Mission Fields of Jewry. Edinburgh; Glasgow: United Free Church of Scotland Jewish Missions, 1922.
United Free Church of Scotland
JEWISH MISSIONS
Mission Fields of Jewry
PUBLICATIONS OFFICE
121 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH
232 ST. VINCENT STREET, GLASGOW
[49]
MISSION FIELDS OF JEWRY
as described by
Rev. W. S. MATHESON, M.A., Galashiels.
Rev. WILLIAM BEVERIDGE, M.A., Budapest.
Rev. W. M. CHRISTIE, D.D., Glasgow.
Mr. JOHN MORRISON, Constantinople.
And the Editors: Rev. J. MACDONALD WEBSTER and Rev. W. J. COUPER, M.A.
INTRODUCTION.
EVERY kind of missionary enterprise has its own difficulties. These difficulties range from the heathen darkness and corruption of savage lands up through the ignorance of China, the pride of Japan and the contempt of Mohammedans, to the refined philosophies of India. Jewish evangelisation has also its peculiar difficulties. The Christian preacher has to surmount not merely the apparent reasonableness of a faith that is centred in the unity of God and that insists on the sinfulness of sin and the need of reconciliation with God; he has not only to minimise the traditional splendours of the past and to prove that they have been outshone, but he has also to overcome centuries of misunderstanding and hatred. Before he can find even an entrance to anything he has to say he has to break down the prejudice which years of illusage and intolerance have fostered. He has thus to make a treble conquest: he has to create confidence in himself as a valid instructor; he has to show the inadequacy of the faith that is cherished, and he has to convince his possible convert of the desirability of the faith he would instil.
Geographical Distribution.
Perhaps no small part of the difficulty of Jewish Missions is just the geographical distribution of the race. Generally they are gathered together in lands that already are nominally Christian, and it is difficult to persuade some that there is therefore any need for special missions among them. It is argued that they are coming daily under Christian influences and in contact with Christian men. Should these not be allowed to work their leavening processes? Is it not probable that time will favour the gradual absorption of the Jews among the Christian population? Is there any reason to suppose that as a race they are immune from the influences that have welded the tribes of Britain into a people at least nominally Christian and as the motley population of America is at present being moulded into a single race with Christianity as the predominating faith?
The answer is twofold. The Jews have shown a remarkable power of resisting that very assimilation which is depended on. For centuries they have succeeded in maintaining a separate existence where other races would have disappeared long ago. It is true that there have been multitudes of Jews that have vanished into the heart of Christian peoples, but the centre of the citadel in the main stands intact. And the Christian Church does not believe in the all-efficient power of the surrounding Christianity to win the Jews for Christ. If it did, our own Church would not now have missions in Budapest or in Glasgow. Neither the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland nor the United Presbyterian Church would have troubled to send missionaries to London. Nor does the Presbyterian Church of America consider her
______
The Jewish Register. Vol. IV. No. 16. December 1922.—One Shilling per annum.
______
50
neighbourhood sufficient for the millions of Jews in the United States: she is busily organising special missions to her "Jewish Neighbours."
A Scattered Nation.
The mere Dispersion of the Jews also creates another difficulty. With perhaps the exception of the British they are the most widely scattered people on the face of the earth. They have gone wherever the British flag has been unfurled, and they are to be found in many other lands in addition. The difference between the British wanderer and the Jewish is this: The Briton has created a state and sovereignty wherever he has gone; the Jew has been content to live under the rule of some alien people, visited now and again, perhaps, with the dream of a restored and imperial Israel. The Jew is here, there and everywhere, and he has nowhere been able to set up an organised community where his culture and his faith are alone in the transcendent. He is mobile, indefinite and without distinct boundaries. It is true that he has seized upon certain localities in our great cities and there set up ghettos that are more or less emancipated from the thraldoms of the past; but even in such places he is not bound to the soil. He continues to be movable and incoherent, and missions to him there must always be under the strain of possibly missing the mark.
Ghetto Walls Demolished.
Before the War great areas could be pointed out as the Jew's special habitat but these have been modified by the marching of armies, and there is no saying what the future may still have in store for them. Poland and the surrounding regions with the State of New York may be said to be at present the twin foci of the race. In the one case missionary work has been all along inadequate in quantity: in the other it has barely been begun as an organised enterprise. In the one region law is not used to suppress and oppress: in the other law and custom and tradition are all employed to make the Jew's lot unhappy. While therefore the Jew may have achieved a greater liberty and may count himself a freer man than he was a dozen years ago, his liberty makes him more than ever a citizen of the world rather than a citizen of any special State. And that in its turn increases the difficulty of approach to him and consequently the difficulty of evangelising him.
The United Free Church has as yet escaped much of the danger arising from the migratory instincts of those whom she seeks to bring to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, though she has suffered in one or two cases in the past. At present she is settled in places where the Jew is more or less permanent and for that reason, if for no other, her outlook is hopeful and encouraging. With her limited resources she is making sure that her efforts are not being wasted on the outskirts of the problem, while its centre is left untouched. The present issue of the Jewish Register is intended to show how wide and varied her field is and how she is doing the best that lies to her hand. Palestine was dealt with in a former issue.
UNOCCUPIED FIELDS.
By the Rev. W. S. MATHESON, M.A., Galashiels.
LET us take a journey through Jewry that we may see its condition from a missionary point of view. That we may the better visualize the situation let us break up the field into three sections, take but a brief survey of the first two and then concentrate attention on the third which is by far the most important.
Where are Jews to be found? The answer is in every land. There are probably 14,000,000 throughout the world, and they are distributed in every continent and in almost every country.
America.
(1) The Jews in the United States of America and Canada number over 3,500,000,
51
nearly all of whom are in the States. The Churches of both lands are now awakening to the fact that in their large cities there are large numbers of non-Christian peoples for whom but little organised missionary work has been done. A new start has been made, and in particular the Presbyterian Churches, both of the United States and of Canada, have been organising agencies to occupy these hitherto fallow fields. We may be sure that our American brethren will deal with the problem in a large statesmanlike way.
Palestine.
(2) The Jews in Palestine form a field by themselves, and there is a strong sentiment in the heart of every follower of Jesus Christ to see that land not only outwardly but wholly under the banner of the Cross. In the whole of Palestine there are approximately only 100,000 Jews, even allowing for the increase since Britain under the Mandate took over the direction of affairs, but there are more mission stations for them than exist among the whole massed millions of Jews in Eastern Europe. The stations are not by any means fully equipped but they are doing a wonderful work and influencing great numbers for Jesus Christ. Practically the whole land is now mapped out for missionary activity.
Eastern Europe.
(3) From the Baltic to the Bosphorus, throughout Poland and the smaller contiguous states of Czecho-Slovakia, the Ukraine, Rumania, Hungary, Turkey, etc., there are between eight and nine million Jews. A journey through the lands they occupy will not prove happy. It will sadden to see their condition and to learn of the darkness in which they are living. They dwell in lands which have suffered most from the ravages of war; where in the past they were confined within a Pale, in a ghetto life; where superstition, prejudice and hatred of Christ and the Christian have been most pronounced; and where through cruelty, persecution, suffering and death the Jew has been most exposed to savage cruelty—the very lands that most need the healing, the light and the peace of the Gospel.
The Pacity of Missions.
From Danzig to Constantinople only three fully organised mission stations are carrying the Gospel to these darkened millions. Three! only three!—just the number we as a Church had in Palestine to work among some 12,000 Jews. These three stations are situated at widely scattered centres—Budapest, where our own Church is at work; Bucharest, where the London Jews' Society is abundant in its service; and Constantinople, where joint work is carried on by the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church of Scotland. Six million Jews dwell in Poland and the Ukraine, yet there are but five or six mission stations among them, and these are slenderly equipped, some being manned by a single individual only. Czecho-Slovakia has 360,000 Jews and no work at all is being done for their evangelisation. In Transylvania there is a quarter of a million Jews and again no mission or mission worker is found among them. Our Church has been asked to commence work among them and have been promised assistance from the local Presbyterians. Jugo-Slavia and Greece have 300,000 Jews between them and in neither country has a mission been devoted to them. Not one of these fallow fields but is loudly calling for the presence and work of the Christian Church.
One most important point must be noted about Eastern Europe. It is the storm centre of the world at the moment. More than any other portion of the earth it is urgently needing the blessings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The best help the Church of Christ can bring to it is to strengthen and uphold the Protestant Churches which are found in it. No better way of doing this can be found than by placing in their midst missionary institutions for the conversion of the Jew. The happy relationship which exists between the Reformed Church of Hungary and our own Church is the best proof of the possibility of blessing.
52
At Home.
At home we have the same problem. There are 40,000 Jews in the Glasgow area. These are official calculations, not missionary surmisings. Among them all there is but one organised mission, that of our Church under the direction of the Glasgow Presbytery assisted by the Home and Jewish Mission Committees. One mission and that but slenderly equipped! What is that among the thousands in our Western Metropolis? Is there not a field not fully occupied at our very doors? Does it not call for more interest, more labour, more prayer?
______
GLASGOW.
By the Rev. W. M. CHRISTIE, D.D., Glasgow.
IN a city like Glasgow work among the Jews has its own peculiar difficulties, and the methods available are limited. The Church's missions in other lands can command the aid of medical and educational resources, while other missionary societies, both at home and abroad, seek to help inquirers and converts by means of industrial departments. But none of these agencies, nor any substitute for them, can be placed at our disposal. We have no inducements to offer, and all we can do is to present the Gospel on its own merits.
Some Difficulties.
We are sometimes told that the Jew is anxious to be looked upon as a Gentile, and that very often he seeks to conceal his origin under one of our own surnames. The inference is then drawn that this attitude of non-hostility ought to make him the more accessible. We admit what is said as to change of names, and can give examples that to the ordinary mind would be unimaginable. But with it all the Jew who has any religion at all looks upon himself as the "pet" of his God, as a member of "the chosen race," and thinks all Gentile things as unworthy of consideration.
Official Judaism seeks to control, and keep in hand every Jew. They associate him with benefit societies, and separation from these means material loss. He is forbidden to associate with any person or thing that is Christian. His neighbours are encouraged to spy upon him, and disobedience to authority means persecution. The workman at his work is controlled, and if need be oppressed. No complaint or appeal can avail, for the man himself can be compelled to declare that no threat has been made. This state of matters is universal in our city.
The Jew knows that "Christian" prejudice is against him, and that in Glasgow it is bitter indeed. No one can tell a better story, or better appreciate a joke against himself than can the Jew, but when on the one hand he is treated to a sneer, or on the other to patronage, then his resentment is roused and he can think bitter things about Christians. He must be treated as a brother-man.
Another difficulty is that within the British Isles more perhaps than anywhere else, the word "mission" has to the Jew an evil savour. This has come about by what the Jew considers an undue influence in persuading to baptism, and an indiscreet use of charitable assistance, a matter which is easily transformed by Official Judaism into charges of "bribery." Accordingly mission premises are to be avoided, for attendance there means contamination. Many a Glasgow Jew has repeatedly declared to us, "I will meet and talk over matters with you anywhere, but I will never enter a mission hail."
The Attractions.
On the other hand a good many respectable parents would rather see their children spending their evenings with us than playing on the streets. When the age of 14 or 15 is reached, however, they are considered "too old" to continue. Mothers then begin to dress up their daughters, the boys have to go to work, and neither can run risks. A further barrier has recently been set up
53
in the case of the boys, who, it is said, "must attend the Hebrew School."
The bigger girls (up to the age named) are willing to attend Sewing Classes, and so are the mothers, but the inveterate greed of the latter is most irritating. By shuffling they would fain finish off and carry home a garment every night. They are "stiff" in the matter of our teaching, and we cannot but consider their case as the most hopeless. They come for what they think they can get, and the matter ends there. When we consider the nature of those with whom we have to deal, we must admit that material assistance ought to be strictly limited, and dealt out with knowledge, care and discretion.
Visitation.
Getting into the homes has at times been easy, at times difficult. Visitation has, in the interests of those visited, to be done as unobtrusively as possible. From time to time there is an outcry against those that receive us. Neighbours think they have a right to interfere with neighbours, and the visitor is informed when he calls: "the eyes of the authorities are upon us and we may lose our work." Visitation and Tract Distribution from door to door, if carried on directly from the mission, is to be strongly deprecated. We have known an ignorant visitor shut more doors in an afternoon than the whole mission staff could open in a year. Still this work can be done.
Something of our methods is apparent from what has been already said. Six nights in the week something is done, and at our meetings we get representatively at all classes. In addition we try to make ourselves useful to every alien with whom we can speak when they lie sick in our hospitals. Jews who "will not enter a mission hall" gladly meet us in places of public resort, and there we sometimes spend hours more profitably than at indoor work. Gorbals Cross is the great meeting place of Glasgow Jewry, and a regular congregation welcomes us there Sunday after Sunday during the summer months.