THE WORLD AND THE JEW
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR]
Sut,—Mrs. Agnes Hamilton, though a friend of the Jews, quite rightly prefers a critical diagnosis of the attitude felt towards them by the average non-Jew to a false idealisation of that unhappy people. But that is no reason why, after con- demning the Nazi persecutions of the Jews, she should have embarked on an analysis of the Jewish " character " which plays right into the hand of the Jew-baiter.
For that analysis which posits as the Jewish " character " a compound of the less pleasant characteristics of the capitalist bourgeoisie, while based on elements of truth, is as a whole a half-truth and like all half-truths, dangerous.
As Mrs. Hamilton herself admits, it does not apply to the vast mass of Jewish poor, but I submit that even of the Jewish bourgeoisie, it does not hold good, even as a rough and ready theory. For it leaves out of account the good qualities shared by that class with the poorer Jews—their charity, innate humanity, and loathing for physical cruelty of any kind.
Nor does she explain why it is that those qualities that " were virtues in us " or at least not vices should be accounted ,unto evil when found in the Jew—his industry, talent, &c.— nor why faults of loudness, ostentation, &c., should be regarded as peculiar to the Jews or more wicked in them than in us.
But far more important is her mistake of endowing a group, particularly one so scattered and heterogeneous as the Jews, with a " personality " which she pretends to analyse and apply to individual cases. However necessary for social theory such generalisations may be they fall to the ground entirely when used as a basis of criterion for social conduct. Here the only safe rule is to treat people as you find them and not impose on them a ready-made personality, fabricated of prejudice and crude sociology.
It is only on the basis of such crude generalisation that cne may speak of a " pet " Jew as though he were an exception to the " ideal " Jew of evil fame or treat the aged grandmother and the new-born bat e, the bloated plutocrat and the struggling student, the boss and the lover of his lass, all as representative; of a common degenerate " idea " because they happen to be Jews: Finally, Mrs. Hamilton, though condemning, has failed to explain the amazing disproportion between the alleged faults of the Jews, as individuals or a group, and the loathsome cruelties inflicted on them as a whole by the Gentile vindicators of social righteousness.
Perhaps the reason is that she has failed to realise that Anti-Semitism is not so much a Jewish question as a question for the non-Jew. " Why do we persecute them ? " The foreman who connected the Nazi persecution of the Jews with his personal resentment, however trivial or imaginary, shows the terrible leap from exasperation to crucifixion that the demon within us may take against a defenceless minority. After behaving for thousands of years like devils to the Jews we have no right to expect them to behave like angels ; we ought, however, at least to be thankful that they have neither the strength nor the wish to avenge their martyred flesh.—
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