Some cool history nerd over at WeirdJews has dug up a Harper’s Bazaar article from 1898 written by Mark Twain entitled “Concerning The Jews.” In it, Twain answers a letter from an American lawyer who wants to know why the world hates “the Jew” so much when history has shown us to be such a “quiet, undisturbing, and well-behaving citizen… It seems that ignorance and fanaticism cannot alone account for these horrible and unjust persecutions.”

This was written over 100 years ago–before World War I, before the Holocaust, before the birth of Israel. He points out that it can’t be the Crucifixion that started it all, since people hated Jews way before Jesus came to town. He blames it on envy of Jewish smarts, and our way with money.

We got chills when Twain opines that the persecution of the Jews has come to an end, except for “here and there in spots about the world, where a barbarous ignorance and a sort of mere animal civilization prevail; but I do not think that elsewhere the Jew need now stand in any fear of being robbed and raided.” He cites Vienna as a place where Jews could be “comfortably situated.” (Austria? The little country next to Germany that turned over all its Jews to the Nazis practically overnight? Eeek.)

Some things ring rather disturbing, like the bit about Jews taking over industry and lying to the census. But if you slog through some of the old-fashioned language to the end (though mostly the writing is as fresh and clear as a mountain morning), you begin to realize you’ve been had by America’s greatest social satirist. He clearly admires the Jewish people and abhors the stereotypes associated therein, as evidenced in his closing paragraphs.

Read the whole thing and let us know what you think.