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Are you a: Yes, we discuss our differences. Our discussions are not frequent because I seldom think of Ben as being Jewish, and he seldom thinks of me as a Gentile. We are just Ben and Gertrude to each other. It is that way when you love. But when we do have discussions we fire away freely. I know that in many Christian-Jewish alliances it is thought wiser and more conducive to marital harmony to treat these differences as nonexistent, to shroud them in a veil of silence.
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Ben and I have always looked upon this as an unhealthy practice. To throttle a subject and make it forbidden, we think, leads to distortion and often to explosion. However, in our discussions, it is always I who must choose the more tactful way, for Ben, poor darling, still has the Jewish hypersensitivity toward all criticism of his race, for which he and his people are not to be blamed. In the beginning he couldn't take it at all, though he loudly proclaimed that he invited argument, that he wanted to learn the Christian point of view in order to understand more clearly the century-old friction between the two groups.
All right, we would have at it. He would start by saying there was this and that about the Christians that he never could stomach. 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: 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.
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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.
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: 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.
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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? 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.
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.