Part 3

And yet, though the Jew make his individual life the loftiest, that alone will not fulfill the obligations of his trust. We are bound not only to use worthily our great inheritance, but to preserve and, if possible, augment it; and then transmit it to coming generations. The fruit of three thousand years of civilization and a hundred generations of suffering may not be sacrificed by us. It will be sacrificed if dissipated. Assimilation is national suicide. And assimilation can be prevented only by preserving national characteristics and life as other peoples, large and small, are preserving and developing their national life. Shall we with our inheritance do less than the Irish, the Servians, or the Bulgars? And must we not, like them, have a land where the Jewish life may be naturally led, the Jewish language spoken, and the Jewish spirit prevail? Surely we must, and that land is our fathers' land: it is Palestine.

_A Land Where the Jewish Spirit May Prevail_

THE undying longing for Zion is a fact of deepest significance--a manifestation in the struggle for existence. Zionism is, of course, not a movement to remove all the Jews of the world compulsorily to Palestine. In the first place, there are in the world about 14,000,000 Jews, and Palestine would not accommodate more than one-fifth of that number. In the second place, this is not a movement to compel anyone to go to Palestine. It is essentially a movement to give to the Jew more, not less, freedom--a movement to enable the Jews to exercise the same right now exercised by practically every other people in the world--to live at their option either in the land of their fathers or in some other country; a right which members of small nations as well as of large--which Irish, Greek, Bulgarian, Servian or Belgian, as well as German or English--may now exercise.

Furthermore, Zionism is not a movement to wrest from the Turk the sovereignty of Palestine. Zionism seeks merely to establish in Palestine for such Jews as choose to go and remain there, and for their descendants, a legally secured home, where they may live together and lead a Jewish life; where they may expect ultimately to constitute a majority of the population, and may look forward to what we should call home rule.

The establishment of the legally secured Jewish home is no longer a dream. For more than a generation brave pioneers have been building the foundations of our new old home. It remains for us to build the superstructure. The Ghetto walls are now falling, Jewish life cannot be preserved and developed, assimilation cannot be averted, unless there be reëstablished in the fatherland a center from which the Jewish spirit may radiate and give to the Jews scattered throughout the world that inspiration which springs from the memories of a great past and the hope of a great future. To accomplish this it is not necessary that the Jewish population of Palestine be large as compared with the whole number of Jews in the world. Throughout centuries when the Jewish influence was great, and it was working out its own, and in large part the world's, destiny during the Persian, the Greek, and the Roman Empires, only a relatively small part of the Jews lived in Palestine; and only a small part of the Jews returned from Babylon when the Temple was rebuilt.

The glorious past can really live only if it becomes the mirror of a glorious future; and to this end the Jewish home in Palestine is essential. We Jews of prosperous America above all need its inspiration. And the Menorah men should be its builders.

[Illustration: Signature: Louis D. Brandeis]

_THERE are two things necessary in the Jewish life of this country. The one is an heroic attempt to organize the Jews of the country for Jewish things. That can be done, I believe, primarily through the organization of self-conscious Jewish communities throughout the country. The other thing necessary is, that we have vigorous Jewish thinking. We need a theory, a substantial theory, for our Jewish life, just as much as we need Jewish organization. We need to have our college men think their problems through without fear, courageously, by whatever name their theories may be known, be these theories called Zionism or anti-Zionism, Reform Judaism or Orthodox Judaism. We need some vigorous Jewish thinking._--_From a Menorah Address by Dr. J. L. Magnes._

Menorah

By WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

[Illustration: _WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD (born in New Jersey in 1876), Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, is the author of several volumes of verse and literary criticism which have won high praise,--notably "Sonnets and Poems," "Byron and Byronism in America," and "The Vaunt of Man."_]

WE'VE read in legends of the books of old How deft Bezalel, wisest in his trade, At the command of veilèd Moses made The seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold-- The base, the shaft, the cups, the knops, the flowers, Like almond blossoms--and the lamps were seven.

We know at least that on the templed rock Of Zion hill, with earth's revolving hours Under the changing centuries of heaven, It stood upon the solemn altar block, By every Gentile who had heard abhorred-- The holy light of Israel of the Lord; Until that Titus and the legions came And battered the walls with catapult and fire, And bore the priests and candlestick away, And, as memorial of fulfilled desire, Bade carve upon the arch that bears his name The stone procession ye may see today Beyond the Forum on the Sacred Way, Lifting the golden candlestick of fame.

The city fell, the temple was a heap; And little children, who had else grown strong And in their manhood venged the Roman wrong, Strewed step and chamber, in eternal sleep. But the great vision of the sevenfold flames Outlasted the cups wherein at first it sprung. The Greeks might teach the arts, the Romans law; The heathen hordes might shout for bread and games; Still Israel, exalted in the realms of awe, Guarded the Light in many an alien air, Along the borders of the midland sea In hostile cities, spending praise and prayer And pondering on the larger things to be-- Down through the ages when the Cross uprose Among the northern Gentiles to oppose: Then huddled in the ghettos, barred at night, In lands of unknown trees and fiercer snows, They watched forevermore the Light, the Light.

The main seas opened to the west. The Nations Covered new continents with generations That had their work to do, their thought to say; And Israel's hosts from bloody towns afar In the dominions of the ermined Czar, Seared with the iron, scarred with many a stroke, Crowded the hollow ships but yesterday And came to us who are tomorrow's folk. And the pure Light, however some might doubt Who mocked their dirt and rags, had not gone out.

The holy Light of Israel hath unfurled Its tongues of mystic flame around the world. Empires and Kings and Parliaments have passed; Rivers and mountain chains from age to age Become new boundaries for man's politics. The navies run new ensigns up the mast, The temples try new creeds, new equipage; The schools new sciences beyond the six. And through the lands where many a song hath rung The people speak no more their fathers' tongue. Yet in the shifting energies of man The Light of Israel remains her Light. And gathered to a splendid caravan From the four corners of the day and night, The chosen people--so the prophets hold-- Shall yet return unto the homes of old Under the hills of Judah. Be it so. Only the stars and moon and sun can show A permanence of light to hers akin.

What is that Light? Who is there that shall tell The purport of the tribe of Israel?-- In the wild welter of races on that earth Which spins in space where thousand other spin-- The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth Perhaps--what is there any man can win, Or any nation? Ultimates aside, Men have their aims, and Israel her pride. She stands among the rest, austere, aloof, Still the peculiar people, armed in proof Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die. She stands among the rest and answers: "I, Above ye all, must ever gauge success By ideal types, and know the more and less Of things as being in the end defined, For this our human life by righteousness. And if I base this in Eternal Mind-- Our fathers' God in victory or distress-- I cannot argue for my hardihood, Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood, And made me what I was in olden time, And keeps me what I am today in every clime."

[Illustration: Signature: William Ellery Leonard]

The Jews in the War

BY JOSEPH JACOBS

[Illustration: _JOSEPH JACOBS (born in New South Wales in 1854), noted author and editor, was one of England's well-known scholars and men of letters when he was called to America to become managing editor of the Jewish Encyclopedia. He has held the chair of English literature at the Jewish Theological Seminary, and is now editor of the American Hebrew. He is the author of many authoritative books, including "Jews of Angevin England," "Studies in Jewish Statistics," "Jewish Ideals," and "Literary Studies."_]

IT is of course difficult to conjecture what will be the ultimate effect of such a world-cataclysm as the present European war on the fate of the Jews of the world. The chief center of interest naturally lies in the eastern field of the war which happens to rage within the confines of Old Poland. This kingdom, founded by the Jagellons, brought together Roman Catholic Poland and Greek Catholic Lithuania and could not, therefore, apply in full rigor the mediaeval principle that only those could belong to the State who belonged to the State Church. Hence a certain amount of toleration of religious differences, which led to Poland forming the chief asylum of the Jews evicted from Western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As a consequence here lies the most crowded seat of Jewish population in the world. From it comes the vast majority of the third of a million Jews in the prime of life who are fighting for their native countries and often against their fellow-Jews. Probably three hundred thousand Jewish soldiers are under arms in this district. Besides the inevitable loss by death of many of these and the distress caused by the removal of so many others for an indefinite period from breadwinning for their families, there must be ineffable woe caused by the fact that this district is the scene of strenuous conflicts, which lead to the wholesale destruction of the Jewish homes in a literal sense. When one reflects that one out of every six of the inhabitants of Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Poland is a Jew, the extent of the misery thus caused may be imagined. One meets friends whose birth-place changes nationality from week to week, according as the different armies take possession. The Jewish inhabitants of Suwalki, for example, must be doubtful whether they are Germans or Russians, according as Uhlan or Cossack holds control of their city. But whichever wins, for the time being, the non-combatants suffer by the demolition of their houses, the requisition of their property, and above all by the dislocation of their trade. The mass of misery caused by the present war in this way to the Jews of Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Poland is incalculable.

Nor is this direct loss and misery compensated for by any hope of improved conditions after the war is concluded. One may dismiss at once the rumor that the Czar has promised his Jewish soldiers any alleviation of their lot, on account of their loyalty and bravery. Such rumors are always spread about when the Russian autocracy needs Jewish blood or money. Besides, we all know the value of the plighted word of the crowned head of the Russian Church; the emasculation of the Duma is sufficient evidence of this. And even if the Czar carries out his promise of giving autonomy to Poland, including any sections of Prussian and Austrian territory which he may acquire by the present war, the Jewish lot will not be ameliorated in the slightest. For, unfortunately, Poles have of recent years turned round on their Jewish fellow sufferers from Russian tyranny somewhat on the principle of the boy at school who "passes on" the blow which he has received from a bigger boy to one smaller yet.

_The Probable Strengthening of Anti-Semitic Influences_

BUT the chief evil which will result from the present war, whatever its outcome, will be the increased influence of just those circles from whom the anti-Semitic movement has emanated throughout Europe for the past forty years. It is, in my opinion, absurd to think that militarism will be killed or even scotched by the present war; militarism cannot cast out militarism. Even if Germany is defeated, it is impossible to imagine that she will rest content with her defeat, and practically the only change in the situation will be that "La Revanche" will be translated into "Die Rache"; and in Russia, the defeat of Germany will simply increase the prestige and influence of the grand-ducal circles from which the persecution of the Jews has mainly emanated.

In the contrary case, if Germany gets the upper hand, the influence of the Junkers in Germany, with their anti-Semitic tendencies, would be raised to intolerable limits, while the Reaction in Russia, even if it loses prestige, will yet be granted more power in order to carry out the projected revenge.

_Diminished Chances of Emigration_

ANOTHER unfortunate result for Jews from the present war will be the decreased stream of emigration from Russia and Galicia to this country, so that the escape from the House of Bondage would be still more limited. Many will be so impoverished by the war that they will not be able to afford the minimum sum needed for migration. Death on the battle-field or in the military hospitals will remove many energetic young fellows who would otherwise have come to this country and afterwards have brought their relatives with them. Conditions here too, in the immediate future, are likely to be less attractive for the immigrant from the economic point of view owing to the dislocation of trade caused by the current conflict.

Altogether, as will have been seen from the above enumeration, I am strongly of opinion that the Jews will suffer even more than most peoples concerned in the present war. They have nothing to gain by it; they are sure to lose by it.

[Illustration: Signature: Joseph Jacobs]

_SURELY a law, the essence of which is mercy and justice to one's fellow men, is not a narrow rule of life, to be discarded by us today on any plea that we have outgrown it; surely a history of thousands of years' devotion to spiritual ideals is not a history to be forgotten. America is a land of divers races and divers religions. Each race and each religion owes to it the duty of bringing to its service all its strength; it derives no added strength from a race which has forgotten the lessons it has learnt in the past, a race which deliberately discards the spiritual strength which it has obtained by devotion to its ideals._--_From a Menorah Address by Justice Irving Lehman._

Jewish Students in European Universities

BY HARRY WOLFSON

[Illustration: _HARRY WOLFSON (Harvard A. B. and A. M. 1912), a member of the Harvard Menorah Society since 1908, was the Hebrew poet at the annual Harvard Menorah dinners for four years, and won the Harvard Menorah prize in 1911 for an essay on "Maimonides and Halevi: A Study in Typical Jewish Attitudes Toward Greek Philosophy in the Middle Ages." On graduating from Harvard he received honors in Semitics and Philosophy, and was appointed to a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship. As Sheldon Fellow he spent two years abroad, studying in the University of Berlin and doing research work in the libraries of Munich, Paris, the Vatican, Parma, the British Museum, Oxford and Cambridge. The present article is based upon the impressions he gathered during this period. He is now pursuing graduate studies in Semitics and Philosophy at Harvard._]

THE Jewish student is no longer a _déraciné_. Deeply rooted to the soil of Jewish reality, he is like the best of the academic youth of other nations responsive to the needs of his own people. If in spots he is still groping in the dark, he is no longer a lone, stray wanderer, but is seeking his way out to light in the company of kindred souls. A comprehensive and exhaustive study of native Jewish student bodies in countries like England, Germany, Austria, France and Italy, as well as of the Russian Jewish student colonies strewn all over Western Europe, would bring out, in the most striking manner, contrasting tendencies in modern Jewry. But that is far from the direct purpose of this brief paper. As a student and traveler in various European countries during the years 1912-1914 I had the opportunity of observing Jewish student life and Jewish conditions in general abroad, and it is merely a few random impressions of certain aspects of these European conditions that I have here gathered together for the readers of the Menorah Journal.

_In England_

JUDAISM in England, though of recent origin, is completely domesticated. The Jewish gentleman is becoming as standardized as the type of English gentleman. But more insular than the island itself, Anglo-Jewry, as a whole, prefers to remain within its natural boundaries, and is disinclined to become the bearer of the white Jew's burden. Two of her great Jews, indeed, had embarked upon a scheme of Jewish empire building. The attempts of both of them, however, ended in a fizzle, for one was an unimaginative philanthropic squire, and the other is an interpreter of the dreamers, himself too wide-awake to become a master of dreams.

Yet within its own narrow limits, Anglo-Jewry is active enough to keep in perfect condition. Over-exertion, however, is avoided. Cricket Judaism is played according to the rules of the game, and the players are quite comfortable in their flannels. The established synagogue of Mulberry Street is as staid and sober as the Church of England, the liberalism preached in Berkeley Street as gentle and unscandalizing as the nonconformity of the City Temple, and the orthodoxy of the United Synagogue as innocuously papish as the last phases of the Oxford movement.

In England it is quite fashionable to admit Judaism into the parlor. Parlor Judaism, to be sure, is not more vital a force nor more creative than kitchen Judaism, but it seems to be more vital than the Judaism restricted to the Temple. At least it is voluntary and personal, and, what is more important, it is engaging. So engrossed in the subject of his discussion was once my host at tea, that while administering the sugar he asked me quite absent-mindedly: "Would you have one or two lumps in your Judaism?" "Thank you, none at all," was my reply. "But I am wont to take my Judaism somewhat stronger, if you please."

_Jewish Student Groups at Oxford and Cambridge_

AS compared with ourselves, English Jews have a long tradition behind them, in which they glory. That tradition does not at present seem to stand any imminent danger of being interrupted. The younger generation follow in the footprints of the older. Nowhere is there so narrow a rift between Jewish fathers and sons as in England. Hence you do not find there any prominent organization of the young. Last winter an anonymous appeal for the organization of the Jewish students in England ran for several weeks in the _Jewish Chronicle_, but it seems to have resulted in nothing.

Independent local organizations of Jewish students, however, are to be found in almost every university in England. In Oxford and Cambridge they are organized in congregations, having Synagogues of their own, in which the students assemble for prayer on every Friday night and Saturday morning. In Cambridge they hold two services, an orthodox and a liberal, both well attended. In Oxford they have recently published a special prayer book of their own, suitable for the needs of all kinds of students, it being a medley of orthodoxy and liberalism, which if rather indiscriminate in its theology is, on the whole, made up with good common sense. English liberal Judaism, it should be observed, is markedly different from its corresponding cults in Germany and in the United States. In Germany, reformed Judaism has its nascence in free thought, and it aims to appeal to the intellectual. With us liberalism is stimulated by our pragmatic evaluation of religion, and is held out as a bait to the indifferent. In England it arises from the growing admiration on the part of a certain class of Jews for what they consider the inwardness and the superior morality of Christianity, and is concocted as a cure to those who are so affected. As a result, English liberal Judaism is more truly religious than the German, and more sincerely pious than the American. In a sermon delivered before the Oxford congregation, a young layman of the Liberal Synagogue of London apostrophized liberal Judaism as the safeguard of the modern Jews from the attractiveness of the superior teachings of Christ.

_Social Service Work of Jewish Students_

ENGLAND is the classic home of old-fashioned begging and of old-fashioned giving. You are stopped for a penny everywhere and by everybody, from the tramp who asks you to buy him a cup of tea, to the hospital which solicits a contribution to its maintenance "for one second." Pavement artists abound in Paris as much as in London, but in Paris it is a Bohemian-looking denizen of the "Quartier" posing as a pinched genius forced to sell his crayon masterpieces for a couple of sous, whereas in London it is always a crippled ex-soldier trying to arouse your pity in chalked words for a "poor man's talent." But England is also the classic home of modern social service of every description. The Salvation Army had its origin in London, where also Toynbee Hall, the first University settlement of its kind, came into existence. Likewise among the Jews, there are, on the one hand, the firmly established old-fashioned charitable institutions to help the "alien" brethren of the East End, and on the other hand, there are also the equally well organized boys' clubs for the "uplifting" of the "alien" little brethren of the same East End.

The Jewish University men in England take an active interest in both these branches of philanthropy. It was a fortunate coincidence that when I came to Oxford the Jewish students there had among them a social worker of the latter type, who had come to make arrangements for the reception of a squad of Whitechapel boys who were under his tutelage. When I afterwards went to Cambridge I found there a delegate of some charitable board of the London Jewish community, seeking to enlist the aid of the Jewish students in his work.

_What the Bulletin Boards Told at Berlin_