The question presents difficulties. It would not be asked if the answer was obvious. But the answer is not obvious because the name Jew seems to be used with diverse meanings both by Jews and others. Some give the name primarily a racial significance; a Jew is just one who is born of Jewish parents. Others give the name primarily a national significance; a Jew is one who belongs to a distinctive nation which has a culture of its own, a language of its own, national characteristics of its own, and, they would add, needs a national home or political state of its own. Others give the name Jew a religious content; a Jew is one who is an adherent of Judaism.

These diverse, and divergent, uses of the name Jew arise out of the Jews’ long history. The definition of a Jew must be related to the definition of the Jews as a group. What constitutes a Jew obviously depends on the basis and nature of the collective life of Jews. There are, in general, three categories of human groups— races, nations and religions. Into which of these do the Jews fit? Or, to put the question the other way about, which of these descriptions fits the Jews?

No one of them fits the Jews exactly. For one thing, Jews began their collective existence at a time when these categories were undifferentiated; they simply did not exist in the ancient world. They are comparatively modern divisions. There were separate human groups which included in their collective life all, or nearly all, that is now included under the terms race, nation and religion. That is still largely the case in the part of the Eastern world where the Jews originated; though the influences of the West are producing a growing distinction between religion and nation. The conception of nationality is, however, new.

It is not a problem, but a mystery : a mystery, that is, as sin is a mystery, and the redemption. In fact, the so-called Jewish problem is an aspect of the mystery hidden from eternity, the divine plan for man’s salvation, made known by the prophets and by Christ, worked out in history but not fully accomplished or revealed in all its grandeur until the end of time. There is therefore no solution of the Jewish ‘problem’ without the intervention of grace, no understanding of it apart from supernatural revelation. It belongs to ‘those things which proceed from the will of God alone and are beyond all rights of the creature ‘and, therefore, according to the sound principle of St. Thomas, ‘can only be known to us as far as they are handed down in Sacred Scripture, through which the divine will is made known ‘(Summa Theologica, III, q. i, a. 3).

To this theme of salvation, even with the emphasis on the place of Israel in it, the whole of the Scriptures are devoted ; but the locus classicus is the Epistle to the Romans ix-xi. Leaving aside all the details of interpretation, concentrating on the clearest and most generally accepted sense of St. Paul’s words, three facts arc certain :

1. The Jewish nation once possessed a unique—and, in fact, the highest—vocation among the nations of the earth ;

2. They failed, as only the noblest can fail, terribly and—but for God’s grace—without hope of restoration ;

3. Before the end they will return, and their restoration will be as glorious as their failure was shameful, for it will correspond to the grandeur of their first calling.

Christians have, during the last nineteen centuries, talked and written a vast deal about the Jews and Jews have talked and written a fair amount about Christians : in both cases the percentage of rubbish has been considerable. It is comforting to think that in this special number of Blackfriars the usual proportion will be reversed and sense will predominate greatly over nonsense. Indeed, the nonsense will probably be, if at all, in a very mild and inoffensive form. Naturally the present contribution is not included in the last remark.

For thirty years at least I have been a frequent talker and writer on this subject. Few have pronounced or written the word ‘Jew’ as often as myself. That word, lovely in itself and in its meaning— it derives from ‘Judah’ (the ‘praise of Jehovah’)—has at times, as the result of repeated use, lost something of its sweet aroma.

In the early months of what the blurb of a recent modest publication kindly calls my ‘campaigning,’ my conscience accuses me of having made several silly utterances on the subject, for which there lingers in my sub-consciousness a smouldering sense of shame. Some extenuation of guilt may be found in the fact that Judeology—to give it a high-sounding name—is a difficult science, presenting problems comparable almost to those that beset the hapless wight who tries to understand Predestination or Bimetahsm. Anyone who would expound its mysteries must qualify for the task by a course of what Virgil, ni fallor, styles ‘labor improbus.’ As a preliminary, he must, as far as may be, purge his soul of prejudice—a most insidious and deep-rooted disease—and beware also of every form of sentiment that savours of sentimentality. He must endeavour to be objective, concrete and scientific. Let him make sure of his facts and rigorously test his conclusion.

St. Paul states the problem in all its poignancy : Hath God cast away His people? Are the Jews, the chosen ones, no longer the People of God? Paul himself was an Israelite of the seed of Abraham; this he could neither forget nor ever wish to repudiate; though he had ‘put on Christ,’ or rather perhaps because of that very fact, a ‘Hebrew of the Hebrews ‘he would always remain. No one could be more acutely aware than he that the coming to birth of the Christian Church appears a refutation by the facts of all the prophecies and the denial of the divine promises. ‘Jehovah had proclaimed himself a hundred times the liberator and saviour of his people : the Messiah was to be first of all the redeemer of the Jews; Sion was designated in advance as the centre of the Messianic theocracy and a bond of union with the unbelieving nations. But now, not only are the gentiles esntering the Church without first passing through the Synagogue, but they are almost the only ones who are entering, while the) Jews, whose rights seem preponderant, if not exclusive, find themselves shut out from it.’

In chapters ix and x St. Paul has been occupied with various aspects of the problem, first vindicating the justice and faithfulness of God (ix), than (x) touching on the concrete human situation which has given rise to it; in chapter xi he shows the providential reason for it and points the way to its solution.

It is just fifty years ago since Theodor Herzl, a Viennese Jew who, short of baptism, was completely assimilated, went to Paris to report the trial of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Jew and an officer of the French army who, like Herzl, had ceased to be Jewish in anything but name. The extraordinary outburst of anti-semitism to which the trial gave rise and the completely unjustifiable conviction of Dreyfus moved Herzl to the depths. The Jewish problem, the present plight and future destiny of the Jewish people, became the dominating concern of the remaining years of his life. Three years later a Zionist organisation was set up under his leadership. Its aim was formulated foy its first Congress, held at Basle in August, 1897. ‘Zionism,’ the Congress declared, ‘aims at establishing-for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.’

Twenty-five years later, on November 2nd, 1917, a letter was addressed to the then Lord Rothschild by Arthur James Balfour, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government, viewing with favour ‘the establishment in Palestine of a “national home for the Jewish people,’ and undertaking to ‘use their best endeavour to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.’

One of the greatest changes which in recent years has taken place in Church life is due to the fact that the liturgy is no longer regarded merely as the order of the Church’s public and common worship, but as one of the most important expressions of the life of the Mystical Body of Christ. On the other hand, we realise that the liturgy is not only a matter of spiritual meditation, but also a source of practical information on the full reality of our life as children of the election. It could not be expected that this twofold discovery would reveal its full significance at once, yet it is surprising to see how frequently discussions on vital problems of Church life are still carried on without consulting the definite authoritative teaching contained thereon in the liturgy. With regard to the Jewish problem, it is evidently due to the almost overwhelming influence of excellent studies by non-Catholic writers that Catholic authors draw only from the source of Holy Scripture and of theological speculation. Thus Fr. Przywara, S.J., Professor Erik Peterson, Leon Bloy, Jacques Maritain and many others have written on Christian-Jewish relations without making reference even to the most obvious liturgical text concerned with Jews, namely the Solemn Supplications of Good Friday.

After praying for the various grades of the hierarchy, for the absent members of the congregation, and for the catechumens, heretics and schismatics, these Supplications conclude with petitions for the Jews and the Heathens.