The Jewish Voice (St. Louis, Missouri) (November 9, 1900)
A CRITICISM
By Reb Aaron, of Chicago.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE JEWISH VOICE :
In your issue of the 2nd inst. you print on your editorial page an utterance of the Mainzer Israelit and call it an "exceedingly thoughtful and serious article. '' As far as I have any knowledge of German Jewish conditions, and that is almost since half a century, the said journal has never been taken seriously; it represented that small but powerful party that always played the character of what we call here the "yellow press. " I need only mention here the attitude it maintained against the late Dr. Isaac M. Wise. It is, indeed, very "thoughtful" to compare the situation of the German Jews with that of the Roumanians and to declare the former not better off than the latter. And why ? Because some radon sheets and howlers of the so-called anti-Semites print: "Do not buy from Jews. '' Those Jews whose trade would be materially influenced bv the utterances of that pack, may perhaps deserve to be driven from their communities. Any one who with an unprejudiced mind looks upon the conditions of Germany will be satisfied that the prosperity existing there has been enjoyed by our co-religionists, too, and if occurrences like those at Konitz and Neu-Stettin have alarmed us in general, they could easily be accounted for by peculiar circumstances, which, to here explain may take too much space. That much I will say: They are not at all such which confer any glory on our co-religionists in those parts of Prussia. Here I wish to dwell upon the advice of the Lehmann paper: “Till the soil!" Where? if you please. Shall the Jewish tradesmen move en masse into the villages? And where is room to be found for them? Anyone knowing the conditions in the German villages will agree with me that the German "Bauern"' are as jealous to keep any intruder out of their estates, as are the "noblemen. " Now, shall perhaps the Jews jump from the frying pan into the fire? It has become the fad everywhere in these blessed United States, too, to advise poor people to go to "till the soil, " but no one so far has answered the question: How to do it. A good beginning has been made at Ahlem, in Hannover, and at Doylestown in Pennsylvania. But the results of these agricultural schools cannot come from to-day till to-morrow. To say to a tradesman, a peddler, or a merchant: Go out of the city and go to farming or gardening, is the same as telling a carpenter to play first violin in an orchestra. They can't do it, because farming must be learned and practiced as everything else.
The trouble with our Jewish calamity howlers is that in the first place they only cry out, what the bad anti-Semites do, but entirely forget to tell us what the bad Jews do, and there are such, too—We should not be like the ostrich, put our head under cover believing the pursuer doesn't see us. In the second place they always want to make experiments with the poor Jews. If the Mainzer lsraelit can induce a dozen of the well-to-do wine merchants of Mayence and the same number of drygoods and leather-merchants of Frankfort-on-the-Main to go out, buy farms, employ Jewish young men and women as servants and laborers, that would give an impulse to hundreds and even thousands of families, for nothing is more effective in this world than to be able to show the people some success. The same holds good with our Zionists. Endeavor to have a few hundreds of people who are in a position to pay their way, go out to Palestine, buy land, hire laborers to work it, and if successful inform their friends, and I am sure the whole question will be solved in less than no time. But what do you want to accomplish with the poor Russian and Roumanian Jews? Are there not among them well-to-do people? If I am not mistaken, I have heard of even millionaires in Petersburg, Moscow, Jassy. Where are they? Let them come to the front.
As far as the Mainzer Israelit is concerned, it can be asserted that salvation for the German Jews will not come from him and its followers : if they have not caused the existence of anti-Semitism in Germany, they have done many things to increase it. The "Gemeindebund, " "Verein zur Abwchr von Anti-Semilismus, " the B'nai B'rith Logen, Ahlem Ackerbauschule, Verein zur Förderung des Handwerks, and many other endeavors to destroy race and religious prejudices, these are very much alive in Germany and they will accomplish all the good aims that are on their programme, notwithstanding the utterances of the Mainzer Israelit to the contrary.
Finally referring to your closing remark that the advice is timely also for this country. I wish to repeat: The school in Doylestown, founded by Dr. Krauskopf, is a good start, so are the colonies in existence and the agricultural Society of Chicago. We know, even without reading the Mainzer Israelit, that going on in this direction would be the right action, but, as Montecuculi said about the war, there are needed three things: 1st, money, 2nd, money, and 3d, much money. If the Jewish press in this country can induce the people to supply that in sufficient amounts, then all would be well and good.