Page:The International Jew - Volume 1.djvu/65

 Rh their disobedience to the discipline by which He would have made them the Prophet Nation of the world. If this offense must come, if it is part of the Jew’s heritage, an old saying—Christian and Scriptural, by the way—would still remain true: “It must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.”

3. In some parts of the world at various times this feeling of hatred has broken into murderous violence, which has roused, as wholesale physical outrage always does, the horror and resentment of humanity. This is the extreme form in which anti-Semitism has exhibited itself, and it is the charge of intending to stimulate it here and elsewhere which every public discussion of the Jewish Question has to bear. There is, of course, no excuse for these outbreaks, but there is sufficient explanation of them. The Jews usually explain them as expressions of religious prejudice, and the Gentiles as rebellion against an economic yoke which the Jews have woven for the people. It is an astonishing fact that, to take one country, the parts of Russia where anti-Semitic violence has been most marked are the most prosperous parts, so prosperous indeed and with a prosperity so unquestionably due to Jewish enterprise that the Jews have openly declared that they have the power to throw those parts of Russia back into commercial lethargy again by simply withdrawing. It is utterly idle to throw denials at this statement. It is confirmed time and time again by men who have gone to Russia full of resentment against the attitude of the Russians toward the Jews, as that attitude is represented in the Anglo-Saxon press, and who have come home with a new light on the cause of these outbreaks, though not excusing their character. Impartial observers have also found that some of the outbreaks have been precipitated by the Jews themselves. A correspondent, known the world over for his trenchant defense of the Jews under Russian persecution, was always bitterly attacked by the Jews themselves whenever he stated the truth about this, notwithstanding his protest to them that if he did not tell the truth when they were in the wrong the world would not be ready to believe him when he said they were blameless. To this day, in every country, the Jews are slow to admit blameworthiness for.