p. 164 | The Return of the Jews by Dudley Marvin Canright

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 24, 1877

The Return of the Jews.

By Dudley Marvin Canright

A CERTAIN class of prophetic interpreters are anxiously awaiting the return of the Jews to Palestine. On this all their theories and hopes depend. But this is not only unscriptural but foolishly absurd. The following upon this subject from the World is right to the point:—

“THE JEWS IN PALESTINE.

“What the Jews would do in Palestine if they got there has never yet been considered by the Christian bankers, stock-brokers and clothiers who are most enthusiastic in favor of their return to Palestine. There are some 10,000 Jews in Palestine now, and it is easy to see how they live. They live on the Jews who do not live in Palestine, but this mode of life obviously depends upon the number of Jews who reside out of Palestine, and cannot be practiced on a very large scale without losing its profitableness. The amount of subsistence is inversely as the number of resident Jews. If all the Jews went back they would need to take with them a Gentile population in something the same ratio as holds in Europe and America, in order to preserve their business. It is a well-known fact that Hebrews are not given to agriculture or the mechanic arts. Nothing is so uncommon as a Jewish farmer, a Jewish shoemaker, or a Jewish carpenter. Yet it is upon farmers and mechanics that Palestine, like other countries, would rely for its prosperity if it had any.”

“A stock exchange in a country where there were no railroads would be a hollow mockery, and yet a dozen stock exchanges would not give scope to the speculative activity of the Jews of Europe and America. Similarly the number of banks necessary to meet the requirements of a country without money would not be great, and there would be from fifty to a hundred thousand astute and experienced bankers gathered together with no raw material to work upon. The only other resort would be the trade in wearing apparel, which in the event of the reoccupation of Palestine would, to put it mildly, be overdone, considering that something like a third of the total population would be engaged in it and that the remaining inhabitants would have no wherewithal to pay for clothes. Such a community, even though enlightened by liberal lectures from Professor Adler, would not be gratifying from a social, economic, or sentimental point of view.”

“Of course all modern talk about the return of the Jews is an absurd anachronism. In the middle ages it had a meaning, because Jews were continually made to feel, by the fierce attentions of mediaeval dentists, and by the scientific curiosity of mediaeval inquisitors, generally taking the form of the vivisection of Jews, that they had in Christendom no continuing city. Then it was that the advantages of portable property were impressed upon them, and the

necessity of keeping themselves in light marching order, and it was this necessity which forced upon the Jews the industries which they still follow. The return to Palestine will be practicable when every Jew has enough money in consols to support himself in opulence without work.”

These are solid facts. All the Jews are fully aware of these insurmountable difficulties and hence make no effort to gather the nation back there.

D. M. CANRIGHT.