Those who are openly hostile to Jews will say that any proposals coming from their side will conceal a trap. "This people" (they say) "will always suggest things which will seem innocent enough and apparently do no more than define their position plainly for the future; but we shall find ourselves caught in an obligation and the Jews more our masters than ever. They will," say these objectors, "remain as they are to-day, and while they claim every privilege as a separate community, they will also insist upon the full citizenship which is incompatible with this attitude. We shall find that, whatever institutions we ask them to frame, those institutions will work not only in their favour but also heavily against us."
I doubt it. The special Jewish institutions already at work have no such effect. On the contrary, they already relieve the strain. One of those institutions, for instance, is the Jewish press: the newspapers specially devoted to Jewish interests and acting as spokesmen for Jewish ideas. They are not always as polite as they might be. I have had myself at times to lodge a complaint against the way in which they have treated sincere efforts for the settlement of our difficulties and an honest attempt at finding a way out. They have left a handle to their enemies sometimes by too insistent or, as those enemies would call it, too arrogant a claim, and they do write now and then as though we, the vast majority, had no rights and the only thing worth considering was the advancement of their own people.
But, after all, it would be absurd to expect anything else. A small minority vigorously fighting its own hand must exaggerate its claim; an organism defending itself against very heavy pressure from without cannot but appear aggressive, and I shall always maintain that the presence of an openly Jewish institution speaking for Jewish interests, no matter how insistently, is an excellent thing. It presents a healthy contrast with the converse attempt to present Jewish arguments under the cover of neutrality, and to spread Jewish ideas anonymously through what are very far from being neutral agents.