Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 edition. Excerpt:...for us to put up with rudeness and with temporary annoyances, than to run the risk of seriously injuring our business, and lessening our gains.' ' If the worst happens, we can but let ourselves be baptized,' said Samuel, ' and then we can no more be called Jews than the Hamburgers themselves.' " What good would that do? ' exclaimed a shabbylooking Jew, with a long beard. ' It is not on account of our religion that they persecute us; it is only our wealth and the luxuries we can afford, that excite their envious dislike. Our handsome houses are our misfortune, and our splendid equipages; our beautiful villas on the Elbe and the Alster, and all the braggadocio of our young fops. Go about like me, with a matted beard and tattered garments. Live well in the privacy of your own houses, but let not your abundance be seen by anyone. You will then find that no one will envy you, or persecute you. Let the children in the street point at us, and abuse us. Is it not for being what it should be our pride to be called? If they even treated us as if we were lepers, they could not prevent us from affairs, and in our wedlock; we multiply, and fill all lands, and devour the marrow thereof; we are really the lords of the people, though we do not blush to seem their slaves.' This advice was rejected by the richer and more modern Israelites, who had no inclination to array themselves in sackcloth and ashes, and to relinquish the ostentatious display of that wealth which, in the midst of so many humiliations, and with so many equivocal acts, and little tricks in trade, they had amassed. ' No, no! I know a much better plan,' said one of the richest men present, who had originally been a '...