Oriental indifference.

One of man's most grievous crimes is indifference, inattention to his
neighbour's fate; this indifference is pre-eminently ours.

The situation of the Jews in Russia, which is a disgrace to Russian
culture, is one of the results of our carelessness, of our
indifference to the straight and just decrees of life.

In the interests of reason, justice, civilisation, we must not
tolerate that people without rights should live among us; we would
never have tolerated it, if we had a strong sense of self-respect.

We have every reason to reckon the Jews among our friends; there are
many things for which we must be grateful to them: they have done and
are doing much good in those lines of endeavour in which the best
Russian minds have been engaged. Nevertheless, without aversion or
indignation, we bear a disgraceful stain on our consciousness, the
stain of Jewish disabilities. There is in that stain the dirty poison
of slanders and the tears and blood of numberless pogroms.

I am not able to speak of anti-Semitism in the manner it deserves. And
this not because I have not the power or the right words. It is rather
because I am hindered by something that I cannot overcome. I would
find words biting, heavy, and pointed enough to fling them in the face
of the man-haters, but for that purpose I must descend into a kind of
filthy pit. I must put myself on a level with people whom I do not
respect and for whom I have an organic aversion.

I am inclined to think that anti-Semitism is indisputable, just as
leprosy and syphilis are, and that the world will be cured of this
shameful disease only by culture, which sets us free, slowly but
surely, from ailments and vices.

Of course, this does not relieve me of the duty to combat in every way
the development of anti-Semitism and, according to my powers, to
preserve people from getting infected by it. The Jew of to-day is dear
to me, and I feel myself guilty before him, for I am one of those who
tolerate the oppression of the Jewish nation, the great nation, whom
some of the most prominent Western thinkers consider, as a psychical
type, higher and more beautiful than the Russian.

I think that the judgment of these thinkers is correct. To my mind,
Jews are more European than the Russians are, because of their
strongly developed feeling of respect for work and man, if not for any
other reason. I admire the spiritual steadfastness of the Jewish
nation, its manly