have always been distinguished for their respect for learning
and their zeal for education. In the Ghettos of Europe, under the most
discouraging conditions, their Rabbis kept alive the ancient learning,
and through many centuries gave the elite of the rising generation
some mental training, when no instruction was to be had by the masses
of mankind. A persecuted race, provided it retains its vitality and
elasticity, receives admirable training in loyalty to its ideals. In
the case of the Jews this was a loyalty not only to race, but to
religion; and religious loyalty is the finest and most sustaining of
all loyalties. The religion of the Jews emphasizes an ideal to which
the Jewish mind and heart have responded ardently from the earliest
times--the ideal of righteousness. Loyalty to this ideal includes
loyalty to race, family, religion, and all righteous persons. The Jews
believe that righteousness alone exalteth a nation, a family, or a
man.

_Will the Jewish Race Meet the Test of Liberty?_

For two thousand years the Jews have led their daily lives under
exposure to bodily harm, injustice, and all sorts of disaster, and
under such grievous trials have preserved their ideals. The race is
now to be put to another and severer test. In the free countries of
Europe and America the Jews enjoy complete political and industrial
liberty. They were for centuries excluded from most professions, arts,
and industries, and were driven into trade and money-lending. Now all
callings are open to them. In the Middle Ages there were only a few
directions in which a successful Jew could safely spend his money. Now
he can spend it in any direction--wisely and beneficently, or
foolishly and ostentatiously. Will the race bear liberty as well as it
has borne oppression? The liberty, which is the only atmosphere in
which the strongest men and women can develop, often causes the
downfall of weak-willed human beings. Rich Jews, like other rich
people, are in danger of becoming luxurious--the more so because the
race has been cut off from military service, and has not been addicted
to out-of-door sports. The worst destroyer of sound family and
national life is luxury. If the race is to meet successfully the test
of liberty, it will get over its apparent tendency of the moment
towards materialism and reliance on the power of money, hold fast to
its social and artistic idealism, and press steadily towards its
intellectual and religious ideals