi 3<<xx> 
 
 Missouri 50,000 
 
 Montana 2,500 
 
 Nebraska 3,oco 
 
 Nevada 300 
 
 New Hampshire 1,000 
 
 New Jersey 25,000 
 
 New Mexico 1,500 
 
 New York *6oo,ooo 
 
 North Carolina 6,000 
 
 Ohio 50,000 
 
 Oklahoma 1,000 
 
 Oregon 5,500 
 
 Pennsylvania 95,000 
 
 Porto Rico 100 
 
 Rhode Island 3,500 
 
 South Carolina 2,500 
 
 Tennessee 10,000 
 
 Texas 15,000 
 
 Utah 5,000 
 
 Vermont 700 
 
 Virginia 15,000 
 
 Washington 2,800 
 
 West Virginia 1,500 
 
 Wisconsin 15,000 
 
 Wyoming 1,000 
 
 * New York City has to-day three-quarters of a million of Jews, 
 and is the largest Jewish settlement in the world, having more 
 Jews than the German empire, two and a half times as many as 
 Great Britain, seven times as many as London, eight times as many 
 as all France. The proportion of Jews in the city's inhabitants on 
 Manhattan Island is one in four. The Jewish rate of increase is 
 several times that of other inhabitants of the city, so that it is easy 
 to fix the time at which the Jews will be in the majority. 
 
 98 
 
NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Number of Jews the World Over 
 Austria-Hungary has 2,076,378 Jews; Ger- 
 many 586,948, o£ whom 392,322 live in Prussia. 
 In the British Empire there are 286,498, dis- 
 tributed as follows : 
 
 England and Wales .... 176,000 
 
 Scotland 8,200 
 
 Ireland 3,898 
 
 Australasia 16,850 
 
 Canada & British Columbia. 25,000 
 
 Barbadoes 21 
 
 Trinidad 31 
 
 Jamaica 2,400 
 
 India 18,228 
 
 South Africa 30,000 
 
 Gibraltar 2,000 
 
 Malta 173 
 
 Aden 3,800 
 
 Cyprus 119 
 
 Hong Kong 143 
 
 Straits Settlements .... 535 
 
 Holland has 103,988 Jews, one-half of whom 
 are to be found in Amsterdam; France, 91,000, 
 of whom three-fourths live in Paris ; Italy, 35,617, 
 of whom the majority inhabit the northern and 
 middle portions of the country. There are 
 
 99 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 12,264 Jews in Switzerland; in Belgium, 12,000; 
 Denmark, 3,476; Sweden and Norway, 3,402; 
 Luxemburg, 1,201; Spain, 402; and in Portugal 
 hardly any, where prior to the fifteenth century 
 there lived over half a million Jews. 
 
 In Eastern Europe, in addition to Roumania, 
 with 262,348, there are Turkey with 466,362; 
 Greece, 5,792, most of them in Corfu; Bulgaria, 
 33,717; Servia, 6,000. In Asia, the cradle of 
 their race, we find in Turkey 466,361 ; Persia 35,- 
 000; Russia, 5,189,401, more Jews than all the 
 rest of Europe together, so that half of the de- 
 scendants of Abraham are still subject to special 
 laws and denied the rights of citizenship; Turk- 
 estan and Afghanistan, 14,000, and China, 300. 
 
 In Africa, where they had colonized before the 
 Christian era, we find in Egypt, 25,200; Abys- 
 sinia (Falashas), 120,000; Tunis, 60,000; Al- 
 geria, 57,132; Morocco, 150,000. 
 
 In other countries we find in the Argentine Re- 
 public, 22,500; Costa Rica, 43; Bosnia, Herze- 
 govina, 8,213; Mexico, 1,000; Curacao, 103; 
 Peru, 98; Crete, 150; and Venezuela, 411. In 
 100 
 
NUMBER IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 Jerusalem there are about 25,000 Jews ; and while 
 we hope for the day when the holy land will be re- 
 stored to the Jew, we cannot believe that Zion- 
 ism is the ultimate exaltation of the Jew. The 
 whole of Palestine could not sustain the Jewish 
 population of the world, about 11,000,000, for it 
 is no bigger than Wales. Palestine has vei-y little 
 to commend it to the Jew except its Biblical asso- 
 ciations. America, and not Palestine, is becom- 
 ing the Jewish Mecca. America is the Zion from 
 which will go forth the law. Here is liberty en- 
 lightening the world. 
 
 lOI 
 
VIII 
 
 CHARACTERISTICS 
 OF THE JEW 
 
 First — Longevity 
 
 QUAKERS, who, in the simplicity of their 
 ordinary life, may be supposed to conform 
 more closely to religious precepts than 
 most religious bodies, are the longest lived peo- 
 ple of whom we have record. Next to them 
 come the Jews. Reliable statistics justify the con- 
 clusion of the learned French physician. Dr. M. 
 Levy, that while the average term of life among 
 the Gentiles is twenty-six years, among the Jews 
 it is thirty-seven. The life insurance companies 
 who have made the science of statistics a profes- 
 sion as the basis of commercial computation, will 
 tell you that the life of the average Jew is more 
 103 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 than forty per cent more valuable than that of 
 any other people, except Quakers and preachers. 
 
 A writer in the Western Medical Review de- 
 clares that in spite of the social conditions which 
 surround the mass of the Hebrew population 
 of the world, and especially in the large cities of 
 America, where they form a large percentage of 
 the population, the death rate among the Jewish 
 inhabitants is but little over half of that of the 
 average American population. Professor Wil- 
 liam Z. Ripley, in his papers on the racial geog- 
 raphy of Europe in the Popular Science Monthly, 
 discusses this question very fully. He states that 
 if two groups of 100 infants each, one Jewish and 
 one of average American parentage, be born upon 
 the same day, one-half the Jews will not succumb 
 to disease before the expiration of seventy-one 
 years. 
 
 According to Lombroso, of i,ooo Jews born, 
 217 die before the age of seven years, while 453 
 Christians, more than twice as many, are likely 
 to die within the same period. In London, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of Dr. Behrend, con- 
 104 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 sumption is less frequent among the Jews in the 
 most squalid dens of Whitechapel than among the 
 Christians. 
 
 AlcohoHsm is very rare among Jews. Dur- 
 ing the six years ending May 31st, 1890, al- 
 coholism caused in each 100,000 persons of each 
 race in New York, 3 1 deaths annually among the 
 Irish, 10 among the Germans, 9 among the 
 Americans, 6 among the negroes, 3 among 
 the Italians and only i among the Jews ( Russian 
 and Polish). 
 
 In 1348, when the black death was raging 
 throughout Europe, the Jews were exempt from 
 the plague, and were accused of poisoning the 
 wells of Christians, and under inhuman tortures 
 the Jews were forced tO' confess themselves guilty 
 of the crimes charged against them, and then 
 were burned alive by the thousands. 
 
 Why are the Jews so much less subject to con- 
 sumption, cholera, croup, typhus, and scrofula? 
 Since it is sometimes necessary to kill a dozen 
 hogs before a sound pair of lungs can be found, it 
 does not seem strange that consumption is so 
 
 105 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 prevalent among the eaters of swine. Close in- 
 vestigations have disclosed the fact that nearly 
 one-half the animals killed are not kosher, or fit 
 to be eaten. Our way of killing meat is, through 
 its proneness to become tuberculous, perhaps the 
 cause of more disease than all other agencies com- 
 bined. 
 
 Second — A Law-abiding People 
 
 Thirty to forty years ago the prisons hardly 
 knew of the existence of the Jew. Testimonials 
 from that period might be multiplied indefinitely. 
 Governor Vance of North Carolina, when pardon- 
 ing the only Hebrew in the North Carolina peni- 
 tentiary who was serving a ten years' sentence for 
 manslaughter, indorsed on the document these 
 words : " I take pleasure in saying that I sign 
 the pardon in part as recognition of the good and 
 law-abiding character of our Jewish citizens, this 
 being the first serious case brought to my notice 
 on the part of that people." 
 
 About twenty-five years ago Judge Briggs, of 
 Philadelphia, in sentencing a Jew to prison for 
 1 06 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 burglary said: "You are the first Israelite I 
 have ever seen convicted of crime." No Jew 
 was convicted of murder in the United 
 States during the first century of the Nation's ex- 
 istence. In a speech delivered at a Hebrew fair 
 in Boston, General B. F. Butler said : " For forty 
 years, save one, I have been conversant with the 
 criminal courts of Massachusetts and many other 
 States, and I have never yet had a Hebrew client 
 as a criminal. But, you may say, that was be- 
 cause the Hebrews did not choose you for their 
 lawyer. But this is not the true answer; for I 
 never yet saw a veritable Israelite in the prison- 
 er's box, for crime, in my life. And, thinking of 
 the matter as I was coming here, I met a learned 
 Judge in one of the highest courts of the com- 
 monwealth, of more than forty years' experience 
 at the bar and bench, and I put the same ques- 
 tion to him, and he bore witness with me to the 
 same effect. He neither at the bar nor on the 
 bench had ever seen any Hebrew arraigned for 
 crime;" and while no race has a monopoly of 
 virtue or of vice, the Jews to-day, notwithstanding 
 107 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 the tremendous immigration in recent years, have 
 the best record of any race or religion in America. 
 Not more than three or four Jews have been 
 hanged in America, although I have known several 
 whom a little hanging might improve. When 
 Mordecai M. Noah on his accession to the office - 
 of Sheriff of New York, was taunted with the 
 remark, " Pity Christians have to be hanged by a 
 Jew ! " he replied, " Pity Christians require hang- 
 ing at all !" 
 
 The late M. de Bloch published a series of sta- 
 tistics on the Jews in Russia — 5,000,000 people 
 scattered among ignorant, fanatical and demor- 
 alized moujiks (peasants) who rob and plunder 
 at their will. The schools are closed against the 
 Jews, lucrative professions are forbidden them, 
 and they are huddled together in the least produc- 
 tive provinces of the Tsar's realm, their only 
 means of subsistence trading with the ignorant 
 masses; yet as de Bloch shows, there is only one 
 Jewish criminal to every 2,170 individuals, 
 whereas among non-Jews the proportion is one to 
 every 715. In the Pale the arrears of taxes are 
 108 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 less than in governments which are free from Jews, 
 and in the twenty-five governments of the Pale 
 every year eight million roubles less are spent in 
 drink, a saving which enablee the peasants to im- 
 prove their land and pay their taxes. In regard 
 to trade, Jews are mostly engaged in petty com- 
 merce. The Jews in the Pale who carry on busi- 
 ness form more than half of the trading popula- 
 tion, but the total value of their income is 436 
 million roubles against 489 million of the Chris- 
 tian minority. The great majority of Jews are 
 small retail dealers, who earn from sixty to 
 eighty kopeks a day, and in order to make this 
 minute profit they have to carry on business from 
 twelve to sixteen hours daily. M. de Bloch es- 
 timates the number of Jewish handicraftsmen in 
 the Pale at eighty per cent of the entire number 
 of workingmen, although they constitute only 
 twenty per cent of the whole population. 
 
 When I think of the tales, tragedies, and tyran- 
 nies the Jews have endured in Russia for over 
 two hundred years I feel like bowing in reverence 
 before them, especially when I recall that within 
 109 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 the past fifty years, in spite of the crimes and 
 barbarities which stain the pages of Russian his- 
 tory, this synagogue Jew has produced an Anto- 
 kolski, whose fiftieth birthday was celebrated, a 
 few years since, by artists all over the world ; an 
 Anton Rubinstein, in whom the piano found its 
 greatest master; a Natowitch, editor of the most 
 literary and influential Russian paper, Novosti. 
 What scholar has not heard of the greatest Rus- 
 sian, Oriental and European linguist. Professor 
 Khwolson and Dr. Abraham Harkavi ? Or what 
 man of affairs has not heard of Sachs, the super- 
 intendent of the Russian railroads; or de Bloch, 
 already quoted, the greatest authority on finance 
 and economics in that Slavonic empire? What 
 student of medicine has not heard of Dr. Haffkin, 
 who has lately drawn the world's attention to his 
 medical discoveries, was rewarded with medals 
 by various sovereigns, and who suffered from 
 Russian tyranny in his younger days? 
 
 Third — Charity 
 In charity shines conspicuously not only the 
 no 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 names of Sir Moses Montefiore and the Baron and 
 Baroness de Hirsch, whose generosity while living 
 made their names fragrant throughout the world, 
 and the latter when dying left $100,000,000 to 
 be expended in carrying on the various charities 
 founded and fostered by the baron and baroness ; 
 but if the bigoted authorities of New Amsterdam 
 who gave their permission to a few Hebrews 
 to settle in their city, " upon condition that they 
 should always support their own poor," could see, 
 as I have before stated, how well they have kept 
 the promise, made more than two hundred years 
 ago, those old burghers would open their eyes in 
 surprise at the many and magnificent benevolent 
 institutions, covering every conceivable case of 
 need, which testify to the inborn kindness of the 
 Hebrew's heart. 
 
 The Jews of New York alone for their twelve 
 leading charities contribute upwards of $1,000,- 
 000 a year. 
 
 And as I mingle with these people, and breathe 
 the spirit that animates them, and feel their en- 
 thusiasm for humanity stirring my own pulses, 
 III 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 and see that they are as intent as Christians are 
 to do all the good they can, to all the people they 
 can, in all the ways they can, I cannot help but 
 feel that their Father is our Father, and that the 
 spiritual Christ, the essential Christ, must be 
 their Lord as well as ours; and while having no 
 sympathy with those who would proselyte them, 
 they practice the Gospel of love as preached by 
 Christianity, I can take the good Jew by the hand, 
 and with my heart upon the lip, call him brother ! 
 
 The almshouse has no need to provide for the 
 Jew. If one Jew gets into trouble, all the others 
 stand by him. The divorce court seldom hears 
 of him. He is domestic above all men. Drunken- 
 ness is not a Jewish vice. The only occupation 
 that does not thrive much among the Jews is that 
 of the saloonkeeper. To the Potter's Field the 
 Jew is absolutely unknown. With the Jew, next 
 to the respect for the living comes the veneration 
 for the dead. 
 
 Fourth — Religion 
 
 The Jew has given to the world the knowledge 
 of the only true and living God. He has given 
 
 112 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 Moses, who in the twelve United States of Israel 
 gave to the world the first Republic, and whose 
 laws after thirty-three hundred years still form 
 the basis of the civilized world's jurisprudence. 
 Jesus, the ideal of the race; Jesus, whom 
 Spinoza called " the symbol of divine wisdom " ; 
 whom Kant and Jacobi held up as the " symbol 
 of ideal perfection " ; of whom Strauss said, " he 
 remains the highest model of religion within our 
 thoughts," and Renan declared " whatever will be 
 the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be 
 surpassed " — this Jesus was a Jew. Dr. Max 
 Nordau voices the more cultured Jewish sentiment 
 of our day concerning Christ when he says, 
 " Jesus is soul of our soul, even as he is flesh of 
 our flesh. Who, then, could think of excluding 
 him from the people of Israel? St. Peter will 
 remain the only Jew who has said of the Son of 
 David, ' I know not the man.' Putting aside the 
 Messianic mission, this man is ours. He honors 
 our race, and we claim him as we claim the 
 Gospels — flowers of Jewish literature and only 
 Jewish." 
 
 113' 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 Our Bible, the Old as well as the New Testa- 
 ment, with the possible exception of the book 
 of Job, was written by Jews. What would the 
 world have been without the Bible. The coun- 
 tries which are indisputably the foremost and 
 most enlightened among the nations are Bible 
 nations. Where the Bible prevails intelligence 
 rules. In every country where the Bible does 
 not rule you find man in a semi-barbarous condi- 
 tion. The most highly civilized and most intelli- 
 gent people, the most just and reasonable laws, 
 humane and charitable institutions are to be found 
 only in those countries where the Jewish Bible 
 rules. Where there is no Bible there is no lib- 
 erty. To it we owe more liberty and civilization 
 than to any source or power. Ours is the only 
 flag that has in reality written upon it : " Liberty, 
 Fraternity, Equality," and this great Republic was 
 founded by Bible believers. This Book, trans- 
 lated 1 604-1 1, spread through England and in- 
 spired the revolt against Charles I. in 1642. Its 
 " To your tents, O Israel," quickened the Puri- 
 tans into action, and its inspiration caused them 
 114 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 to ride into battle singing its psalms. It was the 
 Bible which lifted the people of Europe into a 
 civilized condition and made nations of them. 
 All the beneficent changes in the world have 
 occurred under the dominion of the Bible. The 
 Reformation — one of the sublimest uprisings in 
 the whole history of the human race, which de- 
 veloped the human mind, promoted civilization, 
 liberalized men, destroyed in large measure su- 
 perstition, revolutionized religious beliefs, and 
 changed the forms of governments — was the 
 outgrowth of the study of the Hebrew Bible by 
 Martin Luther, under Nicholas de Lyra, the Jew. 
 " Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non sal tasset." 
 
 Liberty, charity, and brotherhood find their 
 only place of abode in Bible countries. They 
 thrive upon the Bible. Their sustenance is the 
 Bible. They worship at its august shrine, and 
 bow with imperial grandeur before its majestic 
 throne. 
 
 This book which attends us in our sickness 
 and when the fever of the world is on us, tem- 
 pers our grief to finer issues, enables us with a 
 
 "5 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 bright eye and without fear to take the death- 
 angel by the hand to tread the way through the 
 dark valley, bidding farewell to wife, babes and 
 home in the consolation of meeting in gladness 
 beyond the tomb; this book on which men rest 
 their dearest hopes, and which tells us of earthly 
 duties and inspires us with heavenly rest and 
 heavenly reunion — for this book we are indebt- 
 ed to the Jews. 
 
 THE CRUCIFIXION 
 
 But you say the Jews crucified Christ. The 
 unhappy actors in that scene were both Jews and 
 Gentiles. In the light of orthodox Christian 
 teaching the Jews had no option in the matter. 
 The shadow of doom was upon them from the 
 beginning of days and the growing sense of 
 this truth ought, among fair-minded Christians, 
 who believe so, make Jewish blame for the cruci- 
 fixion a dead issue. 
 
 The rulers who were Romans, and not the 
 leaders of the Jews, were responsible for the 
 crucifixion of Christ, but in any case how could 
 Ii6 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 it be the act of the entire nation ? The Jews were 
 then, as now, scattered throughout the known 
 world. It is related that when Sir Moses Mon- 
 tefiore was taunted by a political opponent with 
 the memory of Calvary and described him as one 
 who sprang from the murderers who crucified the 
 world's Redeemer, the next morning the Jewish 
 philanthropist, whom Christendom has learned 
 to honor, called upon his assailant, and showed 
 him a record of his ancestors which had been kept 
 for two thousand years, and which showed that 
 their home had been in Spain for two hundred 
 years before Jesus of Nazareth was born ! 
 
 The common people heard Christ gladly. The 
 multitude writhing beneath the Roman yoke de- 
 sired to take him by force and make him king, 
 and when, at last, through the treachery of his 
 own disciple he was arrested by the Romans at 
 midnight, and after a hurried and illegal trial, 
 during which the mob was persuaded to cry for 
 his blood, by nine o'clock the next morning he 
 was crucified upon a Roman cross. The three 
 thousand who believed in a single day on Pente- 
 117 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 cost, and the great multitude of priests who were 
 obedient to the faith were Jews. All the apostles 
 were Jews. The Temple and the synagogues were 
 the first preaching' places. Christianity was plant- 
 ed in Europe and Asia by Jews. In the language 
 of Benjamin Disraeli : " It is, no doubt, to be 
 deplored that seven millions of the Jewish race 
 should persist in believing only a part of their 
 religion; but this is owing largely to the nature 
 of the persecution they received. When the great 
 mass of the Jews, scattered throughout the world, 
 first ever heard of Christianity, it appeared to be 
 a Gentile religion, accompanied by idolatrous 
 practices. And afterwards when Romans and 
 Spaniards were converted to Christianity, all that 
 the Jews in those nations knew of Christianity 
 was, that it was a religion of fire and sword, and 
 that one of its first duties was to avenge some 
 mysterious and inexplicable crime which had been 
 committed years ago by some unheard-of ances- 
 tors of theirs in an unknown land. These people 
 had never heard of Christ. What they had heard 
 from their savage companions, and the Italian 
 ii8 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 priesthood which acted on them, was that there 
 were good tidings for all the world except Israel ; 
 and that Israel, for the commission of a great 
 crime of which they had never heard, and could 
 not comprehend, was to be plundered, massacred, 
 hewn to pieces, and burned alive in the name of 
 Christ, and for the sake of Christianity. Is it, 
 therefore, wonderful that the great portion of 
 the Jewish race should not believe in the most 
 important portion of the Jewish religion ? " But 
 suppose Jews did accomplish Christ's death, is it 
 fair to lay the deed of a few of his ancestors 
 against the Jew and his descendants down to the 
 sixtieth generation ? Would the Jews have put 
 Jesus Christ to death had they believed him to be 
 the Messiah? Hear Paul : " Which none of the 
 princes of the world knew ; for, had they known 
 it they would not have crucified the Lord of 
 Glory." 
 
 Listen to Jesus on the cross : " Father, forgive 
 them (the Romans and Jews alike), for they 
 know not what they do." Is it not time that we 
 
 119 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 forgive and forget what Christ forgave more 
 than eighteen hundred years ago? 
 
 Can we wonder when we read how the blood- 
 thirsty fanatics and tyrants of so-called Christen- 
 dom, who had never learned the doctrine that 
 Jesus taught, scattered and slaughtered, hunted 
 and hated, banished and robbed the Jews, can we 
 wonder that the latter refused to embrace a re- 
 ligion the representatives of which instigated and 
 committed the crimes and barbarities which stain 
 the pages of history? To quote Benjamin Dis- 
 raeli again : 
 
 " Perhaps in this enlightened age, as his mind 
 expands, and he takes a comprehensive view of 
 this period of progress, the pupil of Moses may 
 ask himself whether all the princes of the house 
 of David have done so much for the Jews as the 
 prince who was crucified on Calvary. Had it not 
 been for Him, the Jews would have been com- 
 paratively unknown, or kno-^n only as a high 
 Oriental caste which had lost its country. _^ Has 
 not he made their history the most famous history 
 in the world? Has not he hung up their laws 
 
 120 
 
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE JEW 
 
 in every temple ? Has not he avenged the victims 
 of Titus and conquered the Caesars? What suc- 
 cesses did they anticipate from their Messiah? 
 The wildest dreams of their rabbins have been 
 far exceeded. Has not Jesus conquered Europe 
 and changed its name into Christendom? All 
 countries that refuse the cross vv^ither, while the 
 whole of the new world is devoted to the Semitic 
 principle and its most glorious offspring, the 
 Jewish faith; and the time will come when the 
 vast communities and countless myriads of Amer- 
 ica and Australia, looking upon Europe as Europe 
 now looks upon Greece, and wondering how so 
 small a place could have achieved such great 
 deeds, will still find music in the songs of Zion, 
 and still seek solace in the parables of Galilee." 
 
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IX 
 
 ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 IN America the Jew has a double claim to rec- 
 ognition — the claim of the man under the 
 wide tolerance of the twentieth century, 
 and the claim of the American citizen under the 
 broad spirit of the American Constitution. 
 Has he received the treatment he merits 
 as a man, and the rights he deserves as 
 a citizen? He is caricatured in the comic 
 papers; in our social, professional and even 
 political clubs the Jew is blackballed. The 
 wealthy Jewish merchant, looking for a summer 
 resort will be handed a circular bearing the foot- 
 note, " No Jews taken," and I have seen many 
 circulars which added, " Dogs not allowed." The 
 Jew is excluded from society. Hosts apologize 
 123 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 for the stranger by assuring you that " he is a 
 good fellow, if he is a Jew." Mass-meetings 
 have been held within a few years past in several 
 of our cities for the purpose of protesting against 
 the continual ill-treatment and persecution to 
 which the poor Jews in general and Jewish ped- 
 dlers in particular are subjected, not only by 
 the hoodlums, but by the school children. In 
 Detroit, the Mayor had to make a special appeal 
 to the police to prevent violence and injustice. 
 In Chicago, Mayor Harrison sent a request to 
 the President of the Board of Education, the re- 
 sult of which was that the Superintendent of 
 Schools issued instructions to the principals of 
 all the schools to warn their pupils against call- 
 ing offensive names, throwing stones, or other- 
 wise injuring poor Jews. These instructions were 
 carried out by means of the principals. Arch- 
 bishop Feehan was also approached on the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 I have seen Jewish children go home from our 
 public schools in tears because of the offensive 
 names with which they were taunted. Outrages 
 124 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA, 
 
 are frequently perpetrated upon the Jews on the 
 East Side of New York under the very noses of 
 the poHce — outrages which are a disgrace to 
 the metropolis of the Republic. While we de- 
 nounce the Russian atrocities, it is well to remem- 
 ber the outrage perpetrated on the occasion ol 
 Rabbi Joseph's funeral. 
 
 Russian and Roumanian immigrants who are 
 striving with might and main to earn a livelihood 
 in New York meet with a reception from the deni- 
 zens of the streets not at all creditable to the citi- 
 zens. A writer in the " Mail " witnessed the fol- 
 lowing incident: 
 
 " He stood on the Broadway walk in front of 
 Trinity churchyard — a Roumanian Jew, with 
 collar-buttons and shoe-laces to sell. Biff, came 
 a bundle of yellow slips thrown by a messenger- 
 boy, striking him in the eye. He turned, blink- 
 ing with pain, but he could not run after the 
 miscreant, who, with his fellows, in glee was 
 dodging into the crowd. He could leave neither 
 his wares nor catch the boys. 
 
 " This is something that happens every day. 
 
 125 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 The lives of vendors on the streets are made mis- 
 erable by the small boy. The policeman, too, 
 takes his share of fruit, of the best on the stand, 
 always. The small boy grabs. Both are thieves 
 and work with impunity. 
 
 " Out of some pity at the outrage, and may be 
 curiosity, a passerby asked the peddler if his eye 
 pained him badly. It was so injured as to be 
 bloodshot, and the tears streamed down the poor 
 man's face. Some collar-buttons were bought, 
 and the man forgot his pain. He had been in 
 America a year, but was not a citizen and could 
 not vote. How much did he make in a day? 
 ' Fifty cents, sometimes sixty.' 
 
 '"Wife and children?' 
 
 " ' In Roumania.' 
 
 " The fellow was surprised at being spoken to, 
 but he was grateful. There was a very human 
 look of thanks in his uninjured eye. The other 
 looked indignant still." 
 
 It is not to the credit of the rich and influential 
 Jews of our cities that they do not seek to right 
 these wrongs heaped upon their poorer brethren. 
 126 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 These toiling co-religionists are worthy of the 
 influence and assistance of their more fortunate 
 brethren. The non- Jewish world has only con- 
 tempt for the Jew who does not seek to make 
 the name of Jew respected throughout every nook 
 and corner of the nation. 
 
 The merchant who cheats his creditor or rivals 
 his competitors, if he comes of Hebrew blood, 
 has "Jew!" hissed at him. Judaism is made 
 responsible for every trick in trade. Do we not 
 derive all our notions of integrity from the Jew, 
 who first taught the world, " Thou shalt not 
 steal " and " Thou shalt not bear false witness " ? 
 " It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest." 
 
 It is just as unreasonable to use the word 
 " Yankee " for all that meanness which, it is said, 
 would cheat in the measurement if given the right 
 to sell out the Atlantic Ocean by the pint, as 
 to make of the word " Jew " a verb to designate 
 taking advantage in trade. I have seen some 
 mean Yankees who, in the words of another, 
 " with a jack-knife and a pine shingle could in 
 two hours' time whittle the smartest Jew in New 
 127 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 York out of his homestead in the Abrahamic 
 Covenant." But to despise all New Englanders, 
 among whom are the largest-hearted and biggest 
 brained people on earth, on account of the pro- 
 verbial meanness and trickery of some, is cer- 
 tainly unreasonable prejudice. 
 
 In Marlowe's "Jew of Malta," Barabbas is 
 made to say: 
 
 " Some Jews are wicked as some Christians are ; 
 But say the tribe that I descended of 
 Were all in general cast away for sin. 
 Shall I be tried for their transgression? 
 The man that dealeth righteously shall live." 
 
 Never was a truer word spoken; every Jew has 
 been made responsible for the acts of every other 
 Jew. 
 
 With all the rough handling the world has 
 given the Jew, it is wonderful that he has no 
 more faults. For, as Shakespeare made Shylock 
 to say : " He has disgraced me, and hindered 
 me of half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked 
 at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my 
 128 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 bargains, cooled my friends, heated my enemies — 
 and what's his reason ? I am a Jew. Has not a 
 Jew eyes? Has not a Jew hands, organs, di- 
 mensions, senses, affections, passions? Is he 
 not fed with the same food, hurt with the same 
 weapon, subject to the same diseases, healed by 
 the same means, warmed and cooled by the same 
 winter and summer as a Christian is? If you 
 prick us do we not bleed ? If you tickle us do we 
 not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? and 
 if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? " 
 
 In justice may the Jew apply to himself the 
 words which the shepherdess Sulamit, in the 
 " Song of Songs," addressed to the king's courtly 
 ladies who looked contemptuously upon her: 
 " Black am I, but yet comely. Despite me not be- 
 cause I am somewhat black. Is it a wonder that 
 I am somewhat disfigured? Persecution's burn- 
 ing rays have scorched me fiercely. My mother's 
 children have indeed been angry with me. They 
 have forced me to keep their vineyard and to 
 neglect my own." 
 
 Lord Macaulay has truly said, " The Jew is 
 129 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 what we made him." Leroy-Beaulieu forcibly 
 says : " Their virtues are their own, their vices 
 are our making. Their virtues are the result of 
 Judaic teaching; their vices are the results of 
 circumstances which we have massed about their 
 life." Or to use the words of the late Senator 
 Vance: " If the Jew is a bad job, in all honesty 
 we should contemplate him as the handiwork of 
 our own civilization." 
 
 In one of the finest passages of Cumberland's 
 " The Jew," Sheva answers Sir Stephen, who 
 cannot conceive that a Jew cannot lend even a 
 small sum without the desire of doubling : 
 
 " What has Sheva done to be called a villain ? 
 I am a Jew ; what then ? Is that a reason none of 
 my tribe should have a sense of pity? You have 
 no great deal of pity yourself, but I know many 
 noble British merchants that do abound in pity, 
 therefore I do not abuse your tribe." 
 
 The prejudice that still exists against the Jew 
 
 must be traced to this as one of the leading 
 
 causes. One is made responsible for all, and all 
 
 are made responsible for one. Paul and Iscariot 
 
 130 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 were both Jews, and yet many a Christian exe- 
 crates the nation from whom the betrayer of the 
 Master sprung, and seems to forget altogether 
 that from the same nation sprang Paul, the great 
 apostle. 
 
 The teaching of the Bible can only produce 
 good. Why should not the Ten Commandments 
 promulgated through Moses, have as powerful 
 and as purifying a grasp upon the conscience of 
 the Jew as upon that of the Gentile? Is it fair 
 to let prejudice against individuals develop into 
 prejudice against a race? Let the reproach be 
 cast where it belongs, upon the individual, and 
 not upon the race. Alexander Dumas said: 
 " When I found out that I was black, I deter- 
 mined to live so white as to force men to look 
 beneath my skin." That ought to be the spirit 
 and ambition of every man who belongs to a 
 persecuted race. I believe that Judaism has a 
 mission, and if I were a Jew I would be proud 
 of it. Heine said : " The History of the Jews is 
 beautiful; but our modern Jews are standing in 
 the light of the ancient ones, who certainly de- 
 
 131 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 serve to be held in greater esteem than either 
 Greeks or Romans. I believe if the race as such 
 was extinct, and a rumor got abroad that there 
 was a specimen of that people living somewhere, 
 they would travel a hundred miles to see that 
 individual and shake hands with him — and now 
 they are shunning us." But people will not shun 
 you if you are a good Jew. If I were a Jew, 
 I would stand up for my rights; I would be 
 neither uppish nor iconoclastic ; I would not sneer 
 at the synagogue, nor reject all the traditions and 
 customs of Judaism; I would not be close and 
 hard in business; I would never take advantage 
 in a bargain; I would not higgle for the lowest 
 penny when paying, or the highest when making 
 a sale; I would not pay a minimum of wages 
 and exact the maximum of work; I would not 
 be suspicious of anyone's honesty ; I would not be 
 small-souled, selfish, grasping, narrow-spirited, 
 envious and jealous; I would be large hearted, 
 noble spirited, generous to the very utmost of 
 self-sacrifice; I would seek to have my life one 
 unflawed crystal, to make weighty my influence 
 132 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 for truth and nobleness ; I would, in short, make 
 the word Jew stand for all that is great, good, 
 and grand in character. 
 
 Judaism, the mother of Christianity, is still a 
 living force, and he is the best Jew whose heart 
 beats with the purest pulse towards God and 
 man, and not he whose head spins the finest 
 theological cobwebs. 
 
 " 'Tis not the wise phylatery, nor stubborn taste, 
 not stated prayers 
 That makes us saints : we judge the tree by what it 
 bears." 
 
 The social standards of the Jew are just as 
 low and just as fine as other people's in cor- 
 responding position. Money often gets ahead 
 of the manners of Jew and Gentile alike. No 
 people suffer more on account of the vulgar Jews 
 than the highminded and refined Hebrew men 
 and women. Are there not Gentiles who can be 
 described exactly in the same terms? Where do 
 you find the parvenu in American society ? How 
 many people do you know who have had two 
 
 133 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 generations of continuous wealth and the condi- 
 tions of refined society ? Israel Zangwill has well 
 said : " Possibly some few Jews who have 
 gained money before they have had time to gain 
 culture may be a little loud and a little unpleas- 
 ant to many gentlemanly Americans of the same 
 income. But exclusion carries with it such tre- ' 
 mendous dangers and such perils of resuscitating 
 the old mediaeval savagery which Americans 
 came to overthrow, that this deadly weapon of 
 social excommunication should be resorted to 
 only whenever any other method fails. And as 
 one who has closely studied the Jewish character 
 in its shades as well as its lights, as one who has 
 always written without fear or favor, I can 
 assure our squeamish and impatient American 
 aristocrats that the disappearance of any unpleas- 
 ant social taints in the Jew is only a question of 
 one generation. 
 
 " The most offensive Jew who has made money 
 is humbly anxious for his children to have better 
 social advantages than he had. And from the 
 strident and assertive Jews who have grown 
 
 134 
 
4. 
 
 1. FABIAN FRANKLIN 
 Baltimore News 
 
 3. JOSEPH PULITZER, 
 EDWARD ROSEWATER 
 Founder and Editor 
 Omaha Bee 
 
 2. WILLIAM FRISCH 
 Baltimore American 
 New York World 
 
 5. ADOLPH S. OCHS 
 
 New York Times and 
 
 Philadelphia Public Ledger 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 coarse in the struggle for existence will come the 
 quiet and cultivated ladies and gentlemen who 
 will be an enormous force for good in the Amer- 
 ica of to-morrow. The same is true of Americans 
 at large, not merely Jews." 
 
 The Anti-Semite a Coward 
 The anti-Semite is a coward. The cry of the 
 Jew-hater is the cry of the beaten man. The 
 best man, as a rule, wins. If you want to know 
 why the Jews win, read the names published an- 
 nually of the public school children who have 
 passed the examinations for entrance to the sub- 
 freshman class of the College of the City of New 
 York. There are the Cohens, Cosinskys, Levys, 
 Greenbaums, Sesmorskys, Sapiros, Fleishers, 
 Bernsteins, Rosenbergs, Goldsteins, Kopfsteins, 
 Czarkowskis, and other names of unmistakable 
 Jewish families from Germany and from Rus- 
 sia, and very few names of children of American 
 descent. Fifty per cent of the students of Colum- 
 bia University are Jews ; the College of the City 
 of New York is known as " the Jews' College " ; 
 
 135 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 they are busy qualifying themselves for success, 
 and while we are reviling them they are broaden- 
 ing their minds. 
 
 With the exception of Russia, the Jews are 
 more hated in Austria than in any other country 
 on earth. Although the Jews form hardly five 
 per cent of the total population of the Austrian 
 kingdom, they contribute more than nineteen per 
 cent to the students at the Austrian universities. 
 In the Vienna University forty per cent of the 
 students are Jews and thirty per cent of the 
 teachers are Jews. In the Budapest University a 
 third of the professors are of Jewish origin. . In 
 the classical and high-schools of Hungary twenty 
 per cent of the pupils are Jews, although they 
 constitute but little more than four per cent of 
 the population. In the intermediate schools of 
 Austria 'j'j per cent are Jews. Eighty-five per 
 cent of the successful lawyers of Berlin are Jews, 
 and the percentage is about the same of the great 
 and lucrative business of all sorts in Germany. 
 In Germany the business is in the hands of the 
 Jews ; they are pushing the Christian to the wall, 
 136 
 
ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA 
 
 therefore the Jew must be banished. Only a 
 decadent race need fear the Jew, and if the 
 German or the Frenchman is afraid of him, so 
 much the worse for the German or the French- 
 man. 
 
 We hear this same cry in New York, Phila- 
 delphia, Baltimore, and other cities — that the 
 banks, the newspapers, .the theatres, the great 
 mercantile and manufacturing interests, business 
 of the high value and the small are in the hands 
 of the Jew. Now, why is the Jew getting on? 
 I recently spent a few days in some libraries on 
 the east side of New York — libraries patronized 
 largely by Russian and Polish Hebrews. Any 
 librarian in the city will tell you that these young 
 Jews are the most remarkable readers in the city 
 — they read, and devour American history and 
 biography, philosophy and science. There is little 
 call for books in their own language. The desire 
 seems to be to leave foreign literature behind 
 when the old country is abandoned. 
 
 Everywhere the Jew is disciplining his reason- 
 ing powers, and learning how to do better work, 
 
 137 
 
THE JEWS IN AMERICA 
 
 which insures that success which clamor and com- 
 plaining never win. It is not strange that the Jew 
 is winning; it were strange if he did not win. If 
 the Jew continues as he has begun, he will hold 
 the future. 
 
 138 
 
Will the Coming Man 
 Marry? 
 
 A 'Book for the Times 
 
 BY 
 
 MADISON C. PETERS, D.D. 
 
 A book which appeals to every 
 woman as well as man, exposing the 
 dangers to the home and setting 
 forth the only safe principles of a 
 happy married life. Full of startling 
 information on marriage and di- 
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 and an appeal to the man. 
 
 12mo. 180 pp. Bound in Cloth, 
 
 With Attractive Cover Design. 
 
 Postpaid, $1.00. 
 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
"Something Every Young Man Should Read" 
 
 President William DcWitt Hyde 
 
 The American Boy and 
 — The Social Evil — 
 
 From the Standpoint of 
 a Physician 
 
 By ROBERT N. WILLSON, M.D. 
 
 iDstmctor In Medlclae and University Fbyslclan, University ol Pennsylvania 
 
 FOUR PRACTICAL TALKS TO YOUNG MEN 
 
 1. "The Nobility of Boyhood : The Boy's Part 
 
 in Life's Problem." 
 
 2. " Clean Living ; A Problem of School and 
 
 College Days." 
 
 3. " The Social Evil in America." 
 
 4. " The Relation of the Citizen to the Social 
 
 Evil." 
 
 A book that parents can give their sons, containing 
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 A Guide to Health, Purity and Honor 
 
 12mo. 160 pp. Bound in cloth with attractive 
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 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
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