Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/25

The Question particularly of late, something of your way of life. As a few gentiles have spoken in Jewish tones, so more than one Jew speaks the language of the gentile. Jews live a gentile life here and there, while gentile lives give expression to Jewish emotions.

Yet the cleavage is there, abysmal and undeniable. In the main, we are forever distinct. Ours is one life, yours is another. Such accidental confusions as make some Northerners darker than Southerners does not affect the law that the Southerner is darker-skinned. The law holds none the less for accidental and contradictory cases.

You may even have Jews in your midst who did not learn their way of life from us, and did not inherit it from a Jewish forbear. We may have authentic gentiles in our midst: these single protests are of no account: they are extreme and irrelevant variations.

And of as little account are the occasional transferences of customs and conventions, taken over in the mass. We may have customs and conventions of yours imposed on 21