DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.5074#0288
270
JEWISH LABOUR.
heart. In Europe this struggle is sometimes a terrible
one — but there the honest man can always earn a crust;
in Jerusalem who can describe its sufferings to those
from whom the lowest and meanest source of main-
tenance — that of alms — is taken away ? At present,
if a Jew is converted, he struggles on miserably for a
short time, until he and his family are forced with deep
reluctance into exile, and they pass away to Europe
or some country where they can support themselves by
their own labour, instead of remaining in the land of
their fathers, where they would be not only examples
to others, but also firm ground from which to work for
the conversion of their brethren.
Knowing this well, the Societies who have planted
the missions here supply something for the support
of the newly-converted Jew at first: this, however,
cannot long be continued, and is at best shifting the
evil to another hand; honest labour is the mainspring of
that independence which makes a man, and which the
Jew, long bowed down under the heavy consequences of
the curse, almost requires to enable him to listen to
the truth asserting itself in his heart, instead of con-
tinuing to lean only on the effete traditions of the
fathers of his race. Mere alms-giving in this case has
another evil also, — it enables enemies and opponents to
say, however unjustly, as the Latin Patriarch said to us
one day; " We cannot make converts as you do, we
have not the funds ; your mission is endowed with the
power of money,— with the Jew and with the Turk
words can do little." It was useless to contradict the
assertion, though entirely untrue, but the utmost care is
needed to give no colour to such an accusation.
And, therefore, those who look on the Jews as their
elder brethren — as the chosen of the Lord, whom in the
JEWISH LABOUR.
heart. In Europe this struggle is sometimes a terrible
one — but there the honest man can always earn a crust;
in Jerusalem who can describe its sufferings to those
from whom the lowest and meanest source of main-
tenance — that of alms — is taken away ? At present,
if a Jew is converted, he struggles on miserably for a
short time, until he and his family are forced with deep
reluctance into exile, and they pass away to Europe
or some country where they can support themselves by
their own labour, instead of remaining in the land of
their fathers, where they would be not only examples
to others, but also firm ground from which to work for
the conversion of their brethren.
Knowing this well, the Societies who have planted
the missions here supply something for the support
of the newly-converted Jew at first: this, however,
cannot long be continued, and is at best shifting the
evil to another hand; honest labour is the mainspring of
that independence which makes a man, and which the
Jew, long bowed down under the heavy consequences of
the curse, almost requires to enable him to listen to
the truth asserting itself in his heart, instead of con-
tinuing to lean only on the effete traditions of the
fathers of his race. Mere alms-giving in this case has
another evil also, — it enables enemies and opponents to
say, however unjustly, as the Latin Patriarch said to us
one day; " We cannot make converts as you do, we
have not the funds ; your mission is endowed with the
power of money,— with the Jew and with the Turk
words can do little." It was useless to contradict the
assertion, though entirely untrue, but the utmost care is
needed to give no colour to such an accusation.
And, therefore, those who look on the Jews as their
elder brethren — as the chosen of the Lord, whom in the