language, a savoury mixture of German and Hebrew. Of the many strange paradoxes in the romantic history of Israel not the least strange is this, that the Jewish nation should have found a home and refuge in that desolate and remote corner of Eastern Europe once ruled by the Jesuits, and that the destiny of the Jews should have become so closely associated with the fate of a Catholic people, which, like the Jews, has only an ideal existence; which, like the Jews, has been oppressed and suppressed, and which, like the Jews, has asserted its vitality in the face of economic degradation and political martyrdom.
VI
A few essential facts emerge from the most cursory analysis of statistical data, and from the most superficial observation of present-day social and political conditions, and those facts emphatically contradict some widespread assumptions about the Jews.
The first current assumption is that the Jews as a nation are rich. As a matter of fact, the enormous majority of the Jews are wretchedly poor, the enormous majority are a proletariate exploited and sweated by ruthless capitalists.
