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I had previouly read press articles which gave the opinion that the Berner Street club members were not "good" Jews.
However I was surpised at the vehemence and vitriol of the article below in which the club members are described as "not Jews," "vile creatures" and compared to "disgusting reptiles"!
These are the relevant highlights from what is a long article
Comments on the Berner Street club
Jewish Standard
22 March 1889
SOCIALIST SABBATH BREAKERS
The so-called procession of Jewish unemployed which nearly provoked a riot last week, and which actually culminated in some discreditable cases at the Thames Police Court, would be scarcely worthy of serious notice but for the publicity which the general press has given to its ridiculous proceedings.....
So many people calling themselves Jews... cannot fail to instil a poisonous dislike of our people in many bosoms...
We contend that the men concerned in the demonstration of last Saturday are not Jews in any sense of the term. They and their action have been disavowed by every meeting of genuine Jews, foreign or English, that has been held this week. They may have been born of Jewish parents, but here their Judaism began and ended. They are not unemployed, except in the sense that they prefer loafing to honest work...
The guiding spirits of this outrage upon all the loftier feelings of humanity belong to the Berner Street Club. They are Jews by birth, but they are Socialists and Atheists by profession. These are the men who had a festival banquet on Yom Kippur. If they prefer not to believe in God, that is their lookout; but that they should go out of their way to deliberately insult the Jews from whose midst they have sprung, by violating the most sacred day in the year, shows that they are vile creatures for whom no contempt can be too strong, who excite the loathing called forth by the most disgusting reptiles. We can see no connection between Socialism and Judaism. Socialism is a revolt against the unequal distribution of the good things of this life, and is therefore a revolt against the inscrutable decrees of the Most High...
To talk as these pestilent agitators talk is to cause bad blood between the rich and poor, to make enemies of those who should be friends. Such men may have ends of their own to gain by propagating such nonsense. It is the duty of every Jew to expose their fallacies, and to take his stand upon the laws of political economy and the Divine command to help the poor.
However I was surpised at the vehemence and vitriol of the article below in which the club members are described as "not Jews," "vile creatures" and compared to "disgusting reptiles"!
These are the relevant highlights from what is a long article
Comments on the Berner Street club
Jewish Standard
22 March 1889
SOCIALIST SABBATH BREAKERS
The so-called procession of Jewish unemployed which nearly provoked a riot last week, and which actually culminated in some discreditable cases at the Thames Police Court, would be scarcely worthy of serious notice but for the publicity which the general press has given to its ridiculous proceedings.....
So many people calling themselves Jews... cannot fail to instil a poisonous dislike of our people in many bosoms...
We contend that the men concerned in the demonstration of last Saturday are not Jews in any sense of the term. They and their action have been disavowed by every meeting of genuine Jews, foreign or English, that has been held this week. They may have been born of Jewish parents, but here their Judaism began and ended. They are not unemployed, except in the sense that they prefer loafing to honest work...
The guiding spirits of this outrage upon all the loftier feelings of humanity belong to the Berner Street Club. They are Jews by birth, but they are Socialists and Atheists by profession. These are the men who had a festival banquet on Yom Kippur. If they prefer not to believe in God, that is their lookout; but that they should go out of their way to deliberately insult the Jews from whose midst they have sprung, by violating the most sacred day in the year, shows that they are vile creatures for whom no contempt can be too strong, who excite the loathing called forth by the most disgusting reptiles. We can see no connection between Socialism and Judaism. Socialism is a revolt against the unequal distribution of the good things of this life, and is therefore a revolt against the inscrutable decrees of the Most High...
To talk as these pestilent agitators talk is to cause bad blood between the rich and poor, to make enemies of those who should be friends. Such men may have ends of their own to gain by propagating such nonsense. It is the duty of every Jew to expose their fallacies, and to take his stand upon the laws of political economy and the Divine command to help the poor.
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