"
Mr. Claude Montefiore, who is second to none as an interpreter
of modern Judaism, has lately been writing in a similar strain.
The Jew is a Jew in respect of his religion; but, for the ordinary
functions of patriotism, fighting included, he is a citizen of
the country in which he dwells. A Jewish friend of mine said the
other day to a Pacificist who tried to appeal to him on racial
grounds: "_I would shoot a Jewish Prussian as readily as a Christian
Prussian, if I found him fighting under the German flag_." Thus, to
enrol a regiment of Jews is about as wise as to enrol a regiment
of Roman Catholics or of Wesleyan Methodists. Jews, Romans, and
Wesleyans alike hold with laudable tenacity the religious faiths
which they respectively profess; but they are well content to fight
side by side with Anglicans, or Presbyterians, or Plymouth Brethren.
They need no special standard, no differentiating motto. They are
soldiers of the country to which they belong.
Here let me quote the exhilarating verses of a Jewish lady,[*] written
at the time of the Boer War (March, 1900):
"Long ago and far away, O Mother England,
We were warriors brave and bold,
But a hundred nations rose in arms against us,
And the shades of exile closed o'er those heroic
Days of old.
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