Self-portrait of Bert Levy holding his sketchpad. At bottom of page is written "As Bert Levy Sees himself, from the New York Morning Telegraph.

“The International Jew” Study Hour presents:  Carolyn Yeager and Hadding Scott read and comment on Chapter 78, “A Jew Sees His People As Others See Them.”

Bert Levy, an orthodox Jew and  cartoonist of Jewish life in America, particularly of vaudeville,  was born in Australia in 1872, from where he emigrated as a young man to New York.  He died in Los Angeles in 1934. In later years he gave a speech to Jewish groups which he titled “For the Good of the Race,” advising “aggressive” Jews to “Supress thyself!” Some highlights from his speech:

• Upon arriving in New York, he found his beloved Jewish Brethren to be a hurrying, shoving, pushing bunch with no sense of friendship for newcomers;
• Upon recommending himself as a fellow Jew to a Dept. Store Magnate, the man pooh-poohed the idea of Judaism for he had become a Christian “cultist” as being good for business;
• He tells of having a dream on a park bench in which hundreds of thousands of “reformed” Jews marched, promising to “suppress themselves” so as not to anger Gentiles by their bad and dishonest behavior;
• He admires the old Talmudic scholars in their dusty back rooms who care not for material riches, as the “real Jews.”

Note: We are using the Noontide Press publication of The International Jew — The World’s Foremost Problem which can be found online here as a pdf file.