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Home  »  The Standard Book of Jewish Verse  »  The Jew to the Gentile

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By Sara Messing Stern

The Jew to the Gentile

THE PRIEST bent angry gaze upon the Jew,

“What base ingratitude. Shame, shame that you

Who love the Father, should deny His Son.

Christ, Jesus, is Divine, with God is one.

His coming was foretold. His glorious birth,

A miracle, His gentle life on earth.

An inspiration and His body bled

For us, that through His death our souls be led

To God. He died for us. Oh, stiff-necked race,

Forever shall the glory of God’s face

Be turned from you. Christ is the Lord. Take heed.

Confess Him and from all your sins be freed.”

……
And swift the Jew replied: “‘Christ is the Lord!’

You forced upon the world with rack and sword.

Your sins are legion. Oh, the awful moan

Of babes and mothers, maids and men and youth

Who died because they dared refuse the truth

You claimed. For these things how can you atone,

How ease your burdened conscience, how forget

The needless misery you caused?

……
“And yet

Although you maimed us with the scourge and flame

And tortured and reviled us ‘in His name’;

We reach our arms in friendliness to you

And plead for peace. We are God’s children, too,

Have known the love and mercy in the Face

He turned to us, His priests and chosen race,

‘Acknowledge Christ,’ you say, ‘and save your soul.

Confess our creed. This is the only toll

Required to enter heaven and from sin

Be freed.’ ‘Serve thou no other God but Me

And love your fellowmen.’ This is our key

To life. We love the Father, He is One.

We need no mediator. ‘Christ, the Son,’

Was but God’s child like all of us. His kin,

The atheist, agnostic, Jew and Turk

And Christian. And his equal, all who shirk

No sacrifice for fellowmen. Some may

Not hold like creed with you. For one will say

He worships Reason. One doubts Christ is King.

One calls God, allah. Does that matter? Fling

Afar your doctrine. Cast aside your fears,

Seek out the weeping ones and dry their tears.

The sick, the halt, the sinner and the blind,

Oh, pity them and love them and be kind.

For, after all, the helpful human deed

By Christian, Turk or Jew to one in need

Can bring more souls to God than all man’s creed.”