Page:Jews and Judaism in America (Ezra).djvu/12

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temple, openly buys sliced ham in a delicatessen store for his Sunday supper, and on Passover eats pigs' knuckles and sauerkraut at the restaurant. In every phase of his ministerial life "his chutzpah reaches to the verge of Heaven"; but as for his being a Jewish rabbi, God save the mark!

Then there is the ham-eating rabbi. He is a modern production. It is true that the Bible strictly forbids any Jew from partaking of swine's flesh whether it appears as Westphalian ham, or served as liver and bacon, pork and neans, or pigs' knuckles.

Latterly, and to the disgust of every self-respecting Jew, there has appeared the Christological rabbi, or the so-called "intelligent Jew," who, seeking to stand well with his "church" colleagues, always speaks of the author of Christianity as "the gentle Nazarene", "the humble Gallilean rabbi", "the Sweet Teacher in Israel", etc., and other allusions which are nauseating to the average Jewish stomach. He generally is a silly young ass without experience, gleaning materials for his homilies from the Christian sermons which he reads. His library is stocked with Spurgeon's, Colleyr's, Beecher's, Phillips Brook's, Guthrie's, De Witt Talmage's and perhaps Cardinal Newman's sermons from which he largely draws. His audience probably never read Christain sermons,

And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head should carry all he knew.[1]

There is the Episcopalian rabbi, who knowing little and caring less about the Jewish liturgy, seeks to conceal his own shortcomings by imitating the Episcopalian form of service. He strives to introduce that non-descript production, yclept the "Union Prayer Book", has "processionals" and "recessionals" at funerals, administers the "rite" of confirmation. Another never preaches Jewish sermons

  1. From Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village. (Wikisource contributor note)