THE TRAGEDY OF JEWISH HISTORY*.. • - Ma. Assiorr has
set himself to sketch "the fortunes of Art0 in Europe from the earliest times to the present daY,774011
• Imo in Europe. By G. F. Abbott. Louden a Macmillan and CO. [1041sefQ Iiiii‘Outline which he gives us in this volume is full, completes jaid clear. It includes necessarily a great deal of material UdtiCh it is not easy to digest or to arrange. It covers an :immense and melancholy subject. It requires, to treat it adeijuately, if not great space, at least great powers of con- .411bissition and selection, a fine sense of proportion, a broad tiettlook, a large sweep of mind. To make the essential fie* of Jewish history stand out from the mass of gloomy mid austere details would tax historical gifts of an order to
'which Mr. Abbott in this book makes no pretence. And it .
ie perba.ps inevitable that an outline of this nature should !leave us at- times unsatisfied; for history, to arrest us, needs not only learning, but imagination, eloquence, strong grasp
of principle, and definiteness of view. But that does not
mean that the volume before us was not worth writing and is not well worthy to be read. It has knowledge, fairness,
industry, and a lucid, pleasant style. And many besides those Who can claim descent from the unconquerable race whose tribulations it chronicles will be glad to have a summary of !elvish history in a form so easy to handle and so agreeable to consult.
Far our own part, we have found the chapters in Mr. Abbott's hook which deal with early history more interesting than those which discuss the present-day problems of Judaism. in Europe. From the days when the Jews made friends of the Greeks in the remnants of Alexander's Empire, illumined the laws of Moses with the philosophy of Plato, and kept the rich coin trade of Egypt in their hands, to the days when Caesar showed them sagacious tolerance both in Alexandria and in Rome, from the days when the Maccabees re-established Jewish worship and traditions under the Selencid Kings, to the days when the Holy City was destroyed and the sacred treasures of the Tabernacle enshrined in the Roman Temple of Peace, Jewish influence in the East asserted itself with unchangeable vigour. Even when Palestine was depopulated, its towns and villages laid in ashes, and Mount Golgotha occupied with a temple to the Goddess of Love, the intrepid ekiles spread and multiplied in every important city of the Empire,—" everywhere and nowhere at home,' says 3fominsen, "everywhere and nowhere powerful." But the triumph of Christianity increased their persecutions, and it was where Constantine's successors were weakest that they prospered most. As the new Christian kingdoms voile on the ruins of the Empire their intolerance of "the con rderers of Christ" tended to grow worse, and the records of the Middle Ages in Europe are one of the darkest pages ii the history of the Jew. Mr. Abbott has dwelt, perhaps almost too freely, on the melancholy story of recurring out- breaks of massacre and oppression, which monotonously vary Jewish history in almost every European State. But in spite of it all the Jews grew rich. Princes, both temporal and spiritual, profited by giving them protection. Rufus farmed out bishoprics to them. - They studied medicine, science, and philosophy. They not only traded in corn and Cattle, silver and spices. They were not only pawnbrokers, pedlars, mechanics, silversmiths. They owned land. They filled offices. They enjoyed precarious favour at some mediaeval Courts, even after the Crusades revived fanaticism, and, urged by the Papacy, rulers . allowed the mobs in their dominions to wreak their hatred on the children of Israel as they pleased. The Castilian poet Halevi, who was born twenty years after the battle of Hastings, found admirers from Palestine to Spain. Moses Maimonides, half Hebraist, half Hellenist, as ardent in pursuit of knowledge as Erasmus, and one of the greatest scholars of his day, though driven from Spain to Pei, to Jerusalem, to Egypt, ended his days in honour and in fame. Jewish navigators helped Vasco da Came in his voyages. Jewish troubadours outshone the singers of Castile. Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Jews on the Rhine. only twenty years after the Second Crusade, reported them to be rioh in prosperity and hope, clinging always pathetically. to that trust ' in a new Messiah which upheld them through all their bitter tribulations, and which more than once produced false prophets to delude their hopes. Even when the Inquisition set its beet • upon them, when the Protestants took up the tale of persecu- tion, and when in the sixteenth century the degradations of the Ghetto reached their worst, there were still a - fee, countries—Turkey, Poland, Holland, and, in the days of Cromwell, gangland too—where Jews could find a, home resting-place. And through it all, through -all the ages of tyranny and evil treatment, the race survived unbroken,-with their traditions preserved, their stubborn faith unshaltens their penetrating mad tenacious genius fighting the world and winning in the end.
Mr. Abbott lays stress rightly on the unyielding aloofneee of the Jews. But we should not regard this as the principal: cause of. their sufferings. We should have thought that it was largely the reault of ill-treatment which steadily intensified their natural pride. The unpopularity of -thai: Jews in European history. is surely to be attributed in no small measure to their great activity, to the remark:. able success with which, aliens as they were, they intervened in the life of the community round them. In, learning, science, music, art, philosophy, they constantly excelled. In every 101'41 of trade which they could touch they prospered. In lie slave trade they were deplor- ably predominant. In the vast and profitable regions a finance they had from the first an empire to themselves. In the Middle Ages the Jew was indispensable to the financial system of the State. Mr. Abbott compares him aptly to a sponge which imbibed the wealth of the nation, and which then was squeezed for the benefit of the Crown. And the Jew, harassed and ill-used on every side, was probably a hard creditor. He financed Kings and nobles, convents and Crusades. He supplied the money for Henry III.'s unpopubiirt . wars and unpopular policy. He was fleeced even by se: saintlier King, Louis IX. of France, "for the salvation of hiis own soul and those of his ancestors." To what extent the desire to burn bonds and to escape from obligations inspired the outbreaks and massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages,' it' would, no doubt, be difficult to say. But their commantl money gave them a dangerous power. Oppressed as they were, they did not hesitate to use it. And fanaticism must often have been but a thin pretext .for destroying a creditor wh&e claims could not be met. As material prosperity has increased, the Jew's power has abated, and the dislike of him has abated too. Even to-day the communities where he is most hated; and where the old and brutal spirit of tyranny towards him kill survives, are the communities where his financial poviiii a mischief are most marked. At the present day, Mr. Abbritt tells us, there are more than ten million Jews "scattered to the four corners of the earth." Nine of these millions five in Europe, and two-thirds of them in Russia, Roumania, cud Poland. In the Middle Ages persecution drove them emit- wards. In recent times, and notably since Napoleon, heir to the Liberalism of the French Revolution, convoked the San- hedrim in Paris after a lapse of seventeen hundred years, tie hope of toleration has turned them to the West. Mein ceaseless wanderings have not ended, and even Zionism bib found no solution of the problem yet. But Mr. Abbott las rendered a service in reminding us how strong and bow historical the Jewish cation is, and how many fine memoriee are gathered round a story which few Christians can look Hsieh O n without shame.
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