The Jewish Outlook

The Jewish Family

Henry Ward Beecher, speaking some years ago on family life, said: "It may be said that, in spite of the patriarchal example of early times and later times, the great body of common people among the Hebrews were brought up in the spirit of monogamy, and the household was constituted by the love of one man to one woman. In the rearing and governing of a family of children the household was a great school of all virtue and all integrity. If there be one thing that has been striking in the economy of the Hebrews from the ancient day it is their care of their children; the instruction that they gave to them; their guidance of them in their rising up and sitting down, their going out and coming in. Their great aim was to instruct their children in a knowledge of their own institutions; in a knowledge of the history of their people, and in the knowledge of those ordinances of God which had made that history celebrated. On no other point was there so much urgency in the instruction of their children as on that of character; and in no other nation were children ever reared with more care. That feature was continued down through all mediæval darkness and is characteristic in Jewish households to this very day. In intelligence in home life: in purity, in exaltation of sentiment and in extraordinary care in the teaching of children, there are not to be found in the palmiest communities of the best Christian households those that surpass the best families of the Jews at this time. We have borrowed their example and are rearing our children after the pattern and inspiration of the Jewish household as it has existed from the days of Moses onward.

"Are they the corrupters of morality? Is it in the Jewish family that 'the monstrous spawn is bred that degrades Christian households? It was left for Christian reformers to unloose the bands and throw open the door to every foul solicitation and base temptation that plays about every household in the land. Are the Jews remiss in rearing their children in those elements of education and training which go to make a character distinguished for virtue, integrity and manhood?

"Are they in our poor houses? In which? Are they in our jails? Where? Are they in our reformatories? Point them out! Do their women defile our streets? You cannot find another people in America among whom the social virtues are more rigorously taught and observed than among the Israelites. Exceptions there are, but their characteristics are such as I have represented them to be. They are a temperate people and we are a drunken people. They are a virtuous people and we largely tend to a lascivious people. They are a people excessively careful of their children and there is a great laxity among us in the education of the household. We may well take lessons of them. They were the schoolmasters of our fathers and we may as well go to school to the same masters."