Henry Ford

“SUPPOSE these articles should be truly a sign of the times for American Jewry! Suppose they offer a warning word, however unwelcome, and a light, however undesired, which it would be most unwise for Jews to ignore.

“Suppose these articles were conceived in a spirit far different than the average pro-Jewish spouter is competent to understand. Suppose the ultimate benefit will be mostly Judah’s. Suppose the set time has now come for the Jews to quit their attitude of attacking everyone who shows them the truth, and to profit by this report of the poor figure they cut in American life today. Suppose these people who are moved to search and report the truth about Judah are truly the shophar calling the people to a new day — is it wise to let stubbornness counsel? Is it wise to let pride close the ear?

“The enemies of the Jews are those who defend them for the pay of hire or praise or votes. The enemies of the Jews are those who bespeak them fair to their faces and express quite different thoughts behind their backs. The writer of this personally knows that two of the principal ‘Gentile’ defenders of the Jews, men who have shouted and ranted through the Press on the Jews’ behalf, are men who privately hold and express thoughts about the Jews which are sheer hatred and enmity and—fear. Mostly fear! The enemies of the Jews are those who encourage them to take an attitude that they cannot hold in America—not as affecting their personal liberty at all, but their social attitude and the Public Right. These are the enemies of the Jews, and yet these are the ones whom Judah counts his friends. They are hired friends, false friends, incapable of realizing for a moment what this whole Question means. Judah’s friends today are those who will speak the surgical truth to him, braving his fury in the knowledge that the future will justify the word.

“Judah’s leaders have betrayed him in this country—they do not know they have crossed the Jordan. The Jews are as sheep without shepherds in this land. And the chief objection which the Jewish leaders have to THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT is that the Jews may read it and learn how shepherdless they are, the Jewish leaders’ opposition to THE DEARBORN INDEPENDENT rises mostly from the fear that the Jews may read it! The Jews have read it, and they have not found hatred, they have not found abuse and calumny, they have not found ignorance and malice; they have found statements of fact calmly set forth, not to arouse hatred among the non-Jews, but to arouse a sense of social responsibility among the Jews.

“These are significant times. The emergence of the Jewish Question is a part of the culmination of destiny that has come upon us, not for harm but for good. The Jews must uncover their eyes and unstop their ears, and they will see the beginning of the end of their travail, and they will hear that to which they have been too long heedless.

“The justification of a discussion of the Jewish Question is the good of the Jews, and the greatest present obstacle to that good is the Jews themselves. The time is here when they shall see it.”

— Henry Ford and the staff of The Dearborn Independent, Vol. IV, Chapt. 79, 1922

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