Fourth Question

In the eyes of Jews, are Frenchmen considered as their brethren? Or are they considered as strangers?

Answer

In the eyes of Jews Frenchmen are their brethren, and are not strangers.

In true spirit of the law of Moses is consonant to this mode of considering Frenchmen.

When the Israelites formed a settled and independent nation, their law made it a rule for them to consider strangers as their brethren.

With the most tender care for their welfare, their lawgiver commands to love them. “Love ye therefore the strangers,” says he to the Israelites, “for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

Respect and benevolence toward strangers are enforced by Moses, not as an exhortation to the practice of social morality only, but as an obligation imposed by God himself.  “When ye reap the harvest of your land,” says he to them, “thous shalt not make clean riddance of the corners of the field when thou reapst, neither shalt thou gather any gleaning of they harvest; thou shalt leave them unto the poor and to the stranger; I am the Lord thy God.” “When thou cutest down thy harvest in the field, thou shalt not go back again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and the widow: that the Lord thy God may bless the work of thy hands.” “Thou shalt neither vex a stranger, nor oppress him.” “The Lord your God doth execute him food and raiment.  Love ye therefore the stranger; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

To these sentiments of benevolence toward the stranger, Moses has added the precept of general love for mankind: “Love thy fellow creature as thyself.”

David also expresses himself in these terms: “The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his works.”  This doctrine is also professed by the Talmud.

“We are bound,” says a Talmudist, “to love as our brethren all those who observe the Noachide Laws, whatever their religious opinions may otherwise be.  We are bound to visit their sick, to bury their dead, to assist their poor, like those of Israel.  In short, there is no of humanity which a true Israelite is not bound to perform toward those who observe the Noachide Laws.”  What are these precepts?  To abstain from idolatry, from blasphemy, from adultery, not to kill or hurt our neighbors, neither to rob or to deceive, to eat only the flesh of animals killed; in short, to observe the rules of justice; and therefore all the principles of our religion make it our duty to love Frenchmen as our brethren.

A pagan having consulted the Rabbi Hillel on the Jewish religion, and wishing to know in a few words in what it consisted, Hillel thus answered him: “Do not to others what thou shaldst not like to have done to thyself.  This,” said he, “is all our religion; the rest are only consequences of this principle.”

A religion whose fundamental maxims are such—a religion which makes a duty of loving the stranger, which enforces the practice of social virtues—must surely require that its followers should consider their fellow citizens as brethren.

And how could they consider them otherwise when they inhabit the same land, when they are ruled and protected by the same government and by the same laws? When they enjoy the same rights, and have the same duties to fulfill? There exists even between the Jew and Christian a tie which abundantly compensates for religion—it is the tie of gratitude.  This sentiment was at first excited in us by the mere grant of toleration.  It has been increased, these eighteen years, by new favors from government, to such a degree of energy, that now our fate is irrevocably linked with the common fate of all Frenchmen.  Yes, France is our country; all Frenchmen are our brethren, and this glorious title, by raising us in our own esteem, becomes a sure pledge that we shall never cease to be worthy of it.

Sixth Question

Do Jews born in France, and treated by the laws as French citizens, consider France as their country?  Are they bound to defend it?  Are they bound to obey the laws and to conform to the dispositions of the civil code?

Answer

Men who have adopted a country, who have resided in it these many generations, who, even under the restraint of particular laws which abridged their civil rights, were so attached to it that they preferred being debarred from the advantages common to all other citizens, rather than leave it, cannot but consider themselves as Frenchmen in France; and they consider as equally sacred and honorable to duty of defending their country.

Jeremiah exhorts the Jews to consider Babylon as their country, although they were to remain in it only for seventy years.  He exhorts them to till the ground, to build houses, to sow, and to plant.  His recommendation was so much attended to that Ezra says that, when Cyrus allowed them to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple, 42,360 only left Babylon; and that this number was mostly composed of the poorer people, the wealthy having remained in that city.

The love of the country is in the heart of Jews a sentiment so natural, so powerful, and so consonant to their religious opinions that a French Jew considers himself, in England, as among strangers, although he may be among Jews; and the case is the same with English Jews in France.

To such a pitch is this sentiment carried among them that, during the last war, French Jews have been seen fighting desperately against other Jews, the subjects of countries then at war with France.

Many of them are covered with honorable wounds, and others have obtained, in the field of honor, the noble rewards of bravery.

A word:

How do the attitudes of others affect our ability to participate as equals in a free society?

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