This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. http://books.google.com JusticetotheJew MadisonClintonPeters MADISON C. PETERS JUSTICE TO THE JEW, THE STORY OF WHAT HE HAS DONE FOR THE WORLD. btt y MADISON cf PETERS, Pastor Bloomingdale Church, New York City, Author of "The Great If creaftert" Ll The Panacea for Poverty" etc. There Is no virtue so truly great and godlike as justice. — JOSEPH Addison. The Jews are among the aristocracy of every iand ; If a literature Is called rich In the possession of a few classic tragedies, what shall we say to a national tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, In which the poets and the actors were also the heroes.— George Eliot. F. TENNYSON NEELY, PUBLISHER, LONDON. NEW YORK. Copyright, 1899, by F. Tennyson Nicely in United States and Great Britain. All Rights Reserved. TO REV. DR. H. PEREIRA MENDES, Minister of the Spanish and Portuguese Shearith Israel Synagogue, New York. IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF MUCH KINDLY ADVICE. HELPFULNESS AND ENCOURAGEMENT. THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. LINES TO AN ANTI-SEMITE. Stand ! as God saw thee of old time We see and know thee now : The brand of unforgotten crime Still black upon thy brow. That mark, Eternal Justice traced, Thou coverest in vain; Its blighting stigma uneffaced: Where is thy brother, Cain? Ay, hypocrite, and if thou wilt, White hands, in protest, spread ! The blood by coarser murderers spilt Was at thy bidding shed. Thy speech inflamed each ignorant soul With th ine own maddening wine; And when their fury burst control, Their brutal acts were thine. For thee, the crowded Plaza seethed Round Seville's high-built pyre; And shrinking forms of women wreathed With coiling snakes of fire. Thy servants fanned their ardent breath And watched, well-pleased, the dallying death, That lingered ere it came. LINES TO AN ANTI-SEMITE. But thou hast darker secrets yet, And deeds more dear to hell. The sightless, soundless oubliette Hath kept thy counsel well. The silent nours that crush the heart, The soul-destroying gloom : Thine, devil, was the fiendish art Devised that living tomb. Woe, woe on the unhappy state, That learns thy bloody creed ; And makes her mansion desolate Thy cruel lust to feed. Before one dread, impartial bar Her sons shall find, ere long, How terrible the helpless are, The feeble ones how strong ! Lo! where the dotard empress, Spain, With loosened necklace stands, While those fair jewels, grain by grain, Slip from her nerveless hands ! Unmoved she sees her pearls depart, And smiles with alien eyes ; For heavy on her palsied heart The curse of Israel lies. Foul shark, whose malice never sleeps, On noblest victims fed : What swimmer bold shall cleave the deeps Thy ravin left so red ; And when thy bulk sways up to breathe On that encrimsoned tide, With one unerring home-thrust sheathe His dagger in thy side? — Edwaed Sydney Tyler : London Spectator, Feb. 25, 1899. PREFACE. This is a book of facts rather than opinions. It does not pretend to exhaust the subject. It is not written for the special student of Jew ish history, but for popular use. We believe that the facts here given are very generally un known both to Jews and Gentiles. We speak of non-Jews as Gentiles (in Hebrew phraseology Gentiles were all the nations or peoples besides the Jews) because their treatment of the Jews makes Christian a misnomer. Various are the names by which Jews are known. The Bible calls them "the people of God." Mordecai said: "For he had told him that he was a Jew." From the time of Babylon and the Great Disper sion the descendants of the patriarchs have been called Jews (Jehudim) or descendants of Judah. Jonah said: "I am a Hebrew." He brew is derived from Ibri, meaning the other Viii PREFACE. side of the Euphrates, or from Eber, the great- grandson of Shem. Elijah said: "Israel shall thy name be." Israel (prince or prevailer with God) in commemoration of Jacob's conflict of faith with the heavenly messenger at Peniel. If what we have written will essentially modify the views which the Gentile world holds with regard to the position of the Jew, and will lead Christians to grant to him the possession of the mental, social, moral, and spiritual qualifica tions which history affirms, and if we can make every Jew feel as Lord Beaconsfield felt when taunted in the House of Lords for his Jewish extraction, "I can well afford to be called a Jew," we shall feel well repaid for the labor involved in this refined study of history. M. C. P. SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. pao, JEWISH PRE-REVOLUTIONARY SETTLEMENTS. Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Spanish Jews in the Discovery of America. The First Arrival of Jews in New Amsterdam. Governor Peter Stuyvesant's Persistent Hostility. Denied Civil and Religious Liberty under the English. The High Standard of Excellence of the old Jewish Merchants of New York. Roger Williams, the Pioneer of Religious Liberty in America, attracting the Jews to Newport. The Jews make Newport the formid able Commercial Rival of New York. The Jewish Cemetery at Newport. Address of the Newport Con gregation to Washington and his Reply. The Jews in Philadelphia and Baltimore. The Intolerant Provision in the Constitution of Maryland. Jews in Savannah. Settlement in Charleston. Correspondence between Hebrews and George Washington 17 CHAPTER II. THE NUMBER AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE JEWS. Half of the Descendants of Abraham still Subject to Special Laws. The Number of Jews in the Different Countries of the World. Bright Prospects for the Jews in Palestine. Modern Ideas Gaining Giound 53 CHAPTER HI. THE GROWTH OP JEWISH POPULATION IN THE UNiTED STATES 59 zii CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PATRIOTISM OF THE EUROPEAN JEW. PA(M The Charge that the Jew is not and cannot be a Patriot Refut ed. -Wherever the Jews have been Permitted the Oppor tunity of Fighting for their Country, they have Proved that the Contumely Heaped upon them has not Quenched their Manhood. The Ignominies which were Heaped upon the Jews during the Middle Ages. Relentless and Diabol ical Persecutions. Yet the Jews were never Wanting in Patriotism. In the Spanish Battles they Fought as Brav est Knights. Wherever the Jew found a Friend in his Country his Country found a Friend in Him. The Ger mans as Jew-Baiters. The Jews the most Anciently Cult ured People in the World. The Patriotism of the Jews in the Franco- Prussian War. Their Fight for their Civil and Political Rights in Germany. Not until 1869 were they Relieved from the Mediaeval Yoke. The Emancipation of the Jews in France. The Promptness with which they Rallied under the Banner of the Empire and the Republic when the Safety of their Country was Imperilled. Napo leon and the Jews. Jews in the Hungarian Revolution. Jews in the Italian Army. Jews in England. Their Complete Emancipation not Brought About until 1858. Jews who have Distinguished Themselves in the British Army and Navy 65 CHAPTER V. THE JEW AS AN AMERICAN PATRIOT. Jews in the First Organized Movement for Separation from England. Haym Salomon and Other Jews who Sacrificed Their Fortunes for Independence. Officers who Distin- guised Themselves upon the Battlefields of the Revolu tion. The Commemoration of the first Battlefield of the Revolutionary War made Possible through a Jew. Distinguished Soldiers in the War of 1812. Jewish Pa triotism in the Mexican War. The Jew a Conspicious Figure in our Regular Army and Navy from the Earliest Periods of the Republic. Jews in the Civil War. Officers who Achieved High Distinction. The Part the Jews took CONTENTS. xiii in Creating Public Opinion through the Political Move ments for the Abolition of Slavery. Over 4,000 Jews in the American Army during the War with Spain. Their Gallant and Meritorious Services 89 CHAPTER VI. THE JEVf IN THE ARTS. As Poets — Halevi's Soul-stirring "Lay of Zion." Heine's Account of Halevi. Solomon Ibn Gabirol. Italian, Austrian, French and German Poets. Heine, Goethe's Successor. Selections from Heine. The Poets of England and America. Jewish Novelists. Jewish Dramatists, The Drama in the Early Centuries. The first Jewish Con tributions to the Drama. German, French, English and American Dramatists. Jewish Genius on the Stage. Litterateurs of the EssayistType. Literary Critics. Jew ish Journalists. The Jews in Music. Their Triumphs as Performers as Great as Composers. The Jews as Painters, Sculptors and Architects 109 CHAPTER VH. THE JEW IN THE SCIENOE8. Eminent Philosophers. Philo, Maimonides, Levi Ben Gerson, Maimon, Spinoza, Mendelssohn and Others. Why the Members of Distinguished Jewish Families Abandoned Judaism. Jewish Historians. Antiquarians, Econo mists, Statisticians, Mathematicians, Astronomers, Ex plorers and Philologists. Our Higher Critics Centuries Behind the Jew. Botanists and Biologists. The Jews in Medicine. Their Peculiarly High Position in the Mid dle Ages. As Court Physicians Held the Lives of All Princes and Prelates in Their Hands. Original Discov eries in Medicine. Arabic Medicine the Daughter of Jew ish Medicine. Maimonides' Prayer. The Law. Distin guished Jurists 149 CHAPTER Vni. THE JEW IN POLITICS. Jews who Distinguished Themselves Politically from the Tenth to the Eighteenth Century. The Jews in German Politics. xiv CONTENTS. Famous French Statesmen. The Astonishing Rapidity with which the Jews have Reached the Highest Round iu the Ladder of Political Fame in Italy. The Fight for Equal Rights in England, and the Remarkable Rise of the British Jews in Politics.