NOTESTHROUGHOUTthis Jewish Anthology the unit of selection is the Jewishthought. Abridgement has therefore been unhesitatingly resorted to wherever condensation helped to make the thought stand out in clearer light. Utmost care has, however, been taken that such condensation in no way obscures the original meaning of the Author.The bibliographic notes are intended for those who may desire to extend their acquaintance with Jewish books. Only such sources as are available in English and are within possible reach of the ordinary reader have been indicated.In the Scripture selections, wherever the rhythm and beauty of either the Authorized Version or the Revised Version could be retained, this has been done. In the majority of cases, however, the quotations are from the more faithful Jewish Version. The numbering of the Bible verses is according to the Hebrew text.ABBREVIATIONS:J. Q. R. = JewishQuarterly Review (Old Series).J. P. S. = JewishPublication Society of America, Philadelphia.J. E. = JewishEncyclopedia. This standard reference work should be consulted for fuller information on the authors, sources, and subjects brought together in this book.
THROUGHOUTthis Jewish Anthology the unit of selection is the Jewishthought. Abridgement has therefore been unhesitatingly resorted to wherever condensation helped to make the thought stand out in clearer light. Utmost care has, however, been taken that such condensation in no way obscures the original meaning of the Author.
The bibliographic notes are intended for those who may desire to extend their acquaintance with Jewish books. Only such sources as are available in English and are within possible reach of the ordinary reader have been indicated.
In the Scripture selections, wherever the rhythm and beauty of either the Authorized Version or the Revised Version could be retained, this has been done. In the majority of cases, however, the quotations are from the more faithful Jewish Version. The numbering of the Bible verses is according to the Hebrew text.
ABBREVIATIONS:
J. Q. R. = JewishQuarterly Review (Old Series).
J. P. S. = JewishPublication Society of America, Philadelphia.
J. E. = JewishEncyclopedia. This standard reference work should be consulted for fuller information on the authors, sources, and subjects brought together in this book.
I⭘Jacobs: ‘The Typical Character of Anglo-Jewry,’ J. Q. R., 1898.⭘Aguilar:The Spirit of Judaism,chap. viii.A. S. Isaacs’The Young Championis a biography of Grace Aguilar for young readers. J. P. S., 1916.⭘For Eleazar of Worms, see M. Joseph inJews’ College Jubilee Volume, 1905.⭘Montefiore: From a Sermon preached before the Jewish students of Cambridge University.‘Individual offences bring shame not only upon the persons who commit them, but upon the entire race, which, says an old writer, like a harp-string, has but to be struck at one end and it vibrates throughout. This has been the fate of Israel in every age; and the world’s habit of identifying the race with the shortcomings of the individual seems to be ineradicable. Public transgression—transgression which involves the whole House of Israel—is in a special sense branded as aChillul Hashem, as “a profanation of the Name” just as good deeds, done publicly, which reflect lustre on all Israel, are praised as aKiddush Hashem, “a sanctification of the Name”.’ (Morris Joseph,Judaism as Life and Creed.3rdEdition. Routledge—an excellent book that should be in every English-speaking Jewish home.)⭘For other specimens of Jewish Moralists seeHebrew Characteristics, published by the old American Jewish Publication Society, 1872; and I. Abrahams, ‘Jewish Ethical Wills,’ in J. Q. R., 1891.⭘Philipson:Old European Jewries, J. P. S.⭘Lazarus: Quoted in Nahida Remy,The Jewish Woman. (Bloch PublishingCo., New York.)⭘The Jewish Home—Cf.Morris Joseph on the question of intermarriage.‘Every Jew should feel himself bound, even though the duty involves the sacrifice of precious affections, to avoid acts calculated, however remotely, to weaken the stability of the ancestral religion. It is true that occasional unions between Jew and Gentile do no appreciable harm to the Jewish cause, however much mischief they may lay up, in the shape of jealousy and dissension, for those who contract them, and of religious confusion, for the children. But a general practice begins as a rule by being occasional. Every Jew who contemplates marriage outside thepale must regard himself as paving the way to a disruption which will be the final, as it will be the culminating, disaster in the history of his people.’⭘Szold: ‘What has Judaism done for Woman?’ inJudaism at the[Chicago]World’s Parliament of Religions, Cincinnati, 1894.⭘Cradle Song: quoted in Schechter,Studies in Judaism,i, 1896. ‘The Child in Jewish Literature.’ Another version in I. Zangwill’sThey that Walk in Darknessis as follows:—Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,Oh, sleep, my little one;Too soon from cradle you’ll ariseTo work that must be done.Almonds and raisins you shall sell,And Holy Scrolls shall write;So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,Your future beckons bright.Brum shall learn of ancient days,And love good folk of this;So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,And God will send you bliss.⭘For the Yiddish folk-song see Wiener,History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century, New York and London, 1899; and Kurt Schindler, ‘The Russian-Jewish Folk Song’, inThe Menorah Journal, New York, 1917.⭘‘The Russian Jewish folk-song has grown and was reared under the greatest oppression, and the grimmest tyranny that a race ever went through. By this very oppression it has become tense, quivering, abounding with emotion; in its melodies the Jewish heart is laid open, and it speaks in a language understandable to all. Its songs have an elemental appeal—they represent the collective outcry of a suffering, unbendable race.’ (Schindler.)⭘Cohen: Preface,Children’s Psalm Book.(Routledge.)⭘The following words recently written by America’s leading educationist are of deep significance—‘Education the world over was at first for a long time almost solely religious, and, while it was once a master-stroke of toleration to eliminate it from the school, in doing so we nearly lost from our educational system the greatest of all the motives that makes for virtue, reverence, self-knowledge and self-control. Now we are beginning to realize the wrong we have committed against child-nature and are seeking in various ways to atone for it.’ (G. Stanley Hall, in Introduction to L. Grossmann’sThe Aims of Teaching in Jewish Schools, Cincinnati, 1919.)⭘Cf.the chapter on Religious Education with Bibliography in M. Friedländer,The Jewish Religion, second edition(P. Vallentine).⭘Morais: inAbarbanel’s School and Family Reader for Israelites, New York, 1883, a book well worth reprinting.⭘Joseph,The Message of Judaism(G. Routledge), ‘Hebrew and the Synagogue.’⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses, Ark PublishingCo., Cincinnati, 1915. These addresses of eloquent wisdom contain the ripest thoughts of that great scholar.⭘In 1870 Peretz Smolenskin, then the foremost neo-Hebrew writer, proclaimed: ‘The wilfully blind bid us be like all the other nations. Yea, let us be like all the other nations, unashamed of the rock whence we have been hewn; like the rest, holding dear our language and the honour of our people. We need not blush for clinging to the ancient language with which we wandered from land to land, in which our poets sang, and our seers prophesied, and in which our fathers poured out their hearts unto God. They who thrust us away from the Hebrew language meditate evil against our people and against its glory.’⭘Maimonides: Some scholars question the Maimonidean authorship of this Admonition.⭘InYear Book of Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1904.⭘Aspects of Rabbinic Theology,p.76.⭘Adler:Anglo-Jewish Memories,p.272.⭘Gabirol: Probably the very earliest enunciation of Tolerance in Western Europe.⭘Against Apion, concluding paragraphs.Ecclesiasticus: Written originally in Hebrew by Simon ben Jeshua ben Sira, who flourished in Jerusalem in the second century,B.C.E.Translated into Greek by the author’s grandson, who resided in Egypt between 132–116. The Hebrew original was lost for over 1,000 years, and was re-discovered in the Cairo Geniza byDr.Schechter in 1896.⭘The change from the Revised Version in the second line is according to the newly-discovered Hebrew original.⭘Their name liveth for evermore; the phrasing of the Authorized Version has been restored. These five words have been chosen by the Imperial War Graves Commission as the inscription for the central monuments on the cemeteries in France and Flanders.⭘Dubnow:Jewish History, J. P. S.,chap.12. Dubnow’s sketch is a brief, philosophical survey of Jewish History.⭘Hertz: From Presidential Address, Union of Jewish Literary Societies, ‘On “Renaissance” and “Culture” and their Jewish Applications’.⭘Geiger:Judaism and its History, I, 2.⭘Aspects of Rabbinic Theology,p.112.⭘Jews in Many Lands.J. P. S.⭘Singer:Sermons,i.‘Judaism and Citizenship.’ (Routledge.)⭘AchadHa’am:Selected Essays, J. P. S., 1912. ‘Some Consolation.’ A number of those original andthought-compelling essays have been republished in the seriesZionist Pamphlets, 1916 & 1917.⭘The words ‘The Duty of Self-Respect’ are the title of a paper by the late F. D. Mocatta.⭘Nordau: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle.⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses. ‘Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism.’⭘Disraeli: From Preface toCollected Works of Isaac D’Israeli.⭘Hertz: From Reply to ‘Verax’,The Times, November 29, 1919.⭘Recent anti-Semitic attacks in the Press recall Steinschneider’s comment: ‘When dealing with Jewish questions it is not necessary to be either logical or fair. It seems one may say anything of Jews so long as it brings them into contempt.’⭘An Epistle to the Hebrews.Letter 4. Republished by the Federation of American Zionists, 1900.⭘These stirring lines were written during the Boer War.⭘Dr.Adler continues: ‘Here we are spared the most distressful sight, the revival of odious religious prejudices and pernicious racial antipathies.’ These words would require some qualification to-day.⭘Songs of a Wanderer, J. P. S.⭘‘Why am I a Jew?’ North American Review.⭘A similar thought is expressed by the same writer in his Address at the Chicago Parliament of Religions: ‘There is a legend that when Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden, an angel shattered the gates, and the fragments flying all over the earth are the precious stones. We can carry the legend further. The precious stones were picked up by the various religions and philosophies of the world. Each claimed and claims that its own fragment alone reflects the light of heaven. In God’s own time we shall, all of us, fit our fragments together and reconstruct the Gates of Paradise. Through the gates shallall peoples pass to the foot of God’s throne. The throne is called by us the mercy-seat. Name of happy augury, for God’s Mercy shall wipe out all record of mankind’s errors and strayings, the sad story of our unbrotherly actions.’⭘Judaism as Creed and Life.BookIII,chap. x.BookIIIis the best modern presentation of the ethical life under the aspect of Judaism.
⭘Jacobs: ‘The Typical Character of Anglo-Jewry,’ J. Q. R., 1898.
⭘Aguilar:The Spirit of Judaism,chap. viii.A. S. Isaacs’The Young Championis a biography of Grace Aguilar for young readers. J. P. S., 1916.
⭘For Eleazar of Worms, see M. Joseph inJews’ College Jubilee Volume, 1905.
⭘Montefiore: From a Sermon preached before the Jewish students of Cambridge University.
‘Individual offences bring shame not only upon the persons who commit them, but upon the entire race, which, says an old writer, like a harp-string, has but to be struck at one end and it vibrates throughout. This has been the fate of Israel in every age; and the world’s habit of identifying the race with the shortcomings of the individual seems to be ineradicable. Public transgression—transgression which involves the whole House of Israel—is in a special sense branded as aChillul Hashem, as “a profanation of the Name” just as good deeds, done publicly, which reflect lustre on all Israel, are praised as aKiddush Hashem, “a sanctification of the Name”.’ (Morris Joseph,Judaism as Life and Creed.3rdEdition. Routledge—an excellent book that should be in every English-speaking Jewish home.)
⭘For other specimens of Jewish Moralists seeHebrew Characteristics, published by the old American Jewish Publication Society, 1872; and I. Abrahams, ‘Jewish Ethical Wills,’ in J. Q. R., 1891.
⭘Philipson:Old European Jewries, J. P. S.
⭘Lazarus: Quoted in Nahida Remy,The Jewish Woman. (Bloch PublishingCo., New York.)
⭘The Jewish Home—Cf.Morris Joseph on the question of intermarriage.
‘Every Jew should feel himself bound, even though the duty involves the sacrifice of precious affections, to avoid acts calculated, however remotely, to weaken the stability of the ancestral religion. It is true that occasional unions between Jew and Gentile do no appreciable harm to the Jewish cause, however much mischief they may lay up, in the shape of jealousy and dissension, for those who contract them, and of religious confusion, for the children. But a general practice begins as a rule by being occasional. Every Jew who contemplates marriage outside thepale must regard himself as paving the way to a disruption which will be the final, as it will be the culminating, disaster in the history of his people.’
⭘Szold: ‘What has Judaism done for Woman?’ inJudaism at the[Chicago]World’s Parliament of Religions, Cincinnati, 1894.
⭘Cradle Song: quoted in Schechter,Studies in Judaism,i, 1896. ‘The Child in Jewish Literature.’ Another version in I. Zangwill’sThey that Walk in Darknessis as follows:—
Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,Oh, sleep, my little one;Too soon from cradle you’ll ariseTo work that must be done.Almonds and raisins you shall sell,And Holy Scrolls shall write;So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,Your future beckons bright.Brum shall learn of ancient days,And love good folk of this;So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,And God will send you bliss.
Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,Oh, sleep, my little one;Too soon from cradle you’ll ariseTo work that must be done.Almonds and raisins you shall sell,And Holy Scrolls shall write;So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,Your future beckons bright.Brum shall learn of ancient days,And love good folk of this;So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,And God will send you bliss.
Sleep, my birdie, shut your eyes,
Oh, sleep, my little one;
Too soon from cradle you’ll arise
To work that must be done.
Almonds and raisins you shall sell,
And Holy Scrolls shall write;
So sleep, dear child, sleep sound and well,
Your future beckons bright.
Brum shall learn of ancient days,
And love good folk of this;
So sleep, dear babe, your mother prays,
And God will send you bliss.
⭘For the Yiddish folk-song see Wiener,History of Yiddish Literature in the Nineteenth Century, New York and London, 1899; and Kurt Schindler, ‘The Russian-Jewish Folk Song’, inThe Menorah Journal, New York, 1917.
⭘‘The Russian Jewish folk-song has grown and was reared under the greatest oppression, and the grimmest tyranny that a race ever went through. By this very oppression it has become tense, quivering, abounding with emotion; in its melodies the Jewish heart is laid open, and it speaks in a language understandable to all. Its songs have an elemental appeal—they represent the collective outcry of a suffering, unbendable race.’ (Schindler.)
⭘Cohen: Preface,Children’s Psalm Book.(Routledge.)
⭘The following words recently written by America’s leading educationist are of deep significance—‘Education the world over was at first for a long time almost solely religious, and, while it was once a master-stroke of toleration to eliminate it from the school, in doing so we nearly lost from our educational system the greatest of all the motives that makes for virtue, reverence, self-knowledge and self-control. Now we are beginning to realize the wrong we have committed against child-nature and are seeking in various ways to atone for it.’ (G. Stanley Hall, in Introduction to L. Grossmann’sThe Aims of Teaching in Jewish Schools, Cincinnati, 1919.)
⭘Cf.the chapter on Religious Education with Bibliography in M. Friedländer,The Jewish Religion, second edition(P. Vallentine).
⭘Morais: inAbarbanel’s School and Family Reader for Israelites, New York, 1883, a book well worth reprinting.
⭘Joseph,The Message of Judaism(G. Routledge), ‘Hebrew and the Synagogue.’
⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses, Ark PublishingCo., Cincinnati, 1915. These addresses of eloquent wisdom contain the ripest thoughts of that great scholar.
⭘In 1870 Peretz Smolenskin, then the foremost neo-Hebrew writer, proclaimed: ‘The wilfully blind bid us be like all the other nations. Yea, let us be like all the other nations, unashamed of the rock whence we have been hewn; like the rest, holding dear our language and the honour of our people. We need not blush for clinging to the ancient language with which we wandered from land to land, in which our poets sang, and our seers prophesied, and in which our fathers poured out their hearts unto God. They who thrust us away from the Hebrew language meditate evil against our people and against its glory.’
⭘Maimonides: Some scholars question the Maimonidean authorship of this Admonition.
⭘InYear Book of Central Conference of American Rabbis, 1904.
⭘Aspects of Rabbinic Theology,p.76.
⭘Adler:Anglo-Jewish Memories,p.272.
⭘Gabirol: Probably the very earliest enunciation of Tolerance in Western Europe.
⭘Against Apion, concluding paragraphs.
Ecclesiasticus: Written originally in Hebrew by Simon ben Jeshua ben Sira, who flourished in Jerusalem in the second century,B.C.E.Translated into Greek by the author’s grandson, who resided in Egypt between 132–116. The Hebrew original was lost for over 1,000 years, and was re-discovered in the Cairo Geniza byDr.Schechter in 1896.
⭘The change from the Revised Version in the second line is according to the newly-discovered Hebrew original.
⭘Their name liveth for evermore; the phrasing of the Authorized Version has been restored. These five words have been chosen by the Imperial War Graves Commission as the inscription for the central monuments on the cemeteries in France and Flanders.
⭘Dubnow:Jewish History, J. P. S.,chap.12. Dubnow’s sketch is a brief, philosophical survey of Jewish History.
⭘Hertz: From Presidential Address, Union of Jewish Literary Societies, ‘On “Renaissance” and “Culture” and their Jewish Applications’.
⭘Geiger:Judaism and its History, I, 2.
⭘Aspects of Rabbinic Theology,p.112.
⭘Jews in Many Lands.J. P. S.
⭘Singer:Sermons,i.‘Judaism and Citizenship.’ (Routledge.)
⭘AchadHa’am:Selected Essays, J. P. S., 1912. ‘Some Consolation.’ A number of those original andthought-compelling essays have been republished in the seriesZionist Pamphlets, 1916 & 1917.
⭘The words ‘The Duty of Self-Respect’ are the title of a paper by the late F. D. Mocatta.
⭘Nordau: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle.
⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses. ‘Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism.’
⭘Disraeli: From Preface toCollected Works of Isaac D’Israeli.
⭘Hertz: From Reply to ‘Verax’,The Times, November 29, 1919.
⭘Recent anti-Semitic attacks in the Press recall Steinschneider’s comment: ‘When dealing with Jewish questions it is not necessary to be either logical or fair. It seems one may say anything of Jews so long as it brings them into contempt.’
⭘An Epistle to the Hebrews.Letter 4. Republished by the Federation of American Zionists, 1900.
⭘These stirring lines were written during the Boer War.
⭘Dr.Adler continues: ‘Here we are spared the most distressful sight, the revival of odious religious prejudices and pernicious racial antipathies.’ These words would require some qualification to-day.
⭘Songs of a Wanderer, J. P. S.
⭘‘Why am I a Jew?’ North American Review.
⭘A similar thought is expressed by the same writer in his Address at the Chicago Parliament of Religions: ‘There is a legend that when Adam and Eve were turned out of Eden, an angel shattered the gates, and the fragments flying all over the earth are the precious stones. We can carry the legend further. The precious stones were picked up by the various religions and philosophies of the world. Each claimed and claims that its own fragment alone reflects the light of heaven. In God’s own time we shall, all of us, fit our fragments together and reconstruct the Gates of Paradise. Through the gates shallall peoples pass to the foot of God’s throne. The throne is called by us the mercy-seat. Name of happy augury, for God’s Mercy shall wipe out all record of mankind’s errors and strayings, the sad story of our unbrotherly actions.’
⭘Judaism as Creed and Life.BookIII,chap. x.BookIIIis the best modern presentation of the ethical life under the aspect of Judaism.
II⭘Lucas:The Jewish Year, Macmillan, 1898. Every one ofMrs.Lucas’s admirable versions of the principal mediaeval Jewish hymns quoted in this book are from the above volume.⭘Levi: See Miss Helen Zimmern’s monograph on ‘David Levi, Poet and Patriot’, in the J. Q. R., 1897.⭘Zangwill: ‘The Position of Judaism’. North American Review.⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses. ‘Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism’.⭘Sulzberger: From Address at the Decennial Meeting of the J. P. S.⭘Leeser: Preface,The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures.⭘Adler: From a Sermon, ‘This Book of the Law’.⭘Rashi: On Exodusvi.9.Scripture must be interpreted according to its plain, natural sense—an epoch-making pronouncement in the history of Bible exegesis. Though he is not the author of this canon of interpretation, Rashi is the first seriously to attempt its application. ‘Rashi deserves the foremost place which the judgment of Jewish scholars generally accords him. He has two of the greatest and rarest gifts of the commentator, the instinct to discern precisely the point at which explanation is necessary, and the art of giving or indicating the needed help in the fewest words.’(G. F. Moore.)⭘Halevi:Cusari,ii, 56. Translated by H. Hirschfeld under the Arabic titleKitab Al-Khazari(Routledge), 1905.⭘Geiger:Judaism and its History,I, 3.⭘Jacobs:Jewish Contributions to Civilization, J. P. S.⭘Shemtob: A remarkable anticipation by over three and a half centuries of the modern view of the rôle of the Prophets.⭘Compare with the two other selections on the Prophets the following by Felix Adler:—‘Either we must place nature uppermost, or man uppermost. If we choose the former, then man himself becomes a mere soulless tool in the hands of destiny, a part of a machine, the product of his circumstances. If we choose the latter, then all nature will catch a reflected light from the glory of the moral aims of man.‘The Hebrew Prophets chose the latter alternative. They asserted the freedom of man; and the general conscience of mankind, despite all cavilings and sophistry to the contrary, has ever responded to their declaration with a loud Amen. They argued, to put their thought in modern language, that we may fairly judge of the whole course of evolution by its highest outcome, and they believed its highest outcome to be, not mere mechanical order of beauty, but righteousness.‘The Hebrew Prophets interpreted the universe in terms of humanity’s aspirations. They believe that the ends of justice are too precious to be lost; that, if righteousness is not yet real in the world, it must be made real; and, hence, that there must be a Power in the world which makes for righteousness.’⭘Darmesteter:Selected Essays, translated by Jastrow,N. Y., 1895.⭘Lazarus:The Spirit of Judaism, New York, 1895.⭘The Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, 1874.The Talmud: Two Essays by Deutsch and Darmesteter, J. P. S., 1911.⭘Chapters in Jewish Literature, J. P. S. Preface.⭘Magnus:Outlines of Jewish History, J. P. S.,p.333.⭘Jacobs:Jewish Ideals and other Essays, 1896.⭘Halevi:Cusari,ii, 36.⭘Gaster: Presidential Address, Transactions of Jewish Historical Society of England,vol. viii.⭘Jewish History, concluding paragraph.⭘Zunz:Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters,chap. ii.‘Leiden.’ This wonderful presentation of the Sufferings of the Jews in the Middle Ages has been translated byDr.A. Löwy inMiscellany of Hebrew Literature. First Series, 1872; and has been republished in the ‘Library of Jewish Classics’, Bloch PublishingCo., New York, 1916.⭘Antiquities of the Jews.Bookxviii, 8.⭘Dean Plumptre,Lazarus and other Poems.⭘Heine: The following is a more literal version by Nina Salaman:—Break out in loud lamenting,Thou sombre martyr-song,That all aflame I have carriedIn my silent soul so long.Into all ears it presses,Thence every heart to gain—I have conjured up so fiercelyThe thousand-year-old pain.The great and small are weeping,Even men so cold of eye;The women weep and the flowers,The stars are weeping on high.And all these tears are flowingIn silent brotherhood,Southward-flowing and fallingAll into Jordan’s flood.⭘Curiosities of Literature,vol. ii.⭘Abarbanel’sReader.⭘Poems of Emma Lazarus,New York, 1889,vol. ii.⭘Songs of Exile, J. P. S., 1901.⭘From ‘Jewish Ethics’ (M. Joseph) inReligious Systems of the World, London, 1892.⭘‘Vindiciae Judaeorum’,i.7, in L. Wolf,Manasseh Ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, 1901.⭘Hirsch:Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel,16thLetter (Funk and Wagnalls) New York, 1899.⭘J. E.,vol. xii, 348.⭘Hertz: ‘Lord Rothschild: A Memorial Sermon.’⭘History of the Jews in Poland and Russia(Putnams), 1915, conclusion.⭘Past and Present: A Collection of Jewish Essays,chap. xvi, Ark PublishingCo., Cincinnati, 1919.⭘‘What is a pogrom? Better than any abstract definition is a concrete record taken haphazard of an actual pogrom. Orscha is a town of 14,000 inhabitants, half of them Jews. On October 18, 1905, the news of the proclamation of the Constitution reached Orscha. On the19ththe general strike stopped; Jew and Christian embraced; the houses were hung with flags, a service of thanksgiving was held; processions filled the streets. In the evening the Mohilev police officer Misgaib entered the town, and the rumour ran round that a patriotic demonstration was to take place and the Jews to be beaten. On the20th, drunken men gathered to take the official’s orders. On the morning of the21st, the peasants entered the town armed with axes and guns. “The village authorities have sent us; whoever does not come will be punished. We are to do whatever is ordered.” At one o’clock a priest exhorted the crowds of the faithful to purge their city of the aliens, and the cry arose, “Long live absolutism! Down with the mayor, who has sold the town to the Jews”. The first murders followed.The house of a rich Jew was stormed. Without the soldiers fired, a priest held service, and a band played the national anthem; while within eight men, women and children were tortured to death. The appetite was only whetted. At six o’clock the peasants begged the police for more orders, more work. They were told to wait till daylight; the darkness might encourage the Jews to resist. On the same day twelve Jewish youths came from Shklov to help their brethren. They were met at the station and murdered, and for seven hours every man that passed mutilated or insulted their dead bodies. The massacre became general. The23rdwas given up to plunder. At mid-day the Vice-Governor spoke to the crowds: “Children, it is enough. You have had three days’ amusement, now go home and sing ‘God save the Czar’”. The pogrom at Orscha was typical of the 690 greater and lesser pogroms which took place that October.’ (H. Sacher on ‘Die Judenpogromme in Russland’.Jewish Review,i.)⭘Wolf: ‘The Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia.’⭘Lazarus: First appeared in ‘Songs of a Semite’, New York, 1882.Each crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.The lines, written in 1882, apply with hundredfold force to the uninterrupted pogroms that have been raging in the Ukraine throughout 1919. More than 100,000 Jews—men, women, and children—have been butchered in cold blood by the hordes under Generals Denikin and Petlura. The soldiery, intoxicated with blood, invented the most diabolical tortures. See the Report on Jewish Pogroms by Kieff Pogrom Relief Committee, controlled by the Russian Red Cross, London, 1920. ‘Our masses in Eastern Europe have been facing death in seven circles of hell. It is sufficient to remember the multi-massacresof Ukrainia. For this cold murder of whole communities not Heaven itself nor all the mercy of the angels could find palliation. There is no instance that shows so much as this the ghastly descent of human character into primitive brutality and cannibalism. This is a deed which in its horror and wicked purposelessness should have stunned the world.’ (Nahum Sokolow, Opening Address of London Zionist Conference, July 7, 1920.) The following stanzas are fromMr.Zangwill’s appeal to American Jewry on behalf of the victims:—OUR OWNBy devastated dwellings,By desecrated fanes,By hearth-stones, cold and crimsoned,And slaughter-reeking lanes,Again is the Hebrew quarterThrough half of Europe known;And crouching in the shambles,Rachel, the ancient crone,Weeps again for her children and the fate that is her own.No laughter rings in these ruinsSave of girls to madness shamed.Their mothers disembowelledLie stark ’mid children maimed.The Shool has a great congregationBut never a psalm they drone.Shrouded in red-striped Tallisim,Levi huddles with Kohn;But the blood from their bodies oozing is the blood that is your own.Shot, some six to the bullet,Lashed and trailed in the dust,Mutilated with hatchetsIn superbestial lust—No beast can even imagineWhat Christians do or condone—Surely these bear our burdenAnd for our sins atone,And if we hide our faces, then the guilt is as our own.At last but a naked rabble,Clawing the dust for bread,Jabbering, wailing, whining,Hordes of the living dead,Half apes, half ghosts, they grovel,Nor human is their tone,Yet they are not brutes but brethren,These wrecks of the hunger-zone,And their death-cry rings to heaven in the tongue that is your own.⭘For an historical account of these child-martyrdoms, see Dubnow,History of the Jewish Russia and Poland, J. P. S., 1918,vol. ii,pp.18–29.⭘Stories and Pictures, J. P. S., 1906, contains the best work of Peretz. The Yiddish original of ‘Bontzie Schweig’, with English translation, is published in Wiener,pp.332–53.With Peretz, Yiddish letters ‘enter into competition with what is best in the world’s literature, where he will some day occupy an honourable place. Peretz offers gladly all he has, his genius, in the service of the lowly. Literature, according to him, is a consolation to those who have no other consolation, a safe and pleasurable retreat for those who are buffeted about on the stormy sea of life. For these reasons he prefers to dwell with the down-trodden and the submerged.’ (Wiener).⭘Cf.Emma Lazarus’Banner of the Jew:—Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,To blow a blast of shattering power,To wake the sleepers high and low,And rouse them to the urgent hour!No hand for vengeance—but to save,A million naked swords should wave.Oh deem not dead that martial fire,Say not the mystic flame is spent!With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,Your ancient strength remains unbent.Let but an Ezra rise anew,To lift theBanner of the Jew!A rag, a mock at first—ere long,When men have bled and women weptTo guard its precious folds from wrong,Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,Shall leap to bless it, and to save.Strike! for the brave revere the brave!‘When the anti-Semite agitation took the form of massacre and spoliation, several pamphlets were published by Jews in Russia, advocating the restoration of the Jewish State. They found a powerful echo in the United States, where a young Jewish poetess, Miss Emma Lazarus, passionately championed the Zionist cause in verse not unworthy of Yehudah Halevi.’ (Lucien Wolf,Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Zionism’.)⭘Seminary Addresses, ‘Zionism’.⭘Selected Essays, ‘Moses’.⭘Jewish Review,I.⭘Herzl: ‘Herzl’s personal charm was irresistible. His sincerity, his eloquence, his tact, his devotion, his power, were recognized on all hands. He spent his whole strength in the furtherance of his ideas. Diplomatic interviews, exhausting journeys, impressive mass meetings, brilliant literary propaganda—all these methods were employed by him to the utmost limit of self-denial. He was beyond question the most influential Jewish personality of the nineteenth century. He effectively roused Jews all the worldover to an earnest and vital interest in their present and their future. Herzl thus left an indelible mark on his time, and his renown is assured whatever be the fate in store for the political Zionism which he founded and for which he gave his life.’ (I. Abrahams inEncyclopaedia Britannica.)⭘Herzl: Address at Zionist Congress, London, 1900.⭘Hertz: Address at Thanksgiving Meeting for the Balfour Declaration,Dec.2, 1917.⭘Herzl: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle, 1897.⭘Schechter:Aspects, 105.⭘Noah: See ‘Noah’s Ark’ in Zangwill’sDreamers of the Ghettofor an account of this early American Zionist.
⭘Lucas:The Jewish Year, Macmillan, 1898. Every one ofMrs.Lucas’s admirable versions of the principal mediaeval Jewish hymns quoted in this book are from the above volume.
⭘Levi: See Miss Helen Zimmern’s monograph on ‘David Levi, Poet and Patriot’, in the J. Q. R., 1897.
⭘Zangwill: ‘The Position of Judaism’. North American Review.
⭘Schechter:Seminary Addresses. ‘Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism’.
⭘Sulzberger: From Address at the Decennial Meeting of the J. P. S.
⭘Leeser: Preface,The Twenty-four Books of the Holy Scriptures.
⭘Adler: From a Sermon, ‘This Book of the Law’.
⭘Rashi: On Exodusvi.9.Scripture must be interpreted according to its plain, natural sense—an epoch-making pronouncement in the history of Bible exegesis. Though he is not the author of this canon of interpretation, Rashi is the first seriously to attempt its application. ‘Rashi deserves the foremost place which the judgment of Jewish scholars generally accords him. He has two of the greatest and rarest gifts of the commentator, the instinct to discern precisely the point at which explanation is necessary, and the art of giving or indicating the needed help in the fewest words.’(G. F. Moore.)
⭘Halevi:Cusari,ii, 56. Translated by H. Hirschfeld under the Arabic titleKitab Al-Khazari(Routledge), 1905.
⭘Geiger:Judaism and its History,I, 3.
⭘Jacobs:Jewish Contributions to Civilization, J. P. S.
⭘Shemtob: A remarkable anticipation by over three and a half centuries of the modern view of the rôle of the Prophets.
⭘Compare with the two other selections on the Prophets the following by Felix Adler:—
‘Either we must place nature uppermost, or man uppermost. If we choose the former, then man himself becomes a mere soulless tool in the hands of destiny, a part of a machine, the product of his circumstances. If we choose the latter, then all nature will catch a reflected light from the glory of the moral aims of man.
‘The Hebrew Prophets chose the latter alternative. They asserted the freedom of man; and the general conscience of mankind, despite all cavilings and sophistry to the contrary, has ever responded to their declaration with a loud Amen. They argued, to put their thought in modern language, that we may fairly judge of the whole course of evolution by its highest outcome, and they believed its highest outcome to be, not mere mechanical order of beauty, but righteousness.
‘The Hebrew Prophets interpreted the universe in terms of humanity’s aspirations. They believe that the ends of justice are too precious to be lost; that, if righteousness is not yet real in the world, it must be made real; and, hence, that there must be a Power in the world which makes for righteousness.’
⭘Darmesteter:Selected Essays, translated by Jastrow,N. Y., 1895.
⭘Lazarus:The Spirit of Judaism, New York, 1895.
⭘The Literary Remains of Emanuel Deutsch, 1874.The Talmud: Two Essays by Deutsch and Darmesteter, J. P. S., 1911.
⭘Chapters in Jewish Literature, J. P. S. Preface.
⭘Magnus:Outlines of Jewish History, J. P. S.,p.333.
⭘Jacobs:Jewish Ideals and other Essays, 1896.
⭘Halevi:Cusari,ii, 36.
⭘Gaster: Presidential Address, Transactions of Jewish Historical Society of England,vol. viii.
⭘Jewish History, concluding paragraph.
⭘Zunz:Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters,chap. ii.‘Leiden.’ This wonderful presentation of the Sufferings of the Jews in the Middle Ages has been translated byDr.A. Löwy inMiscellany of Hebrew Literature. First Series, 1872; and has been republished in the ‘Library of Jewish Classics’, Bloch PublishingCo., New York, 1916.
⭘Antiquities of the Jews.Bookxviii, 8.
⭘Dean Plumptre,Lazarus and other Poems.
⭘Heine: The following is a more literal version by Nina Salaman:—
Break out in loud lamenting,Thou sombre martyr-song,That all aflame I have carriedIn my silent soul so long.Into all ears it presses,Thence every heart to gain—I have conjured up so fiercelyThe thousand-year-old pain.The great and small are weeping,Even men so cold of eye;The women weep and the flowers,The stars are weeping on high.And all these tears are flowingIn silent brotherhood,Southward-flowing and fallingAll into Jordan’s flood.
Break out in loud lamenting,Thou sombre martyr-song,That all aflame I have carriedIn my silent soul so long.Into all ears it presses,Thence every heart to gain—I have conjured up so fiercelyThe thousand-year-old pain.The great and small are weeping,Even men so cold of eye;The women weep and the flowers,The stars are weeping on high.And all these tears are flowingIn silent brotherhood,Southward-flowing and fallingAll into Jordan’s flood.
Break out in loud lamenting,
Thou sombre martyr-song,
That all aflame I have carried
In my silent soul so long.
Into all ears it presses,
Thence every heart to gain—
I have conjured up so fiercely
The thousand-year-old pain.
The great and small are weeping,
Even men so cold of eye;
The women weep and the flowers,
The stars are weeping on high.
And all these tears are flowing
In silent brotherhood,
Southward-flowing and falling
All into Jordan’s flood.
⭘Curiosities of Literature,vol. ii.
⭘Abarbanel’sReader.
⭘Poems of Emma Lazarus,New York, 1889,vol. ii.
⭘Songs of Exile, J. P. S., 1901.
⭘From ‘Jewish Ethics’ (M. Joseph) inReligious Systems of the World, London, 1892.
⭘‘Vindiciae Judaeorum’,i.7, in L. Wolf,Manasseh Ben Israel’s Mission to Oliver Cromwell, 1901.
⭘Hirsch:Nineteen Letters of Ben Uziel,16thLetter (Funk and Wagnalls) New York, 1899.
⭘J. E.,vol. xii, 348.
⭘Hertz: ‘Lord Rothschild: A Memorial Sermon.’
⭘History of the Jews in Poland and Russia(Putnams), 1915, conclusion.
⭘Past and Present: A Collection of Jewish Essays,chap. xvi, Ark PublishingCo., Cincinnati, 1919.
⭘‘What is a pogrom? Better than any abstract definition is a concrete record taken haphazard of an actual pogrom. Orscha is a town of 14,000 inhabitants, half of them Jews. On October 18, 1905, the news of the proclamation of the Constitution reached Orscha. On the19ththe general strike stopped; Jew and Christian embraced; the houses were hung with flags, a service of thanksgiving was held; processions filled the streets. In the evening the Mohilev police officer Misgaib entered the town, and the rumour ran round that a patriotic demonstration was to take place and the Jews to be beaten. On the20th, drunken men gathered to take the official’s orders. On the morning of the21st, the peasants entered the town armed with axes and guns. “The village authorities have sent us; whoever does not come will be punished. We are to do whatever is ordered.” At one o’clock a priest exhorted the crowds of the faithful to purge their city of the aliens, and the cry arose, “Long live absolutism! Down with the mayor, who has sold the town to the Jews”. The first murders followed.The house of a rich Jew was stormed. Without the soldiers fired, a priest held service, and a band played the national anthem; while within eight men, women and children were tortured to death. The appetite was only whetted. At six o’clock the peasants begged the police for more orders, more work. They were told to wait till daylight; the darkness might encourage the Jews to resist. On the same day twelve Jewish youths came from Shklov to help their brethren. They were met at the station and murdered, and for seven hours every man that passed mutilated or insulted their dead bodies. The massacre became general. The23rdwas given up to plunder. At mid-day the Vice-Governor spoke to the crowds: “Children, it is enough. You have had three days’ amusement, now go home and sing ‘God save the Czar’”. The pogrom at Orscha was typical of the 690 greater and lesser pogroms which took place that October.’ (H. Sacher on ‘Die Judenpogromme in Russland’.Jewish Review,i.)
⭘Wolf: ‘The Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia.’
⭘Lazarus: First appeared in ‘Songs of a Semite’, New York, 1882.
Each crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.
Each crime that wakes in man the beast,Is visited upon his kind.
Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.
The lines, written in 1882, apply with hundredfold force to the uninterrupted pogroms that have been raging in the Ukraine throughout 1919. More than 100,000 Jews—men, women, and children—have been butchered in cold blood by the hordes under Generals Denikin and Petlura. The soldiery, intoxicated with blood, invented the most diabolical tortures. See the Report on Jewish Pogroms by Kieff Pogrom Relief Committee, controlled by the Russian Red Cross, London, 1920. ‘Our masses in Eastern Europe have been facing death in seven circles of hell. It is sufficient to remember the multi-massacresof Ukrainia. For this cold murder of whole communities not Heaven itself nor all the mercy of the angels could find palliation. There is no instance that shows so much as this the ghastly descent of human character into primitive brutality and cannibalism. This is a deed which in its horror and wicked purposelessness should have stunned the world.’ (Nahum Sokolow, Opening Address of London Zionist Conference, July 7, 1920.) The following stanzas are fromMr.Zangwill’s appeal to American Jewry on behalf of the victims:—
OUR OWN
By devastated dwellings,By desecrated fanes,By hearth-stones, cold and crimsoned,And slaughter-reeking lanes,Again is the Hebrew quarterThrough half of Europe known;And crouching in the shambles,Rachel, the ancient crone,Weeps again for her children and the fate that is her own.No laughter rings in these ruinsSave of girls to madness shamed.Their mothers disembowelledLie stark ’mid children maimed.The Shool has a great congregationBut never a psalm they drone.Shrouded in red-striped Tallisim,Levi huddles with Kohn;But the blood from their bodies oozing is the blood that is your own.Shot, some six to the bullet,Lashed and trailed in the dust,Mutilated with hatchetsIn superbestial lust—No beast can even imagineWhat Christians do or condone—Surely these bear our burdenAnd for our sins atone,And if we hide our faces, then the guilt is as our own.At last but a naked rabble,Clawing the dust for bread,Jabbering, wailing, whining,Hordes of the living dead,Half apes, half ghosts, they grovel,Nor human is their tone,Yet they are not brutes but brethren,These wrecks of the hunger-zone,And their death-cry rings to heaven in the tongue that is your own.
By devastated dwellings,By desecrated fanes,By hearth-stones, cold and crimsoned,And slaughter-reeking lanes,Again is the Hebrew quarterThrough half of Europe known;And crouching in the shambles,Rachel, the ancient crone,Weeps again for her children and the fate that is her own.No laughter rings in these ruinsSave of girls to madness shamed.Their mothers disembowelledLie stark ’mid children maimed.The Shool has a great congregationBut never a psalm they drone.Shrouded in red-striped Tallisim,Levi huddles with Kohn;But the blood from their bodies oozing is the blood that is your own.Shot, some six to the bullet,Lashed and trailed in the dust,Mutilated with hatchetsIn superbestial lust—No beast can even imagineWhat Christians do or condone—Surely these bear our burdenAnd for our sins atone,And if we hide our faces, then the guilt is as our own.At last but a naked rabble,Clawing the dust for bread,Jabbering, wailing, whining,Hordes of the living dead,Half apes, half ghosts, they grovel,Nor human is their tone,Yet they are not brutes but brethren,These wrecks of the hunger-zone,And their death-cry rings to heaven in the tongue that is your own.
By devastated dwellings,
By desecrated fanes,
By hearth-stones, cold and crimsoned,
And slaughter-reeking lanes,
Again is the Hebrew quarter
Through half of Europe known;
And crouching in the shambles,
Rachel, the ancient crone,
Weeps again for her children and the fate that is her own.
No laughter rings in these ruins
Save of girls to madness shamed.
Their mothers disembowelled
Lie stark ’mid children maimed.
The Shool has a great congregation
But never a psalm they drone.
Shrouded in red-striped Tallisim,
Levi huddles with Kohn;
But the blood from their bodies oozing is the blood that is your own.
Shot, some six to the bullet,
Lashed and trailed in the dust,
Mutilated with hatchets
In superbestial lust—
No beast can even imagine
What Christians do or condone—
Surely these bear our burden
And for our sins atone,
And if we hide our faces, then the guilt is as our own.
At last but a naked rabble,
Clawing the dust for bread,
Jabbering, wailing, whining,
Hordes of the living dead,
Half apes, half ghosts, they grovel,
Nor human is their tone,
Yet they are not brutes but brethren,
These wrecks of the hunger-zone,
And their death-cry rings to heaven in the tongue that is your own.
⭘For an historical account of these child-martyrdoms, see Dubnow,History of the Jewish Russia and Poland, J. P. S., 1918,vol. ii,pp.18–29.
⭘Stories and Pictures, J. P. S., 1906, contains the best work of Peretz. The Yiddish original of ‘Bontzie Schweig’, with English translation, is published in Wiener,pp.332–53.
With Peretz, Yiddish letters ‘enter into competition with what is best in the world’s literature, where he will some day occupy an honourable place. Peretz offers gladly all he has, his genius, in the service of the lowly. Literature, according to him, is a consolation to those who have no other consolation, a safe and pleasurable retreat for those who are buffeted about on the stormy sea of life. For these reasons he prefers to dwell with the down-trodden and the submerged.’ (Wiener).
⭘Cf.Emma Lazarus’Banner of the Jew:—
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,To blow a blast of shattering power,To wake the sleepers high and low,And rouse them to the urgent hour!No hand for vengeance—but to save,A million naked swords should wave.Oh deem not dead that martial fire,Say not the mystic flame is spent!With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,Your ancient strength remains unbent.Let but an Ezra rise anew,To lift theBanner of the Jew!A rag, a mock at first—ere long,When men have bled and women weptTo guard its precious folds from wrong,Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,Shall leap to bless it, and to save.Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,To blow a blast of shattering power,To wake the sleepers high and low,And rouse them to the urgent hour!No hand for vengeance—but to save,A million naked swords should wave.Oh deem not dead that martial fire,Say not the mystic flame is spent!With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,Your ancient strength remains unbent.Let but an Ezra rise anew,To lift theBanner of the Jew!A rag, a mock at first—ere long,When men have bled and women weptTo guard its precious folds from wrong,Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,Shall leap to bless it, and to save.Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
Oh for Jerusalem’s trumpet now,
To blow a blast of shattering power,
To wake the sleepers high and low,
And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance—but to save,
A million naked swords should wave.
Oh deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses’ law and David’s lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift theBanner of the Jew!
A rag, a mock at first—ere long,
When men have bled and women wept
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save.
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!
‘When the anti-Semite agitation took the form of massacre and spoliation, several pamphlets were published by Jews in Russia, advocating the restoration of the Jewish State. They found a powerful echo in the United States, where a young Jewish poetess, Miss Emma Lazarus, passionately championed the Zionist cause in verse not unworthy of Yehudah Halevi.’ (Lucien Wolf,Encyclopaedia Britannica, ‘Zionism’.)
⭘Seminary Addresses, ‘Zionism’.
⭘Selected Essays, ‘Moses’.
⭘Jewish Review,I.
⭘Herzl: ‘Herzl’s personal charm was irresistible. His sincerity, his eloquence, his tact, his devotion, his power, were recognized on all hands. He spent his whole strength in the furtherance of his ideas. Diplomatic interviews, exhausting journeys, impressive mass meetings, brilliant literary propaganda—all these methods were employed by him to the utmost limit of self-denial. He was beyond question the most influential Jewish personality of the nineteenth century. He effectively roused Jews all the worldover to an earnest and vital interest in their present and their future. Herzl thus left an indelible mark on his time, and his renown is assured whatever be the fate in store for the political Zionism which he founded and for which he gave his life.’ (I. Abrahams inEncyclopaedia Britannica.)
⭘Herzl: Address at Zionist Congress, London, 1900.
⭘Hertz: Address at Thanksgiving Meeting for the Balfour Declaration,Dec.2, 1917.
⭘Herzl: Address at First Zionist Congress, Basle, 1897.
⭘Schechter:Aspects, 105.
⭘Noah: See ‘Noah’s Ark’ in Zangwill’sDreamers of the Ghettofor an account of this early American Zionist.