ile Eyes A PLEA FOR TOLERANCE AND GOOD WILL By JOHN HAYNES HOLMES Published by JEWISH OPINION PUBLISHING CORPORATION NEW YORK 1938 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . . 5 FOREWORD ..................... 7 THE GENIUS OF THE JEW 12 A GALLERY OF JEWS ............... 17 A WORLD JEWISH CONGRESS 23 LET THE JEW PLEAD GUILTY 29 LIVE AND LET LIVE . . .34 PALESTINE Is ZION ......... 40 THE REBIRTH OF ZION ...... 47 THE NAZI THREAT TO FREEDOM ...... 56 THE JEWS OF GERMANY ARE DOOMED 65 THE CRUCIFIXION HISTORY OR THEOLOGY .... 75 ONE COMMON PATH TO GOD ............. 81 INTRODUCTION A . S CHAIRMAN of the Committee on How to Combat Anti-Semitism in America formed Toy OPINION, a Journal of Jewish Life and Letters, I have noted the necessity of furthering the cause of tolerance and good-will among the widest pos sible audience. It is with this in mind that the Com mittee has determined to publish a volume of essays Through Gentile Eyes by Dr. John Haynes Holmes. For more than a generation there has been no more valiant champion on behalf of racial under standing and religious fellowship than Dr. Holmes. His services in this cause are pre-eminent and it is fitting that this volume should appear at a time when it is necessary to stem the tide of prejudice, and to advance the American tradition of brother hood among all creeds and races in our country. GEORGE GORDON BATTLE A FOREWORD speaking, there is no such thing as Gentile eyes. There are only human eyes which are charged with the task of looking with understanding and sym pathy into other human eyes. To recognize that there are Gentile eyes, or Jewish eyes, or any other kind of eyes, is to recognize that there are divisions between men and therewith to dignify and perpetuate these di visions. I would myself have nothing to do with them. I would wipe them out altogether, so that there might be neither Jew nor Gentile, as there should be neither bond nor free. If I look through Gentile eyes, it is not because I would even momentarily live or think as a Gentile in my relations with my Jewish brethren, but only because there are viewpoints, forced upon us by the accidents of history, which may perhaps be utilized to mutual advantage. Speaking from such a viewpoint and to such an end, I am first of all tempted to wonder if the Jews realize the enormous advantage of their position in relation to the Gentiles as compared with the position of the Gen tiles in relation to the Jews. What I have in mind is the fact that they have been for centuries a race persecuted by the Gentiles, and thus must always be seen by the Gentiles as those who have been and still are the victims of their cruelty, lust and hate. Always must the Jew stand as a perpetual reminder r to the Gentile of the latters frailties and sins, of his failure through generations to fulfill the precepts of his religion of brotherhood and peace, of his betrayal of that gospel of love which was brought to the world by the Nazarene who was himself a Jew. Is not the Gentiles now traditional abhorrence of the Jew to be explained to a large extent as in essence his abhorrence of himself in his treatment of the Jew For is it not a familiar fault of human nature to wreak vengeance most terribly not upon the one who has misused us but upon the one whom we have ourselves misused in a desperate endeavor to transfer to another the burden of our offending How ever this may be, the Jew is a living embodiment of all that is most grievous in Christian history. For a Gentile to come into the presence of a Jew is to feel himself em barrassed, stricken with shame, convicted of sin. In the face of the heritage of horror which the centuries bestow upon the Gentile from out the years of oppressive rela tions with the Jew, I marvel that any Gentile can ever find anything in any Jew to blame...
