INTRODUCTION THE HIGHER ANTI-SEMITISM THERE is among the peoples of the world one which has preserved its individuality throughout the ages with remarkable persistence. This people is among the nations, and of them, but yet in some way apart from them. Up to a time within the memory of men still living, members of this people were set apart as unworthy to possess all the rights of citizenship in all lands in which they dwelt; even at the present day, a majority of them are still debarred from the higher rights of human beings. The only excuse or explanation for this discrimination against them was that they refused to bow down in the House of Rimmon, to worship strange gods, and to give up their way of thinking about the highest things which had approved itself as right and true to their fathers. Rather than abandon that faith they have, for the past millennium and a half, suffered continuously contumely and moral segregation, and from time to time torture and even death, while at successive periods they have been obliged to shake off the soil of their native land and seek refuge in other countries which for the time were less intolerant. These men are known by the name of Jews. 畿 'Tis a little people, but it has done great things. When in the land in which it first came to national consciousness, it created a conception of the Highest Being of the universe, which has been adopted in essence by the foremost races of humanity. It had but a precarious hold on a few crags and highlands between the desert and the deep sea, yet its thinkers and sages with eagle vision took into their thought the destinies of all humanity, and rang out in clarion voice a message of hope to the down-trodden of all races. Claiming for themselves and their people the duty and obligations of a true aristocracy, they held forth to the peoples ideals of a true democracy founded on right and justice. Their voices have never ceased to re-echo around the world, and the greatest things that have been done to raise men's lot have been done always in the spirit, often in the name, of the Hebrew prophets. Nor did their beneficial activities cease when they were torn away from their own land by all-powerful Rome. For nearly two thousand years they have taken their share in all the movements that have made the modern European man. At times they have helped to spread culture from one nation to another; at others, they have helped to light it anew in a fresh land. On some occasions they have even been leaders in these movements, but mostly they have been content to take their share in the cultural development of their fellow-men, contributing to it by the qualities which their unique position among the nations had developed in them. In the intricate warp and woof of civilization Jewish threads have been at all times constituent parts of the pattern, and to attempt to remove or unravel them would destroy the whole design. By these contributions they have earned their right to continue to work for the European culture that they have helped to develop. Yet, though the Jews have taken their due share in the culture and economic development of the nations among whom they dwelt, they have been pursued by hatred and persecution throughout the Diaspora. The origins of this |