The Jews in Richmond

              
As A MINORITY in the South (though they contributed the most
distinguished member of President Davis' Cabinet) the Jews
were attacked as speculators and shirkers. Here is Maximilian
Michelbacher's defense of his people, published as a preface
to the eminent rabbi's sermon delivered on one of the days of
national prayer recommended by the President.

Brethren of the House of Israel: It is due to you, to whom I
always speak of your faults, without fear, favour or affection,
to say: I have carefully investigated your conduct from the
commencement of this war to the present time, and I am happy
in coming to the unbiassed conclusion, that you have fulfilled
your duties as good citizens and as men, who love their country.
It has been charged by both the ignorant and the evil-disposed
against the people of our faith, that the Israelite does not
fight in the battles of his country!  All history attests the
untruthfulness of this ungracious charge, generated in the
cowardly hearts and born between the hypocritical lips of
ungenerous and prejudiced foes. The Israelite has never failed
to defend the soil of his birth, or the land of his adoption-the
Emperors of France and Russia will bear evidence to the verity
of this assertion. In respect to those Israelites, who are now
in the army of the Confederate States, I will merely say, that
their patriotism and valor have never been doubted by such men
as have the magnanimous souls of Lee, Johnston, Jackson and
others of like manhood. The recorded votes and acts of the
Israelites of this Confederacy, amply prove their devotion to
the support of its Government. They well understand their duties
as citizens and soldiers, and the young men do not require the
persuasion of conscription to convert them into soldiers, to
defend, as they verily believe, the only free government in North
America. Many of our young men have been crippled for life, or
slain upon the field of battle, in the service of the Confederate
States, and there are several thousands yet coursing the campaigns
of the war against those enemies of our Confederacy, who are as
detestable to them, as were the Philistines to David and his countrymen.

The humanity and providence of the Israelite for the distressed
families of the soldiers of our army, have allayed the pangs of
poverty and brought comfort to households, wherein before were only
seen hopelessness and misery. In this you have performed your duties
as Israelites and as citizens- and, for this, may the God of our
fathers shower upon you all the blessings which He confers upon His
favourite children!
There is another cry heard, and it was even repeated in the Halls of
Congress, that the Israelite is oppressing the people -that he is
engaged in the great sin of speculating and extorting in the bread
and meat of the land. To discover the character of this accusation,
I have made due inquiry-the information I have acquired upon this head,
from sources that extend from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, plainly
present the fact, that the Israelites are not speculators nor
extortioners. As traders and as merchants, they buy merchandise and
sell the same immediately; the merchandise is never put aside, or
hoarded to enhance its value, by withdrawing it from the market. Flour,
meal, wheat, corn, bacon, beef, coal and wood are hardly ever found in
the mercantile magazines or storehouses of the Israelite-he buys some
of these articles for his own consumption, but he buys none of them to
sell again-he does not extort-it is obvious to the most obtuse mind
that the high prices of the Israelite would drive all his customers
into the stores of his Christian neighbours; but is such the effect of
the price of the Israelite's goods?
 
The peculiar characteristic of the Jewish merchant is seen in his
undelayed, rapid and instant sales; his temperament does not allow
him, by hoarding his goods, to risk time with his money, which, with
him, is as restless as the waves of the sea that bears the ships that
convey the manufactured goods of his customers. I thank God, that my
investigation has proved to me that the cry against the Jew is a false
one-this cry, though cunningly devised after the most approved model of
villainy, will not subserve the base and unjust purpose of hindering
the virtuous indignation of a suffering people, from tracing the true
path of the extortioner, and awarding to him, who deals in the miseries,
life and blood of our fellow- citizens, that punishment, which the
traitor to the happiness and liberties of his country deserves to have
measured unto him.