the vehicle of conversation. It is a dialect which is sixteenth century German in its elements, with an admixture of the language of the country from which the given group of Jewish people come. Thus, among Russian Jews, Yiddish is perhaps 60 per cent German of the sixteenth century type and 40 per cent Polish or Russian. It is a dialect with few characteristics of a language.

3

The Hebrews have always been a migrating people. Out of Mesopotamia they came originally, and settled for a time in Palestine. Into Egypt they moved, and back again into Palestine under the leadership of their "exalted father," Abram. Three world religions trace their origins to Abraham (father of a multitude), as Abram came to be known, namely, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. Thus, the name of Abraham is known. and honored today more extensively even that that of Christ.

Into Egypt a second time, the race migrated. This time Moses, the world's first great labor leader, appeared to champion the cause of his people who had become industrial slaves and to direct them back to Palestine. In Palestine, their adopted home, the Hebrews developed a marked intellectuality, a profound spirituality which gave birth to Christianity, and an ethical code which has affected and molded Western civilization. Along with these constructive tendencies, there arose an excessive individualism which laid the nation open to internal dissension and foreign invasion and conquest. The fall of JerusaGenesis, Chap. XII.

lem did not occur, however, until Christianity had been founded and a new group of forces set in motion which have won the allegiance of Europe and America.

In the early centuries of the Christian Era, the Jews began to migrate anew. In the Middle Ages, we find them wandering throughout Europe, and congregating in Frankfort in larger numbers than elsewhere in the West.

Never having been agriculturists, but possessing a keenness of perception born of migration, the Jews seized the opportunities thrown open to them by the Catholic Church when it forbade the taking of usury, or interest in the current sense of the term, to members of the church. Outside the church, the Jews. alone had the ability to develop the business of money-lending. Further, under the reign of feudalism the Jews had no rights except such as they might secure by bribing the feudal lords with money. Consequently and willingly, the feudal autocrats used the Jews as sponges to draw large sums of money from the already overtaxed masses. To get money, to pay the necessary bribes, the Jews themselves engaged in sharp practices and extortions. Driven to the limits of financial stress by the domineering lords, the Jews resorted to all types of financial trickiness in their dealings with the peasantry. In their ignorance, the people laid the blame for their oppressive conditions upon the Jews. But today, it is noteworthy, when modern Jews live for a time in an environment of fair play, they shake off question

able financial methods and take a place among the most trusted members of the community.

With the awakening of the people in Europe in the time of the Renaissance, and the overthrow of the feudal kings, the Jews lost their means of buying self-protection. They were without rights. They were dependent on the mercy of the people which was nil. They became the victims of the prejudices of the masses. Consequently, the people expelled the Jewish race from various lands, beginning in England in 1290. The Jews were expelled in 1390 from France, and in 1493 and 1495 from Spain and Portugal.

In Teutonic Europe, however, political confusion obtained, feudal sovereigns remained in control, and the Jews continued to secure protection. Poland, in her anxiety to increase her population, invited the exiled Jews thither. As a result, the Jews congregated in the Germanic and Polish regions. When Poland was subdivided in the closing years of the eighteenth century, it contained the largest Jewish population of the world.

Then rose capitalism. With the development of business enterprise and the coming of the capitalistic régime, colossal opportunities opened, which the Jews with their centuries of financial training were quick to appreciate and to seize. By capitalism, the Jew was freed. In 1791, he was emancipated in France; in 1849 and 1858 in England; in 1860 and 1870 in Italy. In Spain and Russia, the Jew is still "in bondage." In Russian Poland his lot has been especially pitiful. He has tried to eke out an

existence, while being crushed betwen the fiendish persecutions of the state and the church above him, and of the infuriated and ignorant peasants beneath. He has been compelled to live in the Pale of Settlement-25 specific provinces out of 89 in Russia. Then in 1882, he was practically driven from the rural districts and villages within the Pale, and obliged to huddle in certain sections of the cities, or to live in cages within a cage.

For centuries the Jew has practically controlled the garment industry in Russia. In the Ghetto in Rome a century ago 75 per cent of the Jews were tailors. This racial habit has led the Jew into the garment trade in the United States and especially in New York City, where today he holds a practical monopoly of the manufacture of men's clothing.

In the name of Christianity in Russia, the Jews during a "pogrom" have suffered reckless destruction of property and have seen their children and aged parents murdered cruelly before their helpless eyes. The very name of Christian causes Russian immigrants to shudder. When they arrive in America their loyalty to Judaism is pronounced. They consider their own the oldest of all widely accepted religions and are likely to feel insulted when attempts are made to "convert" them to a newer religion, such as Christianity. To revile Judaism, they remind us, is to strike at the parent of Christianity. Unfortunately, the effect of America upon many Jews is that of de-Judaizing them without Christianizing them. "My father prays every day; I pray once a week; and my son never prays," is the state

ment of a Boston Jew, which illustrates the effect of America upon the Jew's attitude toward religion. "You don't need to worry," said the leader of a group of Jewish lads to the director of the club from the Young Men's Christian Association, who was afraid that the boys might think that he would try to win them to accept Christianity, "we are all socialists." For many Jews, America has thrown their Jewish faith into disrepute without giving them a religious substitute. As a result, many have turned to intellectual socialism.

Another striking characteristic of the Jewish immigrant is his intellectual tendencies. This Hebrew trait has had a long history. Its origin is found in the patriarchal days of the Old Testament when special attention to the education of the children in the home had become an established custom. The migrations of the Jew from country to country have sharpened his wits and stimulated his intellect. His experiences under oligarchal rule and with the exigencies of continuous poverty have driven him to a wide-spread interest in and acceptance of socialism. When given an opportunity, his mental development is rapid. He attacks the "heavyweights" in economics and sociology with rapacious glee. He furnishes scholars in all branches of learning.

The Jewish immigrant exhibits a remarkable physical vitality and endurance. The birth-rate is high, and the death-rate is surprisingly low, even in squalid tenement districts. His length of life is much greater than that of the average American. His longevity is due, first, to the operation of the