I would agree with him or condone the matter as the case might be, then point out a few Jewish traits that have irritated Gentiles. The moment I did that, he began to look like a crushed and visual embodiment of the 'Eli, Eli. But then up shot another one. Every criticism of Jewry was a vaunting of Christian superiority. And I had to comfort him: 'Ben, if I say the English are too smug, the Germans too clumsy and pig-headed, the French too material, does that mean that I see no good in them at all, that I call them "dirty English" or "dirty French" or "dirty Germans"?
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Of course we argue about religion. I have been to synagogue with him on the day when he goes, Rosh Hashana. I have found the singing, the music, and the preaching fine, and not so different from Catholic or Episcopal services.
I find little difference between Catholic saints and Jewish angels, between the miracles encountered by Moses and Elijah and those by Jesus. I have admitted that I found strange, and a little comical, the presence of men in black derbies at the altar, the squeaky notes of the Shofar, or ram's horn, the continuous giggling and gossiping throughout the long services Ben has told me you cannot expect people to keep quiet for six hours at a stretch , the absence of that reverent hush that makes the Catholic or Episcopal service inspiring.
For his part, Ben finds genuflections, incense, the intricacies of the Mass, choir boys, processions, holy statues, holy water, and prayers to Christ as a divinity, equally strange, he does not understand how anybody can believe in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth of Jesus. That sounds funny to us. My personal belief, which really has no place here, is that these are symbolical rather than literal truths.
To me the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth mean that the Christ consciousness can be born only in the heart that is immaculate and pure, even as 'Israel' means any and all who live in the ways of God. Ben says there may be something in that, but he does not really believe it because he is not at all sure there is a God. Again, I must tread softly when we talk about religion because, while Ben thinks it perfectly enlightened and proper to ridicule the various aspects of Christian religions, his lips clamp shut when I venture to suggest that Judaism is at least as dogmatic as Catholicism and as jealous of its own, that the Jewish church plays politics quite as much as Rome, wields an international influence equally strong, and, to an avowed agnostic like himself, should present at least as much ritual balderdash—the prohibiting of milk or butter at a meal where meat is eaten, the wearing of prayer shawls and hats by men worshipers at services, the tearful wailing of the cantor, the swaying back and forth of the worshipers at synagogue prayer.
No, Ben is not a churchgoer, but instinct says that the Jewish church is of his people and as such should not be ridiculed or criticized. Like most Gentiles, I read both the Old and the New Testament of the Bible, but neither Ben nor any of his Jewish friends have, so far as I can ascertain, ever honored the New Testament with so much as a glance. I find much in the Old Testament to make me understand the Hebrew character, and I believe a Jew could find much in the New Testament to help him understand the Christian character, though he does not believe in the divinity of Christ, and though he may not believe that Christ ever trod this earth.
Ben will often excoriate a member of his race—and he disagrees with those who hold that the Jews represent a religion rather than a race. As he points out, you can baptize a Jew and turn him into an outward Christian, but you cannot take away his feeling for his people, his racial appearance, or his tastes.
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Ben will often call Mr. Finklelteinier or Mr. Salornor a 'rat' if he sees fit. But if I should do the same he would not like it. He does not care for the Eddie Cantor programme; I do. He likes the Walter Winchell programme, and I don't. Ben's family beams whenever there is mention of such great Jews as Einstein, Epstein, Freud. They nod and smile as if to say, 'Ah yes, where would the world be today if it had not been for our Jewish greats? If you merely mention that So-and-so is a Jew, they suspect you of anti-Semitism. Often Ben voices the age-old complaint of his race: the Gentiles think they are superior to the Jews.
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Face to face, they are polite to the Hebrews, take their money, hold jobs in their firms, buy from Jewish stores, eat at the tables of Jewish friends—then turn around to snicker and sneer behind their backs. This is true, I admit it to Ben, terribly true and terribly wrong, and certainly one of the major causes for the centuries-old friction between the two races.
But then, conversely, it is also true of the Jews. They, in their turn, think they are immensely superior to the Gentiles. If they did not think so, would they still remain Jews after generations of living among Gentiles? Even Ben frequently lets slip the opinion that Jews are much smarter than Christians. And who among the Jews will deny that, while he also does business with Gentiles, eats at their tables, and calls them friend, he also goes away privately rejoicing in his superiority?
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Unfortunately the Jewish publications and the church are not so private about it; they openly vaunt the superiority of their race and do not mince words when it comes to criticizing the Goy in whose land they live. And so the friction has continued through the ages, both sides firmly entrenched in self-righteousness.
And so the friction will continue, now dormant, now bubbling uneasily, now flaring into riots and persecutions. Ben is willing to concede that if it is true that Christians, in the mass, have seldom tried to understand the Jews, to read what they have written about their predicament, it is also true that the Jews have not tried to understand the Christians and to meet them halfway.
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The Jew seldom tries to mingle with the masses. Because of his religion and his traditions he is content to live a life apart from the community, And when persecutions come he bows his head and says it is the will of God. Ben's family speak not without a certain pride when they allude to the curse of Israel and call themselves the martyred race.
They honestly regard themselves as holy victims. They are only too willing to tell you what is wrong with the Gentiles, but neither in the family nor among other Jews have I met one who is willing to admit that some repairs might also be made in the house of Israel.
Almost any intelligent Gentile will admit that our attitude toward the Jews has often been unjust and shameful, though, making the admission, we do nothing at all about it. However, it seems to me that, since both cannot be right in this quarrel of the centuries, adjustments must be made on both sides, and so I tell Ben. We must root out our groundless and arrogant feelings of superiority. They must pluck out the fixed and mystical idea that the Jew is forever doomed to be a wanderer and accursed; instead of turning their faces to the Wailing Wall every time sparks of the ancient friction catch fire, they must make some practical and rational effort to adapt their ways more graciously to the Gentile pattern, since they prefer to live in Gentile lands.
Our hottest argument concerns the question whether there exists such a thing as a Jewish problem. Ben is ready to discuss the separate differences between Jews and Christians, but when I lump them all together as constituting the world's Jewish problem he flares up. Oh, there's a problem all right, he allows, but it concerns only the Jews, and he'd thank the Gentiles to mind their own business and keep their hands off.
To which I reply, 'How can we ignore it when it concerns us as much as the Jews? How can the host ignore the quarrels of the guest in his house? Here the fencing really becomes fast and furious. The answer, according to Plato, is one who places his country and that country's interests above his owns.
Is that true of the Jew? Instinctively he desires first the welfare and advancement of his own people. So long as a country gives him a living and lets him alone, he doesn't much care what happens to it. When things go well, he stays; when things go wrong, he packs up and moves to another country. Where is the Jew who says, 'My country, right or wrong'? Outside of England and America, what country has ever made us feel we could belong? I should feel the same if I were Jewish, But what does this prove? That a Jew is, with few exceptions, first a Jew, and second a citizen of the country where he happens to pitch his tent.
After two thousand years of living with Gentiles he still retains his identity as a Jew—as an alien, if an alien means one who has not been absorbed into the main stream. It is certainly not a different religion that has kept him alien, nor a prominent nose. There are plenty of Gentiles with prominent noses, and the difference between the Jewish church and, say, the Catholic is no greater than the difference between the Catholic and the Greek Orthodox church.
No, what keeps the Jew alien is his alien culture, his alien tradition, his fierce pride in belonging to what he believes a superior race. What is to prevent them from living with others in peace, so long as they behave themselves? And most Jews do behave themselves.
Shall not the lion lie down with the lamb? But when a widowed Holocaust survivor and close friend of ours wanted to marry another close friend, my wife was supportive; clearly they were not going to have any children. Which value is more Jewish? Holding the Jewish community's line on not performing interfaith marriages or the happiness of this couple?
If my wife were a member of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical Assembly, even attending this wedding would be grounds for expulsion. One way of adapting would be to sanction, even encourage, Jewish women in their 30s to date and marry non-Jews. I am not suggesting that it is preferable for Jewish women to marry non-Jewish men, although I have seen a fair share of religiously unenthusiastic Jewish men hold back their wives' spiritual quests. However, I do believe that rather than remaining single, it is clearly preferable for single Jewish women in their mids to marry non-Jewish men who are supportive of their spiritual journey and who will raise halachically recognized Jewish children.
To not enthusiastically embrace this idea would mean that our community is not concerned about the happiness and self-fulfillment of many of its most committed members. To denounce this idea fails to recognize an important, yet largely unstudied trend in Jewish life: That women, more than men, carry the spiritual spark of Judaism.