Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/239

The Modest Immigrant only to his attendance at the synagogue. May we then speak of a scholar, a musician, a scientist, a philanthropist, as a Jew? Only—by this ruling—as we might speak of one as a Catholic or a Methodist, only in reference to his "religious denomination." If he chances to be unsectarian, then, as he is also raceless, he cannot be called anything at all. If the word "Jew" be out of place in the police courts, it is equally out of place in colleges, learned societies, and encyclopædias.

It will be remembered that, after the publication of "Oliver Twist," a bitter protest was raised by English Jews against the character of Fagin, or rather against the fact that the merry old gentleman is alluded to frequently as a Jew. The complainants said—what the "Jewish Tribune" now says—that the use of the word as an indicatory substantive was an insult to their creed. Dickens, who had never thought of Fagin as having any creed, who had never associated him 223