Some could follow the talk and ever again endorsed
the speaker in Yiddish or Russian; others listened with tantalized
expressions, their brows knit, their lips moving.
It was a discourse Benham had provoked. For now he was at the very
heart of the Jewish question, and he could get some light upon the
mystery of this great hatred at first hand. He did not want to hear
tales of outrages, of such things he knew, but he wanted to
understand what was the irritation that caused these things.
So he listened. The Jew dilated at first on the harmlessness and
usefulness of the Jews.
"But do you never take a certain advantage?" Benham threw out.
"The Jews are cleverer than the Russians. Must we suffer for that?"
The spokesman went on to the more positive virtues of his race.
Benham suddenly had that uncomfortable feeling of the Gentile who
finds a bill being made against him. Did the world owe Israel
nothing for Philo, Aron ben Asher, Solomon Gabriol, Halevy,
Mendelssohn, Heine, Meyerbeer, Rubinstein, Joachim, Zangwill? Does
Britain owe nothing to Lord Beaconsfield, Montefiore or the
Rothschilds? Can France repudiate her debt to Fould, Gaudahaux,
Oppert, or Germany to Furst, Steinschneider, Herxheimer, Lasker,
Auerbach, Traube and Lazarus and Benfey? .
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