The
Records of Israel.
Rev.
Sir,—Having been in friendly correspondence with you some little time,
and received from you many expressions of appreciation and good-will, I
cannot believe that you would wilfully be the means of seriously
injuring me; and, in consequence, I am led to address you thus publicly,
believing that when once you have seen the injustice of hasty adoption
of the false charges contained in the “Voice of Jacob” against my
“Records of Israel,” you will at once retract them, by allowing me
sufficient space in your magazine for the insertion of this letter,
containing, as it will, the vindication of my work.
Defects
in my little book I have no doubt there are—for where is there a
perfect work? but those for which you have used the injurious language
of the “Voice of Jacob” to bring forward, I utterly and entirely
disclaim. Instead of being allowed to escape without a trial, Castello
is summoned before the whole conclave of Jewish elders, and by his own father condemned to perpetual banishment,
on pain of death if he return, not only on himself, but on all who saw
him, and did not give him up to justice. Can you in justice call
this escaping without a trial? The sentence may be anti-Mosaic,
because Moses awards death to the murderer; but anti-Jewish it is
not, as the Jews have never had it in their power since their dispersion
to execute capital punishment. There are communities now
existing in Gibraltar and Barbary, who, following the law of Moses,
traditions, &c. in exact accordance with all that can be termed orthodoxy,
in contradistinction to anti-Jewish, yet cannot execute capital
punishment, and in consequence they banish the criminal from the
pale of their societies, under penalty of death if he returns, by giving
him up to the Moorish or Spanish authorities. This is a state of things
existing at this very day,—yet our brethren of these
communities would not like to be termed anti-Jewish, only because
in their captivity they cannot condemn a murderer to death. And,
why then, dear sir, so hastily burthen me with the grave charge of
promulgating anti-Jewish opinions, because, in this instance, as also in
the simulation of Catholicism; I do but portray strictly historical
truth?
Acquainted
as you no doubt are with the history of the Jews in Spain and Portugal,
I cannot but feel surprised that you should allow the mistaken views of
the “Voice of Jacob” regarding simulation of Catholicism so to
actuate you, as to give them forth as your own opinions. I could not
reprehend this simulation as hypocrisy, because I do not consider it as
such. The miraculous preservation of God’s chosen people, and of their
holy Faith, in a land where revealed Judaism was death, is to me so
startling a fulfilment of the prophecy of Moses contained in the 28th
chapter of Deuteronomy, that I can only feel awed at the mighty power of
the Eternal, and admiration of that constancy which preserved us true
and faithful to every ordinance of our religion in an atmosphere of
death. Simulation of Catholicism would now indeed be the vilest
hypocrisy. At the time of which I write, it was the startling fulfilment
of a prophecy written thousands and thousands of centuries before. And
so true a picture is the “Escape” of the history of our
people, that I have been told there are now living in Portugal five or
six families, who, were the tale read to them, would exclaim that they
were listening to the histories of their own families,—that from the
first scene, the marriage in a Catholic church, the lavish lifts to
priests and shrines, to the last, it is but a perfect picture of an age
but very lately passed,—the concealed Jews, or Nuevos Christianos,
as they were called, being compelled to observe still greater strictness
in outward semblance of Catholicism then the Catholics themselves. How
then can so true a picture of modern Jewish history be condemned as
anti-Jewish? and how may it be condemned as hypocrisy, when at that
period, and in those kingdoms, even suspicion of Judaism was death?
Surely,
my dear sir, a more mature consideration of these facts will convince
you that you were over hasty in the adoption of charges which have no
foundation; and that with the candour and liberality which, except
in this one instance, have marked your magazine, you will
retract your first judgment, and remove the heavy charge, which, were it
a just one, must render the little work entirely unfit
for the perusal of Jewish youth, to whom, notwithstanding, you recommend
it. I repeat, that I do not believe you would wilfully publish any thing
likely to injure my reputation as a writer, or my sentiments as a
Jewess, and that therefore yon adopted the words of the “Voice of
Jacob,” without sufficiently considering their very injurious import.
My work has been reviewed by eight or ten different English papers in a
manner not only gratifying and encouraging to me as an author, but as a
Jewess, by the remarks which the tales have called forth on my nation.
Is it not then both strange and somewhat anti-Jewish, that the
press of my own nation, instead of encouraging, should depress,
and instead of gladly hailing a fellow-labourer in the literary path,
burden her with such unjust charges as must tempt her, in weariness and
sadness, to cease working for those, whom, with heart and soul, were she
but encouraged, she would serve?
Trusting
that this letter will prove a sufficient vindication of my little work,
and that by its speedy appearance in your magazine, you will prove to me
and to my friends that my inference is correct, and that you would
shrink from doing me any wilful injury,
I
remain yours very truly,
The
Author of the Records of Israel.
Hackney,
16th August, 1844—1st Elul.
NOTE
by the Editor.—We regret exceedingly that the gifted author of
the Spirit of Judaism should so misconceive our views. We certainly did
not understand the words of our contemporary to mean by
“anti-Jewish” any else than not entirely in accordance with the
received opinions of Jews, not as opposed in a serious manner to the
Jewish religion; for if we had judged the “Records” in this light,
we certainly should not have recommended them as earnestly as we did,
nor have written an extensive notice of the first tale in our
August
number. When an editor discovers what he thinks a defect in a
work, he does his friend but little service by passing it over with
silence; for the public is just as likely to discover it as himself, and
over praise and concealment of blemishes are but too apt to destroy the
popularity of a book after the first excitement of the publication is
over. If the thing is a defect, it can be altered in a new edition; for
good books, though of slow sale, will generally live more than the first
period of their appearance; and if the author is right and the critic
wrong, he may continue in his views despite of the false judgment. Miss
Aguilar insists on the correctness of her views with regard to the
murder of Castello; but she will probably pardon us one remark—that if
the Jews could not punish with death in the first instance, they could
not do it upon the return of the criminal. However, we will not dispute
about the point, and at once cry our “peccavi.” Upon the
whole, criticism is an ungracious task, especially if the subject is a
dear friend, and the work so good a one as the “Records of Israel.”
With all our fault-finding, however, we hope that Miss Aguilar will not
think too hard of us; and sure we are that she has few persons who
admire her genius more, or have a higher opinion of the services she has
rendered to Israel than the
Ed. Oc. |
