Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/182

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

You Gentiles

Westernized workers, lawyers, salesmen, merchants, manufacturers, contrasting with a corresponding levity or lack of seriousness in the same classes among us? It is incredible. The same language, the same occupations, the same sports, the same pursuits are common to both of us. Let any intelligent man live first for ten years among middle-class gentile families and then change his milieu completely and pass into the environment of middle-class, assimilated Jewish families. What will there be to give him the impression of another world? Will he not find the same amusements, the same ambitions, the same morality, the same taboos, the same abilities and the same stupidities? Do not the Jewish and gentile middle-class families admire the same heroes, vote for the same politicians, read the same newspapers and magazines, frequent the same theaters, weep over the same movies, laugh at the same comic strips?"

But the question cannot be put so simply. This world is yours, and you are the ones who set the standards. You are the ones

178