Jews

Israelites or Hebrews. A Semitic people related to the Chaldeans and the Arabians. Tradition derives their descent from Abraham and the patriarchs. The story of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and the twelve sons of Israel, is familiar to the reader of the Old Testament. There were twelve tribes, one for each son. According to the Biblical account they were a pastoral people. During a season of famine they sojourned in Egypt, where they were enslaved and forced to work at grievous tasks, making "bricks without straw." They were rescued and brought forth by Moses, their great leader. They were led by a cloud. They crossed an arm of the Red Sea dry shod and wandered for forty years in the wilderness. At Sinai they received the ten commandments written on two tables of stone. Finally they reached Palestine, the Promised Land, flowing with milk and honey. They dispossessed in part the original inhabitants and settled down, raising the olive and rearing cattle and sheep.

The Jews lived for a time under a form of church government, Aaron being their first high priest. Eli, Samuel, and Elijah were judges. Then came a monarchy. Saul, David, and Solomon were the most noted kings. Jerusalem was taken from the Jebusites and converted from a small fortress into a walled city. The Ark of the Covenant, the sacred symbol of their religion, was placed at rest in the temple built by Solomon, the favorite son of David. The Hebrews got on well with their seacoast neighbors, the Phoenicians, but their country lay in the great highway between Egypt and Babylon. It was impossible to avoid entanglement in the wars between these nations. The kingdom of Solomon was divided into two rival peoples, the ten tribes of Israel and the kingdom of Judah. Both were carried away into captivity, the Ten Tribes to Nineveh, Judah and Benjamin to Babylon. The former have never been heard of since. Judah, whence the name Jews, was permitted, with Benjamin, to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the ancient city.

The birth, life, and suffering of Christ belong to the latter part of this period. In 70 A. D. Jerusalem was taken by storm by the Romans and reduced to ruins. Its very name was changed. The Jews were forbidden to set foot on the site of their ancient city and were commanded to disperse. Since that time the Jews, as a nation, have no history. They have followed the advances of trade into all parts of the earth. Although it was long the dream of the faithful Jew that some time his people would be reunited at the Holy City, and though Jerusalem has now for centuries been open to their return, their ancient hopes seem farther from realization than ever. In fact, the younger element of the race has abandoned the notion. The Jewish Year Book gives the present number of Hebrews at about 11,000,000. They are dispersed throughout the civilized world. There are in

Other countries have from a few hundred to a few thousand each. There are 300 Jews even in China. There are half a million in New York City. London, Vienna, and Lodz, in Poland, have 150,000 each. Zangwill's Children of the Ghetto describes the Jews in London.

For centuries the Jews were forbidden to own land. Their property was literally at the disposal of the spoiler. A Jew might hope for no redress in a court of law. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice shows very clearly how little justice the Jew might expect at the hand of the Christian. In the day of the Inquisition Jews were expelled from Spain, and they have been all but driven out from other countries time and again. After centuries of oppression they are now fairly secure in their rights as citizens in all Protestant and Catholic countries. They are secure also in the land of the Turk, but are still subject to persecution and even massacre in the countries adhering to the Greek Church. In Russia, especially, where the people have a grudge against them as money lenders and foreclosers of mortgages, the Jews have been mishandled frightfully.

Of late a very great emigration has set in from these countries to America. Between 1881 and July 1, 1903, no less than 761,598 Jewish emigrants landed at New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. New York has more Jews than any other city of the world. In this country, they become sellers of fruit, junk dealers, peddlers, tailors, clothiers, merchants, manufacturers, physicians, teachers, money changers, bankers, and traveling salesmen. But, although the cattle on a thousand hills were Abraham's, and David tended his father's sheep at Bethlehem, the Jews are seldom, if ever, gardeners, farmers or stock raisers. In America, at least, they are never beggars. The church cares for its own needy. In New York City, out of a Hebrew population of 500,000, possibly a score of Hebrews, ineligible for one reason or another to their own institutions, are supported at public expense. The Hebrews maintain orphan asylums and halls for the aged infirm in the leading cities of the United States.

In the cities of Continental Europe the Hebrews live in a quarter of their own, known as the Ghetto (Get'to). They build their synagogues without soliciting outside help. They keep the seventh day, that is to say, Saturday, as the Sabbath. Their clergy are known as rabbis. They are strongly Unitarian in belief, regarding Christ merely as an illustrious Jewish teacher. They seek no proselytes, they practice circumcision, reject pork as unclean, and eat no meat not killed under the immediate inspection of their own rabbis. Slaughter houses arrange special hours when the rabbis come to slaughter animals for the Hebrew meat shops.

In addition to having given the Bible and Christianity to the world, the Jews are entitled to respect for their contributions to music, the sciences, and general literature. In music, finance, and statesmanship, they are represented by such names as Mendelssohn, Rothschild, and Disraeli. The true Jew desires that his people shall remain always apart from the world--a sect by itself. The greatest care is taken to bring up children right and to prevent intermarriage with the Gentiles, as all people of the outside world are called. People believe that ultimately the Jews will become merged in the great family of nations. Hebrew is still the language of the Jewish home. For commercial purposes the Jews acquire the language of the country in which they live.

See Josephus; Jerusalem; Red Sea; Palestine; Temple; Bible; Jubilee; David; Absalom