Letters to the Editor
LIBERAL JUDAISM AND THE MODERN STATE .
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] .
Sin,— I have•no desire to criticize in detail the article which Dr. Mattuck supplied to the columns of your issue of Oct.16th, However, I feel it my duty, as Chief Rabbi, to remove from your readers a misconception under which, I think it. more than probable, most of them will have been placed by its perusal. . . •
The article itself, setting out to prove that the modern State cannot make nationality depend on religion, and that Jews are worthy of and entitled to full English citizenship, is exactly seventy years behind the times. Complete Jewish emancipation was won in 1857—at least a generation before there was a single Liberal Jew to be found in England ; and it was won by Zionists like the noble philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, and staunch believers in Traditional Judaism like Baron Lionel de Rothschild, who declared that civil and religious equality for the Jew would indeed be dearly bought if it entailed the weakening of Jewish brother hood.
The main thesis of Dr. Mattuck's paper, that it is the duty of each denomination to make its contribution to the life of a nation, as a religious community, is more than questionable. Its logical consequence is that economic questions would be discussed and decided not by experts but by clerical doc- trinaires or sentimental amateurs. In England, at least, there is no room either for sectarian political parties or for the priest in politics. -
But I must deal with the one underlying assumption in Dr. Mattuek's paper. Because Liberal , Judaism denies the teachings of the Bible in regard to Zion and the Restoration, Dr. Mattuck assumes throughout his article that Liberal .Judaism is something better, wiser, more loyal than what he terms the religion of the Orthodox Jew. This he represents as maintaining " the prerogative of being inconsistent."
The position he thus adopts is an utterly untenable one. The Liberal Jews in this country are a mere handful ; and throughout the Empire they number only about 1 per cent. of its Jewish population. In most other countries where there are large Jewries—e.g., Holland, Poland, Rumania— Liberal Judaism is non-existent. In France there is only one Liberal Synagogue. Though there are several hundred such congregations • in America: the land of religious vagaries, Orthodox Synagogues are at least ten times as numerous in that country. But to suggest, as Dr. Mattuck does, that only those who embrace Liberal Judaism can be regarded as loyal citizens is, although I hope it was not so intended, an un- warrantable aspersion upon the overwhelming majority of Jews throughout the world. These cling to their Sacred Faith and place Zion—the hearth of pure religion, the home of prophecy, and the spiritual lodestar of Israel's wanderings-- above their chief joy. To this religious loyalty they join, in accordance with the specific teaching of Holy Scripture (Jere- miah xxix. 7), another loyalty—a loyalty of love and reverence for their native land ; a loyalty that, when occasion arises, leads them gladly to lay down their lives in defence of that native land. • I regret to say that this is not the first time of late that prominent Liberal Jews have thought it consistent with their principles to pillory their fellow-Jews in the public Press, alleging by implication their disloyalty to the countries of which they arc subjects.—I am, Sir, &c., J. H. HERTZ, Chief Rabbi.
Office of the Chief Rabbi, 4 St. James's Place, Aldgate„.E.C. 3.
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