” The ancient Jew regarded himself quite naturally as the equal of the member of any other race or nation in his contemporary world”

The more the archaeologists dig around Palestine and its environs, the more evidence they discover of the variety and versatility of the activities of the Jewish people. Singularly interested in moral and religious questions they certainly were – else we could not explain Moses, the prophets, … – but not to the exclusion of everything else. All the evidence spells a normal, healthy people and the reason for it is self-evident. The reason was national independence and the integrity that came with the possession of soil, language, liberty and the strength of ethnic cohesion. The ancient Jew regarded himself quite naturally as the equal of the member of any other race or nation in his contemporary world.

Leon I. Feuer, On Being a Jew (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1947), 97.

Leave a Reply