Part 13
_Jessica_ I am the Jessica who married him, But not his wife if wifehood is a state That presupposes more than legal rights. I and Lorenzo are as strangers now And less than strangers, less than enemies.
_Antonio_ I grieve to hear it.
_Jessica_ I would have your grief Not for myself but for my father here. He speaks the truth. He has no more to give.
_Antonio_ Then let him call upon his wealthy friends, The other Jews will trust him if he asks.
_Jessica_ You heard him say he knows not where to sue.
_Antonio_ O, that was but the cunning of his race.
_Jessica_ Unfeeling man! If his deserts are dumb What of your obligation due to me? The Court's decree as you no doubt recall Was that the half of his estate should go To you to hold in trust for me and mine. I charge you now upon your Christian faith To give my father all the residue That will be mine when he shall pass away Or take it for yourself and let him go.
_Antonio_ Three obstacles prevent your sacrifice. The first is that though my intent was fair By bad investments more than half the fund Has disappeared, and all that doth remain Would not suffice to satisfy the bonds. The second, that the sum is payable Upon your father's death, which is not yet. But third and most of all the money goes To you and to your husband, not to you. The gift is joint and neither can alone Claim all himself or any several part. Indeed, I own it frankly, my desire In asking that the Duke should so decree Was not to benefit Lorenzo's wife, A Jewess, who was never aught to me, But solely to befriend Lorenzo's self My coreligionist and distant kin. To give you anything of Shylock's gold Without Lorenzo's will would be a wrong, A breach of trust, a patent injury. And if your separation from his love, As shrewdly I suspect, be fault of yours And growing from thy Jewish wilfulness, It would be most unfaithful and untrue That I should thus reward inconstancy. You see, in honor and before the law I must refuse to do as you request.
_Jessica_ I see that Jesus died in vain for you. His Jewish heart, with pity for the low And meek and humble broke upon the cross And for a time the magic of his words Restrained the beast in Gentile followers, But soon the kindly Stoic lost his sway And cruel bigots in his Jewish name, By his offenceless, mild authority Took fire and sword and hatred for their flag.
_Antonio_ My girl, there is a law 'gainst blasphemy.
_Gratiano_ Why stand we here and listen to her spleen? Away with Shylock. Take him to the gaol.
_Antonio_ Come on.
_Jessica_ No! No!
_Shylock_ Resist no more, my child.
_Jessica_ Oh, father, we may never meet again; Your age and suffering cannot endure The shock of this disgrace.
_Shylock_ 'Tis better so. I pray for death. It cannot come too soon. Farewell.
_Jessica_ Farewell. (_Throws her arms around him_) Yet not a long farewell, I shall not far survive. It is no sin To end a life of misery and shame.
_Isaac_ (_behind scenes_) Where is my master? Where has Shylock gone? (_Enter Isaac._)
_Gratiano_ Here fellow, here he is. With Jessica He poses like a model for the arts.
_Isaac_ Great news and wonderful. His ship is here And laden full of gold. The mine is found And Issachar and he are princely rich. This cargo is the greatest that has come To Venice since the city first began.
_Antonio_ I do rejoice to hear it. Truly Jew I have no wish to do thy body harm But thou and thy relations are well known To be so deep in craft and villainy That to recover what is justly due We Christians must resort to rigid means. Go freely with thy daughter. Later on When ev'rything's in order I'll return And you may pay me what the balance is.
(_Exit Antonio and Gratiano, followed by Isaac. Shylock still stands expressionless with Jessica's arms around him._)
[Illustration: Signature: Wmln. Blatt]
Jewish Students in European Universities
BY HARRY WOLFSON
(_Concluded_)
_Judaism and Jewish Students in France_
The decadence of native Judaism in France has become proverbial. The original French Jews never amounted to much; and the Alsatian immigrants, while still supplying rabbis for the pulpits, have of late begun to disappear from the pews. You may state it is an axiom that the synagogue will have to go a-begging for a quorum wherever church-going is unpopular. But French Judaism has recently been gaining reinforcement by the influx of newcomers from Eastern Europe. Paris might be considered next to London the greatest centre of Jewish immigration in Europe. In fact, Paris as well as some large cities in the Low Countries, and to some extent even London, have since the beginning of the Jewish movement towards the United States, become the refuge of a considerable number who straggled behind the migratory columns and were unable to reach their final destination. Free from any official molestations and rather welcomed by the native Jews, the foreign Jewish community in Paris has flourished in its own way. It numbers by this time about twenty-five thousand souls, a large proportion of whom were born and brought up in the French capital.
It is these young French Jews of immigrant parentage, students and professional men, who organized themselves, about two years ago, in an "Association des Jeunes Juifs," known by its initials as A. J. J. The aim of that organization, which is non-partisan in Jewish affairs, is both cultural and practical. It publishes a monthly by the name of "Les Pionniers," and occasionally holds debates and lectures on various Jewish topics. It also carries on a program of social work among the immigrant Jews. I might perhaps give a clearer idea of the object of the A. J. J. by reproducing their following declaration: "Notre But.--Nous voulons nous affirmer 'Juifs' sans forfanterie, mais avec fermeté; cultiver, développer parmis nous, faire connaître au dehors, l'âme juive; nous éduquer mutuellement; demander, par les voies légales, le respect, la justice pour tous,--fussent-ils juifs; aider nos frères émigrés à l'aquérir la qualité de citoyen; inculquer à nos membres les principes de solidarité et de mutualité." In the summer of 1913, Dr. Nahum Slouszch of the Sorbonne submitted to the society a scheme for more extensive activities, both Jewish and patriotic in their scope, namely, the participation in educational and social work among the indigenous Jews of the French possessions in Africa.
_The Jew of the Roman Ghetto_
It is a pity that so little is known to us about the life of the Jewish masses in Italy. The fame of the Nathans and Luzzattis has led us to believe that in Italy Jews form the class of society from which mayors and statesmen are recruited. But in Italy the majority of Jews still live in social and economic conditions not far advanced above those of their ancestors in centuries past. Italy is the only country in Europe outside those in the Eastern part where the so-called ghettoes are populated by native Jews. Their political emancipation has not raised them from the bottom of the social structure over the heads of their Gentile neighbors. Nowhere is the average Jew so much like the non-Jew in appearance, language, manners, and vocation than the inhabitant of the Roman Ghetto on the bank of the Tiber. He is engaged there in the petty trades of selling his olives, peaches, and figs, and hires out as a journeyman in and outside his country. He hawks with "cartiloni" and "ricordi di Roma" in front of the café terraces, and his street waifs accost the foreigners for a "soldi." Even at the door of his old-clothes shop you can hardly recognize in him the Jew. It is this, more than the paucity of the number of Jews in Italy, that explains the absence of anti-Jewish feeling there. For the name Sacerdote by which Italian Cohens call themselves does not suggest affluence, and the cognomen Levi does not necessarily designate one's business.
In his religious life the Jew of the Roman Ghetto resembles the Lithuanian rather than the Western European. His religious activity, to be sure, is restricted to the prayer services of the Temple, but his Temple is more like a Beth Midrash than a symphony hall and lyceum. Living within a Catholic environment, his religion has been preserved as something positive, tangible, and powerful; and if it is no longer an inspiring influence within him, it exists at least as a reality outside of him. The religious institutions and instrumentalities are looked upon by him as something hallowed and consecrate. The synagogue is spoken of as the "sacro tempio" and the rabbi, referred to by the Hebrew words "Morenu Harav," is looked up to in matters religious as if he were the incumbent of the throne of Moses. The place of worship is opened three times a day for the traditional number of the daily public prayers, and young men as well as old, unwashed and in their working garments, repair there directly from their work to hear the "sacra messa," as the services are sometimes termed by them. Most of the younger Jews are unable to read the Hebrew prayers, some read without understanding them; but they all know a few selected prayers by heart which they recite aloud with many interesting gesticulations and genuflections, while in the pulpit the Chasan reads the services from a prayer-book printed in Livorno, chanting them in a monotonous sing-song not unlike what one often hears in the chapels of St. Peter.
_Societies of Jewish Youth in Italy_
Racial consciousness is strong among these Jews of the Roman Ghetto. They are to themselves, in common parlance, "Ibrim" or "Yahudim," which they utter not without pride, and the Gentile is looked down upon as a mere "goi," while the passing priest is pointed out as a "komer." If you ever happen to be in Rome, I should advise you take one afternoon off, and ordering a "cafe noro" at some café house on the Piazza Venezia, sit down quietly at a table on the terrace and try to look Jewish. You will soon be assailed by a number of postal-card venders coming one after another, until one importunate youth, discovering your identity, will of a sudden change his attitude, and, his obsequiousness gone, will enter with you into an intimate conversation. He will tell you his name, his pedigree, and of the "tempio," and of the street where many Jews live. He will no longer entreat you to buy his goods; and if you do so, he will mumble out his "grazie" rather perfunctorily. For are not all Israel of the same descent?--and if they are not all princes, at least none of them is better than a postal-card vender in Rome.
It is therefore not surprising that among the native Italian Jews there should arise on the part of the young educated elements a desire to convert that latent Jewish sentiment into some form of practical and useful activity. A society of Jewish youth in Italy has already existed for about three years during which time two conventions were held. A number of commendable resolutions were passed about the improvement of Jewish education among the Italian Jews and especially the advancement of the study of the Hebrew language among them. Zionism was warmly endorsed, though the society as a whole did not commit itself officially to the cause. Like the A. J. J. of Paris, the Italian organization also purports to act as intermediaries between the Italian government and the native Jewish population of Tripoli. In Rome there is a local organization of Jewish students, devoted to the study of Hebrew literature, and is rather of cosmopolitan complexion, being composed of Italian, Greek, German, and Russian Jews. The moving spirit of that circle was a brilliant Russian Jew, who had graduated in law from the University of Rome.
_Conclusion: The Growing National Spirit Among Jewish Students_
A close observation of European Jewish students, both as individuals and as groups, leads one to the realization of a growing consciousness among them of national unity, and of an increasing belief on their part of the imperishability of the Jews as a race. That morbid feeling of national decay and the imminent disappearance of the race, which had preyed upon the minds of Jewish men in the past generation, and which is reflected in the literature of that time, has been everywhere displaced by one of confidence and hope. Desertion from Judaism, to be sure, may sporadically make its appearance here and there as a convenient escape from material disadvantages; indifference towards it may likewise in some quarters still survive as a relic of the past,--but these are rather unusual and isolated phenomena, emphasizing all the more the universal fidelity and attachment to all things Jewish.
The enthusiasm for Judaism, everywhere in a process of growth, manifests itself in its early stages in study and self-cultivation; it assumes a more concrete form, in its later stages, of some communal or social activity; and if that development keeps on uninterruptedly it finally consummates in Zionism. This development, it must be admitted, is not a spontaneous and self-directive movement. In no small measure, it is everywhere stimulated by the growing tendency on the part of non-Jews in almost every country to appraise the Jew according to his racial origin, an appraisal which results in a feeling not necessarily hostile, but in most cases neutral and sometimes even favoring the racial and cultural peculiarity, indestructible and impermiscible, of the Jewish element. It is this external stimulus, rather than any internal impulse, that is responsible for the unfolding of the national spirit among Jewish students and the assertion of their selfhood.
None the less, their self-assertion has nowhere reached the extreme of spiritual alienation from their environment. There is nothing more remarkable in the character of Jewish youth of the present day, even among those who were born and raised in East European ghettos, than the spiritual and intellectual snugness in which they find themselves, in what should have been expected to remain to them a foreign environment. The residual estrangement of the Jewish soul from everything that is non-Jewish, which our forefathers in the past had figuratively designated with what Jewish mysticism called the "Captivity of the Shekinah," has totally disappeared. The individual Jew of to-day, while sharing in the sublimated consciousness of the race as a whole, does not in any conscious or subliminal way feel himself to be personally identified with it; whence the hesitation on the part of the majority of Jewish students to participate actively in Zionism even though they would all admit it to be the logical sequel of Jewish history.
For Zionism to them can never become a personal ideal, something requisite for the salvation of their souls. It can at its best appeal to them, in so far as they are consciously Jewish, as the cause of the nation as a whole; and consequently the mere suspicion that their affiliation with the movement might be held up against them as an impugnment of their loyalty to the land of their birth and abode is sufficient to keep them aloof from it. It was very interesting for me to notice how everywhere, after a long manoeuvre of Zionist discussions with good Jewish young men, they would finally halt at their unshakable position that Zionists might arouse the suspicion of their Gentile neighbors as to the loyalty and patriotism of the Jews. Where people are obsessed by the fear of being misunderstood in doing what they otherwise think to be good and impeccable, no arguments, of course, can avail. They are in this respect characteristically Jewish. In their Brand-like racial frame of mind, the Jews could never stop midway between the two antipodes of roving world-citizenry and hidebound mono-patriotism. It is probable that their attitude will change as soon as it is generally realized that personal devotion and loyalty to two causes are not psychologically a self-deception, and that the serving of two masters is not a moral anomaly unless, as in the original adage, one of the masters be Satanic.
[Illustration: Signature: Harry Wolfson]
Extract from a letter received from William Chadwick, President of the Hebrew Congregation and the Adler Society, Oxford University, England, commenting on the section devoted to England in Mr. Wolfson's article in our January number: "The remarks of Mr. Wolfson, whom we remember very well, concerning Oxford, were very apt for the time; but in Oxford, one particular type of Judaism never remains for long; Judaism here is in a state of perpetual flux, and to seize upon any one moment and represent that view as a type of Oxford's Judaism is very erroneous. I am sure that if Mr. Wolfson were here now, he would not recognize the services or the attitude now prevalent. I doubt if he would now hear Liberal Judaism apostrophised 'as the safeguard of modern Jews from the attractiveness of the superior teachings of Christ.'"
Zionism: A Menorah Prize Essay
BY MARVIN M. LOWENTHAL
[Illustration: _MARVIN M. LOWENTHAL (born in Bradford, Pa., in 1890) is at present a Senior in the University of Wisconsin. He has won the Wisconsin Menorah Society Prize twice--in 1912 for an essay on "The Jew in the American Revolution," and in 1914 for the essay on "Zionism" here published for the first time. Mr. Lowenthal is now the President of the Wisconsin Zionist Society._]
At the head of an alley-way hard by the Place of the Temple, the Haram-esh-Sherif, in Jerusalem, a long wall built in rough-hewn courses lifts itself above the squalor of the Moghrebin quarter to an eastern sky from which a sun that seldom sleeps bakes the grey stones, bares every detail of a crumbling ruin, and intensifies the wistful odor of decay. This, the remnant of Solomon's glory, is the Wailing Wall of the Jews. Clad in sackcloth and covered with ashes, patriarchal figures sway to and fro, press their lips to the hot granite, beat now their chests and now the wall, and today, as every day for eighteen hundreds of years, wail in the words of the Psalmist:
"Oh God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy Temple have they defiled; They have laid Jerusalem in heaps."[1]
This picture reveals the typical and traditional attitude of the Jew toward the land of his forefathers. Taught as children in the Cheder to turn their thoughts and desires toward Palestine; devoting themselves as men to the study of the Law and the Prophets and to the building upon this study of the vast Talmudic structure, until a spiritual Land of the Book may be said to have been created wherein they continually dwelt; crystallizing and adopting the Restoration as a dogma of the faith; commemorating with solemn fasts the Ninth of Ab as the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple by Titus; and repeating at each Passover with the pitiful hope of a child, "Next year in Jerusalem," the Jews have bound the memory of Palestine as a sign upon their hands and as frontlets between their eyes. They have indeed written it upon the door-posts of their houses and upon their gates, to the end--that they have wept and prayed. The vision of the prophets, which created and sustained this passionate ideal, itself inhibited the realization by emphasizing the redemption as miraculous, as a consummation to come in its own time without man's effort, and indeed in spite of man's will. And so, except for the sporadic and meteoric fiascos of mock-Messiahs, the Jews--this most practical of people--continued in hope and prayer to watch the centuries creep by. Frequently the hope flowered into the songs of a Judah Halevi or Ibn Gabirol, songs as sweet as have blossomed in the medieval garden; and the prayer found expression in a poignancy attributable only to the racial genius which created the Psalms; but until the nineteenth century the dream preserved all the qualities of a dream.
_A Crusade for A Birthright_
On August 29, 1897, a congress convened in Basel, Switzerland, comparable in Jewry to the Council of Clermont; for in this congress two hundred and four Jews, acting as delegates of their people from half the countries in the world, assembled at the call of Theodor Herzl to go crusading for the recovery of Palestine. This difference, among others, may be apparent--the Christians sought the recovery of a grave; the Jews, of a cradle. Palestine was to be a cradle in two senses; this Congress, the first body representative of all Jewry to be convened in the Diaspora, claimed the land of Israel not by virtue of a death, but as a birthright, and furthermore hoped to find its recovery the opportunity for the rejuvenation of a people.
Quoting from his book, "The Jewish State"[2]--a book journalistic in style, but trumpet-toned in the note it sounded for political Zionism--Theodor Herzl offered the following definition of Zionism after the first Zionist Congress (1897): "Zionism has for its object the creation of a home, secured by public rights, for those Jews who either cannot or will not be assimilated in the country of their adoption."[3] Zionism, in a word, is not the last truism in a weary debate, nor a new verse to an old song; it is, on the contrary, a definite answer to a perplexing and imperative question. What are these Jews who cannot or will not be assimilated, and why cannot or will not they be assimilated? This question constitutes what is known as _the Jewish problem_, or, for those who deny or dislike the term, _the Jewish position_; and this question must first be fully stated before the Zionist or any other answer can be intelligible.
_The Isolation of Medieval Jewry_
The Jews in the Middle Ages were considered by themselves, their few friends, and their many enemies, as a twice separated nation--a people separated from those among whom they dwelt and separated from the land in which they originated. They were governed by their own law--the Lex Judæorum--which was recognized by the authorities of the land in which they lived as peculiar and proper to them;[4] they dwelt in communal groups which were bound together by common interests; they observed their own customs and nourished their own culture; they were held to be foreigners, and in a comparison of their own with the Christian civilization, they readily acknowledged this status. The force of persecution without and the religious conviction of superiority, separateness, and nationality within, preserved and constantly increased this solidarity.[5]
That the existence of a separate, recalcitrant, and even obnoxious nation within a nation did not constitute a problem for the medievals may be attributable to two reasons: (1) the medieval theory of life accentuated a hierarchical order of existence--a theory that found expression in feudalism, in Church organization, and in guild and craft life; in pursuance of this theory, the Jews were accorded a recognized and distinct status; (2) furthermore, the Jews were an economic necessity in the times when a ban was laid on money-lending, and they constituted an important economic facility at a little later period when capital could indeed be worked but when rivalry and hatreds rendered communication uncertain.[6] To the maintenance of Jewish solidarity and the preservation of things Jewish _qua_ Jewish, sacrifices culminating in the surrender of life bequeathed to the race a comprehensive martyrology.[7]