Alice Bailey - Autobiography - Chapter III
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Autobiography of Alice A. Bailey - Chapter III
I shall never forget as long as I live the extraordinary
kindness of the man who owned the grocery store in the little town where I was living and
where Walter Evans had his last charge in the San Joaquin diocese. We owed a couple of
hundred dollars on our grocery bill, though I was quite unaware of the fact. Word, of
course, had gone around the village of everything that had happened. The morning after my
husband had been sent away to San Francisco, the telephone rang and it was the grocery
store. The owner was a Jew and a very ordinary looking Jew. I had never done anything for
him except be courteous and, being British, had made it evident that I had no anti-Jew
feeling. There has never been any anti-Semitic attitude in Great [118] Britain,
particularly in my youth there. Some of our greatest men have been Jews, such as Lord
Reading, Viceroy of India, and others. This man asked me over the phone for my order. I
asked him how much we owed him and he said, "Over two hundred dollars" but that
he was not worrying as he knew it would be paid even if it took five years. Then he added,
"If you don't send in an order I shall have to send up what I think you need and you
wouldn't like that, would you?" So I turned in an order. When the groceries arrived
at the rectory that morning I found an envelope with ten dollars "incidental
cash" in it which he had sent up, in case I was short of ready money, and which he
had added to the bill as he knew I would not accept charity. He also asked for the key to
our mail-box, so he could look after my mail for me. I have felt and still feel deeply
indebted to him. It took me over two years to pay off his bill but it was paid, and each
time I sent him five dollars on account I would get back a grateful letter from him just
as if I had done him a favor.Apart from the fact that I had been brought up in England
where no anti-Jew feeling has prevailed and where the problem of the Negro is better
understood than in the United States, I have been deeply indebted to members of these two
suffering minorities. The problem of the Negro has always seemed to me simpler than that
of the Jew, and one that can be much more easily solved.
The Jewish problem has seemed to me well nigh insoluble. I, at this time see no way
out, except through the slow process of evolution and a planned educational campaign. I
have no anti-Jewish feeling; some of my most beloved friends such as Dr. Assagioli, Regina
Keller and Victor Fox I love devotedly, and they know it. There are few people in the
world as close to me as they are, and I depend upon them for counsel and understanding and
they [119] do not fail me. I have been officially on Hitler's "blacklist"
because of my defense of the Jews whilst lecturing up and down western Europe. In spite,
however, of knowing full well the wonderful qualities of the Jew, his contribution to
western culture and learning and his wonderful assets and gifts along the line of the
creative arts I still fail to see any immediate solution of their crucial and appalling
problem.
There are
faults on both sides. I do not here refer to the faults or rather the evil criminality of
the Germans or the Poles towards their Jewish citizens. I refer to all those people who
are for the Jews and not against them. We Gentiles have not yet found out what to do in
order to liberate the Jews from persecution - a persecution that is many, many centuries
old. The Egyptians in the early phases of Biblical history persecuted the Jews, and
persecution has been their record down the years. I hesitate to state my conclusions but
am going to do so in the hope that it may help. It is only possible however very briefly
to bear on one or two points, and from the start it must be necessarily inadequate.
There must be some basic cause for this constant and ceaseless persecution, some reason
why they are not liked. What can it be? The basic cause probably lies deeply rooted in
certain racial characteristics. People complain (and it is frequently true) that the Jews
lower the atmosphere of any district in which they reside. They hang their bedding and
their clothing out of the windows. They live on the streets, sitting in groups on the
sidewalks. But for centuries the Jews were tent dwellers and had to live this way and may
still react to hereditary qualities. The complaint is made that the moment you permit a
Jew to get a footing in your group or business organization, it will not be long before
his sisters and his nephews, his uncles and his aunts [120] are in it too. But the Jews
have had to hang together in the face of centuries of persecution. It is claimed that the
Jew is strictly material, that the all-mighty dollar matters more to him than the ethical
values and that he is quick and expert in taking advantage of the Gentiles. But the Jewish
religion lays no emphasis upon immortality or upon the life after death, and this is true
because I have discussed this problem with Jewish theological students. Why, therefore,
should they not get the best out of life along material lines? Let us eat and drink and
get worldly goods for tomorrow we die. All this is understandable but does not make for
good relations.
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