Abstract

The Challenge of our Jewish Neighbours. "' In multiplying will I multiply thy seed as the stars in heaven." HIS Old Testament promise and prophecy concerning the people of Israel from whom our present-day Jews emanate, seems to be approaching fulfilment. There are some 16,000,000 Jews in the world to-day. In spite of centuries of exploitation, persecution and attempted annihilation, they are more numerous than ever before; they have survived and outlived the peoples and nations-Egyptians, Persians, Romans, 01d Spain, Czarist Russia-which endeavoured to annihilate them. To-day the Jew is everywhere .. No country is without Jews. The Jew is at home in all lands, but has no homeland of his own, not even in Palestine, where the Arabs begrudge him the right to establish a cultural and spiritual centre in accordance with the terms and provisions of the Balfour Declaration. Although everywhere, the Jew is wanted nowhere. He is the most scattered of peoples, yet the most united; without a nation of his own, he yet has a greater sense of raCial oneness than any other people. He is the most international, but at the same time possesses the greatest national and cultural self-consciousness of all peoples .