One of the most notable studies of the Jewish Question has come out of the University of the South, at Sewanee, Tennessee. It is entitled “Zionism and the Jewish Problem,” the author being the Rev. Dr. John P. Peters, formerly canon residentiary of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Morningside Heights, New York, also rector emeritus of St. Michael’s Church, New York, and professor of New Testament Languages and Literature in the University of the South. The article has been reprinted from the Sewanee Review and makes a brochure of 29 pages.
Dr. Peters begins with an historical sketch of the development of the two lines of thought among the Jews, the nationalistic which made for exclusiveness, and the religions which made for inclusiveness, and he describes the domination of the latter by the former with the coming of modern Zionism which he finds to be racial and not religious. He says “the dominant control of the Zionist party is at present in the hands of those who are not religious but merely racial Jews.” He believes that the development of race consciousness along these lines “must be inevitably in the end to make the Jews bad citizens of the United States or of any other country and to keep alive and increase the hostility to the Jews....”
This monograph by Dr. Peters will repay study. By permission, The Dearborn Independent reprints the article from page 20 to the end, this portion being selected because it deals with Dr. Peters’ testimony as an eyewitness of certain conditions in Palestine: (The italics are ours, there being none in the university reprint.)
“The experiment of the Zionist homeland is now being tried. It is too early to determine fully how it will work, but it is at least of interest to consider its manifestations so far. My earliest contact with Zionism and Zionistic influences in Palestine dates from 1902. When I first visited Palestine, in 1890, the Jews in Jerusalem were almost exclusively of old oriental Sephardic families. Jerusalem was then still the old Jerusalem