Page:The International Jew - Volume 2.djvu/188

 bureau should attempt to record Jews under their proper racial name.

It is a very perfect system, even if a little antiquated. Doubtless its main purpose is to let the Jewish masses believe that they too have something to say in Jewish affairs. Jewish leadership of the Jews is never quite what the Jews think it is, and its weakness was never more apparent than today. There has not been any “persecution” of the Jews in the United States and never will be any, but all that the Jews have had to carry in the way of misunderstanding has been the result of the leadership which has misled them into paths of bloated ambition, instead of substantial human achievement. At this moment there is trembling, not among the Jewish masses, but among their leaders. The Jewish people will presently take their own affairs in their own hands, and then their affairs will go better. There are too many “committees,” too many “prophets,” too many “wise men,” who think that two minutes with a President constitutes greatness, and that a busy bustling overseas and back constitutes statesmanship. The Jews have suffered from the personal ambitions and pathetic incapacity of some of their most advertised men.

The B’nai B’rith has this much in its favor: its leadership has always been progressive. Only when it has lent itself as local agent for the “leaders” of the New York Kehillah has it set up in its neighborhoods those influences which tend toward division instead of a better understanding.

Under whose inspiration it was that the B’nai B’rith undertook to bring its great power to bear against one of Shakespeare’s plays, cannot now be said; but it has been most unfortunate for Jewish influence in all directions. Successful—oh yes; but such a success as serious people could well do without.

Merely to glance over the record is interesting:

1907—Jews force “The Merchant of Venice” to be dropped from public schools in Galveston, Texas; Cleveland, Ohio; El Paso, Texas; Youngstown, Ohio.

1908—Jews have “The Merchant of Venice” eliminated from the English course in the high school at El Paso, Texas.

1910—Apparently the “Merchant” slipped back