Note (return) — Chapter II
Reading edition
Fortunately for the Jews of those times—says a writer—their civilization was by far superior to that of the Christians. The rabbi, though in no way inferior to the priest mentally, was immeasurably above him morally. The students of the yeshibot, despite their exclusive devotion to the study of the Talmud, yet were better equipped for intellectual work, were of broader minds and better manners, than the pupils of the Jesuits. And the Jewish ba'ale battim, with an education as good as that of the Gentile shlyakhta, had a more ennobling and elevating object in life.6