The immediate cause of the new gravity apparent in the Jewish problem is the Revolution in Russia. The completely new feature of open discussion now attaching to it (a thing which would have seemed incredible in England twenty years ago) is the leadership the Jews have assumed in the economic quarrel of the proletariat against capitalism.
Most people, therefore, on being asked the cause of friction between the Jews and their hosts at this moment will reply (in England, at least) that it lies in the anti-social propaganda now running loose throughout Industrial Europe. "Our quarrel with the Jews," you will hear from a hundred different sources, "is that they are conspiring against Christian civilization, and in particular against our own country, under the form of social revolutionaries."
Such a reply, though it is the almost universal reply of the moment in this country, is most imperfect.
The friction between the Jews and the nations among which they are dispersed is far older, far more profound, far more universal. For a whole generation before the present crisis arose, the comparatively small number of men who were hammering away steadily at the Jewish problem, trying to provoke its discussion, and insisting on its importance, were mainly concerned with quite another aspect of Jewish activity—the aspect of international finance as controlled by Jews. Before that aspect had assumed its modern gravity the reproach against the Jews was that their international position warred against our racial traditions and our patriotisms. Before that again there had been the reproach of a