The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 | Page 9

mental capacity
gradually developed. And as men delight in that which they do well,
there was an ever widening appreciation of things intellectual.

Is not the Jews' indomitable will--the power which enables them to
resist temptation and, fully utilizing their mental capacity, to overcome
obstacles--is not that quality also the result of the conditions under
which they lived so long? To live a Jew during the centuries of
persecution was to lead a constant struggle for existence. That struggle
was so severe that only the fittest could survive. Survival was not
possible except where there was strong will--a will both to live and to
live a Jew. The weaker ones passed either out of Judaism or out of
existence.
And finally, the Jewish capacity for hard work is also the product of
Jewish life--a life characterized by temperate, moral living continued
throughout the ages, and protected by those marvellous sanitary
regulations which were enforced through the religious sanctions.
Remember, too, that amidst the hardship to which our ancestors were
exposed it was only those with endurance who survived.
So let us not imagine that what we call our achievements are wholly or
even largely our own. The phrase "self-made man" is most misleading.
We have power to mar; but we alone cannot make. The relatively large
success achieved by Jews wherever the door of opportunity is opened
to them is due, in the main, to this product of Jewish life--to this
treasure which we have acquired by inheritance--and which we are in
duty bound to transmit unimpaired, if not augmented, to coming
generations.
But our inheritance comprises far more than this combination of
qualities making for effectiveness. These are but means by which man
may earn a living or achieve other success. Our Jewish trust comprises
also that which makes the living worthy and success of value. It brings
us that body of moral and intellectual perceptions, the point of view
and the ideals, which are expressed in the term Jewish spirit; and
therein lies our richest inheritance.
The Kinship of Jewish and American Ideals
IS it not a striking fact that a people coming from Russia, the most
autocratic of countries, to America, the most democratic of countries,

comes here, not as to a strange land, but as to a home? The ability of
the Russian Jew to adjust himself to America's essentially democratic
conditions is not to be explained by Jewish adaptability. The
explanation lies mainly in the fact that the twentieth century ideals of
America have been the ideals of the Jew for more than twenty centuries.
We have inherited these ideals of democracy and of social justice as we
have the qualities of mind, body and character to which I referred. We
have inherited also that fundamental longing for truth on which all
science--and so largely the civilization of the twentieth century--rests;
although the servility incident to persistent oppression has in some
countries obscured its manifestation.
Among the Jews democracy was not an ideal merely. It was a
practice--a practice made possible by the existence among them of
certain conditions essential to successful democracy, namely:
First: An all-pervading sense of the duty in the citizen. Democratic
ideals cannot be attained through emphasis merely upon the rights of
man. Even a recognition that every right has a correlative duty will not
meet the needs of democracy. Duty must be accepted as the dominant
conception in life. Such were the conditions in the early days of the
colonies and states of New England, when American democracy
reached there its fullest expression; for the Puritans were trained in
implicit obedience to stern duty by constant study of the Prophets.
Second: Relatively high intellectual attainments. Democratic ideals
cannot be attained by the mentally undeveloped. In a government
where everyone is part sovereign, everyone should be competent, if not
to govern, at least to understand the problems of government; and to
this end education is an essential. The early New Englanders
appreciated fully that education is an essential of potential equality.
The founding of their common school system was coincident with the
founding of the colonies; and even the establishment of institutions for
higher education did not lag far behind. Harvard College was founded
but six years after the first settlement of Boston.
Third: Submission to leadership as distinguished from authority.
Democratic ideals can be attained only where those who govern

exercise their power not by alleged divine right or inheritance, but by
force of character and intelligence. Such a condition implies the
attainment by citizens generally of relatively high moral and
intellectual standards; and such a condition actually existed among the
Jews. These men who were habitually denied rights, and whose
province it has been for centuries "to suffer and to think," learned not
only to sympathize with their fellows (which is the