ABSTRACT
Perpetual discussions went on, particularly during the nineteenth century-the most historically conscious of all ages-about whether the Jews were a race, or solely a religion; a people, a community, or merely an economic category. Books, pamphlets, debates increased in volume if not in quality. But there was one persistent fact about
this problem, which was in some respects more clearly perceived by gentiles than by the Jews themselves: namely, that if they were only a religion, this would not have needed quite so much argument and insistence; while if they were nothing but a race, this would not have been denied quite as vehemently as it has been by persons who nevertheless professed to denote a unique group of human beings by the term ‘Jew5.
