actions towards their neighbours, men in power oppressing the
multitude, and the multitude earnestly endeavouring to destroy men
in power.[823]

It is futile then to maintain as do the Jews and their friends--for the
pro-Jew is frequently _plus royaliste que le roi_--that all the faults
of the modern Jew are to be attributed to bitterness engendered by
persecution. Judaism has always contained an element of cruelty[824]
which finds expression in the Talmud. It is from the Talmud, not from
the Mosaic law, that the inhuman methods of Jewish slaughtering are
derived.[825] The Talmud likewise gives the most horrible directions for
carrying out capital punishment, particularly with regard to women, by
the methods of stoning, burning, choking, or slaying with the sword. The
victim condemned to be burnt is to have a scarf wound round his neck,
the two ends pulled tightly by the executioners whilst his mouth is
forced open with pincers and a lighted string thrust into it "so that it
flows down through his inwards and shrinks his entrails."[826]

It will be said that all this belongs to the past. True, the practice
here described may be considered obsolete, but the spirit of cruelty and
intolerance that dictated it is still alive. One has only to study the
modern Jewish press to realize the persecution to which Jews are
subjected from members of their own race should they infringe one
fraction of the Jewish code.

If, then, "the modern Jew is the product of the Talmud," it is here that
we must see the principal obstacle to Jewish progress. It is said that
Isaac Disraeli, the father of Lord Beaconsfield, gave as his reason for
withdrawing from the Synagogue that Rabbinical Judaism with its
unyielding laws and fettering customs "cuts off the Jews from the great
family of mankind."[827] Such a system is indeed absolutely
incompatible not only with Christian teaching but with the secular ideas
of Western civilization. The attitude it adopts towards women would be
in itself sufficient to justify this assertion. The Jewish daily prayer,
"Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, that Thou has
not made me a woman!"[828] is a ludicrous anachronism in the present
age. According to the Talmud a service can take place in the Synagogue
only if ten persons are present, which number ensures the presence of
God in the assembly. Drach explains however that these persons must all
be men. "If then there were nine men