But the time
has not come yet to speak about that.
May I be pardoned that in an hour so momentous for the Jews I persist
in speaking not of them and their sufferings, but of ourselves. I
repeat, the Jewish question was never a question for me, and in order
to justify the proposed measures I need not allege the heroism shown
by the Jews in defending Russia, their love for Russia, tragic in its
faithfulness. As for demonstrating again and again that a Jew, too, is
a human being, to do so would mean not only to bow too low to
absurdity, but also to insult those whom I respect and love. And if I
persist in speaking of ourselves and our suffering, it is not for
personal egoism, nor even class egoism, but the pardonable egoism of a
nation, which has been too long playing a miserable part on Europe's
stage and in its own conscience, and which now repudiates the
suffering of yesterday and, at the dawn of new life, seeks the
possibility--oh, only the possibility!--of respecting itself.
Yes, we are still barbarians, the Poles still mistrust us, we are a
dark terror for Europe, a baffling menace to her civilisation, but we
do not want to be that any more, we long for purity and reason, our
wretched rags burden us beyond all measure.
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