Justice Brandeis, of the United States Supreme Court, is also an exponent of the idea that, released from ghetto influences, the Jew becomes less of a Jew. He says:
“We must protect America and ourselves from demoralisation, which has to some extent already set in among American Jews. The cause of this demoralisation is clear. It results, in large part, from the fact that in our land of liberty all the restraints by which the Jews were protected in their ghettos were removed and a new generation left without necessary moral and spiritual support.”
Justice Brandeis is a Zionist on these very grounds. He wants the land of Palestine because there the Jews, as he says, “may live together and lead a Jewish life.”
Not the United States, but Palestine, is Justice Brandeis’ hope for the Jews; he says of Palestine that “there only can Jewish life be fully protected from the forces of disintegration.”
Arguing the same question, the Rev. Mr. S. Levy says: “I shall probably be told that the re-establishment of Jews as a nation would mean the recreation of the ghetto. I am frankly prepared to admit the force of the criticism, but with an important qualification dependent on the interpretation of the word ‘ghetto.’
“In so far as the national center will insure the existence of this Jewish environment, Jewish atmosphere, and Jewish culture, there will be a recreation of the ghetto.” (The italics are Mr. Levy’s.)
“The continuance of Judaism, then, is dependent on the existence of an area with an aggregation of Jews living in a Jewish environment, breathing a Jewish atmosphere and fostering a Jewish culture, and these factors must predominate over all other influences.”