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The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 2 - Jewish poems: Translations by Emma Lazarus
page 21 of 311 (06%)
written probably some months before, entitled "Was the Earl of
Beaconsfield a Representative Jew?" in which she is disposed to
accept as the type of the modern Jew the brilliant, successful, but
not over-scrupulous chevalier d'industrie. In view of subsequent,
or rather contemporaneous events, the closing paragraph of the article
in question is worthy of being cited:--


"Thus far their religion [the Jewish], whose mere preservation
under such adverse conditions seems little short of a miracle,
has been deprived of the natural means of development and
progress, and has remained a stationary force. The next
hundred years will, in our opinion be the test of their
vitality as a people; the phase of toleration upon which
they are only now entering will prove whether or not they
are capable of growth."


By a curious, almost fateful juxtaposition, in the same number of
the magazine appeared Madame Ragozin's defense of Russian barbarity,
and in the following (May) number Emma Lazarus's impassioned appeal
and reply, "Russian Christianity versus Modern Judaism." From
this time dated the crusade that she undertook in behalf of her race,
and the consequent expansion of all her faculties, the growth of
spiritual power which always ensues when a great cause is espoused
and a strong conviction enters the soul. Her verse rang out as it
had never rung before,--a clarion note, calling a people to heroic
action and unity, to the consciousness and fulfillment of a grand
destiny. When has Judaism been so stirred as by "The Crowing of
the Red Cock" and
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