p. 5 | THE JEWS IN RUSSIA

Pacific Press Publishing Association

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 33.

THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

AT one time all the world honored Israel and came to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and to bring him presents. 1 Kings 4:29, 34; 10:24, 25. But through apostasy Israel fell to a position “worse than the heathen,” and, as a people, they never fully recovered their former glory and prestige. Their dispersion to all nations is still in evidence, and they have ever since been the objects of persecution. When the multitude were following Christ to the place of crucifixion, many of the sympathetic women were weeping because of the abuse heaped upon Him; but He turned to them and said, “Weep not for Me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.” He had special reference to their terrible experience in the destruction of Jerusalem, which came thirty-six years later; but they have lived and labored as a scattered people without friends (excepting those of expediency) until the present time. Few, if any, people have had as little even of Christian missionary sympathy as the Jews.

There are more Jews in Russia than in any other country, and there they are the objects of special animosity, it being deemed a crime to even resemble a Jew. Of conditions there, the Jewish Ledger says:

“It is no surprise that our co-religionists in Russia are in a continuous state of excitement, fully realizing that their lives are in jeopardy, their property and personal effects subject to the mere whims of drunken hordes of moujiks, who come and go at the beck and call of any official who may desire to wreak vengeance upon the Jews.

“De Witte, of whom Americans expected better things, is authority for the statement that the Jews are responsible for the existing conditions in Russia. Regardless of the fact that it is proven that the government is responsible for all the horrors that have been perpetrated against the Jews, and altho again, very recently, the ‘official assurance’ has been given to the United States and England that these excesses will be prevented, it is paramount to any reader of Russian news items that the Jews in Russia are in jeopardy at all times.

“We are led to these conclusions in noting the latest, in reference to the assassination of General Kozloy in the Park of Peterhoff, on last Saturday afternoon.

“Because the countenance and appearance of the assassin is regarded to be Semitic, he is considered by the authorities to be a Jew. Furthermore, it is reported that he was seen in company with two other individuals, just previous to the ‘taking off’ of Kozloy, these parties also looking Semitic.

“By a process of reasoning, peculiarly Russian, the conclusion is arrived at that Kozloy’s assassin was a Jew. He has not given his name or antecedents, tho he openly avowed his connection with the ‘social revolutionary organization’—yet he is a Jew because he looks Semitic.

“It may be predicted that this latest incident in Russia’s affairs augurs no good for the Jews of that country, in fact it is disheartening to note, day after day, the imminent danger environing our co-religionists, and without a ray of hope to thwart the diabolical system, completely organized under the auspices of Russia’s rulers, which can signify nothing less than to keep the unfortunates in the toils.”

If there is a people on the earth that needs Christian sympathy, that needs the Gospel of Christ, it is the Jews. The apostle Paul had a great burden for them (Romans 9), and even when his mission was especially to the Gentiles, in going to a new place he would invariably call upon the Jews first, if any were to be found. But to-day their worst enemies are among those who profess to be Christians, yet one who professes to be a Christian is the last person who can, with any show of consistency, be an enemy to any one. And it is a significant fact that the principal cause of this enmity is Jewish adherence to the Sabbath of the Lord.

Altho the Sabbath observance of the Jews is in the main merely nominal, yet even that is sufficient to call down upon them the censure and even the persecution of those who hold to the Sunday counterfeit institution. While the Jews nominally hold to the law of God, and their persecutors profess faith in Jesus Christ, the Word of God sets up as the standard of truth, “the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. The law of God is not made void by the Gospel, but it is established by it. Rom. 3:31. A double burden rests upon the true missionary of to-day,—that of carrying the Gospel of Christ to the Jew, and that of impressing the importance of the commandments of God upon those who adhere to the ordinances of Rome.

An Installment of Famine Children Just Arrived at the Orphanage.