Читать книгу A Book of Jewish Thoughts - Various - Страница 45

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IS it a matter of surprise that so goodly a number of our brethren offered themselves willingly among the people? One of the masterpieces of eloquence bequeathed to us by classic antiquity is the funeral oration delivered by Pericles on those who had fallen in the Peloponnesian War. He dilates upon the sources of Athens’ greatness. He portrays in glowing colours how justice is there equally meted out to all citizens, from the highest to the lowest, how all are under the aegis of freedom, and all equally inspired by obedience to law. And he continues: ‘Such a country well deserves that her children should die for her!’ The members of the House of Israel have always faithfully served the country of their birth or their adoption. But surely England deserves that we, her Jewish children, should gladly live and die for her: since here, as in no other country, the teachings of Holy Writ are venerated and obeyed. Here, as in no other Empire in the world, there breathes a passionate love of freedom, a burning hatred of tyrant wrong.

HERMANN ADLER, at the unveiling of the Memorial to the Jewish soldiers who fell in the South African War, 1905.