Page:The International Jew - Volume 1.djvu/64

 60 . This is an extreme attitude and is composed of other elements beside natural dislike. It is possible for people to dislike Jews and not be anti-Semitic. Indeed, it is not at all uncommon, it grows more and more common, that intelligent and refined Jews themselves do not relish the society of their own people except in cases of exceptional refinement.

This reality calls for some comment on the manners and characteristics of the ordinary member of the Jewish race, the accidents of behavior which stand out most obnoxiously and of which Jews themselves are often the most unsparing critics, but these comments must fall into place later.

2. A second stage of the spirit of anti-Semitism may be designated as hatred and enmity. It should be noted that the antipathy referred to immediately above was not hatred. Dislike is not hatred, nor is it necessarily enmity. One may dislike sugar in his tea without troubling to hate sugar. But undoubtedly there are people who because they have let their dislikes deepen into prejudice, and perhaps also because of unpleasant experiences with members of the Jewish race (probably a million Americans have been brought to the verge of becoming Jew-haters this winter because of contact with Jewish merchants and landlords) may be classified as, at least, incipient anti-Semites. This is most of all unfortunate for the persons who harbor these emotions. It is unfortunate in that it unfits the mind to consider intelligently the facts which constitute the Jewish Question, and also unfits it to deal with them in a fair and constructive way. For one’s own sake, whatever the provocation otherwise, it is better not to let passion deflect the needle of one’s mind. Hatred at the wheel means hazard on the course. Enmity lives in the vicinity of the Jews more than of any other race, and the reason for this is one of the puzzles of the ages. The Jewish nature itself, as shown in ancient and modern history, is not without its own share of enmity, and it either evokes or provokes enmity where it comes in contact with those Aryan races which follow their natural impulses unchecked by cultural and ethical influences. This age-long conflict of the Jew has puzzled the minds of students for generations. Some explain it Biblically as the curse of Jehovah upon His Chosen People for